Billionaire investor Michael Novogratz has had extensive experience in finance. Before becoming CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, he had already invested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

American billionaire Michael Edward Novogratz was born on November 26^th, 1964, and grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. His father was a career officer and major in the United States Army, and his mother ran an antique business.

Novogratz is the third of his parents’ children. Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, Robert Novogratz is a designer who has appeared on the television series Bravo by Design, and John Novogratz is Senior Managing Partner at Millennium Partners.

When Novogratz was 25 years old, he went on a blind date with Dora Cáceres, whose nickname is Sukey. In many ways, she was the complete opposite of him as she was an intellectual interested in semiotics, film theory, and the teachings of Ram Dass. However, they currently have four children.

Michael Novogratz’s Performance

Novogratz began his career with Goldman Sachs in 1989. Before that, he had served in the New Jersey National Guard, where he was a helicopter pilot.

In 1992, he took a sales position for Goldman in Tokyo. Finally, Jon Corzine sent him to Hong Kong to run a dealing desk for the company until 1999.

In 1998, he became a partner at Goldman, where he held positions including president of Goldman Sachs Latin America and director of fixed income, currency and commodity risk in Asia.

In March 2002, he joined Wesley Edens, Robert Kauffman, Randal Nardone, and Peter Briger Jr. at Fortress Investments to take the company public until its initial public offering (IPO).

Other Novogratz’s Functions

He was Co-Director of Information and Director of Macro Funds at Fortress Investment Group LLC before assuming his duties as director of Fortress Credit Corporation in 2006. He retired from Fortress Investments in October 2015.

In 2010, New York Governor David Paterson appointed him to the Hudson River Park board of directors.

Novogratz is the president and founder of Beat the Streets, a non-profit organization that promotes the sport of wrestling in New York public schools.

He is also the honorary chairman of the USA Wrestling Foundation and president of The Friends of the Hudson River Park.

However, Novogratz is primarily the CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, a cryptocurrency investment firm.

His Participation in Bitcoin

Michael Novogratz first started buying cryptocurrencies before retiring from Fortress and becoming the CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners.

Three years ago, he revealed that he held 20% of his net worth in Bitcoin and Ether, on which he made a profit of over USD 250 million. Specifically, he received that amount for a purchase of 30,000 bitcoins (BTC) and half a million ethers (ETH).

Last month, Michael Novogratz said that he won half Bitcoin on an electoral bet and handed it over in a self-hosted lottery to a Twitter user.

“I won an electoral bet with @StoneyBitson. I am going to have a lottery for young Bitcoiners for that coin. I am thinking of a number between 1 and 1,000. Whoever guesses will receive it.”

Twitter user @Adelgary won the lottery by guessing the number 826. Novogratz said that he had chosen the number because he had lived for seven years in China, where people consider the number eight to be lucky. Besides, 26 represents his date of birth.

To conclude, Mike Novogratz believes that everyone should buy Bitcoin since Satoshi Nakamoto designed it for all kinds of investors. He specifically recommends investing 2% to 3% of one’s net worth and holding until 2025.

By Alexander Salazar

People in underdeveloped countries are the ones who need Bitcoin the most, but they know the least about it. When using Bitcoin for aid, it is necessary to consider the socio-economic limitations.

People can achieve financial autonomy with Bitcoin since it is a censorship-resistant currency that offers a new way to transfer value. These characteristics lead many to consider Bitcoin the perfect technology for humanitarian use cases. However, some of the proponents of this vision may not be considering the difficulties of this cryptocurrency in countries with weak economic infrastructures.

In recent days, Marco Barbosa from the Impact Market project, Anita Posch from the Bitcoin & Co podcast, and Frereshteh Forough from the Code to Inspire initiative discussed this issue. Each of them has developed social projects in which Bitcoin and blockchain networks play a key role. This has been a task that they describe as rewarding but which has had some setbacks.

Posch, who lives in Austria, traveled to Zimbabwe and Botswana in the first months of 2019 to understand how people in these countries overcame the difficulties with Bitcoin. She believes that the true strength of Bitcoin is that it can change the lives of people, especially of those who have financial limitations and whose rights are continuously in danger.

“For me, blockchain and Bitcoin are tools to give people and individuals more freedom and a new distribution of wealth,” Posch said. On her social media and her podcast platform, she started a donation campaign to help a school in Zimbabwe that needs funding to keep running.

At first, the principal of the school was incredulous about how Bitcoin works and “called [it] Monopoly money,” Posch stated. She was afraid that the State could retaliate against her and the school for not using the national fiat currency. Posch started the donation campaign only on her social media, thus avoiding directly involving the school with the Bitcoin name.

“She began to understand that Bitcoin was real money when I took her to someone who trades Bitcoin,” Anita said. Upon receiving Zimbabwean dollars (ZWD) in exchange for the raised Bitcoin, she understood that there was real value in that “Monopoly money.” This principal currently saves Bitcoin to make more profit from the donations that the school receives and has learned to exchange her money without any problems.

People from Afghanistan and Venezuela Also Learn about Bitcoin

Marco Barbosa and Frereshteh Forough have had to teach Venezuelan users and Afghan female students to understand and use cryptocurrencies. Barbosa has a decentralized market in UBIs, a type of insurance that beneficiaries can collect for usage and that third parties can finance through donations in cryptocurrencies.

Barbosa developed the platform on Celo, an Ethereum-inspired smart contract network. In this way, users can receive donations in a token format directly on their cell phones, that is, without intermediaries. Barbosa states that the biggest challenge was trying to explain to his users what these tokens were, especially those beneficiaries from Venezuela who needed to use that digital money daily.

“We told them that they were a kind of digital dollars,” with which they felt more familiar, since this fiat currency is in common use in Venezuela. However, the more comfortable they felt with the platform, the more they wanted to know about the money that they were handling. In this way, they gradually learned that these coins were tokens that they could exchange on a blockchain. “They also learned the concept of Bitcoin,” noted the creator of ImpactMarket.

When the beneficiaries had already incorporated the concepts into everyday use, it became easier for them to exchange their tokens and even buy cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Barbosa believes that knowledge is the basis of adoption and familiarity with cryptocurrencies will allow users to feel more confident when using them.

On the other hand, Frereshteh says that the idea of a non-physical currency shocked the Code to Inspire students. For her initiative, she worked with a group of Afghan and Iranian women who want to learn more about technology and coding. This was risky and costly as women’s rights are severely undermined in those countries. In addition to teaching about Bitcoin, the project receives donations in this cryptocurrency to stay afloat, but the beneficiaries have not found it easy to adapt to it.

Frereshteh notes that “it is sometimes difficult to exchange money” as there is not yet a market that offers different opportunities to exchange Bitcoin for national fiat currencies in Afghanistan. For that reason, it is even more difficult for donation recipients to understand how the cryptocurrency works. The additional fact that it is digital money makes it even more difficult to understand, says the entrepreneur.

“Teaching these women about Bitcoin and blockchain is the way to help them become financially independent and gain financial freedom,” argued the creator of Code to Inspire. Frereshteh says that they want to continue creating safe educational environments and believes that decentralized systems allow the opening of new schools with this characteristic. This story shows that, despite difficulties, Bitcoin continues to have a positive impact on social causes.

By Alexander Salazar

A new Google index recognizes the relevance of Bitcoin software. Google will help open source projects get support and funding.

Bitcoin was ranked by Google in the fourth place of the most important open-source programs written in C ++ today. Google’s open-source support initiative published the new ‘Criticality’ index, to recognize those open-source projects that, according to their qualities, are a reference in development and growth.

“We define criticality as the influence and importance of a project,” said the Google Open Source team in the announcement. As part of the Open-Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), the “criticality” index has been used as a tool to measure a new parameter for open source projects, on a scale from 0 to 1.

The parameters that fit into the equation are showing diverse results in this,  these parameters are including the age of the project (when it was created), when was the last time it was updated, how often it receives contributions, how many collaborators it has; how many updates did you have in the past year, how many did you have in the last 90 days, among others.

Google, states that this index will help connect the projects included with organizations that support them for their development:

“Most organizations, large and small, make use of free software every day to build modern products, but open-source projects still struggle for the time, attention, and resources they need. It’s a resource allocation problem that Google and OpenSSF can help solve. We need ways to connect ‘Critical’ projects with organizations that provide them with proper support. “

“Identifying critical projects is just the first step in continuing to improve security. OpenSSF is also exploring ways to provide the necessary resources to those who maintain these projects,”they stated, calling for open participation in the organization’s working groups.

On the GitHub page, clients can download the protocol to run that can make them obtain the mentioned indicator, as well as the list of projects created by Google. Among the projects written in the C ++ language, Bitcoin ranks in the fourth place; Ethereum’s Solidity ranked 24th; Zcash at 32nd and Monero are currently at 187.

Regarding other languages, other projects that guard the relationship to cryptocurrencies and blockchain such as Electrum (Python) and Polkadot (Rust), are also on the list.

Earlier this year, Google Finance ranked Bitcoin first among the world’s most famous currencies due to its extensive monetary capabilities and the trust that this currency has earned throughout the years.

Although concerns about the lack of financing for the development of Bitcoin are frequent, during this year various financing has been granted in support of the Bitcoin Core client, with the Gemini Opportunity Trust fund being the most recent to be created to support this project.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Dollar on Chain (DoC) keeps an equivalent price to that of the US dollar. Paxful makes easier the exchange of cryptocurrencies person to person.

Dollar on Chain (DoC) can now be exchanged for bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies on the p2p exchange Paxful. This stablecoin maintains its price parity with the US dollar (that is, 1 DoC is always worth 1 dollar) and is backed by bitcoin (BTC) on the RSK blockchain.

The announcement of incorporation was made during the last edition of the LaBitConf conference. There, the manager for Latin America of Paxful, Magdiel Rivas, said: “This type of agreement is key to offer our users more guarantees to protect their bitcoins from volatility.”

According to Rivas, “cryptocurrencies are increasing their consolidation in Argentina and Latin America.” He said that, in the abovementioned country, during 2020 there was “an annual growth of 493% in the volume of transactions with bitcoin” when compared to the previous year. “In the rest of Latin America the increase averaged 156% per year,” he added.

Maximiliano Carjuzaa, the co-founder of Money On Chain, an Argentine company that takes complete responsibility for the development of DoC, also spoke about what happened. “We are very happy to and excited to make this new agreement with one of the main global platforms for peer to peer exchanges such as Paxful.”

He added that, for a company like Money on Change, “it is very important to offer those users who have DoC plenty of options to exchange their tokens for bitcoin.”

To celebrate the addition of DoC to Paxful, everyone who buys or sells bitcoin on that platform through January 11, 2021, will enter into a giveaway. On January 12, the social networks of the exchange will announce the 10 winners who will each have a prize of USD 25 in bitcoin.

Since September 2020, Dollar on Chain had been showing the availability to exchange funds for bitcoin through HodlHodl. The main benefit that this platform has is that it does not require the safeguarding of the funds of its users, but it is the same user who keeps their money.

Dollar on Chain: What is it? And how does it work?

DoC, unlike other stablecoins like Tether (USDT) or USD Coin (USDC), does not have its backing in money into a bank account. The DoC, instead, has collateral in cryptocurrencies, more precisely in BTC (a tokenized version of bitcoin on the RSK blockchain, developed by IOV Labs).

Carjuzaa points out that this is an advantage because collateral in fiat money (such as the dollar or the euro) “are exposed to problems that banks may have, or possible government seizures, or in any case to the disappearance of the exchange house ”.

Regarding the Money on Chain website, they also explained that its development is “a decentralized finance protocol with a built base by bitcoiners from the entire community.” The goal, they say, is “to grant easier access to a new financial system: accessible to all, transparent, open and resistant to censorship.”

By: Jenson Nuñez.

Fidelity clients will be able to access liquidity by leaving their bitcoin to the signature. Fidelity alleges that institutional interest in bitcoin is growing steadily.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the division of the digital assets of the firm Fidelity Investments, announced that its institutional clients will now be able to opt for loans by placing funds in bitcoin (BTC) as collateral.

To do this, the firm united paths with the startup BlockFi, a company that focuses on providing this type of loan services with cryptocurrencies and liquidity providers for the BTC futures contract system in CME, Fidelity explained through a press release this December 9.

Christine Sandler, Head of Sales and Marketing at Fidelity Digital Assets, explained through this press release that this new product arises after noticing “the demand for greater capital efficiency from institutions that maintain long positions in bitcoins.”

The firm also highlights the growth in demand for exposure to digital assets in the institutional sphere recently. According to data from a Fidelity survey, 36% of institutions have investments in these types of assets.

Fidelity claimed that it expects sustained growth in demand for bitcoin financing solutions, on par with the increased interest they have been seeing in recent times.

The company relates this interest to the current state of the economy, political, and monetary decisions in the wake of the pandemic, as well as “a search by investors for a pool of uncorrelated assets of value with upside potential.”

“The commercial and market momentum we have seen this year strengthened our belief that institutional investors are seeking a more comprehensive offering in the digital asset space, and we look forward to continuing to evolve our platform to meet their needs and deliver even more value for our clients,” said Christine Sandler, Head of Sales and Marketing at Fidelity Digital Assets.

“Having the ability to fund positions is a critical component of the financial services infrastructure and this collaboration reflects an exciting development for the digital asset ecosystem,” said Zac Prince, CEO, and Founder of BlockFi.

Bitcoin as a store of value

As Fidelity Digital Assets just exposed, institutional interest in bitcoin skyrocketed in recent months. It is not only about the fact that many companies opened their doors and joined the game with large investments in cryptocurrency, but traditional banking, stock indices, and digital payment companies also begun to see bitcoin as a value bet.

Fidelity itself published last July the first part of a report called the Bitcoin Investment Thesis. on which the firm talked about bitcoin not only as a store of value but also as “an insurance policy”, In the second part of the report, released in October, the company valued the ability of bitcoin to make diversified investment portfolios more profitable.

As an investment, bitcoin’s performance this year was exceptional. Not only for its percentages itself. Also, when comparing the returns of the cryptocurrency with those of traditional investments, such as indices, company stocks, and even precious metals.

By Jenson Nuñez

Among the last five dominant currencies, the average of their validity is 94 years. The US has printed inorganic money in unprecedented amounts in 2020.

Ruchir Sharma, Morgan Stanley’s global head of investment strategy, says in an opinion piece that can be found in the Financial Times that the dollar’s dominance as the global reserve currency could end as “the rest of the world begins to lose confidence in the United States capacity to pay its debt.

Sharma also states that “there are enough reasons to think that the latest bitcoin boom is rooted deeper than what it seems.” Morgan Stanley manages more than $ 710 billion in assets.

Sharma shows a compacted summary of the reign of five currencies that took turns in the role of dominant currency before the dollar, from the middle of the 15th century to 1920. These currencies locations were Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and England.

The period of supremacy of each coin was 94 years, on average. «At the beginning of 2020, the dollar reached 100 years of domination. This is enough to wonder how much longer it could go on, except that there is no clear successor,”Sharma argues.

Europe was hopeful that the euro, created in 1999, had the potential to be a successor to the dollar, Sharma says. “But that currency lacks enough confidence in the world, due to doubts about the effectiveness of the multi-state government of the eurozone,” says Sharma. He also talks about China’s aspirations for the renminbi to hold back.

Sharma infers that the fact that the dollar still cannot find a clear successor would allow the US government to print inorganic money in unprecedented amounts, without fear that this would undermine the dollar’s status as a reserve currency.

But one contender is emerging: cryptocurrencies. Operating in peer-to-peer networks, not supervised by any state, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin appear to be a formidable option and are seen by their proponents as decentralized and democratic alternatives, ”says Sharma.

The pandemic contributed to the fact that the emergence of cryptocurrencies as an alternative is no longer seen as something speculative or mere marketing, says Sharma. “Fearful that central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve are going to devalue their respective currencies, many people bought bitcoin. Its price has quadrupled since March, making it the most attractive investment of 2020.

Then Sharma mentions the volatility of bitcoin when he contrasts the bitcoiners who want to establish this cryptocurrency as the ‘digital gold’, while the skeptics, in his opinion, ‘do not feel safe with an asset that deals with such volatility: the last bubble of bitcoin exploded three years ago, and the daily variability of its price is still four times greater than that of gold.

Skeptics, Sharma says, are particularly well represented by those who did not grow up with digital technology, who prefer gold, which has been used as protection, for centuries, against the deterioration of established currencies.

The executive acknowledges that the most relevant use of bitcoin keeps being the investment, but that there are small and medium-sized companies that are using it in international trade, in countries where there is difficulty in obtaining dollars, or where the local currency is unstable. He also adds that PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo are hoarding bitcoin, intending to accept it as a means of payment in 2021.

Even if bitcoin’s current notorious rally is a bubble, it should serve as a warning against money printing, especially in the United States, Sharma notes:

“Don’t assume that your traditional currencies are the only store of value or medium of exchange that people will trust. Those familiar with technology will continue to discover more suitable alternatives. And the option to regulate the cryptocurrency boom, which some governments are considering, can only accelerate this popular uprising.

By: Jenson Nuñez.