Is Business Getting Back to Business?

Microsoft has cut its "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" (DEI) department, laying off all team members. The company explained that these areas "are no longer critical to business." Previously, other major companies, including Meta and Google, also downsized their DEI departments.

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The Telegraph: Paris Olympics - A Financial Disaster

Air France, which should logically be profiting from bringing tourists, reported a loss of €180 million. Hotel occupancy rates are lower than the 81.4% seen last summer without the Olympics. Finding a room is possible for almost any day of the games, which is unheard of for the Olympics. The publication concludes that the Games will run at a significant loss and drag down the rest of tourism, as Paris was already busy even without the Olympics.

The reasons for the financial problems include issues with migrants, a tarnished image of Paris, and tourists' fears of political unrest, protests, and strikes.

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Foreign Capital Continues to Reduce Investments in China

Primarily, this reduction concerns Western capital, while offshore Chinese investments through Hong Kong remain stable. According to China's Ministry of Commerce, the volume of direct foreign investments attracted by China in the first half of this year amounted to 498.91 billion yuan, which is 29.1% less than in the first half of last year. In absolute terms, the inflow of foreign investments decreased by 204.7 billion yuan compared to the first half of 2023.

Investments in the manufacturing sector amounted to 141.86 billion yuan, down by 22.5%. Investments in high-tech industries were 63.75 billion yuan, decreasing by 12.9%.

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Theft Cannot Go Unnoticed

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia privately hinted that it might sell some European debt securities if the G7 decides to confiscate nearly $300 billion of frozen Russian assets, sources familiar with the matter reported.

According to two interlocutors, the Saudis specifically mentioned debt securities issued by the French Ministry of Finance.

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IMF Suggests Governments Save the Climate Instead of Their Citizens

IMF experts noted that the current green agenda is merely a semblance of achieving goals. To truly protect the climate, governments should, akin to NATO, exclude "green" budget expenditures from regular calculations—even at the cost of cutting social programs and citizen support. They propose setting a fixed 2% of GDP to be allocated to the IMF for climate protection, regardless of circumstances. This means that these funds will be drawn from the budget even if the country faces a catastrophic event like an asteroid impact and needs rebuilding.

Can you imagine the faces of the citizens of IMF-indebted countries who will have this imposed on them under the threat of defaults?

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Saudi Arabia Joins mBridge Platform, an International Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Project

After three years of development, the joint project of several major central banks (Thailand, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China/Hong Kong) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has reached the stage of a minimally viable product. The multi-currency blockchain platform, created by the Chinese Research Institute of Digital Currency, operates on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) network compatible with Ethereum. It is designed for real-time cross-border payments (multi-CBDC). In January, the first real transaction on the platform took place between the UAE and China.

In the future, mBridge could address issues of financial accessibility, high costs, and slow settlements in various jurisdictions, including countries under external restrictions. Currently, the mBridge project includes over 26 countries and international financial institutions as observers. In 2023, several Western experts stated that creating an alternative settlement infrastructure based on wholesale CBDCs threatens the dominance of dollar financial institutions and could reduce the effectiveness of sanction pressure policies. Forbes highlights that Saudi Arabia, a leading oil supplier to China, could use mBridge for commodity settlements bypassing the US dollar amid Beijing's "currency transition" policy.

BIS confirmed that in June, the Saudi Central Bank joined mBridge as a full member. The project is actively inviting new participants, including commercial banks and private sector representatives, to join the platform. Thanks to DLT technologies, it can serve as a testbed. It is expected that new use cases will be proposed based on the pilot's results. Since the beginning of the year, at least nine Chinese banks and tech giant Tencent (owner of China's leading mobile payment system WeChat Pay) have confirmed their participation in platform trials.

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Solana ETF on the Horizon?

Finally, some have filed an application to create a Solana ETF: VanEck and 21Shares.

They believe that SOL is a digital commodity just like BTC or ETH and plan to launch a spot ETF directly, bypassing the futures-based approach previously seen with BTC and ETH.

Here's the current status:

- Spot Bitcoin ETF: Approved and launched earlier this year
- Spot Ethereum ETF: Approved and expected to launch in early autumn (approximately)
- Spot Solana ETF: Application filed, awaiting response from the SEC

The launch of a Solana ETF is not expected anytime soon. An optimistic forecast would be 2025, considering the regulatory challenges.

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Turkey wants to replace Ukraine

Turkey is prepared for Ukraine's potential refusal to extend its gas transit contract with Gazprom, which is set to expire at the end of 2024, according to Sinan Furat, the CEO of the Turkish oil and gas corporation TBNG. Currently, approximately 48% of Russia's gas exports to the EU pass through Ukraine, with the remaining 52% routed through Turkey.

Furat has stated that there are already plans to construct an energy hub in Turkish Thrace by mid-2024. This would potentially allow Turkey to take over the entire transit of Russian gas to the EU if necessary.

However, not everyone in Turkey shares Furat's optimism. The Department of Energy at the Independent Association of Industrialists and Businessmen in Turkey has noted that fully compensating for the transit volumes would require expanding infrastructure, a process that could take 2-3 years.

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