The pandemic continues to make the rich even richer, with the top 0.01% of individuals now holding 11% of the world’s wealth, according to the World Inequality Report 2022, recording the steepest increase in bn’aires share of wealth on record. The report showed that bn’aires own 3.5% of global household wealth in 2021, up from a little over 2% at the outset of the pandemic in 2020. Forbes’ annual list of bn’aires showed that 2,755 bn’aires had a net worth of USD 13.1 tn this year — up from USD 8 tn last year. In November, WFP Director David Beasley singled out bn’aires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to donate a fraction of their wealth to end world hunger.

Visa delves deeper into crypto with a new consulting arm. The world’s largest payment processor has launched an advisory service to help its clients navigate the world of cryptocurrencies, Reuters reports. Visa said its new practice is aimed at educating financial institutions about crypto, helping retailers attract customers with a crypto offering — including assets such as NFTs — and guiding central banks looking to explore digital currencies. The move comes after a global study by Visa showed that nearly 40% of respondents would be likely to switch primary banks to one that offers crypto products. Visa currently allows buying, selling and owning digital currency through its network, and has processed USD 3.5 bn in digital currency transactions through its crypto-linked card schemes.

Speaking of which, BTC mining is soaring — and so is the BTC hash-rate, rising to its highest rate since May, reports the Financial Times. The BTC hash-rate, which measures how difficult it is to create new coins and is reflected in computing power, rose as miners dedicated more computer resources to minting the digital coin. The energy-intensive process of BTC mining was outlawed in China in May as the Asian country ramped up efforts to slash emissions and produce its own digital currency, which sent miners to the US, Iceland, Norway and Canada, with the US emerging as the world’s biggest hub for minting BTC. Since September, crypto prices have been recovering, as has the capacity to mine the currency. Some US miners have forecast that they would hit record mining levels by the middle of next year as they ramp up production on new-generation equipment. For more about how crypto is mined, check out our two-part explainer on BTC mines.