Argentina, Colombia, Spain, and Venezuela lead the ranking. The G $ distributed so far is only USD 344 at the current value.

The managers of the GoodDollar platform, which offers a universal basic income, provided some statistical data one month after its launch. The most prominent fact is that most of those applying for G $ tokens are in Argentina, Colombia, Spain, and Venezuela.

This information is mainly consistent with that of Google’s analytical tools. It is possible to see that the countries where the search term “GoodDollar” appeared the most in the last four weeks are: Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Spain.

The data that the organization provided indicates that more than 41,000 of its users have made more than 300,000 daily requests for the tokens.  They received 2.5 million G $ and conducted 5,000 person-to-person transactions.

“The interest and enthusiasm for our nonprofit project worldwide have been off the scale,” according to Tal Oron, GoodDollar CEO. He said that “the most encouraging element has been community activity, which is gaining momentum day by day.” He was happy to see “the formation of so many splinter groups, trying to promote the prospects of universal basic income.”

GoodDollar wants members to be able to participate as soon as possible in its governance, they announced. In this way, they would be an active part of the decisions that allow making this project increasingly decentralized.

They Have Only Distributed USD 344 in Total

People find the name misleading, but G $ is not a stablecoin. At the time of writing this article, each G $ is trading at USD 0.000137627 on the decentralized exchange UniSwap (the only one that is accepting this token). For that reason, the total amount of G $ that they have distributed is barely equivalent to USD 344.

In some groups on Telegram and on social networks, it is possible to see that there are discussions on GoodDollar. Most of those applying for G $ are happy to hold the tokens while waiting for them to gain value in the future.

Some holders refuse to sell their tokens to prevent causing their price to drop since they believe in the relevance of the project. “I cannot sell a universal basic income (UBI) token in exchange for another currency. That would necessarily contribute to downward pressure on the price of that project, and all UBI projects”, explained Fabiana Cecin, activist and creator of another project with similar characteristics.

A DeFi (decentralized finance) protocol is in charge of generating G $. However, the users who receive them find GoodDollar a little different from the cryptocurrency faucets that grant a negligible sum of money every determined period.

If users want to participate in GoodDollar, the most noticeable difference is that they need to identify themselves with a selfie, a phone number, and a Google or Facebook account.

Those responsible for the project insist that GoodDollar “can help close the wealth inequality gap.”

By Alexander Salazar

Fidelity is inviting investors to allocate 5% of their capital for alternative investments in Bitcoin.

Fidelity Digital Assets, Fidelity’s management of funds associated with cryptocurrencies, published a report today in which it describes how the Bitcoin ecosystem could receive a large amount of capital in the not too distant future.

The research in question, led by Ria Bhutoria, points out that this injection of capital could come from emerging markets and that Bitcoin bears very little relation to the performance seen in other products/assets, especially highlighting its differences with the commercial evolution of gold, and of US market indices.

The study presented by Fidelity takes into consideration the opinions and other relevant details concerning both investors and experts in the digital currency ecosystem, among which companies such as ARK Invest, CoinShares, and Fidelity Investments stand out. And as a recommendation, it proposes Bitcoin as a very juicy alternative form of investment for all interested parties.

Fidelity Report: Billions would be about to hit Bitcoin Market

Concerning these statements, the research conducted by Bhutoria ensures that the capital could come from emerging markets since these, unlike the more traditional ones, offer much higher returns and better growth prospects in the short and medium-term.

Researchers support this claim and assure that emerging markets currently represent 11% worldwide, capitalizing about USD 43,000 million.

Having ten years of history and facing these perspectives, the the Bitcoin market alone is estimated at the time of publication at about USD 212,767, a figure that continues his growth and which increase as new BTCs are produced and almost exceeds 400% to emerging markets.

Investment Portfolios: 5% in Bitcoin

Beyond these data, the researchers reflect that the commercial evolution seen by Bitcoin in recent years is mainly based on retail investors and that it will be precisely this sector that will boost its growth shortly.

The claim is supported by the sustained growth in the number of currently active wallets with less than 10 BTC in stored funds. It is estimated that there are currently about 30 million addresses that register activity and meet this condition.

In the report, the analysts propose that investors should keep at least 5% of their assets in Bitcoin as part of their alternative investments, that is, it considers the digital currency among assets such as stocks, bonds, and other participations in counter position to traditional markets that register lower returns.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The TRP seeks compliance with the FATF travel rule on exchange users, with this tool, the aim is to make it easier for exchanges to share their customer data.

The Travel Rule Protocol (TRP), a group that includes traditional financial institutions, released version 1.0.0 of an API (Application Programming Interface). The purpose of this organization led by global banks is to guarantee compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) travel rule in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency companies, reducing their privacy.

The TRP, made up of more than 20 institutions, including Standard Chartered, ING Bank, and Fidelity Digital Assets, refers to its API as a “minimal, feasible and pragmatic way to comply with the FATF Travel Rule promptly”.

The Travel Rule stipulates that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency exchanges must share their clients’ data for transactions that exceed $ 1,000; this as part of a policy against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Through its website, the TRP states that this is just the beginning of a long journey. “By creating a first-generation solution for compliance with the FATF travel rule, we aim to help the industry take some of the first steps on that journey while recognizing that there will be many steps to come,” he says.

The philosophy behind this tool is one of “full compliance” with the FATF provisions through direct data exchange between two parties seeking “minimal data leakage.” That is, it is contemplated that certain data are susceptible to being exposed.

The mechanism used by this API is a messaging system called InterVASP (IVMS-101), developed especially for the compliance protocols of the Travel Rule.

With this system, there is the option of an automated system to share data or one in which the user must accept it before a transaction on a determined platform.

More organizations bow to the FATF regulation on Bitcoin

Since the creation of the Travel Rule, there are several countries and service providers with Bitcoin that have joined its compliance. Among the most relevant organizations that have done so, BitGo stands out, a company that operates with Bitcoin exchanges in more than 50 countries.

BitGo announced in July that it would join the compliance with this regulation, which dates from June 2019 and since then has generated a lot of controversy in the bitcoin environment due to its implications against user privacy.

The exchanges Huobi and Bitfinex have also recently joined, as well as their partner company Tether, an issuer of the stablecoin pegged to the dollar USDT. According to another TRP spokesperson quoted by Coindesk, the travel rule compliance group has four large exchanges and large technology companies in its ranks.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

It was possible to confirm the operation through a multi-signature Bitcoin contract. The time and cost of the operation were lower than that of traditional methods for derivatives.

It was possible to settle derivatives of Standard & Poor’s 500 on the Bitcoin network in just 45 minutes through an experiment. The test allowed verifying Bitcoin’s potential as a tool to secure transactions of this type and minimizing their costs through multi-signature contracts.

Japan-based company Skew indicated that one of Bitcoin’s benefits is that people “could use it in traditional markets by accelerating trade agreements.” This type of traditional derivatives contracts take two days on average to materialize, through a “cumbersome and expensive” process, they state.

According to Skew, they used a guaranteed exchange purchase option (also known as a quantity adjustment option or Quanto). This allows settling the S&P 500 derivative, denominated in USD dollars (USD), in Bitcoin (BTC), since this option allows fixing the exchange rate from the beginning.

For example, investors often use this tool to buy an option on a foreign asset while maintaining the payment in their local fiat currency. For that reason, it is also known as a “cross” option agreement.

The purchase option agreement grants the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to make the purchase of an asset on a given date at a specified price.

Japanese company Crypto Garage collaborated in the design of this test to settle an S&P 500 derivative on the Bitcoin blockchain. In April 2019, they applied tests to settle financial derivatives through multi-signature Bitcoin contracts.

According to Skew, the deal cost “a few US dollars”. They suggest that, even if the value of the transaction had been in the billions, the cost would have remained the same.

Step by Step of S&P 500 Derivative Contract on Bitcoin

Last month, Skew bought an S&P 500 option on Crypto Garage, for which they paid a premium of 0.0202 BTC that involved a call spread strategy. This consisted of trading another option, which they acquired with US dollars and with the same expiration date, in the opposite position. However, it had a different price to limit the losses (and the gains) that derived from the first option.

Regarding the premium that Skew paid, they add the guarantee of 0.04667 BTC that Crypto Garage published. Skew states that it remained “locked in a multi-signature smart contract until its expiration date.”

At the time of the option purchase, the S&P 500 was trading at USD 2,978.5 and Bitcoin at USD 10,747. They settled the contract three weeks later, following a bullish price change.

When the contract expired, the S&P 500 was at USD 3,014. In this way, the settlement was 0.036 BTC for Skew and 0.01 BTC for Crypto Garage.

To verify and authenticate the prices of S&P 500 derivatives in real-time, they used an oracle that ICE Data Services (the same ones that manage the NYSE market) provided. The participants made the payment through their digital signatures to validate the Bitcoin smart contract.

S&P 500 and Bitcoin on the Market

Last July, Coin Metrics warned of a correlation between the S&P 500 market and the Bitcoin market that had emerged in March. They attributed the cause to the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic and investors’ nervousness have caused.

This correlation has remained even though the Federal Reserve has announced the issuance of more cash, and the Trump administration has attempted on different occasions to inject economic aid in the form of bonds.

The reaction of Bitcoin to different political or social events has allowed identifying different correlations with traditional financial instruments. For example, people have traditionally used gold as a store of value, which allows comparing it to the main cryptocurrency for this property.

By Alexander Salazar

The international financial authorities and the most powerful countries will create rules to regulate and issue CBDC, central bank digital currencies.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and the G20 (the organization that groups the 20 largest economies in the world) are establishing official standards to regulate and issue sovereign digital currencies or CBDCs.

The Group of Twenty (G20) said in a report today that it is working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to formalize the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in banking systems. CBDCs are stablecoins tied to nations’ fiat currencies.

According to the report, by the end of 2022, members of the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, and the BIS will complete the regulatory frameworks for stable currencies, the research, and selection of designs, technologies, and experiments of CBDC.

Technical capacities to facilitate CBDC transactions between countries by the end of 2025.

The countries “will examine the scope of new multilateral platforms, global stablecoin agreements, and central bank digital currencies to address the challenges facing cross-border payments without compromising minimum standards of supervision and regulation to control risks to monetary and financial stability. ”Said the G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB), a body formed after the 2008 financial crisis.

North American, European and Japanese banks said that CBDCs should be interchangeable with existing forms of money and resemble cash in their ease of use in a wide range of payment types at low or no cost.

They highlighted that CBDCs could improve cross-border payments, counter Facebook’s Libra-like corporate digital currencies, and transfer emergency fund payments to consumers during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the report. But CBDCs would not be anonymous and self-executing, the report said, differing from virtual currencies whose distributed ledger technology they would borrow.

For its part, also last week the Bank of Japan published a report in which it revealed that the digital yen would begin to take shape in 2021.

On the other hand, the European Central Bank is also thinking about the future possibility of the digital euro. An ECB report indicated that the issuance of a digital euro would be announced in April next year. Two weeks ago, an ECB executive said that the development of a digital euro could save the area from relying on digital currencies issued by foreign entities.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The 100x Group, owner and operator of the BitMEX exchange, announced on Monday the appointment of Malcolm Wright as its compliance manager. BitMEX, facing accusations from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is continuing with the restructuring of its leadership, after removing CEO Arthur Hayes and the exchange’s founders last week.

Malcolm Wright served as CCO at British financial services firm Revolut in 2018, and for the past two years at Hong Kong-based exchange Diginex. In particular, the announcement highlights Wright’s expertise in recommendations for Digital Asset Service Providers (VASPs) from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). These recommendations make up a guide with a risk-based approach aimed at digital asset operators.

BitMEX’s new compliance manager made it a priority for that platform to collaborate with regulators to “securely support digital markets.” Malcolm, according to the announcement, would focus on developing the BitMEX User Verification Program.

Bitmex was accused of operating illegally in the United States on October 1, in addition to violating the bank secrecy law and breaching the Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering guidelines. The accusation stems from the complaint filed by the CFTC before the New York Southern District Court on October 1.

The executives indicted by the CFTC were BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, head of business development Greg Dwyer, and co-founders Ben Delo and Samuel Reed. The latter was arrested on October 1 and later released on bail of USD 5 million.

Later, last Thursday, BitMEX’s board of directors was removed as a consequence of the legal process initiated by the CFTC, after which the 100x Group appointed COO, Vivien Khoo, as CEO in charge.

How does BitMEX work?

BitMEX offers two types of contracts: futures contracts and perpetual contracts. A Futures Contract is defined as an agreement to buy or sell the underlying asset for an agreed price at a very specific time in the future.

It allows trade-in coins without ever having to own them. A perpetual contract is similar but does not have an expiration date. Trading these is similar to normal spot trading.

BitMEX has unique characteristics that differentiate it from other platforms. Some of the most important: “Cold” storage wallets to hold user funds. Offers advanced trading tools: margin loan, leverage, and stop-loss orders. The account leverage function is an option that very few exchanges have on their trading platforms.

They use the multisig deposit and withdrawal scheme, which is a technology used to add additional security for cryptocurrency transactions. These operations require another user or users to sign a transaction before it can be transmitted to the blockchain.

By: Jenson Nuñez.