Author: Coinposters

Coinposters Crypto News

Categories
Business DeFi News News NFT

Nexo & Three Arrows Launch NFT Service

Pexels-pixabay-2650871
Nexo & Three Arrows Launch Nft Service

Three Arrows Capital and Nexo have partnered together and released a service. Nexo is a platform for exchanging and borrowing cryptocurrency. Three Arrows Capital is a hedge fund. The service that these two companies have launched is a lending desk for nonfungible tokens. The lending desk provides services for clients over the counter. It allows its clients to give cryptocurrency credit that is supported by nonfungible tokens. A number of service providers exist that offer services where clients can borrow cryptocurrency. Nexo is one of the first that offer this service. So far, it allows users the opportunity to borrow Ether, stablecoins, and a number of other cryptocurrencies. Users can even utilize some nonfungible tokens as collateral for their loans.

Collateral Options

At first, the firm stated that people could use CryptoPunk NFTs and Bored Ape Yacht club nonfungible tokens as collateral. They have also stated that they will accept more collections in the future. Users can utilize given lines of credit as a way of financing art. They have to first process more nonfungible token purchases with the monies that they borrow.

Statement from Nexo about NFT Lending

The Managing Partner and co-founder of Nexo, Antoni Trenchev gave some statements to Cointelegraph regarding this development. Trenchev stated that their partnering with the hedge fund was a clear move to offering financial services and native Web 3.0 MetaFi. The co-founder of Nexo added that they proceed to unearth the total capabilities of this asset class. He thereafter stated that providers like Nexo’s lending will tap into nonfungible tokens underlying value as users keep ownership of them. Trenchev stated that for that reason, their lending service will be in great demand.

The goal of Collaboration on NFT Lending

Nexo stated that their intention for partnering with Three Arrow Capital was to make expansion possible. The expansion is of the existing issuing of cryptocurrency credit. This was orchestrated by offering the nonfungible token lending desk with hedging of risks, means for liquidation, and valuation mechanisms. This development has also gone down in history by making Three Arrow Capital the very first lending desk client of nonfungible tokens with the acceptance of NFTs as collateral for Nexo cryptocurrency credit.

Comment by Three Capital on NFT Lending Service

Kyle Davies, the Director of Three Arrows Capital stated that their company was satisfied with their partnership with Nexo. Davies added that this partnership showed that they recognized the promise of nonfungible tokens as an instrument in the financial sector. He added that this instrument was one that was fully leveraged, of high quality, and appropriate for user needs.

The Future of the NFT Lending Service

There are plans for Nexo to grow its catalog of services in the next months ahead. They intend on making these services investment-grade with accessibility and security being paramount to the users of the nonfungible token market. The company made these statements.

The market continues to grow for finance solutions that accept nonfungible tokens as collateral. So do the number of companies stepping into the space to offer their services. These companies that offer services much like Nexo include ETNA Network, NFTfi, and Drops Loans.

About Nexo

Nexo is a firm that has the goal of addressing inefficiencies in the markets for lending. They intend on accomplishing this by designing convenient, innovative, and sustainable solutions whilst making use of blockchain technology. At present they are working on establishing a novel digital finance system.

Three Arrows Capital

Three Arrows Capital launched by its founders back in 2012. It is a registered hedge fund that directs its services towards offering risk-adjusted returns to its client base. The founders of Three Arrows Capital are Kyle Davies and Su Zhu.

Categories
DeFi News News Technology

US Lawmaker thinks DeFi is Dangerous

Pexels-pixabay-37072
Us Lawmaker Thinks Defi Is Dangerous

Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Senator criticized decentralized finance technology with concerns about the safety of investors that are affected by the demand for stablecoins.

Concerns about Stablecoins

The Senate Banking Committee of the United States of America met on Tuesday. During the proceedings, Warren asked Hilary Allen what would happen if there was a run on stablecoins. Allen, a professor from the American University of Washington College of Law stated that an “en masse” run would affect the decentralized finance system but would not have “systemic consequences” for conventional markets.

The Senator responded by stating that because stablecoins was the essence of the decentralized finance ecosystem outside of regulated markets, she felt their value would depreciate rapidly when the market would most need it. She added that the result would impact traditional finance markets.

According to Warren, decentralized finance is the most unsafe part of the Crypto world. She added that decentralized finance is also where there is hardly any regulation. Warren added that swindlers, scammers, and cheats, therefore, abound there among genuine part-time and full-time crypto investors and traders. The Senator added that when using decentralized finance, you can not even tell if the person is a terrorist.

Professional Response

Allen addressed the senator’s concern about decentralized finance. She stated that decentralized finance may have these problems in the future. She however did not address the concern the senator raised about the possibilities of dealing with a terrorist unknowingly via DeFi. Allen stated that she did not think that decentralized finance could continue to advance in the absence of stablecoins. She felt that furthering the technology in its absence would be a struggle. However, she added that she felt there indeed was a genuine threat when decentralized finance expands outside its current containment. Thereafter, it may be hard for the technology to not cause financial instability. Allen added, the threat may be especially once it becomes part of traditional finance.

The Stablecoins Discussion

The Senators and other stakeholders held these discussions at a hearing that they dubbed “Stablecoins: How do they work, how are they used, and what are their risks?”. This discussion came after a request by the committee chair for cryptocurrency businesses to release their information on user protection on stablecoins. Witnesses that were present at the hearing included Allen, Alexis Goldstein, Jai Massari, and Dante Disparte. Goldstein is the Director of Financial Policy at Open Markets. Massari is a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Previous Discourse

In the past, Warren has utilized such hearings and public statements to make claims about crypto that are mainly associated with activities of an illegal nature. Earlier this year at a hearing regarding CBDC, the senator stated that the world of crypto had no protection for consumers. She referred to many tokens as fake investments. Warren has also previously criticized the Ethereum network’s significant transactions fees when the price of Ether was high.

About Senator Warren

Senator Elizabeth Ann Warren is a United States senator and also a former law professor. She has been in the house of senate since 2013 and serves the state of Massachusetts. Recently, the Senator and one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk were in the middle of a heated argument on Twitter. The Senator supports increasing taxes for the wealthy by structuring taxes on the assets of the richest in America. Following Musk being declared Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”, the senator responded that Musk should be paying more taxes.

Musk responded with a number of personally directed comments at the senator. It appears the senator could be right. Musk is worth approximately US$ 251 billion, based on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires. However, a report from ProPublica states that Musk and a few other wealthy people did not pay anything by way of taxes in 2018.

Categories
News Regulation Technology

CBDC Pilot Project in Kazakhstan

Pexels-konevi-2475746
Cbdc Pilot Project In Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan has published the outcomes of a pilot program for hits digital teng. This nation is responsible for one of the biggest sources of power for Bitcoin mining hash. A report published on Wednesday states that the NBK (National Bank of Kazakhstan) stated that it was official that they may implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for retail purposes. The Central Bank Digital Currency would be on technology for a distributed ledger. So far, the National Bank of Kazakhstan piloted the offering to its citizens. It assessed how its citizens may choose to use the digital tenge. They looked at its application for offline payments and also how programmable the solution is.

About the Testing

In a number of scenarios of a hypothetical nature, the National Bank of Kazakhstan tested how the central bank digital currency could be utilized by second-tier banks and also external users. The pilot also attempted to investigate how the currency can work for cases of cross-border transactions within the framework of Kazakhstan’s regulations.

Report Outcomes

Some of the outcomes of the findings of the investigation state that NBK should consider increasing the scope of the participants to include market participants and infrastructure-level participants. These participants would help play out different scenarios. They would also assist in clarifying language to be utilized by the NBK and other regulators. The NBK also suggested the launch of a Digital Tenge Hub. The Digital Tenge hub would facilitate collaboration between market participants and the development team for the central bank digital currency.

Further comments from the report

The report stated that the National Bank of Kazakhstan would work at guaranteeing the development of a complete model. The model would help in deciding on introducing the digital tenge and the performance of a presentation of interim results of the study. They would also aim to have discourse with stakeholders next year in July. Thereafter, Kazakhstan would make a decision on the necessity of having a digital tenge introduction next year, in December. This would take into account the complete results based on the comprehensive study and a completed model.

Back in May, the country stated that a central bank digital currency would not become the replacement for cashless payments or cash. This is when the country initiated discussions on the possibility of the introduction of a digital tenge. However, since then, many cryptocurrency miners that left China after its ban have made Kazakhstan their new business premise. These new developments have also contributed to news of Kazakhstan experiencing power problems from this and the positive contribution of additional revenues.

About Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is considered part of Euro-Asia. The nation of Kazakhstan is comprised of a very diverse population. Its residents include Kazakh, Russian, Usbek, Ukrainian, Tatar, Uighur, and German. It happens to be a member of the Euroasian Economic Union. This alliance includes Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The urban areas of Kazakhstan actually have more foreigners than nationals. These foreigners in the urban areas tend to mainly be Slavs. Kazakhstan is the home of numerous natural resources. They manufacture rolled steel, cement, chemical fertilizer, consumer goods, and cast iron among other things in Kazakhstan.

Even though manufacturing is a big part of their industry sector, only 10% of its citizens are employed in it. Many foreigners from neighboring countries work in this industry in Kazakhstan. It manages to export manufactured goods, chemical products, agricultural products, and raw materials. Some of the exports that the country delivers are natural gas, various metals, and oil. The nation has good trade relations with Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and China. Kazakhstan also imports various goods from China, Russia, and other nations. These goods include metal, chemical products, machinery, and food.

Categories
Blockchain News Technology

GraphQL Developer Wins Graph Award

Pexels-nataliya-vaitkevich-6532587
Graphql Developer Wins Graph Award

The Guild has received the honor of being awarded a US$ 48 million grant from Graph Foundation. The grant is a funding grant to facilitate The Guild’s advancement in usability and the platform’s performance. In particular, The Guild platform’s performance of the network subgraphs.

The Guild joined as a core network developer. The service will offer wide expertise. This expertise is from its time management and contribution towards the growth elements in GraphQL’s ecosystem. GraphQL is a programming language. This language was created by Meta back in 2012. The Guild will take its attention on increasing subgraphs features like that of analytics, mutations, and composition.

The Graph began in July 2018. Thereafter, it was officially launched in the mainnet in December last year. The Graph happens to have a Web 3.0 query and index infrastructure. This infrastructure aids in developers engineering application programming interfaces. In addition, the infrastructure also helps to deploy Web3 services as subgraphs, internally.

Users of Subgraphs

Some big names in decentralized finance protocols utilize subgraph indexing. These include Panoply, Ethereum, Uniswap, Arbitrium, and Avalanche. So far, Graph has awarded many projects over the duration of the year. They have awarded US$ 248 million to the core developer network in that period. Semiotic AI was the most recent awardee of Graph’s award process. Semiotic went away with a US$ 60 million grant. The service will use it for accelerating research and development initiatives in artificial intelligence and cryptography.

Eva Beylin, the Director of The Graph Foundation revealed some insights into The Guild’s potential over the network. Beylin shared that the service could have an impact on many Web 3.0 sectors. These sectors would include the metaverse, decentralized finance, and decentralized autonomous communities. Furthermore, Beylin said that the Guild will work with developers in The Graph ecosystem during the 4 year funding period. In that time they will develop new subgraph features and make improvements to The Graph Node’s capabilities for queries. This, Beylin stated, will help developers efficiently make feature-rich applications utilizing The Graph.

About The Guild

According to The Graph, The Guild is a leading open-source developer group. The Guild has experience in developing GraphQL tooling. This tooling has been utilized by Fortune 500 companies and various open-source communities. The Guild designs and maintains some of the most widely adopted GraphQL resources. Further more, they are also an official core member of the GraphQL Foundation.

About the Graph Foundation

The founders of the Graph Foundation registered the body as a not-for-profit organization. It does not offer commercial licensing for graph technology that it maintains or manages. The community made this structural choice with the intention to ensure it works only with organizations that it aligns with. Subsequently, this ensures that they do not end up misaligned just because of the need to pursue revenue over other important objectives. The Graph is community-driven. The members of the organization guide and govern The Graph Foundation. This allows it to offer anyone fully cost-free and open source graph software.

At present, the community is diversified, very connected, and international. The foundation aims at offering opportunities for coordination, collaboration, and unification for its software. They aim to build these efforts around essential projects like that of OngDB. Therefore, in the case of OngDB, when users download and install it, they have the opportunity to work with software that offers a database engine that is high performance, native and open source. Benefits of utilizing OngDB include having access to an intuitive query language and an enterprise-ready engine.

One of the other main benefits is that you will not ever have to worry about paying any compulsory license fees to utilize the software. For developers that value transparency and visibility when it comes to governance of OS code that they utilize, The Graph is a great solution for that.

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Some Crypto ads Banned in the UK

Pexels-pixabay-460672
Some Crypto Ads Banned In The Uk

The United Kingdom’s Adverting Standards Authority or ASA, has banned more advertisements of crypto. The Advertising Standards Authority is the nation’s advertising regulator. ASA has removed from circulation some advertisement campaigns belonging to a number of top players in the cryptocurrency space.

Developments in Advertising in the UK

ASA issued out a series of violations of its advertisement regulations. It issued these violations on the 15th December 2021. Quite a number of cryptocurrency-related companies were liable. The firms responsible for these violations included eToro, Coinbase, Coinburp, Luno, and Kraken crypto exchanges. Coincidentally, the ASA also revealed violations of a similar nature of Papa John’s pizza services.

Reasons cited

ASA stated that these companies acted irresponsibly. This resulted in the regulator removing their ads. The irresponsibility, they added, was based on how these companies were “taking advantage” of consumers’ inexperience. The rulings by ASA also stated that these companies did not take efforts to show the risk of the investments that consumers could make.

Examples of the Violations

The Ruling Against Coinbase

The regulatory body stated that Coinbase’s Europe offices placed an advert that was misleading to consumers. Coinbase placed this advert back in July of this year. The company’s advert carried text that said that 5 pounds of Bitcoin crypto in 2010 would end up being valued at over 100,000 pounds in January of this same year. The regulator stated that the advert by Coinbase made it seem as though people purchasing Bitcoin at that time would definitely be able to increase the value of their investment over the next decade with the same value. ASA added that Coinbase failed to make clear that how Bitcoin performed did not guarantee that the cryptocurrency would perform like that on an ongoing basis.

The Ruling against Kraken

Kraken also got in trouble with the regulator for an advert that it run in August 2021. The service provider placed this ad as a digital poster at the London Bridge Station. According to ASA, the digital advert did not include an adequate warning as a disclaimer regarding the risks involved. They also stated that the time of the advertisement’s disclaimer was too short at only a 1-second length when the ad run for a full 20 seconds duration.

Ruling Against Luno Exchange

This cryptocurrency exchange placed its advertisement in May. The crypto exchange run the advertisement all over the London Underground network and on London buses in 2021. The advertisement was on posters that displayed an illustration of Bitcoin saying that it was time for onlookers to buy Bitcoin if they were seeing “Bitcoin” in the underground.

ASA Cracking down on the UK Crypto Industry

The authority has been working on closing monitoring and addressing any violations by advertisers in the crypto space. They have not only hunted down but shut down these ads as well. Other than those companies stated above, Coinfloor exchange is another one that had its advertisements banned.

About Coinbase

Coinbase is a company that runs a safe online service for purchasing, selling storing, and transferring various types of digital currency. They state that their mission is to design a financial system for the globe that is open. They hope to lead the world in assisting people to change their digital currency into and out of their domestic currency.

About Kraken

Kraken happens to be one of the world’s longest-running and biggest exchanges of Bitcoin on the globe. The company was established in 2011. It is a United States-based cryptocurrency exchange. It is often ranked as one of the preferred marketplaces to purchase and sell cryptocurrency. The exchange does a number of things including providing market price information to Bloomberg. It also allows users to trade fiat currency and cryptocurrencies.

Categories
Business Ethereum

Contract on Ethereum Holds US$ 33.5 Billion

Pexels-jievani-8185627
Contract On Ethereum Holds Us$ 33.5 Billion

A contract on Ethereum is holding 33.5 billion dollars worth of Ether. This translates into 8,641,954 Ether. The enormous sum of money is being left untouched because the funds can not be sent or even utilized. These funds are for a Beacon chain contract. It is also believed that this is a case of the world’s biggest contract on Ethereum that has billions held unused inside it.

About the Beacon Contracts

This 33.5 billion dollar contract is an Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain staking contract. This contract was initiated back in November last year. The funds, unfortunately, can not be utilized without a hard fork. What is even more intriguing is that the terms and conditions of the hard fork are not yet agreed upon. All the people that submitted their Ether into the contract were told of this and accepted it. The likelihood is that the terms and conditions of the hard fork will be agreed upon when Beacon Chain integrates with the Ethereum mainnet.

Ethereum is attempting to move out of a proof-of-work mining consensus. Instead, it wants to go to a proof-of-stake one. The Beacon Chain is the initial element at carrying this out. Traders must stake no less than 32 Ether to become a validator. Therefore, the fact that many users submitted their funds towards this end, shows that there is a lot of trust from users in the viability of Eth2.

Call to Test

Over two weeks ago, developers of Ethereum requested the Ethereum community to test out the Eth2 merger. The testing phase itself involves 3 stages. One phase is for users that are not technical in nature. Another stage is for developers with some but limited experience. The third phase is for developers that are extremely experienced and technically proficient.

What this merger may mean

Beacon Chain’s merger with the Ethereum mainnet would be the final aspect of the move to PoS Eth2. According to the official website for Ethereum, there is an indication that the merger may be finished by the first or second quarter of next year.

About Beacon Chain

Beacon Chain’s official web page on Ethereum.org states that Beacon Chain will not change how Ethereum is used. It however will allow for the coordination of the Ethereum network. Beacon Chain will present to the Ethereum ecosystem proof-of-stake capabilities. According to the site, this can be considered the “Phase 0” of the project’s technical roadmap.

The Ethereum website adds that Beacon Chain will allow for the coordination and conduction of the expanded network. Beacon Chain will accomplish this using stakers and shards. However, they do add that this will not be like Ethereum Mainnet. Its limitations include smart contracts and accounts which it can not handle. Ethereum’s website states that the role of the Beacon Chain will evolve over time. However, it is highlighted that regardless of this evolution, the blockchain would remain sustainable, secure, and scalable.

Establishing Shard Chains

The next upgrade after Mainnet becomes integrated with Beacon Chain is will herald the usage of shard chains. These shard chains will help grow the capabilities of the blockchain network. The shards will also help increase the speed of transactions by furthering the network to 64 blockchains. It is necessary for Beacon Chain to be first introduced because it is the only way shard chains can work securely for staking.

At a later point, Beacon Chain will handle stakers through random assignments for validation of shard chains. This is also another important step that the initiative will take. The reason is that without it stakers have the capacity to collude. However, with it, the technology makes it very difficult for that to be at all possible. According to the Ethereum blockchain, once the technology is running it will make it less than a 1 in a trillion chance for successful collusion.

Categories
Blockchain Business Ethereum News NFT

NFT Collection and Rarible integration with Tezos

Pexels-ivan-samkov-4238493
Nft Collection And Rarible Integration With Tezos

Rarible, a reputable marketplace for nonfungible tokens recently declared their integration of Tezos. This announcement from Rarible came on Wednesday. Texos is a blockchain exchange that conducts proof-of-stake.

Benefits of this Partnership

This partnership will allow the marketplace to showcase nonfungible tokens from Tezos on its marketplace. In addition, it will also facilitate the secondary sales of Tezos projects that are live. This will all be possible as the platform allows users to mint low-fee nonfungible tokens. This partnership that involves integration is the third of its kind on Rarible. Others that are supported on the service are Ethereum and Flow. Flow is a blockchain network that is owned by Dapper Labs. This network is where the National Basketball Association runs Top Shot.

What’s Next?

As the service continues to make new partnerships and facilitate integration with its various partners, it has plans to integrate with a number of other entities. These partners include Polygon and Solana. This is based on a response to a media outlet by Rarible’s Chief Executive Officer, Alexei Falin. Falin stated that their company believes that nonfungible tokens of the future will be cross-chain and interoperable.

The CEO added that this interoperability would be the integral aspect of creating a streamlined and efficient nonfungible token ecosystem. Falin stated that they had witnessed a number of blockchains gain users in the nonfungible token space because of their unique offerings. One of these, Falin stated, was Tezos. Ultimately, Falin highlighted Tezos because of its energy efficiency in minting using proof-of-stake validation. He also highlighted Tezos for its low costs.

How Rarible will do Implement Integration

According to Rarible, the two companies would do the process of integrating in two stages. At present, users can mint already. In addition, users can also sell and buy Tezos nonfungible tokens. Thirdly, users of Rarible can also trade these nonfungible tokens on the secondary market. The first offering is that from Ubisoft which is in-game metaverse collectibles. Ubisoft is a long-time-running gaming enterprise. The company named these collectibles “Digits”.

Blazing Future

The partnership released a collection titled “Blazing Future”. This collection is by Rarible and Texos and happens to be their very first offering together in the nonfungible token space. These NFTs were co-curated by Diane Drubay, the “We Are Museums” founder. Drubay curated it with a minter of nonfungible tokens that is on Hic ET Nunc. This collection showcases rare work from Tezos-based artists. The Blazing Future collection is also exclusive to the platform.

Comments from Rarible CEO

The CEO stated that his aspiration was for their company’s users to enjoy benefits from a superior experience on their platform. As a result, he hoped the access users would have to more nonfungible token projects that were initially only accessible within the Tezos network would help achieve this.

The infrastructure that has made this integration feasible is that of the Rarible Protocol. This protocol is cross-chain and open source in nature. Rarible Protocol is also an NFT community-governed protocol. Rarible.com also runs on the Rarible protocol.

About Rarible

Rarible is a service provider running on the Ethereum blockchain. This company allows for the designing, selling, and buying of ownership to digital art. This is all done through NFTs. Users of Rarible can generate income from purchasing and trading nonfungible tokens on the platform. The services allows users to buy tokens on the marketplace that they think are undervalued. These users then stay patient before selling them again after they think that the market would offer a better price for them.

The platform has facilitated integration with OpenSea. OpenSea facilitates the selling of items to a wider market. At present, Rarible takes a fee of 2.5% for every nonfungible token sale and purchase. Rarible allows the person selling to opt to take on the fee. If they do, Rarible charges the user 5% of the price of the completed sale.

Categories
Blockchain Business DeFi News

Crypto Developments in the USA

Pexels-jess-loiterton-4609260
Crypto Developments In The Usa

Early in December leaders in crypto service provision met with the United States lawmakers on the 8th December. These leaders met with legislators in the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. The meeting that took place between these two groups was regarding digital assets and regulations and policies of the US surrounding them. Some critics believe the general feel of the meeting was more talk than action. However, the overall consensus is that the meeting was a positive development for cryptocurrency matters.

Mainstream media also helped thrust this story into the limelight. It is worth noting that this meeting is unique for the industry and a first of its kind. Never before have these leaders in cryptocurrency businesses ever met the leaders of the US and talked candidly about their concerns: both fears and hopes.

Which Crypto Moguls were invited

The list of crypto enterprise leaders that were present at this meeting included the Chief Finance Officer of Coinbase, the Chief executive officer of Bitfury, the chief executive officer of FTX, the Chief executive officer of Circle, and the Chief Executive officer of Paxos.

Which Legislators Engaged

The talks saw a number of lawmakers take a keen interest in engaging with the industry leaders. These lawmakers included Pete Sessions, Gregory Meeks, Patrick McHenry, Brad Sherman, and Maxine Waters.

Main Points

A point brought on by Circle’s executive, Allaire brought an example of his company’s experiences with professional investors who are utilizing their business offerings for various payments for SMEs, remittances, and even payments for remote professionals. He added that the United States currency would soon enough become as accessible to anyone as text messages and electronic mail.

On the other hand, Brooks highlighted concerns involving Meta (formerly known as Facebook). Brooks has shown a light on the decentralization propensity of cryptocurrency as well. The CEO took the opportunity to focus on the importance of the humanitarian impact of digital assets and their potential to impact the world when it comes to development. One top executive presented crypto as a very impactful tool for access to democracy.

The stakeholders from private enterprises presented a clear perspective. They attempted to make it clear that the government needed to stop being suspicious of the industry and instead change the rules of the game to make it a better working environment for these types of enterprises.

Current Supervision of Crypto in the US

Crypto is being supervised by a number of agencies at present. The regulations that are set on an individual basis in each State of the US are all over the place. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission is tightly holding the reigns with the classification of digital assets as a type of security.

Political Disagreement in the House

The differences in ideologies regarding cryptocurrency and its regulation have caused a split among lawmakers. Members of the Democratic party are honing in on how investors can be protected and their investments secured from instability.

However, based on the pattern of the nation’s system for electoral votes, insight can be taken. Republican legislators are estimating the likelihood of them winning overall in Congress over the elections that would happen mid-term.

In Conclusion

The meeting in general had a very positive feel. This is actually opposite to what the world has seen. The opposite usually happens when it comes to the United States instituting certain regulations that affect cryptocurrency. Some of these actions that look opposed include when the SEC disallowed WisdomTree’s application for a fund that would have been exchange-trading.

Many hope that this hearing is only the beginning of continued dialog. That is, dialog between the government and the leaders of this industry. McHenry said that congress should take on this initiative wholeheartedly.

Categories
Blockchain Regulation Technology

Cyprus Official Promotes Crypto

Pexels-pixabay-373409
Cyprus Official Promotes Crypto

Like many other nations, Cyprus is making moves in the cryptocurrency space. The country is going towards regulating the cryptocurrency industry. To this effect, the nation’s ministry published the country’s risk assessment regarding cryptocurrency.

The Documentation

The Finance Ministry’s document offers an assessment of the risk for the country. This risk is pertaining to the money laundering problems related to digital asset transactions and service providers of virtual assets.

Comments from the Finance Minister

The top leader noted that currently, the authorities in Cyprus did not have a wide enough understanding or even experience of money laundering when it comes to cryptocurrency in their country.

The statement that was released adds that the CySEC (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) and the local arm of law enforcement have allowed a refined level of understanding for the sector. The Finance Ministry added that the governing authorities should continue to look at the market and acquire deeper training on crypto-related matters. The ministry added that this would be for the purpose of enhancing their skills set.

The government ministry also advised private enterprises in the financial technology sector to create and utilize policies and procedures that would ensure their compliance. The compliance is that of electronic transfers procedures for digital currencies. At present, the government intends to commence maintaining and sharing data that is for virtual asset service providers and virtual currencies. The ministry added that though activities were still low, this level of activity would help establish a baseline for future purposes. This is with the idea that these activities would probably increase. They hope that their monitoring now will help them detect problems of risks or alarming changes to risk levels later.

International Corporation would be critical

The Ministry pointed out that the nation of Cyprus would benefit from working together with others that were more experienced in the cryptocurrency industry. The idea is that the authority could therefore acquire more knowledge from those relationships. Additionally, the authority would be in a position to then be able to determine the best practices required.

The Surprising Change

Cyprus, as a nation, was very uncertain about cryptocurrency. Now we see that the nation has changed towards supporting the adoption of cryptocurrency-supporting regulations. Back in September of this year, CySEC was said to have revealed new information regarding cryptocurrency regulations and policies. They were said to be intending on furthering crypto by including it with the EU’s AML (Anti-money laundering) regulations as their country’s law.

The Crypto space in Cyprus is linked with a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity. The apprehension is evident as a number of banks blocked transactions for Bitcoin during 2021. This information is based on social media reports.

About Cyprus

The nation of Cyprus is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, on the Eastern side. Historically, Cyprus was acclaimed for its generous deposits of natural resources. The country also has the capacity to create exquisite wine and produce, as well as the natural beauty of the nation.

Back in the 60s and 70s, Cyprus ran an economy that was essentially a free-enterprise one. The economy was largely focused on agribusiness and trade. With its efforts, it managed to sustain a living standard that was notably better than some of its neighbors. Of course, their progress can also be attributed to the help that they received through the UN (United Nations), in particular, that of the United Nations Development Program. This island nation is one of the globe’s largest producers of energy generated by the sun. However, Cyprus happens to be completely dependent on imports for petroleum. The petroleum is required for vehicles and the generation of power.

Categories
Blockchain Business Ethereum

Application to Aid in Minting NFTs

Pexels-david-mcbee-7305521
Application To Aid In Minting Nfts

The marketplace for nonfungible tokens called Mintable recently made an announcement about their alliance with Immutable X. Immutable X is an enterprise on a StarkWare-based layer-two solution. This solution runs on Ethereum and focuses on offering minting services. The goal for this partnership between Mintable and Immutable X is to create over 24 million nonfungible tokens on Immutable X available for sale on the marketplace. The interoperability will allow those that use it to send ETH and ERC-20 tokens with confirmations that they will receive immediately. Users will also enjoy the added benefit of no gas fees for the same.

The marketplace for nonfungible tokens, Mintable stated on their official Twitter account that they and Immutable X were sharing a vision. This vision they share is to scale nonfungible tokens marketplaces. They aim to achieve that by giving the general public access to nonfungible tokens.

The Announcement

Mintable stated in their announcement that they were thrilled to enter a partnership with Immutable X, a leader in the layer 2 infrastructure for nonfungible tokens on Ethereum. They added that all their tokens were now available for trading purposes on their platform. The three benefits they outlined in their tweet were zero gas fees, instant secure trades, and 100% carbon neutral.

Limitations

Though Mintable announced that there would be zero gas fees, this is not for all tokens. Files that are above 300 megabytes will attract gas fees. Files that are below 300 megabytes will not.

Immutable X states that the project guarantees that the nonfungible token activities on Immutable X’s protocols are entirely carbon neutral. However, it is worth clarifying that carbon neutral and carbon-free are two different matters. Rather, their statement of being carbon neutral means that they will purchase carbon credits to offset the gas that they end up using upon Ethereum.

Immutable X’s Take

The President and co-founder of Immutable X, Robbie Ferguson gave comments regarding the development. Ferguson stated that they wanted to be where lovers of nonfungible tokens were to be found. The executive added that Mintable’s efforts to pioneer in the space by providing audiences with smart contracts was “mind-blowing”. Ferguson added that they were very happy to welcome new users and the opportunity to work with the Mintable app to further the marketplace for nonfungible tokens.

More from Mintables

The nonfungible tokens marketplace also runs a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). It happens to have also pioneered as the very first decentralized autonomous organization to operate on nonfungible tokens. They run on nonfungible tokens as opposed to ERC-20 tokens. Mint-voting NFTs is what the Mintable Nonfungible tokens DAO depends on. At present, holders of mint can trade their voting nonfungible tokens on the Mintable open marketplace.

About Minting

Minting is when a nonfungible token is incorporated as part of the Ethereum blockchain. This process of minting involves validation or authentication of the information. It also requires the creation of a new block on the Ethereum blockchain. Finally, this information for the nonfungible token needs to be recorded onto the blockchain. So, essentially the process converts a digital file into a nonfungible token on the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain is a ledger in the public that can not be changed or tampered with.

The process of minting is very much like that of when metal coins are minted and then incorporated into the circulation of legal tender in a territory. Likewise, nonfungible tokens are basically tokens that become minted upon creation. These files that are converted into tokens, can be almost anything digital. This includes music, a fashion design by a designer, drawings from an artist, and even your very own brain scan. This token is incomparable and non-interchangeable.

Categories
Bitcoin Business Regulation

Bank in Ukraine Using Stellar to Launch Project

Pexels-alexandr-podvalny-2787267
Bank In Ukraine Using Stellar To Launch Project

A bank called Tascombank is commencing a pilot project. Tascombank is one of Ukraine’s longest-running banks in the commercial sector. The project that they will be piloting is on Stellar. The project is for the country’s national fiat currency called the Hryvnia.

About the Launch

On Tuesday, the project’s owners commenced the start of the project. It will be a private electronic hryvnia pilot. The commercial bank is doing this project in conjunction with one private sector company called Bitt. Bitt is an enterprise in the fintech space. The National Bank of Ukraine is overseeing the project’s pilot phase. The project is also added by the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT).

The Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov stated that the initial phase of the project would offer a technological foothold for the issuance of digital currency. He also said it would give the next steps to further innovation of payment and financial infrastructure in the country.

The chief executive officer of SDF, Denelle Dixon informed the media that the initial phase of the project had already begun. Dixon stated that this initial phase included programmable payroll for employees of the state at Diia. Diia is a national information technology solution provider. The Ministry of the Digital Transformation also sustains this organization.

About Regulation

When commenting on regulation, Dixon stated that holders would utilize the regulated electronic money ncy or e-money on blockchain technology. These advancements, according to Dixon, are under the country’s presently applied e-money rules and regulations.

The goal of the Project

The intention of this project is to assess the issuance of electronic currency on the open blockchain ecosystem. The project tasks the commercial bank, Tascombank, for establishing and assessing the electronic hryvnia on Stellar. The intention is to thereafter release it on Bitts transaction network. Bitts transaction network is known as the DCMS (Digital Currency Management System).

Distribution of Responsibilities

According to the chief executive officer of Bitt, the Digital Currency Management System will include a number of capabilities. These capabilities include the ability for the platform to mint, issue, store, redeem and distribute the electronic hryvnia. Dixon stated that SDF would orchestrate the commercial bank’s configuration for their asset control requirements. At the same time, it will maintain the interoperability and flexibility of an open ledger.

The Ukraine Governments Previous Efforts

The government of Ukraine has attempted to explore Stellar for implementation of Stellar for e-money. Back in January of this year, the Ministry of Digital Transformation teamed up with the SDF. Their collaboration was for the purpose of creating digital assets and infrastructure-related strategy or the bank’s digital currency. Dixon added that they would not stop giving input and direction to the Ministry of Digital Transformation on their strategic efforts. However, Dixon did include that the hryvnia is an independent workstream.

About Ukraine

Ukraine is a European country that is located on the eastern side of Europe. It happens to be the largest after Russia. The capital city is Kyiv, which is located in the north-central part of Ukraine. Ukraine suffered after it attained independence. This suffering caused its leaders to attempt a slow plan for economic recovery. The country’s national bank, the National bank of Ukraine also acts as the nation’s central bank. The bank attempts to keep the country’s currency stable. The government brought the national currency back in 1996. Over the years, several banks have offered financial products to private individuals and to institutions. Investors can purchase these securities from the nation’s stock exchange.

Categories
Business News Technology

Engineering, Finance & Legal Experts On-Demand in Crypto

Pexels-lukas-684385
Engineering, Finance & Legal Experts On-demand In Crypto

When it comes to cryptocurrency and related industries, business is booming. Crypto has flourished over the last years, even as the world grapples with managing the Covid pandemic. As crypto booms, the experts that lead cryptocurrency businesses are in high demand. Firms in the crypto space are in desperate need of leaders as they grow their enterprises.

The industry is now growing at a break-neck speed. In the past, the industry was considered nascent as a market, by many. Now the market draws a lot of talent to it. One expert on the matter, David Richardson, spoke to Cointelegraph about these developments. Richardson is a partner at Heidrick & Struggles. Heidrick & Struggles is a firm that carries out searches for executives. Richardson stated that the demand for executives is put into motion by the growth rate of these enterprises. He added that the growth rate is also sustained because of the need to hire top executives that can assist them in continuing to grow and keep the momentum with the growth rate in the business.

What are Firms looking for?

Cryptocurrency businesses are on the search for expert leaders who have proven capabilities in scaling businesses to a point of success. According to Adrianna Huehnergarth, the engagement manager from Heidrick & Struggles stated that these companies are willing to hire these experts even if they do not have any previous knowledge of cryptocurrency or digital currency. Huehnergarth said that they are witnessing a lot of demand for heads of engineering. She highlighted those that have a track record of delivering in terms of scalability.

Most in Demand Fields

Professionals stated that the highest in-demand skills are for the C-Suite. These are leaders in engineering, finance, legal, corporate development, and go-to-market. Other than this expertise, firms are looking for low-ego executives who have shown their abilities in several aspects. These aspects bring passion, excitement for growth, the mission of the space. In addition, firms are looking for executives that are adaptable. Adaptability is a key area worth dwelling on since the industry is so fast-moving. All firms attempting to stay profitable and ahead of their competitors need to remain adaptable, not only to thrive but to survive as well.

The Importance of Legal Expertise

As the world slowly begins to embrace cryptocurrency more and more in the mainstream, the need for regulators to put in place regulations that work well also translates into a need for firms operating in this space. Firms need to stay on top of these regulations. Huehnergarth stated that a lot of firms that they worked with had more of a regional focus as opposed to a centralized type of setup, typical of a more traditional type of business.

The Remote aspect

The opportunity to work remotely in crypto has been a very attractive element of incentivizing experts. This was according to Huehnergarth. She added that many firms had removed the requirement of having a headquarters. In addition, these companies in the crypto space are capable of keeping employees happy with their capacity for giving out incentives and cash compensation. This translates into these happy employees staying to work at these organizations. Heuhnergarth added that these companies were making offers of employment to senior talent and giving them lucrative offers that are extremely difficult to not take.

According to Richardson, some companies focus more on one aspect between technology and finance. He added that the culture that the founders made for each company determined which field that company focused more on. Richardson said that as a business matures, a lower level of technical competence can be enough. However, when the technical barrier to entry into the industry is not so high, it allows many more talented people to join cryptocurrency and become part of experts in the industry.

Categories
Blockchain Business Regulation Technology

USDT Stablecoin Becomes Legal Tender in Myanmar

Pexels-boris-ulzibat-2643896
Usdt Stablecoin Becomes Legal Tender In Myanmar

Myanmar has made some breakthroughs in cryptocurrency adoption. Myanmar’s government has made the USDT (United States Dollar-based stablecoin Tether) an official currency. This is a development by the (NUG), National Unity Government of Myanmar. The NUG is led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The National Unity Government will allow payments by USDT for its political fundraising. They are attempting to oust the present military leadership in Myanmar. In addition, the shadow government managed to collect US$ 9.5 million. These funds were raised through the “Spring Revolution Special Treasury Bonds” sales. This sale was made available to all Myanmar’s in the diaspora. At present, they intend to fundraise up to US$ 1 billion. The National Unity Government intends to collect up to US$ 1 billion by selling the National Unity Government-issued bonds.

Myanmar’s Recent Announcement

On Monday the National United Government’s Ministry of Planning, Finance, and Investment announced their new development on Facebook.

The National Unity Government’s announcement to accept USDT actually goes against the cryptocurrency ban put in place by the Central Bank of this nation back in May 2020.

Privacy Concerns

Many people have privacy concerns in regards to USDT. At present, some people are also concerned about the seizing of finances by the present government. The Finance Minister for the National United Government stated that the main reason for Tether’s incorporation is for utilization within Myanmar. The currency would create ease in trading, services, and payment systems. The currency would also speed things up.

Politics in Myanmar

The National United Government was acknowledged as Myanmar’s official government by the French Senate and the European parliament in October of this year. However, one economic powerhouse – the United States – has not recognized Myanmar’s new government. The National United Government’s reason for accepting and using Tether stablecoin could prompt discourse among countries. This would be a very interesting development as countries such as the United States begin to implement very stern policies for stablecoin issuance.

About Myanmar

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma is a nation in Southeast Asia. It has a very diverse populace, consisting of 100 ethnic groups. Its neighbors include Thailand, Laos, China, India, and Bangladesh. The country boasts rich reserves of natural gas, oil, gems, and jade. The nation also has ample renewable energy. Studies show that it has the biggest solar energy potential in comparison to some of the other countries in the region. These countries in particular being the Great Mekong Sub-region. Myanmar happens to be the biggest country in mainland Southeast Asia.

Ethnic issues have overwhelmed Myanmar for the majority of its years of independence. The country held general elections last year where Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as the winner by a clear majority. Following this win, the Myanmar military took power through a coup d’etat. The coup resulted in numerous protests around the country. In addition, the military apprehended Aung San Suu Kyi. Kyi was handed charges of crimes that may consider “politically motivated”. Some of these crimes include violation of covid protocols and corruption.

Memberships that Myanmar is in

The nation of Myanmar is a member of a number of international alliances. These alliances include Non-Alignment Movement, ASEAN, BIMSTEC, and East Asia Summit.

Income

As of the year 2013, Myanmar’s gross domestic product stood at US$ 56.7 million (nominal). Whereas, the country’s purchasing power parity was at US$ 221.5 million in the same year. The wealth of Myanmar’s people is distributed very unevenly in Myanmar. This makes for a huge income gap. This gap puts it as one of the worst gaps in the world. At present, the majority of the economy is under the control of the military government’s supporters.

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Assembly raises US$ 100 Mill in Investment

Pexels-andrea-piacquadio-3760067
Assembly Raises Us$ 100 Mill In Investment

The organization, Assembly, managed to raise investment of the value of US$ 100 Million. The organization announced this development on Friday. Assembly happens to be a network. The network has a decentralized layer one smart contract infrastructure. The funds raised came from private investors. Some of these private investors were HyperChain Capital, LD Capital, and Huobi Ventures.

According to Assembly, they will utilize the finances to quicken the development of DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols. Other uses of the funds are to invest in nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and also play-to-earn gaming products. ,

Comments from Iota

The Internet of Things (IoT) organization IOTA is a blockchain. The organization engineered this blockchain for allowing internet-of-things transactions. This innovation is proprietary and includes a system of graphs that can integrate into various vectors. The graphs are acyclic. Due to this, the block can do validation of two other blocks on the first block is new. This leads to transactions being self-sustainable in terms of verification. It also purportedly leads to the end of transaction fees. Another reported advantage of this infrastructure is that it uses minimal energy to work.

Pending Launch

Assembly mainnet will commence next year. The Assembly mainnet will really focus on the community. At present, the network keeps 70% of the network’s native ASMB tokens for incentivizing developers. The organization also keeps the tokens for community-governed DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and grant programs.

Comments from IOTA co-founder

The co-founder of the IOTA Foundation, Dominik Schiener informed Cointelegraph that he thinks there are currently too many Ethereum virtual Machines. He added that eventually all of these machines would encounter issues with fees, interoperability, and scalability. He added that since most of them lacked a unique element, they would ultimately fail.

The IOTA Foundation founder stated that developers can customize each smart contract chain for their specific project’s needs. This was in response to what the uniqueness of the Assembly blockchain was. He added that the Assembly is fully compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machines. Schiener also confirmed that it can already support WebAssembly, TypeScript, Go, and Rust.

Comments from Investor

HyperChain Capital’s founder, Stelian Balta stated that the crypto market has always needed a feeless network that is highly scalable. He added that Assembly has led the way into new frontiers regarding crypto ecosystem advancements for as far back as 2015. He added that he was confident that Assembly’s experience is worth their confidence.

More about Assembly

Assembly is essentially a multi-chain network that is permissionless. The network allows one to build, connect and install smart contracts. Anyone can create sharded smart contract chains on the protocol. There is a level of flexibility that one can enjoy. Designers of contracts can choose what is important in terms of parameters, validation requirements, and virtual machines. What is worth noting is that each smart contract chain is engineered on Assembly is a completely sharded network. The network is limited only by throughput. The network benefits from the shared trustless interoperability and shared security of the international network.

According to Assembly’s Wiki, the protocol is still in development. Specifications that are available in its wiki are pure to illustrate a research prototype and may change. Users are encouraged to check the documentation for the most up-to-date versions of the documentation for build purposes.

Why Assembly uses Smart Contracts

Sometimes mediators are required to handle deals. Traditionally, outside of tech, people and organizations in various fields would engage them to make sure deals happen smoothly. These would be in all types of sectors including art, finance, and even trade. Smart contracts are the new age of this. They allow a number of validators that are independent to process the contract. This allows that no concerned party can manipulate the result. The arbitration in smart contracts, however, is fully automated.

Categories
Business Regulation Technology

South Africa’s Authorities plan on Protecting Investors in Crypto

Pexels-taryn-elliott-3889935
South Africa’s Authorities Plan On Protecting Investors In Crypto

In a bid to protect vulnerable investors of crypto in South Africa, the authorities have decided to make more efforts to ensure investors are exposed to less risk. The commissioner of South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority – Unathi Kamlana stated that the authorities would institute a framework for crypto that would focus on mitigating any possibilities of risks.

A report released on Bloomberg on Friday stated that the Commissioner, Unathi Kamlana stated that their institution intended on presenting a regulatory framework next year. The intention of them doing that is to help protect investors from high-risk crypto assets that they may be exposed to. Kamlana added that any framework for crypto matters would be designed in collaboration with the Prudential Authority and Financial Surveillance Board of the nation’s Reserve Bank.

The goal of the intended framework

The authorities stated that they want to be able to aid investors when they identify potential risks that customers may not properly comprehend, in terms of the level of risk those assets may possess. He added that they would exercise caution to ensure not to legitimize everything.

These statements come after the country’s Fintech Working Group stated month’s ago that it would establish the groundwork for the “phased and structured” regulation of crypto in the nation.

South Africa’s Cryptocurrency Policy

So far, South Africa has focused on a noninterference type of approach regarding cryptocurrency. They of course did caution the general public that there was no protection or remedies for them in the event they as investors were to be scammed or defrauded.

Case of AfriCrypt

AfriCrypt is a platform that was based in South Africa. It was a crypto investment platform where one of the co-founders suddenly disappeared with billions of the users’ finances. Unfortunately, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority was unable to take any action. They stated this was the case because the crypto assets were unregulated in South Africa. Binance challenged the South African body with the argument that the best institution to handle these matters was South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre. According to Binance, the Financial Intelligence Centre would be the best-suited organization to ensure businesses operating in South Africa’s crypto industry are compliant with local laws.

Other Related Advancements in South Africa

Earlier this year in May, the South African authorities began a study. This study was by the South African Reserve Bank. The study was designed to explore the rollout of a central bank’s digital currency. The central bank digital currency or CBDC is a digital currency whose value would be controlled by the authorities. This central bank type of bank is also being explored in other countries around the world. These countries using the central bank aspect include Australia, Malaysia, Singapore. They are all piloting global settlements utilizing central bank digital currencies.

About South Africa

South Africa has traditionally been a contender in regards to the trade of minerals such as diamonds and gold. For this reason, he has acquired significant investment from investors internationally. The country also boasts of robust manufacturing industry. In some years, South Africa ranked highest in growth among all the nations in the world. However, the nation has grappled with problems emanating from the apartheid policies. This causes countries to withdraw their investments. Foreign investment picked up after 1994 when apartheid was dismantled by the new government.

The country’s economy is based on the private sector but has notable support from the South African government. The nation has a well-developed financial sector. The financial sector is overseen by South Africa’s Reserve Bank. The bank is the only issuer for the South African rand which happens to be the country’s national currency. It makes up the country’s monetary policy and handles forex transactions.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Business DeFi News

Stack’s Executive on DeFi Bridges for Bitcoin holders

Pexels-olya-kobruseva-7887812
Stack’s Executive On Defi Bridges For Bitcoin Holders

Bitcoin has a robust framework with various elements comprising it, including Stacks. A collection of independent components, developers, and members of the community collaborate to create a user-owned internet on the Bitcoin blockchain. This collection is the Stacks ecosystem. As the very first Security and Exchange Commission-qualified token, the Stacks’ STX cryptocurrency was shared with the public in the United States.

Cuevas’ “Ask Me Anything”

On the 2nd December 2021, Mitchell Cuevas, the top executive for growth for the Stacks Foundation conducted an ask-me-anything event. It was done in conjunction with Cointelegraph Markets Pro users. During the event, he talked about the Stack blockchain’s technology and capabilities that it has. He also discussed future growth possibilities and major developments.

Security on Stacks PoX

The users asked Cuevas about proof-of-transfer and whether it matched BTC security or if there were any vulnerabilities. Cuevas stated that Stack’s consensus recycles proof-of-work already completed to secure Bitcoin. It accomplishes this via Proof of Transfer. Proof of Transfer is a mechanism in mining that allows a new take on consensus. It, therefore, facilitates proof of work chain to be capitalized upon and extended.

For this reason, Stack transactions are all settled on Bitcoin. This allows Stack transactions to be strengthened by Bitcoin’s security.

When Will Integration Be Extended

The Cointelegraph Pro users also asked when smart contract capabilities would be integrated with NFTs, gaming, and the metaverse. Cuevas stated that these capabilities are already available at the moment. He referenced how US$ 6 – 7 million is transacted upon on a daily basis at present. The executive added that the present minting costs were US$ 0.14 to US$ 0.50. He stated that Monday games were creating a fun metaverse style open-world gaming experience. Cuevas also stated that Jologom was handling a number of efforts that would help the metaverse.

Why there are only a few protocols integrating with BTC?

Cuevas believes that there are only a few protocols integrating with Bitcoin because of how challenging the integration is. He added that it took them quite some time to make Proof-of-Transfer work with the efforts of his engineers and the Blockstack team. In addition, he stated that it was currently more lucrative for newcomers to create their own chain because it was easier and more profitable.

Congestion Issues with Stacks

Cuevas acknowledged the congestion issues that Stacks had experienced. He stated that the main issue had been the popularity of nonfungible tokens and the infrastructure of the API on the stacks-blockchain. Cuevas stated that the architecture had changed over time. Numerous read-only API nodes can be initiated during high traffic events.

What Multi blocks are

When the executive was asked about multi-blocks, he stated that multi-blocks are not a scalability solution. Rather, they let transaction confirmations occur. This is an element designed to help solve transaction latency. They allow transactions to be confirmed in a matter of seconds on the chain before they are settled on Bitcoin.

Energy Usage of Stacks

When it comes to Stacks, Cuevas said ecosystem usage was a straightforward matter. PoX recycles PoW that has already been utilized on Bitcoin. As a result, Stacks does not burn or consume electricity for its transactions. The chief technology officer added that he had been working with some NFT artists on a personal basis. They are excited about the possibilities of Stacks in regards to zero or minimum carbon footprints for Stack.

Further Plans for Integration

When asked about plans for more integration with other blockchains, Cuevas said an emphatic yes. He added that there are a number of bridge efforts. Some of these bridge efforts are for Ethereum, BSC, Klyaton, SOL, Polygon, ICON, and Orbit.

Categories
Business News NFT

Ubisoft’s New Game Getting Hate

Pexels-lucie-liz-3165335
Ubisoft’s New Game Getting Hate

A new game by Ubisoft is having a hard time even though it was newly released. Ubisoft Entertainment also called just “Ubisoft” is a very profitable French gaming company. The project that they released is titled “Quartz”. Quartz is enduring a lot of negative criticisms from gamers from around the world.

The Beta Launch

The game was launched in its beta version on Wednesday. They made the announcement through a short Youtube video. The intention of the gaming project is to mesh NFTs and blockchain technology with other elements. These other elements are some AAA game titles. They also announced the very first game to integrate NFTs officially. That game was Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

About the Video

The clip presents Quartz as a resource where gaming enthusiasts can collect their very first playable and energy-efficient Ubisoft NFTs. These NFTs have been referred to as “Digits”. The video has raked in a whopping 37,000 dislikes, equating to 95% of those that rated it. That means, only 1,400 liked the video.

Comments from Viewers

One user, OperatorDrewski that was made on the video has managed to garner 2,600 likes and zero dislikes. This particular comment criticizes Ubisoft’s NFT project. He refers to this name game as a capitalistic attempt by Ubisoft to make quick money off gamers without improving the gaming experience for them.

Feedback on Youtube

OperatorDrewski said that this release is a clear signal that Ubisoft is “milking” the Ghost Recon franchise for everything without making an actual effort with the game itself. He added that he would not use a game like this in the future if their goal is to create games like this particular one. Unfortunately, for Ubisoft, this is not the only scathing comment left by viewers of this video. It would appear that his opinion is shared by the majority of those that viewed the video. The comments coming through from Twitter threads support this estimation. Some commentators even stated they would consider uninstalling the company’s games and stop purchasing more games from them in the future.

Feedback on Twitter

One Twitter user, Sukaaaily, said that based on his personal views of nonfungible tokens he would go ahead and uninstall anything that relates to Ubisoft. He added that he would no longer buy the company’s gaming products. He encouraged other users to stop purchasing from Ubisoft if they too did not like Ubisoft’s current marketing approach.

Feedback on Reddit

On a subreddit page for r/gaming, the community seems to be mobilizing towards boycotting the same game. Titled “Do not support ‘Quartz’, the new NFT Ubisoft marketplace”, more and more people are chiming in. One user, u/WolverineKuzuri93 has racked in at least 2500 comments. He also has been upvoted at a 93% ratio by 13,400 other users. This user said that users have to stand against this practice. His comments were similar to that of sentiments left on comments for the Youtube video. He adds that this new game is just another means for the company to get more money with cosmetics and no real quality of the product itself.

The redditor did add that he was not completely against the idea of utilizing the NFT style system for digital gaming. He added that there would be value in such an approach if he got to actually own the copy with the permission to resell and not just a license. u/WolverineKuzuri93 added that would be the future of gaming in the digital age. He did highlight that what he was not in support of was the in-game items.

Other Instances of Mass rage

Other firms have tried and failed to incorporate NFTs into their worlds. Discord is one example of such. It had let go of its project on Ethereum that was attempting to incorporate NFTs.

Categories
Business News NFT

Pepsi partners with VaynerNFT and More NFTs News

Pexels-сергей-катышкин-10480770
Pepsi Partners With Vaynernft And More Nfts News

There are several developments in the world of NFTs including Pepsi’s new nonfungible token collection and more.

Pepsi’s Mic Drop NFT Collection

Leading soda drink company, Pepsi unleashed their new collection of NFTs. Pepsi’s collection is called “Mic Drop genesis NFT collection”. This collection consists of 1,893 NFTs. The NFTs are designed in such a way that they show the styles from different generations. The NFTs are available on the Ethereum blockchain. The total number of nonfungible tokens gives a nod to the year Pepsi was founded. Pepsi has set it up so that people wanting to purchase the collection only have to pay gas fees. In addition to that, Pepsi has put in place a means for people to get on a waitlist. The waitlist process is available for those interested up until the 14th December 2021.

The symbolism of the NFTs Collection

The Pepsi brand depicts different designs involving a microphone. The NFTs are in blue silver, red and black. All these are the colors the brand is known for and the different flavors associated with their range of products. These colors are classic blue, sliver, red and black, amongst others.

About Creators of the Nonfungible token collection

The creators of this collection are VaynerNFT. VaynerNFT is a firm in the VaynerX holding company. The chief executive officer of Vaynerchuk, Gary Vaynerchuk told Cointelegraph that this digital asset would transform the culture of value creation. He added that it was an exciting time for the brand to grow loyalty and bring greater value to its community and fans.

Environmentally Friendly Program

On top of these newly released NFTs, Pepsi has been up to some other things too. The company intends to start a carbon offset program. Their goal is to use this carbon offset program to ensure a net carbon footprint of zero for Pepsi Mic Drop NFT.

Mystery Box by 1inch and Parts of Four

In a collaboration, 1inch and Parts of Four have unleashed a new offering. This is their Mystery Box. Their Mystery Box is to be launched on the 13th December 2021 on the Binance NFT Marketplace. The box will include 22,000 NFTs. These NFTs will have 31 versions and the versions will be minted across 7 levels of sophistication. In addition, these NFTs will be offered at 25 BUSD.

About the NFTs collection

The NFT collection will be an element in a game directed at purchasing and forging limited wearables. These are wearables that will be for usage on P4s Greater Metaverse. The expansion for P4 will start in an ERC-20 community token. Thereafter, it would be towards an NFT space that runs on Binance Smart Chain. The plan that Parts of Four has is to utilize interactions with the physical world by incorporating technology augmented reality and bi-directional swaps through the P4 platform.

Athlete Unleashes NFTs Collection for Holiday

The athlete, Tom Brady, released a set of NFTs recently. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback made his comments on the Autograph NFT platform. The platform is named “Live Forever: The Tom Brady Origins Collection”. The collection includes 16,000 collectible sets.

This set of NFTs gives highlights from the commencement of his football career. This set encompasses a resume he made before his 2000 draft selection, cleats, a jersey for the NFL, and a stopwatch among other things.

The Novelty

The novelty of it is that the NFTs will be a mystery until the moment that they are being bought on the 14th December 2021.

Initiative on Color of the Year by Texos and Pantone

The brand, Pantone has partnered with Texos blockchain to create the Color of the Year 2022 through a nonfungible token collection. The color for 2022 is Pantone 17-33938. Polygon1993, a Paris-based artist will design the artworks inspired by this shade of periwinkle.

Categories
Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain Business Gaming Interview News Opinion People

What is Glosfy Blockchain? Find your place in one search

Banner
What Is Glosfy Blockchain? Find Your Place In One Search

Innovative Blockchain Technology in the real world

Glosfy is an innovative tech company
with companies and artists to discover the best places to go out all over the world and connect with them. Their goal is to be the world reference for people, artists, and companies providing the best solutions for their needs.

UNIQUE SELLING POINT WITH UNIQUE FEATURES

Glosfy is unique because is the only app working on this sector using the blockchain for its own services no other online solution provides a targeted service for the needs of users, artists and event companies, and engagement journey beyond “just one search”, and a chance to build up rewards for users paid in our own token, and a strong profile for event companies where they can hold amount of tokens. Artists can keep their followers up to date, with their dates and engage with them where they will be by their location, so they won’t miss any Event from them. Companies will have their own profile where they can publish also jobs, and information to keep their clients up to date. At the same time they can create events for those who need the ticket management system and extra functionalities. Glosfy is free for everyone, only pay as they go for selling tickets or ads.

What are their targets?

We will be targeting to have 500 companies registered to the App
across the territories. Most of their use of the App and income
generated will be from promoting their events and selling their
tickets. We are targeting around 60% of these businesses to take
advantage of the opportunity to promote the event on the App,
raising the profile, and 15% to paid-for advertising across the site
and App. We expected these numbers to build in the following
years, but we will need to build up a User following, and marketing
reach in order to have the stats to sell these opportunities

You can find their websites here:

📲 Website Blockchain: https://glosfy.network
📲 Website App ( Alpha Test Product ): https://glosfy.com
📲 Telegram Ann: https://t.me/glosfy
📲 Telegram Chat: https://t.me/glosfychat
📲 Twitter: https://twitter.com/glosfyapp
📲 Facebook: https://facebook.com/glosfy
📲 LinkedIn : https://linkedin.com/company/glosfy
📲 Instagram : https://instagram.com/glosfy

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Quirky Hero Plans to help Haitians in Maimi

Pexels-junior-ceranor-nelson-4637295
Quirky Hero Plans To Help Haitians In Maimi

Haiti probably does not come to mind when we consider cryptocurrency or even blockchain technology. We may think of progressive nations in the west, Asia, and other parts of the world. We probably do not consider a nation like Haiti. Haiti is a small country in the Caribbean that has faced many challenges, including natural disasters, ineffective leadership, and poverty. Even now, the nation is one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world, in regards to gross domestic product per capita.

Efforts by Nandy Martin

Nandy Martin is working to make a change for the small nation. Martin is an entrepreneur based in Haiti. He is known for going around the country dressed in a costume as a superhero. His costume includes a shield, perhaps reminiscent of “Captain America” for some people. As a result, people there know him as “Captain Haiti” because of his outfit. Martin founded the Little Haiti Coin on the Cardano blockchain. He established in Maimi’s Little Haiti. The goal he has is to use it to make his community better and also increase crypto usage for business. In addition, he would like people to use it as a means of marketing Haitian imports. Martin was interviewed by Cointelegraph and shared a few insights. He shared ideas around Little Haitian Coin and the path ahead for the project’s future.

The inspiration behind the Little Haiti Coin

When asked about what inspired Martin to create this coin, he told the news outlet that there are many organizations involved in trying to help Haiti. However, over the past 60 to 70 years the situation in Haiti has worsened, regardless of all the efforts, these organizations are trying to make. Martin said that is why his approach is 100% capitalistic with the aim of making it integrate into the global economic systems. His creation of the coin is to help the Haitian community tap into the crypto era. He would like to see Haitian goods and minerals reaching the global market through the trade vehicle that a coin like his could allow. At the same time, the coin could also assist the community with programs designed to improve society.

Little Haiti Coin Acceptance

In response to how he would turn this vision into reality, Martin had several comments to make. Martin said that they had designed a 1 million Little Haiti Coin on the Cardano blockchain and they intended on purchasing and partnering with a 5000 square foot facility in Little Haiti. The idea would be that the inhabitants of that area would be able to come and get a wallet. With that wallet, they would be in a position to buy goods in the community that comes from Haiti. The purpose of the token is to offer people from that community and the world various discounts from 10 – 100% on goods from the Carribean nation.

How Little Haiti Coin will Help

When Cointelegraph asked Martin about remittances from Haiti and what value came in thereof, Martin said that they hoped to capture 25% of the funds from remittances from Haitians based all over the world. According to statistics, Haiti’s remittances are 36% of Haiti’s gross domestic product.

The initial goal of the project is to get local businesses to adopt the coin as tender. Businesses that agree to accept Little Haitian Coin, would be publicized by the coin on their advertisements as places where the coin is accepted. Martin said to accomplish this, he discussed the matter with the authorities in Maimi District 5. The Commissioner of the area, Jeggrey Watson granted funds to the tune of US$ 200,000 to 40 local enterprises. The idea of granting these funds to these local businesses is to assist them. The assistance is so they import goods from Haiti. When these enterprises import these goods, Haitian products can be made accessible to tourists that decide to visit Little Haiti.

Categories
News Regulation Technology

Puerto Rico: Fighting Corruption with Blockchain

Pexels-caleb-oquendo-2927021
Puerto Rico: Fighting Corruption With Blockchain

More controversy erupted in Puerto Rico recently. This scandal has caused Puerto Rico’s government to consider blockchain technology to curb corruption. The speaker of the house of Puerto Rico’s legislators, Rafael “Tatito” Hernandez stated that the politicians would arrange consultations with local blockchain community members this month. The goal of these meetings will be to talk about the possibilities of adopting blockchain technology to address corruption.

The Potential

If blockchain is utilized in such a manner, the infrastructure involving blockchain and smart contracts has the potential of improving the situation in Puerto Rico. The situation can be improved because of the increased transparency and accountability that blockchain technology and smart contracts offer users. The lawmaker, Hernandez, made these comments on the 6th December 2021 to Bloomberg, at a conference. The conference was for the Puerto Rico Blockchain Trade Association.

He stated that they had a genuine credibility challenge and the blockchain infrastructure could solve this problem. Additionally, Hernandez stated that there is a wider goal for their government to establish Puerto Rico as a center for crypto and blockchain innovation. The lawmaker stated that this could be one way that their struggling economy could develop by investing in this emerging industry.

Puerto Rico’s Economy

The official referred back to the state’s economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, he mentioned how Puerto Rico had a better economy in the past due to a niche in manufacturing. Now, the state has the opportunity to create employment and new opportunities via cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

More people are anxious about the territory’s corruption challenges. Therefore, Hernandez made these comments in this climate. One such case of corruption in Puerto Rico is that of a local mayor that accepted responsibility for an act of corruption. Ultimately, that mayor pleaded guilty to taking a bribe of the value of US$ 100,000 last week, in cash.

Other nations Turning to Blockchain Technology

At present, this small nation is not the only nation that is turning to blockchain technology and digital currency. Some other countries that are looking at the opportunities that blockchain technology may offer include Denmark and also Kenya. In the case of Denmark, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made statements on the potential that they perceived was available for blockchain. In other words, they believe it too can combat corruption in the government’s administration and politics. This was last year. In the case of Kenya, they received advice from the United Nation’s drugs and crime agency. The agency advised this African nation to consider utilizing blockchain technology to fight corruption in government. The UN organization offered Kenya this advice by the UN agency back in 2020.

Other Nation’s Policies

Currently, a number of countries do not allow their government officials to hold cryptocurrency. One such country that does not allow its public officials to own crypto is Russia. The Russian authorities cite corruption challenges as the reason for this legislation. However, some people think that Russia could curb corruption by using cryptocurrency. Maria Arganovskaya offered her comments on the matter. Arganovskaya is a legal expert and fintech professional. She is based in Duma, in Russia.

Arganovskaya explained to a news outlet that blockchain could be a solution to this problem. She said that cash is actually more recognized for illegal activities. These illegal activities include corruption. Arganovskaya added that if the Russian government was to incorporate the Know Your Customer protocols and AML at the beginning, this could help. The expert added that with these measures in place, cryptocurrency can easily be traced for law enforcement purposes. They indicated that tracing by law enforcement of the crypto would be possible if these important and appropriate rules are established.

About Puerto Rico

At present, the small territory generatelaw enforcement agencieslaw enforcement agenciess the bulk of its revenues through the manufacturing and service industries. Historically, it depended on agriculture. With the statements by Hernandez, we can look forward to seeing what investing in blockchain technology can do for the nation’s economy.

Categories
Bitcoin News People

Report by SPLC on Extremists and Crypto

Pexels-markus-spiske-2372440
Report By Splc On Extremists And Crypto

The organization, SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) has released a report on extremists and their use of crypto. This report looks at the significant connections between the far right and Bitcoin currency. Many of these extremists have established substantial fortunes through digital currency.

The Hatewatch report was published on the 9th December 2021 by the SPLC. This report included findings on how these white supremacists and extremists converse and utilize crypto. They say that many have raised millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency donations.

About the Hatewatch Report

This Hatewatch Report is titled “How Cryotocurrency Revolutionalized the White Supremacist Movement”. The report found and aggregated an excess of 600 cryptocurrency addresses that it connected with white supremacists and other radical groups. This aggregation is how the publishing body arrived at these conclusions.

Major Claims

The report states that it was challenging to identify a leader internationally for the far right that had not yet started using cryptocurrency to some level. In contract, only 25 % of Americans utilize cryptocurrency.

Reasons why these groups used Crypto

These radical groups tend to utilize cryptocurrency for two main reasons, it seemed. Essentially, the report found that these groups used crypto because they just wanted anonymity for their transactions. Secondly, these far-right extremists don’t use regular banking is that banks debanked them. As a result, they still needed means of making a financial transaction.

History of Extremists using Crypto

For starters, Wikipedia states that Stefan Molyneaux, is said to have been utilizing cryptocurrency for the past 8 years. This information is according to Wikipedia. The extremist receives donations from his supporters through it. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Molyneaux may have first obtained donations in a Bitcoin wallet from as far back as 2013. That is to say, the Hatewatch report estimates that Molyneayx’s followers have so far managed to donate approximately 1250 Bitcoin to him since then. The far-right leader has obtained about US$ 3.28 million from the US$ 1.8 million in cryptocurrency. Molyneaux’s funds far exceed other extremists that the study looked at as well.

Karl Thorburn (originally named Greg Johnson) receives large donations too. He has received an excess of US$ 800,000 just from cryptocurrency. Thornburn established the site called CounterCurrents, which many consider controversial. The founder of the site requests donations in various cryptocurrencies, amounting to 12 of them. At the moment, CounterCurrents is attempting to fund raise up to a US$ 200,000 target. The site states that these funds are for its political agenda.

Crypto Critics Commentary

Author and crypto critic, David Gerard told the SPLC in an email that not all crypto was being used by supporters of extremists to fund extremists. He did acknowledge that these extremists were raising surprising amounts of money. Gerard added that Bitcoin was established on right-wing libertarian principles. He went on to add that this does not imply that it holds a neo-Nazi subculture. Gerard added that the proportion of Nazis in the Bitcoin subculture can not be a random probability.

Criticisms of the Report

The report is extensive. At the same time, the report leans on previous events in history and particular incidents more than not. Such incidents include that of the Daily Stormer referencing a Bitcoiner TV host’s view from 2017. Primarily, the opinion of the host was that crypto was a means to free its readers from what they considered a centralized banking system controlled by the Jewish people.

Additionally, the report also connected Andrew Auernheimer (aka “Weev”) to Monero. Monero is a privacy coin that allows for private and untraceable financial transactions. This coin manages privacy more than Bitcoin does. Auernheimer said in a podcast back in 2017 that his “big thing” had become stockpiling on Monera, this privacy cryptocurrency. He stated that at the time he already had a large amount of Monera in his ownership.

Categories
Business News Regulation

Greener Bitcoin Mining Possibilities in Brazil

Pexels-athena-1804177
Greener Bitcoin Mining Possibilities In Brazil

Lawmakers in Brazil are considering a new proposal regarding green Bitcoin mining. The proposal is for taxation exemptions for mining that utilizes green energy sources. The proposal also calls for taxation exemptions for crypto mining rigs.

About the Proposals for Green Bitcoin Mining

Seudinheiro, a Brazilian media house reported on Saturday that the Brazilian Congress was looking at a number of fresh proposals that could help lower the criticisms that cryptocurrency gets in Brazil. Another proposal that the lawmakers considered was that of changing the status of cryptocurrency there. As of now, the government considers it a commodity. The proposal suggests that it becomes regarded as a currency. In the event that this proposal is accepted, exchanges that trade in cryptocurrency will now be allowed to offer financial services. These crypto exchanges will also be able to give loans to people living in Brazil.

The Senator who made these proposals to fellow lawmakers was Irajá Silvestre Filho. At present, it is unknown what the other lawmakers thought of these proposals that were presented to them by Filho. However, regardless, these proposals do have significant support drawn from the cryptocurrency community in Brazil.

Comments from the Brazilian Crypto Mining Community

The chief executive officer of Arthur Mining, Ray Nasser considered these proposals a welcome development. He stated that if Brazil managed to pass these tax exemptions into law, then it would set up Brazil favorably. The executive stated that it would place Brazil in the position of being something of a “Mecca of Mining”.

Becoming Legal Tender in Brazil

If cryptocurrency becomes legal tender in Brazil, new possibilities will open up. One of the main matters is, that of CBDC (central bank digital currency). The Central Bank of Brazil will then have the opportunity to conduct issuances of digital real CBDCs. If Brazil does this, it will rank them among the number of countries that allow issuances of CBDCs to their populaces.

The Power situation in Brazil

As of now, this Latin American nation manages to generate 50% of its electricity from green energy sources. This information is based on data from the International Trade Administration. It costs Brazil US$ 0.12 to generate 1 kilowatt-hour. For that reason, it places Brazil in the middle, in regards to power generation and costs.

The Chief Executive Officer of Moeda, Taynaah Reis made some insightful comments to Cointelegraph. Moeda is a blockchain fintech firm located in Brazil. Reis stated that digital currency is growing in Brazil and that the nation’s authorities had been proactive and protective on encouraging mining and drafting policies. These policies have been on best practices as leading enterprises announce their intentions of incorporating cryptocurrency.

Probably Policies and Procedures

Commenting as an expert in the field, Reis stated that the miners in Brazil would be required to submit a registration of their equipment to the Brazilian authorities. This will be a means for Brazil’s government to keep track of the ecosystem.

Challenges in Brazil

As of now, there are a number of power supply issues in Brazil. The country is now experiencing periods of power rationing. This is whereby the power station allows certain areas in the nation to receive less power whilst other parts of the country do not. The Brazilian government does this to assist the power grid, overall.

Arthur Mining’s President, Rudá Pellini stated that he was not worried that new miners would be a threat to the existing power supply. This is regardless of the present state of power rationing. He stated that one of the most significant issues about energy matters in Brazil is that of transmission. Pellini added that they have a large energy generation surplus in their country. He stated that it is possible to encourage larger investments in green energy generation.

Categories
Altcoins Business News

Latin America is Benefiting from Stablecoins

Pexels-pixabay-52502
Latin America Is Benefiting From Stablecoins

People in Colombia and Venezuela are turning to stablecoin, including Reserve, as means of utilizing stable currency. Cointelegraph shared their insights when they interviewed a number of these people using Reserve.

Reserve

Reserve is a solution that allows users to exchange fiat currency. Fiat currency that can be exchanged using Reserve includes the Venezuelan bolivares. People who want to exchange the Venezuelan bolivares can exchange it for the U.S. dollar through the Reserve stablecoin (RSV stablecoin).

Purchases on Reserve stablecoin

There are a variety of use cases holders of the coin purchase the RSV for. Some turn to the currency to send money to family and friends. Others use it for regular daily purchases. How people are using it is expanding. According to Reserve, more countries in Latin America are turning to Reserve for their payment needs. So far, the countries that are using RSV include Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Argentina. This is after Reserve has been on the market only for 12 months. Reserve also states that it has about 100,000 visitors to its app every week. It also says approximately 8000 merchants have started allowing payment via Reserve.

Perspective from Customers of Reserve

Two customers gave Cointelegraph their perspective on RSV. Alicia Stephany and Sasha Antunez shared their thoughts on how the application affected their day-to-day lives and the economy in their country, Venezuela. Antunez is a Venezuelan neurologist who utilizes Reserve for both her work and her home life. Stephany is a Venezuelan based in Colombia. She utilizes the service to send back financial support to her family that is still in her home country. Antunez said that has Reserve dollars available in her app. If she has to go make purchases at the supermarket and only has a bit of money, she does the exchange so that she has more funds in her national currency in her local bank account. From there she can use her bank funds to make a payment at the shops.

How do Most use Reserve currency

Most currency holders utilize RSV to hold their funds in a type of saving. If their employer pays them in their local currency, they do not have to be anxious about devaluation if their pay is in U.S. currency. Perhaps they decide that they want to make a purchase, they simply convert those funds to their local currency and make the necessary payment in RSV stablecoin if the seller allows it. If the seller does not allow that, they can convert their saved funds into a currency that the seller does accept.

Why is this Important?

People like Antunez usually have to bear with the ups and downs of the Venezuelan bolivar. To avoid losing the value of their hard-earned money, the stablecoin offers them the much-needed stability their national currency does not seem to always provide. In addition, if she travels to another neighboring country like Colombia, she can still find someone who wants extra funds to exchange with. Antunez even managed to convince her pharmacist and supermarket to begin to accept Reserve.

Changes by the Venezuelan Government

Venezuela’s government re-dominated its currency back in October. This was the third time that the government had decided to as of 2008. What this means is that when you go into a Venezuelan shop, you will find prices in dollars. The prices will be in line with the black market rate and not the official exchange rate. When people use RSV, they get better value for their money than they do with the black market rate.

With the financial freedom that cryptocurrency provides and the volatile hyperinflation in Venezuela and several other Latin American countries, it is clear to see that the solution that Reserve offers fills a much-needed gap.

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Kickstarter Crowdfunding Platform Entering Blockchain

Pexels-thisisengineering-3861446
Kickstarter Crowdfunding Platform Entering Blockchain

One of the world’s most popular and profitable crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter is making waves in the crypto industry. Kickstarter has planned to start a new enterprise. This new enterprise will have its home moved to a blockchain. The company has chosen its platform to be hosted on the Celo blockchain ecosystem.

Aziz Hasan, the Chief Executive Officer of Kickstarter, and Perry Chen, his co-founder made this announcement on Wednesday through their blog. They stated that their company would be engineering a protocol that would be open-source. This protocol would be based on the Celo blockchain. The two business executives placed focus on the environmental- friendliness of their solution of choice. Since the solution is carbon negative and their protocol is open-source.

The two businessmen said that they were embarking on an important moment for alternative governance models. They added that they think it is an essential opportunity to further this venture by utilizing blockchain.

It was announced on Bloomberg that the crowdfunding company aimed on moving their business to blockchain next year. The project also stated that it would publish a white paper in a few weeks. The platform stated that the move would not cause problems for any existing users or projects. They added that there would be no issues caused for projects that were in particular of the following type: moves, books, products, artwork, medical, and fitness.

The company also announced that it intends on establishing a governance lab. The lab, they said, would be to superintend the engineering of the protocol governance. Camille Canon, the executive director of Purpose Foundation and its co-founder would be heading this work.

Mainstream Joining Crypto

It is no doubt that Kickstarter, like many other businesses, noticed the enormous finances circulating in the crypto space and wanted a piece of the pie. What better way to capitalize than by joining and getting the best of both worlds?

Shifting Times

Another reason why Kickstarter is joining the blockchain ecosystem is likely because of the projects that could have been listed on their platform. Many likely would have signed up to Kickstarter to raise funds for their causes but instead chose DAO (distributed autonomous organizations). ConstitutionDAO remains a shining example of the direction crowdfunding will probably start taking soon. ConstitutionDAO managed to raise several million dollars in about 7 days. In that period about 17,437 strangers decided to back this novel idea. Unfortunately for DAO, a billionaire managed to outbid them. However, the team behind this distributed autonomous organization allowed its members to keep the tokens. As a result, the price of their token shot up.

About Kickstarter

Kickstarter was established in 2009 and has been running ever since. It has been stated that about 21 million have since pledged on their platform. These pledges have amounted to about US$ 6 Billion. These pledges have been made to 213,034 projects. Among some of the projects that have been crowdfunded on Kickstarter are Veronica Mars and Peloton bike.

Projects that have done well on Kickstarter

Kickstarter has managed to help several projects meet their financial goals. Pebble Time, a project listed in 2015 is the top project in terms of funds raised on Kickstarter. It managed to rake in US$ 20.34 million. The second most funds were raised by a campaign in 2014 for Coolest Cooler. This project raised US$ 13.29 million. Elon Musk also managed to raise enormous amounts of money through his crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. On these platforms, he managed to get 325,000 pre-orders for his Tesla in 2016. The Billionaire also managed to raise US$ 3.5 million in pre-order sales for a flamethrower. What is even more amazing is he managed to get these pre-orders within a single day.

Categories
Business News Technology

What does Facebook Becoming Meta Mean?

Pexels-eren-li-7241320
What Does Facebook Becoming Meta Mean?

Naming or renaming a business, product or service says a lot about the intentions the owners have for it, say for example: Meta. Facebook, as you probably know, rebranded to “Meta”. It’s a name not much like its original. In fact, this change tells us to expect a brand new company to emerge from it. However it turns out, we know that Meta is now orientated towards the Metaverse, and is focused with singular resolve.

Meta’s Change

With it being clear that the company is now focused on the Metaverse, one major thing is not exactly clear. This thing is the destination. We are not exactly sure where Meta is going in the Metaverse. After all, the Metaverse itself is still emerging and ambiguity is the general norm at present. Regardless of the ambiguity, many companies are flocking to it with the dream of caching in big soon enough.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

The general idea is that the Metaverse will be heavily designed with virtual reality and augmented reality at the forefront. It will therefore likely feature gadgets like haptic gloves and virtual reality eyewear.

Will Meta Get it Right?

It is clear that if Facebook can rebrand itself to Meta and decide on a new course of action for the next phase of its existence, it must be pretty sold on the idea. The company attempted to be this ambitious when it got into the digital currency business and established Libra. Libra is the company’s stablecoin. Their stablecoin was supported by other big businesses when it came under a lot of attention as Meta is receiving now. When the company changed its stablecoin’s name from Libra to Diem, it said a lot about what is intended. They wanted this change to show their stakeholders and the general public that they planned to spread their wings and become more autonomous. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned at the project eventually died an unfortunate death.

Other Failed projects

Libra or Diem is not the only failed high-profile project the world has witnessed in relatively recent times. There are quite a few. Snapchat and Google are great examples of at least one failed project. Snapchat attempted to create a successful venture out of Snap Inc. Facebook attempted to create a successful venture out of Alphabet. Both these companies experienced a disappointing failure in their respective cases.

Limitations of Proprietary services

Companies have to make do with the services that they have to be inoperable with. Unfortunately, having to work with or in an ecosystem means you are at the whims of that company’s innovations or other changes they decide to make. These changes may not always be in the ecosystem’s best interest. However, since it’s that company’s ecosystem, compliance is often the only way, unless you can drag the company to court and get the law behind you as Epic Games did by taking Apple to court. Epic Games accused Apple Store rules of monopolistic actions. Even though they did not win that particular argument, they did get the courts to rule that the app should include means for Epic to lead their users to their in-app payment options.

What does the future hold for Metaverse and the Companies that will build it?

The blockchain encourages the development of trust, by its very design. Not trust in the person but rather, the integrity of the system, and smart contract technology in particular. Smart contracts that are based on blockchain give functionality that allows transactions to be audited when it comes to business processes. Ideally, smart contracts can be set up to execute without intervention.

Ultimately, we do not know what the Metaverse will end up looking like. It may herald the dawn of a new age. It may also end up being a place that only the very nerdy end up enjoying. However, based on the significant investments that a number of companies are putting into venturing into the Metaverse, it is likely they will also focus on making the Metaverse as enticing and user-friendly as they can for even the least savvy persons that use the internet.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Business Price Analysis

5 Things to Consider Before Your First Crypto Trade

Pexels-alesia-kozik-6771120
5 Things To Consider Before Your First Crypto Trade

The world of cryptocurrency has been attracting new investors for the better part of a decade now. While most can’t hope to join the ranks of crypto millionaires overnight by investing in a lucky coin or two, more and more people have started giving careful thought to diversifying their current “traditional” holdings and investing more in cryptocurrencies.

In this piece, we want to help out potential crypto beginners with a few tips on what to condor before making your first trade.


1) Don’t Invest More than You Can Afford to Lose


Financial experts on CBNC warn that “cryptocurrencies are volatile, risky investments, and that you should only invest what you can afford to lose.” It’s important to note that this is not advised to avoid the market altogether –– merely to be careful with what you commit to it. Make sure your own finances are completely sorted before you make any decision to invest in cryptocurrency (or really any other market for that matter). Then, if you do have funds that can be put into crypto, you can try to build them gradually, or invest more when you have more available.


2) Choose the Right Wallet/Exchange


There are a lot of apps or platforms where people buy, hold, and sell cryptos. Some of the most popular options are Coinbase, eToro, Crypto.com, and Binance; we’re also seeing some other financial trading platforms embracing crypto, with Robinhood notably having joined the ranks earlier this year. Before you start investing with any one of these platforms, recognize that they each offer different selections of coins and security measures. They also have different reputations, and in some cases are regulated differently in specific countries. Do some research, talk to friends who have already gotten started, and get a feel for which platform you’d like the most so that you’ll be comfortable when you get going. Your First Crypto Trade


3) Research the Coins


Once you’ve decided on a wallet, you should also do careful research into any specific cryptos you consider buying. Each coin should have a white paper that explains its objective and future plans, even though the market is so volatile. Even altcoins that have little to no value (affectionately known as “shitcoins” in some circles) should have white papers or some other documentation that shows why they were created in the first place. Coins that have nothing you can find through some basic research are red flags and are best avoided. Once you decide on reputable coins to focus on, meanwhile, it’s wise to research price history, what factors influence movement, and what if anything points to the positive or negative movement going forward.


4) Consider Practicing First


If this is your first rodeo, it’s also worth noting that you can practice with play money first. In a write-up on demo trading platforms, FXCM makes clear that said platforms fully simulate real market conditions to give users an accurate feel for how it all goes. While demo trading has traditionally been associated with forex and stocks, for the most part, it can now be conducted with regard to popular commodities –– including leading cryptocurrencies. Practicing with demo trading will give you a better idea of what it’s really like to buy and sell assets in such a new and volatile market, especially if you’re someone who learns best by doing.


5) Resist FOMO



FOMO, or “Fear Of Missing Out” is notorious for leading people to make terrible decisions on impulse –– such as investing life savings on a coin, hoping to win big, and never having to work again. FOMO is often brought up jokingly, but it’s a dangerous state to be in with regard to investment. In order to avoid it, Psychology Today tells us to “Focus less on potential losses of missing out and focus more on immediate gains of what’s being done in the now.” To apply this to crypto, we recommend starting by keeping an eye on the news and making small decisions until you feel comfortable. Avoid the natural FOMO that comes from watching others make gains off of cryptos’ periodic spikes, and focus on your own strategic decisions. Are you ready for Your First Crypto Trade?

We hope these tips will help you make the decisions you’re most comfortable with as you begin your cryptocurrency journey.

by Jaimielee Barron

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Visa and Mastercard making Strides

Pexels-tima-miroshnichenko-5708406
Visa And Mastercard Making Strides

As technology is advancing at break-neck speed in the crypto space, the giants of financial service provision are not staying ideal. Both Visa and Mastercard are busy innovating and addressing the emerging needs of consumers in the digital age.

Visa

Visa will be unleashing its newly established consulting and advisory offering. This is an attempt by the company to assist its clientele in operating in cryptocurrency spaces. Visa made these statements on Wednesday. The company stated that its division for crypto advisory in their consulting and analytics division would advise financial organizations, retailers, and other enterprises in a comprehensive manner. They said their advisory and consulting would include offering advice on starting up crypto features, developing wallets for central bank digital currencies, and navigating nonfungible tokens.

Why is Visa Establishing this Unit?

The company states that one of the reasons they have established this service is to remain competitive. According to their research, Visa discovered that about 40% of crypto owners would likely switch to another bank if that new bank offered them crypto-related products in the next year.

According to Reuters, UMB is a client of Visa’s cryptocurrency advisory services. UMB is also a financial services business from the United States. UMB’s executive, Uma Wilson stated that they approached Visa to gain knowledge about crypto and stablecoins and how to utilize them in a more relevant way for retail and commercial business purposes.

What does this development by Visa mean?

The establishment of this unit is Visa’s most recent effort at entering the crypto industry. In the past, the firm has also filed a number of patents relating to blockchain. At present, Visa’s research team is making efforts on a project they call “Universal Payment Channel”. The Universal Payment Channel is said to be a hub for blockchain interoperability. It will integrate several blockchain networks. It will also facilitate the movement of digital assets across numerous protocols and wallets.

Mastercard

Mastercard is also making interesting strides like that of Visa. This company recently established crypto-linked payment cards. These cards are for the Asia-Pacific region. Another area in which Mastercard is making efforts, still in the matter of digital currency is that of central bank digital currencies.

Mastercard and Central Bank Digital Currencies

In a recent earnings call with Mastercard stakeholders and investors, Michael Miebach, the CEO of the company stated that he had a positive perspective of the cryptocurrency industry. Mastercard has witnessed a growth in the number of consumers utilizing their MasterCard to acquire crypto. It has also entered partnerships with several crypto enterprises, helping them to establish their crypto-related cards for the Asia Pacific region.

However, Miebach’s most brave opinion was shared during this call with its stakeholders regarding central digital bank currencies. There Miebach stated that Mastercard believes that government would be the best issuer of CBDCs. He added that they had shared this view before and would make their networks ready for such a development.

The executive stayed confident in the role that Mastercard would play in the event such a development does occur. He added that Mastercard could ensure a secure base for private-sector financial service providers and the government to come to identify how they can make such development work.

Other efforts by Mastercard

On Monday the company stated that it would enter into a partnership with Bakkt. Bakkt is a crypto marketplace. This development, they said, would help Mastercard’s US clientele to transact with digital currencies. Miebach did acknowledge the risks that still stood apparent. These that he highlighted in the company’s quarterly report included acceptance questions and how to bring out the utility of CBDCs to citizens.

In conclusion, the biggest international payments services are jumping on board with the reality of cryptocurrency. This says a lot about what people worldwide should expect and anticipate going forward, regardless of what else is going on regarding adoption in countries that are still lagging.

Categories
Business Regulation Technology

Benefits found in Aussie Project Atom Project

Pexels-hugo-heimendinger-1766215
Benefits Found In Aussie Project Atom Project

Recently, the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) released a report on their 2-year long research project. This project was regarding wholesale CBDCs (central bank digital currencies). It focussed on the benefits of digitization and autonomization of manual paper-based banking procedures using DLT (distributed ledger technology).

This publication signals the end of a 24-month project titled “Project Atom”. Several partners worked together on Project Atom. The partners that the Reserve Bank of Australia worked with on this project were: the CBA (Commonwealth Bank of Australia), NAB (National Australia Bank), ConsenSys, and Perpetual. King & Wood Mallesons also contributed to the research project.

Michele Bullock, the assistant governor at the RBA for Financial Systems commented on the project by saying that it showed the potential for tokenization of wholesale CBDC and assets to increase efficacy, improve risk management, and innovation in the wholesale financial transactions in the market.

Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies

Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies are those CBDCs that are structured for the settlement of transfers that are interbank. They are also those CBDCs that are for transactions among financial organizations. Public use CBDCs are the alternative of this.

Timing of the “Atom Project” Report

This institution made this research report available the same day as when Josh Frydenberg, the Treasurer and Deputy Liberal leader revealed the payments and crypto reform plan for Australia’s fintech and crypto industries. This was on the 8th December 2021. The Australian authorities have shown support for no less than six of the proposals for crypto reform among the nine that they were looking at. These reforms that lawmakers tabled were recommended by the Senate Committee. The government is also still doing investigations for further reforms.

About “Project Atom”

Project Atom included a POC (proof of concept) for the issuing of tokenized CBDCs. This referred to CBDCs that holders could use in a digital wholesale loan market with syndication. The project used a distributed ledger technology for testing purposes. This technology was on Ethereum. The research found that wholesale CBDC supported by DLT infrastructure could greatly improve efficacy. In addition, they found that it could lower operational risk. The system could lower operational risk by being paperless and not using error-prone processes related to the origination and delivery of data, transactions, settlements, payments, and a number of others.

Issues the Project Report Focused on

The report on Project Atom highlighted a number of issues. These issues included transaction privacy, throughput, finality, and efficiency of DLT utilization and CBDC. The report highlighted these issues regarding blockchains that were not meant for wholesale usage.

Proof of Concept Experimentation

The Proof of concept assessment involved a two-tier model. This model was for issuing and distributing CBDCs. In these instances, the Reserve Bank of Australia carried out using of digital currency to commercial banks. Thereafter, the banks made them available to participants in the wholesale market. The project’s authorities sponsored participants on to the market for experimentation purposes.

RBA’s Exploration of CBDCs.

The Reserve Bank of Australia stated that it has investigated the idea of central bank digital currency as far back as 2018. This is regardless of them underplaying the significance of central bank digital currencies in several instances. However, for a whole now the organization has increased its attention on digital currencies. This RBA has notably done this since 2020. This is amidst increasing attention to this type of currency by governments worldwide. China was offered as an example of a country testing out its yuan publicly.

Regarding Progress

The government representative, Bullock shared that the RBA would further its research on the digital currency as an element of its strategy on aiding the advancement of the payments in Australia.

Categories
Blockchain News Regulation

Crypto Execs ask US Congress Clarity on Regulations

Pexels-karolina-grabowska-4386157
Crypto Execs Ask Us Congress Clarity On Regulations

A number of executives of some leading crypto enterprises in the U.S. had the opportunity to present your concerns to the House Committee on Financial Services regarding cryptocurrency regulations. Several of these executives appeared united in trying to convince the US lawmakers to offer clarity on the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency.

About the Discussions about Regulations

These CEOs and lawmakers had these discussions on Wednesday. This was at an important hearing regarding crypto. There at the “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance”, subthemed “Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States” they discussed the future of crypto regulation in the US. The executives informed the lawmakers about the hurdles their businesses experienced as issuers of stablecoins and also as digital asset exchanges. Among these CEOs in attendance were two top officials from Coinbase, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Paxos CEO Chad Cascarilla, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon, and Alesia Haas, and Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks.

Comments by the Crypto Executives

Allaire from Circle stated in a written statement before the hearing that it was in support of the efforts the lawmakers were making. The executive specified that these efforts were for national licensing and Federal supervision of issuers of stablecoin. Allaire stated that that was relevant since many of these issuers were now too “big” to ignore. Cascarilla appeared to agree with this perspective. The CEO in commenting on the financial system in the USA described it as inadequate for managing the digital economy that is growing. Cascarilla, however, added that blockchain may be the answer to this problem.

The PAXO executive informed the meeting that a blockchain system could complete trades in 24 hours. It can also handle counterparty risks and remove the expensive central clearinghouse. He added that this would allow participants in the market and lawmakers the opportunity to monitor and adjust settlements. It could also handle margin issues all as it was happening. He added that everyone was aware that the trade settlement cycle needed to be shortened. He said that it was necessary since it was a high priority for the SEC. Thus, he said taking great efforts to ensure it.

Brooks offered Fidelity as an example of companies driving progress in the digital asset space. He stated that these companies were opting for other countries than the United States of America to set up a business. He reasoned that this was because of better regulations elsewhere. Fidelity established a Bitcoin exchange trading fund in Canada. This was after they did not get approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for one.

Brooks estimated that crypto talent is not centered in Silicon Valley anymore. He stated that this was because of the regulatory issues surrounding crypto in the US. Silicon Valley, being the original home of the commercial internet. Brooks added that some experts in the space have relocated to Miami. Many others relocated to other countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Portugal, Singapore. These relocating were going to places where there are no crypto regulations but are progressive and growth orientated.

Comments by the House Representatives

In discussions with the group of executives, Patrick McHenry countered. He said that technology in the cryptocurrency arena was regulated already. He however did acknowledge that the current framework was possibly “clunky” and not current. McHenry added that misunderstanding with his fellow committee lawmakers could cause crypto and blockchain overregulation. In a statement, he said that what was needed were “rules of the road” and not “knee-jerk reactions” by the lawmakers to regulate. McHenry added that these regulations should not be out of fear because if they are, this fear could suppress American technological advancement and put them at a loss competitively.

Topics at the Hearing

The House committee and delegates discussed four key areas of the crypto space. These areas were exchanges, regulatory concerns in digital assets, stable coin offerings, and federal regulatory responses.

Categories
News People Regulation

CIA Working on Crypto Projects

Pexels-sora-shimazaki-5935791
Cia Working On Crypto Projects

The present head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns said that the former director of the government organization started projects related to collecting insights on cryptocurrency. He made these comments at a Summit on Monday. Burns stated that the Central Intelligence Agency was interested in incorporating technical know-how in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. The CIA would like to achieve this with its team of intelligence analysts. Additionally, it would like to liaise with experts in the cryptocurrency industry. He reflected on the problems that the United States of America and other countries around the world have faced in regards to cyber-crimes. He cited ransomware attacks in particular as an unlawful activity that impacted the U.S. significantly.

The CIA’s work has begun

Burns inferred that the ex-Director, David Cohen began the work. He added that his predecessor had begun various projects on cryptocurrency. He indicated that these projects tried to assess second and third-order consequences. Burns also stated that the agency was collaborating with other institutions in the U.S. government to offer concrete intelligence.

Building Cryptocurrency Intelligence

Burns stated that it was important to the Central Intelligence Agency for it to accumulate knowledge. He stated that it was a crucial priority that he intended on devoting resources and attention to. The leader did not give up details on how the organization intended on combating cyberattacks. He did, however, suggest that finance networks would be an area of their keen concern. This is in regards to cyber-criminals who utilize digital currencies for ransom purposes.

Developments in US Cyber Defense

In March of this year, Burns was appointed as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In May, the organization saw hackers demanding millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. This was over a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline system. The CIA created a task force from the United States government which successfully managed to recover most of the lost funds.

A previous acting CIA director, Michael Morrell stated that one underutilized tool in the arsenal for fighting cybercrime for the CIA and other law enforcement agencies, in general, is blockchain analysis. He stated that blockchain analysis is extremely effective for the purposes of curbing crime.

About the role of the head of the CIA

The CIA has no stipulation on the length that its director can serve. Therefore, the CIA’s new director, Burns, will likely lead the agency for as long as President Joe Biden requires of him. Several positions remain open that the president of the United States is to fill for the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System.

About the CIA

The US government established the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. The goal then was for it to be a clearinghouse for intelligence and analysis in foreign policy. Now, the organization’s mandate is to collect, process, and analyze US security data from all over the world. The analysis aspect of this is usually conducted using human intelligence. The CIA is the main member of the IC (US Intelligence Community). The organization is under the Director of National Intelligence in terms of hierarchy. It concentrates on furnishing the leaders of the United States of America with sufficient intelligence.

The CIA is said to officially focus on its efforts abroad as it does not have actual law enforcement functions. This is unlike its sister agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). With changes in how national security concerns are both online and offline, the agency has expanded its mandate to encompass covert paramilitary affairs. The Information Operations Center (IOC) has moved its attention from counter-terrorism to offensive cyber-operations because of these growing changes in how international threats and attacks have evolved in present-day times.

Categories
Blockchain News Regulation Technology

Australia Approves Crypto Reforms to Come

Pexels-mudassir-ali-1878293
Australia Approves Crypto Reforms To Come

Australia is taking crypto matters head-on. At present, the Australian government is contemplating rolling out a central bank digital currency. It is also in support of a number of progressive regulatory proposals regarding crypto. This is part of the Australian government’s payments and cryptocurrency reform plan.

The government of Australia’s Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg stated that the intentions of the reforms were to advance their nation. They expect these reforms will place Australia on a level that would be among the leading nations of the globe.

Significance of the Plan

Many consider Australia’s Payments and Cryptocurrency Reform plan as the most important disruptive change in the country’s history of payment systems since the 1990s. Australia’s lawmakers have notably done part of the groundwork as far back as September this year by the innovative proposals made at the Australian Senate Committee.

Out of the nine reforms proposed, the Australian government is in support of six of them. This is according to the Australian Finance Review. The lawmakers are reported to be in support of a proposal for a licensing regime for cryptocurrency exchanges. Other proposed laws that the lawmakers are in support of are the laws to regulate the decentralized autonomous organizations and also common access regimes for payment platforms that are new on the market.

Tax proposals

The lawmakers have submitted 2 of the 9 proposals to their respective government bodies for assessment. These proposals have to do with taxation and financial compliance. Out of these 9 proposals, one proposal was been knocked back. This is a proposal that sought to handle renewable energy Crypto mining tax incentives.

In a speech at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC), Josh Frydenberge, the treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal Party shared the plans the Australian government had on this matter. He talked of the cryptocurrency regulations, taxation, and also central bank digital currencies. The Treasurer stated that it was apparent that if these developments are embraced, Australia stands to benefit a great deal from the opportunities that arise from the combination of finance and technology.

Central Bank Digital Currencies for Australia

The Australian quotes an anonymous senior government official on the matter of central bank digital currencies. The official is reported to have stated on the 7th December 2021 that a Reserve Bank of Australia supported Bitcoin or cryptocurrency at a retail scale is being thought of. The official stated that this currency would be integral to the Australian government’s regulatory reform on digital payments.

At the Australia-Israel Chambers of Commerce, the treasurer boldly made statements regarding cryptocurrency assets. He stated that enterprises would find clarity regarding regulatory and tax treatments for cryptocurrency assets and emerging payment options. He added that these regulations will encourage consumer interest, assist new entrants, and make it possible for innovations to emerge. Subsequently, the Treasurer also stated that these developments would make an effective regulatory framework for consumers. As a result, the framework will support the increasing use of cryptocurrency assets. It would also remove ambiguity in regards to the treatment of new payment options.

One Regulation Not Likely to Pass

The Senate committee is likely to incorporate the proposal for a 10% tax discount for miners of Bitcoin. The proposal aimed at rewarding businesses that utilize renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. Swyftx exchange’s head of corporate development, Michael Harris shared his thoughts with Cointelegraph on the matter. He said that it would likely be challenging for the government to exclude the Bitcoin mining industry from other energy consumers. That is, even regardless of how commendable the reasons are. Harris added that the Australian government’s intentions and discourse appeared promising. It appears that the country’s administration has seen the importance of laws to protect the consumer. At the same time the government is still encouraging continued innovation.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Business News

Iceland’s Energy Service Cuts Crypto Mining Power

Pexels-benjamin-suter-3617500
Iceland’s Energy Service Cuts Crypto Mining Power

Landsvirkjun, the company in Iceland responsible for power generation and supply has cut the quantity of power it supplies to some industries. These industries include aluminum smelters and Bitcoin miners. A spokesman from Landsvirkjun said their nation had to reduce the supply of power to these industries, including southwestern Bitcoin miners and others because of a number of concerns. A challenge at the power plant, low water levels at the hydro-reservoir, and external suppliers utilizing energy were among the concerns that the company highlighted as to why it made power supply changes.

Iceland’s Attractiveness to Mining Investors

Cryptocurrency mining investors have often found Iceland attractive for business. This is because Iceland boasts of plentiful geothermal energy. This energy is captured to make cheap and excessive renewable energy. However, as of 7th December 2021, new requests for electrical power from mining operators will be declined. The duration of how long applications will be rejected is yet unknown.

Crypto Mining Companies Operating in Iceland?

Bitfury Holding, Genesis Mining, and Canada’s Hive Blockchain Technologies are the three largest Bitcoin mining companies that have set up operations in the country. Miners have invested significant time and effort in trying to make a profit from the environmentally friendly gains that Iceland’s natural resources offer in form of renewable energy. Some have spent a decade attempting to realize these profits. In commitment to these efforts, one company in the space, Cloud Hashing relocated up to 100 miners to Iceland. HydroMiner GmbH, an Austrian company managed to raise approximately US$ 2.8 million in its first coin offer. The intention of this coin offering was to raise funds to construct mining rigs in Icelandic power plants.

How has power failure affected industries in Iceland?

The aluminum smelting industry in Iceland has been the most impacted by power distribution problems. In December 2021, aluminum prices rose by 1.1%. This was a result of the supply-chain problems stated where the country has had increased demand, creating the present shortfall.

Green Blockchain

Since 2021, environmentally friendly blockchain has become popular. In Glasgow, Scotland at the COP26 conference, think tanks discussed issues around Bitcoin mining and its energy intensity. The conference also set the scene for the launch of GloCha United Citizens Organization (UCO). The purpose of GloCha UCO is to act on climate empowerment as a collective. CloCha UCO will use blockchain technology and innovation to further the climate change agenda.

About Iceland

Iceland is an island nation that is part of Scandinavia in the north Atlantic Sea. The country’s capital city is Reykjavik and happens to also be its largest. It has a small population of 371,000 people and is led by President Guoni Th. Johannesson. Initially, Iceland depended primarily on small-scale farming and fishing. The nation prospered after World War 2 and the industrialization of the fishing industry. As a result, Iceland grew to become one of the world’s most developed nations. As of 1994, it becomes part of the European Economic Area. This further cemented Iceland’s economy and helped it diversify some more. New sectors that grew and benefited from this diversification include biotechnology, finance, and manufacturing. If we compare Iceland to its OECD counterparts, it offers lower taxes in its market economy.

This small nation has come a long way from its days of subsistence farming and fisheries to become ranked the fourth most developed nation in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index and number 1 on that of the Global Peace Index. One outstanding aspect about Iceland is that it runs almost entirely on renewable energy. The fact that green energy has grown in popularity in regards to crypto mining and how by design Iceland’s whole nation runs on it makes it quite evident why Iceland is a star in the crypto mining space. Investors can only hope the nation sufficiently resolves its electricity supply problems soon.

Categories
Bitcoin Business News

Cryptocurrency Acceptance in Australia Booming

Pexels-catarina-sousa-68704
Cryptocurrency Acceptance In Australia Booming

According to a recent survey, up to 28.8% of Australians use or own cryptocurrency. These findings were presented in a survey for the 2021 Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI). This is a yearly cross-sectional survey conducted by PureProfile. It arrived at these results using a sample size of 2000 Australian people. This 28.8% is an increase from last year’s 18.4% of people who own or use crypto.

What do the Results Mean?

The results imply that there is growing use of cryptocurrency in Australia and in turn in the sector. This is likely driven by pleasant experiences by those who have used or owned crypto. The results of the survey show that 89% of respondents had made money or broken even on their cryptocurrency investments. This is up from the previous year’s 78%.

One leader in the field, Adrian Przelonzny, the CEO of Independent Reserve shared his thoughts on these findings. He stated that the findings did not come as a surprise to him. Przelozny added that cryptocurrency has easily done better than other assets throughout the year. He hypothesized that it is natural that more people are getting interested in crypto, an asset class that doing better than any other on the market.

Best Performing Asset

In another report, Cointelegraph reported back in October that Bitcoin was the best-performing asset class of this year. Przelozny said that he anticipates that this trend will not stop as crypto matures and becomes more stable. He added that the advantage of crypto is that the longer it is being used, the more accepted it becomes. Prezelonzny also expects that we will see that the currency will stabilize eventually and so will the perception of it as a risk for investors.

The real Risk

Up to 28.6% of respondents of the 2021 Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index survey said that
if the asset came with better protections, they would invest. This percentage of the respondents were those that do not currently own crypto. Furthermore, 26.6% of respondents said that they would purchase cryptocurrency if regulations for the industry became strengthened.

The Need for Regulation for Cryptocurrency

The growth of Bitcoin exploded but regulations have yet to catch up with it. From the feedback of respondents in these stated researches, it is clear that a certain level of growth is dependent on how secure cryptocurrency is for businesses and investors alike. Without advances in terms of regulation, that level may never be reached.

Przelozny added that he is of the opinion that with regulations we will experience a whole new class of investors entering the space. He referenced Singapore as an example of where this was demonstrated to have occurred after regulations improved there. He further stated that the number of investors older than 65 years of age in Australia would likely contribute to the next boom of Australian-based crypto investors once concerns about regulations are dealt with by authorities and stakeholders alike. From Przelozny’s vantage point, he believes these would-be investors are looking for consumer protection from the nation’s administration. Without this consumer protection, these investors may never venture forth into the crypto market.

Interesting Insights

According to research, the 24 to 34-year-old investors turned out to be the most trusting of crypto. In fact, 27.6% of them stated that they were investing with the desire to become rich from it. However, those that probably don’t buy into the promises of riches are likely people over the age of 65 years old.

Bitcoin is still the most well-known and famous cryptocurrency. That is according to the 2021 Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index. 89.1% of Australians stated that they had heard of Bitcoin. 21.1% of respondents also stated owning it. After Bitcoin, Ethereum was next popular with 11% of respondents stating that they had had ownership of the crypto. This is all up from the previous year’s 5%.

Categories
Business News NFT

Retail buyers make up 80% of NFTs transactions

Pexels-alesia-kozik-6781008
Retail Buyers Make Up 80% Of Nfts Transactions

According to Chainalysis, over 80% of NFTs (nonfungible tokens) were worth under US$ 10,000 in 2021. This means that these NFTs were classed as “retail”. Chainalysis’s report titled “The 2021 NFT Market Explained” that Chainalysis published on the 6th December 2021 delved deeper into trends of this year. This report shared insights gleaned from analyzing data from January to October 2021.

Insights from the report

Retail Transactions and Large Collectors

The report said that collector-sized transactions increased by 6% in March to 19% by 31st October 2021. This demonstrated a growth in the number of larger collectors throughout the year. At the same time, retail transactions amounted to over 80% of the total of nonfungible token transactions on any day in 2021. The researchers considered retail-sized transactions to be those that are US$ 10,000 and under. Collector-sized transactions are those that are worth between US$ 10,000 and US$ 100,000, according to studies.

Institutional-Sized Transactions

Transactions that appeared institutional amounted to under 1% of all transfers. Regardless of this, they still contributed to 26% of trading volume during the stated time period. Research states that institutional-sized transactions are transactions of over US$ 100,000.

Retail transactions made up the bulk of total transfers. However, collectors and institutions comprised the majority of NFT dollar-denominated transaction volumes since early this year. Alternatively, transactions that were collector-sized contributed to about 63% of the volume. Retail transfers contributed to about 11% of the volume for the same period assessed.

Contrast Between NFT Market with Wider Crypto market

Researches also looked at the differences between the market for nonfungible tokens and that of the overall cryptocurrency market. According to their findings, it shows that the NFT market is notably more retail-driven than the wider crypto market. In the wider crypto market, retail transactions make up a small fraction of transaction volumes.

The earning Potential of NFTs

Through 2021, Cointelegraph researchers believe the potential to generate revenues associated with nonfungible tokens contributed to increased cryptocurrency adoption. The US$ 17.7 Billion in NFT sales expected in 2021 adds credence to this explanation. The US $ 17.7 Billion was record-breaking.

In the past few days, NFT sales contributed to US$ 300 million transfers. This is nearly 25% of what was made from The Sandbox metaverse land purchases. Chainalysis said there have also been no less than US$ 26.9 Billion in crypto transferred to ERC-721 and ERC-1155 contracts during this year.

The Merit of Whitelisting Newly-Minted NFTs

Even though the market is generating enormous amounts of money on nonfungible tokens, the research states that only 28.5% of NFTs bought during minting and then sold on the platform lead to profits. Whitelisting could be the solution to this problem, suggested Chainalysis. Chainalysis believes that whitelisting would increase the probability of newly minted NFTs generating profits. Those who were whitelisted on a minting event on OpenSea managed to generate profits up to 75.7% of the time. This is in comparison with 20.8% of the time regarding those who did not get whitelisted. These figures make a persuasive argument for the importance of whitelisting if one wants to make it possible for their NFTs to generate returns.

Merits of Secondary markets for Profitability of NFTs

The research showed that secondary markets are responsible for minted NFTs profiting. According to the data, this happens 65.1% of the time. Therefore, if your newly minted NFT does not get whitelisted, all is not lost. You can wait for an NFT collection to hit secondary markets. One does not have to necessarily make any efforts in a minting event. You can still ensure your NFTs turn a profit through these secondary markets.

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Ex-Meta Engineers raise US$ 36 Million in Investment for Mysten Labs

Pexels-lukas-590022
Ex-meta Engineers Raise Us$ 36 Million In Investment For Mysten Labs

The company, Mysten Labs just closed a round of fundraising. They managed to raise US$ 36 million in venture capital. Mysten Labs is a research and development firm. A number of ex-Facebook engineers started this new company. The funding raised is to help the company realize its goal of developing a Web 3.0 infrastructure platform.

The Series A round

Mysten Labs announced on Medium that their team had managed to raise these funds in a Series A funding round. The leader in this series A round was Andreessen Horowitz. Other participants included Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Standard Crypto, Samsung NEXT, Scribble Ventures, NFX, and Slow Ventures.

Mysten Lab’s Intentions

One news outlet, CNBC stated that Evan Cheng, the CEO said Mystery would utilize the financial resources to engineer the infrastructure required for their cryptocurrency and blockchain-focused firm to operate. On top of the Web 3.0 infrastructure plans that Mysten has, the company also intends on launching a platform for the metaverse. This platform is slated to be launched in 2022. They intend to build it into a next-generation NFT platform. They want to use the project to aid users in efficiently reallocating their assets from one virtual environment to another without functionality restraints.

About Mysten Labs

Mysten was established in September 2021. Former employees of Facebook’s cryptographical program established it. They were part of the workforce that helped engineer Meta’s (Facebook’s) blockchain architecture, encompassing its crypto-payments platform – Diem and its mobile wallet – Novi. These engineers are Evan Chang, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, and George Danezis. Evan Cheng is now the Chief Executive Officer of Mysten. Sam Blackshear is the Chief Technology Officer. Adeniyi Abiodun is the Chief Operations Officer and George Danezis is the Chief Scientist.

About the CEO: Evan Cheng

The Chief Executive Officer of Mysten spent over 10 years working at Apple before eventually joining Facebook. He was once the Director of Engineering, Programming Languages, and Runtimes for Facebook. Later he became the Head of Novi Research at Facebook. There he led Novi by focusing on advancing blockchain and crypto innovation. Novi is an international money transfer and remittance provider owned by Facebook. He also functioned as an advisor to Chainlink. Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network. The network provides live data to blockchains. Now as a co-founder and CEO of Mysten, he takes on new challenges in the research and development of Web 3.0 and other crypto-related technologies.

Mysten Lab’s Partners

Mysten has also established partnerships with Celo and Sommelier. Celo is a service provider that offers an infrastructure for members to make global cryptocurrency payments. The platform can make basic payments and also assists in the development of decentralized solutions on blockchain.

Sommelier is a service provider in the Ethereum ecosystem. It expects the Ethereum crypto blockchain to become the leading player in the international economy. Sommelier Finance has an SDK called the Cosmos Stargate SDK. This SDK is a Tendermin-based consensus layer. It also has an Ethereum bridge managed by international networks of validators. This bridge is bi-directional.

The Company is growing

With the newly raised funds and demand for a larger workforce, it is clear that the company is growing. Some of the roles they have filled are in talent acquisition and staff engineer.

However, the company has numerous openings it needs to be filled. These job opportunities are mainly in the engineering department with at least one management role. These job openings include Distributed Systems Engineer for Decentralized Platforms for Europe, Gaming partnerships manager, cryptography software engineer, Distributed systems software engineer, Product software engineer, programming languages software engineer, and technical program manager. With changing times, many of these job opportunities are to be served in a remote capacity.

Categories
Blockchain Business News

Coinbase wants to become the “Amazon Web Services” of Crypto

Pexels-panumas-nikhomkhai-1148820
Coinbase Wants To Become The “amazon Web Services” Of Crypto

A Coinbase executive made a very interesting remark fairly recently. We all know, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or at least we should. It is one of the world’s most prominent providers of cloud services on the globe. Coinbase says it wants to become that for the cryptocurrency space. Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange that is continuously growing in success and profitability. It is based in the United States and is clearly ambitious to see itself continue to grow.

The Chief Product Officer of Coinbase, Surojit Chatterjee, said their company wants to become the AWS of crypto when he was interviewed exclusively by Forbes. He added that they are constructing a comprehensive Coinbase cloud suite of products. He stated that these products can be thought of as crypto computing services. The goal of these services would be to assist developers in building applications quicker.

The Progress Coinbase is Making

Coinbase purchased Bison Trails. The company purchased Bison Trails earlier this same year. Rumour has it that the deal cost Coinbase US$ 80 million. Coinbase says that Bison Trails is a service that does not manage the user’s staked assets. The company has since rebranded the service to “Coinbase Cloud”.

About Coinbase’s Inspiration

Amazon has several divisions. Previously, Amazon Web Services was just a secondary one. It has been around for 20 years now. Over the years it has grown to become the cash cow for Amazon. In 2020 alone, AWS generated US$ 13.5 billion in annual operating earnings. This was on a revenue base of US$45.3 billion. That stands for 63% of the parent company’s revenue. That’s very noteworthy financial progress.

Coinbase executives have added that they want to become the Amazon of cryptocurrencies immediately. The exchange is not prominent because of it being the main digital cryptocurrency service. Rather it is because it has the most comprehensive direct listing over. This makes Coinbase dependent on transaction fees.

Similarties with other Companies

Services like Facebook (now called “Meta”) and Google also have a reliance on a single category of revenue. This creates a vulnerability, for Coinbase and other service providers like it. In Coinbase’s case, this means that if the exchange suffers significant price swings in the downward persuasion, then Coinbase’s profits are significantly affected. This volatility is a real concern.

The Future for Coinbase

The exchange aims at boosting trading income by offering subscription services to its users. These services would not be affected by the price swings that the company currently endures. As of now, Coinbase offers various services. Some of these services include institutional custody services and staking possibilities. It also offers a learning portal that gives users crypto rewards. Another services Coinbase also has e-commerce checkout system and the capability to issue Visa debit cards to its clients. An innovation that it is testing out at present is a subscription service that would offer users a monthly trading allowance for a fixed price.

Significance of Coinbase buying Bison Trails

Chatterjee states that the purchase of Bison Trails was an important step to transitioning for Coinbase. This step allowed the company to adopt a more mature financial system. As of now, the platform has support for several types of holders. These are crypto custodians, funds, decentralized apps, and token holders. Some of the clients using this new service include Turner Sports, Current (a fintech firm), and Andreessen Horowitz.

How it’s looking so far for Coinbase?

Coinbase Cloud currently has about US$ 30 billion in cryptocurrency assets staked on its platform. This is as of November 2021. The exchange as a whole has 73 million genuine customers, 185,000 ecosystem partners, and 10,000 organizations in 100 countries. Coinbase says that since the company began it has conducted transactions to the total value in excess of US$ 700 billion. It is worth watching and seeing the developments that Coinbase has in store.

Categories
Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain

Philanthropy and Cryptocurrency

Pexels-julia-m-cameron-6994982
Philanthropy And Cryptocurrency

Back in 2014, there were only about 500 cryptocurrencies on the market and possibly no philanthropy conducted with any of it. Since then, more have burst into the scene. At present, there are about 7000 cryptocurrencies. This is amazing growth for just a 7 year period. In terms of adoption, in the United States alone, already 14% of the population have bought some type of cryptocurrency at some point. This is about 21.1 million people. When it comes to the global market, over 300 million people have used cryptocurrency before.

It is evident that crypto is not going anywhere. This is only the beginning of its relevance and value. We can easily expect continued growth and user adoption. We see certain sectors adopting crypto smoothly and even intuitively, especially those sectors that easily align with cutting-edge technology. Some other sectors continue to lag.

What about philanthropy?

So many sectors can benefit from the convenience and efficacy of blockchain technology. There is no reason why they shouldn’t, other than weariness of some level of risk that some may reasonably have. What’s more, accepting cryptocurrency as an alternate mode of payment shows the crypto community that a non-profit, political organization, or cause is in alignment with new technology and perhaps, even the future.

Projects doing Philanthropic workforce

In the field of longevity, some projects have already turned to cryptocurrency as means of donating. Here are some:

SENS Research Foundation

The SENS Research Foundation is one such organization. It focuses on research, development, and the promotion of comprehensive solutions for diseases that are age-related. If the general public and specially educated donors are allowed to learn about advancements in this area. This organization supports projects working to cure cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. It has notably made cryptocurrency part of how it runs. The level of progressiveness of this organization can even be seen in how many types of cryptocurrency SENS Research Foundation accepts donations. You can donate using Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, and Aave.

However, that is not just it. In total, the foundation accepts donations from 72 cryptocurrencies including those already stated. Back in 2018, various crypto visionaries have donated cryptocurrency to the foundation. One such visionary is Vitalik Buterin. Buterin donated US$ 2.4 million in ETH to the SENS Research Foundation. The founder of HEX, Richard Heart, carried out a campaign with SENS where users who donated to the foundation saw themselves being entered into PulseChain, his new cryptocurrency. Through this campaign, they managed to raise over US$ 5 million in donations. This is undeniable evidence that cryptocurrency offers real opportunities for philanthropy.

Longevity Science Foundation

The Longevity Science Foundation is another organization worth mentioning in this case. This organization accepts funds in all popular cryptocurrencies. They expect to work in alignment with crypto leaders to establish a decentralized and transparent mode of financing. All donors receive voting rights in the foundation’s funding decisions. So far, the organization has committed to helping projects that are most visionary in their worldview.

Useful solutions

Any non for profit can jump on the bandwagon using tools now on the market that help them do so. The Giving Block offers just that. Its tools are there to help non-profits receive donations. These tools also make it easy for donors to make their donations in the crypto that they most prefer. They can make these donations to over 400+ organizations. Nonprofits like World Relief, American Cancer Society, No Kid Hungry, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are among nonprofits receiving payment in crypto.

All in all, the more charities and other nonprofits embrace crypto, the more opportunities these organizations give themselves to raise funds. The opportunity is clear and the benefits are apparent. It’s time for more nonprofits to jump onboard.

Categories
Business News Technology

Privacy and the Shortfall of Cookies

Pexels-stefan-coders-2064586
Privacy And The Shortfall Of Cookies

We produce so much data every day we use a smart device and privacy is a real concern. From our laptops, tablets, smartwatches, and smartphones the data we produce accumulates. Even if you choose to not accept cookies on some web services, that same web service has probably sent you a web tracker with an email you subscribed to.

Regardless of how paranoid you are of hiding your personal details, somehow bits about you and your behaviors will likely get through. The current environment is holistically harvesting so much metadata from users. So, even though your data will most probably be encrypted, the streams of data about you will still reveal, to some extent, things about you and your behavior. In turn, you will remain a target for ads or other online surveillance.

A service advert you would like to use one day may pop up on your social media feed. You may legitimately be interested in using it. However, in the grand scheme of things, we all ultimately want one thing. That thing is privacy. Individuals and institutions alike want privacy. It is easy to see why the military or national security agencies may desire to withhold some of their information. It’s perhaps also easy to see why a corporation may want to do the same to maintain profitability and outperform its competitors. Even as individuals, if you consider the information you search for online, products you buy, and people you interact with, the idea of privacy instantly becomes crucial to sustainable use of smart technology for one’s self.

No Incentives to Provide Privacy

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of demand for privacy. What is lacking is incentives to make that a reality. A report by Ernest and Young stated that the United Kingdom’s health data is valued at US$ 11 Billion. That’s just the United Kingdom. Of course, some of us may argue the matrix used to come to this valuation. So, regardless of how personal data is valued, the bottom line is the benefits of having access to this data are more tempting than not. Authorities want to know what their citizens are talking about. Enterprises want to learn about their customers and ensure their products or services are meeting their needs.

Affordance Theory

Affordance Theory could help us understand this situation further. Firstly, “affordance” refers to how users look at the functionality of something based on that thing’s design. This theory looks at the use of a thing by its stated environment, system, and what it offers to users.

Securing Privacy as the Default setting

We can not afford to have privacy as some negotiable addon. It needs to be a default setting for all users. Regardless of how well you secure your data, someone or something else connected to you will give away data about you. Therefore your metadata will have the opportunity to be used or misused by other entities. Now, governments or tech enterprises by themselves lack sufficient desire to make this a genuine and top priority.

The GDPR has somewhat failed. Instead of privacy is an option you decide to take or leave, it needs to be built into the very fabric of the infrastructure we use and given to us without having to be offered it. This may require a centralized and international infrastructure. Doing so would ensure that no single government or legal entity has some sort of leverage that others do not. In addition, there need to also be some perks to compliance that justify the efforts of those tasked to create such an infrastructure. It needs to be lucrative enough that not maintaining is unprofitable and a very bad idea.

Categories
Blockchain Business DeFi News Ethereum

What Will Ethereum do in the Metaverse

Pexels-david-mcbee-730552
What Will Ethereum Do In The Metaverse

Ethereum is one of the world’s top cryptocurrencies. It is a smart-contract blockchain. Its framework consists of an emphasis on security and a decentralized environment for various applications. At the same time, advances are happening. Decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens have led the way. So many uses cases thus applied have shown the extreme potential for blockchain now and in the future. Whilst this is happening, advances are also happening in regards to the metaverse and the social media of the future. Vitalik Buterin and others are looking at disrupting social media as we know it.

In the Beginning

When Ethereum just started out, it stood as a solution for trading and lending crypto assets and for purchasing and selling digital art. In the case of trading and lending, Uniswap and Aave are prime examples of marketplaces where this was done. In regards to buying and selling art, OpenSea is a good example. Then came second-layer platforms. These platforms were built on top of Ethereum and offered even more solutions. Artbitrum and Optimism are good examples of platforms that did just that.

So is that of ZK. ZK is set to help lower the transaction fees on Ethereum and possibly help the decentralization of social media options like Reddit.

Ether is the Key

All the platforms mentioned above utilize Ether. Ether is required for the Ethereum network. If you want to release a new application or use an existing one, you will need some Ether. If you want to send funds to different wallets, you’ll need to purchase some Ether. Commentators believe in the not-so-distant future, we will need Ether to stake and secure networks.

If protocols like Solan and Avalanche, which are based on Ethereum are successful and the “metaverse” too, then what we consider to be “money” may actually change. It’s not inconceivable. Already protocols have managed to raise funds, and investors measure their portfolios against Ether. Alternatively, they would have used the US Dollar or stablecoins. Regardless of this, the use of ether instead of stablecoins does not diminish the value of the other.

Ether and other types of crypto assets remain better investments in a currency at the moment because they are more reflexive of demand. However, there is great benefit in having large Ethereum ecosystems. The ecosystem shows that Ether is now being used for DeFi, NFTs, validation, and more.

When assets can be transferred from one legal entity to another quickly and used as collateral, you start to see that asset look more and more like money instead of property or stores of value.

Stake Capital’s founder, Julien Bouteloup thinks that the Web 3 workforce has shown more acceptance in being paid in token equity, instead of stablecoins. It is viable that employees that believe in their workplaces would be willing to be paid in equity. However, it is also possible that it is just a side effect of a bullish market and soaring valuations.

What may we expect will happen to Ether?

Among other things, we may expect to see play-to-earn games continue to increase in popularity. One example of a winner in the space right now is Axie Infinity. This is a Ronin-based nonfungible token game. It is already making waves by earning billions of dollars in annual revenue. People that use the game in various parts of the world are even able to live off the income from the revenue they make from it. In fact, a large part of this revenue is positively affecting the gross domestic product of a whole nation, the Philippines. With continued advances in Ethereum, we should expect to see more financially viable solutions popping up and changing the way the financial game is being played.

Categories
Blockchain Business DeFi News Technology

The Future is Fast in Finance

Pexels-pixabay-259200
The Future Is Fast In Finance

We are in a different era from what the world had previously known when it comes to finance. Now, people expect a certain level of efficiency when transacting. Modern technology, especially incorporating the advances in the internet, innovation, blockchain, and cryptocurrency advances gives us these conveniences. If tokenization continues to progress, as many expect, we should hope to see more financial access and more financial options.

A More Equal World

History has shown that when equity is distributed or airdrops done all in an appropriate manner, finances are distributed more freely and fairly than if corporate entities had done it. Unfortunately, the other side of things is also true. This approach is prone to exploitation and scams. Regardless of which side, blockchain technology allows money to move faster globally than the regular banking and payment systems. The technology also offers more control to the direct user, instead of the middlemen. This fact is pivotal when we consider globalization and investment in particular.

What DO We mean by “Speed”?

In regular systems, financial transactions involve orders being placed and people conducting business with others they had established credit lines with, trusted, or offered some credible type of guarantee. In traditional finance, a cheque or money order, for example, require a number of steps. All these steps require procedures to be followed for the transaction to be successfully carried out. Funds are not moved until all the necessary procedures are carried out to their satisfaction.

Then Came Paypal and Others in Finance

After the traditional approach proved lacking, service providers like Paypal sprouted. Others like Mastercard, Visa, and Venmo started carving out a piece of the financial services “pie” for themselves. Regardless of these new services, the traditional model still remains strong. Regular banks sometimes shoulder a certain level of risk to ensure processes appear to move faster to lessen the delay for the end-users. So, the speed gains are not in reference to the network and infrastructure that’s used. Rather, the reference is in regards to the settlement of transactions. This stage is faster than banks, even between complete strangers. Crypto transactions and settlement are combined. For this reason, it’s considered “digital cash”. Once sent, it moves to the recipient directly within 10min and costs about $3.

Where Crypto Outshines them all in finance

There is one thing that other options like Paypal, Mastercard, or Western Union can not do. All these options and many other providers can not send and settle a large transfer on the other side of the globe in 10 minutes. Collaborative financial projects have new opportunities through cryptocurrency’s capabilities. It is possible to see continued progress with DAOs and crowdfunding campaigns of the future.


Constitution DAO is one prime example. The efforts that Constitution DAO made by raising US$ 40 million in only a week among strangers to purchase a copy of the United States of America Constitution was amazing. In the mainstream, there would be a lot of noise for a venture capital fund of the same value. Yet, crypto managed to raise this in 7 days for 1 cause, albeit, not a business use case. However, the scenario can easily be adapted or considered as a business concept. In fact, this has already begun for venture capital funds for crypto projects.

With money transactions going so fast, it seems the analyst will be left in the dark, and knowledgeable investors will end up finding that the very last decision they make will have to be based somewhat on “hunks”. Perhaps a new type of role or skill set will evolve where an analyst was needed.

The Promise in SPACs

SPACs or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies are showing us what the future could hold. This type of entity uses the stock market as a venture-raising instrument. They focus on acquisition and not early funding though. Maybe crowdfunders and startups will turn to such an option for their venture capital needs too.

Categories
Blockchain

Predictions for The Future of Finance

Pexels-cottonbro-7179799
Predictions For The Future Of Finance

Many advances have been made over the past decade regarding finance and technology. There has been progress in so many ways, not least of which are nonfungible tokens. So many innovations happened since Bitcoin popped up back in 2008. Since then, so much has happened and so much is here to stay. Some extremely interesting predictions worth sharing were made by J.P. Koning for CoinDesk. Here are some of the predictions that the commentator shared:

Decentralized Finance with Merge with Centralized Finance

Decentralized finance (DeFi) offers many advantages. The future will incorporate both traditional financing and decentralized finance. Centralized finance will end up incorporating some of the benefits that DeFi offers. Centralized finance will take onboard the conveniences that DeFi offers including how automatic and programmable it is. This will likely be done without including the blockchain technology aspect of it.

DeFi is likely to adopt some of the best components of regular finance. These components that are likely to be incorporated include regulations that make things safer for all parties. This means DeFi will likely look at establishing regulations and compliance in regards to anti-money laundering / know your customer rules. It will likely mean firms will become securities and exchange commission-registered or licensed with the office of OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency).

These firms in DeFi will take on these regulations out of their own volition and not because of coercion by regulators. “Making” truly decentralized organizations do anything is difficult. Entities will have to choose to follow whatever regulations exist. Since most of the world’s funds are lawfully made, DeFi will have to jump on board to get a piece of this action. In the long term, both regular finance and decentralized will function in such a way that most people won’t know or care as long as they are getting safe, legal, and valuable financial services. However, again, in the long term, some will stay in a purely DeFi ecosystem. Those will likely be over-represented by outliers, activists, hobbyists, and even criminals. They will be in the minority, still benefiting from a lack of regulations.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Legalization will be seen as a reality check for Finance

By 2030, the globe will have fully embraced bitcoin. From now and to then, the world will see other Central American countries follow suit, followed by South America and then the United States of America. These countries that will state that bitcoin is their legal tender are likely to do it as a marketing gimmick whilst they watch and wait to see how this development goes for El Salvador. If it does not pan out for El Salvador, they will likely halt their plans.

Cash and CBDS will Disappear in Finance

Central Bank Digital Currency was the banking sector’s approach to offer something as trendy as crypto. Western banks will attempt to use CBDS but most customers will not use the service. This is because the risks are still associated with such an instrument. Banks that are early adopters will likely experience this. More traditional banks, will likely see the slow or poor adoption and stop CBDS eventually.

MasterCard and Visa will drive KYC and not Governments

The future will see that online content will be linked to a verifiable owner. Card owners like Mastercard and Visa are more likely to make this possible beyond any actual government. In October 2021, Mastercard introduced some new rules. The rules stated that platforms that host user-generated pornography start using identity verification rules. Non-compliance will lead to those sites being barred from the service provider’s network. If sites do not comply, then that means the end for such businesses. For that reason, platforms have complied.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Business

Traditional Exchange in South Korea Looking to Join Crypto

Pexels-tima-miroshnichenko-7567595
Traditional Exchange In South Korea Looking To Join Crypto

South Korea, like a number of other Asian countries, is making serious moves in the cryptos space. The country’s security exchange operator, KRX (Korea Exchange) says it is looking for ways to “embrace” crypto assets. This was a statement made by the exchange’s chairperson, Sohn Byung.

The chairperson of the exchange told people present at a financial conference that it was time to do this. He added that the market for crypto assets is the same as that of capital markets. Sohn cited the similarities being in regards to investor protection. He added that transaction stability should also be supported. Sohn said they would utilize what they had learned in the stock market. With that knowledge, they would attempt to start engaging in the crypto asset business.

The Face of Investing is Changing in South Korea

This decision is coming at a time when the major crypto exchanges in South Korea are extremely profitable. The country’s top four domestic crypto exchange platforms currently have a combined user base of 5 million. In addition, these crypto markets trade approximately US$ 12 million in stock value on a daily basis. It is worth noting that this US$ 12 million is very close to what KOSPI trades on a daily basis as well. For these reasons, perhaps among others, the traditional exchange is ready to contemplate joining this new type of investment frontier. The crypto exchange may one day exceed the domestic exchange trade value.

Perception of Investors in South Korea about Investing

South Korea’s investors that happen to be among the country’s economic elite are typically not on board with crypto as of yet. They are typically still somewhat against crypto. This is according to a recent survey of the country’s richest. However, the fact of the matter remains that there are still significant numbers of investors who are now seeing better opportunities and value in crypto investing than in South Korea’s mainstream stock exchanges. Some of these forward-thinking investors that have turned to crypto investing are quite young but even older investors are now jumping onto the bandwagon. KRX and KOSPI index may become archaic soon.

Preparation for Exchange’s Framework

The chairman of the KRX said it is time to start preparing an institutional framework. These comments are about 12 months after the exchange stated it would conduct more focused monitoring of crypto-related stocks. It is possible this announcement was made back then due to concerning volatility of stocks that were related to the crypto industry.

KRX has monitored whilst share prices of some stocks have risen along with crypto prices. One such example is the Bithumb exchange which has seen Vidente profit. Vidente is a listed non-crypto company. It has seen itself benefit from these same rising crypto prices because of its investment in a minor stock exchange called Bithumb.

Domestic Crypto Exchanges in Korea going Global

Some of South Korea’s domestic crypto exchanges are now considering spreading their wings. This is probably another observation that KRX made. It is also likely another reason it’s paying serious attention to crypto now. Some analysts think that the domestic crypto exchanges in South Korea may have found that they have or will outgrow their country’s market. For that reason, they are watching for initial public offerings in other parts of the globe where they can continue to expand. As such, some of South Korea’s crypto exchanges may follow in the footsteps of Coinbase and get floated in the United States.

About KRX

The Korea Stock Exchange was established in 2005. It was founded by the consolidation of a number of domestic markets. At present, it is the only securities exchange operating in South Korea. It has its head offices in Busan.

Categories
Blockchain Business News People

Randi Zuckerberg campaigning for more Women Involvement

Pexels-daria-shevtsova-942419
Randi Zuckerberg Campaigning For More Women Involvement

OKCoin recently appointed Randi Zuckerberg to help them on their mission. OKCoin aims to get 50% women representation in cryptocurrency customers by 2025. VentureBeat reported this interesting development. The outlet stated that Randi Zuckerberg would become the first brand advisory council member for OKCoin’s plans. OKCoin intends on investing US$1 million to accomplish this goal of 50% representation of women.

About Randi Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg is an American businessperson whose net worth is about US$ 200 Million. She is the former director of market development and spokesperson for Facebook. Zuckerberg is now the CEO of Zuckerberg Media and the Zuckerberg Institute and will now wear this mantle too of a member of brand advisory council member.

About OKCoin

OKCoin is a cryptocurrency platform where users spot trade between fiat and digital assets. Users can easily purchase cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and others. Furthermore, users can also earn cryptocurrency rewards. OKCoin is considered a secure exchange for transactions. It utilizes the most current encryption technology to protect the platform from hackers. Among some of the security measures, the employ is two-factor authentication for logins and withdrawals. The company has offices in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Miami, Malta, Singapore, and Japan. They state that they are a group of global citizens with one passion. This passion is to further decentralize finance and make a fairer economic situation the world over.

OKCoin’s Mission for Inclusivity

OKCoin announced their next phase in their mission towards equality and inclusiveness. This is to bring more women to crypto investing. Cryptocurrency technology is inclusive. This is because cryptocurrency is permissionless. It brings something of a democracy for all to earn a decent living and even much more. Women have made significant contributions in cryptocurrency. However, women remain significantly under-represented in the sector.

Some recent research showed that there were half as many women involved in cryptocurrency investment as men.

Zuckerberg’s Interest in Inclusivity for Women

Overall, Heather Landy gave an interesting perspective in an article. This article was on Zuckerberg’s interest in new tech. Landy stated that during the 10 year period that Zuckerberg was employed at Facebook she gained some insights. Zuckerberg discovered how male-dominated the industry was. The Harvard graduate ended being the only woman in rooms where decisions were being made.

In an interview with Quartz, Zuckerberg made two suggestions for women. The first suggestion she made was that women should have names that sound male. The second suggestion she made was that women should consider finding niches in the sector that are as yet in their infancy of development. Zuckerberg’s theory is that women will then find spaces that are not yet filled with gender bias. Zuckerberg stated that this gender bias pervades the rest of the global tech industry. Spaces with most gender bias being those that are fully established.

Women should invest in the future

She added that this is why she has started investing in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and cannabis. Zuckerberg quit her job at Facebook to become a powerhouse in her own right. She is now a best-selling author, entrepreneur, radio host, and angel investor. Back in 2018, Zuckerberg said she thought those new industries would be the next booming business areas. Now, cryptocurrency prices are booming. Blockchain is gaining more and more ground. One can easily see her predictions were right. Zuckerberg said getting in on the start will help women have an equal playing field. This means women will not end up playing o catch up with incumbents.

Comments on the Developments

This is an interesting direction that OKCoin is taking. It development is something that would catch the attention of many women and especially new investors among them.

Categories
Blockchain Business NFT

Music Streaming NFTs are the Future

Pexels-andrea-piacquadio-761963
Music Streaming Nfts Are The Future

Music, art and entertainment enrich lives. On an average day, we may enjoy some music, read a book or watch a movie. Music is often added to compliment so many other activities and pieces of artwork. The mandate can be made that more bearable or exciting with our favorite song playing in the background. Imagine a long arduous car ride without any tunes. Consider an action, thriller or suspense-filled movie without a soundtrack. Imagine a wedding without any melodies. The world would just not be the same without music. Thankfully, music is not going anywhere. In fact, with new technologies like that of NFTs, things are just getting more and more interesting.

With services like Amazon Music Limited, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube dishing out our musical supply, consumers have no shortage of options of where to get their favorite tunes or discover new ones. Here is more about 3 of the biggest.

Spotify

Spotify is a favourite among many. This music streaming provider is a company based in Sweden. Spotify has provided audio streaming services to users since as far back as 2006. It was started by two founders: Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Right now Spotify dominates the music streaming business and happens to be the largest at present. The platform has a whopping 381 million active users a month. In terms of paid subscribers, it boasts of 172 million of them. Daniel Ek is the current CEO.

Apple Music

Apple Music is another heavyweight in the international music streaming business. This is a service by Apple Inc. It was launched in 2015. Now, Apple Music is available in up to 167 countries. Apple Music is accessible in the Americas, Asia, Oceania, parts of the Middle East and parts of Africa. The service provides a selection of millions of songs to its users. In the United States, Apple Music is more popular than Spotify. Last year the company posted a profit of US$4.1 Billion in revenue. 2020, As of 2020, Apple Music had about 72 million subscribers.

Amazon Music Limited

Amazon Music Limited provides a limited but wide selection of music. As of now, they have up to 75 million songs available for streaming on their platform.

Why Musicians may want other options

As it stands, musicians aren’t benefiting as much as they could. At present, it’s reported that platforms such as Spotify and Apple take up to 75% of the artist’s revenues, including the fee paid to their label.

More Gains for Music Creators using NFTs

With service providers getting the lion’s share of profits that Musicians earn, new tech offers solutions that might give artists more profits. This is a prediction by Saxo Bank. Saxo Bank published a list of predictions for 2022, titled “Saxo Bank’s Outrageous Predictions 2022 Revolution”. They believe that in a few months’ time Musicians will reap rewards from nonfungible token platforms. These benefits will come in because music creators will deal directly with their listeners and not go through a middle man. By ousting out the middle man, they will save on fees.

Audius: and other developments in NFT Music Streaming

Made Eberhardt, an analyst from Saxo Bank said that new projects in the NFT subsection showed promise to things started by 2022. The platform by Katy Perry, The Chainsmokers and Jason Derulo is one project worth noting. it is called Audius and is a music streaming platform in the blockchain space being a prime example of what to look out for.

What about traditional platforms that Stream Music?


According to Eberhardt, traditional platforms like Spotify and Apple should brace themselves for disruption and unprecedented change. However, this “bleakness” may take time to manifest because such platforms are still racking in serious revenues. Spotify’s active users grow by 19% each month. In 2020, Spotify posted 7.85 billion in revenues.

Categories
Blockchain Business NFT Technology

Progress into the Metaverse: Adidas and More

Pexels-eren-li-7241295-scaled
Progress Into The Metaverse: Adidas And More

More and more companies continue to enter the metaverse. At the same time researchers believe that by the end of 2021, NFTs will record a total of US $ 18 billion. This will make the subsector one of the most profitable in the cryptocurrency world. Adidas recently announced that it was entering the Metaverse. The company stated that it was entering the Metaverse with partners. Some of the partners it cited included BAYT (Bored Ape Yacht Club), gmoney NFT, and PUNKS Comic. Adidas stated in an article that they are famous for celebrating innovation.

They said their goal is to see everyone in the Metaverse do well. Adidas essentially added that they think the Metaverse is where all can live their best lives, however they choose to express themselves. The company acknowledged that blockchain technology and nonfungible tokens made this possible for people to have such opportunities.

Adidas’ Partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club

An NFT has been redesigned, showing the Bored Ape Yacht Club ape wearing Adidas’ famous striped tracksuit. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has its NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain. As of now, these NFTs are about 10,000.

Adidas’ Partnership with gmoney

Gmoney is a popular cryptocurrency. It is also influential in the nonfungible token subsector. It is so popular, that so far gmoney has been featured on Fortune NFTy 50.

Adidas’ Partnership with PUNKS Comic

PUNKS Comic has an interesting approach. The company utilizes two “worlds”. On one hand, it uses the world of nonfungible tokens. On the other hand, it utilizes the world of printed comic books. This combination allows them to make what they call “crypto comics”.

Other Big Brands entering the Metaverse

Meta

It goes without saying that Meta’s bold and progressive entrance into the metaverse was by far the most interesting announcement in regards to the metaverse. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has invested many years creating its virtual reality and augmented reality. They have already started making progress using their two platforms: Horizons and Horizons Workrooms. The company hopes to include its digital products in the metaverse. These products include neural inputs, AR glasses, and smartwatches.

Microsoft’s Office Metaverse

Then one of the other tech giants decided to enter the metaverse: Microsoft. The company intends on building a business-focused metaverse by using both virtual reality and augmented reality. Microsoft has called it a “persistent digital world that’s lived by digital twins of people…”.

Nvidia

This may excite a lot of people who are keen on looking like their virtual counterparts. Nvidia expressed their plans on building a new platform where users can design their own – highly customizable avatars. Amongst other technologies, the platform will use facial tracking, speech recognition, and 3D animation to create avatars for its users. The avatar will be called the “Omniverse” avatar.

D & G

This major fashion brand joined the metaverse with the first of its kind NFTs about fashion from a top luxury fashion brand. Unfortunately, the brand has gotten in trouble over social media for some statements by D & G’s social media accounts, that some have seen as discriminatory.

Rebecca Minkoff

Rebecca Minkoff is another entry into the metaverse. In alignment with their “I Love New York” collection, the company worked with The Dematerized and Yahoo to create 400 digital garments. These 400 digital garments were sold out at auction on OpenSea.

Clinique

This brand entered the metaverse with its offering of NFTs recently. They began with a competition that gave people the opportunity to win any of 3 nonfungible tokens. The tokens were inspired by Clinique’s most famous products, i.e. Black Honey and Moisture Surge.

In conclusion

Companies are becoming bold and creative as we enter the new frontiers of the future. The metaverse is open for business and businesses are getting ready to cash in big.

Categories
Blockchain NFT Technology

Researchers Study if Token rewards can help Africa’s HIV Patients

Pexels-miguel-a-padrinan-3936368
Researchers Study If Token Rewards Can Help Africa’s Hiv Patients

For 5 years researchers will be studying whether incentives from crypto tokens can assist Africa’s HIV/AIDS patients with improvements to their health. Immunify.Life and MMUST (Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology shared on the 1st of November 2021 that they had obtained a go-ahead from an ethics committee and national commission to commence the study.

These two organizations will coordinate their work in a 5-year stretch. They will focus on studying HIV/AIDS beginning this December 2021. The study will begin from the Kakamega County region in Kenya. Thereafter, the study will continue to the rest of Kenya.

How will the study be conducted?

The Kenya-based university, MMUST, will depend on Immunify.Life for a number of key components of the study. One major one is that of the blockchain technology that Immunify.Life can offer them. The technology will aggregate patient data and then analyze it. Immunify.Life solutions will then assess if these patients have improved treatment outcomes. Patients involved in the study will be asked to maintain good health care related conduct. Patients will be prompted with the possibility of rewards. The hope is that the rewards will spur on health-positive behaviors. Project sponsors identified these behaviors. The project’s sponsors include some nongovernmental organizations and government institutions.

Incentive possibilities

Guy Newing, the top executive at Immunify.Life told CoinTelegraph that the program that they will be testing will grant tokens to users to encourage those users to make each clinical appointment. Immunify.Life will also grant doctors and other health workers tokens. These tokens will be native ERC-220 IMM tokens. The possibilities for incentives include offering tokens to patients that have completed their prescribed dosage for treatment of infections like Tuberculosis. Patients consistent with attending check-ups, may be given rewards.

What rewards will health care workers get?

The study will reward doctors and other health care officers for exemplary behavior. Such behavior they could reward could be when health workers do a great job of recording patient data, keeping enough tests ordered for Tuberculosis, or finishing a given medical education program.

The study will ascribe participants NFT (nonfungible token) health ID. This token will keep that individual patient’s medical data. Such data include vaccinations records. The project will record data on the nonfungible token and then on to a digital registry for remote supervision. Copying the data to a remote digital registry also allows the data access to medical professionals tasked with supporting a given patient.

The Mechanics of the Study

A total of 600 people living with HIV/AIDS will participate. The study will reward half of the 600 participants. The other 50% of the 600 patients will be controls. The study will monitor participants for half a year. Another aspect that the study will track beyond the reward aspect is that of the paperlessness of the project. The Study will try to see how effective a paperless healthcare tracking system functions in a low socio-economic area.

About Kenya and the AIDS Pandemic

At present, Kenya has about 1.5 million living with HIV/AIDS. That is based on a 2020 UNAIDS report. Of these 1.5 million people, 70% receive treatment. However, currently, there are challenges in tracking and managing patient data. It also occurs that numerous individuals with HIV/AIDS can not complete treatment. In some locations, this can be up to 40% of patients.

Categories
Bitcoin Blockchain Business News Regulation

Paraguay legislators Contemplating Crypto changes

Pexels-olya-kobruseva-8358047
Paraguay Legislators Contemplating Crypto Changes

Paraguay wants to make progress in the crypto sector. El Salvador legalized cryptocurrency as legal tender. Another government in the region that is considering the same is Paraguay. Paraguay is considering making Bitcoin and also crypto mining legal. It is also looking at the possibility of allowing industrial miners access to the country’s large hydroelectric power capacity. The favor crypto progress has in Paraguay is largely due to more and more legislators favoring key proposals for the same.

About the Proposed Bill in Paraguay

The legislation has been under discussion and planning for a number of months now. It was first tabled in Paraguay’s house of the Senate on December 2, according to Ultima Hora. It happens to be the result of collaboration between a collection of miners and legislator, MP Carlos Rejala. The MP shared some insights on the development of the bill roughly around the same time as cryptocurrency legislation was making progress in El Salvador. That was when the Salvadorian President, Nayib Bukele declared that Bitcoin had become legal tender in their country, just as the U.S. dollar was. The Paraguayan MP created intrigue about the pending development but informing people on social media that the legislation would include bitcoin-related “surprises”.

Public Response

Those in the public that was interested in this development were disappointed with the bill when it was finally published. Most of these people were hoping that this bill would be much like that of El Salvador. One commentator called the bill a “huge nothing burger”, to illustrate exactly how disappointed they were with the development. The legislation proposes to regulate Bitcoin and crypto mining but somewhat conservatively. However, this law, if ratified, may help local miners who intend on attracting international investors for crypto mining collaboration and business deals.

As of now, Paraguay produces excessive power through its hydroelectric power stations. This power is produced by two plants; Itaipú and Yaciretá. Once ratified, the legislation will let miners locate themselves into data centers close to the power stations. They will also be allowed to utilize the excess power produced at these hydroelectric power stations.

These two stated hydroelectric power stations both have high speeds. In fact, for this reason, the waterfalls there in Paraguay are famous for just how powerful they are. Those in support of the proposed legislation are saying that this legislation would be good for the environment. They argue that the legislation would encourage miners towards cleaner energy and away from non-renewable energy solutions.

Response from Members of the Senate of Paraguay

It seems the bill is growing more favored by the members of the senate. The MP, Rejala seems to have found common ground with another MP, Fernando Silva Facetti, on supporting this bill. Facetti is a reputable member of the senate of Paraguay. With Facetti favoring this bill, it has drawn favorable attention and interest from others in the house. Facetti commented on the proposed bill, stating that it was very innovative. He added that digital mining is a reality in Paraguay already. He asked his counterparts to consider crypto mining as a new industry sector of Paraguay. Facetti added that crypto mining utilizes specialized machines, requires specialized workers, and utilizes significant volumes of power.

He then went on to say that the mining activities generate an end product that can be called “crypto-assets”. Facetti stated that these assets would require visibility in the marketplace, like any other marketable product. Other members of the house that have since shown support for the proposed bill include MP Tony Apuril and MP Juan Bartolomé “Ancho” Ramírez. At some point, MP Facetti stated that discussion of the bill may be pushed back for up to a week. However, it looks like the proposed legislation may soon be discussed.

© 2015-2026 Coinposters. All rights reserved