Daily Authority: 💲 Bitcoin bites

🚗 Good morning! Paula here covering for Tristan for the next three days. My car is finally fixed, two weeks after a breakdown, which I’m pretty excited about. Speaking of excitement, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow, with Google I/O kicking off, plus Sony’s event, where we could see the Sony Xperia 1 IV. Phew!

Bitcoin Bites: A new low for crypto

Last weekend, Bitcoin slumped to a new low, below $33,000, for the first time since July 2021. According to data from CoinDesk, it dropped 5% to $32,860.91 at 7:12 AM ET.

• Bitcoin is now down more than 50% from its peak price of $68,990.90 (November 2021).
• It seems “ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty” is to blame here, which basically means markets are under pressure from rising interest rates plus inflation and growth fears, with the Federal Reserve announcing its biggest interest rate increase in 20 years.
• Bitcoin isn’t alone: Almost every cryptocurrency has been struggling in 2022, with Ethereum down by a third this year, Shiba Inu down 4.84% today, and Dogecoin down 82% since its all-time high last year.
• And NTF prices are falling fast too: According to Decrypt, an entry-level Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT has fallen 55% in just ten days.

That’s significant enough in itself — more so if you invested six months ago and were already planning how to spend your returns. You’re not alone though: most retail investors have lost money to crypto this year.

Gizmodo looked at how much money you’d have right now if you bought $100 of cryptocurrency six months ago, and the results are pretty interesting indeed (we can’t take credit for the math!).

• Bought $100 of bitcoin six months ago? Then you have $50.65 of bitcoin right now.
• If you bought $100 of Dogecoin six months ago, you’ll have $40.82 of Dogecoin right now.
• And for those who bought $100 of Ethereum six months ago, you’ll have $51.74 of Ethereum right now.

There is one exception though: Terra Luna. Despite the fact it tumbled by 12.0% last weekend, if you bought $100 of the cryptocurrency six months ago, you’d have $119.49 of Terra Luna right now.

Is it all bad news?

Experts say if bitcoin falls below $30,000, it could even drop further to $29,000 in the coming weeks, and even as low as $25,000 before any significant move back up. Stock markets are in a similar position, under pressure from surging inflation, economic events including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and more.

Whether these predictions will play out? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Roundup

📦 Unreleased OnePlus Nord 2T gets an early unboxing, confirming most rumors (Android Authority).

🚗 Want Apple CarPlay in your Tesla? You’ll need Android for that (Android Authority).

🔧 Speaking of, Tesla’s halting most production in its Shanghai plant today due to problems securing parts, plans to produce fewer than 200 cars compared to its usual 1,200 a day production target (Reuters).

⌚ Following the lawsuit over Fitbits overheating, we polled our readers: Most of your Fitbit devices don’t overheat, but some do (Android Authority).

🔥 Tinder owner Match Group sues Google alleging antitrust violations (Engadget).

🎮 Microsoft could soon launch an Xbox game streaming stick, meaning you could use your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription on your big screen, no console required (Android Authority).

💲 Instagram to start testing NFTs with select creators this week with support for Ethereum and Polygon at launch, Flow and Solana coming soon (TechCrunch).

🤠 HBO leaks Westworld season 4 trailer and launch date: June 26, so not long to wait (The Verge).

🌅 Here’s how to watch Sony’s event livestream tomorrow, could see the Xperia 1 IV launch, though you’ll need to get up early/stay up late as it’s at 3 AM ET/12 AM PT (TechRadar).

📺 LG Display announces new 360 foldable LED panel at SID 2022, can be folded inward and outward over 200,000 times — will also showcase 42-inch Bendable OLED Gaming display and 97-inch OLED.EX TV display, the biggest of its kind (lgdisplay.com)

📱 And Google I/O kicks off tomorrow and we’ll have all the coverage: Here’s what to expect (Android Authority).

🤧 For those of you with seasonal allergies (I feel you): “If allergies can come from repeated exposures, why are we not allergic to everything?” (r/askscience).

Chart Tuesday

This is pretty interesting — total CO2 emissions per person (in billion tonnes) in 2020.

• No great surprise to see China and the US up there leading the pack with 11.68bn tonnes and 4.54bn tonnes per person respectively — and of course a lot of that is down to industry.
• But what might surprise you is how low those figures from Russia are: 1.67bn tonnes of CO2 per person. The UK is even lower still at just 0.31bn tonnes per person.
• Peru’s one of the countries with the lowest emissions per person at just 0.04bn tonnes.
• Other countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Greece, and Uzbekistan (among others) also have extremely low figures.
• And from the comments over on r/dataisbeautiful, Costa Rica is on its way to becoming carbon negative, meaning it will likely soon absorb more climate-changing emissions than it produces.
• The Kingdom of Bhutan is already carbon negative. It produces 1.5 million tonnes of carbon each year but absorbs more than six million tonnes thanks to its 72% forest coverage.

A little something extra: What tiny Bhutan can teach the world about being carbon negative.

See you tomorrow for all things Google I/O!

Paula Beaton, Copy Editor.