Manager of the Central Bank of Colombia Has not Approved the Use of Bitcoin

Maria Rodríguez
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Manager of the Central Bank of Colombia Has not Approved the Use of Bitcoin

The country’s top financial institution and its general manager consider cryptocurrencies as illegal.

A few weeks ago, it was announced that Juan José Echavarría, who is the manager of the Central Bank of Colombia, would have launched a platform called ‘Bitcoin Time’, which is dedicated to the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the Latin American country. In this way, authorities of the highest financial institution decided to issue a statement in which it is denied that Echavarría made such a launch. The document explains that he is involved in that project.

In the message, that was reaffirmed through the official Twitter account, the Central Bank commented that the news published by local media is false, although it did not mention the media in which the news was disseminated, it neither linked to the note the tweet that explained the launch.

Contrary to what was allegedly published by the web, the Central Bank decided to share a press article entitled “Cryptoactive”, in which it explained the differences between cryptocurrencies and conventional money. It also questioned their security in the conventional financial markets. The article comments that cryptocurrencies “lack the attributes of legal tender and are not likely to be considered as money”.

About the link that the institution shared, the forcefulness of its affirmation is demonstrated, thus inviting to fill the article. “@BancoRepublica informs that false news related to an endorsement of our general manager to a bitcoin platform circulates on the web. If you want to know the analysis of the Bank of the Republic on virtual currencies and their risks, see”.

A Media Called “Bitcoin time”

When the news emerged after the publication of the clarification of the Bank of the Republic, some local media investigated the alleged launch of the digital website “Bitcoin Time”. In this way, they found that the news of the alleged association of the general manager of the Central Bank was published by the Faint Green Glow web medium, in addition to that this platform dedicated to cryptocurrencies was officially launched in the CFO Forum event held in Bogotá during this year.

It is important to comment that it was sought to certify the existence of this platform on the web using the most important search engines on the Internet, which did not yield any specific information about the existence of a website in charge publish content related to cryptocurrencies.

Publicly, the highest Financial Institution of the country considers cryptocurrencies as not recognized by the current laws of the country, also commenting that “they are not recognized obligations”. Besides, Echavarría sentences Bitcoin as an illegal financial system.

Contrary to the strong position that Echavarría has with cryptocurrencies, it does consider that these assets should be included in the consideration of the Colombian state, so it suggests that the government should include them in the payment and collection of tax, something that has a double position and is not entirely clarified by the authorities.

About this, Echavarría’s comments are recalled when journalists asked about his opinion on cryptocurrencies last February. “They have to pay taxes because they have higher incomes”, said the general manager, pointing to people who own bitcoin.

This does not imply, according to his recent statements, acceptance of these assets or their inclusion in the Colombian financial system, but it means that these people must declare all good value they receive.

Recently, the bank published an article written by its analysts about digital assets. This analysis is based on everything that is currently known about this technology.

Besides, the institution said that it has been away from the original purpose that cryptocurrencies had since they have a very low level of distribution, compared to what they had during their conception, at the beginning.

By María Rodríguez

Church in Switzerland Announced it Will Receive Donations in Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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Church in Switzerland Announced it Will Receive Donations in Cryptocurrencies

The church specified that they will only accept up to 4 different cryptocurrencies, such as digital coins to receive donations from their congregation.

Recently, it emerged the news that an evangelical church in Switzerland would accept donations in cryptocurrencies. According to the local press, the church determined that the Bitcoin cryptocurrency (BTC) could be received by the organization to continue with the expansion of the site and finance its activities.

This is one of many congregations in the world that have modified their collection methods to expand their charitable plans.

Currently, most organizations and institutions that receive cryptocurrencies as donation funds are being used, mostly, for the help and control of Human Rights, protection and care for women victims of violence and discrimination, as well as the preservation of the environment and ecosystems. Now, the number of religious organizations that are opting for digital currencies for their charitable purposes and religious activities is growing.

In this way, the evangelical church located in Switzerland, the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) Zurich, is one of the largest ones in the European country and also will be the first one in its territory to use these modern collection methods.

The church, ICF Zurich, is a large evangelical and picturesque congregation that has decided to use new technologies in its accounting system. In this way, it took the initiative to use Bitcoin (BTC) as the ideal cryptocurrency for its use. Representatives of the religious organization invite all their parishioners, who use these technologies, to make their donations to the church through these methods.

The expansion of options is a substantial improvement for church members, especially the younger ones, who are more familiarized with digital currencies. The news that the church is accepting cryptocurrencies caught the attention of local media and managed to interview Nicolas Ledger, who is a spokesman of ICF.

Ledger said he was impressed with the advance and said that it is possible the technology of the future. “Digital currencies and Blockchain technology will change our daily lives more and more in the coming years”, he commented.

It was known that the church is modernizing its services so that its visitors can have the facility to donate as they prefer. According to the information offered by some of the parishioners, this technology is attracting the attention of people and especially the youngest, who are adopting these new financial trends. In this way, using cryptocurrencies can only benefit those who are helped by the works conducted by the church in the community.

In addition to this, Ledger also commented that not only Bitcoin will be available to donate in its collection system. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Ripple will be other options that church visitors will have to donate if they want to use cryptocurrencies.

“Cryptocurrencies will be implemented, whether it is Bitcoin or other currencies controlled by the State. We are convinced that this technology will soon belong to our daily lives (…) twenty years ago, nobody would have believed that the Internet will determine our lives so much”.

By María Rodríguez

Modern Space Age and Cryptocurrencies

Willmen Blanco
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Modern Space Age and Cryptocurrencies

A prematurely leaked Google research article claims quantum supremacy, including the results of a test in which its 54-qubits processor performed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken 10,000 years, thus starting this century’s version of the space race.

With the launch of Amazon’s own quantum computing service Braket, which allows developers to run simulations on a “cloud” of D-Wave, IonQ and Rigetti quantum computers, 2020 could even be a bigger year for the impending perspective of this technology.

The growing demands of business computing and cloud computing almost require the need for quantum computing to evolve into a new market, even if initial use cases are limited and apply almost exclusively to governments, research institutions and the cloud.

Both these large companies and the whole world are responsible for the creation of new quantum safety networks that can take advantage of the quantum entanglement to generate demonstrable random numbers and next-generation hash algorithms that will provide a secure cryptography for this new computing era.

Quantum Computing and Cryptocurrencies

It is estimated that the first implementation of quantum computers could appear in just 10 years. Whether quantum computing is integrated within 10, 50 or 200 years, Pandora’s Box has already been opened. Big names such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM will use important resources in order to win the battle to colonize the next frontier of computer science.

The implementation of quantum computing can affect practically all aspects of people’s lives related to digitalization, but the biggest implications may be for the cryptocurrency industry. Currently, the pseudo-random generation of keys by cryptocurrencies continues making them susceptible to be exploited by hackers, and quantum computing will only increase the likelihood of predicting the values ​​generated by the software.

Satoshi Nakamoto could not explain a world in which quantum computing could realistically be applied to compromise the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm before cryptocurrency mining ends. The main imperfection of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that they were built during the end of an era for a certain type of cryptography, where obsolescence is not an option.

Considering that the last Bitcoin will be extracted in the year 2140, there is enough time for quantum computing to reach the popularity and scale required to compromise and crash Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with a 51-percent attack. With quantum computing running in seconds, which would take the fastest supercomputers millennia to process, easily taking possession of 50% of Bitcoin’s mining hashrate would be one of the many tools available to a potential attacker.

In addition, with the well-known Satoshi addresses, it would not take long for a quantum attacker to compromise their private keys and take even Satoshi’s own coins.

Preserving Indecipherable Code of Cryptocurrencies

The whole industry has to recognize the problem, especially as large-scale companies continue advancing along the path of quantum technology development without predicting all the possible consequences of that exploration.

The industry needs to construct quantum security with the same energy, or even more than with the development of quantum technology. This would include quantum safety networks focused on photon sources for the generation of genuine random numbers and next-generation hash algorithms.

By Willmen Blanco

Brazilian Marriages Can Now Be Registered in IBM Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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Brazilian Marriages Can Now Be Registered in IBM Blockchain

For the first time, a Brazilian couple registered their marriage in a blockchain. The certificate was validated by notaries before executing the digital signature.

A couple got married in Brazil and registered their stable union through the IBM blockchain. The act was conducted by the local company Growth Tech, a startup that offers digital records using the aforementioned platform, through its Notary Ledgers network.

The Brazilian division of IBM reported last Monday, December 16th, through a blog post that the marriage between Guilherme Mesquita, doctor of the Air Force, and Diego Vale, public defender, was celebrated on November 11th in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

The note highlights that, as part of the legal process for the certificate, it was validated by two notaries before it was digitally signed. Likewise, the text indicates that the document certifying the union is available on the digital platform after about 20 minutes of its registration.

The Notary Ledgers network is composed of several registry offices in the South American country, which adds legal validity to the certifications issued by the organization. Among the services offered by this company, death, purchase and sale, and real estate records are the most prominent. In addition, they offer birth records.

During the marriage process, Growth Tech created a digital identity for the couple. For Guilherme Mesquita, one of the members of the couple, the digital registry is “a mechanism that increases the reliability of the process.” According to Mesquita, this trust is particularly provided by the possibility of verifying the authenticity of the certificate online.

This is considered to be a great step towards optimizing bureaucratic processes. Probably, in the future, we will be able to do everything from home, without schedules and without physical structures.

For Hugo Pierre, CEO and founder of Growth Tech, this registration is a sign of the security, feasibility and trust that the use of a blockchain provides for this type of process. In the same way, Pierre considered that Brazilian bodies and organizations should join forces for a large-scale adoption of such mechanisms that are aimed at simplifying processes.

Other Marriages in Blockchains

Local Brazilian media reported that it is the first stable union registered through a blockchain in the South American country. However, it is not the first case in the world. In fact, it is not the first same-sex marriage registered in a blockchain, but the preceding one was not legal.

In the middle of 2018, the launch of a platform that focused precisely on facilitating the registration of same-sex marriages using a blockchain was announced.

The “Unlocked Marriage” initiative was launched by the Swedish sportswear company Björn, with the intention of facilitating the union of same-sex couples living in places where gay marriage is not legalized. In other words, the platform would allow the symbolic registration of these unions.

The event that was previously registered in Brazil was that of the registration of a baby’s birth, also through the services of Growth Tech and its Notary Ledgers platform.

By Willmen Blanco

Payments Will Be Tested by Spanish Banks with Private Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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Payments Will Be Tested by Spanish Banks with Private Blockchain

The initiative aims to facilitate transfers and schedule automatic payments. The proof of concept that began in October will last six months.

The Spanish banks Santander, Bankia, BBVA and CaixaBank announced on December 13th that they started the first sector proof of concept (PoC) to deploy an interbank platform of “smart payments,” whose objective is to enable the execution of payments through a private blockchain network.

The project includes the participation of the laboratory Grant Thornton Blockchain, which acts as a technology advisor and is coordinated by Iberpay. The latter is the Spanish company that manages the national payment system (SNCE), specialized in the exchange, compensation and settlement of operations between financial institutions.

A publication on the Iberpay website includes a graphic illustrating that the initiative aims to facilitate immediate transfers from smart contracts to execute and schedule payments automatically, offering improvements in security and traceability, as well as compliance with current regulations in this area.

The PoC began last October and is expected to last six months. It includes a pilot based on a case of fictitious business deployed in the network, which has already been implemented and has six nodes distributed and managed by each participating institution.

Proofs of Concept (PoCs) are often summarized or incomplete implementations that are applied to adapt and improve ideas so that they have a greater potential for market acceptance.

With the use of “smart payments,” the financial world could incorporate through banks other value-added services in each transaction, such as letters of credit, shipping insurance, credit protection, export insurance and logistics.

All these services are obviously available today, but they can be difficult to obtain and manage individually. In the future, banks may have the ability to automatically obtain the appropriate services and insert them into the payment transaction. This could not only make the payment faster but also make the entire transaction more efficient.

It should be remembered that banks have traditionally offered their services internally. With this type of blockchain payments, banks will have to reposition themselves as a platform or ecosystem containing all the different types of services that their customers might need. For this reason, they will need to partner with other providers, particularly emerging FinTech players.

Currently, there are some obstacles to achieving payments registered in a private blockchain, for example, using tokens or cryptocurrencies. The first is regulatory although places where commercial payments are highly regulated, such as Europe, have seen a more consistent momentum towards digitalization. Another obstacle is cybersecurity, which is another major threat in the payment industry, but digitalization offers the opportunity to introduce new tools and technologies to effectively combat these threats.

Evolving Banks

Solutions based on blockchain records have the power to revolutionize the financial and banking industry. Therefore, they could contribute to improving the scalability of payment transactions.

For some time, some financial institutions have been showing signs that they are exploring the possibilities offered by the blockchain ecosystem. They see in it the ability to allow operations in a reliable and irreversible way without the need to use an intermediary.

BBVA has expressed great interest in developing projects related to the use of networks with records in a blockchain. In fact, on its website it constantly publishes educational notes related to the ecosystem. For its part, Santander finalizes the launch of an international transfer platform. At the same time it invests and frequently announces advances related to its experimentation in the development of blockchain-based solutions. Bankia also created a laboratory in its startup accelerator, while CaixaBank participates with Telefónica in Germany in a project related to developments focused on the use of blockchains.

By Willmen Blanco

National Platform Activated in Slovenia to Perform Tests with Blockchains

Willmen Blanco
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National Platform Activated in Slovenia to Perform Tests with Blockchains

The European nation launched the SI-Chain project to evaluate applications in the public and private sectors. Local authorities see this technology as a bridge for economic development and efficiency.

It was reported that Slovenia is encouraging the use of cryptocurrencies and the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain, to promote its economic development. This initiative gained momentum after the European nation announced the launch and activation of the SI-Chain platform, a national network to perform tests with blockchains.

The government of Slovenia explained that the infrastructure will be used to test existing applications that use blockchains and others under development. This will be done both for the public and private sectors, which opens the doors to national companies that wish to try this type of solutions in the country.

It was stated that that the results of these projects will help the Government to create regulatory solutions for specific sectors of the industry, using blockchain. Additionally, the definition of smart contract will be introduced and there will be the possibility of regulating digital entities and regulatory sandboxes for different fields of the industry and the public sector.

It was explained that SI-Chain is a project that was implemented jointly by local startups Hashnet and Telemach. It aims to integrate DLT solutions with the business models of companies or state agencies.

The launch of this platform is accompanied by the creation of the Slovenian Blockchain Association. This is an organization that will bring together all the startups that are related to projects that use DLT.

Bitcoin-Friendly State

It should be noted that approach to cryptoeconomics of Slovenia is nothing new. This is considered to be one of the friendliest nations regarding Bitcoin on a global scale, which is committed to cryptocurrencies and the technology that gives them life to develop as a nation.

The announcement by the government of Slovenia is made almost two months after China revealed, through its president Xi Jinping, that the country should take the lead in the development of blockchains. The Head of State indicated on that occasion that China already has a solid base to develop blockchain technologies.

A prominent difference between the policies of both nations is that, in the case of Slovenia, its authorities have given cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin a boost, while the Asian nation has restricted their use under what would be an unannounced premise of “Blockchain not Bitcoin.”

The acceptance of the main cryptocurrency in Slovenia is reflected in the fact that this country became the first to build a public monument in tribute to Bitcoin and decentralization. The work of art, which was inaugurated in March last year, is located in the city of Kranj in a roundabout that connects Oldhamska and Gregorčičeva streets.

Slovenia is even developing the Bitcoin City project, an ambitious plan that aims to establish a city with business areas, commercial zones, parking lots, hotels, recreational areas, cryptocurrency ATMs, and a center for the development of blockchain-based solutions.

By Willmen Blanco

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