The international organization states that blockchain technology can help “redesign” the economy and trust of those who go to different companies, both public and private.

In a report published on April 28^th, the World Economic Forum (WEF) analyzed how the global economy could recover after the crisis that the Covid-19 pandemic generated. That document details that the deployment of solutions based on blockchain technology can face inefficiencies and failures in the supply chain.

In addition to this report, the World Economic Forum published a set of tools for the deployment of blockchain technology. The objective of this plan is to help governments and companies adapt their supply chains to the current economic situation to “accelerate a post-COVID-19 economic rebound”, according to the report.

Regarding the economic situation that the coronavirus outbreak has caused, the World Economic Forum indicated in its report that the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) could help create a “shared truth” among those interested in the supply chain. According to the World Economic Forum, the coronavirus outbreak has tested the resilience of private and public supply chains. The efficiency of these chains depends on transparency in the processes, something that blockchain technology could improve.

The World Economic Forum also noted in its report that the most affected sectors are the supply chains for pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and food.

To help business and government leaders deploy blockchain-based supply chain solutions, the WEF launched a toolkit called “Redesigning Trust: Blockchain Deployment Toolkit”.

The objective of this toolkit is to enable leaders of public and private companies to “maximize the benefits and minimize the risks” associated with Distributed Ledger Technology”. The idea is to help company leaders to use this technology and know-how to prevent problems.

The WEF developed this toolkit for over a year and received contributions from more than 100 public and private entities in 50 countries. These contributions include Deloitte, Maersk, the World Bank, and the World Food Program.

“The toolkit for blockchain deployment is essential to design solutions that work for a multitude of actors, including the smallest, who may not have access to the resources necessary to unlock the value of blockchain technology”, said Nadia Hewett, member of the blockchain and digital currency project of the US World Economic Fund.

To ensure the success of this idea, the WEF tested this DLT toolkit in various contexts, such as that of Saudi Aramco, Hitachi, and numerous small and medium-sized companies.

“We see an acceleration of digitization in maritime Singapore, which has improved the productivity and efficiency of the sector (…) Blockchain technology has enormous potential for application in areas such as bills of lading, cargo tracking, and trade”, said Quah Ley Hoon, Executive Director of the Singapore Maritime and Port Authority.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also approaching the deadline for the completion of its Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021, an ambitious program aiming to migrate 50% of government transactions to DLT-based platforms.

These are other examples of countries that have improved their production chains thanks to Distributed Ledger Technology, which continues to take place between public and private companies in any industry worldwide.

By María Rodríguez

The co-operative will use the Morpheus system. This platform will provide automated monitoring solutions to activities in the supply chain, which covers 1,400 companies and more than 23,000 workers.

Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL), one of Canada’s 50 largest companies, partnered with Morpheus.Network, a blockchain-based supply chain middleware platform to improve FCL’s processes. The intention of this important co-operative is to organize its supply chain, which encompasses 1,400 companies across western Canada and employs more than 23,000 workers.

To achieve this purpose, FCL plans to integrate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) technology, based on monitoring the supply chain. In this way, the cooperative seeks to bring order and to avoid violations throughout the supply chain.

The companies have signed a three-year agreement in which Morpheus.Network will provide optical character recognition, machine learning, and blockchain technologies to streamline the complex FCL supply chain.

FCL will use the Morpheus system, which seeks to provide automated monitoring and compliance management solutions. This blockchain tool will replace the current FCL manual processes, according to what representatives of the cooperative explained.

“This system replaces a largely manual process in which thousands of regulatory certifications and documents from more than 150 suppliers are collected and managed by FCL, which all need to be scanned, validated, processed and tracked”, representatives of the Canadian cooperative explained.

FCL Supply Chain Manager, Raymond Gareau, noted that blockchain technology makes it possible to increase the efficiency of “supplier document validation and management processes”. Gareau commented that this is a result of DLT integration.

“Next up, we are looking at the overall visibility of our supply chain from suppliers to FCL warehouses”, the supply chain manager at Federated Co-operatives Limited said.

About FCL

Federated Co-operatives Limited is a wholesale, manufacturing, marketing, and management co-operative opened by more than 170 independent retailer associations.

This co-operative mainly operates in four sectors: agriculture, food, energy, and home and construction solutions. These sectors include bars, convenience stores, agricultural centers, and propane plants among other businesses in that sector.

The cooperative has been successful. In 2019, it generated USD 9.2 billion, according to local media.

Major Companies Adopt Blockchain

As FCL, companies from other countries in the world are using blockchain technology in their daily operations.

One of these companies is BMW, the German luxury car and motorcycle maker BMW that announced it will launch its blockchain-based supply chain solution among 10 providers during 2020.

Besides, the platform, PartChain, was tested during 2019 in two of BMW’s 31 plants and three locations of its supplier, Automotive Lightning.

BMW will also provide the platform to members of its Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative. This initiative was co-founded by automakers BMW, GM, Ford, and Renault, along with technology firms Bosch, Hyperledger, IBM, and Iota.

In this way, the adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology continues in major multinationals that seek to implement greater order in their operations, protect their processes by storing information in an unalterable way, and guarantee that only authorized parties participate in them.

By María Rodríguez

Mining activity has decreased in China, although electric service is cheaper during the rainy season and the proximity of halving.

There are few days left for the halving of Bitcoin, which will be this May 12^th, 2020. At the same time, the rainy season began in China, which is when there is an excess demand for bitcoins. However, this year the amount of mining activities has decreased.

Mining activity has already completed 627,000 blocks. Now, it remains to mine only 3,000 blocks and it seems that users in China are not spending time on this activity, even though the halving reduces the number of bitcoins per block. This event, which will be on May, could boost an increase in the price of this digital asset.

One of the strongest reasons that this decrease in crypto mining activity could have been Covid-19, the respiratory infection declared as a pandemic that, until April 28^th, has generated 4,637 deaths in China and some 83,938 cases in that country. worldwide 214,392 deaths and 3,050,453 confirmed cases.

Rain and Bitcoin

In China, the rainy season generates excessive hydroelectric power. In this way, electricity becomes a cheaper service during this time and, therefore, mining is a more profitable activity.

When rain abounds in China, the price of electric service is lower. But, besides, in the mining facilities located in the southwest provinces of China, the service is up to 20 % cheaper even in the summer. This is a regional government plan to attract more crypto investors from Bitcoin mining.

Mining in China is so active that research firm CoinShares estimates that 65% of Bitcoin’s Hash Power is concentrated in China. Besides, through a report, CoinShares highlighted that only the southwestern province of Sichuan represents more than 50% of the total network.

Decisive Days

Many miners prepare for halving. This activity that takes place every four years and reduces the number of bitcoins per block by half could generate two possibilities: economically benefit the miners or leave them trapped in the problems of lack of profitability.

The largest mining manufacturers in China are improving production capacity and introducing new ASIC hardware, with better energy efficiency ratios. Meanwhile, miners are also looking for new mining farms, and companies within the Bitcoin mining space are looking for new opportunities.

“If the price of Bitcoin does not rise after Halving, who will buy new equipment to meet this demand?”, Huang Fangyu, Co-founder of ValarHash, says.

But if Bitcoin’s price stays around USD 7,000, as it is at its current price, the crypto community expects older mining equipment to shut down after halving. This is something that would lead to a decrease in network hash power.

Some companies in China are currently returning to work after Covid-19 quarantined them for nearly four months to prevent further spread.

“For those who have access to extremely cheap electricity during the summer, they could still accumulate those reserves to earn money quickly in the summer and survive halving”, Fangyu added.

The truth is that, although the price of Bitcoin has already recovered from the fall it suffered in mid-March, due to the collapse in international markets caused to the coronavirus, it is not yet known if halving will help to raise the price of the main one. cryptocurrency or not.

For now, miners, mining farm owners, and mining machine vendors are gearing up for this important event that is less than two weeks away from happening.

By María Rodríguez

The main cryptocurrency recovered the price it had before the fall of traditional markets in mid–March.

According to CoinMarketCap metric data, the price of Bitcoin has reached levels before the market crash that the Covid-19 pandemic caused. The price that Bitcoin registered on April 26^th, which was close to about USD 7,641, is around the price it had before the market collapsed in mid-March.

On April 28^th the price of Bitcoin was USD 7,741.33, showing an increase of about USD 100 in only two days. If this price is maintained, in just over a month Bitcoin would have successfully survived the worst drop in the world market in several years. However, the Covid-19 pandemic is not yet over and the future is not yet certain.

The halving is just a few days away. This is an event that would help to increase the demand of bitcoins since the halving reduces from 12.5 to 6.25 the reward of new BTC in each block mined. This reduction could help increase the price of the main cryptocurrency. However, it could also happen that the price does not change very much.

Bitcoin has been promoted as an independent digital currency that does not follow traditional markets. But, last month, Bitcoin did exactly the opposite. On March 12^th, the main crypto asset followed the traditional markets and collapsed.

Thus, more than a month and a half ago, the price of Bitcoin fell from around USD 9,100 to USD 7,650. This is the lowest level the digital asset has reached since March 2019, when its price fell to USD 4,107.

The BTC Recovery

Bitcoin’s price started to rise after global markets and major economies began to emerge. In this way, and since then, the crypto market has been recovering.

Regarding having a possible economic collapse, investment and securities banking group Goldman Sachs said, last Monday, that “The Federal Reserve (FED) and Congress-ruled out the possibility of a complete economic collapse. Investors have been motivated by the ‘do everything that needs to be done’ approach from the FED”.

Besides, to stimulate the economy, the FED injected almost USD 5 trillion into the struggling money markets, since the financial entity has also lowered its interest rates to levels close to zero.

There was already a sustained recovery in the price of Bitcoin during the week of April 20^th. With this, the price of the main altcoins also recovered. The price of Bitcoin was stable Saturday and Sunday of that week.

Previous weeks, the price of the first cryptocurrency plummeted along with the closing of the stock market. Now, a few weeks before the halving, it is uncertain whether the price of BTC will remain or not, as well as it is not known what will happen globally or how the situation will progress with the Covid-19.

However, those who believe in and defend the crypto-asset as a haven or as a way to save money could argue that they saw this issue coming at all times.

Meanwhile, in countries like Argentina, Venezuela, and even the US, the purchase of bitcoins continues and even increased a little. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, recently explained on Twitter that, during the last week, there was a spontaneous growth in the purchase of BTC on this platform.

The increase was evident with deposits of up to USD 1,200, the amount corresponding to the subsidy that the US government has been providing for unemployed citizens to face preventive quarantine times. Buying cryptocurrencies would be how citizens seek to preserve their money. It is the way to give Bitcoin more adoption.

By María Rodríguez

The country is experiencing deflation and low prices due to the spread of the coronavirus. The massive injection of funds would cause uncontrolled inflation in 2021.

The economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the USA paint a dark picture for 2020 and possibly 2021. The Donald Trump government and financial institutions, such as the Federal Reserve (FED), have already announced measures to rescue the economy, which will have a contraction of around 6% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

One of these decisions is the all-time injection of liquidity from the FED, as a central bank, to finance hundreds of companies and millions of S citizens in times of economic paralysis and rising unemployment. The government has already distributed trillions of US dollars to temporarily alleviate the situation, with special payment conditions, while they reactivate the economy again.

Beyond the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the main focus of the global spread remains for analysis of how the US dollar will react amid all this turbulence that could last for several months, without even having a vaccine to counteract the disease.

The situation shows one stage of international deflationary shock or falling prices, and another that could occur next year with a scenario of uncontrolled inflation. Venezuelan market analyst and trader, Alberto Cárdenas, believes that the world’s main economies are not currently suffering from an inflationary problem, but quite the opposite.

Cárdenas does see inflation regarding financial products such as stocks or bonds, which he considers to have captured this enormous liquidity and not to have yet been translated into the real economy.

Although governments have tried to keep economies afloat, inflation is not there. The truth is that there is an unprecedented printing of money by central banks, but this is only the first stage. Once the demand issue is solved, there may be a quick turnaround into an inflationary environment and all this printed money will translate into a loss in the value of fiat currencies, especially in the USA.

For 2020, the analyst considers that the US dollar will have a bullish trend, compared to other national fiat currencies, since some emerging economies are still in need of liquidity. In other words, despite the printing of US dollars on an industrial scale, there would be a latent shortage.

According to the trader, in deflationary situations like the current one, the US dollar appreciates as people seek refuge in bonds, among other securities. However, all could take a 180-degree turn if the cycle begins to change, which includes commodities reaching the bottom, economies reopening and a balance of inventories. That would mark the beginning of the second stage, where the printing of money would “take its toll” on the US dollar.

The circumstances would lead to a bearish cycle for the US fiat currency, which includes possible uncontrolled inflation as a result of fiscal deficits and current distortions. In this situation, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies could exhibit better performance under an inflationary environment, according to Cárdenas.

By Alexander Salazar

The US government has been auditing Bitcoin user William Zietzke since 2017. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) USA is conducting the investigation.

If the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wins the legal battle that it has held with William Zietzke since 2017, the privacy of thousands of Bitcoin holders will be at risk.

William Zietzke is a systems engineer that mined Bitcoin as an experiment in 2011. His story shows evidence of the possible plans of the IRS for all cryptocurrency users in the future. It all started when Zietzke made a mistake in his income-tax return in 2017. He declared the gains in his cryptocurrency holdings in 2016 in his 2017 tax return.

After hiring an accountant in 2017, the user realized his mistake, as published on Reason.com. Faced with the situation, Zietzke amended his return, eliminating USD 104,482 in capital gains and causing a refund of USD 15,475. He said that he had never found himself in a situation like that before. He said that those that play “tax optimization games” understand exactly how to “dot each I and cross each T,” which he did not.

The aforementioned refund caught the IRS’s attention, which immediately led them to audit Zietzke, who had declared his income in Bitcoin since 2013. In this way, he was ahead in terms of cryptocurrency tax returns, since the IRS issued the guidelines on Bitcoin taxes in 2014. The audit process was complicated from the beginning, but Zietzke provided the entity with a large amount of information to satisfy its demands and quickly solve the problem.

Relentless Struggle for Privacy

The Bitcoin user-provided accounting data for his taxable Bitcoin transactions in 2016, screenshots of his activity on Purse.io and Coinbase, his activity log on Armony, and the software he used to manage some of his BTC. He also reported bank statements to confirm the cost base of the BTC that he purchased through Coinbase. However, Zietzke’s biggest mistake was to include the public addresses of his wallets in the information that he gave to the IRS.

Due to the transparency of the Bitcoin blockchain, the public addresses allow anyone to monitor a user’s movements. It is only a matter of knowing whose address to monitor.

A year later, Zietzke received a letter saying that he was unable to satisfy IRS requests. For that reason, they issued a citation to the Bitstamp and Coinbase platforms, and Zietzke himself to receive more than public addresses. They were demanding the identities, and wallet addresses, of those that conducted transactions with him through the exchanges.

He filed motions to void the summons to Bitstamp and Coinbase and has not yet complied with IRS demands. He said that he would be giving them complete access to his financial activity if he did that. However, the IRS insists that he can prove his innocence only by allowing them to examine the transactions of all the Bitcoin wallets that he had in that year.

If the IRS gets what it wants from Zietzke, thousands of Bitcoin users in the USA could eventually be in William Zietzke’s current position. It is worth noting that, last year, the US Congress demanded clearer rules on crypto assets from the IRS.

By Alexander Salazar