Argentina Could Adopt Cryptocurrencies to Improve Its Economy

Maria Rodríguez
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Argentina Could Adopt Cryptocurrencies to Improve Its Economy

According to expert economists, allowing the use of cryptocurrencies could attack the economic crisis that Argentina is going through

According to a recent press report, it was announced last Friday, March 29th, that a meeting was held between the General Manager of Huobi, a company dedicated to crypto exchanges, together with important Argentine government officials, during a visit to China, to discuss important economic affairs.

According to the report, the meeting was dealt with valuable purposes to study the possibility of the definitive adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Felix Martin Soto, Vice Minister of Finance of Argentina, who also attended the meeting, said it was planned to address issues related to blockchain technology as a mechanism to promote financial inclusion of citizens in this sector and reduce government costs.

By going deeper into this point, Soto said that a large part of the citizens does not have any bank accounts, and they do not conduct most of their commercial transactions with the local currency because they invest their money in saving in foreign currency, increasing the demand for American dollars. For this reason, he assured that presenting citizens with another investment option could relieve the high request of USD, as well as boost the industrial sector and offer a safe option as a payment method.

In recent years, Argentina has faced a persistent economic crisis that has led a large part of Argentines to lose their jobs, decrease their quality of life and lose significant savings. This is due, according to experts, to what the Argentine businessman, Marcelo Diamand, explained almost 50 years ago, about the imbalance of the industrial structure of the country.

He explained that consuming more USD than the one produced by the commercial sector generates a monetary vacuum. What is summarized is that the deficit increases inflation and, thus, raises production costs, causing price increases, falling value of the currency, among other factors.

Soto said he was confident that the eventual adoption of the crypto market in the country will boost the local market balance and attract an important commercial sector which seeks to break through in the conventional industry using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies as an investment fund. Some expert economists see it as a possible positive measure to attack inflation and decrease the demand for US dollars.

Regarding the growth of the Huobi Company, Soto mentioned that its platform could position the Argentine industry to large foreign investors, and would introduce the country to the map of digital assets.

“We would like to learn how to participate in Huobi’s cryptocurrency and blockchain industry (…) Through tokenization on the Huobi platform, for example, Argentina’s abundant agricultural, mineral and energy resources could be well financed by global investors”, he explained.

This is not the only step that the Argentine government has suggested to blockchain technology. A few weeks ago, Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina, held a meeting with crypto entrepreneur Tim Draper. The businessman suggested the latest legalization of Bitcoin (BTC) to said head of state, as a measure that, according to him, would attack high inflation rates; it would stop the devaluation of the Argentine peso and prevent the migration of qualified labor.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Vietnam will have its first authorized exchange house

Maria Rodríguez
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Vietnam will have its first authorized exchange house

In past months, the government of the Asian country was opposed to transactions with cryptocurrencies, due to some scams that affected to almost two thousand people

Two Vietnamese companies recently signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of a platform that will allow the country to have its first legal exchange house, according to recent reports showing that, in this way, Vietnam begins to open the doors to the world of cryptoactives.

The most important distribution company in the Asian country, the Linh Thanh Group, will develop the commercial platform together with the blockchain firm, located in Switzerland, KRONN Ventures AG, which gave the information in a press release, published on March 24th.

The exchange house will be now fully authorized. This happens because these companies obtained the respective license needed to operate the exchange house.

According to the document, the Linh Thanh Group believes that working with KRONN Ventures will allow creating a world-class cryptocurrency exchange, as the latter is widely known as a leader in blockchain technology in Switzerland.

The expectation of the industry is that by combining the mass distribution network of Linh Thanh Group, which is the largest in Vietnam, with the world-class technology of KRONN Ventures, the impact will be felt widely not only in Vietnam but also in other surrounding Asian countries, says the public statement. In this way, it is evident that the intention is also to generate a positive impact, and even a possible exchange, with nearby countries.

One Step Closer

Historically, Vietnam had been hostile with the cryptocurrency industry. An example of this is that a few months ago, the regulator of securities of Vietnam warned the companies and funds of the country to avoid all kinds of activities or transactions related to cryptocurrencies. The importation of mining rigs was also prohibited.

At the end of 2017, the Government of Vietnam reaffirmed its position against cryptoactives and the use of these in their territory. The Government set this decision through specific laws that regulate the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment in that Asian country. In fact, on October 30th of that year, a 2012 decree on non-monetary payments was updated. In the update, cryptographic assets were qualified as illegal. They were not accepted as a form of payment throughout the country.

The issuance, supply or use of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency as a virtual payment measure was prohibited. The reasons of the Vietnamese Government, at that time, were an attempt to avoid scams, as it was the case of a Ponzi scheme that worked under the name Bank Bitcoin Community and affected to almost 2,000 people.

A few months later, the Government announced that it would evaluate the legality situation of the crypto-active agents and approved a plan to review the laws in this regard.

Last year, the Vietnamese government dominated the country’s oldest Bitcoin exchange, which was accused of providing e-commerce services without registering them legally.

However, the creation of this new exchange, which has already received the respective permits according to the authorities of Vietnam, shows the interest of the private sector to take advantage of the new industry, despite the obstacles that were imposed in the past. The road just starts.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Tor Expands its Options and will now Receive Donations in Nine Cryptocurrencies

Andres Chavez
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Tor Expands its Options and will now Receive Donations in Nine Cryptocurrencies

With each passing day, cryptocurrencies take another step towards global adoption. Little by little, these digital assets are cementing their place as viable and sustainable payment methods for several industries and businesses around the world. Even nonprofit organizations and projects are accepting crypto as donations.

Such is the case of the Tor Project, which is a browsing tool that looks for full anonymity by a system of nodes and relays. According to its website, the entity will accept donations in the form of cryptocurrencies in a direct way. There will be nine different digital assets in which people will be able to make their contributions to the project.

Diversifying the Donations Process

Users can find the list of accepted cryptocurrencies in the TOR website. The options have been public since March 18th, 2019, and provide the project with a more versatile approach at the moment of receiving donations to fund development activities and other expenses.

Sarah Stevenson, the project’s fundraising Director, explained to a prominent crypto news site that Tor has been accepting Bitcoin for quite some time now (a few years, actually.) However, as new options consolidate themselves in the market, Tor has decided to add them. And whilst in the past, donations were processed via BitPay, they will now be sent directly to Tor.

Using the Kraken Exchange to Convert Funds

That way, Tor will receive the funds in the form of cryptocurrencies and convert them via the Kraken exchange, according to Stevenson. The executive also explained that people contributing to Tor asked for direct wallet addresses and for more options to donate.

“We decided to accept cryptocurrency because more and more donors requested that option. The Tor Project and the cryptocurrency communities both value privacy, so it makes sense,” she observed. The new payment methods for donations will be Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Stellar Lumens, Zcash and the Augur project’s REP tokens, besides Bitcoin.

Tor is not a company that has a huge staff; hence, its objectives were actually quite specific at the moment of taking the decision to add the mentioned options. Stephenson said that “we focused on two things: the return on investment of time and effort and the coins donors had specifically requested. We are currently limiting the number of separate wallets we need to monitor and manage and also only accepting currencies that can be converted to fiat via Kraken.”

The TOR Browser Explained

Tor’s modus operandi is actually right in line with the concept of cryptocurrencies: digital anonymity. The resource encrypts traffic so the users’ traffic is kept private and away from third-parties and external agents looking to take advantage of it.

Tor is best defined as a decentralized network that users can install via software. Once enabled, it will let the user access the “dark web,” which has pages and services that are not commonly found on the usual search engines. The tool performs its encryption through a set of nodes, or relays, which will take some time to reach the final destination, but will provide anonymity because the communication is set through a random, virtually untraceable path.

Browsing in the TOR network will enhance the user’s privacy and anonymity, but traffic will be considerably slower than using an unencrypted network because of the process that it takes for the connection request to reach the final “node” or destination. Tor means “The Onion Router.”

By Andres Chavez

Tim Draper is in Favor of Legalizing Bitcoin to Improve Argentina’s Economy

Andres Chavez
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Tim Draper is in Favor of Legalizing Bitcoin to Improve Argentina’s Economy

Bitcoin is, without a question, the world’s most prominent digital asset. Global awareness scratched its ceiling in 2018, when the cryptocurrency reached almost $19,000 in price. That number came down and is now hovering around $4,000, but currently, nearly everybody is familiarized with Bitcoin and its potential effects in the world economy.

Speaking of Bitcoin’s impact in the society, the famous crypto bull Tim Draper recently stated, in an interview with a prominent specialized news site, that the digital asset held the potential of significantly improving a country’s economy. That nation is Argentina, and to achieve more financial stability, authorities need to legalize BTC, according to the investor and entrepreneur.

The flamboyant Venture Capital investor met with Mauricio Macri, who is the current President of Argentina, recently in order to discuss the financial and economic situation and future prospects of the South American country. Bitcoin, naturally, was apparently a hot theme.

The Collapsing Argentine Peso

Argentina is enduring a quick process of devaluation of its national currency, the Argentine peso (ARS.) Each dollar was worth 20 ARS around this time last year, whereas right now the USD is worth 41,9 pesos. The situation is being closely monitored by the Argentine community, as it tends to abruptly change for the worse day in and day out.

According to Draper, “we were speaking of Bitcoin and the devaluation of the peso, and I proposed a bet: if the peso would be valued more than Bitcoin, I would double my investment that I was making for the country. But if Bitcoin gained a higher rate than the peso, they would have to declare it as a national currency. That would be a perfect decision, as there’s a lack of confidence in this coin.”

After the meeting took place, the venture capital specialist explained in the interview that he thinks that Bitcoin and the blockchain technology are more “revolutionary” than the Internet itself, which is saying a lot. Bitcoin adoption would, according to Draper, substantially help Argentina, since it will bring evolution when it comes to commerce, financial systems, and banking platforms.

Reiterating Bitcoin Hopes

Draper took advantage of the opportunity and reiterated his positive stance towards Bitcoin, saying that he still believes the world’s premier crypto asset will trade around $250,000 in a period of 3-4 years from now, accounting for nearly 5% of the global share of markets as a whole.

The remaining obstacle that prevents Bitcoin from being a truly global mean of payment and commercialization, at least according to Draper, is its lack of use as a widespread national currency, like the pesos or dollars. When people start using it like the mentioned currencies, people will pick BTC “because it is decentralized and open, frictionless and global.”

Draper is famous around the industry for his extreme pro-crypto stance. In fact, he made the news in February when he stated that he believed fiat money will be used only by criminals in five years from now.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, is struggling to break the $4,000 barrier for good for the first time since the dreaded collapse of mid-November. On November 15th, 2018, BTC started a slide that took the price from more than $6,000 to barely over $3,000 in a span of a few weeks. Since then, it has temporarily reached $4,000, only to lose some points again.

However, at the moment of writing this piece, BTC was been traded at $4,005.54, down 0.36 percent in the last 24 hours but finally over the “hump.” It remains to be seen if the gains can be maintained.

Argentina has shown a pro-crypto and blockchain stance. For example, the government co-invested in blockchain projects made by Binance Labs and LatamEx, a local cryptocurrency exchange, in early March. Also, last month the country completed an export deal with Paraguay in BTC.

By Andres Chavez

Huawei Creates Cloud Service Using Blockchain Technology

Maria Rodríguez
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Huawei Creates Cloud Service Using Blockchain Technology

The cloud system called Huawei Cloud seeks to improve technology services in Chinese companies

Announced last Wednesday, March 19th, during a conference given within the framework of Cloud Summit 2019, Huawei, the important technological company dedicated to the development of electronic solutions and production, mentioned that it is giving the final details for the inclusion of a platform web, based on blockchain technology, which can support a large amount of storage.

As detailed by the company’s information, this advance will be the basis for providing a cloud service to companies in Hong Kong that are interested in using the main features of decentralized platforms.

The multinational company took the opportunity to be present during the summit of Cloud Summit in China, where more than 1,000 people gathered, including important representatives of technology companies, business partners, customers and academics interested in the Hong Kong industry.

During the announcement it was confirmed that the platform called Huawei Cloud will be able to offer a new technological service based on blockchain solutions, with which the company plans to offer its clients support in traceability, decentralization and irreversibility for the value data.

In this way it will be possible to support, provide sustainability and development to the companies that make life in Hong Kong, which is why it seeks to project the sustained growth of the industries that make life in the most commercial city of China.

However, although the company announced that the service is already available; little is known about how the company will provide this service. But it is believed that the specific service of blockchain will be intended only for corporate clients and that this could be designed in the form of a privatized and personalized accounting book.

During their presentation at the aforementioned summit, representatives of the company commented that their blockchain technology can be adapted to the current industrial and technological sector, including the entire financial sector, data apps and functional IoTs.

In another sense, the President of Huawei Cloud Global Market, Edward Deng, reported that all the services that the company has in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Business Intelligence sectors of the Huawei Cloud platform will be active for the entire sector that wishes to become clients in the next days, before the beginning of April.

The Huawei Cloud platform will offer around 48 Business Intelligence services to companies. This will also include an ModelArt platform IA, natural language processing, video analysis, optical character recognition, among many others developments.

It is not new that the multinational Huawei is involved with blockchain technology. Recently, in December of last year, the institute dependent on the Huawei Company, European Telecommunications Standars Institute, began to study and investigate blockchain technology.

The study was conducted in order to verify its functionalities and seek to generate alternative use for the development of future technologies that can be oriented in telecommunications, as well as in the potential application to industries. In addition, it is also expected to deepen industrial standards using decentralized technology, information models, interfaces and protocols.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

A Bot Will Allow Sending Tips in Ether and ERC-20 Tokens to Social Network Users

Maria Rodríguez
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A Bot Will Allow Sending Tips in Ether and ERC-20 Tokens to Social Network Users

The new tool can now be used to receive payments through Twitter, Reddit, and Slack users

The main representatives of the SendCrypto bot application announced, last Monday, March 18th, that they can send and receive a digital tip now. This is possible through the launching of the beta version of their Telegram application, which may be compatible with social networks such as Twitter, Reddit, and Slack.

One of the objectives that the powerful tool of SendCrypto is developing for its growth is to expand the access of this application to other social networks. The idea is to make the community bigger. The compatibility is recently active for users who publish content with the aim of generating income.

SendCrypto is a bot which is responsible for making payments and transfers through a system of sending “person to person” (P2P), without requiring any type of intermediaries for transactions. Developed by Myke Ryan, SendCrypto uses the Request Network technology platform.

The new tool that SendCrypto has installed to the bot with its new beta version will make possible now that any user of Twitter, Reddit, Slack, and Telegram can send and receive ethers and ERC-20 tokens, which will arrive directly at the addresses of these users. These shipments can be collected instantaneously by omitting the use of centralized platforms to remove or deposit cryptoactives.

According to the official statement about the launching of the new tool, 11 different types of cryptocurrencies will be accepted to send and receive tips through social networks. This is in order to multiply the variety and traffic of assets. The tokens enabled for this platform are ERC-20 of the technological platform of DAI, Omisego, Binance and Kyber Network.

The official data SendCrypto announced about the project and its new beta version, to integrate the use of this tool in social networks, explains that in order to perform the operation, users who want to make the donation, tip or simply must pay to receive a content, enter a specific series of commands on Slack or Telegram, or mention SendCrypto on Twitter or Reddit, specifying the amount they want to give the user.

Recently, these applications have become very popular around the world. They allow users to make this type of payment for social networks and it is directed to those who are dedicated to creating content as a source of income.

These exchanges have become popular for their simple ways of using applications and for the immediacy of transactions. Most of these micro-payment applications make movements or are compatible with most of the cryptocurrencies of the market, and they also encourage having assets in digital platforms, either for use as a private commercial tool or for savings in cryptoactives.

Another application that performs this type of commercial transactions with cryptocurrencies is Tippin.me, a purse created by the Lightning Network (LN) platform in order to allow users of some social networks to receive payments from their followers. According to a recent study, this platform managed to have more than 14 thousand registered users in the world.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

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