Inflation in the US, Apple’s AI Innovations, and Crypto Adoption in Ukraine and Russia
“Should Have Bought” is a news podcast by the ForkLog editorial team covering the week’s main industry events and the hottest tokens.
Topics include Bitcoin’s “death cross,” inflation stabilization, 120 million ETH, the DOGS airdrop, and an interview with Trump and Musk.
Special guest: crypto analyst Viktor Pershikov.
Participants: ForkLog authors Vasily Smirnov and Vladimir Sliper.
US Inflation and Macroeconomics
In August, the slowdown in US inflation continued. Annual inflation was 2.5%, down from 2.9% in July.
On a monthly basis, the consumer price index rose by 0.2%. Both results align with consensus forecasts.
However, as always, the details cast a shadow: prices for services excluding housing and energy rose again, and the rental rate increased by a maximum of 0.49% since January.
Inflation figures further diminished the likelihood of a significant interest rate cut by the Fed at the meeting on September 17. About 85% believe the Fed will cut the rate by 25 basis points, while only 15% expect a 50 basis point cut.
Apple and AI
This week saw an event as anticipated as the inflation data release. Apple unveiled new iPhones and other devices, along with the much-anticipated Apple Intelligence feature.
However, AI will only be supported by the latest smartphone and gadget models.
The new generation of iPhones was developed for AI from scratch. Key features include:
- An updated Siri capable of dialogue, learning, understanding natural speech with pauses, working across all apps and switching between them, and providing technical assistance with smartphone functions;
- Smart photo search in the gallery;
- Built-in emoji and image generator;
- Notification prioritization and extraction of key data;
- Summary of information from emails;
- Providing information about an object after photographing it;
- Text editing.
Notably, almost all these features can be replaced by existing AI applications.
Meanwhile, AI startup OpenAI introduced a new large language model, o1, trained using reinforcement learning to perform complex reasoning.
Crypto Adoption in Ukraine and Russia
Ukraine and Russia ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, in the global cryptocurrency adoption index for 2024 by analytics firm Chainalysis.
The top five spots were taken by India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the US, and Vietnam. The Philippines, Pakistan, and Brazil also made it into the top 10.
Meanwhile, the National Bank of Ukraine urged banks to jointly monitor P2P transfers of clients and apply limits considering citizens’ incomes.
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