>> this is al jazeera and these are your top stories. the fourth day of donald trump's second impeachment trial has concluded. his lawyers wrap up the defense arguing the trial is unconstitutional and evidence against trump was fabricated. he's accused of inciting a riot on capitol hill last month in which five people died. both sides face questions from senators and a verdict is expected this weekend. >> in about eight hours of proceedings, there was a lot of fractious exchanges, not the

least of which, donald trump's team accusing the democrats of prosecutorial negligence saying they edited tapes, that they misrepresented tweets, that they falsified documents. that is a big accusation to make. they also said this was driven by hatred, by a dislike of donald trump, that this was all about punishing him and they were exercising a great degree of hypocrisy. >> the united states will revoke the terror designation of who's. president biden and aid groups thought it would worsen an already catastrophic crisis by preventing deliveries controlled by the rebels. but the group may be hit with more sanctions after it attacked a saudi airport on wednesday. a british human rights lawyer has been elected as the criminal courts lawyer.

after weeks of debate, the member state voted for one of theour candidates. he will begin the next nine year term next year. the head of the world health organization, the -- say the origins of the coronavirus pandemic are not clear following an investigative mission in china. experts have not confirmed the source. but it's all to disburse a theory that it came from a laboratory there. the team says it probably originated in about. those are your headlines. the news continues on "inside story." >> hundreds of protesters gathered to demand the government lift a curfew, the first in the country since world war ii.

protesters who were not following social distancing rules were repeatedly ordered to disperse by police. >> it's to prevent a scenario where thousands were writing in cities across the netherlands. >> they started throwing stones and letting off fireworks. police moved in to clear out the area. kim: a big moment for cryptocurrencies. america's oldest bank says it plans to hold and transfer and issue digital currencies. what will this mean for the global economy? this is "inside story." welcome to the program.

for the first time ever, america's oldest bank, bny mellon, says it's planning to offer cryptocurrency services. that's great news for currencies like bitcoin which has been soaring to all-time highs. while investing it can be a roller coaster ride that comes with many risks, that hasn't stopped the chief executive of tesla, elon musk, from purchasing $1.5 billion worth of it. as well as investing in it, tesla is expected to accept a virtual money as a payment. the announcement is pushing bitcoin prices to new records, going above $48,000 per claim for the first time ever. the decision to allow cryptocurrencies in its services is another boost for the digital asset. the ceo and head of digital at bny mellon says in a statement growing client demand for the maturity of advanced solutions

and improving regulatory clarity present a tremendous opportunity to extend our service off earrings to this emerging field. mastercard is planning to open up its network to selected cryptocurrencies. they previously allowed people to use their currencies but without going through its main platform. mastercard says this will create more possibilities for shoppers and merchants, allowing them to transact in an entirely new form of payment. this may open merchants up to new customers already flocking to digital assets. some officials have shown their support of cryptocurrencies. the mayor of miami has recently proposed a resolution offering to pay municipal employees in bitcoin. >> i want to thank the city of miami commissioners for supporting my resolution to procure a vendor to be able to offer employees to get a percentage of their salary in bitcoin, allows residents to pay

for fees in bitcoin and would allow the city manager to cooperate with miami-dade county to have taxes be paid in bitcoin. the city of miami supports efforts to make bitcoin and acceptable currency for us to potentially invested in the future. kim: let's take a closer look at cryptocurrencies and how they work. they are virtual and stored in a digital wallet. transactions are made with no middleman, meaning it bypasses banks. it can be used by goods and services, but not many retailers accept them. payment happens through a system called block chain which records transactions across the internet and stores them in multiple locations. bitcoin was the first online currency created in 2009. since then, thousands of other digital currencies have sprung up. time to bring in our guests.

in london, we have glenn goodman, a financial investor and author of the crypto trader. and in new york, william cohan, a former mergers and acquisitions banker and writer. in london, celso de azevedo and international lawyer and airstrip. thank you for joining us. i would like to begin with you -- how big is this news from bny mellon and mastercard? is this bitcoin it now and truly on its way to the moon? glen: i think it is good news for cryptocurrency in general. particularly bny mellon news because the crypto world has been waiting a very long time for a big asset manager or rather an asset custody company to basically say we are prepared to look after bitcoin, to keep

them using our traditional financial channels that we ourselves maintain and finally, you have such a huge asset manager or custodian agreeing to do that. that will give financial institutions and companies the confidence to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, knowing they will be looked after safely. kim: confidence has been a very big thing. this has been a volatile asset. what is your take? are we going to see bitcoin go up and up or are we going to see a major pullback? we've seen it come down 80% in the past. william: to me, it the earmarks of a well orchestrated 21st century tulip bulb craze. i know it's proponents can't get

enough and the elon musk's of the world drive the prices higher and higher and it gets swept up into the madness of crowds and social media frenzy but frankly, i feel like it's not dissimilar from other asset doubles or crazes that proponents lock onto and go nuts over. i'm not particularly confident it's going to continue in this way. it's news, i don't think it's good news. it's just news. it's patting or inflating of the whole bubble of this currency. kim: what is it that you see that the likes of elon musk, the lack -- the likes of jack dorsey or paypal who are on board, what is it you see that they don't see? william: they are billionaires, so i don't know -- they probably

see things i will never see but money is a confidence game. why does the dollar have value? why does any currency have value? it's because people believe in it. for the moment, people believe in bitcoin. kim: do you think other banks are likely to follow in their footsteps? are they investing or seeing the value? what are the legal constraints banks might face? celso: i'm afraid i'm going to sound a cautionary note to all the positive news. it is good news that the u.s. security's and exchange commissioner has recently pushed back in an interview against the government narrative in the u.s. that cryptocurrencies are a dangerous route for terrorist financing and push back on the

december of last year when the notice of proposed rulemaking was unveiled where banks and money services and businesses would be required to submit reports and keep reports, verify the identity of customers in relation to transactions. where the wallets were not hosted by financial institutions or certain jurisdictions, this would be very onerous knowing your clients requirements. you see the concern in recent statements from mastercard when they were saying they were going to give some support to

cryptocurrencies but they were concerned and said in their statements, not all today's cryptocurrencies would be supported by our network. some of them will be but there should be strict compliance protocols in relation to knowing your customer requirements that was going to be used to snuff out illegal activity. you have term number cryptocurrencies are regulated in a piecemeal fashion by many different regulator provisions, laundering, terrorism financing and you also have many transfer legislation. we have to be optimistic but not

too optimistic. there are many places cryptocurrencies our band. kim: what do you say when you look at the technical analysis and unchain data, what do you think? glen: i don't think it's fair to compare it to the tulip bubble. the dutch tulip bubble was one-off whereas bitcoin -- during the previous boom, the 2017 boom that i was heavily involved in, there was a nagging voice at the back of my mind saying what if this is a tulip bubble because the fact is bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies, like all money are kind of a confidence trick. it's all about faith -- faith in the u.s. government for the dollar and face in bitcoin for people who believe that is the new form of money @@atill dominate things in the future. the tulip bubble was a one-off, so we have the bitcoin and

crypto boom in 20 and then it cooled off significantly. a lot of cryptocurrencies loss more than 90% of their value, but the fact is it did not die. it proved its worth by coming back, bitcoin in particular to even greater heights. what gives me enormous confidence is the sheer number of institutions, particularly financial institutions but large companies like tesla who are showing they are believing it is the future and it will be around for a very long time and that they need to make the infrastructure and by the assets themselves in order to be part of the future economy. there are so many companies and institutions doing this that i don't think we can dismiss it as a temporary phenomenon anymore. i do think the prices are in somewhat of a bubble. they doubled again and again and it is getting crazy and they

short-term and it may well crash again like it did in 2017 but i do believe cryptocurrencies and digital currencies are here to stay. kim: we are talking about faith and i wonder what are the macro dynamics driving this? in the u.s. ma parts of the world, you have governments printing money and people are worried for what that means for the value of their cash longer-term. is that part of what is driving the growth in adoption of bitcoin? william: obviously, yes. bitcoin is a finite substance by design. there's 21 million bitcoins and people are desperately mining for them and the scarcity value is a function of supply and demand.

the demand is higher than the supply and the supply is going up. -- the prices going up. this is a confidence game in the fact more and more institutions in the financial sector, whether it is bny mellon or j.p. morgan chase is now being dragged into it because it's employees want to trade at an clients want to use it. if more and more people have confidence in this thing that there's no reason to have confidence in, that can be a self filling prophecy. it's no different than fiat money or gold or any other form of currency or store of value that we use to trade with. people need to be able to trade goods and services and if they have confidence that bitcoin is the way to do it, that will be a self filled -- self filling

prophecy. kim: celso de azevedo, janet yellen in the u.s., the new biden administration issued the statement after her senate confirmation hearing talking about the potential benefits for the u.s. and says it has potential benefits and also presents opportunities for states and nonstate actors looking to circumvent the current financial system but then goes on to say it has the potential to improve the efficacy of the financial system. can you talk about those two apparently opposing sides? she saying it could be used in a bad way by bad people, on the other hand, it could reduce some inequality and help our financial system. celso: the first thing i would have to say is there is a force dichotomy there. the two statements may be correct, it doesn't mean one thing is wrong. but they do push in different directions.

there is that risk that cryptocurrencies will be used for people and for fraud and that can be at the same time, they use another financial asset and that is something positive for society as a whole. the question is how do you strike a balance of clever regulation that minimizes the risk of crime while at the same time maximizes the trust society will have in this new asset? kim: what difference does it make when the likes of mastercard or paypal say we are going to let you use bitcoin as a mean of paying for things? is that where bitcoins value comes from, in its ability to be used every day, or is it more as

a store of value, investors buying and holding? glen: it's a store of value. when william referred to it as a tulip bubble, during the 201819 slump, in the back of my mind, i was thinking could that have been a one-off? are these assets going to slowly die as people lose interest? it's all about faith, do we believe these things are going to do well and then they become a self filling prophecy. what's interesting is i think covid may be the reason why they have come back stronger than ever. covid created a new narrative. the idea of that coin as digital gold, when the federal reserve turned on the money printing and started massively expanding their monetary policy and order to combat the deflationary

effects of covid, that scared a lot of people and made them think they are printing money and leslie. we don't believe in the dollar anymore. it shook investors faith and made them think the dollar is going to be so inflated and would depreciate in value so much that they needed a harder currency. traditionally, that harder currency would have been gold and they did flocked to it to some extent. but younger generations felt we have a new digital gold -- bitcoin because it can only be created in very small quantities and a finite amount eventually. it will stop being created all together in about 100 years. but even now there are only tiny new amounts of bitcoin every single day. so it makes people feel it is a harder currency than the dollar and that's why they have been flocking to it. that narrative will continue to prevail as long as there is

money printing by central banks. if central banks get their act together and have a more sensible monetary policy, then perhaps people won't be so interested in bitcoin anymore. kim: i think we need to talk about the security issue. the block chain itself has been described as very safe, but the personal security of one's wallet not so much. how secure is a cryptocurrency? william: bitcoin in these digital currencies are all about the narrative. everyone wants to talk about the narrative. it's such an exciting story. kim: is that a bad thing? william: until you can use bitcoin to buy things, what is the use of it? it's just a way to gamble. last week everyone was excited about gamestop and this week

they are excited about bitcoin because elon musk decided to buy $1.5 billion with it. there's nothing elon musk likes more than making people crazy. people talk about security -- we will have two wait. it's all about faith and confidence and people want to pretend it's a good store of value, than the price. go up. people thought gamestop was a great store of value. kim: is there any value bitcoin would get to in which you would change your view of it? if it reached $200,000, would that change your opinion? william: no. what would change my opinion is if you could use this thing widely, whatever it is, this currency, to buy things. if i could use bitcoin to buy a house in a liquid way, not just

in a one-off way on a daily basis as part of my daily life, yes. if i could get my hands on it -- i can always get my hands on dollars and use it to buy a house or a car or food. you can't do that with bitcoin except one-off circumstances. kim: i want to talk about the difference between stable coins, by which i mean cryptocurrencies to save a dollar and you have central banks getting involved in digital currencies. what does that say to you about the role of digital currencies and the adoption of digital currencies? is this central banks getting nervous because they want to continue to control money or is something else at play here? celso: i think it is all of this

and you can see some countries have the latest legislation in india modeled on the chinese are you a tory regime which effectively banned trading uses of cryptocurrency while at the same time, the government is working on using its own virtual currency. china imposed a ban on the initial offerings and asked cryptocurrency exchanges be shut down. since then, the china central bank has blocked all access to all domestic and foreign currency exchanges. i think it may be a little more nuanced than that. there was a report last year by the beijing arbitration commission saying china's prohibition of bitcoin is not exactly as suggested because the chinese legal stance -- major

activities are prohibit by the government. at the same time, it allows other types of cryptocurrency activities. it's a very nuanced situation. kim: we have about two minutes left. what do you think about what you heard about the idea of crypto not having its use case until you can spend it when you go to buy a pair of pants or whatever -- you go and buy a bottle of coke or whatever. do you agree with that sentiment? glen: i actually do agree. he referred to mastercard and their move to integrate or allow payments using digital currencies and i did not give you a proper answer. the fact is they are not going to allow people to use bitcoin. they were referring vaguely to

it would be the central government based stable coins you are talking about -- a sort of digital dollar because they consider currencies like bitcoin to be far too volatile in value. they shoot up and down in value and you don't want to get bitcoin one day and find out when you want to buy your cup of coffee that you've lost 30% of the value of the money you are about to buy your cup of coffee with. it's just not usable on a wide scale for everyday payments at the moment. we don't have the infrastructure and the actual price is too volatile. kim: will that change in the next 10 to 15 years? glen: it will change. everything's going to change because there will be a huge battle between the central bank digital currencies, the ones based on the old fiat currencies , there's going to be a fight between that and the decentralized digital currencies like bitcoin and we just don't

know who's going to win. but let's face it, the governments of got power, so that gives them the advantage. kim: it is a fast-moving sector to say the least. thank you for your time. a big thank you for you to watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. please go to our facebook page and join the conversation on twitter. from mate and from us here in doha, thank you.

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