According to the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Bitcoin represents security. Kiyosaki has shown his inclination towards Bitcoin on several occasions.

Renowned investor and author of the best-seller “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” Robert Kiyosaki is once again in favor of using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an alternative to the US dollar.

Kiyosaki referred to the pioneering cryptocurrency, as an alternative for citizens to exit the centralized system that governments have created whilst regaining their power over their own money.

Last April, Kiyosaki stated that he does not trust centralized entities such as the Federal Reserve (Fed) or Central Banks, particularly for their monetary issuance policies. At that time, the Fed had already started its issuance of billions of dollars in response to the pandemic.

In this regard, the investor considers that these centralized entities do not like the idea behind Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies. He criticizes them for their control over people’s money.

Kiyosaki likes the fact that elites, politicians, and organizations cannot control Bitcoin. Regarding governments, he argued that they seem to be hiding something behind the complete closure of the economy worldwide.

Kiyosaki believes that governments are hiding the collapse of the financial system and are keeping at bay the intentions to depart from that system. That situation turns people’s attention to the coronavirus and everything related to the pandemic.

On the other hand, the businessman stated that central banks still have the same negative positions against Bitcoin. He said that these entities do not like gold or Bitcoin as they cannot print them.

Pandemic Context of the Worst Crisis

For the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the world economy is experiencing “the worst crisis in history.” Even though he predicted a great crisis, he could not foresee the closure of “the entire world economy” coming, which he finds “suspicious”.

The partial suspension of activities due to the coronavirus quarantine has led the Federal Reserve (Fed) and central banks such as the European to indiscriminately print money. The Fed’s President Jerome Powell himself acknowledged that they were printing more money than necessary.

This monetary policy, together with the paralysis that the pandemic caused and the fear that dominates the markets, has led to a crisis that has affected traditional indices, the oil market, and even gold and cryptocurrencies. However, these last two have been the least affected this year.

WTI oil remains 40% below its best price this year. Currently, this benchmark for the US oil market is trading at USD 37.69 per barrel, in contrast to USD 64.30 that a barrel came to be worth in January 2020.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin rebounded from a drop that brought its market value below USD 5,000. Currently, its price is constantly struggling between USD 9,000 and USD 10,000. At the time of writing this article, the price of BTC is equivalent to about USD 9,500.

Bitcoin and Death of US Dollar

In early April, Kiyosaki said that people were witnessing the “death of the US dollar.” Since then, he has recommended seeking a safer alternative to the safeguard of value.

“Don’t save. Buy gold, silver, Bitcoin. The dollar is dying,” he wrote on his Twitter account. Besides, he said that the stimulus checks that the US government announced were “free fake money” and that citizens should invest quickly.

Kiyosaki defended Bitcoin as “security”, in contrast to statements from 2018. At that time, the businessman considered the possibility that the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto was becoming useless and worthless.

Now, with a pro-Bitcoin stance, Kiyosaki even said that the cryptocurrency could experience a rise never seen before in its history. According to his analysis, the price of BTC could reach USD 75,000 in a period of three years. Among his main arguments, the most prominent is precisely the current crisis.

Amid the context that the pandemic has created, Kiyosaki seems to have reinforced his vision of the future of money and the role that cryptocurrencies will have in that future. In his view, the destiny of cryptocurrencies is to replace the US dollar and other fiat currencies, which he has referred to as “a scam.”

By Willmen Blanco

The reward for developing the application went from USD 1,000 to USD 10,000 in a few hours. The contest to win that reward would last for a period of 7 days.

Last June 14^th, investor and former CTO at Coinbase Balaji Srinivasan announced that he would grant a reward of USD 10,000 worth of Bitcoin. The winner would be the person who could develop an application to export his Twitter followers to other social media.

One day earlier, Srinivasan started the contest by offering USD 1,000 worth of Bitcoin for the development of the application. Later, he noted that the reward for the application had increased to USD 10,000 worth of Bitcoin. The contest for the reward would last for a period of 7 days, and Srinivasan said that he would reserve the right not to grant the reward if no application met his criteria.

As the investor’s announcement thread shows, several users submitted their proposals. Although Srinivasan has not yet announced a winner, he stated that he could use part of the reward for tests of the application and the second and third place winners.

The investor specified that the application had to be an open-source, and able to take a Twitter API key and download all the followers of an account. Besides, he said that it had to classify users according to some criteria and send a direct message to 1,000 followers per day, the daily limit of direct messages on Twitter.

According to Srinivasan, those who wanted to compete for the reward had to develop three versions of the application. These would be an open source script version, a local application version, and a hosted web application version.

In his Github profile, Srinivasan explained the steps that developers had to follow to develop the application to export Twitter followers. He also specified the number of people who would pay part of the reward to the winner. For instance, Richard Heart, founder of the HEX token, promised to pay USD 2,000 of the reward.

Balaji Srinivasan’s Reason for Application Development

Srinivasan says that what motivated him to want to create such a tool is that many users want to leave Twitter to use media such as Ghost or Substack. For this reason, he considers that the ideal would be a tool that exports all the followers of a Twitter account to media such as the aforementioned, or an e-mail list.

The most striking is that several users stated in the announcement thread that the reward was unfair, considering that Srinivasan is a billionaire. They also said that a more generous donation was necessary for the development of the application to take place in the established period.

In recent days, the Twitter Bitcoin community rejected the changes to privacy on the social network. The microblogging platform reported that it had removed from the accounts the option that allowed citizens to prevent sharing their data for commercial purposes.

By Alexander Salazar

Immersion mining offers multiple advantages in mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is possible thanks to the efficiency in the consumption of electricity for the mining equipment.

Bitcoin mining by immersion is one of the most profitable methods of generating coins. This process is mainly used in countries with a warm climate or high costs of electricity.

It consists of immersing the mining equipment in mineral oil. Then, with a series of tools typical of this technique, the devices begin to generate coins “like fish in water.”

This type of mining virtually improves all aspects of the process of producing coins. Best of all, it helps to preserve ecology whilst profitability increases.

Steps for Bitcoin Mining by Immersion

Immersion is not a new phenomenon in the world of computing. It is a very common action among users of equipment that tends to overheat due to the work to which it is subjected.

Concerning the mining devices that overheat, Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are the most relevant. Mining Bitcoin involves great work to find and process the blocks. This means that the equipment dedicated to that purpose is subjected to high temperatures.

Therefore, Bitcoin mining by immersion becomes an advantageous alternative. It consists of removing the fans from the devices and submerging the latter in containers filled with mineral or dielectric oil. Then users activate them and start to see the results.

Of course, the procedure has several obstacles to overcome. Firstly, many people unfamiliar with the subject may feel concerned, considering that liquid and electricity are not good friends.

It is important to know that dielectric oil is the same oil that electricity transformers use. Therefore, those who use household appliances should be aware that a device immersed in that liquid is the one that sends electrical energy to their homes.

Bitcoin mining by immersion can protect the environment, at the same time as business profitability increases.

Advantages of Submerging Mining Devices

Mining cryptocurrencies is an increasingly complex process, in which there is increasing difficulty, high consumption of electricity, deafening noise, and inclement heat. Besides, if a miner wants his business to grow, he needs an increasingly big space.

A large space to house mining devices involves several factors. These include rental cost, dust attraction, humidity, vibration, and regular maintenance, among others, that reduce the useful life of the equipment.

Bitcoin mining by immersion means overcoming every one of these problems. The costs of electricity decrease up to 97%, since keeping the oil cold and circulating allows regulating the temperature to achieve better performance in terms of hash rate.

The space for the equipment is no longer an issue since it is possible to place several devices next to each other in small containers. For example, miners would house, in a space of three meters, the number of machines that normally require a complete room.

By submerging the mining devices, dust and regular maintenance are no longer a constant concern. Besides, corrosion decreases, and noise disappears completely while easing mobility increases.

By Willmen Blanco

This technology allows customers to know the origin of food and everything related to its supply chain.

A technology as relatively new as blockchain is helping to track a product as ancient and important as coffee. As mentioned in previous news, different companies around the world are using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for food traceability.

In this way, blockchain technology would make possible the sustainable development of products as important as coffee and would also help prevent counterfeiting of this type of product.

Preventing counterfeiting of products is possible thanks to blockchain technology, which allows registering products from the moment of harvest and tracking all the information on their distribution until the products reach the table of the restaurant, and customers taste their flavor and aroma.

Food traceability is now a real, simple, and straightforward process. The client who wants to obtain the information about the origin of the product, that he will buy, would only have to scan the QR code that appears on the product packaging.                                                                    

By scanning the code, the buyer will know everything about the coffee bean supply chain to consume. This is possible thanks to the fact that blockchain technology will allow storing the data that workers enter in the platform, thanks to the execution of smart contracts that will validate the origin of the product quickly and immutably.

Use Cases

One of the platforms that take advantage of blockchain technology in the world of coffee is the mobile application called Thank My Farmer, which stores information thanks to blockchain technology. In this way, it manages to help almost the entire industry.

The traceability platform Farmer Connect was in charge of the development of this product. Currently, the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia takes advantage of the potential of IBM Blockchain through Thank My Farmer.

Besides, the Toks Restaurant chain in Mexico uses the Simba Chain smart contracts platform to register and track the coffee that Toks has bought, processed, packaged, and sold. The objective is to ensure the quality of its coffee supply chain and thus differentiate the products it sells from the rest of the market.

In this case, SIMBA Chain Smart Contract as a Service (SCaaS)works with some of the most popular blockchain platforms in the ecosystem such as Ethereum, RSK, Stellar, and Hyperledger, among others.

Currently, the use of blockchain technology in the food sector continues to expand, even more, in the case of food traceability. This even happens with some formulas of infant formula.

According to recent data from the WikiBrands firm, the blockchain market could grow at an annual rate of 68%. This increase in the use of blockchain technology could occur at an average of five years, generating more than USD 1 trillion of estimated earnings for the year 2025.

The experts also considered that the post-Covid-19 times would not only make more companies decide to use blockchain but also more companies use blockchain technology as a tool to store information securely. Besides, blockchain would help in the traceability of products in general, especially food. This action shows that the expansion and adoption of blockchain technology continues, despite the pandemic.

By María Rodríguez