8 The EconomistFebruary 13th 2021
The world this week Business
Bitcoinsurgedtoa record
high, after Teslarevealed that
it had bought $1.5bn-worth of
the cryptocurrency and would
accept it as payment for its
cars. Elon Musk’s recent mus-
ings on digital money have
bolstered the claims of bitcoin
backers that it will one day be
mainstream legal tender.
Tesla’s investment in such a
volatile market is a risky bet,
however, and blemishes its
green credentials. The amount
of computer energy needed to
mine bitcoin accounts for
0.56% of the world’s total
electricity consumption,
according to the Cambridge
Centre for Alternative Finance.Oil priceswere at their highest
level in over a year. Brent crude
rose above $60 a barrel; in
April last year, the early days of
the coronavirus crisis, it had
dropped below $20. Prices
have been on a steady ascent
since October, fuelled in part
by more curtailments to Saudi
Arabia’s output and a pick-up
in demand from China; oil
imports there are thought to
have jumped by a third in
January, from December.Kuaishou’sshare price contin-
ued climbing, days after its ipo
in Hong Kong raised $5.4bn,
the biggest stockmarket flo-
tation in the tech industry
since Uber. A rival to TikTok
(known as Douyin in China),
Kuaishou’s stock rose by 160%
on the first day of trading.Meanwhile, court filings in
America suggested that the
Justice Department under the
new Biden administration is
reviewing whether TikTokis a
threat to national security, a
claim the Trump administra-
tion made citing data-privacy
issues. There were reports thatthesaleofTikTok’sAmerican
operationstoOracleand
Walmartwouldnotgoahead.What do you say, Joe?
Huawei, a Chinese maker of
network equipment, filed a
new legal challenge to the
American government’s desig-
nation of it as a national-secu-
rity threat, this time against
the Federal Communications
Commission. Ren Zhengfei,
Huawei’s boss, said he would
welcome a call from Joe Biden
to discuss the situation.Higher rates to carry sea freight
between Asia and Europe
helped Maersk, the world’s
biggest container shipping
line, to almost double its quar-
terly profit. Freight prices
jumped amid a resurgence in
global demand for imports last
year, and a shortage of empty
containers to ship them in.SoftBank’sVision Fund report-
ed a record quarterly profit, as
the value of its investments in
tech firms such as Uber was
lifted by rising stockmarkets.
Despite booking losses from its
colossal trades in derivatives,
which eventually led to it being
dubbed the “Nasdaq whale”,
the Japanese conglomerate
made an overall quarterly net
profit of ¥1.17trn ($11.1bn).A big jump in sales from Uber’s
food-delivery business was not
enough to offset a sharp drop
in revenues from its ride-
hailing service last year,
driving it to an annual loss of
$6.8bn. Still, that was an
improvement on the $8.5bn it
lost in 2019.Ocado’sannual earnings
shone a little more light on
consumer behaviour during
the pandemic. Based in Britain,
Ocado provides a logistics
platform for online super-
market sales. Revenues rose by
35% for the year ending No-
vember 29th. Because of capac-
ity constraints, Ocado’s num-
ber of customers actually fell,
but this was offset by an in-
crease in the average size of an
order from £106 to £137 ($147 to
$190). The company believes
that the pandemic has shifted
consumers towards more
online shopping “for good”.Heinekendecided to shed
8,000 jobs, or nearly 10% of its
workforce, as lockdowns cut
into sales, pushing the Dutch
brewer to an annual loss. In
Britain beersales drooped by
56% last year, according to the
industry’s association. It urged
the government to remove
restrictions on what and when
pubs and bars can serve cus-
tomers when the current lock-down eases, or else thousands
of pubs will be forced to close.Valeagreed to pay $7bn to the
Brazilian state of Minas Gerais
in compensation for the
collapse of the Brumadinho
dam two years ago, which
killed at least 270 people. The
dam had held iron-ore waste
from one of the Brazilian
company’s mines. The
reparations settlement was
described as the biggest ever in
Latin America.So how’s it going?
JD Sports, a British retailer,
plans to open a new distribu-
tion centre in the European
Union, because of what its
chairman described as worse-
than-expected Brexitred tape
that is causing delays to Euro-
pean shipments. Britain’s
Brexit negotiator, David Frost,
said that the new relationship
was more “bumpy” than he had
hoped, but blamed the eufor
“niggling border issues”. Mean-
while, Andrew Bailey, the
governor of the Bank of
England, lambasted the eu’s
inflexible attitude over post-
Brexit arrangements for Brit-
ain’s financial services, saying
this was “unrealistic, danger-
ous and inconsistent with
practice”. Negotiations with
Brussels are continuing.Bitcoin price
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