The latest venture from Salesforce co-founder and CNET founder Halsey Minor looks a lot like an attempt to recreate the legacy monetary system on a blockchain.

• Launched commercially last week, Public Mint says its "fiat native" blockchain makes transactions efficient and accessible.

• The platform is described as a programmable blockchain with fiat funds held in insured banks, enabling users to create their own "digital money systems."

• Users would transact in regular U.S. dollars using their smartphones, while the funds are held centrally by custodians.

• Companies using the platform can accept dollars via credit card, wire transfers and more whether or not they have a bank account.

• Support for other fiat currencies is expected to be added in the future.

• Public Mint is a fiat layer that is claimed to be supported by more than 200 banks – although they aren't named in a press release.

• The platform could be a solution for cryptocurrency firms that have had trouble accessing the traditional banking system, the firm says.

• Reportedly taking two years to build, it was founded by Halsey Minor, who was also behind CNET, Salesforce and crypto trading platform Uphold (formerly called Bitreserve).

• VideoCoin, another Minor venture, became one of Public Mint's first corporate users in late May.

Cryptocurrency funds are a new type of investment vehicle that parallels traditional portfolio investments, like hedge funds, but are composed entirely out of digital assets. Because of this, they play by slightly different rules than their legacy counterparts.

Knowing how they differ and where to get involved is key for those who want to jump into this intriguing new world, so we’ve outlined the main points in this helpful guide.

What are cryptocurrency funds?

The term “cryptocurrency fund” refers to a portfolio containing a variety of different digital assets and is usually managed by one or a few individuals. Investors are then able to buy into these funds so that they can share in the profits as the value of the fund grows.

According to data from Crypto Fund Research, a little over half of these act as venture capital funds, while the rest are predominantly hedge funds. Venture capital funds involve a variety of investors pooling their money in order to buy into smaller businesses with high growth potential. Of course, in cryptocurrency funds these businesses are new projects and altcoins.

Once the asset or assets have grown by a sufficient amount, they are usually sold off and investors take a cut of the profits. Hedge funds act as portfolios that are actively managed and work to minimize risk in the market, hence the name “hedge.

” These can be made up of any assets, but different assets are typically used in both long and short strategies, diversifying the portfolio in order to make the fund resistant to, or even profitable during, high volatility.

Again, these funds are usually managed by small teams and are often only available to high-end investors, with minimum investments ranging in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Traditional hedge funds also usually have minimum time constraints attached to them, so investors would be committed to keeping their money in the fund for at least one year, for example.

They also tend to have fairly high fees, around 20% of profit, as incentive for the managers to provide solid performance. On that note, this entails putting trust into the team managing the strategies, and there is no guarantee that the fund will ultimately see a return. If poorly managed, the market volatility that these funds are supposed to protect against can also quickly wipe them out.


 This was seen in March with the sharp drop that came amid the coronavirus market panic. Some cryptocurrency funds weren’t prepared for such a sudden drop, and collapsed as a result.

Common strategies used by cryptocurrency fund managers

At this point, we should explore the strategies that fund managers use to grow their investments. One common tactic often invoked is called “long/short equity.

” In this scenario, fund managers look at the assets they believe are undervalued and overvalued, and then place long and short positions accordingly. If their analysis is correct, then their portfolio should see gains whether the market is rising or falling. 

A similar strategy is known as “market neutral.” Here, the goal is for the long and short positions to balance out, so that the market exposure nets to zero.

Therefore, a manager may take a 50% long and 50% short in the same industry or asset in the hopes of reducing risk from volatility. It should be noted that reduction of risk generally means lower returns as well, which is an acceptable trade-off for some.

Another common strategy used is arbitrage. There are many types of arbitrage, but the general idea is to buy assets on one exchange and then sell them on another that is offering a better price. This is common in traditional hedge funds, but the cryptocurrency market often offers more lucrative opportunities due to its young and volatile nature.

It is common for different platforms to offer slightly different prices on various assets, and if the move can be made fast enough, then making a profit can be relatively easy. That being said, speed is key, making this strategy a common favorite among high-frequency traders.

There are other strategies as well, such as “global macro,” which looks to take positions based upon larger trends within a market, and “short only,” which basically focuses on explicitly shorting assets that the managers feel are overvalued.

Lastly, there is “quantitative,” which focuses solely on models, data and research to craft the portfolio. Realistically, it is not uncommon for multiple different strategies to be used, but it is essential that the fund managers understand what they are doing in implementing whichever one and are transparent about it with investors.

A variety of different ways to invest

This is generally the largest risk involved with investing in a cryptocurrency fund: clients need to put their trust into those behind it, which is why it is important to do research.

The more information the managers are willing to share about who they are, how they are managing and what their track record is can help determine if they are right for an investor.

That’s why, for many, partnering with a reputable firm is an essential part of the trust that they will see a return on their investment. Some of the biggest names in cryptocurrency funds include the Digital Currency Group, Galaxy Digital and Pantera Capital, among many others.

All focus specifically on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.Of course, these will still generally require large, upfront investments from qualified individuals.

However, retail investors who want to be in on this type of action might want to look at projects like Tokenbox. In addition to acting as a general wallet and exchange, Tokenbox allows users to “tokenize” their portfolios as well as invest in the tokens attached to the portfolios of others.

This acts as a streamlined way to either begin a new cryptocurrency fund or get involved in an existing one. The tokens that are tied to winning portfolios can themselves be bought and sold, and their value is tied explicitly to the performance of their fund.

Managers can then showcase their success to try and attract more backers. All of this is possible without the need for a massive initial investment, but rather acts more like purchasing any single cryptocurrency on an exchange.

What can this market look forward to?

The cryptocurrency fund outlook is fairly bright these days. According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Elwood Asset Management Services Ltd., the overall value of Assets Under Management in these funds grew from $1 billion in 2018 to an impressive $2 billion in 2019 — doubling the market’s size in a single year.

On top of that, the median return on these investments in 2019 was 30%, down a little from 2018 but still far above most traditional hedge funds. This is, of course, due to the room for upside that is available in the market.

Though a wide variety of cryptocurrencies can be found in various offerings, the study found that 97% offered Bitcoin (BTC), followed by Ether at 67% (ETH) and others such as XRP (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), all being offered by about a third of the funds available. This all points to a market that is really only beginning to be explored.

As cryptocurrency grows into mass adoption, it is only logical to assume that the number and value of these investment vehicles will continue to rise. Risks will always be present, which is why investors must always do their homework, but the untapped potential of digital assets looks promising.

If more retail investors can be brought into this realm as well, then the story of cryptocurrency funds may be just beginning.

Millions of Britons now hold cryptocurrency: LEE BOYCE delves into official figures to see what a typical bitcoin speculator looks like

• The FCA has released an annual detailed report focusing on cryptocurrencies 
• It lifts the lid on why people have bought in and why 
• Consumer Trends asks: Will the number of coin owners keep growing? 

By LEE BOYCE FOR THISISMONEY.CO.UK PUBLISHED: 09:25 BST, 4 July 2020 | UPDATED: 09:34 BST, 4 July 2020

• 
  

Not so long ago, sandwiched somewhere in between the EU referendum and the coronavirus pandemic, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies briefly became the hottest global topic.

With prices soaring, many blindly took a punt, worried they would miss out on a chance for a quick and large profit – the only way was up and all that Yazz. You heard overheard conversations about buying bitcoin, ripple, ethereum and more everywhere. 

It seemed everyone was piling in, young and old, with the hopes of turning hundreds or thousands of pounds into something more substantial.

Many subsequently had their fingers burnt – bitcoin prices fell from a peak of nearly $20,000 in December 2017 to $3,000 a year later, others saw their currency vanish, exchanges disappear, or were scammed.



Bitcoin boom?

The FCA has provided a snapshot of crypto BritainA lucky few, likely to have been involved when the price was low and the industry unknown, may have turned a handsome profit.

Fast forward to today and while cryptocurrencies remain niche, there is still plenty of interest around bitcoin and the like, with ways to buy it far easier than a few years ago. And for those who managed to buy in at $3,000 a coin in that dip a year after the boom and held on, they would have witnessed the price triple.  

We see comments dominated by two extreme camps: those who say bitcoin will race to $100,000, or even a $1million a coin in the next few years, and others saying it is a scam or casino-style gambling, with those getting involved having no idea what it is all about.

The Financial Conduct Authority has taken a keen interest in recent years and this week marked its annual report on the cryptocurrency, to reveal whether the interest in bitcoin has died down or continues to boom.Consumer Trends dives into the statistics to see whether the fad is over, or if people are more interested than ever…

• 
  

Who is a typical crypto holder?

Around 1.9million Britons own cryptocurrencies, according to the new data from the FCA – or nearly 4 per cent of the adult population. These are people who actually 'own' a coin in a wallet, not have their money tracking the price.

A further 700,000 people have also held crypto at some point, or 5.35 per cent of Britons – up 2.35 percentage points on a year earlier.

That means more than one in 20 Britons have been tempted into dabbling in crypto at some point.

What about the price?

The price of bitcoin soared from $1,000 a coin in early 2017 to $20,000 by the end of the year.

A year later, it had fallen to $3,000. Last summer, it managed a spell back over $10,000 a coin, it fell back to $6,000 in March and currently sits at around $9,000.According to the study, 78 per cent of all people had heard of bitcoin.

The next most familiar? Libra, which hasn't launched, followed by bitcoin cash, ether, bitcoin SV and litecoin - these were the only ones with a 10 per cent or more familiarity with the British public.  

The data, which was gathered in December 2019, also showed that people were far more likely to have heard of cryptocurrency: nearly three quarters are now aware of it, compared to just 42 per cent a year before.

What is the make-up of a typical punter and how much have they gambled of their own cash?Well, 79 per cent are male, 69 per cent over the age of 35 and the majority – 73 per cent - are classed as being in the highest ABC1 social grades.

Furthermore, nearly half of cryptocurrency holders earn £20,000 to £50,000, with exactly half of all owners holding under £260 worth and 75 per cent under £1,000.

This suggests that most have dipped their toes in the market in the hope of a crypto like bitcoin rising to $100,000 a coin.If you bought £260 worth today, and it did - for whatever reason - rise to $100,000 a coin, it would see the value rise to around £3,000 from that initial investment. It is small enough for most to write it off if needed, but big enough to have more than a passing interest. 

The most popular reason for consumers buying cryptocurrencies was as 'as a gamble that could make or lose money', acknowledging that prices are volatile.

There has also been a shifting generational change – just 7 per cent of all crypto holders were 55-plus in 2018. Despite seeing largely as a millennial or generation Z purchsae, this figure has increased to 22 per cent in the new study.

Meanwhile, the number of 18-24 year-olds involved dropped from 18 per cent to 10 per cent. The most likely age range to hold crypto now is 35 to 44 year-olds at 27 per cent.The year previous, 25-34 year-olds were most likely, at 39 per cent. The survey is of a nationally representative online panel of 3,085 respondents.

Money, money, money: Half of those with cryptocurrency have less than £260 worth

Some have borrowed money to get involved

In the survey, the FCA used the term cryptocurrency, but notes: 'This term is more widely used in public domain than the broader "cryptoasset" term we tend to prefer'.

This highlights that the city watchdog would prefer it not to be described as a form of currency.

The survey indicated that 8 per cent of people borrowed the money from financial firms, friends and family, other sources or using a credit card or existing credit facility.

While this seems a low percentage, the FCA says this is still 215,000 people. For a speculative investment, that is a worrying figure.It does point out, however, that those who did borrow money purchased small amounts – half bought less than £120 worth.

Another titbit from the survey is that fact that 27 per cent of people who bought crypto are in the C2DE social grade.

These are described as skilled manual workers, semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers, state pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers and unemployed with state benefits only.

The FCA concluded that those displaying a lack of basic knowledge and are unaware of the absence of regulatory protections are more likely to be in this social grade than the typical cryptocurrency owner.

Consumer Trends

This is Money assistant editor and consumer journalist, Lee Boyce, writes his Consumer Trends column every Saturday.It ranges from food and drink and retail, to financial services and travel. Have an idea or suggestion? 

Get in touch:[email protected] 

On that note, most consumers seem to understand the risks associated with the lack of protections, the high volatility of the product and have some understanding of the underlying technology, the study says.

Nevertheless, the lack of such knowledge among some presents potential consumer harm - 11 per cent of current and previous cryptocurrency owners thought their money was protected. Again, while the minority, it still amounts to approximately 300,000 adults.

Nearly half of people said they bought crypto as a gamble that could make or lose money. Just 15 per cent expected to make money quickly.

A quarter have bought in as a part of a wider investment portfolio, while a similar number said they did as they feared missing the boat.Meanwhile, 17 per cent said they have got involved as they don't trust the financial system and the same amount did as part of a long-term savings plan, such as a pension.


+4

Earnings: It appears basic-rate taxpayers are the most likely to hold crypto

Never been used and use non-UK exchanges

According to the study, 47 per cent of people have never used cryptocurrency for anything. This suggests that many are buying it and holding it in the hope of the value growing, not for any practical use.


Last month saw the announcement that PayPal will begin supporting bitcoin transactions - which may change all that. The majority bought their crypto through an online exchange. Of those that used an online exchange, 83 per cent used non-UK based exchanges.

While there are plenty of reputable exchanges, as we've pointed out before, it can be the Wild West, with people potentially transferring their money overseas.   Coinbase is by far the most popular exchange to use - 63 per cent of those who have bought crypto used the San Francisco based firm. 

The next four that most people use are Binance, based in Malta, Kraken, also in San Francisco, Bittrex in Seattle and Bitfinex, Hong Kong - the only other firms to score above 10 per cent.  



Keen interest: A year ago, the majority never looked at their crypto value - now, most keep a keen eye on it

Are they holding it for the long-term?

In general, cryptocurrency holders expect to hold onto it for long periods of time - again, highlighting that most are now buying and leaving it, in the hope for long-term growth.

In the previous study, 35 per cent said they never monitored the value of their crypto holding - however, this has dropped to 12 per cent.    

Most current owners who have a plan for how long they intend to hold crypto expect to keep them for three years or more. At the same time, almost 40 per cent said they don't know for how long they will hold onto it.

Google trends data showing searches for bitcoin, with the big spike during the boom

Have more people got involved during lockdown?

It is highly likely that the number of people involved in cryptocurrencies has surged during lockdown, thanks to stock market volatility, savings rates collapsing and having extra cash.

There have been plenty of reports suggesting that some households have managed to save extra cash - much of which has poured into savings accounts or National Savings and Investment products.

Some of this would have been diverted into bitcoin. On 11 May, in the midst of lockdown, we also saw bitcoin half - an event that happens every four years.It means the reward for digitally mining Bitcoin has halved from 12.5 coins per block to 6.25, constricting the supply.

The event saw some exchanges report an influx of investors, hoping to see prices surge after the event.    According to Google Trends, worldwide searches for bitcoin reached their highest amount since the halcyon days of late 2017 and early 2018, when crypto chat became all the rage. 

This suggests that more Britons are likely to have piled in since the data in this report was gathered - but as the study suggests, the majority are wisely not expecting quick gains or sticking too much of their cash in crypto.  

If you do buy into bitcoin 

Find out how bitcoin and the blockchain works, so that you have some understanding of the system, the ledger, the major players and the public and private key elements.

Remember bitcoin yields nothing and its main source of value is scarcity. 

Most bitcoin activity is trading not investing. Research coin wallets, the digital vaults where cryptocurrency is held, and consider security carefully. Bitcoins have been stolen before, understand how this happened.

Be prepared for extreme volatility. The price can move by 20 per cent in one day and you could easily lose half of your cash in a far quicker time that investing in the stock market.

Consider how you would cash in any gains. 

There are reports that this has proved hard for some people. A time of market stress could lead to people being locked in and unable to trade.

Read our guide to How to be a successful investor, which looks at the far less high octane world of long-term investing and how to make it a success. What is bitcoin?

The digital currency that most will be familiar with is free from government interference and can be shared instantly online. It doesn't rely on trusting one central monetary authority.

The underlying technology is blockchain, a financial ledger maintained by a network of computers that can track the movement of any asset without the need for a central regulator. 

David Nage, Principal and Head of Strategic Relations at Arca joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• David’s experience in the family office channel and his path to the crypto industry
• His upcoming FO256 family office virtual conference on June 24th
• Podcasting and content creation as a complement to investing in the blockchain industry

To learn more about David check out his Base Layer podcast and follow him @DavidJNage

Dave Balter, the cofounder and CEO of Flipside Crypto, a business intelligence company focused on public blockchains, joins the show. In this episode we discuss:

• Dave’s new book, The Humility Imperative, and the lessons he has learned from seven startups
• His POV on leadership in an emerging market like cryptoassets/blockchain
• Reflections on fundraising, remote working, personal relationships and more.

To learn more about Flipside Crypto visit their website and follow Dave @DaveBalter

Matthew Le Merle, the co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era, Keiretsu Capital and Blockchain Coinvestors joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss:

• Matthew’s career arc and how he came to understand the potential impact of blockchain technology
• Building Blockchain Coinvestors, and the strategy of investing in blockchain venture capital funds
• Predictions and analysis on institutional custody, stablecoins, Bitcoin adoption in emerging markets and more

Learn more about Matthew and Blockchain Coinvestors at: https://www.blockchaincoinvestors.com/

KPMG has launched a cryptocurrency management platform designed to accelerate institutional crypto adoption.

KPMG’s patent-pending tool aims to bridge traditional data and crypto systems, integrating key use cases of cryptocurrency, including custody, wallets, and anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring.

KPMG’s Crypto Suite

KPMG LLP announced on Monday that it has launched a “New platform [that] addresses global regulatory concerns for strong system controls and processes for crypto and digital assets.” Called KPMG Chain Fusion, the new cryptocurrency platform aims “to help manage crypto and traditional assets over public and private blockchain networks,” the announcement details.

KPMG LLP is the U.S. member firm of KPMG International, one of the Big Four accounting firms, which has more than 219,000 professionals working in 147 countries and territories.

The firm described this product as “a patent-pending suite of advanced analytics capabilities built on leading cryptoasset data and technology products to streamline the ability for financial services companies and fintechs to offer cryptoasset services on an institutional scale,” adding:

KPMG Chain Fusion is designed to accelerate trusted adoption of core cryptoasset capabilities through a consistent data architecture.

The new cryptocurrency platform “enables advanced analytics” for key use cases of cryptocurrency, including custody, wallets, “proof of reserves (asset position reconciliation), and AML transaction monitoring,” the firm outlined.




The new KPMG cryptocurrency management tool, Chain Fusion, aims to accelerate the adoption of core crypto capabilities.

While many financial service institutions and fintech firms are already offering crypto services, KPMG emphasized that an increased number of traditional businesses are now offering crypto services on “both public, permissionless and permissioned blockchains.” The firm’s website elaborates:

The operation of a successful cryptoasset business at institutional scale hinges on the ability to efficiently and effectively integrate blockchain data alongside traditional data infrastructure.

Sam Wyner, director of the KPMG Cryptoasset Services team, noted that while leading crypto technology solutions “can address process and control requirements within their own systems, the greater challenge is making sure systems can work together.

” That’s where the firm’s new crypto management platform comes in. According to Wyner, “KPMG Chain Fusion addresses those challenges by bringing these systems together with the required processes and controls under one roof.”

The persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic has led governments and companies to resort to the unthinkable: increased surveillance. 

In Beijing, which on June 11 marked its first new case after two months, authorities utilized geo-spatial information collected through mobile tracking devices in people’s smartphones to identify and isolate potential virus carriers.

To lessen public concern Norway announced its decision to cease its coronavirus contact tracing app, Smittestopp, after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, which claims that a present low rate of infection no longer justifies the use of the app.

Meanwhile three states — Alabama, South Carolina, and North Dakota — have committed to using Apple and Google's contact-tracing tech.

The Exposure Notification Privacy Act, a new US bill which introduces federal rules to prevent privacy violations, would require all tech companies working on contact-tracing apps to collaborate with public-health authorities and mandate that data collected by contact-tracing apps not be used for commercial purposes.

However, the question remains, who owns the data and as an individual is it illegal to be commercially incentivized to profit from one’s own data? 

With the coronavirus outbreak bringing digital health to the front of healthcare today, secure and trusted data custody is needed more than ever and blockchain may prove in helping to solve this issue.

Although enterprise adoption of blockchain today seems to go without the application of a token or cryptocurrency for financial use cases, in some ways this is understandable. Paying for healthcare is not unknown in and of itself, but buying tokens to pay for it is a little harder to grasp. 

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Like cryptocurrencies that are striving to gain mainstream adoption, blockchain in healthcare is setting its own slow pace to adoption.

Companies are at the early stages of development, building infrastructures and business models that would guarantee more privacy of individual data, especially to be used by organizations in times of global distress.

Even though the pandemic proves these solutions are urgent, is mainstream adoption in the healthcare industry on the horizon? 

Kadena, the first blockchain technology company to come out of JPMorgan’s Blockchain Center for Excellence, has partnered with Rymedi, providers of a data platform revolutionizing healthcare supply chains.

Rymdei’s main goal is to use data chains to monitor drug and medical device use as well as their outcomes. Rymedi’s system is being used by the World Health Organization to monitor vaccination records, treatments, and prevention methods in Mongolia. If there is a noticeable effect there, the process can be applied to other countries and other conditions and the solution can undoubtedly be applied to covid-19 initiatives..

Another blockchain based healthcare company Immuto Inc, has used J.P. Morgan JPM’s Quorum, an open-source framework for blockchain networks, to set up their Documen system. 

The system eliminates third parties in the custody of medical documents and provides a secure digital signature to all data involved as it goes through the chain of custody.

BlockInterop is one of the companies that has chosen to use a digital currency in its work.

Founded in 2018, it’s team focuses on the development, acquisitions and investments of Healthcare Meaningful Use Applications, Web Services and Data Transformation tools.

The company noted the huge increase in the cryptocurrency market in 2017 with ICO’s (intial coin offerings, where a token is exchanged for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies) and related offerings. Ultimately, they decided to work with a Security Token Offering (a type of cryptocurrency where the token represents a direct security offering).

In BlockInterop’s case, the tokens represent one share of class B stock. Unlike traditional stock offerings, these are monitored by a digital blockchain exchange and are much more secure.

When asked if healthcare is prepared for blockchain, CEO Gina Malak explained, “Blockchain technology has the potential to transform healthcare [industry], putting the patient at the center of the healthcare ecosystem.

Along with increasing data security, privacy, and interoperability, making the data immutable and interoperable.

” This concept aligns with Meaningful Use, the term established in 2011 for standards of electronic health record which is now called Promoting Interoperability as CMS focuses on health information exchange and patient data access.

Essentially it sets out how that data can be exchanged and accessed. While this initiative nearing a decade of work continues to evolve, blockchain technology can improve the coordination of data and address many of the privacy concerns heightened by current events as seen by the companies building these solutions.

Inevitable scrutiny and backlash will continue to challenge authoritarian structures that wield power in accessing individuals personal information for their benefit. Before implementing another contact-tracing app, will they seek to integrate a decentralized distributed-ledger system?

Global GDP rose by 2.2% in 2019, the slowest since the financial crisis of 2008 - 2009. Despite the impact of Covid-19, the global economy is expected to expand by 2.4% in 2020.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) believes that new technology can help to reduce trade global trade costs, allowing for increased global economic growth.

If we can successfully reduce global trading costs, we can expect global trade to grow by 31-34% over 15 years. In 2017, over 160 WTO member countries came together to sign the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), which plans to reduce trade costs by an average of 14.3% and boost global trade by up to $1 trillion per year, with the biggest gains in the poorest countries.

Blockchain technology can play a huge part in boosting the global economy due it's many applications which include:

• Transporting real-life data to the blockchain via Chainlink
• Verifying supply chain integrity via VeChain (Document is in German so run the PDF file through Google Translate, yes they translate files too).
• Reducing costs and saving time via the implementation of smart contracts with Ethereum
• Transferring data between different blockchains via Pantos
• Verifying transaction integrity through a public ledger and mining protocols like Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake, and Delegated Proof-of-Stake

Through collaborations between blockchain companies and traditional enterprises, we can expect to see an increase in efficiency, reduction of costs, and reduction of barriers to entry.

Notable examples include OmiseGo, who plan to provide financial services to millions of unbanked people worldwide.

Another example is VeChain who helped DNV GL, an internationally accredited assurance company, to develop a blockchain-enabled infection risk management solution in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Blockchain technology can also help companies to exchange data and value through blockchain networks, which can be linked to off-chain networks via Oracles.

Blockchain-based data exchanges can bring much-needed transparency and speed to the global economy. However, this wouldn't be without its challenges. Data exchanged via the network needs to be validated, which is no problem for blockchain technology.

The problem lies with regulations. European countries in particular re very strict when it comes to data privacy, for example when you buy a domain name in Europe your personal details are hidden by default.

Whereas if you buy a domain name in the USA, domain privacy is an additional feature you pay for. Another example is the annoying GDPR Cookie Popups you have probably seen 100 times today.

This is all due to the strict data privacy regulations in Europe, regulations that could make it different for companies to exchange data.

However, I believe these are problems we can overcome.

Blockchain technology has garnered interest from traditional businesses, with adoption increasing year after year. For these companies to succeed in a blockchain-enabled global marketplace, they’ll need a decentralized governance model.

This will help these organizations to gain trust on a global scale. By using blockchain technology they can easily set up a decentralized custodian of trust with no third-party interference.

IBM identified three types of organizations, based on the roles each one plays within a blockchain network:

Joiners - 1/3 of respondents, they are likely to join existing or new blockchain networks. They seek efficiency, compared to other organizations that prioritize revenue growth and cost reduction.Builders - the smallest group with just 18% of respondents. They create blockchain networks within their industries to provide new services and new value.Expanders - the largest group of organizations with 51% of respondents. They plan to build industry or cross-industry networks. They could even join other blockchain networks, in order to grow in just market share and overall market size.
Reference (PDF File): Advancing Global Trade with Blockchain (Page 4: Dawn is Coming: Blockchain as a Profitable Investment)

These organizations share a common objective, which is to drive innovation by creating services and apps that improve the value of the network whilst putting consumers in control of their data.

Services that could be offered include payment remittance or document validation. Whilst all three organization types prioritize blockchain for billing and settlement and payments, they intend to use the blockchain for different purposes depending on their role.

• Joiners intend to consume services on multiple blockchain networks, they also prioritize data sharing and consumer insights.
• Builders struggle with scaling the platforms they create, so they focus their blockchain efforts on global fraud and compliance issues.
• Expanders create innovative blockchain applications to share, reconcile, and manage data spanning cross-industry ecosystems.

These organizations acknowledge that network roles heavily influence the distribution of all revenue generated on blockchain platforms. Builders are expected to take a majority of that revenue for the costs incurred due to their setup work.

The reason for this is that networks are mainly monetized based on the value and volume of the transactions generated on these networks.Networks usually charge a small fee on a huge volume of transactions which can bring in billions of dollars in revenue. Payment processors are a great example of this.

Final thoughts

To nurture a growing, global marketplace, it’s important to focus on interoperability across the different systems that process transactions.Decentralized blockchains can work with organizations to increase global economic growth.

Interoperability blockchains like Pantos and Oracle platforms like Chainlink can help to reduce costs, transfer data efficiently, and improve global economic performance.

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You’d be forgiven for thinking of cryptocurrency when you hear the word blockchain. However, it has come a long way since its inception in 2008 as a public transaction ledger for Bitcoin. At the core of every blockchain is Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

Originally built to underpin cryptocurrency exchanges, it has now evolved into one of the world’s fastest-growing and most publicised technologies with the potential to reshape our economy and society in ways not seen since the advent of the internet. 

With so many powerful benefits, organisations large and small are clamouring to take advantage of this innovative technology to give their businesses a competitive edge. But what exactly is Blockchain, how can it impact your business and is it too good to be true for SMEs? 

Back to basics

Perhaps the most well-known use of Blockchain is the sending and receiving of payments to anyone in the world. However, Blockchain has much broader applications and the benefits for small businesses extend far beyond just providing a secure payments platform.

Blockchain is creating new opportunities for businesses in every sector to solve existing challenges and develop new business models. The technical definition describes Blockchain as a distributed database designed to facilitate transactions and keep track of assets.

But the best way to understand this is to imagine a massive, virtual spreadsheet, duplicated across multiple computers, or nodes, which are all connected to each other forming a chain. When you add to the spreadsheet, each copy on the chain gets updated with a timestamp, making it almost impossible to tamper with. 

Smart contracts

One of the biggest universal challenges plaguing small and medium size businesses is cash flow. In fact, recent research by We.

Pay found that more than 40% of businesses reported cash flow issues within the last year. Blockchain promises to solve this problem in the form of ‘smart contracts’, which as their name suggests, not only automate agreements but also enforce contracts between customers and suppliers.

Think of a smart contract as a self-executed, coded agreement that delivers guaranteed outcomes if certain preconditions are met.  This will potentially make life significantly easier for businesses. Creating frictionless and efficient transaction processes and allowing invoice payments to be done more quickly and without the need to chase for payment.

Decentralisation and securityAnother advantage of Blockchain is the security benefits it provides. Blockchain applications are inherently decentralised, meaning that data is distributed to different computers around the world in parallel. Transactions cannot be manipulated or deleted through a cyber-hack because each transaction is linked to the one that preceded it. 

With cybercrime costing small businesses across the UK an estimated £13.6 billion in 2018, and four out of five companies in Europe experiencing at least one cybersecurity incident over the past year - this couldn’t come at a better time. Supply chain management

Blockchain has the potential to help SMEs build smarter and more secure supply chains. Since most products are not made by one single company, a Blockchain-backed supply chain means that each transaction from point of origin to point of sale can be tracked through a transparent and traceable audit trail with real-time visibility. 

This not only helps reduce fraud as mentioned but also improves inventory management, which has traditionally been a complex and laborious process, especially for small businesses. 

Not if but when?

HSBC UK supported the first transaction on the blockchain supply chain finance platform we.trade last year. Our client, Beeswift Limited and its corporate buyer in the Netherlands participated in the transaction.

Use of the we.trade platform allowed Beeswift to complete its trade finance transaction within a day, rather than the average 40-45 days it traditionally takes. It was the first transaction where two buyers used the system end-to-end, including the ability to write the invoice, agree to trade terms, provide the online letter of credit, know as a bank payment undertaking (BPU), and additionally receive funding from that.

Blockchain has the potential to answer a number of issues businesses encounter; payment transparency, supply chain issues, cybercrime and a lack of necessary information to conduct business efficiently. However, businesses need to be cautious. Blockchain and its potential benefits are well publicised but like all new technologies its benefits, applications and limitations are only just beginning to come to fruition.

Businesses need to question whether Blockchain truly answers the challenges the business has. First and foremost, you need a peer network to use Blockchain otherwise it is obsolete. For instance, in a supply chain each component supplier of a particular product would need to be in the chain for the company that assembles and markets the final product. 

The cost of data centres, electricity and servers that need constant upgrading may be a barrier to entry for many businesses. Whilst Blockchain may sound like a simple virtual solution they use a significant amount of energy as it constantly updates.

Although it is improving, this isn’t currently a ‘green’ business solution.It’s very easy for Blockchains to become too big, too quickly. Any changes to the Blockchain needs to be thoroughly tested and mirrored across every part of the chain otherwise it can blow out.

Blockchain is a sequential chain of blocks or data records, that contain transactions, files or other important data.When you try to then cut that into more controllable slices it isn’t always possible and it doesn’t eradicate the cyber-crime risk completely. Each slice could provide an opportunity for fraudsters to hack into the system.T

he process of adoption will be slow and steady, and there will be setbacks. Nonetheless, Blockchain is at a tipping point, and for those willing to accept decentralisation as the future of business, it could solve many of the fundamental challenges SMEs experience on a daily basis. And it could level the playing field when it comes to competing against larger enterprises.

Much like the infrastructure that supported the roll out of the internet, Blockchain is less a ‘disruptive’ technology than a ‘foundational’ one.

For more information on all topics for FinTech, please take a look at the latest edition of FinTech magazine .

Contrary to popular belief, privacy is not for those with something to hide but with everything to lose. Authoritarian governments across the globe are increasingly using surveillance to control their citizens at the expense of personal freedoms and civil liberties.

The privacy of one’s financial transactions is intricately linked to one’s personal liberty. Without privacy (and financial means), true freedom is at risk. We are rendered powerless to resist oppression.

The promise of cryptocurrency is that it is uncensorable and unseizable money for the people. But Bitcoin (BTC), which was supposed to be like peer-to-peer digital cash, lacks privacy, which is essential to enabling these properties. In an increasingly connected and data-driven world where surveillance and data harvesting is the norm, we must treat privacy as a fundamental human right.

If we believe in the original tenets of cryptocurrency as a decentralized and self-sovereign form of money, we need to fight to maintain our right to be private.

Privacy-shy 

Some cryptocurrency projects seem to be apologetic for being privacy-focused, given the current regulatory climate and common misconception that privacy coins are used by criminals to hide illicit activities. Consequently, we see other projects in the space, such as Zcash (ZEC), Dash (DASH) or even Bitcoin adopting opt-in privacy models, which clearly do not work. 

Low usage means low privacy, as indicated by Chainalysis’ findings that 99% of Zcash transactions are partially traceable and that the firm can perform successful investigations into Dash’s PrivateSends. Other studies also indicate that despite Zcash’s advanced technology, many users who did not completely understand how its privacy worked used it improperly and made it traceable anyway.

Yet, the fact is: No matter how advanced the privacy technology employed, it is meaningless if it is not used. Privacy likes being in a crowd. Privacy needs to be easy-to-use.Various explanations have been given as to why these privacy cryptocurrencies do not seem to want to encourage greater adoption of private transactions.

The primary reason being that they need to play nice with regulators, who are uncomfortable with the idea of private transactions.

Despite its early origins being one of the first privacy coins, called Darkcoin, Dash goes to great lengths to distance itself from being called a privacy cryptocurrency, including with a published legal position that in terms of privacy, it is no different than Bitcoin.

These timid approaches do privacy a great disservice, characterizing it as something shameful.

A better, bolder approach is privacy-on by default, with transparency opt-in.

Offering the privacy protocol Lelantus, which automatically anonymizes funds in a wallet, but also allows for the option of turning it off when needed, serves to maintain easy adoption for exchanges and wallets that do a high volume of sends but don’t necessarily want the overhead of privacy transactions. 

Since the exchange knows your identity anyway, there is no need for sacrificing anything but gaining the benefit of large anonymity sets and fast, lightweight transactions for exchanges and ease-of-integration with the larger crypto ecosystem that is used to dealing with Bitcoin-type coins.

This is especially important when integrating into decentralized exchanges or for interoperability for DeFi transactions.Related: Blockchains Are an Excellent Solution for Privacy, Part 1

Playing nice with regulators 

Privacy coins are concerned about their survival in an increasingly hostile regulatory environment, in which it is easier to maintain opt-in privacy for compliance reasons. While significant pressure against privacy coins comes from banks or concerned regulators, there is no outright statutory or common law against them.

Even the revised “travel rule,” or FATF rules that impose additional obligations on disclosure, as well as Anti-Money Laundering rules for exchanges and custodial wallets, do not ban privacy coins. Virtual asset service providers, or VASPs, can still disclose sender identity, as they already know who you are regardless of blockchain privacy mechanisms.Related: Blockchains Are an Excellent Solution for Privacy, Part 2

Privacy for all 

We strongly reject the common argument that privacy technologies enable illicit activity. Recent studies such as the Rand Corporation’s report states: 

“While privacy coins may intuitively appear likely to be preferred by malicious actors due to their purported anonymity-preserving features, there is little evidence to substantiate this claim.” 

Related: Blockchains Are an Excellent Solution for Privacy, Part 3

The traditional fiat world continues to make it easy to launder money without having to resort to the complexities and volatility of cryptocurrencies.

For example, trade-based money laundering is still simple to do and hard to detect. Additionally, the “National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment” report published in 2018 continues to cite the banking system and complicit money services businesses as the primary way that terrorist funding is facilitated. 

Many of these reports indicate that the right way to combat these is through robust international regulation and law enforcement, as well as improved coordination between the public and private sectors.

None of these reports suggest the banning of privacy technologies or cryptocurrencies.

Any cryptocurrency that wants to remain true to the original purpose must include privacy.

With the development of blockchain technology, we are at the precipice of a self-sovereign financial system in which we have complete control over our assets.

We envision a system in which the freedom and opportunities of true economic equality, and not just financial equality, are guaranteed for everyone.

To reach these lofty goals, privacy is essential to preserving our rights and the freedoms therein. The cryptocurrency industry must come together to champion privacy and work to further its wide-scale adoption.

Our goal is to change public perception and make privacy a value worth fighting for.The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Despite seeing substantial growth in popularity, topping Google search trends amid the recent halving, the coronavirus pandemic and mainstream coverage, the cryptocurrency industry has somewhat been left out of the advertising world by online ad networks, social media platforms and even national governments. 

In 2018, Facebook banned cryptocurrency advertising amid the initial coin offering hype.

Later that year in March, Google followed, banning all advertisements of cryptocurrencies, especially ICOs, and binary options. In the same month, Twitter also banned all cryptocurrency advertising, except for a few public companies. 

Several social networks in China also applied bans to crypto advertising, following the introduction of restrictions by the Chinese government. These bans, of course, were not random attacks on crypto but rather a blanket measure to prevent scams and illegal fundraisers from acquiring users through these platforms. 

In fact, it is possible to advertise on Facebook, for example, if the user files a formal request with Facebook. This measure is used to force potential scammers to go to Facebook rather than the opposite. Milo McCloud, the creative director at Paradox Group — a crypto-focused marketing agency — told Cointelegraph:

“With recent developments on both [Google ads and Facebook] platforms allowing for blockchain-related content to be advertised only after undergoing heavy scrutiny, it is the first step in the right direction to the mainstream acceptance of blockchain technology as an important industry that can tackle many problems we currently are facing.”

The aftermath of the crypto adpocalypse 

The industry fought back against the many bans and restrictions on cryptocurrency-related advertising. In fact, several companies in Russia, China and South Korea have banded together to form the Eurasian Association Of Blockchain and subsequently filed a lawsuit against some of the social media companies behind the bans. 

Although things have somewhat improved for cryptocurrency advertisers and publishers, there are still many restrictions. Tanya Petrusenko, the head of business development at Bitmedia — a crypto advertising network — told Cointelegraph:

“Today, things have changed, and now they allow some ads, but in order to launch a campaign, a crypto company should undergo a number of procedures, show multiple licenses, and there’s still no guarantee that even if everything is ok, Google or Facebook will approve the ad in the end. This limits marketing freedom for many businesses because even if someone runs a shop where crypto is used as means of payment, it will be difficult for them to advertise it using traditional digital channels.”

Innovating out of necessity

Given the bans on major advertising networks, the booming crypto industry has been forced to adapt. Several crypto-centric networks, along with many other marketing and PR agencies, have been created to fulfill the demand of advertisers in the space, as well as to improve the earnings of crypto-centric publishers, by making ads more targeted and relevant.

Tiberiu Stingaciu, the CEO of Coinzilla — a crypto advertising network — told Cointelegraph:

“Being a niche sector, the crypto advertising industry primarily focuses on solidifying partnerships with major fin-tech publishers. This helps broaden the potential audience advertisers can reach. At the same time, a lot of work is being put into more technologically advanced advertising tools such as programmatic advertising, RTB, and overall optimization of the advertising campaigns.”

While advertising companies and even publishers have been able to circumvent these restrictions and even innovate within their own right, the issues within the advertising industry extend far beyond the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Centralization of the industry by IT giants like Google and Facebook has led to a lack of any real threatening competition and no reason to strive for improvement.

However, some blockchain projects have been trying to find ways to appeal to advertisers, publishers and the advertising audience to benefit greatly, creating an incentive for significant changes to be made.

The many challenges in the online ad industry

There are many fundamental issues in the advertising network like an overabundance of middlemen and third-party service providers that are required to navigate the space to a lack of transparency and even advertising fraud which is rampant in the industry.

As Cointelegraph previously discussed, only around $0.35 for every dollar of advertising revenue makes it to the publishers, which, of course, leads to lower revenue for publishers and higher prices for advertisers. 

Advertising fraud is also a major issue in the industry, as $44 billion will be lost to ad fraud by 2022, which creates major losses on all sides, including the end-user, and leads to even higher prices for advertisers.

Transparency is also a major issue even when actual fraud is not involved. Advertisers may have little notion of how their money is being spent as Petrusenko explained:

“I believe that transparency is and has been the main issue. The lack of knowledge as to where advertiser’s money goes opens a large loophole for fraudulent traffic. Censorship is another huge issue now because traditional ad networks are restricting many ads especially when the subject relates to crypto. This prevents many online businesses from growth and drastically limits their reach.”

Along with these issues, consumers have also grown increasingly concerned with their privacy even when it comes to online advertising. The aforementioned tech giants glean an immense amount of data from and about their users and their preferences.

While this does lead to more targeted advertisements, it’s usually not very welcomed by the consumers whose data is “sold” without their full knowledge or consent or even the possibility of monetizing said data.

Stingaciu told Cointelegraph that adblockers have become an issue, as “users are oversaturated with ads from all directions, and more are turning to adblockers to escape the barrage of ads coming their way.”

Blockchain tech in the ad industry

Although crypto has been left out of the industry, blockchain technology has been making waves in the digital advertising space in the same ways it is doing so in many other industries: by eliminating unnecessary middlemen, streamlining direct relationships between the contributing parties, and providing monetization tools.

Companies aim to cut the middlemen by providing a self-service platform built on top of a blockchain network. Ivan Manchev, the communications manager at AdEx Network, explained how this system makes use of the Ethereum blockchain in a conversation with Cointelegraph:

“On a self-serve platform, advertisers can start a display ad campaign in less than five minutes and send their ads to targeted publishers,” adding: “Both parties receive real-time reporting, and payments flow directly between them once impressions are verified.

”Another company in the space, the Brave web browser, has tried a different approach, positioning itself as a competitor to Chrome and other browsers. It has created a utility token known as Basic Attention Token, which serves as an incentive mechanism for users to share their data with advertisers.

Brave browser enforces this by offering users more privacy by blocking online trackers.

While Brave is indeed an innovative solution and has been gaining traction, it certainly has its flaws. Recent reports of links being replaced with referrals have been made. And while these do not have a devastating effect on the end-users, this has forced the company to apologize and removed this function.

Other blockchain-backed ventures like All.me and Atayen have also been pushing this type of model forward. All.me, a digital network featuring a built-in wallet and exchange, aims to share 50% of all advertising revenue with its 600,000 users.

The Smart Advertising Transaction Token, or SATT, was created by Atayen to reward influencers and other users who create customized advertising campaigns, as well as to receive payments directly, which targets a more niche corner of the ad industry with a similar model as Brave’s.

What the future holds for crypto and advertising

Will blockchain technology be able to change online advertising? While the outlook is extremely promising, these alternatives have a long way to go when it comes to competing with giants like Google or Facebook, which dominate the online advertising market, given their massive user base and reach.

Nevertheless, there are many signs that point to the growing use of blockchain technology in the advertising industry. For example, Brave browser has recently joined the instant global payments network PayID, and IBM has even partnered with big advertisers to create a blockchain-based solution to reduce inefficiency and fraud and improve the digital advertising industry.

According to Manchev, blockchain technology’s immutability and direct payment capabilities can truly revolutionize the world of online advertising, telling Cointelegraph:

“The immutability of the data and the consensus on instructions and payment terms pre-delivery can help reduce the supply chain steps and decrease costs for advertisers and publishers. On the other hand, crypto payments can introduce new payment methods. [...] This can increase publishers’ liquidity, eliminate the need of custody of funds by ad networks, and increase security for both parties.”

As blockchain technology continues to take over the advertising industry and as crypto itself continues to strive for a more regulated and transparent market, it is likely that cryptocurrency companies will be once more allowed back in the “advertising party” and be able to target a more mainstream audience, which may be imperative for mainstream adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto as a whole.

Earlier this week PlusToken, one of the largest scams in the cryptocurrency world, tried to move 789,500 Ether (ETH), but the movement of these stolen funds were temporarily held up by congestion issues within the Ethereum network.

The $186 million transfer came from a known Ethereum address and was later split into 50 different transactions, possibly as an attempt to disguise the activity. 

Whale Alert first spotted the transactions which have since been processed but little information on the funds’ destination has been reported. Just two days before this latest development, PlusToken also moved $67 million worth of stolen EOS.

PlusToken sales lead to ETH and BTC corrections

Despite being dismantled last year, PlusToken is still causing damage to the crypto industry by liquidating holdings and holding large amounts of Bitcoin (BTC) and other assets like Ether and EOS. 

PlusToken still holds a significant amount of stolen crypto-assets and these funds continue to pose a threat to spot markets as large market sales can impact Bitcoin and Ether’s price across various exchanges. 

While some believe that the March 12 crash was caused by PlusToken dumping Bitcoin on spot markets, this theory was quickly dispelled by data from blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis. According to Chainalysis, BTC movements from PlusToken to exchanges slowed down heavily before the Black Thursday crash, which shows the two events were not related. 

While this particular crash was not related to PlusToken, many still believe the group is responsible for some of the accentuated drops in the Bitcoin price, namely in December 2019. As crypto options and futures continue to grow in popularity, the danger of an accentuated drop caused by a large sell-off becomes bigger as it could potentially trigger a long squeeze for Ether. 

Chainalysis head of research Kim Grauer agrees that a PlusToken triggered sell-off is a real risk. Grauer previously told Cointelegraph:

“We found in the past that large inflows to exchanges, such as those from PlusToken last year, tend to increase the price volatility on exchanges. This problem can potentially be exacerbated by trading bots that pick up on those on-chain movements and execute trades, not to mention the highly leveraged positions on derivatives exchanges that can get liquidated rather quickly. But overall, prices tend to bounce back quickly from those one-off events.”

Exchanges raise security to ward off scammers

In this instance the Ethereum network acted as a temporary bottleneck for the scammers as the transaction was stalled due to network congestion, which is ironically a very small silver lining in the current scalability issues being faced by the second biggest blockchain network. However, the biggest deterrent for the liquidation of PlusToken funds should be exchanges' KYC (know-your-customer) standards.

KYC requires users to divulge their identity which, if done right, could lead to the arrest of the person or people selling the assets. As previously reported, a large portion of the BTC sell-offs conducted by PlusToken took place in the Huobi and Okex exchanges where the KYC and AML policies were not sufficient enough to stop the scammers.

To be fair, Huobi has worked to improve its security standards since the last wave of PlusToken BTC sales. The exchange recently launched an on-chain monitoring tool called Star Atlas in order to identify “crimes like fraud, money laundering and other problematic activities” on their platform. 

Peer-to-peer exchange Paxful also recently partnered with Chainalysis to increase monitoring around illicit transactions.While it’s hard to tell what the PlusToken scammers will do next, traders will be keeping close watch on the upcoming Ether options expiry and the spot price at exchanges to see if the scammers try to dump on open markets after the expiry. 

A few years ago, when MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini was leading an interactive digital art project, she found the facial recognition technology it employed was far better at recognizing her lighter-skinned MIT colleagues. 
 The discovery sent Buolamwini on a mission. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League and started doing research that builds awareness about biases in software algorithms. One paper she co-authored with Timnit Gebru, the technical co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google, found facial-analysis software had an error rate of 34.7% for dark-skinned women versus just 0.8% for light-skinned men. 

Facial recognition is the tip of the iceberg. Biases are inherently present in all forms of artificial intelligence algorithms, those digital machines that increasingly run our world. 

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.

Over the years, an extreme lack of diversity in computer engineering has left white men with a disproportionately large influence over all software design. Unconscious bias – now, finally, a topic of great discussion across the United States – means they end up creating products to serve the needs of people like them, not necessarily those of others. 

This is a vital issue for the algorithm-dependent cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. If this technology is to have a broad impact on the world, it must engage a wide population. 

If bitcoin, for example, is to become a global currency, if it is to become a monetary standard accepted by people of vastly different backgrounds, it must be accessible and valuable for a full cross-section of those groups. And if distributed ledger technologies end up providing the data architecture in “smart cities” or enabling our health systems to manage privacy-protected data for fighting pandemics, we better make sure these platforms don’t discriminate against one group or another.

Diversifying the dev teams

The need for diversity in this industry was the central theme in a virtual symposium held last Friday by Cleve Mesidor, founder of the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain, which coincided with the Juneteenth emancipation holiday.

The panelists’ message, according to CoinDesk reporter Nathan DiCamillo, was that while crypto can help citizens opt out of “a racist financial system,” for that to happen “Black people and people of color must be part of the development of the technology.”

Calls for diversity like these are often met with retorts such as “bitcoin doesn’t care about the color of your skin” or “blockchains are based on math, not flawed human processes.” It’s a naive perspective.

The code for the protocols that dictate each blockchain’s rules, and for the smart contracts and apps built on top of them, are written by people, not by some universal law of nature. And, in the blockchain community even more so than in tech broadly, those people are predominantly white men. 

Source: Clay Banks/Unsplash

Don’t think, either, that blockchain technology is protected against bias by its preference for open-source development. A codebase can be fully accessible but if there isn’t a sufficiently wide group of skilled people reviewing and contributing to it, biases will persist. 

It’s true, this technology has the potential to help people overturn some of society’s ingrained, structural injustices. As investor and active #BlackLivesMatter supporter Mike Novogratz says, “Crypto is about systems change.” But a decentralized system is only as inclusive as the platform on which it is built. There’s nothing intrinsically fair about a blockchain. 

Action plans

A key problem is the digital divide. Impoverished communities of color worldwide have significantly reduced access to the information tools needed to participate in blockchain and crypto development.

Addressing these imbalances is vital for crypto adoption. While it’s exciting to see usage rates grow in places like Nigeria and Venezuela during the COVID-19 crisis, we must also recognize the painful circumstances leading these people to bitcoin and stablecoins: economic breakdown, severe dollar shortages and failed public health systems. And in the grand scheme of things, those newly increased numbers are a tiny proportion of the total developing world population.

We have a long way to go before we bridge the crypto divide.A natural starting point is education. While a number of interest groups have sprung up to support the expansion of blockchain knowledge among women and people of color, the industry must do more. Funds should be dedicated to high schools and colleges serving underprivileged students about the technology and the opportunities it poses.

Online courses and self-training programs should be designed for and delivered to minorities. And, of course, crypto companies should also be hiring from those communities. 

Equally important, media organizations like ours and people like me who work at them must learn to identify, address and fight against our own implicit biases. The stories we write are vital to how information is absorbed about this technology. We need many more of them to be for, about and by people of color and women. 

Like all media, crypto newsrooms and their management must confront this diversity imperative head on. CoinDesk is no exception. Only with a broad spectrum of voices across race, gender, geography and economic background can we properly expose the world to the opportunities and challenges posed by the technology we cover.

It’s all about the debt

What a difference two months of COVID-19 makes. This week, the International Monetary Fund made an interim update to the quarterly World Economic Outlook Report it originally released in April. The headline item: The IMF now expects a massive, unprecedented 4.9% decline in world economic output for 2020, versus the 3% shrinkage it previously predicted.

That’s an additional loss of $1.67 trillion from what the World Bank estimated as the size of the global economy in 2019. You have to go back to the Great Depression for economic malaise on this kind of scale. 

What’s just as striking, and arguably more worrying, was the accompanied forecasts for government debt as a result of this downturn. The IMF now expects net government borrowing in advanced countries to spike to 10.9% of GDP in 2020 from 3% in 2019 and that it will drop back to 5.4% in 2021.



Net government lending among advanced nations.Source: CoinDesk ResearchThe problem with governments’ ballooning debt levels is not the amount borrowed per se. It’s the interdependent nature of it and the geopolitical ramifications. 

Unlike a person or a company, a country cannot go bankrupt. It’s a permanent entity with exclusive taxation powers and mostly exclusive money-printing power. (The latter is why proponents of Modern Monetary Theory, like new author Stephanie Kelton, argue fiscal deficits should not be viewed as a problem.)

Indeed, governments right now have a compelling case – even an obligation – to borrow at low interest rates and fund the social distributions needed to keep their economy’s income levels afloat. Viewed in the isolation of one country and one government, this is one of those no-brainer moments when you focus on the problem at hand and worry about the cost later.

The problem that MMT proponents seem to gloss over is the financial system is globalized – and overly dependent on the U.S. dollar – while politics is domesticized. Governments are accountable to their citizens, not to the foreign entities that own much of their debt and that measure their wealth in a foreign currency. 

Governments will naturally choose the former over the latter, helping out domestic borrowers at the cost of foreign savers by debasing their currency. And if they’re the only government with such a problem, the fallout can be limited to those foreign entities. But what happens when every major government is in the same situation?

This is why some fear the nightmare of a global currency war and debt spiral, one that could seriously undermine the dollar, the currency upon which this international financial system is based. 

Some people see the need for a coordinated, global debt jubilee (or forgiveness). But getting everyone to agree on the terms is almost impossible to imagine.

Another outcome: The world gravitates to a new international currency system. The question is whether that happens in a controlled, top-down manner, with governments agreeing to a new framework, a la the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, or through a more unpredictable bottom-up, private-sector-led monetary revolution. The technology is coming into place for that revolution.

The Global Town Hall

ECHOES OF 2008. If there’s a reason to doubt the IMF’s forecast that advanced country debt-to-GDP levels will start normalizing in 2021, it’s that there’s another shoe to drop: private debt. Unlike the financial crisis of 2008, where the culprit was retail sector lending to homeowners, this time the private sector risk lies with mountains of corporate debt accumulated over the past, low-interest rate decade.

Now, as The Wall Street Journal detailed Thursday, that debt load is combining with the economic stress of COVID-19 to trigger a “wave of bankruptcies.” The structure of a lot of that debt is defined by something called a CLO, or collateralized loan obligation. Sound familiar? It’s very much like a CDO, a collateralized debt obligation, the financial instrument that sat at the heart of the prior financial crisis. It has many people worried about another systemic collapse.

If that happens, there’ll need to be another round of bailouts. And if that happens, governments will need to take on even more debt. 

ROME NO LONGER. For the past century, the center of global financial power lay not in Washington but to its north, in New York.

Because so much global trade and financial market activity has been denominated in dollars, international payments and capital flows inevitably must pass through correspondent banks located on Wall Street. That gives those banks, and the regulators who oversee them, great power as global gatekeepers.

With a say-so over what money goes where, New York state regulators wield this power to impose sanctions on countries deemed by U.S. intelligence to be rogue states and to determine what classes of activity are worthy of vital banking services. It’s why the New York Department of Financial Services is not just your average state regulator. Its influence extends beyond New York’s borders, not only into all other 49 states but overseas as well. 

But on the fifth anniversary of the NYDFS’ controversial “BitLicense,” it’s worth reflecting on the agency’s failure to extend its regulatory power over the cryptocurrency industry to a wider landscape. CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson did just that this week, noting how the then-NYDFS superintendent.

Benjamin Lawsky. had predicted in 2014 the BitLicense would become a standard that other states’ regulators would follow. This assumption, founded on the hubris of New York’s outsized global status, proved wrong.

Nelson reports that “Lawsky’s NYDFS had created what legislatures in other states now consider a case study in how not to regulate an industry whose complex technical details can quickly confound over-broad and ill-defined rules.” Crypto may be the first financial industry to subvert New York’s regulatory grip on global finance. Beginning of the end?

Source: Zbynek Burival/Unsplash

OIL’S CRYPTO-LIKE VOLATILITY. 

A tweet thread by Patrick Chovanec caught my attention. Boy, have oil prices been volatile over the past 12 years. Not quite crypto-level volatility, but pretty extreme for a commodity that’s a mainstay of the global economy. It’s all about the competing swings in demand and supply since 2008: the mix of financial crises, monetary policy-stoked speculation, the fracking revolution, Saudi Arabian political maneuvers within OPEC, and now a pandemic-fueled global economic shutdown.

Who knows where crude prices will go from here? But with so much resting on them – questions of environmental sustainability, for one, but also the stability of the Middle East – crypto watchers should monitor them closely. Here’s why: The dollar’s fate as the world’s dominant currency is not insignificantly tied to the direction of oil markets because crude contracts are priced and settled in greenbacks.

If oil-producing countries in sanctioned countries like Iran feel compelled by price movements to boost supply, a crypto solution that bypasses the dollar could help them do so. Alternatively, if locally sourced renewable energy usage starts to expand rapidly, the global trade in both oil and dollars will fall. The future of oil is one of many pieces in the puzzle driving a reimagining of money. 

THE POWER OF MANY VOICES. 

The results are in for CoinDesk’s #NYBWGIVES charity drive for COVID-19. The month-long campaign, conducted with our Blockchain Week partners Gitcoin, Ethereal Summit and the Giving Block, raised $110,000, most of it in crypto-denominated donations, for 12 different charities.

As promised at the campaign launch during our Consensus Distributed conference, CoinDesk is matching those donations with distributions totalling $50,000.

Half of those funds will be assigned according to Gitcoin’s capital-constrained liberal radicalism (CLR) methodology, which aims to democratize grant and subsidy distribution. It meant that although two big “bitcoin whale” donations turned the International Medical Corps into the runaway winner in terms of total funds raised, the No Kid Hungry charity received more than three times as much in matching funds even though it raised less than a third of International Medical Corps’ tally.

That’s because the latter’s intake came from twice as many contributors. This “power to the many” concept stems from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and Microsoft Principal Researcher Glen Weyl’s work on “quadratic funding.” Read about it and watch the explainer video in our write-up of the charity drive.



How to place a value on bitcoin? Its data is unfamiliar territory for many investors. Nearly half of investors in a recent survey said a lack of fundamental information keeps them from participating.

In a 30-minute webinar July 7, CoinDesk Research will explore one of the first and oldest unique data points to be developed by crypto asset analysts: Bitcoin Days Destroyed.

We’ll be joined by Lucas Nuzzi, a veteran analyst and a network data expert at Coin Metrics. Lucas and CoinDesk Research will walk you through the structure of this unique financial metric and demonstrate some of its many applications. 

Sign up for the July 7 webinar “How to Value Bitcoin: Bitcoin Days Destroyed.”

Online-payments giant PayPal Holdings is looking to explicitly unleash cryptocurrencies onto its client base that reportedly boasts over 320 million people.

According to a report by CoinDesk, three sources have confirmed to the crypto industry publication that PayPal and its affiliated platform Venmo will allow their users to “directly” buy and sell several cryptocurrencies, though which coins they will support are yet to be revealed.

The Most Diverse Audience to Date at FMLS 2020 – Where Finance Meets Innovation “They are going to have some sort of a built-in wallet functionality so you can store it there,” one source said, adding that he expects the company “would be working with multiple exchanges to source liquidity.

”While PayPal declined to comment on the rumors, another source told CoinDesk that PayPal plans to roll out its crypto offering “in the next three months, maybe sooner.”

PayPal favors blockchain over cryptocurrencies

As the mainstream payment industry has woken to cryptocurrency its related industry, PayPal has finally been forced to take note. Until recently, PayPal’s stance on the entire ecosystem was that they are much more pro blockchain but not fully vested in the cryptocurrency side of things.

“We have teams clearly working on blockchain and cryptocurrency as well, and we want to take part in that in whatever form that takes in the future — I just think it’s a little early on right now for bitcoin,” PayPal CFO John Rainey said last year.

These ambitions, however, took a blow after PayPal was the first company to pull out of the coalition of companies involved in a Facebook-led cryptocurrency initiative, Libra Association.

At the time, PayPal did not give a reason for leaving the project, but shortly after there were a few pieces of evidence to suggest that the payment giant is showing interest in getting involved in cryptocurrency.

A prime, and recent example of PayPal’s involvement in the space was the firm’s investment in cryptocurrency compliance and risk management platform TRM Labs.

PayPal also filed many related patents including one to speed up bitcoin transaction processing times through a faster cryptocurrency payment system.

PayPal is also competing with its rival Square on more fronts, including the digital assets which the latter was one of its early adopters. Square Inc., a payments company founded and run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, was awarded last year with a coveted license to deal in cryptocurrencies in New York.

Brave is one of the biggest names in the world of privacy browsers, with a user base of about 15 million. The Chromium derivative is an open-source project developed in part by JavaScript creator and former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. While it has drawn considerable praise for its speed and range of privacy plugins, it has also not gone without controversy.


The most recent incident has seen the browser auto-completing URLs to certain cryptocurrency site with an affiliate link, without notifying the user as to what is going on.

Profiting from a privacy browser

For those not familiar with affiliate programs, the most important note is that this issue does not compromise user privacy or involve any sort of hacking.

Affiliate programs are a means of monetizing a website. In this case, a special URL is provided to an affiliate to promote a partner’s services. When someone signs up via that distinct URL, the affiliate gets some sort of payment for it.

Before you continue reading, how about a follow on LinkedIn?
Many countries have laws mandating that affiliates disclose their relationship with the advertiser if links of this nature are posted.

In the United States, the FTC requires that sites detail their relationship with affiliate partners in a clear and easily visible way.

The EU’s GDPR has similar terms that require affiliate disclosure when user tracking is taking place.In addition to this being an unethical practice, Brave likely violated some of these regulations with their referral scheme.

When a user entered the name or URL of certain cryptocurrency sites into the privacy browser, it would automatically redirect them to that site with Brave’s referral code appended to the URL.

Binance, Coinbase, Ledger and Trezor were among these sites.Eich apologized for the scheme once it was discovered by users, stated that it had been fixed, and vowed that the company would not do it again.

However, he also defended the practice by stating that the affiliate referral scheme had been visible in the browser’s open-source code for months.

Eich stated in a series of Twitter posts that “We made a mistake, we’re correcting: Brave default autocompletes verbatim “http://binance.us” in address bar to add an affiliate code.

We are a Binance affiliate, we refer users via the opt-in trading widget on the new tab page, but autocomplete should not add any code … Sorry for this mistake — we are clearly not perfect, but we correct course quickly.”Eich implied that the revenue was necessary for Brave to support itself.

The privacy browser’s central revenue scheme is an opt-in advertising system that entices users with a little cryptocurrency if they allow select ads to be shown.

The ads are supposed to be display-only and not furnished with any user personal information. Users get portions of Brave’s “Basic Attention Token” (BAT) for each ad they view.

BAT is an Ethereum-based token and can be exchanged at a number of the sites that the privacy browser was auto-completing referral links to.

Forks going their own way

At least one group, which goes by the handle “BraverBrowser” on social media, is proposing a fork of the open-source project that strips out all presence of advertising and the BAT entirely.

However, this new fork is being led by the developer of nOS, a similar privacy browser that has its own similar BAT-equivalent attention token called the NOS.

Another fork called Dissenter, announced about a year ago, proposed replacing the BAT with Bitcoin.

The project is tied to Gab, a social media platform that has built a reputation for extreme free speech policies and as a haven for controversial ideological views that tend to be deplatformed elsewhere.It remains to be seen if this controversy will result in more attempts to fork the popular browser, which recently benefited from an endorsement by star podcaster Joe Rogan.

It is not the first time that the privacy browser has been criticized, however.

When it was first announced in 2016, a number of commentators at popular tech magazines took issue with the fact that Brave blocks the ads that websites serve (and often rely on for revenue) in favor of its own system.

Brave also has a system called Brave Rewards, which allows users of the privacy browser to opt-in to delivering their cryptocurrency micropayments to the sites they visit.

This requires publishers to sign up with Brave in order to be able to receive these payments. However, some publishers have noted that users of their site report that Brave offers a donation option even if the publisher has not signed up or been in contact with Brave; these “donations” appear to go to Brave instead if the publisher does not sign up and collect them.

Brave admitted to autocompleting ‘http://binance.us’ with an affiliate code before redirecting users to the site. #privacy #respectdataClick to TweetWhile these issues will probably represent some loss of business for Brave, the company is still at the top of the mountain in terms of privacy browser brands.

A recent study by Trinity College found that Brave is by far the most private of the popular browsers, doing the smallest amount of “phoning home” to the developers and to advertising partners.

Other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox can be made comparably private, but require a lot of changing of default settings.

The investment guru who said Bitcoin was in a bubble as early as 2017 recently speculated that all cryptocurrencies will be gone eventually. 

In an interview with the Asahi publication AERA dot on Friday, investor Jim Rogers said cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC) “will be in decline eventually and everything will go to zero.

" "Those who use cryptocurrency think they are smarter than their governments,” Rogers said to AERA dot. “In fact, I think they are correct. But their governments have something that crypto people don't have.

That is guns. The reason why I think cryptocurrency will be gone eventually is that it is not based on the armed force of governments' power." There has been some unproven correlation between the rising and falling prices of cryptocurrencies and governments acting more authoritarian.

When United States President Donald Trump ordered the forced dispersal of peaceful protesters near the White House grounds on June 1, the price of Bitcoin surged more than 8%.

Crypto is "just gambling"

Cointelegraph reported in November 2017 that Rogers said BTC “looks and smells” like a bubble. This was prior to the cryptocurrency reaching its all-time high price of over $20,000 in December 2017.

”Cryptocurrencies didn't even exist a few years ago, but in the blink of an eye they became 100 and 1000 times more valuable. This is a clear bubble and I don't know the right price. Virtual currency is not an investment target. It's just gambling.”

Along with billionaires such as Warren Buffett and George Soros, Rogers is considered one of the largest investors in the world. His views in the AERA dot interview echo those of Buffett, who said “cryptocurrencies basically have no value” in February.

FC Barcelona has released its own BAR token for supporters to take part in surveys and vote on polls to decide on a number of club related decisions.

Oliver Knight

FC Barcelona, commonly regarded as one of the world’s largest football clubs, has today launched a bespoke fan token that uses blockchain technology.

The Spanish champions’ $BAR token is issued in collaboration with its partner Chiliz, who have arranged a flash sale on the socios.com platform for 48-hours with tokens being sold for €2 each.

When the 48-hours expire, or when 600,000 tokens are purchased, the tokens will be valued on a supply and demand basis.

Tokens will be used for surveys and votes, with the first survey allowing supporters to choose the design for a new mural to decorate the first team changing room.

“Fan engagement has never been more important for the sports industry, and just as football is resuming, albeit without fans in the stadium, we are launching FC Barcelona’s Fan Token and are helping to boost their ability to connect the Club with their fans all over the world”. Said Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO and founder of Socios.com and Chiliz.

Socios.com✔@socios

The official Fan Token of @FCBarcelona is here, and for the next 48 hours, a limited number is exclusively available at just €2.00.

Get yours before time runs out.



http://bit.ly/BARFTO $BAR $CHZ #BARishere



3412:02 PM - Jun 22, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy

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“There is incredible anticipation and excitement for Barça’s Fan Token, so fans who want to buy at a flat rate of €2 will need to move fast when the flash sale begins at 1pm on Monday “Fans can then immediately use their $BAR to vote in the first club poll on Socios.com, to choose an inspirational piece of fan-designed artwork to go inside the sacred dressing room at the Camp Nou “With FC Barcelona’s huge global fanbase, we expect this to be our biggest and best FTO, far surpassing the volume of tokens sold by our other partners.

”Coin Rivet has previously reported on a number of socios’ fan token projects including those from clubs like West Ham, Atletico Madrid and AS Roma, with it becoming a popular scheme among football clubs who want fans’ voices to be heard.

For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here.

On the eve of the new season, F1 has launched the #WeRaceAsOne initiative, aimed at tackling the biggest issues facing the sport and global communities – the fight against COVID-19 and the condemnation of racism and inequality.

During the race weekend in Austria, teams and F1 partners will be saying thank you to key workers and individuals by displaying rainbows on cars and around the circuit.

There will also be visual displays of support in the fight against racism, with F1 set to announce later this week clear pledges to increase diversity and opportunity in the sport, and the setting up of a Formula 1 Task Force.

The details in full

As Formula 1 returns after a four-month break, we believe we must return with added purpose and determination to tackle the major issues that we as a sport, but also society, are facing. Those issues are important to the longer-term future of our sport, but equally have a major impact on the communities we race in and countries around the world.

Last November we launched our sustainability strategy to make our sport net zero carbon by 2030, improve diversity and inclusion in Formula 1 and to support communities.

Recent events have reinforced the importance of those issues and the need for us take action to make our sport better, improve opportunity and to have a positive impact on the world we live in.




In recent months, the whole world has come together as one collective community in the fight against COVID-19 and it has brought out the best in human nature. In recent weeks people from all walks of life have united in their condemnation of racism and inequality, something that has no place in our modern world.

We believe that as the first international sport to return we can make a difference and use our voice to address these vital issues.

As a member of the global FIA motor sport family, we acknowledge its Fundamental Principles Statutes, including the fight against any form of discrimination.

That is why today, ahead of our season start, Formula 1 announces our new #We Race As One initiative, in support of the #PurposeDriven Movement launched by the FIA last week.

This initiative will be the platform for the priorities set out above and is aimed at tackling the biggest issues facing our sport and global communities. It will not be a one week or one-year theme that disappears as issues disappear from headlines, it will underpin the Formula 1 strategy to make a tangible difference in our sport and society.

Recognising the two major issues dominating society’s consciousness at this time, COVID-19, and inequality we will use our opening race to thank people around the world for the incredible strength and fortitude they have shown against a global pandemic.

Everyone from key workers through to families and individuals that have endured lockdown to tackle the virus deserve our thanks and gratitude.

Equally we want to use our restart to show that we as a sporting community stand united against racism and are doing more to address inequality and diversity in Formula 1.




An example of how the #WeRaceAsOne rainbow will feature on the McLarenTherefore, ahead of our first race in Austria on 3-5 July and with the support of the teams and our partners Formula 1 will be saying thank you to key workers and individuals around the world by displaying rainbows on the Formula 1 cars and around the race circuit with the hashtag #We Race as One.

The rainbow has been chosen as it has become a symbol used internationally in the recent crisis to bring communities together. We believe this important gesture will encourage our fans to join us in saying thank you. The rainbow initiative will continue throughout the season.

During the race weekend in Austria we will take a stand against racism. This will include visual displays of support in the fight against racism. In addition to the visual display of support we will also announce later this week clear pledges to increase diversity and opportunity in our sport.

This will include setting up a Formula 1 Task Force that will listen to people from across the paddock, including the drivers, as well as externals and make conclusions on the actions required to improve the diversity and opportunity in Formula 1 at all levels.

Further details of the Task Force will be set out in the coming weeks and the visual displays of support at the first race will be seen for the first time during the race weekend.

Chase Carey, Chairman and CEO of Formula 1, said:

“Our first race in Austria at the start of July is a big moment for our sport after nearly four months of no racing. While it is an important moment for the Formula 1 community it is also a time to recognise the issues that are bigger than any one sport or country.

The #WeRaceAsOne initiative we have launched today, in support of the #PurposeDriven Movement launched by the FIA last week, is our way of saying thank you to the bravery and unity everyone around the world has shown during this unprecedented time. It will also be a platform for Formula 1 to come together and achieve results against the most important issues facing us as a sport and the world.

That is why at our first race in Austria Formula 1 will stand united to say loud and clear that racism must end. We will show our full support in fighting inequality throughout the weekend and accelerate our own efforts to make Formula 1 more diverse and inclusive.

As a global sport we must represent the diversity and social concerns of our fans, but we also need to listen more and understand what needs to be done and get on with delivering.”

Jean Todt, President of the FIA, said:

The “New Deal” I propose for motor sport in the context of COVID-19 pandemic means laying the foundations for the recovery and a sustainable future for Formula 1 and other disciplines. It includes new rules to reduce costs as well as initiatives to increase the popularity and accessibility of motor sport.

Importantly, it shall also harness the positive contribution motor sport brings to society, covering all sectors from health, safety, economy, environment, education, inclusion and diversity.

This is the intention of the #PurposeDriven Movement we launched last Thursday, and I am very pleased to welcome the #WeRaceAsOne initiative as part of this collective effort.

With Formula 1, we have already been committed for many years to helping to protect the environment with, for example, hybrid engines and the signing of the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework.

The FIA is guided by the Fundamental Principles of its Statutes, including the fight against any form of discrimination and notably on account of skin colour, gender, religion, ethnic or social origin. We must promote diversity in motor sport.”