Good Monday Morning! It’s June 7th, which means this is the first issue of SWIRL to slide into your inboxes during Pride 🏳🌈 month. A few weeks ago, many of you sent fun feedback about the Mother’s Day “Mom’s Jeans” playlist in SWIRL. So, here’s a Pride playlist to accompany your Monday morning read. Enjoy!
Anyway, here’s the SWIRL:
📱 Tech: Boom in supersonic air travel
📈 Business: A good weekend for Bitcoin
🏛 Politics: The G7 & the 15%
If this is your first SWIRL, keep reading this part. If not, carry on to the content.
Welcome, new Swirlers! Here’s a brief reader guide: the three teasers above unfurl below to briefly cover a buzzy development in their respective area. You’ll read a little about each one. At the end, we pull on a common thread among all three and explore what it might mean for us. If you missed last week’s SWIRL, tuck in here.
📱 Tech: Boom in supersonic air travel
Traveling from the Big Apple (NYC) 🍎 to the Big Smoke (London) 🎡 takes 7 hours by air. United Airlines has inked a deal to buy supersonic aircraft that could cut the flight to 3.5 hours.
On Thursday, the US-based air carrier announced plans to purchase 15 jets ✈ that will travel faster than the speed of sound, making them ‘supersonic.’ The deal could swell to 50 aircraft if things go well.
Although the technology to travel so quickly has been around for decades, United will have to wait ⏳ a few years before they can begin flying their new planes. The jets haven’t been manufactured yet.
The start-up company producing 🏭 the new aircraft, Boom Supersonic, plans to begin production of the “Overture” jets in 2023; first flights are slated for 2026. However, a test-jet called the XB-1 will take to skies later this, according to Boom.
The joint 🤝 announcement from the two companies included plans for the first passenger flights aboard United’s new jets in 2029. In a tweet, Boom also highlighted Overture’s ability to consume eco-conscious ♻ fuel:
A couple weeks ago, we Swirled on the emergence of budget airlines across America. Supersonic travel likely won’t be budget-friendly 🤑, but it does represent exciting new options for some air travelers.
“If we can cut the time to fly from the East Coast of the U.S. to certain cities in Europe and do it with lower emissions, we think that’s very attractive.” - Mike Leskinen, United Airlines VP of Corporate Development
📈 Business: A good weekend for Bitcoin
Several weeks ago, we outlined a bumpy week for Bitcoin, the beleaguered cryptocurrency, which had shaved off nearly 50% 📉 of its total market value at one point. Although the digital coin hasn’t recovered 📈 to its $60K price point yet, the business of Bitcoin got two noteworthy boosts this weekend.
Before we look at those, let’s quickly refresh on what dragged down Bitcoin: Elon Musk’s tweets 💬 about the climate impacts of Bitcoin mining, along with regulatory moves by China, have kept Bitcoin’ers on edge in recent weeks.
The first good news came on Saturday when Square Inc. announced it will invest $5M — through a partnership with Bitcoin mining company Blockstream Mining — to build a solar-powered 🌞 Bitcoin mining facility.
In a press release from Blockstream, the company called the planned facility a “proof-of-concept for a 100% renewable energy Bitcoin mine at scale.”
The concerns about Bitcoin’s climate impact directly stem from the energy ⚡ used to fuel Bitcoin mining, the digital process required to ‘mint’ new Bitcoin and make them available for trading.
The Square-funded facility will launch a “freely accessible dashboard showing real-time metrics of the project’s performance, including power output and bitcoin mined,” which could provide evidence that would reduce climate 🌦 concerns from opponents.
Adding to the good news 📰 for Bitcoin supporters, the president of El Salvador announced at a Bitcoin conference in Miami on Saturday that the Central American nation plans to make the cryptocurreny a national legal tender.
If the plans succeed, as they likely will, El Salvador will make history as the first country to officially recognize a cryptocurrency as legal tender.
In a series of tweets following his video-announcement this weekend, President Nayib Bukele made the case for the move:
TL;DR: El Savador could benefit big time from a Bitcoin future.
The mining deal between Square & Blockstream offers an alternative to the concerns voiced by Musk. The official embrace of Bitcoin by El Salvador offers an alternative to the chilly skepticism & regulatory roadblocks in China.
🏛 Politics: The G7 and the 15%
Financial leaders from the Group of Seven (G7), gathered in London last week, where they agreed to several new economic 💶 proposals. Representatives from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US reached a historic decision on taxation.
“We also commit to a global minimum tax of at least 15% on a country by country basis.” - G7 Communique
How would this work? Any company 💼 with a profit margin of higher than 10% would be subject to a minimum corporate income tax rate of 15%, no matter where it pays income tax.
Why is this happening? Nations compete among each other to be the official home of businesses, so they can collect the income tax. But many countries often offer low tax rates to woo companies. Ireland taxes business at 12.5%, for instance. A tax rate minimum would set a ‘floor’ that forces nations to offer different incentive types, forces companies to pay higher taxes, and prevents a ‘race to the bottom,’ according to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen:
“That global minimum tax would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation, and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world,” - Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary
When would this take effect? With support from the G7, the policy proposal will now go before a larger group of nations, the G20, later this year. It will likely take several rounds of negotiation and detail-tweaking before broad international consensus is reached, and once finalized, potentially years to implement.
Major companies like Facebook and Google signaled their support for updated international tax codes after the announcement. VP of Global Affairs at Facebook, Nick Clegg tweeted on Saturday:
So, how do our three stories swirl together? Investing in the future.
Each of our features this week are connected by their focus on the future.
✈: Supersonic jets: United Airlines is making an expensive bet on the future of air travel, but if it pays off, they’ll likely be the first major airliner to fly supersonic jets with sustainable jet fuel.
💲: Sustainable Crypto: Square is pumping resources into solar-powered Bitcoin mining, which could accomplish two big goals: (1) a demonstration that Bitcoin can be sustainable, and (2) establishing Square, a financial tech firm, as a key player in the future of Bitcoin — which could pay off if more nations follow El Salvador’s lead.
🌐: Global tax deals: We won’t see a 15% minimum business tax this year, but the first legitimate leap to a more equitable tax system has been made. As nations continue to become financially interwoven, multilateral agreements like tax minimums will be crucial to ensuring lower and middle class citizens aren’t left behind as richer folks fly around the world on supersonic jets funded by Bitcoin mining investments in 2030.
Since we just linked all three stories in the final sentence above, I’ll throw out one more twist for our SWIRL before we wrap this week. The investments in the future we highlight all have angles of climate and economic sustainability.
And that’s it for this week’s SWIRL - see you next week!
-Matt from SWIRL
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