Zcash users can perform shielded transactions from iOS devices. The Cardano There Could Be Price Correction in Financial Market Assets, according to IMF will take place on July 7^th.

The price of almost all cryptocurrencies declined between June 20^th and 26^th. The few altcoins that recorded increases rose to nearly 9%, while most declines were up to 22%.

At the time of writing this article, the first cryptocurrency in the market exhibits a decrease of almost -1.27%, a trend that has accumulated in recent weeks and that analysts have estimated at -0.41% in the past month. During the aforementioned week, the price of BTC remained in an average range of USD 9,400, with a significant drop on June 24^th and 25^th, according to data from Live Coin Watch.

For its part, Ether (ETH) has risen slightly, increasing by 0.48%. ETH has had a sustained growth since June 21^st, reaching a high of USD 248. However, its value fell significantly on the 24^th and 25^th. On those days, Geth, one of Ethereum’s most popular clients, announced the incorporation of a limit amount for transaction fees.

Zcash (ZEC) and Cardano (ADA) lead the most appreciated cryptocurrencies. Decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrencies   Synthetix (SNX), Compound (COMP), and Nexo (NEXO) are also noteworthy.

Zcash Launches Shielded Transactions for iOS

With its privacy-focused approach, Zcash (ZEC) is in first place among the most appreciated cryptocurrencies. Between June 20^th and 26^th, it recorded an increase by about 8.3%.

The price of this cryptocurrency began to rise gradually on June 22^nd, which coincided with an announcement on Twitter inviting users of iPhones or iPads to download version 1.0.15 of Zecwallet Lite. That way, they will be able to enable ZEC shielded transactions for these devices.

Although the price of ZEC went from a low of USD 50.56 to a high of USD 59.30 on the days after the announcement, it has declined since June 24^th. At the time of writing, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency is USD 59.6 million and its daily trading volume is USD 128 million.

Cardano Prepares Shelley Update

Amid the market decline, Cardano (ADA) has recorded an average increase of 0.71%, maintaining an advance observed since the end of May. The growth of the cryptocurrency has been notable since Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK, explained the plans to implement an update to the network, identified as Shelley, on July 7^th.

Between June 20^th and 26^th, the price of ADA started at USD 0.0798, closing those seven days at USD 0.0812. It reached its highest value (USD 0.0867) on the 24^th.

The Cardano Foundation, IOHK, and EMURGO want the community to learn how to use Shelley, a version that will allow ADA holders to form staking groups. The market capitalization of ADA is USD 2,092 million and its daily trading volume is USD 56.4 million.

DeFi Cryptocurrencies

Synthetix (Synthetix Network Token or SNX) is a DeFi protocol for the issuance of Ethereum-based assets. Between June 20^th and 26^th, it was the most prominent among decentralized finance tokens.

In those seven days, the price of SNX ranged from USD 1,401 to USD 1,847. Its capitalization was USD 137.9 million and its daily trading volume was USD 1.6 million.

For its part, the company behind DeFi Nexo reported last June 23^rd on the inclusion of the token in the BEQUANT Exchange platform, a comprehensive solution for professional investors in digital assets located in Malta and the United Kingdom.

The association seeks to offer the token to institutional investors, according to Nexo’s blog. Between June 20^th and 26^th, NEXO recorded an advance by 16.72%, with significant growth between June 22^nd and 24^th. Its value ranged from USD 0.173 to USD 0.197.

By Alexander Salazar

The blockchain electronic voting system was a success. Representatives of the university, as well as the interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, consider that the process can run on a larger scale.

The Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University, in Bolivia, held an election experience with electronic voting, using blockchain technology. Among the advantages of this technology are that it is secure, it stores information in an unalterable way, and voters could participate from home, only with an Internet connection.

One of the representatives of this project is Gabriela Melendrez Alaro, Founder of Bolivian Mind Blockchain (BMB) and co-founder of AsoBlockchain Bolivia, dedicated to devising, developing, and implementing blockchain solutions in the country.

Among the objectives of this project is to show citizens that it is possible to participate in elections without going to a voting center, that is, without the need for a physical presence. This would be of great help during the Covid-19 pandemic when the majority of the population remains at home to avoid further contagion.

“This initiative was born from being able to choose the university directive of fourth-year students of Law, motivated by their professor, Luis Américo Ayala Romero, who teaches Computer Law,” Gabriela Melendrez explained.

The initiative started on June 8^th. The process consisted of opening applications, reviewing the electoral roll, closing applications, presenting the electoral roll, and creating unique codes for each voter. Organizers then shared these codes with voters, along with a link to cast the vote.

Before conducting the process, the organizers prepared an informative and training session so that participants could learn how to vote electronically.

Melendrez Alaro said that to make the elections possible, they worked in the necessary coordination with the university. One of the representatives of the university who participated in this project was Professor Américo Ayala, who along with Grover Leandro Suntura and Luis Cristián Rivas, members of the Bitcoin Community in Bolivia, were in charge of the logistics process for this meeting.

“I contacted the Polys team to learn more about the platform and determine the viability, according to the requirements of our process. Due to its different advantages, we opted for the Polys platform,” said Melendrez. The university celebrated the elections last June 18^th from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The results were ready just half an hour later, at 3:30 in the afternoon.

“The process achieved voter acceptance and reliability, according to a post-voting poll. Explaining how and where the platform would store the vote of the participants, and the speed to obtain the total number of votes, the transparency of the process was confirmed,” said Gabriela Melendrez.

The founder of Bolivian Mind Blockchain added that this electoral process is scalable in population, in addition to becoming an example of the use of this new technology. The university authorities were happy with the new electronic voting system and assured that the process could serve as a reference to future scenarios with larger populations in Bolivian.

The interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, said, last June 21^st, that they expect some of the political leaders to raise the possibility of conducting electronic voting with Blockchain technology for the elections next September 6^th.

By María Rodríguez

Representatives of different companies think that stablecoins and CBDCs will be the currencies to be used for international transactions.

The crisis that the Covid-19 outbreak generated has not slowed down the seminars on cryptocurrencies. Last June 24^th, the main figures of the cryptocurrency community participated in a webinar that the Chamber of Digital Commerce organized. In this seminar, they discussed the growing role of stablecoins.

Circle founder Jeremy Allaire was one of the webinar participants. Allaire was one of the first ones to give his opinion on stablecoins since Circle is the firm that created the stablecoin USDC, backed by the US dollar.

Allaire talked about how stablecoins simplify payment processes around the world and compared the possible updates of them with many relatively recent developments that we sometimes take for granted, but that we do not think they had an evolution process to be like they are today.

“We will look back the same way we do when we look at long distance calls, postal mail, or product sales by catalogs, and we will look at payments and not believe that we ever had to pay to send money,” he said.

Currently, there are stablecoins backed by physical and secure assets (or stable, as its name indicates, such as gold). As a result, these digital assets would present less volatility than traditional cryptocurrencies.

One of these stablecoins is Paxos, whose representative also participated in the webinar. Walter Hessert of Paxos, a stablecoin closely linked to cross-border payments, also gave his opinion on the matter.

Hessert noted that stablecoins will change the game for securities trading: “Will long-term stablecoins play a role in tokenization and liquidation of securities? Absolutely,” he affirmed.

American Representation

Representatives of the Digital Dollar Foundation, a group of experts working to develop an official digital currency for America’s Central Bank, also participated in the webinar. This group is creating a so-called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for the US.

Daniel Gorfine, one of the founders of this group, noted that, during the work to create this digital currency, he understood that there was no reason not to go ahead with CBDC. “Even if you’re skeptical, why don’t you plan for this to happen? And, knowing that you can’t just flip a switch in five years, why not start now?”

Before this webinar, the digitization of the national currency has already been discussed in the United States of America, since, as is known, the US dollar is a currency that people in almost all the world use as a store of value, to preserve their money. Therefore, the United States does not want to be left behind in the world of digital currencies, as well as leading the market for traditional or fiat currencies.

However, a U.S. CBDC would not be the first stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar. Allaire noted that the idea of ​​creating a CBDC is attractive because “the use cases are so broad that they are ultimately like use cases for money. So what could you do with a dollar? That is digital.”

Hessert also noted that fiat dollars are an important area for accelerating global transactions, due to their massive international use. “Today, dollars are on the side of about 80% of transactions worldwide”; thus, countries will continue working in the development of these new digital currencies.

By María Rodríguez

The country now requires procedures to permit those who operate with cryptocurrencies. Only crypto companies such as Ripple Labs Singapore, Coinbase Singapore, and Binance Asia Services are excepted.

A 23-year-old Singaporean woman is accused of unlicensed Bitcoin trafficking. She is the first person to be charged under the state’s Payment Services Act.

So far, there is no more information about this woman. Last June 23^rd, Singapore police said the woman had provided an unlicensed digital payment token service. Police allege that the woman received at least 13 fraudulent fund transfers, totaling SGD 3,350 (USD 2,400), an amount that she used to buy bitcoins (BTC).

Besides, Singapore police believe that the woman obtained money from victims of online scams. The police claim that the woman made the fraudulent transactions “at the instruction of an unknown person”, in exchange for a commission.

The Singapore Payment Services Act (PSA) went into effect last January 28^th. This law regulates payments in cryptocurrencies and commercial companies, following some aspects of the Singapore State regulatory regime for traditional payment services.

As previously mentioned, this law introduced different measures, among which are multiple registrations and license requirements for industrial and commercial companies. Cryptocurrency payment services must also comply with the Financial Advisers Act,the Insurance Act, the Securities and Futures Act, and the Trust Companies Act.

Due to all these requirements, some users try to circumvent the controls to avoid the procedures or the fact that they do not have permission to operate with cryptocurrencies. However, the new rules place crypto services under the supervision of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Other Details About the Law

Unlike the United States, the Monetary Authority of Singapore does not make a distinction between the various types of “pay”, “utility” and “value” tokens. In Singapore, these digital assets are within a broader category of digital payment tokens. This makes it more difficult to circumvent certain regulatory requirements.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank and the main financial regulatory authority, exempted several major payment services from having a financial license under the Payment Services Act (PSA). The rest, especially if they are small businesses or people who work independently, should seek permission.

As MAS noted, Ripple Labs Singapore, Coinbase Singapore, and Binance Asia Services can provide services without a PSA license until July 28^th, 2020. MAS detailed that the exemption will cease after the specified period or if the entity submits a license application under the PSA.

Some cryptocurrency companies got a longer exemption period. For example, BitGo Singapore, a local subsidiary of one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) payment processors, and Gemini Trust Company, a cryptocurrency exchange and custody service run by the Winklevoss twins. Both of them received 12-exemption months, until January 28^th, 2021.

In this way, the rest of the companies that operate with crypto assets need permission to work without problems since the state will verify the operation of these companies to avoid fraud or affecting users.

By María Rodríguez

The IMF believes that the bullish sentiment in financial markets could come to an end. This organization predicts a decrease in the global economy by 5.9% for the rest of the year.

There is a disconnection between financial markets and real-world economy. For that reason, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that there could be a correction of about 10% in them.

Amid the crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic has created and the rise in the prices of risky assets in financial markets, the IMF economic counselor Gita Gopinath commented on the economic statistics of the organization.

Gopinath explained that, due to the health crisis that the coronavirus has caused, the forecast of economic decline fell from 3% in April to 4.9% in June.

However, she noted that, although the health crisis may continue, its solution could also take time. This would have a positive effect on the economy, which should be progressively measured in the following months, as events develop.

In recent days, the IMF published the World Financial Stability Report, in which it indicates that the price of risk assets has reemerged since the beginning of the year. They note that the disconnection between financial markets and the real economy poses risks to economic recovery.

The world’s central banks and major financial institutions are issuing economic stimuli. These could make the management of the internal debt of countries and national corporations unsustainable, according to the document.

In this sense, the report mentions that the European Central Bank has bought government bonds, within the framework of a recent USD 1.5 trillion emergency program. This program seeks to oxygenate the payment of the debt of the governments of the eurozone.

Likewise, they state that economic insolvency could also affect non-bank financial entities, such as stock investment advisers and managers. Gopinath warns that the poor performance of these businesses could make the world’s economic crisis worse.

Bitcoin among Riskiest Performing Assets

For the first time in its history, Bitcoin outperformed the S&P 500 last March. Since then, both Bitcoin and the stock indicator have recovered after their price declined at the beginning of the year. Bitcoin also exceeded gold as the highest performing asset of 2020, last May.

The levels in the trading volume of Bitcoin on p2p platforms reached all-time levels. At the same time, the huge number of new users of platforms like Robinhood is putting markets at risk of having a price bubble.

The S&P 500 also maintained a 50-day upward trend until early June, making it the longest streak in its history. The stock market index interprets this trend as a sign of the hypothetical disconnection between financial markets and the real world.

The quarantine and social distancing measures have led to the paralysis of employment and economic activities for many people worldwide. This suggests that an increasing number of people are seeking financial alternatives or methods to generate income.

In addition to each user’s initiative, companies have made available to users the possibility of freely exchanging all kinds of assets. This is the case of Uphold, which already allows buying shares of American companies with Bitcoin from Latin America.

By Alexander Salazar

Tails have tried to communicate with Facebook repeatedly, but it has not responded. Buster Hernández used the Tor browser to hide his identity.

In recent days, Facebook reportedly hired a company that developed an exploit and gave it to the FBI. The objective was to locate a man who extorted and threatened minors through the Linux privacy operating system, Tails.

Buster Hernández, known online as “Brian Kil,” is a California man who threatened and harassed underage girls for several years through messaging applications, e-mails, and Facebook. Hernández extorted them to send naked videos and photos and threatened to kill or rape them if they refused. He did all this through the Tor network, managing to hide his IP address, thus making it difficult to find him.

One of the main features of Tails is that it transfers all Internet traffic through Tor, a network that encrypts and makes anonymous all connections, hiding the true IP address of users. Facebook and the FBI exploited a vulnerability in Tails video player system, known as GNOME, to track the criminal’s IP address.

However, Tails was unaware of the vulnerability of the system and that Facebook was using it to track a person. Tails managed to discover it thanks to an article from the reporting website Motherboard.

Some members of the Facebook team said that they planned to inform Tails of the vulnerability once the FBI found Hernandez, but that never happened. According to a former Facebook employee, they decided not to inform Tails as they would release an update that would eliminate the code flaw.

However, the developers of Tails, as well as some security experts, say that Facebook should have informed them once the FBI finished the operation, even if they had updated the system.

One of Tails’ concerns is being able to fully fix the flaw in the code. Even though they removed the flaw, some people using the software may still be running an outdated version. For this reason, they have tried to communicate with Facebook and the FBI. However, they have not yet received any response.

Negative Responses to Facebook’s Actions

Facebook’s lack of transparency is giving rise to controversy. A GNOME spokesperson commented that the fact of not receiving timely information about such vulnerabilities jeopardizes the safety of law-abiding users.

Many security and privacy experts consider that Facebook should not have created or funded the hacking tool, or that they should have just notified both Tails and GNOME of the flaw so that they could fix it.

Katie Mossouris, who used to lead the vulnerability research teams at Microsoft and Symantec, commented that Facebook is “out of control and making the world less secure for people who need anonymity to survive.”

Recently, the relationship between the FBI and Facebook has become closer. Besides this collaboration, the FBI has been using social media, Facebook in particular, to locate people who incite violence in the recent protests over the murder of George Floyd in the USA.

By Alexander Salazar