New Jersey Lawmaker Wants to Create a Crypto License

Maria Rodríguez
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New Jersey Lawmaker Wants to Create a Crypto License

The bill establishes when a person could apply for a license to operate with cryptocurrencies and when the person could not work with these crypto assets.

A congresswoman in New Jersey introduced the so-called Digital Asset and Blockchain Technology Act last Friday 21st. Yvonne Lopez proposed to license any entity looking to provide digital asset trading, storage, purchase, sales, exchange, borrowing/lending or issuance services.

Now, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance would be responsible for reviewing this license and regulating businesses.

The bill proposes that individuals cannot conduct any business activity around digital assets unless they either have a reciprocal license in another state. Companies conducting business will also be required to make certain disclosures to customers.

According to the official information, the main objective of this bill is to protect the users. “We must take steps to protect consumers looking to invest in cryptocurrency, while also allowing the sector to continue developing and expanding the cryptocurrency world in New Jersey”, Lopez explained in a statement.

In this sense, the congresswoman said that it was important to “establish fair and reasonable requirements” for these businesses. However, welcoming emerging industries will “keep our economy innovative and competitive”, López said.

Part of the proposal implies that people who cannot obtain the license or do not have a pending license application in progress will receive a fine of $ 500 per day, beginning when the regulator “issues a failure notice” and extending until the person submit his requests.

But to avoid misunderstandings in the interpretation of future laws in the United States of America, it was established that the term “digital asset” is related to virtual currencies, digital securities, and other types of assets, including any other type of currency that has a transaction history registered in “a distributed, digital ledger or digital data structure in which consensus is achieved through a mathematically verifiable process”, according to what the bill explains.

New Jersey does not have any comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation into law until now, but Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill last August 2019, approving the creation of a Blockchain Initiative Task Force to study potential new use cases for blockchain technology in the country.

This bill specifically points out medical records, land records, banking, and property auctions as potential applications of blockchain technology in the country.

The interest in blockchain technology has increased in the state over the past two years, particularly due to cybersecurity threats. Now, authorities propose new ways to regulate digital assets to avoid money laundering or other types of crimes. The intention is to protect the users too.

The Digital Asset and Blockchain Technology Act is published on the Internet that features when a person should not be involved in the commercial activity of digital assets. It also states the requirements necessary to apply for a license to operate with digital assets.

Now, New Jersey authorities should give their opinions about this proposal and decide if they will apply it, modify something or not.

By María Rodríguez

After Steemit Was Bought, Steem Forked to Limit Justin Sun’s Power

Josselyn Avila
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After Steemit Was Bought, Steem Forked to Limit Justin Sun’s Power

A fork was recently activated that prevented large STEEM holders from voting. Steemit is a decentralized blogging platform built on the Steem blockchain.

Last February 23rd, the people in charge of operating the Steem blockchain conducted a reversible soft fork to prevent major token holders from voting. This decision was made after Justin Sun, from the Tron Foundation, acquired Steemit, the most prominent application of the blockchain.

Steem is a delegated-participation-of-stake (DPoS) blockchain, very similar to EOS, which means that coordinating a small group of people that make decisions can counteract a new and important shareholder. The community took action as Steem owns a considerable number of tokens, which could be used to control the blockchain, even though the pool has never voted before. It is believed that Sun, a shrewd seller and controversial figure within the industry, now owns that large number of tokens.

It should be noted that, when the soft fork was conducted, the network’s validators, called witnesses, blocked the amount of STEEM maintained by a limited set of accounts. In this way, they prevented the voting on those that would govern the network and would participate in other ways to take advantage of the control.                                                                        

Those funds are said to correspond to some type of founder’s, or pre-mined, reward in most similar blockchains. Sources reported that secret participation could potentially represent about 20% of the current supply, which would apparently make it a block of decisive votes.

Steemit’s shares have always been a source of tension between Steem and Steemit. However, while co-founder Ned Scott was running Steemit, the community felt relatively comfortable about not intervening in the governance. The secret participation was aimed at helping the network grow, but this new owner now makes the group less secure.

Of course, this movement provoked a response from Justin Sun, who said last February 23rd that they a lot to work to do so that Steemit.com can “become the power that it really can be.” Sun listed plans to incorporate various Tron’s cryptocurrencies, take STEEM tokens to more exchanges, and introduce influencers onto the Steemit blogging site.

How Steemit and Steem Work

Steemit, a blogging site that works somehow like a mix between Reddit and Medium, is the best-known application of the Steem blockchain.

Steemit depends on Steem to track its users, as well as to assess its influence on the network. The content that is suitable to Steemit receives a small portion of the new issuance of the blockchain token.

The current supply of STEEM at the time of writing this article is 373,442,235, according to the block explorer Steem.com. It is worth saying that Steem has three different tokens: Steem, which is the main one; Steem Power, which is created when users decide to block Steems; and Steem Dollar, which is a stablecoin.

What makes Steem challenging is the fact that it is impossible to determine how many Steem Power tokens there are in the world. Even though this measure is slowly decreasing, it may eventually increase quite quickly.

A long-time member of the Steem community, James Reidy, said that there are 210 million Steem Power tokens, which could potentially govern the blockchain. There could be as many as 340 million if all Steem tokens were compromised by vote.

By Willmen Blanco

Pharmaceutical Manufacturers urges FDA to Use Blockchain in Drug Tracking

Maria Rodríguez
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Pharmaceutical Manufacturers urges FDA to Use Blockchain in Drug Tracking

Blockchain could prevent health crisis by finding, in a faster way, drugs suspected of causing public health problems.

Almost 25 leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, logistics partners and other representatives of the pharmaceutical world published a report to request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use blockchain technology to track prescription drugs for patients in the United States.

These representatives of the pharmaceutical sector proposed after completing a pilot program related to the use of this technology in the world of medicine.

Last June 2019, FDA approved the MediLedger Project, which includes a working group of 25 major companies that work within the pharmaceutical supply chain and seek to evaluate the MediLedger network based on blockchain as a vehicle to track medications prescribed in the US.

Among MediLedger members interested in blockchain technology is the multinational pharmaceutical giant Pfizer; the drug wholesaler AmerisourceBerg; the operator of the second-largest pharmacy chain in the United States, Walgreens; the retail multinational Walmart, and the services company FedEx delivery.

Many Benefits

The intention is that the US pharmaceutical supply is not left behind in the international competition. For this reason, the group proposes that the United States has a “central point of data exchange” that allows sharing information related to available medicines quickly, and in a fast and safe way.

Another advantage that is sought in blockchain technology is that it prevents business intelligence or sharing confidential information without authorization. In this way, the group seeks to maintain the immutability of the information, thanks to blockchain technology.

Blockchain Could Avoid Health Crisis

According to the group, at an international level, companies try to maintain the data they share precisely with an increasingly wide variety of partners, systems, and technical formats.

The document warns that in the event of a major public health crisis caused by a drug, “it will be difficult for stakeholders and agents to locate and quarantine the suspect product in a timely manner. Due to this, the life of patients could be at risk. It added that “the advances that blockchain technology can bring to avoid these significant risks could be used”.

However, despite all the advantages that blockchain technology could offer to the pharmaceutical industry, the report also notes that Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is “a complex solution” that would require a period of stabilization to achieve the expected results.

The report also advances that the long-term success of an interoperable blockchain solution will depend on “strong participation and the adoption of blockchain technology by all industry stakeholders”.

David Vershure, who is Vice president of channel and contract management at Genentech, says that the current infrastructure of the pharmaceutical sector in the United States “lacks the ability to keep data synchronized throughout the healthcare supply chain, which ultimately increases the risk of counterfeit, deviant or illegitimate products”.

Thus, blockchain technology now has the opportunity to do something more for the health sector and show all the benefits it could offer.

By María Rodríguez

Comparison between Volatility of Oil and Bitcoin Prices

Alexander Salazar
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Comparison between Volatility of Oil and Bitcoin Prices

Many people consider that Bitcoin is the most volatile asset in the market. However, it has been observed that the volatility of oil prices can be even higher.

According to some market analyses, it can be seen that some people prefer some markets to others to invest. However, traditional market investors tend to believe that Bitcoin is just a synonym for extreme price volatility. Although this is not completely false, it must be admitted that some traditional products, such as oil, are also very volatile.

To this respect, it is relevant to underline how the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil reached all-time volatility in one month. Precisely, it stood at 105.3% on February 10th, having reached a four-month high of 119.6% in late January.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s all-time volatility recently fell to 42.3%, the lowest level since last September, according to data from Skew Markets.

Oil vs. Bitcoin All-Time Volatility

The all-time volatility indicator measures how much the prices of an asset have varied in the past. This is calculated from the standard deviation of daily price movements during the previous month, usually for 30 days. It should be noted that it is expressed in annual terms.

However, it does not measure the direction and only indicates how the price is deviating from its average. Thus, with oil currently reporting higher all-time volatility than Bitcoin, it seems safe to say that “black gold” has recently been more volatile than Bitcoin.

The volatility of WTI oil prices sharply increased from 38.7% on January 6th to a high of 119.6% on January 27th. Bitcoin’s volatility has steadily declined from 66% to 42% in the four weeks until mid-February.

Sometimes, Bitcoin is less volatile than oil, which contradicts many people’s arguments for not investing in cryptocurrencies.

The peak in oil price volatility was largely due to two important news reports. The first was the great price movement following the increase in the tensions between the USA and Iran.

However, the fear of a total war quickly faded with the news that there had been no US casualties, which caused oil prices to drop to USD 60 the same day.

Second, uncertainties continued in the following weeks, especially due to fears caused by the coronavirus, which had an important effect on the sentiment of the market. WTI oil recorded lows of USD 49.50 before regaining its balance.

Comparative View

While WTI oil witnessed wild changes in both directions, the Bitcoin market was relatively quiet with a strong directional bias.

Bitcoin recorded an almost straight rally from USD 6,850 to USD 10,500 for six weeks until February 13th. Therefore, it is not surprising that the all-time volatility of the leading cryptocurrency is lower than that of oil.

It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that oil has been more volatile than Bitcoin. Between mid-September and mid-October 2019 the all-time volatility of WTI oil soared from 60.9% to 133%. Before that, however, Bitcoin was consistently more volatile than oil.

In the future, the volatility of Bitcoin prices may increase as cryptowhales, or addresses with balances between 1,000 BTC and 10,000 BTC, resume their cryptocurrency accumulation. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether Bitcoin would continue having lower volatility than oil, especially on the eve of the halving.

By Alexander Salazar

UFC Fighters like Conor McGregor Will Become Collectibles on a Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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UFC Fighters like Conor McGregor Will Become Collectibles on a Blockchain

Tokenized cards are now launched to conquer mixed martial arts. The creators of CryptoKitties reappear on the scene with a new collectible card game.

The Canadian company Dapper Labs, which created the Ethereum blockchain-based CryptoKitties game, announced its alliance with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the largest mixed martial arts company in the world, for the launch of digital collectible cards. Therefore, Conor McGregor, the Irish star of the octagon, is about to make a leap into the digital world in the form of a non-fungible token.

The UFC announced to its passionate fans on its official website that they will soon be able to purchase, exchange or collect digital cards in Flow, the new public blockchain that Dapper Labs launched last September with the idea of ​​solving the scalability problems present in the Ethereum blockchain.

According to Forbes, Flow can process large volumes of transactions and will thus be the support for the development of other projects of the company, such as digital assets that will be created jointly with the Warner Music blockchain team, to address the world of music.

It is worth noting that Flow makes it easy for any developer to create blockchain applications, games, and digital assets to enhance them. By working with the UFC, the blockchain shows what can be done when a base of committed fans are given real participation in the game that they love and in the communities of which they are part.

The use of the new Flow blockchain to demonstrate the authenticity of a single digital object, such as the digital card signed by Conor McGregor and other UFC fighters, allows those objects to accumulate real value.

Powerful Collectible Cards

Drapper Labs became known in the industry after their flagship product CryptoKitties exploded on the Ethereum scene in 2017 to quickly become the most widely used decentralized application.

Two years ago, in 2018, the Canadian-based company announced that it had raised USD 15 million in a new round of financing, which would be used to solve usability and infrastructure problems, as well as to expand its operations to the United States.

The use of CryptoKitties has decreased dramatically since its glory days of 2017 when a total of around 13,600 users were playing per day. It is believed that that situation was influenced by the bad experience undergone by users, who had to wait a while until transactions were finally solved. To combat these problems, the Flow network emerged as a solution that, according to the company, will be able to reach high transaction speed.

According to the technical specifications of the network, to reach a high level of speed, each node in the Flow blockchain is driven by a consensus algorithm derived from VMware HotStuff, a member of Blockchain 50, the same algorithm used by Facebook in its early work on the cryptocurrency Libra. It is clarified that, instead of each node performing each task before reaching a consensus in the network, four different types of nodes will be used.

By Willmen Blanco

Adoption of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies Can Be Boosted through Memes

Josselyn Avila
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Adoption of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies Can Be Boosted through Memes

Memes can provide basic information on a subject and facilitate its understanding. In the crypto world, it is possible to choose between using spontaneous memes and advertising strategies.

Undoubtedly, memes constitute a cultural phenomenon of modern times, since they are relatively simple to make and represent a way of expressing emotions, ideas, and opinions. Even public relations agencies and image strategists for personalities worldwide have faltered, for failing to discover how to curb the communicative power of social networks.

The power of memes can be evidenced in the fact that they are created from nothing and spread through the raw power of mass replication. A meme belongs to all those that share it and help to make it viral, that is, it is a collaborative and anonymous cultural product.

Memes and cryptocurrencies have been associated practically from the beginning, of which there are plenty of examples. One of the most widespread memes today is a video in which the Hulk fights a bear. This shows how Bitcoin has been fighting a real battle against the bearish markets that usually weaken it.

The cryptocurrency community used memes to express their laughter when Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff admitted having forgotten his wallet password, days after stating that his wallet had an error and that he could not access his funds.

The particular relevance of memes can be seen in Bitcoin groups, repositories and other spaces, in which the cryptocurrency community shares their comments and opinions. Regarding whether they can help drive mass adoption, Linda Xie, co-founder of the crypto asset investment management company, Scalar Capital, thinks that they can and wrote an essay defending this theory.

According to Xie, memes can help people identify with each other, create strong bonds as members of a community and, in turn, feel attached to a symbol. She recognizes that not all memes work well for all groups and thus raises the need to create more generic memes that involve citizens from different environments.

The professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Liane Gabora, indicates in her document “A day in the life of a meme” that creations not corresponding to a particular context will not spread. In other words, memes only work in the groups for which they were created as they are related to their subjects of interest.

This raises the idea that a Bitcoin community makes its memes, which have virtually no place in other communities. In the cryptocurrency groups, satirical memes related to other communities and the crypto assets that identify them are also constantly shared.

Professors Gideon Mazambani, Maria Anne Carlson, Stephen Reysen and Christian F. Hempelmann discovered that memes that were consistent with the central theme of the group were shared more widely than inconsistent memes. They also discovered that memes can provide basic information on a subject, which will help understand it better whilst promoting positive social interaction.

The application of these discoveries will allow determining that memes can effectively contribute to adoption if each community works accordingly to attract new users. The analysts note that memes contribute to the adoption of new ideas within a certain group, as long as they agree with the members of that nucleus.

By Alexander Salazar

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