Sunday, August 11, 2024

All The Bitcoin on Earth Is Worth $1 Trillion Again

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Bitcoin keeps on rising. The cryptocurrency’s price is knocking on $62,000, the highest level since June 2023. That’s enough to send its market capitalization above $1 trillion.

The market has shaken off its post-FTX collapse jitters wholesale, and since then, the US government has allowed for the proliferation of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Offerings from the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars of investment capital.….Story continues

By: Melvin Backman

Source: Bitcoin’s market cap crossed $1 trillion again

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Critics:

While high-yield savings accounts offer higher interest rates than traditional savings accounts, they may not outpace inflation, potentially eroding your purchasing power over time. As a result, they’re not typically recommended for long-term wealth-building or retirement savings.IDFC FIRST Bank offers interest rate up to 7% on balances more than Rs 10lac to less than Rs 5 crore. The new rates are effective from July 1, 2023.

Millionaires Like High-Yield Savings, but Not as Much as Other Accounts. Usually offering significantly more interest than a traditional savings account, high-yield savings accounts have blown up in popularity among everyone, including millionaires. At a 4.25% annual interest rate, your $100,000 deposit would earn a total of $4,250 in interest over the course of a year if interest compounds annually. Annual total: $104,250.

CDs typically offer higher interest rates than high-yield savings accounts — but they work a bit differently. Some high-yield savings accounts have minimum balance requirements, meaning you must maintain a certain balance to get the best interest rate. For example, if an account requires you to deposit $5,000 to earn a premium rate, but your deposits only total $3,000, you’ll earn a lower-than-advertised rate.

For savings, aim to keep three to six months’ worth of expenses in a high-yield savings account, but note that any amount can be beneficial in a financial emergency. For checking, an ideal amount is generally one to two months’ worth of living expenses plus a 30% buffer.Instead of keeping extra money in a savings account, you could direct it into investments with greater growth and income potential, such as mutual funds, bonds, stocks, and exchange traded funds, or ETFs.

These investments are riskier than a savings account, but may offer higher returns.It’s a special type of account offered by banks and building societies that rewards you with a more attractive rate of return compared to the more common current or easy-access savings accounts. As long as you’re banking with an FDIC-protected bank, you’re not risking losing your money when you deposit it into a high-yield savings account.

However, the rate of inflation can be higher than your APY, resulting in a negative real return, or the return after taxes and inflation are taken into account. Not the best choice for long-term savings – High-yield savings accounts offer much better interest rates than traditional savings accounts, but often, you won’t earn enough over the long-term to account for inflation. Investments may be a better option for a longer-term, greater yield. 

Money market accounts and certificates of deposit (CDs) may provide higher yields. Peer-to-peer lending is another alternative to savings accounts. Credit union bank accounts may provide higher rates than bank accounts, but you must be a member to open one. Money market accounts and certificates of deposit (CDs) may provide higher yields. Peer-to-peer lending is another alternative to savings accounts.

Credit union bank accounts may provide higher rates than bank accounts, but you must be a member to open one. According to data from the FDIC, the average savings account earns 0.45% APY. Currently, however, the best high-yield savings accounts offer APYs of around 5.00%. If you deposit $10,000 into one of these high-yield savings accounts, you’ll earn $500 in interest in a year.

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How much will RIOT stock be worth if Bitcoin hits $100,000? Finance in Bold 14:24 Tue, 09 Apr

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Shopify Boosts Its Commerce Platform With Magic Image Editor and Other AI Enhancements

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Shopify has just unveiled over 100 new updates to its commerce platform, with artificial intelligence emerging as a key theme. The company introduced new AI-powered capabilities aimed at helping merchants work smarter, sell more, and create better customer experiences.

The headline feature is Shopify Magic, which applies different AI models to assist merchants in various ways. This includes automatically generating product descriptions, FAQ pages and other marketing copy. Early tests showed Magic can create SEO-optimized text in seconds versus the minutes typically required to write high-converting product blurbs….Story continues

By: 

Source: Shopify boosts its commerce platform with ‘Magic’ image editor and other AI enhancements | VentureBeat

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E-commerce markets are growing at noticeable rates. The online market is expected to grow by 56% in 2015–2020. In 2017, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 2.3 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 4.891 trillion US dollars in 2021. Traditional markets are only expected 2% growth during the same time.

Brick and mortar retailers are struggling because of online retailer’s ability to offer lower prices and higher efficiency. Many larger retailers are able to maintain a presence offline and online by linking physical and online offerings. E-commerce allows customers to overcome geographical barriers and allows them to purchase products anytime and from anywhere.

Online and traditional markets have different strategies for conducting business. Traditional retailers offer fewer assortment of products because of shelf space where, online retailers often hold no inventory but send customer orders directly to the manufacturer. The pricing strategies are also different for traditional and online retailers. Traditional retailers base their prices on store traffic and the cost to keep inventory. Online retailers base prices on the speed of delivery.

There are two ways for marketers to conduct business through e-commerce: fully online or online along with a brick and mortar store. Online marketers can offer lower prices, greater product selection, and high efficiency rates. Many customers prefer online markets if the products can be delivered quickly at relatively low price. However, online retailers cannot offer the physical experience that traditional retailers can.

It can be difficult to judge the quality of a product without the physical experience, which may cause customers to experience product or seller uncertainty. Another issue regarding the online market is concerns about the security of online transactions. Many customers remain loyal to well-known retailers because of this issue. Security is a primary problem for e-commerce in developed and developing countries.

E-commerce security is protecting businesses’ websites and customers from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction. The type of threats include: malicious codes, unwanted programs (ad ware, spyware), phishing, hacking, and cyber vandalism. E-commerce websites use different tools to avert security threats. These tools include firewalls, encryption software, digital certificates, and passwords.

For a long time, companies had been troubled by the gap between the benefits which supply chain technology has and the solutions to deliver those benefits. However, the emergence of e-commerce has provided a more practical and effective way of delivering the benefits of the new supply chain technologies.

E-commerce has the capability to integrate all inter-company and intra-company functions, meaning that the three flows (physical flow, financial flow and information flow) of the supply chain could be also affected by e-commerce. The affections on physical flows improved the way of product and inventory movement level for companies.

For the information flows, e-commerce optimized the capacity of information processing than companies used to have, and for the financial flows, e-commerce allows companies to have more efficient payment and settlement solutions. In addition, e-commerce has a more sophisticated level of impact on supply chains:

Firstly, the performance gap will be eliminated since companies can identify gaps between different levels of supply chains by electronic means of solutions; Secondly, as a result of e-commerce emergence, new capabilities such implementing ERP systems, like SAP ERP, Xero, or Megaventory, have helped companies to manage operations with customers and suppliers.

Yet these new capabilities are still not fully exploited. Thirdly, technology companies would keep investing on new e-commerce software solutions as they are expecting investment return. Fourthly, e-commerce would help to solve many aspects of issues that companies may feel difficult to cope with, such as political barriers or cross-country changes.

Finally, e-commerce provides companies a more efficient and effective way to collaborate with each other within the supply chain. E-commerce helps create new job opportunities due to information related services, software app and digital products. It also causes job losses. The areas with the greatest predicted job-loss are retail, postal, and travel agencies.

The development of e-commerce will create jobs that require highly skilled workers to manage large amounts of information, customer demands, and production processes. In contrast, people with poor technical skills cannot enjoy the wages welfare. On the other hand, because e-commerce requires sufficient stocks that could be delivered to customers in time, the warehouse becomes an important element. Warehouse needs more staff to manage, supervise and organize, thus the condition of warehouse environment will be concerned by employees.

E-commerce brings convenience for customers as they do not have to leave home and only need to browse websites online, especially for buying products which are not sold in nearby shops. It could help customers buy a wider range of products and save customers’ time. Consumers also gain power through online shopping. They are able to research products and compare prices among retailers.

Thanks to the practice of user-generated ratings and reviews from companies like Bazaarvoice, Trustpilot, and Yelp, customers can also see what other people think of a product, and decide before buying if they want to spend money on it. Also, online shopping often provides sales promotion or discounts code, thus it is more price effective for customers. Moreover, e-commerce provides products’ detailed information; even the in-store staff cannot offer such detailed explanation.

Customers can also review and track the order history online. E-commerce technologies cut transaction costs by allowing both manufactures and consumers to skip through the intermediaries. This is achieved through by extending the search area best price deals and by group purchase. The success of e-commerce in urban and regional levels depend on how the local firms and consumers have adopted to e-commerce.

However, e-commerce lacks human interaction for customers, especially who prefer face-to-face connection. Customers are also concerned with the security of online transactions and tend to remain loyal to well-known retailers. In recent years, clothing retailers such as Tommy Hilfiger have started adding Virtual Fit platforms to their e-commerce sites to reduce the risk of customers buying the wrong sized clothes, although these vary greatly in their fit for purpose.

When the customer regret the purchase of a product, it involves returning goods and refunding process. This process is inconvenient as customers need to pack and post the goods. If the products are expensive, large or fragile, it refers to safety issues.

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2 Reasons to Buy Shopify Stock Like There’s No Tomorrow The Motley Fool 12:51 Sun, 07 Apr 

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