The HRF Gives Developers Grants in Bitcoin for their Work on a Lightning-Related Project

Alexander Salazar
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The HRF Gives Developers Grants in Bitcoin for their Work on a Lightning-Related Project

The HRF opened a donation round of 5 BTC, adding just over USD 1.2 million in grants for over 30 developers worldwide. Paulo Sacramento will receive 0.25 BTC for his work on the Bitcoin Design Guide to allow more access to non-custodial apps.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) donated 0.5 BTC to Venezuelan Francisco Calderón, who designed a bot to trade Bitcoin without any custody.

The non-profit organization confirmed that Calderón would receive 0.5 BTC (50 million sats) to continue working on lnp2pbot. The bot will allow exchanging Bitcoin through the Lightning Network (LN) in a peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction.

Alex Gladstein, the CSO of the HRF, praised the work of Calderón with the bot through his Twitter account. He also mentioned that the computer program enables users to exchange fiat money.

The HRF opened a donation round of 5 BTC, allocated through the Bitcoin Development Fund to various individuals and institutions. In that way, the organization adds just over USD 1.2 million in grants for more than 30 developers and promoters/educators worldwide.

The grant holder, Francisco Calderón, commented that it is positive to receive support for Bitcoin-related projects from the HRF. He said that they recognize the cryptocurrency as a tool that protects the human rights of millions of people living in undeveloped countries.

Calderón urges other Bitcoin developers to put into practice any ideas they have in mind. He believes that this will encourage learning and will probably impact the lives of citizens.

Who Else Will Receive Grants from the HRF

The HRF said it would give African Bitcoin developers and educators 1 BTC (100 million sats) so that they can advance their projects. They also pointed out that they plan to hold events and talks with Companies from Africa.

Researcher René Pickhardt will also receive 0.5 BTC for his work on another Lightning-related project. The HRF considers that this programmer has contributed to the network through education, vulnerability identification, and research.

Brazilian developer Paulo Sacramento will receive 0.25 BTC (25 million sats) to boost his work on the Bitcoin Design Guide. That project will allow users to have more access to non-custodial apps.

The HRF explained that this programmer would update the guide and create a course on how to bring user experience to those apps.

Developers Rubén Somsen and Dhruv Mehta will receive a grant of 0.5 BTC (50 million sat) for pioneering Bitcoin space chains. Gladstein thinks that this will help create dollar assets and improve the privacy of BTC users worldwide.

The HRF Gives Grants to other Latin Americans

Calderón is just one of the Latin Americans who received grants from companies and institutions enthusiastic about Bitcoin. For example, Brink gave Brazilian programmer Bruno Garcia a donation in the cryptocurrency.

Garcia said that he would continue to operate from Brazil, where he fell in love with the concept of Bitcoin. He added that he would provide advice to those students interested in the new economy.

He has commented that grants are essential for the Bitcoin ecosystem since they prove the recognition of the work done by many developers. By the way, García was among the hundreds of programmers who produced the latest update of the Bitcoin code.

By Alexander Salazar

Get to know the Current Landscape of Cryptoactives in Colombia from a Regulatory Perspective

Audy Castañeda
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Get to know the Current Landscape of Cryptoactives in Colombia from a Regulatory Perspective

They explain that as long as there is no express and binding prohibition of its use, acquisition, or possession, operations with cryptocurrencies are legal and valid.

María Paula Rodríguez Ortegón, Senior Lawyer of the RC&M SAS group in Colombia, shared with Cointelegraph en Español a summary of the current panorama of crypto assets in Colombia, a country that according to her, like many other Latin American states, do not have regulations that clearly and explicitly enables the use of crypto assets within its legal system. Hence, they use the current legal framework and legal figures of the Civil Code and the Commercial Code, which are far from the nature and multidimensional scope of cryptocurrencies.

Within the Colombian national framework, as explained by Rodríguez, the Arenera or sandbox of the Financial Superintendence of Colombia (SFC) is already in force in terms of crypto assets, based on formalized alliances between entities supervised by this authority and exchanges. This year they expect the approval of the law that precisely determines not only the nature of cryptocurrencies, but also the scope of their transaction and disposition, as well as the requirements to be providers of virtual asset services or exchange platforms and other possible qualities within an environment of acquisition and use of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies Regulations in Colombia Explained

“Based on various statements by the different authorities of the national order through concepts and circulars, which are formal and primary sources of law in Colombia, they have full regulatory effects. They granted cryptocurrencies the nature of a fungible object of transaction, and regulated this scope based on the definition enshrined in article 663 of the Colombian Civil Code”, commented Rodríguez.

“The Bank of the Republic of Colombia (BanRep) and the Financial Superintendence of Colombia (SFC), argued that despite this quality, they cannot recognize cryptocurrencies as a legal tender means of payment, nor are they part of the exchange rate regime in the country. This makes it impossible to hold liberatory power that extinguishes obligations, as occurs with the Colombian peso. Likewise, because they do not hold the status as currencies, we cannot use them for payment or defrayment of operations covered by the exchange regime, nor can market intermediation companies operate with them. The latter entity recognizing that cryptocurrencies, their operations, and actors involved in the execution of any type of activity carried out directly or indirectly with the same, is not subject to their inspection, surveillance, and control,” she added.

Rodríguez mentioned that cryptocurrencies would not constitute money or an instrument of value, and because of this premise, they do not meet the possibility of extinguishing obligations, therefore, we cannot use them in the financial or securities market. However, this is not an obstacle to concluding that any operation, activity, or possession of crypto assets represents an illicit or prohibited action. On the contrary, it is viable from its condition of fungible good, to be the object of typical operations such as the sale, mutual, and cession in payment, regulated by the general Colombian civil and commercial regulations.

Superintendency of Companies

Rodriguez has also pointed out that, according to the Superintendency of Companies, it is feasible to make contributions in kind of crypto assets to commercial companies. In addition, since 2020 there is the obligation to apply the system of self-control and comprehensive risk management of ML/TF/FPADM, related to operations and services with virtual assets, recognizing its use within the Colombian legal system.

Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF for its acronym in Spanish)

Regarding the Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF), Rodríquez says that this entity regulated this matter in a timely manner from an external circular. According to this, the report of operations not only covers those classified as suspicious, but also all general operations deployed and active, inactive, or unlinked clients of the platform, if they are framed within the amounts also indicated by this entity.

By Audy Castaneda

Former BitMEX CEO Explains How Bitcoin Will Hit $1 Million by 2030

Audy Castañeda
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Former BitMEX CEO Explains How Bitcoin Will Hit $1 Million by 2030

The European Union is “done”, says Arthur Hayes, while controlling the yield curve will put the US in a “fatal loop”.

Bitcoin (BTC) will cost $1 million by 2030, one of the industry’s best-known experts insists, as countries around the world shun the euro and US dollar.

In his latest blog, published on April 27, Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto derivatives giant BitMEX, reiterated his prediction of sky-high prices for Bitcoin and gold.

In light of the sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, a giant pivot in economic and geopolitical policy is looming, Hayes said.

As the United States and the European Union struggle to reduce dependence on Russian energy and food, the long-term repercussions will surely hurt them, sending Bitcoin to the moon.

Bitcoin, Gold, Commodities… but not Fiat

The situation is complex. Inflation, already at a 40-year high before the Ukraine conflict, is being exacerbated by Western sanctions, while Russia reels from the West freezing hundreds of billions of dollars of its assets abroad.

China, meanwhile, is monitoring the situation with a view to protecting itself from a copycat movement targeting its assets.

Since the late 1990s, a virtuous cycle has seen China sell cheap goods to the West in exchange for its fiat currency, which importers receive in exchange for government debt. This keeps interest rates low, and Chinese goods become even cheaper as a result.

Disrupted supply chains, inflation and now the risk of asset forfeiture are changing the status quo. Instead of changing its production model, however, Hayes believes China will have to find a way to reduce its exposure to worst-case scenarios.

“It is impossible for China to sell trillions of dollars and euros in assets without destroying the global financial system. That hurts both the West and China alike and greatly,” he wrote.

“So the path of least destruction for those assets is to stop reinvesting maturing bonds in the Western financial system. To the extent that China or its proxy state-owned banks can lighten Western stocks and real estate without hurting the market, they will,” he added.

Hayes identified “storable commodities, gold, and Bitcoin” as potential outlets for Beijing. While such a situation would be at the extreme ends of the spectrum, there should nonetheless be a non-zero chance of China reversing its stance on issues like Bitcoin mining.

“The Fatal Loop” Will Cause a $1 Million Bitcoin and $20,000 Gold

More surprising, however, is the publication’s perspective on the future of Western democracies and, in particular, the European Union.

Unable to be self-sufficient, Hayes argues, excluding Russia will fuel an unstoppable fire that will result in the disintegration of the European project.

Exporters like Germany will not be able to compete with China, while rampant inflation will create internal anger within the EU between North and South.

“The ECB is trapped, the EU is finished, and within a decade we will be trading lira, drachma, and German marks again,” his prediction reads.

The million dollars for each Bitcoin will also come because of the “fatal loop” in Western financial policy, especially the yield curve control (YCC), as a tool to avoid bankruptcy.

Gold – still the darling of the store of value narrative – will have reached $20,000 per ounce by the end of the decade.

In closing, Hayes added that, “the fatal loop will lead to $1 million per Bitcoin and $10,000 – $20,000 per ounce of gold by the end of the decade. We must agitate for interested flags to save some of their current account surplus in Bitcoin so that economies farm-to-fork farms sprout around the world. Once again, unlike gold, Bitcoin must move, otherwise, the network will collapse.”

By Audy Castaneda

Bank of Spain Highlighted that Digital Assets moved about 60,000 million euros in Spain in 2021

Jenson Nunez
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Bank of Spain Highlighted that Digital Assets moved about 60,000 million euros in Spain in 2021

The Bank of Spain’s spring 2022 financial report has a special on digital assets. He assures that the equivalent of 1,275 euros per inhabitant invested in crypto in Spain.

Interest in investing in digital assets in Spain has been increasing recently, especially during the pandemic. A report led by the Bank of Spain, the country’s central bank, confirms this news.

In the special on digital assets of the Spring 2022 Financial Stability Report, the institution highlights a vast number of crypto adopters. Around 60,000 million euros is the volume of operations made with this type of asset in 2021 only in Spain.

Likewise, the figure relies on 4.8% of the nation’s GDP and 2.7% of all financial assets that saw a movement in 2021 in Spain. The report also added that this investment is not different from other nations in the European Continent. Spain is the fifth European region with the most crypto investment, after the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The bank also highlights that the amount of investment in Bitcoin and crypto is not significant enough. The stock market moved a volume six times higher. But the curious thing is that while crypto investment keeps reaching high peaks, the sale of shares in Spain crumbled down by almost 12% last year.

More Data

Likewise, the bank refers to the Finder Crypto Asset Adoption Index, which conducts a periodic survey in 27 countries, and calculates that 12% of adults in Spain have invested in crypto. This figure was revealed and showed that these investors were taking significant risks.

The current report presented that 12% of adults in Spain currently own crypto assets, 13% in the case of men and 10% in that for women. At the same time, ownership would be higher for the youngest, the age group between 18 and 24 years, which has the most increased adoption percentage.

On the other hand, the Bank of Spain confirmed that the percentage of these operations aimed at illegal behavior is quite low, with only 1% in Spain between July 2020 and June 2021.

The entity warns that it may be due to how these figures get measured, as Chainalysis only detects complaints that have reached the authorities and been made public.

Europe Over North America

Also, according to the report, Europe would overtake North America in global trading. While Europe accounts for 25% of all international trading, North America accounts for 18%.

This subsequent rise leads the Bank of Spain to require official statistics on the subject to improve. The constant evolution of the use and acquisition of digital assets in the European nation and the related risks they may carry send red flags to entities for considering and monitoring the situation from a financial stability perspective.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Investment of Risk Capitals in Cryptocurrencies for the First Quarter of 2022 Exceed that of 2021

Audy Castañeda
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Investment of Risk Capitals in Cryptocurrencies for the First Quarter of 2022 Exceed that of 2021

All transactions, trends, movements, and investments in the first quarter of 2022 in the Blockchain landscape presented by Cointelegraph Research.

The first quarter of 2022 saw unprecedented growth in terms of venture capital (VC) activity across different Blockchain sectors. In 2021, venture capital firms invested more than $30 billion in infrastructure, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), and Web3. That set the bar very high if 2022 were to top it. In the first quarter of 2022, venture capital inflows exceeded $14.6 billion, or about 48% of all venture capital investments last year.

In the first three months, more than 500 individual deals were closed in the five main sectors mentioned in 2022. Cointelegraph Research studied and analyzed its database of deals, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), investors, and cryptocurrency companies to compile a report of 12 pages on the main activities of VC in the crypto sphere.

Leaving 2021 behind

Anyone interested in cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and the future of this industry should pay close attention to the content of this report. By studying what VCs are doing and learning about the players that are investing in projects and what platforms people are investing in, they can help stay on top of things and make informed decisions.

It takes more than great technology to get people to use a product. History has great products that simply did not have the right mix of marketing, management, or capital to successfully bring a product to market.

Venture capital companies try to solve these problems by investing more than just the capital needed to get a project off the ground; they also provide a network of contacts who can bring solutions to the right mix of marketing and strategic management.

Record in Number and Value of Operations

The first quarter of 2022 saw an unprecedented amount of capital inflows in the Blockchain industry. Since the start of 2021, each quarter has continually increased the total capital invested in this space, culminating in the first quarter of 2022 ushering in more than $14.6 billion in venture capital investment. The median US dollar value of each deal has also increased and now stands at around $32.3 million over the past three months.

The number of individual deals is also on the rise, has broken the previous record, and reached over 500 in the first quarter of 2022. The rise is likely to continue the upward trend as the space is attracting new funding from Bain Capital and Sequoia Capital, venture capital firms that have been in traditional markets for a long time. The industry has also seen consolidation through acquisitions by long-standing cryptocurrency players such as OpenSea, Coinbase, Fireblocks, FTX, and Blockchain.com. In all cases, these strategic purchases broaden the scope of each company’s core business offering.

Active Seed Rounds, but Expansion Rounds Generate Greater Capital Interest

The pre-seed and seed rounds had the most venture capital activity with 288 individual deals worth more than $2.1 billion. Watching these rounds unfold is promising for the entire industry, as each startup brings new applications for Blockchain and new competition for previously formed organizations.

The expansion rounds did not see as much activity, but registered more than 2.5 times the capital inflows, with almost USD 5.8 billion. These rounds help encapsulate the overall growth potential and scope of current Blockchain projects, which most venture capital firms are willing to put money into, as they are less risky than earlier stage investments such as the series A rounds.

Blockchain Needs the Right People

One issue that is intensifying with all this capital investment is the need for people and talent in the Blockchain space. As more companies have plans to expand, create new products and diversify their organizations, employees with the right skills are getting harder to find. Cointelegraph Research recently interviewed Keychain Ventures and Dragonfly Capital. In that conversation, they discussed many topics, including the human capital bottleneck, which will only get increasingly tense as people invest more in the sector.

By Audy Castaneda

Purpose Bitcoin ETF Adds Over 1,100 BTC As Data Suggests Investors Want To “Buy the Dip”

Audy Castañeda
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Purpose Bitcoin ETF Adds Over 1,100 BTC As Data Suggests Investors Want To “Buy the Dip”

The world’s largest Bitcoin spot ETF is buying Bitcoin again after spending four weeks reducing its holdings.

Purpose Bitcoin ETF is an exchange-traded fund incorporated in Canada. The Fund invests in and holds substantially all of its assets in long-term holdings of Bitcoin in order to provide Unitholders with a secure, convenient, lower-cost alternative to a direct investment in Bitcoin.

The world’s first Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) is buying coins again after a month of sales.

Data from on-chain monitoring resource Coinglass confirms that on April 27, Canada’s Purpose Bitcoin ETF added 1,132 BTC to its holdings.

Despite fears that Bitcoin has yet to finish its correction, a 180-degree turn in Purpose points to a surge in institutional demand.

It is worth remembering that data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, trading at $39,200 on Bitstamp up to 2.5%.

There were fresh woes on Tuesday as trading began on Wall Street, with Bitcoin following the stock downhill once again to hit $37,700 twice.

Although that area was already on the radar as a cash-hoarding opportunity, some were far from convinced the sale was over.

Nerves between crypto and traditional traders were evident and reflected in the drop in market sentiment.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index hit its lowest level since April 12, which at 21/100 showed “extreme fear” driving the market.

Facts: Interest in Buying the Fall Soars

Starting on March 28, when the BTC/USD pair traded above $48,000, Purpose began reducing its exposure, which at the time stood at 36,321 BTC. The rise in holdings on Wednesday is thus the first since March 25.

At the time of writing, Purpose held 31,162.7 BTC, while the BTC/USD pair was trading at $39,000.

This move coincides with figures from statistics firm Santiment, which show that interest in “buying the dip” for both Bitcoin and altcoins is also on the rise.

Measuring what it calls “crowd interest,” Santiment posted the biggest uptick in “buy the dip” and “buy the dip” trends in six weeks.

“Social interest in buying the dip has skyrocketed after the latest crypto pullback,” comments accompanying Twitter summarize. “The SP500 correlation is not working in favor of the cryptocurrency sector, and mass fear will play a major role in the two markets breaking away from each other.”

Search Interest Declines

Other sources recording social interactions with the crypto sphere are less enthusiastic.

Google search data shows that global search interest in the word “Bitcoin,” for example, is at its lowest point since October 2020.

However, in what could be a sign of a bottoming phase for crypto markets, a bounce now could set the stage for the bullish launch that characterized the second half of Q4 that year.

As Cointelegraph reported, short-term sentiment fears the worst this week, with “extreme fear” compounding with voices calling for a return to $30,000.

By Audy Castaneda

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