Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and the S&P 500 dropped yesterday after the U.S. CPI data from March was released. Year-over-year CPI was up 8.5%, which is more than the expected 8.4% and another record high CPI reading for the past 40 years. This is what grabbed the headlines, hence adding further concerns of a recession looming this year. However, I think the CPI data was bullish. This is because core CPI, which strips away gas and food, was up just 0.3% month-over-month, which is lower than the expected 0.5%. This signals that inflation is actually slowing down, as the factors that are not affected by the war are showing a decrease in month-over-month inflation.
The metaverse continues to see progress with institutional backing, as HSBC have launched a metaverse fund for private banking clients in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is a mystery at this point what metaverse projects will be contained within the fund, but nonetheless this is additional confirmation of the long-term potential of the metaverse and hence a bullish sign. HSBC (NYSE:HSBC) initially showed interest in the metaverse by acquiring land in the Sandbox metaverse.
Last week, HBAR Foundation also announced support for the metaverse, as they are now attributing $250 million of HBAR (CRYPTO: HBAR) tokens toward the development of metaverse projects on the Hedera Hashgraph blockchain.
A Vice President at HBAR Foundation said, “We see this whole metaverse area as a bit of a catch-all for the apps bringing in new users into Web 3. I see 2021 as the year of NFTs, and 2022 as the year of their enterprise applications.” I think enterprise applications may take longer to fully take off, but we are certainly seeing major strides now, and I expect institutional adoption to rise exponentially over the next 5 years.
