On the road to cutting costs and improving supply line efficiency, it looks like the retail giant Wal-Mart has accidentally stumbled on one of the biggest arguments currently ongoing in the crypto-space.

Bitcoin Maximalists believe that the only real use case for a blockchain is bitcoin. We can leave the intricacies of this debate for a later time, but it seems like the maximalists have just been joined by The New York Times.

This article, which begins by outlining Wal-Mart's collaboration with IBM and the endeavor to track produce on a blockchain gradually turns into a collective argument on why this tech isn't necessary and could have been done much easier with a centralized database.

Here's an excerpt...

Traditional Markets

Along with the UN general assembly, the price of oil seemed to be laughing at Trump's comments yesterday.

President Trump did his best to jawbone the price of oil in his hallmark speech but instead of going down as he intended, the price is holding near its highs as several analysts are starting to talk about $100 barrels for the first time in years.

One hour after Wall Street's opening bell today, the EIA will release their weekly crude oil inventories. Analysts are forecasting that stockpiles in the United States (which is now the world's largest oil producer) have fallen by 0.7 million barrels.

Depending on the final result of this announcement, we could see a quick reaction from the market. Less supply means more demand and if we pass that yellow line above (around $74.55 a barrel), it could significantly alter sentiment.

Rate Hike Today

As we've been discussing in these updates, rates are on the rise in the United States. This has been a main driver for the financial markets lately and has caused a nice run-up in the US Dollar over the last few months, which has, in turn, affected everything from currencies, commodities, to stocks, and even crypto.

Now that the USD has stalled, it'll take a lot more than the 0.25% interest rate hike from the Fed today to bring the Dollar rally back to life. Investors will be listening closely to see what the Fed has in store for the next few years and how high they plan to raise rates in the long term.

On the other hand, if they hike rates too quickly it could put pressure on the stock markets, which are now sitting at or near their all-time highs.

We know that Japan has been loosy goosy with their monetary policy and the Bank of England is stuck between a rock and a Brexit, but the European Union seems to finally be following the US's path to tighter money.

The fun starts at 14:00 in Washington DC when the interest rate decision itself is announced along with an economic projection and a prepared statement from the Federal Open Market Committee. About 30 minutes later we'll be treated to a press conference with Chairman Powell followed by questions from the press.

Crypto is Back

The crypto community is getting excited today about...

In truth, we always knew this day would come. Crypto ads were only blocked by the advertising leaders temporarily in order to stop the promotion of suspicious ICOs. Now it seems that Google is ready to follow Facebook in bringing them back online.

The sudden restriction of new money coming into the markets when the two giants initially imposed the ban was one of the direct contributing factors to the bear market in early 2018, so now that they're both coming back online, albeit gradually, is a very positive sign for the market.

Cryptocurrencies are quickly becoming the preferred asset class of our generation and many are seeing now as a good time to get in. Three brand new surveys show just how popular this exciting asset class is to people.

Added to this, one in three Londoners is planning to invest in digital currencies in the near future. 

Though he's not quite a millennial, even my own father, who's been asking me about crypto for more than a year, finally bought his first bitcoin yesterday.

Let's have an amazing day ahead!