“Great news,” Alberta’s jobs minister tweeted on December 9, when bitcoin was just over $47,000 – from the previous month’s high of $68,789, but still going strong.
Doug Schweitzer wrote that a company from the “disruptive world of crypto” was moving to Calgary and would create 100 jobs. On February 3, when bitcoin was worth $37,154, he offered what he called a huge opportunity to BNN Bloomberg.
He said: “There’s a big battle going on in the US — you have New York, Miami, Wyoming, Arizona. It doesn’t seem like any jurisdiction in Canada really wants to have that opportunity.”
Bitcoin drops significantly and outperforms altcoins
And Alberta could share its claim as the leader of Canadian Cryptoland, to create a piece of flashy new industry and all the jobs and dollars that come with it.
The government will turn this bullish sentiment into action over the course of the spring, while bitcoin’s price has been relatively stable, it has passed a bill that would temporarily allow cryptocurrency and other fintech companies to be exempted from some financial laws while they test products in Alberta.
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Months later, bitcoin was just over $20,000 if you bought $5,000 of the cryptocurrency the day Schweizer appeared on BNN, you would have $2,691.28 left on Monday.
When we talk about how much money has been wiped out of the industry, it’s a startling statistic: the global crypto industry has gone from $3 trillion in November 2021 to less than $1 trillion as of this week.
The Alberta government has been touting crypto companies as part of its diversification strategy as a way to protect the province from booms and busts in the oil and gas industry and if you think that an industry that recently saw two-thirds of its paper value disappear in just over two fiscal quarters sounds like a strange hedge against volatility, you’re not alone.
It wasn’t all a downturn, locally at least. On Friday, the Bahamian crypto-exchange giant known as FTX Exchange announced that it would launch its first Canadian location in Alberta after acquiring Bitvo Inc. Based in Calgary.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney remains optimistic, at least for now, when he tweeted on Sunday that FTX news shows that Alberta is “open for business.”
But isn’t it the only investors who are losing out amidst the sell-off Newly created jobs are now being lost all aboard an all-new roller coaster train ride?
