(May 20, 2018) Weekly Topics of Global Economy

[정견만]

(May 20, 2018) Weekly Topics of Global Economy

동기님들 안녕하세요?

미국과 중국의 무역 협상단이 상호 방문하더니 결국 Olive branch(화해 상징)를 주고 받는군요. 다국적기업인 Apple사가 EC의 강요에 의해 €1.5bn의 1차분 추가 세금을 아일랜드 정부 계좌에 납부하였습니다. 세계 최강의 가상화폐 채굴 chip 판매회사인 중국의 Bitmain Technologies Ltd..사 대표 Jihan Wu(32세)가 AI사업을 새로 시작하여, Nvidia, Intel. AMD사 등과 경쟁하겠다는 계획을 밝혔습니다.

1. China drops sanctions probe into US sorghum imports - BBC News

- 중국이 미국산 수수 수입에 대한 반 덤핑 조사를 취소하였습니다. 최근 미중 양국이 무역 긴장을 완화하기 위해 상호 방문대화를 한 결과라고 해야겠죠.

지난 4뤌, 중국은 미국과의 tit-for-tat식 무역분쟁의 일환으로 미국산 수수(연간 $1bn 수입) 등의 농축산물에 대해 178.6% 관세를 부과할 것이라고 발표한 바 있었음 이와 관련, 10일전 미국의 상무장관 일행이 대거 중국을 방문하였고, 이어 지난 주 중국의 Liu He 부총리 일행이 미국을 방문 중인데, 동행중인 중국 상무장관이 관세부과조치가 소비자에게 악영향을 주고 공공의 이익에 반한다면서 미국산 수수에 대한 반덤핑 조사를 취소한 것.  그야말로 ‘Olive branch’(화해의 표시)를 내 민 것.

<생각>.

협상의 명수 Trump와 외유내강의 시진핑, 어느 누구도 물러 설 가능성은 낮음. 따라서 장군-멍군 식의 무역분쟁은 계속 될 전망이지만, Olive branch(예: 미국의 ZTE에 대한 규제 해제, 중국의 미국 농산물 및 에너지 수입확대 약속 등)도 자주 오갈 것으로 보임. .

2. Apple pays Ireland first tranche of disputed taxes, Reuters

- 지난 금요일 Apple사가 €1.5bn($1.76bn) 규모의 1차분 세금을 Ireland 정부가 개설한 Escrow 계정에 납부하였다고 아일랜드 재무장관이 발표하였습니다.

2016년8월 EC(European Commission)는 애플이 아일랜드 정부와 sweetheart tax deal을 통해 ‘불법적 정부지원’(illegal state aid)을 받았다는 이유로 총 13bn euro의 추가세금 납부를 명령하였음( 2017. 1월 기한). 그러나 애플은 아일랜드 정부의 묵인 하에 세금 납부를 차일피일 미뤄 왔음

그러자 작년 10월 EC가 아일랜드 정부를 유럽 법정에 제소하겠다고 하였으며, 이에 애플이 지난주 1차분 세금을 납부하게 된 것. 아일랜드 정부와 애플은 모두 상급법원에 항소를 제기하였군요.

<생각> 애플 등 다국적기업들이 약소 국가에 투자하면서 sweetheart tax deal을 통해 세금을 적게 내던 관행이 차제에 시정될 수 있을까요?

3. The World’s Dominant Crypto-Mining Company Wants to Own AI,

세계 최강의 가상화폐 채굴 chip 판매회사인 중국(북경소재) Bitmain Technologies Ltd.. 의 대표 Jihan Wu(32세)가 AI사업을 새로 시작하여, Nvidia, Intel. AMD사 등과 경쟁하겠다는 계획을 밝혔습니다.

Bitmain사는 세계 가상화폐의 80%를 채굴하는 반도체 칩을 위탁제조 판매하는 회사로

2년전까지 거의 알려지지 않았으나, 지금은 연 매출이 $3.5bn(2017)에 달하는 회사가 되었음

가상화폐 망은 고속 연산처리와 전기를 과소비하는 채굴 기술 위에서 가동되기 때문에 가상화폐 관련사업에 참여하기 위해서는 동사 칩을 사용하지 않을 수 없다고 하는군요.

그런데 중국 당국은 작년에 가상화폐 거래에 대해 단속하고, initial coin offerings을 금지시켰으며, 올해 들어서는 채굴행위도 제한할 수 있다는 signal을 보낸 바 있음, 따라서 가상화폐에 대한 규제가 많은 중국내 사업이기 때문에 언제든 폭망할 수도 있는 만큼, Wu대표는 회사의 차기 목표로 현재의 사업과 성격상 비슷한 Artificial Intelligence사업을 계획하고 있다고 함.

Bitcoin mining 사업과 AI 사업은 둘 다 많은 전산처리(computation)가 필요한 application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC)으로 알려진 주문제작 chip으로 인접 영역이라고 함. Wu 대표는 향후 5년내에 회사 매출의 40%가 AI chips로부터 나올 것

이라고 예측하네요.

<생각>

작년 7월 중국정부는 2030년까지 세계 최강의 AI Player국가로 변모시킬 청사진 발표. Bitmain사 Wu대표가 규제 대상인 Bitcoin 사업을 뛰어 넘어, 정부지원 AI사업을 32세 젊은 나이에 신명 나게 추진할 수 있겠군요. 첨단기술로 기업가정신을 발휘할 기회를 갖는 중국청년들!

이에 비해, 우리 청년들은 고귀한 정치인들 믿고 취업난에 시달리는 모습이 안타까움. 청년들의 기업가정신이 왕성해지고, 희망찬 미래를 설계할 날이 오기를 고대합니다.

정견만 드림

1. China drops sanctions probe into US sorghum imports - BBC News

• 18 May 2018

China says it is dropping an anti-dumping probe into sorghum imports from the US, as the two sides discuss ways of easing trade tensions.

In April, Beijing introduced a high tariff on the imports as part of a tit-for-tat trade spat between with the US.

But China's commerce ministry has now said the measures affect consumers and are not in the public interest.

The US is the world's leading producer of sorghum, and is the largest supplier of the grain to China.

Sorghum is a grain used primarily to feed livestock, but it is also used to create ethanol, or drinking alcohol.

China said a final ruling on whether to continue April's 178.6% tariffs would be made after a further investigation.

Olive branch

Under his "America First" slogan, US President Donald Trump promised to counter what he describes as unfair global trade practices that put the US economy at a disadvantage.

China and the US have imposed - or threatened to impose - tariffs on various goods, in what observers warn could escalate into a larger trade war.

A delegation headed by China's Vice-Premier Liu He is currently in the US for trade talks and dropping the sorghum probe might be an olive branch for the negotiations.

• Reality Check: Are we on the brink of a trade war?

• Why a US-China trade war could hurt Asia

• China opens car market after US tensions

• Should the West suspect Chinese tech?

Earlier this year, the US announced it would impose import taxes on aluminium - including but not exclusively those from China.

Beijing has since responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own against the US on a range of goods, including pork and wine.

The US also claims that China has unfair intellectual property practices, such as those that have allegedly pressurised US companies into sharing technology with Chinese firms when doing business in the country.

Beijing, meanwhile, continues to claim that the US is dumping other products at cheaper-than-market prices into China, which is hurting Chinese farmers and manufacturers.

2. Apple pays Ireland first tranche of disputed taxes, Reuters

Reuters Staff

May 18, 2018 / 10:13 PM / Updated 5 hours ago

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Apple has paid 1.5 billion euros ($1.76 billion) into an escrow account set up by the Irish government to hold 13 billion euros in disputed taxes, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said on Friday.

The European Commission ordered Apple in August 2016 to pay the taxes it ruled it had received as illegal state aid, as part of its wider drive against what it says are sweetheart tax deals usually used by smaller states in the bloc to lure multinational companies and their jobs and investment.

Both Apple and Dublin are appealing the ruling, saying the iPhone maker’s tax treatment was in line with Irish and European Union law

Last October the Commission said it was taking Dublin to the European Court of Justice over delays in recovering the money that was due to be recovered in January 2017, four months on from the initial ruling in August 2016.

The commission has been pressurizing Ireland to recover the taxes as soon as possible to allow it to close the EU Court of Justice’s action for missing the deadline.

Ireland has insisted that it has acted as fast as it could to facilitate collection and management of such a large sum.

In March, Ireland appointed Amundi, BlackRock Investment Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management to manage an escrow account to hold the money and make low risk investment decisions that protect the Irish taxpayer.

3. The World’s Dominant Crypto-Mining Company Wants to Own AI, Bloomberg

Max Chafkin and David Ramli

In a rare interview, Bitmain’s Jihan Wu talks about his plans to take on Nvidia, Intel, and AMD.

Even by the standards of Bitcoin, things are crazy in China. As the boom in cryptocurrencies has become the biggest speculative bubble in recorded history, a single company in Beijing’s Haidian District has been selling the chips that generate as much as 80 percent of the world’s cryptocoins. “We feel lucky,” says Jihan Wu, the co-chief executive of Bitmain Technologies Ltd., which was more or less unknown two years ago and, according to Wu, booked revenue of $3.5 billion in 2017. Cryptocurrency networks run on number-crunching, electricity-hogging “mining” technology, and to play in that game with any seriousness, you pretty much need Bitmain’s chips. And because it’s China, the whole thing could fall apart at any minute.

Last year the government cracked down on cryptocurrency trading and banned initial coin offerings. This year it’s sent signals that it could seriously restrict mining. So even though Bitmain has succeeded far beyond Wu’s expectations, he’s already planning for the company’s next act: artificial intelligence. “As a China company,” says the taciturn 32-year-old, “we have to be prepared.”

During a rare series of interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek at Bitmain’s headquarters, Wu and his executives say AI chips are a natural adjacency for their privately held, extremely secretive company. “Artificial intelligence requires lots of computations,” says Wu. That makes it like Bitcoin mining, which is best done by a custom chip known as an application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC.

On the strength of such chips, Bitmain has quietly become a global power. A February report by Bernstein Research estimated that the company might be generating profits of more than $3 billion per year, about the same as its much larger rival, Nvidia Corp. The report also suggested that Bitmain is probably one of the five biggest customers of the most advanced fabrication process offered by the Taiwanese chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which also counts among its clients Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Technologies Inc. Wu declined to comment on Bitmain’s profits, but it seems a safe bet that, given the company’s revenue figure, things aren’t quite as rosy as Bernstein’s estimate. TSMC declined to comment.

In October, Bitmain began selling early prototypes of its Sophon BM1680. The ASIC chip, which is sold as part of a $600 accelerator card that you attach to a computer, is designed expressly to speed up machine learning. Although it doesn’t do everything that high-end graphics cards made by the likes of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. do, it’s more powerful for some kinds of deep learning, and much cheaper. “We are just trying to do something that they cannot take care of well enough,” says Wu, who estimates that as much as 40 percent of Bitmain’s revenue will come from AI chips within five years.

He’s got a ways to go. Bitmain’s big AI chip, Sophon—named after the tiny supercomputer in the wildly popular Chinese sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem—came out five months behind Google’s leading design, the Tensor Processing Unit. But while Google is the company to beat in all things AI, its chips are available only to customers of its cloud services, which are banned in China. That gives Wu a strong position at home.

If Bitmain’s recent history is any guide, the company may not remain an AI underdog for long. In 2011, Wu, a video game geek who favors white T-shirts, light jeans, and sneakers, stumbled into the world of crypto while working as an investment analyst in Beijing. He quickly became obsessed, devouring everything he could about cryptography and monetary history. He translated into Chinese the famous Bitcoin white paper, originally written in English by the pseudonymous author Satoshi Nakamoto, and became a fixture on online cryptocurrency forums.

In 2013, Wu met up with entrepreneur Micree Zhan for dinner at a local restaurant. Zhan, a chip designer by training, had pitched him years earlier on an investment in his startup, which was focused on TV set-top boxes. They spent two hours discussing the ins and outs of Bitcoin, and Wu proposed starting a chip company. Zhan, whose startup had been struggling, listened intently. The next morning, he spent two hours learning more about cryptocurrencies on Wikipedia. He called Wu the next day and said he was in. They sold their first chip later that year.

It was, Wu now says, one of two Bitcoin businesses that seemed plausible. The other was a cryptocurrency exchange, a model that came with far more legal risks. “The only thing that is good to do is Bitcoin mining,” he says. “Because it is 100 percent sure it is legal.”

In the early days, when Bitcoin and its ilk were mainly the province of math geeks and dorm room libertarians, hobbyists could mine Bitcoin using software that ran on a laptop. But as interest grew, miners were forced to beef up their rigs if they wanted to keep solving puzzles and earning coins faster than the next miner. That set off a frantic technological arms race, where traditional CPUs were replaced with high-end graphics chips, or GPUs.

By the end of 2013, when the price of Bitcoin hit $1,000 for the first time—it topped $19,000 last year before tumbling back into the $8,000 range—miners began experimenting with ASICs, including Bitmain’s offering. The chips, which had the necessary algorithms coded directly onto the silicon, were faster and used less electricity than GPUs.

Today, Bitmain Antminers are one-trick, server-size boxes that sell for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Instead of the various parts that make up a traditional PC, they’re filled with dozens or hundreds of identical high-powered chips. Customers are mostly large mining operators in places with cheap electricity. Rural China, with an excess of cheap coal power, is the most popular location by far.

Bitmain’s success has made it a whipping boy for purists who cherish Bitcoin as a way to subvert any kind of centralized authority. Decisions about the future of the currency are made democratically, with voting power based on the percentage of transactions one controls. This meant Bitmain had a lot of influence when it began arguing that Bitcoin should be tweaked to make it easier to use to buy and sell things, which you might think a no-brainer. Not in Cryptoland, where no disagreement is too small to go full-nuclear over. During one exchange in 2016, the normally restrained Wu tweeted at a critic, “F--- your mother.” Eventually, Bitcoin split into two currencies: an original flavor and a new Bitmain-backed currency called Bitcoin Cash. The newer model has slightly more centralized control and much lower transaction fees.

“That is an old story,” Wu says of the dispute. “The cryptocurrency world is becoming more diversified.” With that in mind, he’s selling mining rigs customized for more than a dozen different coins, and he plans to add more.

Controversy, of course, has ensued. In April, Bitmain released an $800 miner for Ethereum, another cryptocurrency that had been seen as resistant to ASICs and thus harder for powerful companies such as Bitmain to dominate. Even so, the news set off a frenzy, with stock prices of graphics-chip makers falling. It also provoked the usual high-intensity debate among Ethereum developers over whether the currency should once again be “forked”—that is, split off into a new version that would render Bitmain’s miners useless.

Ethereum developers have since seemed to make peace with Bitmain’s entrance into the market, and Wu shrugs off criticisms about his company’s power because other chipmakers will inevitably enter the market, too. “If it’s not us, it might be Intel, it might be Nvidia, it might be AMD,” he says.

For now, Bitmain is on the offensive. It’s building new mines in the U.S. and focusing its efforts in China on chip development. With AI, Bitmain is targeting an industry that, unlike Bitcoin, has the full backing of Beijing. Last July the central government announced plans to transform China into the leading AI player by 2030, by investing in research and supporting related businesses. If that support materializes, Bitmain’s uncertain position, and any fear of a regulatory crackdown, will be a distant memory. —With Tom Mackenzie

4. Crypto Bull Tom Lee Owns Up After Bitcoin Prediction Goes Awry

By Lily Katz

‎2018‎년 ‎5월‎ ‎19‎일‎ ‎오전‎ ‎12‎:‎23

• Fundstrat had forecast Bitcoin rally during NYC conference
• Instead, cryptocurrencies dropped 10 percent in the past week

It’s pretty difficult to accurately predict what the price of just about anything is going to do in a week’s time, let alone a in month or a year. It’s also tough to admit you’re wrong. One researcher may deserve some credit for owning up after his latest Bitcoin forecast failed to pan out.

Thomas Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, predicted on May 7 that Bitcoin would rally during Consensus, the cryptocurrency conference this week that drew thousands of enthusiasts (and some Lamborghinis) to a packed hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Bitcoin didn’t rally. In fact, cryptocurrencies slumped about 10 percent during the past week, Lee admitted in a report to clients Friday.

“Given conferences like Consensus are chances for the community to gather in a centralized place and meet constituents new to the community (growth in attendance), it seems natural that the combination of ‘sanity check’ (all is OK and progress is happening) plus ‘new interest’ (incremental attendance) should strengthen the crypto-community’s conviction,” he wrote. “And coupled with growth in incremental constituents, should have aided crypto-currency prices.”

Read more: Crypto wealth sinks $45 billion while Bitcoin bros party in NYC

So what went wrong? Lee said the crypto industry still needs more clarity from regulators like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as increased adoption by traditional companies.

“Crypto still faces significant internal resistance and hurdles within traditional financial institutions,” Lee said. “But it is encouraging, nonetheless, that a large share of incremental attendance are financial institutions.”

Fundstrat still expects Bitcoin to be worth $25,000 by the end of this year

[손상찬]

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