On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: How crypto industry can move on after the fall of FTX
USA TODAY Opinion Contributor Lars Seier Christensen looks at how the crypto  industry moves forward after the fall of the FTX exchange. Plus, USA TODAY Consumer Tech Reporter Brett Molina looks back at the year in money, the second of two leaders in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been sentenced to prison, Tte U.S. announces new COVID testing requirements for visitors from China, and author and USA TODAY Opinion Contributor Eman Quotah talks about the benefits of Dry January.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 29th of December 2022. Today, what’s next for the world of crypto after the fall of FTX? Plus, we look back at some of the biggest money stories of 2022, and the US announces a new testing policy for visitors from China amid a COVID surge.
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With the fall of FTX, the crypto world seems to be more confusing than before. Producer PJ Elliott spoke with Lars Seier Christensen, a USA TODAY Opinion contributor, as well as a Danish businessman and investor, to find out how the industry moves forward.
PJ Elliott:
Lars, thanks for jumping on the podcast with us today.
Lars Seier Christensen:
Thank you for having me.
PJ Elliott:
So the recent FTX collapse with Sam Bankman-Fried at the helm has scared off a lot of investors and even the general public in dealing with crypto. Is it the speculative nature of the crypto industry itself that makes it more prone to fraud and abuse?
Lars Seier Christensen:
Yeah. I think it’s interesting and I understand why people get confused. But actually, what happened at FTX is not that different to what happens in a traditional finance collapse, people mismanaging risk, in this case, allegedly also fraudulent activity. And at the end of the day, this is a bit like any exchange. I don’t think it says anything about blockchain, it doesn’t say much about the crypto that was traded on that particular exchange, but it says something about the people that managed that exchange and how they did it and whether you could trust them or not.
PJ Elliott:
How does the industry move on from this?
Lars Seier Christensen:
Well, I think, this actually has been my message for a long time that we need to somehow get people to sort of see a difference between the speculative crypto environment and the actual Blockchain environment. Blockchain can do a lot for a lot of businesses. Actually, it’s something that increases security, it’s something that increases transparency, it’s something that increases efficiency in a lot of processes. But just like any other technology, you can’t really protect against people abusing that technology. And that being said, I think there’s a lot of hype around a lot of the crypto tokens as well, many projects that don’t really have much utility or much substance behind them. So I think caution is the right thing. I think you have to be very cautious to enter into this space. I think, maybe, in the long run this is a good moment for the industry. You clean out some of the nonsense and you can get back to focus on what it’s really about.
PJ Elliott:
So a lot of people in DC are hoping that regulation can reign in bad actors and protect investors in the crypto sector. Do you think that’s likely in the new year? And if it does happen, is it actually going to work?
Lars Seier Christensen:
I think regulation is well overdue because regulation’s actually good for any industry if it’s correctly formulated, because it gives people the confidence. That is hard, and we see that whenever new technologies and new financial products come out, it can be hard for regulators to get the full overview of it. So I doubt very much that in 2023 we will have a full fledged, well operational regulatory set of rules, but I hope we will continue to work in that direction, because for me, that’s also the savior of this blockchain industry.
PJ Elliott:
Lars, last question I have here for you. How can the crypto industry as a whole rebuild the public’s trust and foster a culture of transparency?
Lars Seier Christensen:
Well, I think, first of all, there are several aspects of the industry and some people are out there with get rich schemes, and will attempt to be fraudulent or completely unrealistic. And then there’s a completely different segment of the industry that tries to build solid Blockchains for appropriate business users. And there’s a lot to offer businesses, there’s a lot to offer corporates, in terms of improving their processes and their security. So it’s about some of the space really not being what is interesting about this, the hype and the speculation and the obviously fraudulent activities are not something that can or really should be fixed. But the industry needs to, in my view, the serious part of the industry needs to distance itself as much as possible from those types of actors, and get the focus back on what the blockchain can really do.
PJ Elliott:
Perfect. Lars, I really appreciate the time. Thank you so much.
Lars Seier Christensen:
Thank you for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
2022 has been an up and down year for the economy. There are still lingering effects of the pandemic, but the job market remains strong. For a look at some of the biggest money stories of the year and a look ahead to 2023, USA TODAY Video Producer Sonu Trivedi sat down with USA TODAY Consumer Tech Reporter Brett Molina.
Sonu Trivedi:
Welcome, thank you for being here.
Brett Molina:
Sure thing. Thanks for having me.
Sonu Trivedi:
So the year is coming to an end now. What do you think were the biggest trending stories or topics, when it comes to money and finance in 2022?
Brett Molina:
Well, obviously you can’t talk about 2022 and money without talking about inflation. I think that was one of the biggest issues throughout the year, it impacted millions of Americans in so many different ways, whether you’re going to the grocery store, whether you’re going to get gas, there were just so many different ways that inflation impacted us day to day, and that was probably one of the biggest ones.
There are signs that inflation has started to slow down. We have seen the consumer price index, which is what measures how much we’re paying for different items and how inflation is moving, it’s trending downward. It’s not as quick a trend downward, it’s going slowly. There also seem to be signs that that’s going to continue. The big question is, how quickly are we going to continue? And the Fed has a specific target they want to set for where they want inflation. So I think the big thing we’re going to see next year is, “Will inflation continue this downward trend? And if it does, how quickly will it drop?”
Another key issue that popped up this year was the Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Plan that President Biden introduced. And there’s still that whole process of sorting out whether that is actually going to come to fruition. But obviously there are so many Americans with student loans and they’re very expensive, and so seeing something like the Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Plan was welcome relief to many.
Sonu Trivedi:
Why do you think we’re seeing so many layoffs at the end of this year, going into early next year, and how could that continue to play out?
Brett Molina:
Well, the big reason is, a lot of companies are worried about a recession, and so a lot of this is preventative stuff to try to get ahead of that. We saw some other measures that businesses have taken as a result of this – hiring freezes, different other strategies that they’ve implemented to try to prepare themselves for a recession, and that’s why we’re seeing a lot of these layoffs. The tech sector in particular has seen lots of layoffs. We saw Meta, the parent company of Facebook, layoff thousands of employees. Other tech companies have introduced layoffs as well, and that could continue into the new year.
So far, the labor market has been really strong. We’ve seen job openings continue to remain strong. That could continue into the new year, we’ll see. But I think what’s going to happen is that momentum that the job market had over the year is going to slow down as more companies decide they’re going to pause on hiring and they’re going to layoff more people.
Sonu Trivedi:
Well, thank you so much for your input, Brett.
Brett Molina:
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find more in the Money section on USATODAY.com.
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The second of two leaders in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced to 19 years in prison yesterday. The sentence for Delaware truck driver, Barry Croft Jr, came after his co-leader, Adam Fox, was sentenced to 16 years a day earlier. Prosecutors argued that Croft planned to kidnap Whitmer from her Michigan vacation home, before blowing up a bridge to help the would-be kidnappers escape. Prosecutors had recommended a life sentence, painting the case as a domestic terror issue. But Croft’s defense along with other defendants, have long argued this was a case of entrapment, and that rogue FBI agents who were trying to build their own careers created the kidnapping idea, and then convinced defendants to say and do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Prosecutors say Croft didn’t just want to kidnap Whitmer, but also wanted to spark a violent uprising against the government. They argue that Croft brought bomb making skills and ideology, while Adam Fox recruited others to join the plan. Several others in the plot have been sentenced to years behind bars.
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The US has announced new COVID-19 testing requirements for all travelers from China. The move comes amid a surge in cases there, after the nation rolled back some of its strict zero-COVID policies. Beginning January 5th, all travelers to the US from China will be required to take a COVID test no more than two days before travel, and to submit a negative test before boarding their flight. The US joins Japan, India, and other countries that have taken similar steps to try and keep infections from spreading beyond China’s borders. Lunar New Year begins January 22nd and is typically China’s busiest travel season. The US action is the first major COVID-related travel testing policy since the Biden administration lifted most remaining mandates this past summer.
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Have you heard of Sober October? What about Dry January? Producer PJ Elliott talked with author, Iman Kwoda, who’s also a USA TODAY Opinion contributor, to discuss the benefits of taking a month off from drinking after the holiday season.
PJ Elliott:
Iman, thank you for joining the podcast.
Iman Kwoda:
Sure. Thank you so much for having me.
PJ Elliott:
So, let’s start at the beginning of all of this. How did Dry January become a thing?
Iman Kwoda:
So Dry January was started 10 years ago exactly, in 2013, by a British health advocate named Emily Robinson and the Charity Alcohol Change UK. And the whole idea was to get people to try to drink less for one month out of the year. About 4,000 people signed up that first year and it has grown ever since.
PJ Elliott:
Yeah, how widespread is this?
Iman Kwoda:
So in the US, in January, 2022, about over one third of US adults said that they did Dry January.
PJ Elliott:
That’s insane. Like I was telling-
Iman Kwoda:
A lot of people, right?
PJ Elliott:
Yeah, it is. And like I was saying, before we started recording, my girlfriend and I are doing this for the first time, so it’ll be interesting. So you can add two more numbers to that total for this year.
Iman Kwoda:
Right. And I don’t know if that number includes people like me who just never drink or just people who decided to do it for the month, because it’s actually, there’s more people than you think who don’t drink. It’s about four in 10 adults who say they didn’t drink in the past year. But a lot of times, we fly under the radar. So it’s really great that more people want to try out not drinking for the month of January. I think that’s a really exciting development over the past decade.
PJ Elliott:
Do you have any tips or tricks for people to socialize without having alcohol around?
Iman Kwoda:
Yeah, absolutely. I actually talked to my husband because he’s done it before. And he says, what he likes to do is grab a soda or a glass of water and just be confident about it. He also said you might want to pick and choose your activities in January if you’re not drinking. So if you have friends who just drink for drinking’s sake, maybe those aren’t the people to hang out with this month. And I think the most important thing for everyone to remember is that, whether it’s in January or any other time of the year, people don’t drink for a lot of different reasons and we should be accepting of non-drinkers, whether they’re abstaining for one night, one month, or all time.
PJ Elliott:
Iman, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Iman Kwoda:
Sure. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We’re here every morning, wherever you get your podcast. I’ll be back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

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