core rate in the first half of 2004, before steadying out at a rate close to core inflation. in view of the domestic inflation situation and the underlying momentum of domestic demand, we have raised our target overnight rate by 25 basis points on each of our last two policy announcement dates — in march and in mid - april — bringing it to 3. 25 per cent. as i said before, economic, financial, and geopolitical uncertainty figured prominently in the global picture last october. some of the geopolitical and financial uncertainty has lifted in recent months, and the bank expects that it will continue to recede. however, weak domestic demand in some regions of the world is still a concern. so, over the near term, a degree of global economic uncertainty remains. even with all this, the risks confronting the world economy now appear to be better balanced than they were last autumn. and, by year - end, we expect that business and household confidence levels should improve. in canada, domestic demand has remained quite strong. there is uncertainty, however, about the possible economic impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( sars ), particularly in the greater toronto area. as i said last week, we expect that economic growth in the second quarter will be somewhat weaker than we projected in the monetary policy report because of the impact of sars. but it is too soon to make an assessment of the magnitude of its effect on economic activity. we continue to monitor the situation very closely. we expect that the canadian economy will strengthen towards the end of 2003, partly thanks to a pickup in economic activity in the united states. average annual growth in canada is expected to be about 2 1 / 2 per cent this year. during 2004, our economy should strengthen further, expanding at a rate above its 3 per cent growth of potential. this means that most of the small amount of economic slack that is likely to open up in canada during 2003 will have closed by the end of next year. for this reason, the bank continues to believe that further reductions in monetary stimulus will be necessary over time to return inflation to its 2 per cent target and to sustain output levels close to capacity. the timing and pace of further increases in policy interest rates will depend on the strength of domestic demand, the evolution of inflation expectations, and the pace of economic expansion in the united states and in overseas economies.

/ d533. pdf ; and board of governors of the federal reserve system, federal deposit insurance corporation, and office of the comptroller of the currency ( 2021 ), “ joint statement on crypto - asset policy sprint initiative and next steps, ” joint press release, november 23, https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / newsevents / pressreleases / files / bcreg20211123a1. pdf. see, for example, philip daian, steven goldfeder, tyler kell, yunqi li, xueyuan zhao, iddo bentov, lorenz breidenbach, and ari juels ( 2019 ), “ flash boys 2. 0 : frontrunning, transaction reordering, and consensus instability in decentralized exchanges, ” unpublished paper, cornell university, arxiv, april, https : / / arxiv. org / pdf / 1904. 05234. pdf ; raphael auer, jon frost, and jose maria vidal pastor ( 2022 ), “ miners as intermediaries : extractable value and market manipulation in crypto and defi, ” bis bulletin 58 ( basel, switzerland : bank for international settlements, june ), https : / / www. bis. org / publ / bisbull58. pdf ; paul barnes ( 2018 ), “ crypto currency and its susceptibility to speculative bubbles manipulation, scams and fraud, ” journal of advanced studies in finance, vol. 9 ( winter ), pp. 60 – 77 ; and felix eigelshoven, andre ullrich, and douglas parry ( 2021 ), “ cryptocurrency market manipulation — a systematic literature review, ” in icis 2021 proceedings on “ building sustainability and resilience with is : a call for action ” ( austin, tex. : international conference on information systems, dec. 12 – 15 ). - 6activities that are required to be separated in traditional financial markets. for example, some platforms combine market infrastructure and client facilitation with risk - taking businesses like asset creation, proprietary trading, venture capital, and lending. third, all financial institutions, whether in traditional finance or crypto finance, must comply with the rules designed to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism and to support economic sanctions. platforms and exchanges should be designed in a manner that facilitates and supports compliance with these laws. the permissionless exchange