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On July 13, Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliaments Trade Committee, said that the EU should formulate countermeasures as soon as possible on Monday. He said: "Trumps tariffs on the EU are a slap in the face of negotiations. This is not the way to deal with an important trading partner."On July 13, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of US AI search startup Perplexity, said on social media that based on the good performance of the Kimi K2 model, the company may use K2 for post-training in the future. DeepSeek R1 was also used by Perplexity for model training. K2 is a trillion-parameter open source model recently released by Kimi, which emphasizes code capabilities and general agent task capabilities.July 13, analysts said that financial markets, which have become increasingly insensitive to U.S. tariff threats, will face a test when they open on Monday after Trump announced over the weekend that he would impose 30% tariffs on the European Union and Mexico from August 1. Trump has recently stepped up trade measures, promising to impose more tariffs on everything from Canada to Brazil to Algeria and inviting trading partners to further negotiations. Despite warnings from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and others not to take it lightly, investors have so far reacted as if they were counting on the U.S. president to back down again because they have seen the previous 180-degree turn. Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, said: "Investors should not just treat Trumps threat of a 30% tariff on EU goods as a bluff. This tariff level is punitive, but it may hurt the EU more than the United States, so the clock is counting down."On July 13, French President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media on the 12th that France and the European Commission strongly opposed the US announcement that day to impose a 30% tariff on EU exports from August 1. Macron wrote that in the context of EU unity, the European Commission should demonstrate the EUs determination to defend its own interests. If Europe and the United States cannot reach an agreement before August 1, the EU should mobilize all tools, including anti-coercion mechanisms, to speed up the preparation of "credible countermeasures." France supports the European Commission and the United States to step up negotiations in order to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides before August 1.European Council President: The EU remains fully supportive of efforts to reach a fair agreement with the United States.

Bitcoin Lightning Network-Based Strike Can Rival Visa – MS

Cory Russell

Apr 25, 2022 09:49

Morgan Stanley is optimistic about the bitcoin Lightning Network's potential as a consumer payment option.


They believe Strike, a Lightning Network-based payment technology, can compete with or even outperform Visa in the digital payments market.


Strike has partnered with Shopify and NCR, the world's leading supplier of point-of-sale payment solutions.


Morgan Stanley published a new analysis on the Lightning Network, bitcoin's Layer 2 fast payment system, and its potential to enable a "long-term move towards payments and settlements utilizing digital and cryptocurrencies rather than fiat currencies like the US dollar."


Morgan Stanley's positive analysis on the Lightning Network's potential for broader adoption comes after Strike, a US-based digital payments platform built on top of bitcoin's Lightning Network, announced earlier this month a new integration agreement with e-commerce giant Shopify.


Customers who paid in bitcoin will now be able to receive payments in US dollars from US Shopify businesses. Strike has announced collaborations with NCR, the world's leading supplier of point-of-sale (PoS) payment services.

Morgan Stanley Believes That Lightning Network Will Be Able to Compete With Visa

Morgan Stanley outlined why it believes Strike, a Lightning Network-based digital payment network, can compete with or perhaps exceed Visa in its recent study.


Morgan Stanley observes that "in essence, Strike is directly competing with Visa Direct, which provides real-time settlement," adding that "the primary distinction for merchants will be paid a significantly lower transaction cost."


"The customer advantage is that they may, if they choose, host their bitcoin on a private, secure network, enabling an element of secrecy connected with their transaction," the bank says.


Morgan Stanley emphasizes the importance of Strike's cooperation with NCR. "NCR software is used by one in every six PoS devices worldwide," the bank says, "so this news is important even if just a tiny percentage of retail businesses opt to add crypto capabilities."

Cons of Making Bitcoin Payments

The Morgan Stanley analysis points out some of the disadvantages of utilizing a bitcoin-based payment system, such as the cryptocurrency's underlying volatility on a day-to-day basis, which makes forecasting future buying power problematic.


Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley says that existing tax regulations, which require users to pay capital gains taxes on cryptocurrencies they sell, are a barrier to greater acceptance of bitcoin as a widely used means of exchange.


The bank, on the other hand, mentions the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act, which has been introduced in the US Congress. If passed, the law would exclude personal bitcoin transactions from taxation as long as the profits are less than $200.


Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, cautions that this plan may meet criticism, particularly from anti-crypto members of Congress, since it serves to establish bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) as credible alternatives to the US currency.


The Morgan Stanley analysis "suggests we are at the beginning of an age when more and more people may opt to pay for items using Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies over time," according to Alex Gladstein, who summarized it on Twitter.

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