France Approves a Plan to Teach All About Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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France Approves a Plan to Teach All About Cryptocurrencies

The European country has already approved a set of educational plans, in order to train teachers to teach about cryptocurrencies.

According to official sources of the French government, the Ministry of National Education of the said country has shown itself in favor of crypto assets education. For this reason, the creation of an introductory course to cryptocurrencies that would help train all teachers in France on digital currencies has been approved. In this way, teachers should include in the regular study plan tools for students about this technology.

Since blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are taking a strong boom in global negotiations and their market continues to grow day by day, the French Ministry of Education sees it as imperative to educate the population about the application, uses and disadvantages of this technology. In this way, the French government has sought to create an educational tool that has a general nature and is aimed at the whole territory, helping to complement the knowledge about the global management of finances today.

As it is known about the educational material that is prepared by the Ministry of National Education of France, this guide will have an extension of about 8 pages of explanation regarding the processes that the cryptocurrency management needs, as well as exposing the main features of the Bitcoin protocol. In addition, it will serve to guide educators on how this new technology should be taught. The guide is mainly aimed at teachers of Social and Economic Sciences and will be in order to instruct teachers first rather than students.

About the way in which this guide was developed, it is known that it contains practical examples to improve the understanding of the nature of this technology. In this way, some examples explain monetary functions that are made using Bitcoin (BTC), so that the information is transmitted in that form to students and help; thus, to guarantee better retention of the information. The examples are comparable with monetary operations conducted in the traditional monetary system, so that students can associate the handling of cryptocurrencies with any other fiat currency, overcoming barriers of skepticism and expanding trust.

In addition to the development of this introductory course to cryptocurrencies, the Ministry of National Education is creating a whole educational plan that will be supported, even, by informative videos. Also, supporting different types of campaigns with resources, in order to educate the general population.

The study instrument will not only be oriented to the handling of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency but also, it will seek to be of instruction in general. Therefore, this guide will also explain how cryptocurrency management is in the banking system and how the monetary policy of nations works on these digital currencies.

About this aspect, the French Ministry of Education expressed its opinion on the management of cryptocurrencies in the central banking system. “Create enough money to support global demand, but also ensure the preservation of the purchasing power of the currency”.

This initiative elaborated by the French government puts in positive the effort of the country to improve the education and the understanding of these new financial technologies that although they have not achieved a great adoption, they are making their way in the world markets.

By María Rodríguez

China’s Blockchain Will Not Be Like Bitcoin

Willmen Blanco
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China’s Blockchain Will Not Be Like Bitcoin

The Chinese government seeks to create a cryptocurrency that gives it greater control over citizens. Bitcoin is a tool that bothers the Communist Party of China.

China is preparing to launch a blockchain supporting its national cryptocurrency, but it cannot be expected to resemble Bitcoin. Blockchain technologies “made in China” will be centralized, since its current political system does not allow otherwise.

The ideals of the cryptocurrency are not compatible with the centralized exercise of power. The forms of governance currently held by different states do not allow issuing currency with the same characteristics of Bitcoin.

The case of China is even more complex, since not only will the People’s Bank of China (a centralized institution) be responsible for issuing the new crypto asset, but this project is promoted by a deeply controlling government.

In the Hands of Power

In a democratic state, all people can participate in government decision-making, but indirectly. It is the representative, whether president, deputy or governor, who makes decisions based on society’s needs.

If the Central Bank of a country, such as the People’s Bank of China, issues a national cryptocurrency and it can only be expected to be centralized. Bitcoin solves the need for a higher institution to issue currency of value, generating a network of miners that confirm transactions and issue bitcoins.

If a currency is issued by a Central Bank, it is not its users’ but the government’s. Several months ago, the Communist Party of China stated that the new cryptocurrency has the ability to give Beijing more control over its financial system. The People’s Bank of China seeks to replace the cash in circulation with the new digital currency, which allows it to monitor person-to-person transactions.

More Control for the State

Xi Jinping is the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, president of the Central Military Commission and president of the Republic. In other words, a single man occupies the three highest positions of power in Chinese politics to avoid dissent and internal struggles.

Not surprisingly, public blockchains like Bitcoin or Monero are uncomfortable tools in the Asian giant. The principles of transparency, privacy and decentralization give cryptocurrency users the possibility to empower themselves. Individuals who can control their own information and who do not depend on the State are free citizens.

Government Does Not Bless Bitcoin

The reason why the Chinese government has battled Bitcoin for three years is that it cannot be controlled by the People’s Bank of China. The cryptocurrency causes discomfort in any country, but China’s strife to regulate and ban cryptocurrency trading is unprecedented.

In 2017, the Central Bank of China first announced the inspection of national cryptocurrency exchange houses. The move led to the cessation of operations of the three most important exchange platforms in China. In addition, that same year the authorities banned the making of Initial Currency Offers (ICO) throughout the territory.

Year 2018 was even worse for that market, since a new anti-cryptocurrency policy forced the closing of 88 exchange houses. The websites enabled for the sale of Bitcoin were also blocked nationwide and the events related to the ecosystem were totally prohibited. Despite the regulations, the Bitcoin trade did not cease in the region and today it is sustained thanks to the exchanges with Tether.

By Willmen Blanco

WiniWallet, New DeFi Wallet Developed in Argentina

Willmen Blanco
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WiniWallet, New DeFi Wallet Developed in Argentina

The wallet is non-custodial, with a simple interface and aimed at the Latin American public. DAI can be used to pay the cost of the Ethereum network transaction.

Amid the post-electoral uncertainty in Argentina, with a strong resonance of the exchange rate and the resolution of the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP), which imposes the duty of informing Argentine exchange houses, a team of developers offers an alternative path: the wallet for DAI, WiniWallet. Its creators believe that this wallet is “an option to protect its users’ capital from economic fluctuations.”

The developers of WiniWallet are from La Plata, Argentina. Both are licensed in Systems and are dedicated to developing solutions focused on blockchain. Whilst Joaquín González occupies the role of Smart Contract Lead, Federico Elgarte is responsible for planning the strategy and executing the development of both mobile applications (Android and iOS). With a pure entrepreneurial spirit, they have faced the project together since 2017, without more funding than their own, appealing to their ingenuity and the feedback of family and friends.

Technical Operation

The team was working several months on the application to reach the current version. The first productive version was launched in mid-April 2019 on Google Play. Before that, the wallet went through stages of MVP (minimum viable product) and betas closed among family, friends, and people of the crypto world. They observed usage behaviors, made improvements to the user interface and discovered new features to implement. Its main objective is to maintain simplicity so that it is an easy-to-use wallet for anyone who is not yet part of the crypto world.

Registration in WiniWallet is made via the e-mail address. It can be used for receiving funds, an option offered by the application (in addition to the traditional address and QR code) to those who are not familiar with alphanumeric identifiers, distinctive cryptographic addresses.

Sending cryptocurrencies from one person to another requires paying a delivery fee. In the case of the Ethereum network, the fee called GAS is what keeps the network operating. On platforms such as Coinomi and Trust Wallet, the user needs to have two currencies (Ether and DAI) for sending and receiving value.

The novelty offered by WiniWallet is the insertion of a low-level entity (relayer) that is responsible for loading the sender’s DAI with GAS. In this way, the user is allowed to pay that fee with the same currency (DAI) that he or she has.

MakerDao, as well as its community, provided technical support to the team. Mariano Di Pietrantonio helped them disseminate to new users the operation of DAI and the decentralized finance paradigm (DeFi).

Current Public and DeFi’s Future Prospects

Those responsible for the wallet highlight a strong adoption by the Venezuelan community since many are working in different Latin American countries. Users can exchange local money for DAI and then send them through the wallet to their relatives in Venezuela.

Latin America is a natural place for the adoption of everything that is being developed. In many of the most advanced or developed countries, there is no real need as there is in these latitudes. The wallet team ensures that in the coming years, many foreign companies will come to observe how the entire DeFi ecosystem develops in the region.

By Willmen Blanco

All about the Schnorr and Taproot Proposals

Josselyn Avila
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All about the Schnorr and Taproot Proposals

Schnorr signatures will incorporate improvements regarding network privacy. The information was shared with the community of developers in New York and San Francisco.

Developer John Newbery explains why Schnorr and Taproot are useful mechanisms that can be combined although both are still in development. The Bitcoin Core collaborator highlights the properties of Schnorr signatures, which will incorporate improvements regarding network privacy.

Scalability is another benefit that Newbery attributes to the Schnorr and Taproot proposal, which, due to its linearity properties, allows improvements in batch validation by blocks 2.5 times faster.

The engineer is pleased with the privacy offered by this new protocol since he considers it important to express a multi-signature configuration as a single key and signature, so that the expenditure policy is not leaked to the chain.

Newbery explains that it is possible to use data to configure a private key and a public key. He also highlights that the Schnorr and Taproot proposals have expenditure paths that remain hidden unless they are actually executed.

The Taproot proposal, first made in 2018 by Bitcoin Core collaborator and former Blockstream CTO, Gregory Maxwell, would expand on the flexibility of the Bitcoin smart contract on the network, allowing greater privacy.

Maxwell believes that Schnorr signatures are superior to the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), since they are 11% smaller. They are compatible with existing private keys and have the same level of security, but the verification algorithm is linear, which explains why it allows new functionalities.

Schnorr allows the aggregation of keys and signatures, for the possibility of using MuSig to aggregate and maintain an additionally aggregated key. It is also possible to define multiple cryptocurrency expenditure conditions, such as having a primary expenditure script and an alternative expenditure script.

Schnorr and MuSig Signatures

Schnorr signatures produce a smaller chain size, support faster validation and have a better privacy. They natively allow combining multiple signatures into one, through aggregation. They also allow complex expenditure policies.

MuSig is a multiple signature schemes, that is, a combination of a signature and verification algorithm in which multiple signers, with their respective private or public keys, jointly sign a single message, resulting in a combined signature. This can be verified by anyone who knows the message and the public keys of the signers, for which a reliable configuration is required.

Taproot

Developer James Chiang explains the advancements of Taproot as a component, such as allowing the user to have a predetermined expenditure path, that is, spend a public key. With Schnorr signatures, it is possible to have a single key and a single signature, or multiple signatures that cannot be distinguished in the chain. There is also the ability to use the same output through alternative expenditure paths, which are loaded with a bitcoin script called tapscript.

Taproot would allow almost any construction of Smart contracts to include a condition so that all participants would match a result. Participants can cooperate and sign a settlement transaction together, which would lead to space savings and an increase in the privacy of scripts.

In addition, Chiang shows how to create SegWit v1 transaction outputs and use them with the key expenditure route, considering that an innovation like Taproot is possible thanks to Segregated Witness (SegWit), which introduced the creation of script versions, an extension of the Bitcoin protocol that allows implementing new cryptographic signature algorithms in the Bitcoin network.

By Willmen Blanco

Latin American Cryptocurrency Startup Established in the United States

Willmen Blanco
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Latin American Cryptocurrency Startup Established in the United States

The initiative is among the most prominent emerging companies in Orlando, Florida. The venture, led mostly by Venezuelans, is licensed to operate in Estonia.

The Mercury Cash team, an initiative native to Venezuela has managed to consolidate in the USA an exchange and wallet platform for Bitcoin, Ether and Dash. The company facilitates the exchange of cryptocurrencies to fiat and is now seeking to settle in Europe.

This Latin American enterprise that promoted its bases in one of the most vulnerable territories of the continent, Venezuela, considers that emerging companies are playing a fundamental role in the task of helping the region’s private sector to be more innovative.

The team’s objective is to offer good services to meet the needs of the demanding Latin American market. They note that they demand themselves to respond to their more than 10,000 users, 90% from Latin America, who they provide with a cryptocurrency bridge to fiat.

The leading cryptocurrency startup team, given the difficulties faced in Venezuela, knows that the inhabitants of the region are challenging the rest of the planet. They are undergoing many problems, such as limitations on access to financing or the resolution of difficulties due to the need to aspire to global markets.

From Venezuela to Florida

Víctor Romero, from Venezuela, says that the exchange control established in that country forced him to go to the black market to acquire foreign exchange. At that time, he did not know the world of cryptocurrencies.

Romero adds that he had heard about Bitcoin, but the first time that he really paid attention to the subject was at an international event held in Panama in 2012. Two years later he decided to emigrate to Florida, in the USA, but one of his biggest concerns was how to send money to his relatives in Venezuela.

A short time later they decided to create their own platform with a wallet service whose priority was to offer Latin America facilities to exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat. They soon launched a round of financing to raise capital.

In that way, they got support from major Florida venture capital companies, such as Merging Traffic, which invested USD 500,000. A couple of months later, in another round of financing, they caught the attention of the former president of Disney World, who invested USD 300,000.

Then, they took steps that allowed them to move forward to consolidate in the ecosystem. Later they became members of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, just before officially launching the platform, which on its first day had about 200 users, mostly Latin Americans.

Prestige Award

Mercury Cash has a license issued by Estonia to operate in the world of cryptocurrencies, something that the ecosystem usually recognizes as an award of maximum prestige. This is due to the reputation that that country has earned as one of the safest places in the world to invest in crypto assets.

Estonia’s commercial legislation encourages investors to create companies, establishing simple registration procedures, along with a transparent tax system. With a promising market and a government that supports cryptocurrency initiatives, that country is of great attraction for companies seeking to conduct business, something that Víctor Romero confirms thanks to the experience of Mercury Cash.

By Willmen Blanco

Catalonia’s Blockchain Initiative Faces Limitations Imposed by the Spanish Government

Josselyn Avila
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Catalonia’s Blockchain Initiative Faces Limitations Imposed by the Spanish Government

The Spanish government declared “illegal” the digital ID project that the community of Catalonia had been developing

Recently, it was known that the Spanish government issued a decree that puts the public administration on alert about different security matters. That decree is directly related to digital information.

According to local press, this measure makes “illegal” the initiative that the community of Catalonia is developing. That region is working on a blockchain platform which seeks to create a digital identification of its citizens. It is known that, to date, the initiative is in an advanced level of development.

Although the decree of law, which deals with these issues of security and digital identification and that has been approved by the Spanish government, has not been officially published, it will be decreed in gazette.

Since November 5th, this law will be enforced, so citizens still unsure about the breadth of the decision. But, according to a publication posted by the headquarters of the Presidency of the Spanish government, on its official website, it is expected that the creation of a digital identification card for Spanish citizens would take place. Something also described as “exclusive”.

In the publication about this law, it is read that “this document is unique with sufficient value itself for the accreditation, for all purposes, of identity and personal data of its owner”. In addition to this, the decree shows the direct prohibition of using servers outside Spain to conduct procedures within the territory. Therefore, administrative operations of public nature cannot be conducted outside Spain.

Carmen Calvo, who is Vice President of the government, said that the decree responds to the adoption of a series of preventive measures that the Spanish government has been developing. No particular case was detailed, but it was clarified that this law was designed and created to prevent the “Digital Republic” project that was created by the community of Catalonia two years ago.

Contrary to this, last June, the main authorities of Catalonia approved an initiative that launches the “blockchain strategy of Catalonia”, which has among its first actions the creation of a digital ID (National Identity Document) based on the idea of ​​self-sovereignty that the Catalans have been fighting. The concept arises from the characteristics that come with the immutable and permanent blockchain transactions.

The central idea of ​​the implementation of a digital ID will be to facilitate for the authorities of Catalonia the management of citizen administration; thus, allowing the personalized implementation of the citizen action and the processes of management of public services.

Despite this, the Spanish government believes that the implementation of this technology in citizen identification can be used more as a tool for political purposes.

In this way, the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, during an interview, that the independentists have taken advantage of the technology and have advanced on the “Digital Republic” project to a greater extent; hence, this way the law will force the public administration to use the European Union servers, and not in “digital paradises”.

Sanchez concluded the interview by ensuring that “there will be no independence either offline or online”, he said.

By María Rodríguez

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