According to an announcement on Tuesday, Facebook subsidiary and Libra wallet provider Calibra has now been rebranded to Novi – a portmanteau of the Latin root words, “novus” meaning new and “via” meaning way.

The first wallet product from the firm is intended to hold Libra’s various digital currencies, once the Facebook-led initiative goes live.

Novi also comes with a design revamp that is said to represent “the fluid movement of digital currencies,” but maintains an element of the Libra icon in its logo.



The Novi logo (Credit: Novi/Libra)


“While we’ve changed our name from Calibra,” Novi said in a statement, “we haven’t changed our long-term commitment to helping people around the world access affordable financial services.” Just in case you were worried about that.

See also: Libra’s Long Road From a Facebook Lab to the Global Stage: A Timeline

Novi also provided a little insight into how the product will work. The digital wallet will operate as a standalone app, as well as providing interoperability with Facebook’s social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp.

Aimed to make sending funds to friends or family as “easy as sending a message,” transactions with Novi will arrive instantly, according to the announcement, and will contain no “hidden charges.” Novi didn’t offer any detail on what any standard transaction fees might be.

All Novi customers will need to be verified using government-issued ID, while “fraud protections” will come baked in. The wallet will initially be rolled out to a limited number of countries.

The release date still remains unclear, but the project hopes to introduce “an early version of Novi when the Libra network is available.”

The wallet and future financial services for the project will now be operated by a new entity, Novi Financial – a Facebook subsidiary that, it said, will operate independently from the social media giant at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters.

The Libra project has suffered a series of setbacks as regulators and governments set off alarm bells over the perceived risks of the project in terms of financial crimes, some even calling it a threat to monetary sovereignty.

In 2019, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said his company, which leads the Libra Association, would quit if the project were released prematurely.

In the face of all the pushback, the Libra Association’s original model for its digital currency – a stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government bonds – was restructured in mid-April. The project will now issue a number of stablecoins based on individual national currencies in different markets.

Libra still has plans for a multi-currency stablecoin but it will be backed by the new stablecoins and not directly by fiat currencies.

There have been other issues too. In June 2019, major firms including Uber, PayPal, Visa, Stripe, MercadoLibre, Bookings.com and Mastercard were all reported to be backing Facebook’s new crypto project.

See also: Facebook Affirms Libra Commitment With 50 New Job Openings in Ireland

However, pressure from U.S. regulators and lawmakers in October prompted Visa, Mastercard and Stripe to withdraw their affiliations with Libra. It’s been adding more new members since then, though, including its first state-owned entity, Temasek.

Checkout.com also joined the project last month.

Libra has notably been on a hiring spree of ex-U.S. government officials – presumably to help smooth its regulatory path to launch – having signed up two former staffers at FinCEN in recent weeks

Around the world, central banks are flirting with digital currency. With plans for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) underway in 46 countries including Sweden, France, Turkey, Uruguay, and China, the idea of “digital fiat currency” has rapidly escalated from a research project into something with very tangible implications.

CBDC is going to be a trending topic for years to come, and understanding what it is, how it compares with cryptocurrencies, and what threats and opportunities it presents for Bitcoin is crucial for anyone in crypto to understand. In this post, we set the stage for this developing story and explore some of the key concepts and questions forming around this narrative.

What are central bank digital currencies?

Put simply, a central bank digital currency is fiat money — or money issued and controlled by a government through its central bank — in digital form. While no nation has formally launched a CBDC to date, a number of global jurisdictions are actively building and rolling out pilot projects.

In April, China’s central bank issued a notice stating they will “undoubtedly further research and development of the national digital currency with enhanced top-down design,” a strong signal of their commitment to creating a digital version of the yuan.

China is already piloting a digital currency system in four large cities to replace some of its cash supply. Separately, central banks in Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, the U.K., the European Central Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements have joined forces this year to share knowledge and research on the potential adoption of CBDCs.

In theory, each CBDC unit will act like a secure digital equivalent of a paper bill, and can be used for payments, as a store of value and a unit of account. Much like a traditional currency bill that carries a unique serial number, each CBDC unit will be distinguishable to prevent imitation.

As a part of the money supply controlled by the central bank, it will work alongside other forms of regulated money, like coins, bills, and bonds.

On opposite end of the spectrum

CBDCs might look and smell like crypto (both leverage a digital ledger that allows transactions to be recorded and viewed in real time by multiple parties), but they will be the furthest thing from decentralized currencies. 

Central banks will have fully transparent access to the ledger and will not be capping the supply of digital currency.

The advantages and disadvantages are clear:

On one hand, CBDCs could help spread digital cash to the unbanked and help make traditional payment systems more efficient by reducing transfer and settlement time. In cases like China, a digital payment system coupled with identity tracking would also help in implementing monetary and fiscal policies more effectively.

On the flipside, CBDCs are highly centralized for maximum control by design and are in complete contrast to the permissionless and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, thus raising privacy and surveillance concerns for its users.

This invited significant criticism from organizations like the Human Rights Foundation, that see CBDC’s as potential economic tools for political oppression and social engineering.

How Covid-19 accelerated the debate

The CBDC discussion took center stage across the world this year as a potentially more effective way to deliver direct stimulus funds to people as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Proponents believe that digital currency would solve the logistical question of how to quickly disperse large sums of money to many individuals and businesses with varying access to banking services.

In the US, millions of Americans are still waiting for the promised stimulus checks to arrive as either direct deposits or physical checks from the U.S. Treasury Department.


The proposals made before Congress this March would have charged the Fed with issuing both digital currency and digital wallets to give Americans direct access to funds. While these proposals did not quite make it to the final stimulus act, the conversation has indeed been started.

Source: 
https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/waters_146_xml_03.23.2020.pdf

Are CBDCs good for Bitcoin?

While the jury is still out on this one, a case could be made that CBDCs may pave the way for continued retail and institutional interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. 

If billions of people will have digital wallets and possess a new understanding and familiarity with digital money, the onramp from there to a non-sovereign, global currency like Bitcoin becomes much shorter and faster. If every financial institution has to build out the tools and infrastructure to safely store and transact CBDC, that same infrastructure could potentially be used for Bitcoin.

More importantly, however, is the fact that CBDC is still government-controlled fiat currency and fundamentally similar to the fiat currency we have today. As such, it is still prone to selective money printing and inflation. To hedge against monetary inflation and the decreasing purchasing power of fiat, you may consider doing what Paul Tudor Jones and David Swensen did: buy BTC.

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A headline in MIT Technology Review caught my attention this week: “The pandemic is emptying call centers. AI chatbots are swooping in.”


COVID-19’s perfect storm – a global public health crisis, an economic meltdown and a surge in online connectivity – could accelerate what World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In creating imperatives for both cost-cutting and software-dependent innovation, the pandemic is bringing us closer to an economy dominated by integrated networks of digital devices.


This raises all sorts of vital questions. But here we’ll just drill down into one: what kind of money will this new society need? 

It’s likely that long-term unemployment will be a defining condition of this emerging machine-dominant economy. We’re not just talking about cyclical, recessionary layoffs but net job losses that are structural and permanent. 

You’re reading Money Reimagined, a weekly look at the technological, economic and social events and trends that are redefining our relationship with money and transforming the global financial system. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesk’s newsletters here.

If so, the situation could confirm the so-called “end of work” thesis, which foresees new technologies leaving employers with an ever-declining need for human labor. It proved largely unfounded during the 20th century, as each fresh technological wave created new jobs that offset the old ones.

But the thesis is gaining weight again in response to a new, self-advancing phase in computer technology. Machine-learning algorithms mean our periodic competitions with new technologies are no longer one-off events.

Humans are now engaged in an endless battle with computers that are constantly getting smarter. As machines acquire the very cognitive and creative skills that previously allowed us to reinvent our employment opportunities, the battle may be unwinnable. 

UBI’s moment

If we are indeed approaching the end of work, expect a surge of interest in universal basic income. 

UBI is the idea that the government should pay a basic living wage to all citizens. It has been thrust into public consciousness by COVID-19 and the sudden, massive expansion in unemployment that came with it – 36 million alone in the U.S.

On Thursday, its advocates got a boost when Twitter founder Jack Dorsey announced a $5 million donation to former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s Humanity Forward nonprofit, which is using $250 microgrants to make the case for UBI. 

We don’t have space here for a deep debate about UBI. Just please don’t narrow-mindedly reject it as “socialism.

” UBI backers range from liberals who want to expand public safety nets to conservatives who see potential to reform inefficient and highly politicized welfare distribution.

Others see UBI as correcting for the power of big tech by redistributing revenue gained through personal data mining. The system should compensate them for those vital resources.



Andrew Yang (Credit: CoinDesk archives)

If UBI is to be part of our new digital economy, it would seem logical to make it digital too. 

We’ve already seen U.S. lawmakers propose that, rather than mailing out checks for COVID-19 relief, funds should be sent directly as digital dollars via special Federal Reserve wallets. 

The proposal didn’t pass, but having central banks establish a digital currency for social distribution payments is, remarkably, now a mainstream topic.

There are clear benefits to digitizing UBI: Direct-to-consumer payments could improve efficiency, prevent confiscation by middlemen, create parity for the “unbanked,” and, provided the rollout goes smoothly, legitimize the direct connection between a government and its people.

Programmability could also allow authorities to constrain how the funds are used. Software designs could, say, allow supermarkets or landlords to accept the funds, but not barmen. (To be sure, this is inconsistent with the spirit of pure UBI, but it would likely to resonate with some politicians.)

On the other hand, as European Central Bank executive board member Yves Mersch noted in a presentation to Consensus Distributed last week, citizens could see their civil rights undermined if central banks don’t build privacy protections into direct-to-consumer digital currency accounts. 

With this infrastructure, central banks could directly manipulate the value of people’s personal money, creating a more powerful mechanism for managing consumer spending and inflation than the current solution, which relies on banks and financial markets as indirect conduits for monetary policy.

Whether you think that’s a good thing depends on how you feel about central banks’ being empowered to manipulate the value of money to manage economic conditions.

Another challenging issue is that involving central banks in governments’ fiscal distributions may make their economic policymaking dependent on political interests.

That would be a radical departure from the independence principles upon which central banking has been founded for the past four decades. It might make central bankers more accountable to the public interest, as their actions would directly impact voters’ pocketbooks. But they could also be forced to pursue the self interests of politicians.

You get the idea: Inevitable or not, digital currency-based UBI brings many complications. 

Machine money

I hate to say this, but we humans aren’t the only constituents in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We must also consider the interests of the digital machines.

As social distancing becomes normalized, expect cities to ease ordinances on things like delivery robots, self-driving taxis and other autonomous devices.

Next, expect urban planners to draw up sweeping blueprints for smart cities that combine the data generated by such devices with network-driven dynamic pricing so that everything from traffic flows to renewable energy sharing can be managed in a self-correcting system. 

To optimize such systems, devices owned by different individuals and companies would be given autonomy to interact and exchange data, goods and valuable services, and to receive, hold and send digital, programmable money as standalone entities.

For this to happen, the system’s unit of value, its currency, must function as a digital token exchanged peer-to-peer – in this case, machine-to-machine – without the interference of a banking intermediary.

Whether such a system would use central bank digital currencies, stablecoins, native blockchain tokens like bitcoin, or all three is yet to be determined.



Credit: Shutterstock/Flystock

China is surging ahead with such a model, incorporating its Digital Currency Electronic Payment system, or DCEP, into a network of smart cities that deploy tools provided by the national Blockchain Services Network. In due time, the efficiencies China extracts from that will put competitive pressure on Western countries to follow suit. 

When that happens, we must ensure that optimizing such systems doesn’t compromise the interests of those they are supposed to serve. The money of the future can serve the interests of machines, but only if they align with the interests of us humans.

How to scale blockchains? Ask the internet

You know how it is: life in lockdown has you staring constantly at a screen. Not just 9-to-5, but always.

Almost every single human interaction outside of your immediate family and almost every commercial transaction you make is done online. And how many more hours of streaming videos are watching? So, how much more busy is the internet these days? 



Graph courtesy of Cloudflare


John Graham-Cumming, the Chief Technology Officer of Cloudflare, answered that question by treating the traffic flowing through his network security company’s systems as a proxy for overall usage.

Sure enough, global traffic is up 40% on the year, as per the chart above that Cloudfare provided us. In a blog post addressing earlier data last month, Graham-Cumming highlighted what this says about the resilience of the internet, which has had no real interruptions despite the surging usage.

“Overall the Internet has shown that it was built for this: designed to handle huge changes in traffic, outages, and a changing mix of use,” he wrote.

There are lessons here for blockchains. To scale them, look to the layered design of the internet.

The base layer protocol, known as TCP/IP, is sometimes described as a one trick pony. It only does data switching, but it does it really well. The single task design means it can deal with the challenges of heavy traffic.

All the other functionality of the internet – email, web sites, file transfer, etc. – isn’t forced on that main load-bearing system but enabled by higher level open protocols such as SMTP and HTTP, and then by proprietary applications even further “up the stack.

” It’s relevant to the bitcoin versus ethereum debate, with the latter more sophisticated, multifaceted and powerful for running things like smart contracts but, according to its critics, entailing a complexity that makes it more prone to breakdowns and security breaches. 

The global town hall

$91 million. That’s the current value of the 10,000 bitcoin Laszlo Hanyecz gave up to purchase two pizzas on this day 10 years ago. It was the first time bitcoin was spent on a good or service, giving the event canonical relevance in the cryptocurrency’s history. Ever since, it has been memorialized on this date as “Bitcoin Pizza Day.

” The outside world tends to focus on the massive fortune Hanyecz left on the table by not “HODLing” his bitcoin, which after exchanging them for $25 worth of pizza were valued at a mere quarter of a cent at the time. He tends to respond with a shrug, arguing that he did something to help legitimize bitcoin.

And, indeed, his act helped set off a price rally that has continued to today.

But Hanyecz’s pizza order is also important for the value it ascribed to bitcoin for its utility as a payment vehicle. Hanyecz has continued to take an interest in initiatives to help make bitcoin more usable for payments, even as the narrative has shifted toward its value proposition as “digital gold.

” Two years ago on this day he made a point by using the Lightning Network, which seeks to make bitcoin transactions more efficient and viable for low-value transactions, to make a certain, iconic purchase: a pizza.

Bitcoin Pizza Day 2020

We mark the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22, 2020, by chatting with Laszlo Hanyecz about his infamous 10,000 BTC transaction.Volume 90%

 The Fed is “not out of ammunition by a long shot.” So said the man in charge of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, in a gloomy interview on CBS 60 Minutes last Sunday. Markets rallied in response, which should have left heads scratching.

I mean, of course, the Fed has loads more ammunition left – it has unlimited printing power. The question is whether that ammunition is effective. Is it firing blanks?

The bigger risk is that the real limit to its effective power won’t reveal itself until some indeterminate time in the future, when it’s too late. But at some point – after the Fed has flooded trillions of dollars into markets, after it has acquired huge swaths of corporate debt to find itself politically compromised, after it has restored the wealth of hedge funds but has left ordinary Americans living hand to mouth – confidence in the dollar will disappear.

At that moment, everyone will finally realize that the ammunition was useless all along. 

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, is one of the most influential financial journalists of all time. So when an article of his comes out with the title “Why inflation might follow the pandemic” it’s time to sit up and take notice.

The headline suggested a countervailing view to that of the economic mainstream, with its persistent argument that the demand contraction from the COVID-19 crisis will produce long-lasting deflation.

But if you’re expecting this to align with the forecasts of those in the crypto community who believe the central banks’ aggressive stimulus will result in debased money and hyperinflation, think again.

Wolf puts all the variables on the table – huge government debt ratios, rapidly expanding broad money supply measures potentially offset by a slowing money velocity, and the end of the disinflationary effect of globalization – to argue, that inflation might finally return, but also might not.

Bottom line: we live in chartered territory. No one really knows. Not even someone who earned himself a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for his services to financial journalism.

GBBC Open Source Ideas:


The Future of Urban Living
Part I:

The Rise of “Smart Cities”

17 March 2020

Washington DC,
United States

IntroductionUrban populations around the world are growing, putting new and unexpected strains on urban environments and governments. The United Nations estimates that 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas; this is projected to increase to 68 percent by 2050, adding about 2.5 billion people to urban areas.


i.


In the face of this growth and pressing issues surrounding transportation, water management, energy, waste management, government service delivery, and much more, some cities are turning to technology with the goal of becoming “smart cities.” According to McKinsey, the smart city industry will be a $400 billion market in 2020.

ii.


If you ask people to define a “smart city,” you will likely receive a range of answers: from “I don’t know” to “cities where streets expand and contract based on traffic patterns,” or “cities where noise and light pollution iseliminated to improve the psychological wellbeing of inhabitants.” While there is no set definition of a “smart city,” this term generally refers to urban environments in which technologies, especially Internet of Things (IoT) and broadband, are used to improve the lives of citizens.

While splashier and more visible smart city innovations, such as applications that identify and alert users to open parking spaces, receive the bulk of media attention, there are many other “background ” innovations that can lead to significant quality of life improvements for citizens; this is where blockchain technology fits in. It should be noted that blockchain and IoT are an effective and popular technology pairing.

A recent Gartner survey found that 75 percent of IoT adopters “in the U.S. have already adopted blockchain or are planning to adopt it by the end of 2020. Among the blockchain adopters, 86 percent are implementing the two technologies together in various projects.”

iii.


Blockchain technology is distributed, transparent, and highly secure, three traits that can prove invaluable for certain smart city innovations. With blockchain’s massive potential in this area in mind, the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) and respective collaborators conducted a survey of individuals in New York City, Los Angeles, Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana), and the United Kingdom regarding opportunities and roadblocks for blockchain implementation.

For this survey, questions were written by the GBBC team with the aim of understanding how individuals in the blockchain space view the implementation of blockchain technology for smart cities.

To disseminate the survey, the GBBC partnered with trusted local groups and institutions focused on blockchain technology in each of the target cities. Partner organizations, including NYC Blockchain Center, Los Angeles Blockchain Lab, Citigate Dewe Rogerson, and Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), then agreed to share the survey with their respective....



Download the full report here: https://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdfhttps://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdfth their respective....

Download the full report here: 

https://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdf

Special Report

Published 14 May 2020

GBBC Open-Source Ideas:

Special Report
Utility Tokens and ERC-20 ICOs:

Where are we now?

in research collaboration
with select GBBC members

*
14 May 2020
Geneva, Switzerland


Utility Tokens: Do they have any utility? 


A utility token gives the owner cryptographically secured rights to use a particular software, network, or platform and the ability to redeem the token for a currency or good. Utility tokens can also be used as an escrow bond to encourage certain behavior. 


While terminology and distinctions are not widely agreed upon in the blockchain and crypto community, tokens are generally said to fall into three groups: native tokens (used to secure the protocol), utility tokens, and tokenized securities/equity tokens. 


The most common utility tokens are those built upon the ERC-20 Ethereum standard, which was first used to develop smart contract functionality and inspired the proliferation of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).  


i. 


Utility tokens have a wide variety of applications. One example of a utility token’s functionality is similar to that of a tradable gift card or pre-sold software license. 


Notably, while utility tokens can be used on an application to engage in transactions and earn rewards, they are not fundamentally intended to be relied on as a passive investment vehicle. Since 2017, there have been more than 5,500 ICOs. 


ii.


 These projects have come under intense scrutiny, with some estimating that up to 80 percent of ICOs were scams.


iii.


More recently, research published in the Journal of the British Blockchain Association (JBBA), examined this assertion and discovered that the magnitude of ICO scams was dramatically lower than initially reported, and instead estimated the figure to be 2.2 percent. 


iv.


 Rather than fraud, the high failure rate for these firms was attributable to their early stage, the speculative nature of new technologies, v as well as the cryptocurrency crash of 2018, in which tokens lost 80 percent of their value.


vi.


Appendix 1 of this report profiles seventeen token projects to illustrate the numerous functional examples of firms and projects that are building and making significant progress....


Download the full report here: 


Download the Full Report Here: 
https://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GBBC-Open-Source-Ideas-Special-Report-Utility-Tokens-and-ERC-20-ICOS.pdf

Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson has claimed that private, consumer-controlled immunity passports may be the killer-app that propels blockchain technology into the mainstream.

In an interview with PYMNTS, he said that the company’s investment arm has turned to two startups creating blockchain-based apps allowing consumers to download and control their health records.

Making people feel safe again...

Johnson suggests that we must consider what will make an average consumer feel safe to use air travel, restaurants or even stores again after the coronavirus pandemic subsides. Ultimately, he believes this hinges on the knowledge that everyone around them is uninfected with virus:

"An immunity passport is what that is going to look like for a lot of industries. If I can prove that I’ve got the antibodies or have steered clear of infection entirely, and I can show that on an immunity passport, that’s pretty powerful."

… while maintaining privacy

A major hurdle with such an app is how to encourage adoption. Potential users may be put off amid concerns about data privacy or illicit usage. And stories about totalitarian regimes like China enforcing such a scheme on its citizens do nothing to calm fears.


The key difference between the blockchain-based apps in which Overstock is investing, and a state-enforced scheme, says Johnson, is that of choice.

Consumers must choose to access their health data through the app, and can then choose who to share the information with.

Johnson also thinks that adoption will improve when certain businesses start to require such an immunity passport, for example to watch a sports match, enter a plane, or dine at a restaurant.T

his will force consumers who want to participate in such events to sign up.

Bringing blockchain out of Bitcoin’s shadow

Overstock has been a long-time advocate of cryptocurrency and blockchain, but Johnson feels that the technology has so far been overshadowed by its first use case of digital payments.

He says that a solution which enables consumers and businesses to regain confidence in transacting face-to-face, utilizing the secure and immutable transfer of data by blockchain, could bring the technology out of that shadow and into the mainstream consciousness — even if many don’t understand the technology behind it.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors have been nervously eyeing the bitcoin price since its highly-anticipated supply squeeze earlier this month.

The bitcoin price took a big step down this week, dropping 10% to under $9,000 per bitcoin after failing to pass the psychological $10,000 level.

Now, with investors desperately seeking reliable returns amid the coronavirus crisis, one top wealth advisor has said it's the wrong time to bet on bitcoin.

MORE FROM FORBES

As Bitcoin Struggles, This Tiny Cryptocurrency Has Soared A Massive 230%By Billy Bambrough

Bitcoin has so far weathered the coronavirus crisis well though some fear the bitcoin price could be ... [+] NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

"Every bear market presents opportunities and it's tempting, particularly for younger generations, to look for speculative assets," Peter Mallouk, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Creative Planning, told CNBC, pointing to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, gold and cannabis stocks.

"There is no need to go over into the speculative world," Mallouk said, warning speculative assets like bitcoin have "a lot more booms and busts.""It's a lot sexier to buy things like cryptocurrencies, gold and silver but ... they don't bring any income to the investor."


Bitcoin is famously volatile, gaining worldwide recognition in late 2017 after the price soared from under $1,000 per bitcoin at the beginning of the year to around $20,000 by December.Since then bitcoin has crashed to lows of $3,000 before bouncing back up to around $14,000 last year.

Mallouk, who defines "speculative" as "anything that doesn’t produce income and bring it to you as an investor," thinks bonds and certain company stocks are a lot more attractive than the likes of bitcoin in current market conditions, naming entertainment giant Disney, fast food chain McDonald's and consultancy Accenture as better bets.

"A bear market puts everything on sale. You have incredible companies that we know are not going anywhere, selling for half off," said Mallouk, who has previously warned bitcoin is a "dead man walking" and in a "death spiral.

"The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns put in place to contain it sparked a massive stock market rout in March before central banks around the world, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, promised to back the vast majority of markets.



The bitcoin price has climbed over the last 12 months but has swung wildly, soaring to over $13,000 ... [+] COINBASEThe Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy over recent months in a desperate bid to prop up the market though some have warned the unprecedented action has artificially inflated stocks.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is now in positive territory for the year, boosted by the likes of Google and Amazon, while the S&P 500 has almost recovered all of its March corona-crash losses.

However, bitcoin, as well as some smaller cryptocurrencies, have outperformed most other assets so far this year.Bitcoin is currently on course to be one of the year's best performing assets, though many bitcoin and crypto analysts have warned a planned bitcoin supply cut earlier this month could mean it's hurtling toward a sudden crash.

The bitcoin price had been holding up since its third supply cut, known as a halving, on May 11—although cracks began to appear this week when the price moved sharply lower, losing around $500 in a matter of minutes.Follow me on Twitter. 




Billy Bambrough

I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported… Read More

The release of the e-Yuan has attracted worldwide attention from investors hoping the cryptocurrency will reach heights to parallel those achieved by bitcoin.

However, it is yet unclear to what extent China will include the cryptocurrency in its financial system as international skeptics argue that the currency will never be fully decentralized.

E-Yuan may provide a solution for Chinese long-standing bad debt problem. The country currently has 2.4 trillion yuan ($341 billion) of officially recognized bad debt due to the illegal yet popular practice of obtaining multiple loans pledging the same collateral.

"Using smart contracts provided by the e-Yuan currency, the government of China will be able to track assets and liabilities and to ensure that multiple loans are not taken over the same collateral", says a senior blockchain researcher J. Rothers.

The circulation of the currency will be controlled by the state and only authorized brokers and banks will be able to sell the cryptocurrency initially.

It is yet unclear whether the currency will be backed by any physical assets. China is known for recently purchasing large amounts of gold to back it's fiat currency Yuan.

It is likely that if the value if e-Yuan falls, the government would step in to provide physical asset backing in order to stabilize prices in investors' favor.

After the e-Yuan announcement, Chinese technology stocks have been steadily reaching new record heights with Foreigners recently spending over $26.99 Billion on technology stocks listed in Shenzen stock exchange.

All of this provides great returns for both e-Yuan and Chinese technology stock investors.

Many investors have been searching for high-potential stocks after the recent pandemic-related crash and this could prove the opportunity of a lifetime for many. 

E-Yuan may not only solve China's long-standing problems but allow many middle-class individuals to move up the financial ladder through a secure investment strategy.

Bitcoin's price rose from $0.003 in March 2010 to almost $10,000 in March 2020. Will e-Yuan follow its path?

Click here to learn more about e-Yuan

Media Contact:
Company Name - Yuan Pay Group
Company Email - [email protected]
Website - https://yuanpaygroup.com

SOURCE: Yuan Pay Group

• An investor in cryptocurrency hedge funds saw nearly 99% of a $250,000 investment wiped out after his chosen fund collapsed during the market meltdown.
• "I don't really know what happened," Vlad Matveev told the Financial Times.
• Matveev detailed Cryptolab Capital's explanation in a Medium blog post: the fund took a leveraged position in March, and a lack of liquidity and rejection of sell orders stopped it from pulling out when crypto prices tanked.
• Crypto hedge funds lost an average of 26% in March, while traditional hedge funds lost about 8%, the Financial Times said, citing HFR data.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An investor handed $250,000 to a cryptocurrency hedge fund last summer. His investment shed almost 99% of its value during the coronavirus sell-off in March, he told the Financial Times.

"I don't really know what happened," Vlad Matveev told the newspaper.

"They said they had a diversified set of strategies.

"Read more: RBC handpicks 8 tech stocks that could continue to grow revenues during the crisis and are built like 'rocket ships' for the next boomMatveev outlined Cryptolab Capital's explanation of what happened in a Medium blog post in late March.

The fund's algorithm plowed an amount equal to three times its managed assets into XBTUSD, a leveraged trading product that allows investors to speculate on the bitcoin-dollar exchange rate, Matveev said, citing the fund's managers.

When the market plunged, the managers tried to reduce their position but were thwarted by a lack of liquidity and their sell orders being rejected, Matveev continued.

The crypto exchange ultimately auto-liquidated all positions on March 12, he added.Cryptolab Capital didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Markets Insider.

Read more: The investment chief of a $12 billion wealth-management firm breaks down how to build the perfect portfolio using just 7 ETFs — one designed to sidestep a dramatically 'overvalued' stock market

Many crypto funds were caught off guard when bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tumbled by more than a third in mid-March. The funds lost an average of 26% that month, their second-worst monthly loss since at least 2015, the Financial Times said, citing data from hedge-fund researcher HFR.

"It's an understatement to say it's a bloodbath across the board," Eduoard Hindi, partner at Tyr Capital, told the newspaper.

Crypto funds trailed conventional hedge funds in March, as the latter lost an average of 8.4%, the Financial Times reported.

However, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have rallied strongly since then.

As a result, crypto funds are up more than 13% this year, the newspaper said, striking a sharp contrast to average losses of almost 7% for the broader hedge-fund industry.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to as low as $8,900 on May 21 following a strong rejection of the $9,800 level. Traders say BTC’s breakdown from the $9,200 support level may lead to a renewed downtrend.

Almost every macro indicator points to a correction

In the near-term, traders generally expect that a correction will occur in the Bitcoin market. Almost every macro trendline, indicator, and momentum oscillator points toward an imminent correction.

When the price of Bitcoin initially dropped below $9,200, it fell under a key Bollinger Band line, which often marks a key pivotal point. If a bullish trend is ongoing, then an asset is expected to recover at the middle Bollinger Band line.


BTC USD daily chart. Source: Big Chronis TradingBut, in the case of Bitcoin, it fell straight through it and dropped to $8,900 in quick succession. As such, it risks a fall to the lower end of the Bollinger Band, in the mid-$8,000 area.According to Bitcoin trader Jonny Moe, the Bitcoin price is at risk of falling below another trendline that dates back to March 12.Since the second week of March, the price of Bitcoin recovered strongly from $3,600 to over $10,000. After failing to reclaim the $9,800 to $9,900 range as support, BTC is now vulnerable to a deep pullback below the rising channel.

BTC USD daily chart. Source: Jonny MoeIf the price of Bitcoin closes under $9,000, Moe said that the $6,500 to $7,300 range is the likely next support for Bitcoin.Bitcoin trader TraderXO, who predicted a fall to $7,700 as early as last week, said BTC is showing a typical lower high set up and is at risk of a rapid correction to below $8,000.




Lower highs on the 4-hour chart of Bitcoin. Source: TraderXO

Why traders are bearish at the current level

There are two main reasons that supplement the bearish stance of many top traders in the cryptocurrency market: the lack of support between $7,700 and $9,000, and the potential upside of BTC above $10,500.

Bitcoin barely saw a minor pullback when it surged from $7,700 to $10,000. While it demonstrates the strength of BTC’s momentum at the time, it also leaves BTC vulnerable to a sizable decline.

The lack of resistance above $10,500 is also considered a factor that is preventing BTC from breaking above $10,000.While there is little resistance above $10,500 to major levels like $12,500 and $14,000, there exists strong overhead resistance in between $10,000 and $10,500.

In April hedge fund manager Mark Dow said that Bitcoin is a textbook short, even when BTC was in the $6,000s. Dow said:

Bitcoin on the chart is facing massive overhead resistance. Based on this chart, this right now is a textbook opportunity to short.

The confluence of heavy resistance in the $10,000 to $10,500 range and the lack of support in between $7,700 to $9,000 increases the probability of a BTC price drop to the $7,000 zone.

A few years ago, if you had heard that the U.S. government might mint its own digital currency, you might have dismissed the idea as starry-eyed futurism — or, less charitably, a joke.

Digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, were the purview of speculators and coders, not stodgy central bankers.

But this winter, the Federal Reserve announced that it’s investigating the possibility of issuing its own digital coin.

Speaking at Stanford, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard noted that the “potential for digitalization to deliver greater value and convenience at lower cost” has piqued the interest of the traditionally risk-averse institution.

For now, the Fed’s interest in digital currency might be most notable as a sign of how the world has changed — and where the winds are blowing.

Because just as Paypal and eBay (or Alipay and Taobao, if you prefer) revolutionized how people shopped online and Amazon changed how people shop, full stop, digital payment services — powered by blockchain technology — could be the next great upheaval in global e-commerce growth.

For that to come to pass, however, four conditions need to align: appropriate technology, consumer demand, corporate champions, and an amenable regulatory environment. The question is how.

For all the hype around blockchain — the open-source digital ledgers that many have argued will do everything from make cash obsolete to remake the global economy — it can sometimes seem like a solution looking for a problem.

While it has found a place in niches such as supply chains and digital IDs, problems like price volatility and the need to comply with the existing regulatory framework have prevented mainstream adoption in currency.

But now, one promising category of cryptocurrencies known as “stablecoins” seems poised to succeed where its predecessors failed.

Uniquely positioned to act as a medium of exchange in e-commerce, stablecoins enhance both the efficiency and reach of e-commerce.

Finding the Right Application for Blockchain

As their name suggests, stablecoins distinguish themselves from their more popular but highly volatile cryptocurrecy brethren, such as Bitcoin, in their focus on price stability. In striving for stability from the start, stablecoins hope to avoid situations like the one experienced by Laszlo Hanyecz in 2010.

Hanyecz was a U.S.-based software programmer who agreed to pay someone 10,000 Bitcoin for two Domino’s pizzas (a fair price at a time when Bitcoin was worth only a fraction of a penny).

Today, this transaction would be worth almost $100 million. Hanyecz was proving a point — this was the first instance of a good being purchased with a cryptocurrency — but the now-legendary story has also become an allegory of the pitfalls of using a notoriously volatile tender for day-to-day purchases.

Stablecoins have adopted a variety of approaches to solve this price volatility problem.

The highest profile attempt so far — and the most controversial — has been Facebook’s new, yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency project, Libra, which was supposed to be tied to a basket of short-term government securities and bank deposits in historically stable currencies such as U.S. dollars and Euros.

Pushback from regulators and traditional financial institutions has induced Facebook to pull away from its original vision of a global currency that competed with monetary authorities.





Although there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the project, it might look more like Venmo, with people sending dollars through Facebook.Terra (where Nicholas works) is a new stablecoin that has been adopted by several online merchants across Southeast Asia.

It’s less well-known in the U.S., but it’s an example of how stablecoins actually work in the wild — a blockchain currency with reliable value that normal people actually use.

In contrast to Libra, it employs a form of automated monetary policy to keep its price stable, contracting the supply when prices are too low and expanding it when prices are too high.

This is achieved using a second cryptocurrency, Luna, which acts as a monetary policy instrument and earns transaction fees as a form of reward.

And while criticism of Libra has mainly been centered on how its governance mechanism is controlled by a few large corporations — the Switzerland-based Libra Association — Terra’s policy is coded directly on its blockchain and therefore is transparent and impervious to human interference.

The stability and transparency of Terra are important because they harness the potential of blockchain in a form that’s useful for everyday people. That, in turn, sets it up to challenge existing technologies. In the case of Terra, that means taking on credit cards.

Better Than a Credit Card

Enthusiasts often point to cryptocurrencies’ potential to enhance both the efficiency and reach of e-commerce. The existing financial system — while certainly functional — has its share of inefficiencies, including its reliance on middle men, which often come in the form of credit card providers that charge up to 3% per transaction.

Blockchain technology allows payments to occur directly between buyers and sellers, circumventing the existing system and reducing costs for both merchants and consumers.

Blockchain also allows for the automation of the transaction verification process, where most banks today still expend significant resources on expensive manual verification. In fact, Santander InnoVentures has estimated that “blockchain technologies could reduce banks’ infrastructural costs by $15-20 billion a year by 2022.

” These advantages will bring faster settlement times and cheaper international transactions.

As shown by the Square’s staggering success in attracting small businesses with lower fees, stablecoins’ higher efficiency is likely to translate into wider reach.

Merchants, who build those fees into their prices, might be more willing to offer their products online because of the lower fees.

Similarly, customers might decide to keep balances in digital currencies and complete more transactions online without ever going back to fiat currency or feel the need for a credit card account.

For the 25% of U.S. households that the FDIC has identified as unbanked or underbanked, lower fees and lack of barriers to entry could be transformative. Finally, the general mistrust in financial intermediaries that leads millennials to flee traditional banks for fintechs and challenger banks suggests they’d be willing crypto adopters.

These features could prove to be the edge that drives stablecoins into the financial mainstream. To understand the effects that they might have on the e-commerce ecosystem, we can use data from Terra, which has experienced explosive growth since launching in June 2019, growing at 35% month-over-month.

It now has over 1 million users, who frequently use it for online purchases ranging from groceries to hotel bookings. Due to easy onboarding and lower fees, merchants have been the first to promote Terra over alternative payment options, e.g. credit cards, thereby facilitating its rapid adoption.

Terra’s growth has been driven by a significant reduction in the adoption of other payment systems, including credit cards. This suggests what E-commerce 2.0 might look like in the western world as well.

If stablecoins are going to become mainstream, however, they need corporate champions as well as innovative outsiders, and they’re starting to win influential insiders over.

Facebook’s debacle in launching Libra has been instrumental in bringing attention to this opportunity and has accelerated similar developments elsewhere.

Financial institutions, including JP Morgan, have recognized the need for a digital currency for payments. Jack Dorsey’s Square has recently won a patent for a network allowing consumers to pay with cryptocurrency and merchants to receive the full value in U.S. dollars, eliminating any concerns about crypto volatility.

Finally, the whole financial ecosystem is evolving —challenger banks such as Revolut accepting cryptocurrencies, for instance — which makes future developments and integration more likely.

But Will People Use It?

There are still major barriers for blockchain currencies to overcome, no matter what incentives exist. For most of the world, the use of cryptocurrency to pay for goods and services is limited to certain niches.

 There are some major retailers — including Starbucks and Overstock.com — that accept crypto, but they’re outliers.

A blockchain research company, Chainalysis, found that a mere 1.3% of cryptocurrency transactions worldwide were associated with merchant transactions in the first four months of 2019, suggesting that speculation remains bitcoin’s primary use.

Regulation could change that. Banks have been reluctant to get involved in cryptocurrency projects because of potential scrutiny from skeptical regulators, which in turn has made most businesses suspicious of the technology and slowed adoption.

Policymakers worry about transferring control of monetary policy from sovereigns to commercial enterprises. The ability of central banks to expand and contract the money supply is an important part of their policy toolkit, allowing them to stabilize growth and inflation in times of need.

Data privacy is also a major concern. This is a particularly poignant issue after Facebook’s well-documented controversies on the data security and privacy front; it will be a key focus of any future stablecoin.

Right now, three of the four pieces necessary for an ecommerce transformation at the hands of stablecoins are in place — the appropriate technology, consumer demand, and corporate champions.

If an amenable regulatory environment materializes in the next few years, the adoption of stablecoins as a means of payment might boost adoption of blockchain technologies above and beyond the current niche uses, and has the potential to breach the barriers to entry in the e-commerce market.

If key financial institutions like the Fed give their stamp of approval, we might really see a lower reliance on fiat currency and actual paper money in our day-to-day lives. If more and more of our purchases are made online and cashless shops become more popular, why the need to exchange digital currency into paper money?

Large retailers like Amazon might launch their own digital coins. Soon, we may not be wondering whether crypto will ever catch on, but whether we’re going to miss seeing George Washington’s face.

Quick Take

• The central bank of France and Societe Generale have “successfully” tested blockchain-based digital euro
• Societe Generale issued €40 million (~$44 million) worth of covered bonds as security tokens and then settled them in digital euros
• The central bank said it will run more tests with other players in the following weeks

The central bank of France has “successfully” completed the first test of its blockchain-based digital currency.Announcing the news on Wednesday, the Banque de France said it ran the experiment with investment banking giant Societe Generale, which issued bonds as security tokens and then settled them in digital euro.

Specifically, Societe Generale issued €40 million (~$44 million) worth of covered bonds as security tokens on May 14, which were then settled in the central bank’s blockchain-based digital euros.

“This experimentation was performed end-to-end using blockchain infrastructures…It demonstrates the feasibility of financial securities being digitally settled and delivered in Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for interbank settlements,” explained Societe Generale.

In April 2018 as well, the investment bank issued bonds worth €100 million (~$110 million) as security tokens, but those were settled in traditional euros.

The latest test transaction, conducted in digital euro, “is a new step in Societe Generale scaling up in its transformation, using the most innovative technologies, with the aim of better serving its clients,” said the investment bank.

France's central bank said it will now conduct more tests with other players “in the next few weeks” as part of its ongoing experiments with digital euro.

“The results of these experiments will be an important element of the Banque de France's contribution to the more global reflection led by the Eurosystem on the interest of [a CBDC],” said the central bank.

Banque de France launched its digital euro experimental program in April. At the time, the central bank said it aims to explore the potential of digital currency in "clearing and settlement of tokenized financial assets.

"Reiterating this point on Wednesday, the central bank said it is focused on “wholesale” CBDC uses cases. In April, the central bank said it is not looking to replace coins and banknotes.

The European Central Bank also once said that it is willing to issue its own digital currency if the private sector fails to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper.  

The Bank of France says it’s successfully completed an initial test of a central bank digital currency based on blockchain technology.

The bank says it’s the first in a series of tests to see if a digital euro has the potential to strengthen global financial markets. In the weeks ahead, the central bank will explore how the digital euro performs when sent from one bank to another.

The digital currency has been in development since late March. Its initial design is for use in the private sector and not for consumers.

The Bank of France is recruiting an economist with crypto experience and a strong background in game theory to help guide the launch process.

The central bank is following in the footsteps of China, which began a major trial of a digital form of the yuan in April.

DeFi projects seem to be well known in the cryptocurrency circles surveyed by CoinGecko, but usage is somewhat lackluster, especially for lending protocols.
Cryptocurrency price aggregator CoinGecko conducted a survey with almost 700 of its users to learn more about the trends in decentralized finance (DeFi).

The report, published on May 20, highlights that many cryptocurrency users heard about DeFi and some of its better known projects, but few of these are actually using it.Out of its sample of 694 respondents, only 11% said they haven’t heard anything about DeFi. 

Unsurprisingly, the most well-known and used DeFi app — as defined by CoinGecko — is MetaMask. About 72% of respondents heard of it, and 73% of them used it. The dominance can be attributed both to the platform-agnostic functionality of MetaMask, which is supported by all DeFi projects, as well as its longer lifespan. 

Exchanges at the helm
The highest awareness and usage statistics were found in the category of decentralized exchanges. The survey only analyzed automated platforms relying on liquidity pools, specifically Kyber, Uniswap and Bancor.

The highest awareness levels were for Kyber, which 57% of all respondents had heard of. Uniswap and Bancor effectively split the second spot, with 44% and 43%, respectively.

Uniswap appears to have the most efficient marketing funnel, as almost 48% of those aware of it have recently used it.

Kyber trails second at 42%, while Bancor has a much lower ratio of 23%.In comparison, lending platforms generally have worse usage statistics.

Maker is second only to Kyber in terms of awareness at 46%, but only 26% of them used it recently.

Compound was known to only 25% of respondents, of whom 32% said they had used it.

The bZx platform presents an interesting case, as 12% of respondents heard of it, but a very small percentage of them tried using it. This may be due to the infamy following their back-to-back hacks in February.

CoinGecko theorized that the lower usage was due to either not offering a compelling use case, or their products being too hard to understand.It is worth noting that the aforementioned usage percentages would make for excellent conversion rates for any marketing campaign, which normally deal with percentages below 10%.

This would suggest that active DeFi users were more likely to answer the survey, but the differences between categories are still notable.

Distrust of banks is common
CoinGecko’s data reveals a net distinction in attitude to banking between users familiar with DeFi and those who just heard of it. Of those who said to be familiar with it, 54% would stop relying on a bank completely, while the percentage is just 28% in those who are only casually aware.

The leading cause for those willing to ditch banks is the distrust in the banking system, at 31%, while 21% would do so because they consider DeFi to be a better alternative.




FELIPE ERAZO

• Technically speaking, bitcoin has stalled at a key resistance level: $10,000.
• The cryptocurrency had been widely expected to break higher in anticipation of a halving, which occurs every four years and is when crypto miners' bitcoin payout is cut in half.
• Despite bitcoin's recent sell-off, the cryptocurrency could see significant upside if it eventually breaks through the $10,000 price level.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

Technically speaking, bitcoin has stalled at a key resistance level: $10,000.The cryptocurrency had been widely expected to break higher in anticipation of a halving, but instead it sold off. A typical "sell the news" event.

A halving in bitcoin occurs every four years, and is when crypto miners' bitcoin payout is cut in half, limiting the supply of new bitcoin that is coming into the market.

Meanwhile, some investors, like Paul Tudor Jones, are investing in bitcoin to protect against inflation, and others, like Chamath Palihapitiya, are invested in bitcoin to hedge against deflation.

There's another set of investors who trade bitcoin not because of fundamentals, but because of technicals. Technical analysis is the study of market action, primarily through the use of charts, for the purpose of forecasting future price trends, according to technical analyst John Murphy.

Looking at bitcoin, classical technical patterns are playing out that help provide a roadmap as to where bitcoin may trade in the future if certain price points are hit.

The elephant in the room is the $10,000 price level, which is currently acting as both a psychological and historical resistance level for bitcoin.

Read more: The investment chief of a $12 billion wealth management firm breaks down how to build the perfect portfolio using just 7 ETFs — one designed to sidestep a dramatically 'overvalued' stock market

In technical analysis, large round numbers are defined as "psychological resistance levels," like $10,000 for bitcoin or 3,000 for the S&P 500.

Historical resistance levels are price points that have in the past acted as support or resistance.

For bitcoin, $10,000 acted as resistance in late 2018, throughout the middle of 2019, and earlier this year.If bitcoin is decisively rejected at the $10,000 level once again, downside support levels technical analysts will be watching are $8,000, $6,0000, and $4,000, representing potential drawdowns of 15%, 36%, and 58%, respectively.

Alternatively, if bitcoin manages to decisively break through $10,000, technical analysts will expect bitcoin to trade to its previous resistance levels, which are $12,000 and $14,000, representing potential upside of 26% and 47%, respectively.  

Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner of Fairlead Strategies, has bitcoin on her radar.

Specifically, Stockton is closely watching the $10,055 level, which represents the key 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level.In an e-mail exchange with Business Insider, Stockton said:

"A breakout above that level would target the 2019 high ($13,852), so would be a major bullish development for bitcoin. Intermediate-term momentum is positive, and there seems to be a growing appetite for risk in the broader market, supporting an eventual breakout."

Still, short-term gauges on bitcoin are neutral, according to Stockton, and she does note that previous bitcoin halvings were initially met with choppiness before experiencing sustained moves to the upside.Bitcoin traded down 2% to $9,520 Wednesday afternoon.

According to a new report by Luno and Arcane Research, the global cryptocurrency platform, the economic landscape across the African continent augurs well for cryptocurrency adoption.             

 The State of Crypto: Africa report says that rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies is likely in Africa in the context of high inflation rates, volatile currencies and underdeveloped banking infrastructure. 

Certain crypto assets combine the wealth preservation properties of hard assets such as gold with the portability of digital currencies.

Cryptocurrencies also offer lower-cost and faster remittance payments than is currently available. Traditional money transmitting services charge very high fees and intra-African payments are often slow.

The need is great, with expats sending around $48 billion back to families in sub-Saharan Africa last year. Although each country has its own particular set of circumstances, African nations share some key similarities and trends. 

The growing, young and mobile-native population on the continent is more likely to adopt a new financial system, and cryptocurrency has a particular role to play servicing the unbanked. But there are obstacles that must be overcome for cryptocurrencies to reach their full potential in Africa. 

“While much of the focus elsewhere has been on investment, speculation and trading, the utility benefits of cryptocurrencies are more needed in Africa than other continents,” says Marius Reitz, general manager for Africa at Luno. “Cryptocurrencies present solutions to many of the financial challenges in Africa.

The current context is ideal for an alternative money system to take root.

”Obstacles

Typical crypto enabling infrastructure in other regions such as nodes, mining operations, supporting merchants, ATMs and exchanges are not prevalent in Africa.

Along with regulation, these could be obstacles in cryptocurrencies reaching their full potential in Africa. Internet and electricity networks will require more investment.

Reitz also believes that the lack of crypto-specific infrastructure presents a huge opportunity to deliver the much-needed transformation of financial systems across many countries on the continent.

There is ample evidence that cryptocurrency is of much interest in Africa. According to recent Google Trends data Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa are ranked as 3rd, 8th and 13th on the topic of cryptocurrency respectively. Other surveys also highlight the growing appetite for cryptocurrencies on the continent.

According to one survey of internet users that owned cryptocurrency, 13 percent of South Africans aged 16-64 own cryptocurrency, making it third highest worldwide.

Nigeria ranked fifth at 11 percent. Another survey showed that 16 percent of South Africans had either used or owned cryptocurrency, ranking only behind Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina. Tjoborn Bull Jenssen, CEO of Arcane research, says, “The State of Crypto: Africa is the most comprehensive case for adopting cryptocurrencies in Africa to date.

It highlights the significant opportunity to transform financial services in Africa based on the results of analytical examination.

” Luno is an example of a company seizing this opportunity as arguably the most in-demand cryptocurrency exchange servicing the African market.

Luno has 4 million customers, most of whom are based in Africa. Along with the report, Luno has unveiled a new documentary “Banking on Africa: The Bitcoin Revolution”, that follows the journey of some of Africa’s Bitcoin pioneers as they seek to leverage cryptocurrency to leapfrog world economic powers.

The documentary, which is available on Amazon Prime from Friday 22 May, is a 45-minute video featuring key crypto personalities based in Southern Africa.

These include, Riccardo Spagni (Fluffy Pony,  lead maintainer of the Monero project), Lorien Gamaroff (founder of blockchain-based social outreach project, Uziso and Centbee), and Alakanani Itireleng (founder of the SatoshiCentre, Botswana), with a glimpse at the spectrum of applications of Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

* For more information on buying, selling or storing cryptocurrencies, visit the Luno Learning Portal.