Coffee prices have nearly doubled since this time last year. One major reason is because drought – followed by frost and extreme weather – hit hard in Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer. The price of coffee is soaring, hitting a new 10-year high this week. Robusta coffee closed at $2.53USD/lb today.

Are CBDC's a tool to sleepwalk populations into a Chinese style social credit system? Unlike previous years where Visa was the only dominating payment method due to Olympic’s contractual exclusivity, this year a new form of payment is HODLing the line. means of transaction around the Olympic games have observed a shift with China’s CBDC taking the lead. The country has been pushing its central bank digital currency towards the citizens of the country in order to expand its reach. Recently they even began testing the e-CNY for international individuals who arrived for the Winter Olympics. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cbdc-trumps-visa-payment-winter-085747435.html

NOW - Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance:

"We are broadening the scope of Canada's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover Crowd Funding Platforms and the payment service providers they use. These changes include all forms of transactions including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies."

@disclosetv

The fight against climate change — with its rush for the light metal coupled with the shutdown of the dirty power sources that helped produce it — has turned the trade upside down. It’s crippling supply, particularly in China. On the London Metal Exchange, spot prices for the metal have surged above $3,300 a metric ton for the first time since June 1988.The main culprit is electricity. Turning bauxite into pure metal is an energy-intensive process. On average, producing a ton of aluminum uses the same electricity as an average U.S. family consumes in year. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-14/aluminum-will-intensify-the-inflationary-wave-washing-around-the-world

By incentivizing corn production, it spurred the conversion of enormous swaths of pasture and grassland into cropland, resulting in net emissions that could potentially make corn ethanol an even bigger carbon source than gasoline itself. Amortized across 30 years, the team found that corn ethanol’s carbon intensity may actually be 24 percent higher than gasoline. https://thecounter.org/corn-ethanol-production-climate-change-worse/

The San Francisco 49ers have been hit by a ransomware attack, with cyber criminals claiming they stole some of the football team's financial data. The ransomware gang BlackByte recently posted some of the purportedly stolen team documents on the dark web in a file marked "2020 Invoices." The gang did not make any of its ransom demands public or specify how much data it has stolen or encrypted. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-francisco-49ers-hacked-ransomware-blackbyte/

“After a successful trial in 2021, the Bank of Jamaica will put out its own digital Jamaican dollar in 2022.” Countries that have already deployed CBDCs, include China, Nigeria, and Venezuela. The European Commission said that a digital euro bill will be unveiled in 2023. https://techstory.in/prime-minister-says-bank-of-jamaica-will-roll-out-the-digital-jamaican-dollar-in-2022/

US- The average price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline currently stands at $3.488, an increase of more than 30 percent since the same time last year, when it was $2.505 a gallon. total domestic gasoline stocks decreased by 1.6 million barrels to 248.4 million last week. https://www.theepochtimes.com/gasoline-prices-rise-across-us-again-experts-warn-more-pain-at-pump-coming_4276348.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy&rs=0&

The Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has been hacked and temporarily disabled after it facilitated the raising of nearly $9 million for the convoy of Canadian truckers who have been protesting vaccine mandates. GiveSendGo’s list of donors, approximately 92,000 of them, was also leaked and shared online. https://www.christianpost.com/news/givesendgo-hacked-donors-leaked-amid-covid-trucker-protest.html

Argentinian Tax Authority now has a procedure for confiscating digital assets in these accounts. This addition will allow authorities access not only bank accounts and loans given out by third parties but also houses and cars owned by individuals who may be involved with cryptocurrencies transaction history- even if they made those purchases decades ago! they could confiscate even cryptocurrencies if the custody of these assets depends on an entity based in Argentina. https://www.newsbtc.com/news/argentinian-tax-authority-to-seize-digital-wallets-to-collect-tax-debts/

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree confirming the country's official support for the free circulation of cryptocurrencies. The document provides a legal basis for the creation and maintenance by the Belarusian High-Tech Park of a register of crypto wallet addresses used in illegal activities. The decree document details the process and standards for the government to seize crypto from criminals. The decree is intended to protect crypto investors from possible losses and prevent unintentional participation in activities prohibited by law. https://president.gov.by/ru/documents/ukaz-no-48-ot-14-fevralya-2022-g

UK - Petrol prices have surged to a record high and are expected to climb further in coming weeks, adding to the burden on UK households’ already squeezed budgets.
The AA said petrol surpassed 148p a litre on Sunday, rising above the previous record high of 147.72p on 21 November last year. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/feb/14/uk-petrol-prices-hit-all-time-high

The best option for India is to ban private cryptocurrencies, one of the country's top central bankers said. Private crypto is worse than Ponzi schemes and pose a threat to financial stability, Rabi Sankar said. The government plans to impose a 30% tax on income from cryptocurrencies and other digital assets such as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. It also wants to deduct 1% in tax at source on payments related to buying such assets. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/india-ban-ponzi-private-cryptos-114901191.html

US- A hack at IRA Financial Trust, which offers self-directed retirement accounts, resulted in the theft of $36 million in cryptocurrency. That same day, unidentified hackers drained $21 million in Bitcoin and $15 million in Ethereum from the accounts of IRA Financial Trust customers. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-14/ira-financial-hacked-36-million-in-cryptocurrency-stolen?srnd=premium&sref=ibr3A0ff

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau has invoked special emergency powers to confront the trucker convoy. It gives Trudeau’s administration special authority to restrict movement, freeze financial accounts (including personal bank accounts and cyptocurrency transactions) https://news.yahoo.com/trudeau-invokes-emergency-powers-against-010824459.html

A cyberattack hit the websites of Ukrainian government agencies and major banks today. At least 10 Ukrainian websites stopped working due to DDOS attacks, including those of the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Culture Ministry and Ukraine’s two largest state banks. Customers at Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, Privatbank, and the state-owned Sberbank reported problems with online payments and the banks’ apps. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cyberattack-hits-ukrainian-government-sites-major-banks/ar-AATToJ5

US- Farms that raise turkeys and chickens for meat and eggs are on high alert and taking steps to increase biosecurity, fearing a repeat of a widespread bird flu outbreak in 2015 that killed 50 million birds across 15 states and cost the federal government nearly $1 billion. The new fear is driven by the discovery announced Feb. 9 of the virus infecting a commercial turkey flock in Indiana. The 29,000 turkeys in the flock were killed to prevent the spread of the virus. https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-02-15/us-bird-flu-case-puts-chicken-turkey-farms-on-high-alert

More chip shortages ahead. This time memory chips. Western Digital says it has lost at least 6.5 exabytes (6.5 billion gigabytes) of flash storage due to contamination issues at its NAND production facilities. The contamination could see the price of NAND — the main component of SSDs — spike up to 10 percent. https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22928867/western-digital-nand-flash-storage-contamination

Argentina's farm belt is set for days of hot and dry weather ahead, stoking fears among grains farmers whose corn and soy crops are in sore need of rainfall after spells of drought. Argentina is the world's top exporter of soybean oil and meal. Crops suffered important losses between December and the first half of January due to a drought and heat waves. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/dry-weather-outlook-fans-drought-fears-argentinas-farmlands-2022-02-15/

Agricultural chemicals shortage ahead - Bayer sent a note to retailers saying due to production issues with a third-party ingredient supplier, the company won’t be able to fulfill some of its previously booked orders. Bayer declared a force majeure, which means due to the issue being out of Bayer’s control, the company will be able to escape contractual obligations. https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/bayer-warns-more-glyphosate-shortages-heres-how-severe-situation-could

Paraguay's soybean crushing industry will run out of beans to process by the middle of the year due to a drought hammering production, the country's trade industry body told Reuters, adding it was in talks to import beans for the first time ever. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-paraguay-soy-crushers-hit-by-drought-risk-running-out-beans-2022-02-16/