A filmmaker . Its gotta be german is going to be doctors. And i like either festival. The attendees here are all ages. Youve been a pretty the welcome to the people of godsa did very in cinematic escape. And the thesis trip where no potions cinemas exists valuable. Ah. Type of picture of a headline 00 inflation threatens to become a runaway train. Thats the warning from the head of the International Monetary fund. As the Global Economy is hit by one shock after another. Crystelina, georgia says the risk of global recession is 25 percent. We cannot, we cannot possibly allow inflation to become an a runaway train bed for growth and bed for people bed bed, especially for poor poor, poor, poor people. And the i m. F has chastised the u. K. Government offer its financial plans, triggered chaos on the markets, and many budget revealed last months sent the valley of the british pound to all time lows. There was some turbulence, i frankly stated about, okay, the after the book where im sitting here talking about the global challenges, everybody is focused on inflation. Everybody is affected by a potential Interest Rate rises. Everybodys affected by the energy price spikes, which have been exacerbated by putins illegal war in ukraine. So everybody across the Global Financial community is really focusing on the same problems. North korea has fought at least one short range missile into its eastern waters and flown warplanes near the border with south korea. South koreas military as warn pyongyang that it will maintain overwhelming capability to counter provocations. More than 500 people have died in nigeria is worse floods in a decade. Unusually heavy rain lead to the destruction of tens of thousands of homes. Russian president Vladimir Putin has proposed setting up a regional gas hub in turkey. Yet, he was at a summit in kazakhstan to discuss, showing up Global Energy supplies. Putin met his, took his counterpart ridge of typo to one and disgust corporation on energy and grey exports and iraq. Parliament has finally elected a new president , the appointment of 78 year old kurdish politician, abdullatif rashid, and months of political deadlock and heightened instability. What those are, the headlines . News continues here on out as they are after people. Im past that you and thanks for watching the weekly look at the worlds top business stories from Global Markets to economies and small businesses. To understand how it affects our daily lives, on the exam and counting the cost on of jazzy i went bitcoin and other crypto currencies 1st period. Well, over a decade ago, few people could have mentioned how widespread theyve become. Now these various forms of digital money are in common use, if not yet universally understood, but where exactly do they come from . Who uses them . And what for better or worse might be the long term consequences. We sent reporter rory challenge in search of ounces. Ah ah, in any well de crypto currencies moneys got strange. The 13 years and spent coins creation of being a roller coaster ride own from the financial crashes, money liberation from Central Banks. Bitcoin is a person to person electronic cash system. Think of them like token the buy. Thanks very much. Now of course, this is just a problem. Chris. Currencies are purely digital and we access them in a digital wallet. We can send them anywhere in the world in a flash. If a business accepts it, you can buy goods and services. You can think its built on the block chain, a decentralized database of transactions thats transparent and secure, but bitcoin can get pretty wild crypto currencies have no controller except the markets. People have made fortunes and lost them, their value can go. 6 way, way, way up. Oh, come crushing. Oh no. But where does it come from . What does it cost upon it . Is it the future of money or the useful has money . Its all. My name is rory challenge, and i want to find out whos my 1st destination, pennsylvania, the u. S. States that is fully embraced crit bitco and hes going to take over the world. Itll have to conquer america, and its making good progress. Recent survey suggest about a face for the American Adults that already bought into crypto. So now that im here, i better get some right. This is shane bites inside is a man whos trying to make buying big cohen as easy as possible eyes. Hey, rory lets me to, i dont mean to like very much. So the machines. Yes they are. You want to use one idea because i dont have, i dont have any back going. So what do i do . This is a brave you over me. First click on the screen get it started. Yeah. Youre going to buy the coin. You select how much you want to buy. So here we go. 10 bucks. Lots of the big spenders just in the so thats that and said, and then you can look on your wall and you can see youve got to pick one who says its pending. Yep. Thats it. I mean you got it. Every grill has been buying and selling bitcoin since the early days. Now he runs a company that makes crypto currency atm sick. When solves one of the problems that weve faced for years and years and years, which is the government controls money and you have a Central Authority controlling money. And so what that means is that people, you know, they just print it, the value it, and you cant count on anything. I dont know how many dollars are going to print next year, but i know exactly how many big ones are going to be issued. So can we call that currency . Sure, we could, i cant say its the best currency the just on the planet. But currency needs to be spindle, and im going to put this to the test. 50 is supposedly one of the most crypto friendly places in the state of mass talking about the city having its own digital coin. Basketball team is sponsored by crypto dot com. So using my new bitcoin here should be easy. A check out coin map, a website that says it shows every business in the world that take fit coin for the, for the area, for the list of only around 20, pick up the phone and start calling them. 1 6 1 1 ringback oh, good afternoon, ms. Coin this payment. Yeah. You doing . All right, thank you very much. Bye. As we move through the list as similar story. No. Okay, well, do you guys accept bitcoin as payment there . Now we do not know, did you ever we used 2 years ago and then what happens, why did you stop . The technology was too hard to maintain regularly and has the staff isnt sure what bitcoin really is. Just not feeling like using it is like between evangelists, may say its the feature of money, but the vast majority of business is listed as accepting it. Dont. Until do you guys accept bitcoin as payments . You do . They invited us down for lunch. This is the some pay food truck, the home, so they say some of the best barbecue sandwiches in town. What can i get . So we have brick, pork and chicken. Jessica and her partner began accepting bitcoin in 2015. And so unlike others, they will continue to do so. Can i pay with yes, you can. Or this next amazing. Thank you very, very much. A lot of the people that were accepting the coin in the city and they stopped, you know, they saw how to cycle and how it kept fluctuating. And i think it really scared a lot of people away. But we kept at it. Yeah. Why . I dont know, its just something we believe in. We just believe that crypto is the future. Do you worry a total about the security of it or the whether its a scam and anyway, i worry more about the dollar than i do bitcoin. I do believe its going to be the currency of the world, but if it is bit going, has a long way to go. Few american seem to be spending it for most is just another investment. But why does bitcoin come from anyway . Im heading into the pennsylvania countryside to find out when i get their future finance is a little money than unimagined. I just i make a note or what is that noise . What youre hearing are the klein miners the, the big one is in the baseline liners. You can see all the little fans in there. Theres a little computer on each one of those fans. Jeff campbell is the lead engineer at stronghold Digital Mining. It has 12000 specialized computer processes. Were looking for 200. 00. This is a long number and everybody in the world is working on the same equation. Theyre all trying to find the same number. And if you get it, if you get it, you get 6. 25 bit point right now. And how often do you get it every time that somebody on in the world finds that number is high tech lottery serves to function. Mine is race to verify the newest transactions made everywhere on the bitcoin network. The winner is rewarded in bitcoin. Its an entirely digital process, and it used to be done by amazon enthusiasts on home computers. These days, its big business, and the u. S. Does more of it than anywhere else. Worldwide, were going through more combinations of numbers and there are grains of sand on the earth. So you can say its profitable if you can find that grain of those profits are putting in bigger and bigger, operates as a 21st century gold rush. But heres the catch. Bitcoin was designed on a system called proof of work. The more processes get thrown at it, the heart of the algorithms become, the harder the algorithms become more computers and needed. Its an energy guzzling arms race. And this is how strong holes operation gets his power, their own dedicated power station. It burns fossil fuels, coal waste, with all the Greenhouse Gas emissions that entails strong old c, e. O. Greg beer takes me into the hissing, roaring heart of the beast. As interval comes me, the only kind of brute Industrial Power is just going to make something that we cant even touch it or if the Digital Currency that kind of floats around in the, in the crypto spare it is after the old world industrial mates near will finance. But whats the environmental cost of all this Cambridge University says bitcoin pumps out as much c o 2. 00 per year as a country like check republic and consume as much energy as the whole of highlands. Then greg tells me something astounding when we started the project. 4 or 5 years ago, the mining economics for bitcoin were really enough to support the plant. Thankfully the state of pennsylvania in a, in a bipartisan way, modified the rules a bit to allow us to earn more of a, whats called the Renewable Energy credit. And that isnt that plus higher power prices was a port is running today. So pennsylvania not only called coal waste, an alternative energy source, it actually subsidizes stronghold to burn this stuff to make bitcoin. How can this be . Oh, because of this in the toxic legacy of nearly a century of coal mining coal fat, the furnace is a pennsylvania is once mighty steel industry. And this waste, sprawling across the state in fast flank keeps, is the low quality material left over from the mining acid and poisonous heavy metals. Leach out at them, bill spends his strong whole Digital Mining chairman. I feel as if america had in the world had a party here. And then we woke up the next morning with the residual garbage leftover and theyre having to clean up after the party like the state of pennsylvania. He wants these heaps gone. He says hes using the States Alternative Energy incentives and the profits from big coin mining to make that happen. The coal is the dirtiest source of power there is. And coal waste is especially inefficient. So i asked bill the obvious question. Do you think that the c o 2 emissions ah, a justifiable byproduct of clearing this landscape . I absolutely do. What im asking you is just stop a minute. Look at this. I understand where people say its not perfect, but how many things in life are perfect. I, i mean, rory, i mean dont let perfect be the enemy. Very good. So do you consider yourself an environmentalist . I absolutely consider myself and environmental. This bill and his colleagues firmly convinced that doing what is best for this area. I have a feeling people campaigning against Climate Change are going to disagree. Who im on my way to meet one has another coal waste power station. Right, makes my spect chimney. There are plenty of bitcoin miners who say their operations a green, but most tend to seek out the cheapest energy, whatever it source. This is russells ebay, who works for the clean air council. The interesting thing about big coin is you could do it in the cleanest way possible, or you can do it in the dirty way possible. And as long as there are government subsidies to do it, and the dirtiest way possible people will keep burning coal waste generate the coin was supposed to be moving towards the next 0 future, reducing Carbon Emissions to nothing by 2050. How does that fit with bitco . Its huge Energy Consumption. It does not the introduction of crypto currency and its Energy Consumption is such a massive step backward for environmental efforts efforts to confront Climate Change. Russell says several states in the us or considering banning bitcoin mining, but not pennsylvania globally, as a growing list of countries that have already outlawed it. China being the most significant one of the other things ive heard about big coin. Its a haven for criminals. Crypto links crime says to record levels in 2021, up 79 percent from the year before. I want to know whats behind this guy this craig is a former f b i. Agent who now works for a company investigating crypto crime. Criminals are using crypto, the very same reason why the vast majority of crypto users use it for that speed, liquidity, and cross border nature. What are the kind of crimes that we see around crypto . Theyre doing everything in this virtual asset world that they were doing in the regular world, particularly scans and frauds, make up the largest category of elicit use of crypto. But you dont think this actually is a problem with crypto itself. You know, theres nothing inherently evil or bad about crypto itself is just simply another method for value transfer. Criminals stole 14000000000. 00 in crypto currencies last year. Or we see any kind of state involvement in this we have seen, elicit use of hacking by north koreans. For example. In fact, theyre responsible for hacking over a 1000000000. 00 in Exchange Hacks in the past. But galvis also says the transparent nature of crypto is block chain ledger actually gives investigators a treasure trove of data to work with. So for example, if there was an eliza transaction, where a little lady was scammed out of her money and they, and she said, and i paid them in bitcoin. Well they, they can look at that transaction and see where that womans bitcoin went to. And from there they can then engage Legal Process to either freeze that account or seek recovery from that victim. And thats why thats so important. Ah, my next stop is london, one of the wells financial hubs. I want to see what government and Central Banks think of this brave new world. Easier said than done. We are Central Banks both in the United States and here in england to talk to us advice and said no. Why . While many Central Banks are undecided what to do about technology designed to break the control of money, ive come to meet harriet baldwin, a british conservative m p, a former investment banker, and a member of the Treasury Select Committee which examines governments economic policy. Do you think the central bank should be scared to correct that kind of things . I think theyre all looking at it. I think its gonna be important to coordinate the approach amongst the developed world. Central banks. I think, you know, there is also the risk that b, currencies could end up being the, you know, the bulbs of the 21st century 15 i was, you mean it could be a bubble. People could be buying something for way above the value that someone else from pay in the future to take it off that hands and they could lose a lot of money in the process. And that was something that they discover is actually just lines of code and doesnt have Intrinsic Value because no one else will accept payments. Does crypt, Currency Development poses threats to Financial Stability . It could be potentially, if it becomes a much more significant size in the well financial markets. At the moment all the evidence weve had on the Treasury Select Committee is that its still a very small proportion of the worlds asset base. And so therefore, weve been told that it doesnt pose a threat to Financial Stability at this level box. What happens when a nation state does jump with both feet into this weird new world and how are they terminated . I have come to a country that boldly gone when no other his dad and turned it self into a unique fiscal petri dish ha, is assigned to pick on bass. Now this, this is where the experiment started. Ro, salvador free is back. A clique of crypto converts began transforming the surf town of els on tape. They persuaded people to join a local circular economy based on bitcoin. But all of el salvador is bitcoin beach. Now last summer, the countrys president and i had to kaylee, rush through a law that elevated bitcoin to legal tender alongside the u. S. Dollar. Know how the government has taken such a gamble with National Finances and im interested to hear what the founders of big coin beach think of it all. Roman martinez is one of them was beautiful. That dream that started super small now is more bigger than our sub or and mainly people around the world dreaming with our country. And i actually patricia and his missionary 7 to portion of sub there into for world blankets. And that means theyve got your bank account right now. Bank account, any kind of Financial Service a now as soon speed can arrive in our community will start to seen people say, be morning people transacting digital people, receiving and making digital payments. People buying an asset for the 1