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The President of El Salvador is Helping Fix The Bitcoin Rollout Snags

By
Adam Barry
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0

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s President, recently stepped in to manage the issues plaguing the roll-out of a digital assets payments application that underpins the notion of making bitcoin a legal tender in the country. The President, on his official Twitter account, asked users to report any issues.

Using a language that’s synonymous with IT professionals all across the globe, the President asked people to close the application and then immediately restart it if you see a “currently under maintenance” error notification on your display screen. The historic move to make bitcoin a legal tender in the country has been hit with many challenges. So much so that it has even decreased the cryptocurrency’s value worldwide.

Bitcoin continued to decrease in value globally and was down by 1.7% on Wednesday, closing at $46,000.

What the market says

The Chief Executive Officer of Skilling, a Scandinavian-owned fintech company, said that financial innovations of this magnitude will always have a few teething problems along the way. However, Michael Kammerman continued to say that if they’ve learned anything from how the markets have behaved this past year, it is that bitcoin maximalists are going to try and push the crypto back as fast as it’s fallen.

The largest bank in the country allows for bitcoin payments via Flexa partnership 

Bancoagricola will partner with Flexa to help facilitate Bitcoin payments for things like credit cards and loans across all the bank’s networks. The country’s largest financial institution is set to help strengthen El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption policy with this Flexa partnership. Flexa announced on Thursday that it had inked a deal with Bancoagricola to facilitate Bitcoin transfers for its customers, including merchant and retail clients.

According to the partnership agreement, the bank’s customers will now be able to make credit card payments and transfers denominated in the US dollar through the Flexa app or other Lightning Network-based digital wallets such as Éclair and Chivo. According to Flexa’s press release, these payments and transfers won’t attract extra costs.

Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) offers Bitcoins Futures Products to Institutional Clients, and Seety Allows Users to Pay Bitcoin

By
Adam Barry
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0

Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C),  the most extensive banking institution in the United States, plans to provide Bitcoin futures trading to some of its institutional clients. According to the report, on August 25, the bank spokesperson said an increase in demand for cryptocurrency. Moreover, another anonymous source claimed that Citigroup is expecting approval from corresponding regulators to begin trading Bitcoin futures contracts on the CME. 

Report’s Claim

The anonymous email stated that around many questions regarding regulatory frameworks, supervisory, and other factors, Citigroup is very thoughtful about its approach. Moreover, they are considering products like futures for some of their institutional clients. Also, mentioned that these would operate under the regulatory framework. 

However, this claim does not come as a surprise. In May, Italy Tuchman, Citigroup’s head of foreign exchange, announced that the bank might provide crypto services in the upcoming days following a rapid demand for Bitcoin from its clients. Also, Citi previously provided a business unit to offer cryptocurrency services for its wealth management. Moreover, according to the recruitment portal, Citi is looking to hire experienced personnel to join London’s derivatives and crypto-focused teams. Citigroup revealed a report earlier this year named ‘Bitcoin at the tipping point.’ The report contains several observations of digital currencies on their potential. However, Citi not yet applies application to crypto derivatives products; financial institutions and different high profile banks have done so. 

Surprisingly, the increasing demands for cryptocurrency products from US investors and the country’s securities and exchange commission have not yet approved any Bitcoin ETF. In addition to that, Gary Gensler, SEC Chair, said that he would open to accept ETFs based on Bitcoin futures. In terms of Bitcoin futures ETFs, analysts noted that the approval would acquire for a crypto product in October. 

Belgian digital parking start-up allows users to pay Bitcoins

Bitcoin adoption increases to grow as cryptocurrencies go mainstream. In that case, Seety, a digital parking application, now allows users to pay Bitcoins for parking sessions and other six digital assets such as Ethereum and Dogecoin. In addition, customers who are interested in the new crypto feature can acquire Seety credits via the application. 

Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) Aims to build Bitcoin Tipping Feature, and Grupo Elektra adds Bitcoin Lightning Payments

By
Adam Barry
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0

Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) is currently planning to develop a feature that will let users reward Bitcoin to content creators. According to the source, Twitter’s recent iOS beta version has code ‘Tip Jar,’ which seems Bitcoin could become part of Twitter. Moreover, in May, Twitter announced the Tip Jar feature for users to reward creators. Currently, the quality is under test by beta users, and Twitter has not officially announced its launch for public use. 

In addition to that, Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, hinted that Bitcoin would play a significant role in the company’s future. If Twitter launches a Bitcoin tipping service, Bitcoin will become the accessible payment option to PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo. The social media giant’s new feature will use a Lightning network payment gateway to make Bitcoin Lightning invoices. Also, it could provide a way to bring mainstream crypto tipping. Additionally, according to the source, Twitter and Square chief aims to develop a decentralized Bitcoin exchange in August. 

Grupo Elektra Add Bitcoin Payments

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the founder of Mexican retail giant Grupo Elektra, said that it is planning to enable the Bitcoin Lightning network. The new payment feature will arrive at Electra’s stores soon, the billionaire owner stated. Also, in November, Pilego announced that it was about putting 10 percent of his portfolio into the cryptocurrency flagship. In addition to that, Pliego tweeted that Banco Azteca will become the first Mexican lender to accept Bitcoin. 

Being Bitcoin’s main scale solution, Lightning Network experienced an increase in people adapting to it. Even Twitter is on board to check the features. Apart from the Bitcoin lightning network, using cryptocurrency as payment is also increasing. For instance, Last week, Seety – a startup digital parking platform based in Belgium, declared it would accept Bitcoin from its customers as a parking fee. And an eCommerce platform SHOP.com joined hands with BitPay and declared its customers could purchase products using cryptocurrency. Customers can enjoy a wide variety of options such as Dogecoin, Ethreum, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, etc.  

Hashbon Moves to DeFi launch CDEX Platform and Connect Ethereum and Binance Smart Chains

By
Adam Barry
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0

The decentralized finance holders have more grip in the blockchain technology industry, and various projects have also been launched in the market. As a result, the market size of decentralized finance stood roughly $16 billion at the end of 2020. Although, in 2021, the market size is expected to grow at $154 billion in total. One of the biggest reasons the decentralized finance market has more projects is the exponential market growth. The projects are launched and offer various solutions to the industry that has issues in the market. In that case, now Hashbon Finance Reinvented ecosystem enters the decentralized finance market with its Hashbon Rocket. 

Hashbon’s CDEX Platform

Hashbon FiRe plans to launch its Hashbon Rocket CDEX platform on September 9, 2021. It will be the first decentralized cross-chain exchange in the industry. In addition, the CDEX platform will aim to solve the ERC-20 token exchange for BEP-20 in a decentralized finance method. Moreover, the Hasbon Rocket CDEX platform not only supports intra-chain swaps like other decentralized methods and starts with interactions between the Binance Smart chain and Ethereum protocols. Furthermore, Hashbon plans to expand the platform to accommodate other EVM networks. 

Grigory Bibaev’s Statement

Hashbon Rocket’s Chief Executive Officer, Grigory Bibaev, said that Hashbon’s CDEX platform exchange between EVM blockchains is the first step. In the upcoming days, they anticipate seeing Hashbon Rocket as a decentralized platform of multifunctional exchanges that provides various services, from decentralized finance bonds for companies to lending and staking. 

The token for governing Hashbon Rocket is HASH, and it is a BEP-20 and ERC-20 compliant token. Moreover, the corresponding tokens can be tracked on BscScan and EtherScan by users. Therefore, the users should pay arbiters to exchanges on the Hashbon Rocket CDEX platform with HASH tokens; however, these referees will use the tokens for approving and verifying the transactions. Furthermore, people wish to launch the decentralized finance in the market to use the HASH tokens. Therefore, the HASH token is currently available on the pre-sale. Moreover, HASH was listed on PancakeSwap, Uniswap, CoinMarketCap, and CoinGecko. 

The Creators of CryptoPunks Sign with Leading Hollywood Agents After Making Weekly Sales of $305 Million

By
Adam Barry
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0

The blockchain-created intellectual property from Larva Labs is now on its way to Hollywood, Los Angeles, after the company signed with United Talent Agency regarding a representation deal involving Authoglyphs, Meebits, and CryptoPunks.

Larva Labs, the company that executed the deal with United Talent Agency, is the team that came up with the outrageously popular NFT (nonfungible token) project CryptoPunks. According to a Hollywood Reporter article published on Tuesday, United Talent Agency will represent the company for IP (intellectual property) deals in publishing, licensing, video games, film, and TV. In addition, two other Larva Labs NFT projects, Autoglyphs and Meebits, will also have UTA representation.

Larva Labs launched CryptoPunks in 2017, and it was one of the pioneer NFT projects on Ethereum. The intellectual property-based deal Larva Labs has made with United Talent Agency marks a huge milestone for the company. Why? Because it’s one of the first blockchain-created pieces of content that has made it into the mainstream entertainment space.

Senior Management

Head of Digital Assets at United Talent Agency, Lesley Silverman, speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, said that she believed this was one of the first times an IP fully developed in the cryptocurrency space has entered mainstream entertainment media. She added that they’d found a great way of hitting the zeitgeist.

For most of CryptoPunks’ short history, before it exploded in popularity this year, this NFT project had a relatively niche following. However, the growing wave of interest the blockchain industry witnessed this year in the NFT space saw it record total sales worth $2.5 billion in the first half of the year. Public figures like entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, electronic dance DJ Steve Aoki and rapper Jay Z are reportedly shareholders in CryptoPunks. In addition, Cointelegraph recently reported that payment technology conglomerate Visa bought the CryptoPunk 7610 character, a female figure who dons a Mohawk, lipstick and has clown green eyes. They bought this figure for around 49.50 Ethereum, which was at the time worth around $150,000.

Dogecoin Foundation Fires Legal Claims at “Dogecoin 2.0” Demanding it To Change its Name

By
Adam Barry
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0

Dogecoin 2.0, a fresh-faced meme coin, has rubbed the Dogecoin Foundation the wrong way with its name. The Dogecoin Foundation has claimed that it’s not a part of this new copycat project dubbed DOGE2 or Dogecoin 2.0. The Foundation went further to demand this new project change its name.

A letter published by the Dogecoin Foundation on Tuesday stated that the Foundation had hired protection attorneys so that they can contact the developers of Dogecoin 2.0 to ensure the Dogecoin name isn’t misused and that the Dogecoin community isn’t misled.

DOGE2’s site throws shade at the canine-themed original indirectly by saying that it aims to provide investors long-term growth by utilizing a tokenomics structure that happens to be way more sustainable than what its inflated predecessor was using.

Nature of the letter

The letter published by the Foundation states that DOGE enthusiasts (“Shribes”) are concerned about this new project. While this particular community has always welcomed new cryptocurrency projects in the past, the Foundation claims that DOGE2 is co-opting its DOGE reputation and brand for its benefit.

Dogecoin 2.0 made its first Binance Smart Chain appearance at the beginning of May. The copycat meme coin has a current trade value of around $0.04 after gaining over 100% in a day with a lower than a daily volume worth of $100,000.

This public statement was made just weeks after the Foundation’s formal restoration after being away for six years. The Foundation claims that it’ll support core projects and developers working on DOGE. It has also attracted leading cryptocurrency figures such as Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, and Co-Founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin.

DOGE has seen both its popularity and price rise rapidly since the beginning of the year. CoinGecko believes the coin was at an all-time high in May when it had a $0.68 price peak. However, it shed over 73% of this value in the next sixty days.

Founder of Cardano Says That Cryptocurrency Can Help Afghanistan Beat The Taliban

By
Adam Barry
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0

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, claims that cryptocurrency can play a major role in providing Afghani citizens with financial privacy following the withdrawal of United States armed forces.

In a recent CNBC interview, Cardano founder and co-founder of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson, expressed his belief of how digital assets can play a significant role in the Afghani society in the war against and for the Taliban. Charles said that the country’s digital existence is now being scrutinized. He claimed that the last twenty years are currently being reviewed by an entity that will imprison, harass or even kill you if they find that you have opinions that go against their regressive viewpoints.

How will crypto actually help the Afghani society?

While solid presumptions of how digital assets will benefit the people in Afghanistan were scant and not very clearly explained, adopting crypto would supposedly allow the citizens of Afghanistan to evade the attempts of the new regime to seize their digital assets or track their personal spending. Using cryptocurrency to store things of value could also offer people protection against things like inflation. Some experts even speculate that the Afghani people might soon be facing a hyperinflation crisis.

While the United States and international aid organizations have encouraged the freezing of most local bank accounts, Western Union followed suit and also decided to suspend their service in the region until further notice. This, in turn, limits the means available to people looking to move their assets across borders or even overseas.

Western Union made a statement saying that it understood how people in the region urgently need to receive funds and that they’re committed to resuming business operations in the country as conditions permit. There are many organizations out there that have already accepted crypto and digital assets so that they can facilitate the funding of medical care and basic needs for the people in Afghanistan.

The adoption of digital assets by the people in Afghanistan seems to have been rising over the past couple of years and currently has a Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index ranking of 20th.

Cryptocurrencies Rise Popularity Among Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER) Drivers

By
Adam Barry
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0

Nowadays, there are a lot more ‘Blockchain Literate’ drivers you may discover than ever before. This evolution is because the crypto payment for riders with the digital economy is fast-growing in society, and the decentralization of Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER) could become the norm. Blockchain technology currently interests all kinds of workers, tech experts, and Fintech specialists, and its developing popularity among Uber drivers. Uber drivers started accepting crypto assets at least six years ago. However, today witnessing a QR code and a business card with a crypto wallet with drivers in the car has become very common.

Dara Khosrowshahi’s Statement

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that, like all kinds of local currency, they would look at crypto-asset or Bitcoins in terms of the transaction. That is good for business and suitable for their riders and their eaters. Moreover, during an interview, a driver said he implied his public policy studies with Uber work. He utilizes the time to invest and always stays with a crypto friends circle to gain up-to-date information.

Another veteran Uber driver feels economic liberty is the advantage of crypto industry growth. He says, using the opportunities and financial freedom makes it easy for him to achieve his goals and happiness. On the other hand, monetary, the confluence of technology, and political policy create instability globally, so he started investing in Crypto. Anyway, there’ll always be something superior to that ever invented in this world. 

Will Uber Run on Blockchain?

Drife is a riding platform just like Uber, but it’s a decentralized system that accepts payments through Cryptocurrency and is transparent with their decentralized mobility system. As a result, Drife may soon become a bigger competitor and alternative for Uber. But just like any other industry, it too has some disadvantages like lack of coordination and control, and the operations are very costly.

If Uber transforms itself into a decentralized platform, what will happen? A young driver said that it’d be the most significant advantage to save costs for the company and the commissions paid to drivers if that happens. However, experts also state it’s best to change to decentralization. 

  • Many drivers are investing in Crypto and making some extra cash. 
  • If Uber transforms to decentralization, the rides will cost low, drivers will have a good working environment, and wages will increase.

Crypto is developing and attracting many professionals. Sooner or later, ride-hailing companies like Uber will also accept and adopt this technology.

VeChain Unveils Platform to Support Carbon Data Reporting

By
Adam Barry
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0

VeChain plans to simplify matters for the combining businesses. It plans to achieve that by unveiling a new service to facilitate the overhauling of its carbon footprint data management practices.

Digital Carbon Footprint SaaS Service 

Analysts applaud VeChain’s blockchain-based Digital Carbon Footprint SaaS Service, outlining that it will serve as an elaborate and scalable platform to benefit many enterprises. As a result, most of those enterprises will move much more quickly in tracking, calculating, and reporting their carbon reduction initiatives in the value chain.

VeChain has pointed out several issues that have been pulling it back from achieving its set objectives. First, it blames the traditional supply chains, citing problems with trust and transparency in collating the carbon emissions data. 

The solution to the above-outlined issues is developing a public blockchain that will offer transparency and accountability for the various layers within the supply chain network.

An associate program officer at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change called Alexandre Gellert Paris, opines, “blockchain can contribute to greater stakeholder involvement, transparency and engagement and help bring trust and further innovative solutions to the fight against climate change, leading to enhanced climate action.”

Changes

China pops up on the list of the largest producers of carbon emissions worldwide, and analysts believe the country should be at the front line in advancing technologies of tomorrow. It needs to be a part of the international climate treaties such as the Paris Climate Agreement and provide much-needed support. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been one of the great supporters of low-carbon emissions, and that came out clearly when he came up with a five-year plan in this regard. It was an aggressive plan to move China on a path that would enable it to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Adoption Of Cryptocurrencies Is Much Higher In Emerging Economies Compared To Developed Nations

By
Adam Barry
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0

Emerging markets that have been side-lines in the global financial sector are among the top countries to adopt digital currencies. However, a recent report shows that people in emerging economies demonstrated different behaviors when interacting with financial products such as digitized payments or banks. 

Side-lined Emerging economies by global financial system warming up to cryptos 

According to recent reports on crypto growth and acceptability, Asia is an adoption hotspot. As per the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index study for 2021, nations like Pakistan, Vietnam, and India are at the forefront of crypto adoption. A Finder survey of more than 42,000 people in 27 countries, Asian countries including Indonesia, India, and Vietnam, had the greatest adoption rates.

In contrast, data indicated that developed nations like the United Kingdom and the United States owned crypto in proportions of 8% and 9%, respectively. According to the Chain analysis research, the United States is placed 9th in the cryptocurrency adoption index, but the rise in demand is primarily due to institutional investor interest.

Diversification is of the utmost necessity for unbanked cryptocurrency. According to a poll conducted by Finder, Bitcoin is the most popular crypto in Asia, followed by Ethereum and Ripple. However, users do not believe Ripple to be the best payment option because of the low transaction prices.

Cryptos solving cross border challenges 

While the story of cryptocurrency as an inflation hedge is partially true, cryptocurrencies are more usable for people in emerging nations. Moreover, according to a 2021 Bank of America analysis, digital currencies are advantageous for enhancing “economic growth” since they eliminate cross-border transaction barriers.

Although crypto is still speculative, the underlying tech behind digital currencies can benefit the unbanked population. For example, according to Roxe chief business manager Josh Li, cross-border payment platforms only charge 1% transaction fee compared to 6.5% in remittance payment fees. Therefore compared to what cryptos can achieve, centralized systems are only exploiting the unbanked population for monetary gains. 

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