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Shanghai Man: Economist says El Salvador ‘on road to death’, salaries paid in e-CNY …

Our Man in Shanghai has refused to let recent regulations slow down the news coming from China. Enterprise blockchain, central bank digital currencies and start up projects continue to make a positive impact in a region hoping to grow economic value through technology.

Death march for El Salvador

The debate around El Salvador continued this week as media and officials tried to digest the adoption of Bitcoin as a national currency. JPMorgan stated that there was little economic benefit, and John Hopkins University professor Steve Hanke warned that the move could “completely collapse the economy” of the small nation. The former Bank of China deputy governor Wang Yongli took a very hardline approach, by stating that volatility and a lack of regulation or controls would put the economy on a “road to death.” This quote, appearing in state run media The Paper June 9, was an unusually direct and colorful statement on the issue.

Crypto innovation can be productive

Zhou Xiaoquan, a former governor of the People’s Bank of China, had a few positive things to say about cryptocurrency as a technology on June 11. He spoke at an economic summit in Shanghai and noted the cryptocurrency innovation in China can be productive when it serves the real economy. He also took some shots at other countries, stating that people would be mistaken if they thought other countries were taking the same approach towards building financial services. Zhou, who is one of the most often-quoted economists in the country, felt there was little emphasis on the relationship between financial services and economic value elsewhere in the world. Based on the wild displays at the Miami Bitcoin conference a few weeks ago, his position might be more sound than others would care to admit.

Paid in e-CNY

China’s e-CNY tests continued with the first reported mass payment of salaries in Xiong’an, a district near the capital Beijing. According to Cointelegraph, the pilot received support from a number of national banks and saw subcontractors paying workers their salaries from a digital wallet.

Industrial blockchain worth $22.6B

On June 3, a government organization issued a report entitled the China Industrial Blockchain Development Status and Trend Report. According to the report, in 2020, 222 industrial blockchain policies were issued, 12,059 new blockchain-related patent applications were approved, and 776 new blockchain enterprises were established. The report also claimed that the current market size of the industrial blockchain sector was around $22.6 billion U.S. dollars. Industrial blockchain is an area that China is eager to grab control in, leading to this explosive growth in recent years.

Only 5X the fun

Leading exchange Huobi surprised futures traders by limiting them to only 5x leverage on perpetual swaps and blocking new users from accessing the feature altogether. Futures trading, particularly highly-leveraged futures trading, had always been popular features on exchanges like OKEx and Huobi. It will be interesting to see whether these new decisions to limit risk will be damaging to these large exchanges that still somewhat adhere to regulator rules. It’s also possible that it’s a short-term solution in order to avoid scrutiny during periods of tighter control.

Futures of Singapore

While Huobi was tightening controls on futures traders, Singapore-based platform SynFutures was completing a Series A for $14 million. The round was led by Polychain Capital and included names like Framework Capital, Pantera Capital, Bybit, Kronos Research, WOO Ventures, Wintermute, and IOSG Ventures. SynFutures is creating a trustless derivatives market where users can take positions on assets or anything that has an accurate feed, including Bitcoin, the price of gold, or even the Bitcoin hashrate. What many people don’t know is that the SynFutures team is composed of members from Matrixport, a financial service app that was an offshoot of massive Chinese mining conglomerate Bitmain. Now you know the whole story!

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.

Shanghai Man: Economist says El Salvador \’on road to death\’, salaries paid in e-CNY …

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JPMorgan’s Career Pages Brings Up Blockchain Job Positions

According to the latest announcement, JPMorgan’s career pages post several jobs for Blockchain enthusiasts.

It was noted that it bought 56 open positions, with 34 including the tech in the job title.

Last year, JPMorgan continued on a Blockchain rampage by bringing multiple jobs to the industry. At that time, Indeed.com reported JPMorgan Chase as the only financial firm in the top 10 companies posting jobs related to Blockchain, cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin. 

The report mentions that most job openings posted this year are spread across the U.S., India, and Singapore, indicating that technology holds a futuristic career all across the globe. Talking about job openings, many of the jobs relate to Onyx, the division created to oversee JPM Coin, the bank’s wholesale payments token. 

JPMorgan is a U.S. multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York, serving corporations and individuals in more than 100 countries.

JPMorgan is Continuing on a Blockchain Rampage

As U.S. mega-bank JPMorgan posted about Blockchain job positions, the report mentions that most Blockchain engineer roles are focused on integrating JPM Coin and Liink into JPMorgan’s payments architecture.

Last year in October, JPMorgan rebranded the Liink banking network, which is based on a fork of Ethereum. At the time of rebranding, it was noted that Liink invites its 400-plus financial institutions to start building on top of the platform. 

Apart from JPMorgan, several other big banks are making a lot of noise in the cryptocurrency space, focussing on areas such as crypto custody and potentially trading digital assets. Reports also highlight that in contrast to JPMorgan’s career page, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have only two blockchain job openings, whereas NY Mellon has four job positions. 

Specifically talking about JPMorgan jobs, the report mentions that 13 jobs related to Onyx and Link, majorly based in the U.S. Apart from this, there are also active positions for a marketing manager for Liink and blockchain adjacent positions in commercial real estate, the report reads.

As the bank sees blockchain technology as a viable solution, recently, it was announced that JP Morgan had tested a transaction of Blockchain in space. It was further noted that the Blockchain transaction testing was carried out by a Danish space firm named GomSpace’s satellites.

Blockchain space is booming, if you are interested in mastering the core concepts of Blockchain and becoming a Certified Blockchain Expert, you can get enrolled to Blockchain Council. 

To get instant updates about Blockchain Technology and to learn more about online blockchain certifications, check out Blockchain Council.

JPMorgan’s Career Pages Brings Up Blockchain Job Positions

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Paxful To Provide Fiat On-Ramps to Singaporean Crypto Exchange Bityard

P2P trading platform Paxful recently partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Bityard to provide fiat on-ramp services in Singapore. It will provide users access to more than 300 different payment options.

Kiosk available on Bityard

Paxful’s web-based Virtual Bitcoin called Kiosk will be available immediately to Bityard users. It will be accessible to all new and existing customers of the platform. Paxful’s peer-to-peer trading network can be used to buy Bitcoin with 160 different fiat currencies. With this integration, Paxful will act as a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp for Bityard customers. It provides access to more than 300 different payment methods for cryptocurrency purchases.

Paxful To Provide Fiat On-Ramps to Singaporean Crypto Exchange Bityard

Paxful To Provide Fiat On-Ramps to Singaporean Crypto Exchange Bityard

The feature will help cryptocurrency exchanges in onboarding people who are new to digital currencies by enabling the purchase of supported coins using local currency. The platform will support domestic wire transfers, bank transfers, online wallets, gift cards, etc. The platform will support various fiat currencies like Canadian Dollar (CAD), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), Russian Ruble (RUB), Mexican Peso (MXN), and Argentine Peso (ARS).

Paxful existed in the Venezuela market

Though Bityard has other fiat-to-crypto on-ramps, it provides one of the most diverse ranges of payment methods, even in countries that follow restrictive banking rules. In such countries, people can use gift cards to buy Bitcoins using Paxful. Bityard also comes with an additional capability of allowing users to buy and sell crypto using Tether via a number of currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

The Virtual Bitcoin Kiosk from Paxful lets users match with sellers instantly if they meet the criteria of the trading needs like payment method and currency. After its launch in 2015, the company has expanded its reach from Bitcoin and now comes with Tether (USDT) support as well. Despite its expansion plans, Paxful recently stopped servicing the Venezuela market, which is the largest in the Latin American region in terms of volumes. The company apparently decided to pull off the market because of US sanctions on Venezuela.

Paxful To Provide Fiat On-Ramps to Singaporean Crypto Exchange Bityard

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Earth needs Bitcoin as economy hits ‘debt saturation point’ — Keiser

The world now has so much debt that, for the first time ever, it is impossible to add more, says Max Keiser.

On the latest edition of his Keiser Report TV show on Sep. 22, the RT host warned that central banks were responsible for global debt reaching a new “inflection point.”

Keiser on debt: “We’re at saturation point”

Together with co-host Stacy Herbert, Keiser referred to comments from Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which last week warned that copying economic recovery methods after World War Two would not work in 2020.

Central banks worldwide have intervened in markets, buying equities and other assets in a highly controversial move designed to limit the economic impact of Covid-19 and its lockdowns.

“First, it’s quite obvious that you can’t keep increasing your debts,” MAS chairman Tharman Shanmugaratnam said.

“But I don’t believe that the new higher levels of debt that many countries are now moving towards are going to be sustainable without imposing significant costs on growth as well as equity within their societies.”

The United States’ national debt alone has ballooned to $26.7 trillion this year, up $4 trillion since June 2019.

“There is no capacity for the Earth’s economy to carry any more debt; we’re at the saturation point,” Keiser summarized.

Regarding the consequences for increasingly indebted countries, he said that ordinary consumers would simply foot the bill from now on:

“Now, every dollar that these central banks print will go directly into consumer price index inflation — and you’ll see it at the cash register immediately, and that’s going to incredible social unrest[.]”

In the 1940s, states which had built up debts from combat were able to inflate them away. This time, Herbert said, there were so many insignificant gig economy jobs that wages would not follow price rises, leading to the kind of gap between the elite and the rest of society that Keiser has termed “neo-feudalism.”

Federal Reserve balance sheet 10-year chart. Source: Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve balance sheet 10-year chart. Source: Federal Reserve

MicroStrategy and Bitcoin low-time-preference business

Keiser has long championed Bitcoin (BTC) as an escape route from the knock-on effects of fiat inflation.

With its fixed, unalterable emission and decentralized network, Bitcoin represents the antithesis of centrally-controlled money. 

BTC/USD has shown to rise in step with central banks’ inflating balance sheets, but remains susceptible to U.S. dollar performance, Cointelegraph reported.

“Bitcoin, like Gold, is inversely correlated to the USD — *not* the stock market,” Keiser pointed out on Sep 22. “Don’t be fooled by randomness.”

Beyond its technical prowess, Bitcoin also promotes so-called low-time-preference living — saving money, safe in the knowledge that its value will not be inflated away over time.

As Saifedean Ammous explains in his popular book, “The Bitcoin Standard,” this ultimately allows for better and quicker advancement of society in time than simply spending money as quickly as possible on as much as possible.

Keiser and Herbert noted that MicroStrategy’s decision to put over $400 million of cash reserves into Bitcoin was proof of the low-time-preference mindset encroaching on big business.

Earth needs Bitcoin as economy hits ‘debt saturation point’ — Keiser

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Blockchain-Based App to Make Travel During the Pandemic Easier

Wondering what role blockchain can play in containing the coronavirus pandemic? How can a blockchain-based app make travel easier? This article will answer all these questions. 

Table of Contents 

  • Blockchain and COVID-19 Outbreak
  • Blockchain- An Essential Tool During Pandemic 
  • ICC AOKpass to Verify COVID-19 Results Instantly
  • Conclusion: Blockchain is More Than Bitcoin

Blockchain and COVID-19 Outbreak

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected countries, communities, and individuals in infinite ways. During this, various advanced technologies have sprung up to deal with the crisis worldwide. One such technology is Blockchain. Blockchain and Covid-19 pandemic may not go together, but it holds potential in putting the pandemic behind us.

Blockchain is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, distributed ledger technology that acts as a tamper-proof public ledger. It is an essential tool for establishing a secure, transparent, and reliable healthcare business model based on complete accuracy. These characteristics assist countries looking into speeding up their ways of responding to the pandemic. 

Want to become a Certified Blockchain Developer? Get enrolled in the Blockchain Council now!

Blockchain- An Essential Tool During Pandemic 

Talking about the challenges associated with COVID-19, tracking a vast population of infectious patients is one of the major issues. There are some areas where Blockchain is used to resist the pandemic effects and aid in the recovery process. Technology can help prevent pandemic by enabling fast-tracking drug trials, early detection of epidemics, and allowing citizens to prove their health status to travel abroad or return to work.

Blockchain, due to its decentralization and increased transparency, results in efficient responses and more accurate reporting. Furthermore, due to its rapid processing of data, technology helps in the early detection of symptoms before they grow to the level of pandemics.

In June 2020, VeChain announced that its blockchain-based medical data management platform had gone live in Cyrus Hospital that will help in storing pandemic testing results. 

René Seifert, Co-Head at TrueProfile.io, believes that Blockchain-based immunity passports can be seen as a viable solution in dealing with the deadly coronavirus. The basic idea behind immunity passports is to link the individual’s identity with their Covid-19 test status, which will ensure that person is immune and cannot get contaminated again. 

Interested in knowing the various use cases of blockchain technology and becoming a blockchain expert? Get started today! 

ICC AOKpass to Verify COVID-19 Results Instantly

As governments are trying their best to handle COVID-19 crises in their respective regions, in some parts, they are still hesitant in reopening their borders. In tough times like these, it is crucial to use advanced technologies like Blockchain to solve pressing issues. 

According to the recent announcement, International SOS and Singapore-based Energy Drilling have launched a blockchain-based app, ICC AOKpass, to make travel during the pandemic easier by allowing users to verify their COVID-19 status instantly. This easy-to-use mobile app is designed for verifying pandemic results, which further allow individuals to return their workplaces.

Dorjee Sun, CEO of blockchain firm Perlin, believes that presently there lacks a common technical standard for digital health passports. He further explained how this new blockchain-based app could be useful for all.
In his words, ICC AOKpass “uses a common global standard that can be deployed and used anywhere in the world today. It can adapt to the rules of any given country and allows users to instantly verify their COVID-19 compliance status anytime, anywhere.” The best part is that several companies have successfully tested the app, including International SOS’ own Singapore-based employees.

Juliana Gim, managing director of International SOS Singapore, also expressed his view about how this app can help people in varying their COVID-19 pandemic results and resume their travel.

“The successful pilot of ICC AOKpass with Energy Drilling is encouraging as it marks an important step in our journey and the aim of implementing a trusted and standardized global system to facilitate the return to work across many industries. In time, we hope that this will see widespread adoption to facilitate a fast, safe, and secure return to work.”

Conclusion: Blockchain is More Than Bitcoin

Blockchain has proven to be effective in different use cases, including finance, supply chain, healthcare, digital identity, eCommerce, voting, among others. Its potential to offer transparency, immutability, and decentralization makes it popular to enable faster transactions and handle and protect confidential information. Last month, in August 2020, ShareRing, which is an enterprise-focussed blockchain company, launched an e-passport app with contact tracing to revive the $9 trillion global tourism industry.
Moreover, during the coronavirus pandemic, several blockchain-based firms and crypto startups have started adopting cryptocurrency. The pandemic has even forced people to stay indoors and go for cashless payments. Thus, the contactless payment transaction is becoming a new norm.
From the above discussion, it is clear that blockchain technology holds great potential in various COVID-impacted scenarios, including other major sectors. 

To get instant updates about Blockchain Technology and learn more about online blockchain certifications and become a blockchain expert, check out Blockchain Council.

Blockchain-Based App to Make Travel During the Pandemic Easier

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