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Binance Rolls Out Crypto Education Tour in 5 French-Speaking African Nations

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

To propel blockchain adoption and financial accessibility on African soil, crypto exchange Binance has launched a crypto education tour in five French-speaking countries.

Having kickstarted the first meetup in Cotonou, Benin, on September 10, the tour will be extended to four more countries, namely Togo, Côte D’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso, between September 24 and October 22 this year.

Per the announcement:

“The Benin meetup was an offline educational event introducing people to the world of cryptocurrency, as well as the Binance Ecosystem. There were about 400 attendees with keen interests in blockchain technology. Attendees also participated in engaging games like an NFT quiz, with 250+ winners receiving NFTs.”

Binance sees offline meetups as a stepping stone toward deepening and democratizing crypto accessibility and adoption in Francophone Africa. The report noted:

“The Francophone meetups demonstrate the blockchain giant’s continued commitment to providing avenues for offline connections, learning, and sharing of experiences in the crypto space.”

The innovations rendered by cryptocurrencies are expected to render a borderless way for Africans to participate in the market. Moreover, they will simplify settlements for users, cross-border transfers, and remittances.

Carine Dikambi, the Francophone Africa Lead at Binance, stated:

“It is clear that Francophone Africa has limitless potential to be a key player in the blockchain revolution and we are committed to providing more people with access to the necessary information and tools to use digital assets and blockchain.”

The education tour will touch on various topics like understanding crypto trading and real-world applications of blockchain technology.

Through the Binance Masterclass Education Series launched in January 2020, Binance has already educated more than 541,000 Africans about cryptocurrencies and how to detect bad actors or scams, Blockchain.News reported.

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House Stablecoin Bill to Seek Two-year Ban on Issuing New Algorithmic Stablecoins

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that legislation to regulate stablecoins being drafted in the U.S. House of Representatives would impose a two-year ban on new algorithmic stablecoins similar to TerraUSD (UST).

The latest version of the act defines “endogenously collateralized stablecoins” and makes it illegal to issue or create such stablecoins.

The definition would apply to publicly selling stablecoins that are capable of being exchanged, redeemed, or repurchased for a fixed amount of monetary value and that maintain their fixed price solely on the value of another digital asset from the same creator.

The bill provides a two-year grace period for stablecoin operators not collateralized by cash or highly liquid assets such as U.S. Treasuries to be approved after changing their business model.

The bill would also prohibit mixed management of client funds and keys with those of the stablecoin issuer, which, in theory, means that customers will be able to more easily get back their assets if the stablecoin issuer goes bankrupt.

In addition to addressing Terra’s problems, the bill would allow banks and non-banks to issue stablecoins, regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The bill also highlights concerns over whether the definition includes stablecoins such as Synthetix USD (SUSD). Synthetix USD is currently collateralized with the native asset of the same protocol in the SNX token. Other algorithmic stablecoins with similar structures include BitUSD, backed by BitShares (BTS).

Issuing stablecoins without the approval of these regulators could be convicted by up to five years in prison and a $1 million fine. The legislation would direct the Fed to establish a process for making decisions on applications from non-bank issuers.

The draft legislation would authorize the U.S. Treasury Department to research UST-like stablecoins in consultation with the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and House committees could vote on the legislation as early as next week.

In mid-June, the Terra stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) was off the $1 level it was supposed to hold, trading at $0.006, losing its peg to the U.S. dollar resulting in tens of billions of dollars in lost value.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Regulation / Stablecoin / Us

Startup Nilos Raises $5.2M in Funding Round for Business Development

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Crypto startup Nilos has raised $5.2 million in a funding round led by Viola Ventures and Fabric Ventures.

According to an announcement from Wednesday, other investors who took part in the funding round involved companies such as Mensch Capital Partners and angels backers, including The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget and the former deputy CEO of French banking giant Société Générale.

Nilos has announced that the funds will be used to bring in new clients, finance research and development, and build the sales and marketing team.

Nilos is aiming to transform the payment service industry. It is working to build a unified platform for managing crypto and fiat treasuries, which involves unifying crypto wallets, corporate accounts, and payment service providers to ensure that income, money flows and payments can be tracked on one platform.

Additionally, Nilos will also allow crypto to fiat currency payouts, the ability to create accounting reports on such data, and can monitor suspicious sources of funds in line with anti-money laundering requirements.

“We are big believers in web3 infrastructure plays. The Nilos team is solving a huge gap, bridging financial and treasury services for both web2 and web3 companies who are looking to embed on-chain revenues with their fiat operations in a seamless, compliant and secure way,” said Omry Ben David, partner at Viola Ventures.

According to Nilos, a growing number of businesses are dealing with both fiat and crypto treasuries or those looking to get into crypto, which is open for the company to tap into and score big.

The company’s clients include AnotherBlock, Rocket3, Metafight, and Rarecubes.

Nilos’ funding news has come after a number of recent rounds closed by startups building the accounting software for businesses with crypto exposure.

Web3 accounting software Tres raised $7.6 million in seed funding on Sept 20.

While in March, Coinbooks raised $3.2 million to build an accounting software for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and in June, Request Finance, which automates payroll for crypto companies, won the backing of venture capital firm Balderton Capital and gaming firm Animoca Brands in a $5.5 million seed round.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / FABRICVENTURES / Finance / NILOS / VIOLAVENTURES

Crypto Firms Spent Over $3B on Sports Ads, Research Shows

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Crypto firms are eyeing this sector to harness a new generation of investors, according to a study by Safe Trade Binary Options.

The financial information website revealed that crypto firms have used more than $3 billion in 2022 on global sports advertising to spark awareness among Generation Z and millennials, who are deemed lucrative and tech-savvy.

Saqib Iqbal, a Safe Trade Binary Options analyst, stated:

“For many years, non-crypto businesses such as Red Bull and Coca-Cola have targeted young people through their sports team affiliations. Crypto firms have observed this and are beginning to adopt a similar approach in order to broaden their appeal and bring in a new, more tech savvy generation of investors.”

Crypto firms have realized that sports businesses are a significant outlet for high-profile marketing collaborations, major sponsorship deals, and spending. Iqbal noted:

“The largest partnership so far is Crypto.com’s $700 million deal for the naming rights to the Los Angeles arena, which was formerly known as the Staples Center.”

The crypto sector’s spending on Super Bowl 2022 advertisements surpassed those of alcohol, airlines, quick-service restaurants, and wine firms combined, according to data by sponsorship consulting firm IEG.

For instance, crypto exchange Coinbase spent a whopping $14 million on a minute-long Super Bowl ad, but it raked in the dividends because traffic reached historic highs. The Coinbase app jumped to the second spot from the 186th position on the Apple store, Blockchain.News reported.

Iqbal pointed out:

“2022 has really been a turning point for Crypto marketing and we’re seeing many brands seriously ramping up their sports advertising.”

Meanwhile, Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal, noted that cryptocurrencies were part of modern technology that could not be ignored, given that 80% of racing teams in the 2022 Formula 1 (F1) grid featured at least one crypto sponsor.

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Tagged : Advertising / Crypto / Industry / Sponsorship / Sports

Colorado Becomes First US State to Accept Crypto as Tax Payments

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Colorado has set the ball rolling as the first U.S. state to offer residents the option of paying taxes using cryptocurrencies.

Governor Jared Polis made the announcement, noting that it was a stepping stone toward making Colorado a digital innovation hub.

“As of right now, the state of Colorado is officially accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option for all taxes. We’ve been talking about this for a while, and we said we would deliver by the end of the summer — we have,” Polis said.

The Colorado Department of Revenue highlighted that payments would be remitted through personal PayPal accounts, which support Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The governor pointed out that the state would collect the crypto payments and deposit the converted value in dollars into the state treasury. He added:

“Taxpayers can now select cryptocurrency as a payment option, just showing again from a customer-service perspective how Colorado is tech-forward in meeting the ever-changing needs of businesses and residents.”

To foster bold ideas in the state, Polis believes taking the crypto payment route is the way to go.

“As a state, we’re on the forefront of digital innovation, whether it’s applying blockchain and shared-ledger technology as a new model for funding, or whether it’s simply being consumer-friendly and making sure that we allow for the kind of innovation that will disrupt legacy business practices and government practices to make them more efficient,” Polis highlighted.

Earlier this year, the Colorado governor disclosed that the state was in high gear to permit crypto tax payments as early as this summer, Blockchain.News reported.

Polis’s crypto advocacy has not gone unnoticed, given that he was one of the initiators of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus back in 2016. He was also among the first politicians to accept crypto donations for his campaigns.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Colorado / Cryptocurrency / Cryptoeconomics / Ethereum / JARED POLIS / Litecoin / Payment / Tax

Nova Labs Partners with T-Mobile To Rollout Crypto-Powered 5G Service

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Nova Labs, the company behind Helium network, a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) 5G wireless network that provides connectivity for random IoT devices, announced a five-year partnership deal with wireless carrier T-Mobile.

Based on the partnership, Nova Labs and T-Mobile will create a new 5G wireless service called Helium Mobile. The partnership will allow anyone subscribing to Helium Mobile to access Helium’s 5G network and T-Mobile’s wireless network throughout the US.

Helium Mobile will be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service that offers two important economic differentiators from traditional services: plans will start at just $5 per month, and users can also optionally earn crypto token rewards for sharing data.

The Helium Mobile 5G wireless service is a big deal because it will allow users to opt into receiving the network’s MOBILE token rewards in exchange for providing anonymized data about their network usage. Boris Renski, co-founder and CEO of Nova Labs, said: “The service will treat such users as contributors, as the data will be used to monitor network quality and availability as it scales—but it’s purely optional.”

The Helium Mobile service will officially launch in the first quarter of 2023. Nova Labs said the service is designed with a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approach in mind. The firm is working with smartphone makers to introduce “specialized, crypto-friendly cell phone devices that will be more efficient at validating network coverage and earning more Mobile token rewards for their users when compared to generic, BYOD phones.”

How Does It Work?

Although thousands of cryptocurrencies address a wide variety of use cases, relatively few are tapping into the new sector of the Internet of Things (IoT). Iota (MIOTA) is one of the most popular blockless platforms that connect devices with IoT. Helium also emerges as a blockchain-based project with the same use case but uses a different approach.

Helium is described as a blockchain-based network for IoT devices that uses nodes as Hotspots to connect wireless devices to the network. The Helium Token (the native cryptocurrency and protocol token of the Helium blockchain) powers the network and serves as a payout whenever Hotspots transfer connection data across the network.

Helium is working towards creating a reliable, decentralized, and global network for IoT devices that relies on the community of HNT holders. The network consists of nodes, i.e. Hotspots that are run by node operators (who are actually HNT holders). Hosting Hotspots and managing nodes, users are rewarded for participating in the network’s functionality.

At the time of writing, the price of Helium Token (HNT) was trading at US$4.36, down 0.98% for the last 24 hours, with a trading volume of $15.38 million, according to CoinMarketCap.

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Tagged : Crypto Rewards / HELIUM MOBILE / Industry / NOVA LABS / T-Mobile

Indonesia to Request Local Executive to Run Crypto Business

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Indonesia could see new rules for crypto asset exchanges.

The South Asian country’s trade ministry is planning to issue rules to govern crypto exchanges that will require two-thirds of the board of directors and commissioners to be Indonesian citizens and live in Indonesia, a deputy minister said Tuesday.

This change has come about due to the financial issues faced by cryptocurrency exchange Zipmex as it has currently stopped users from withdrawing funds.

“We don’t want to give permits (to exchanges) carelessly, so only for those that meet the requirements and are credible,” deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga told reporters after a parliamentary hearing.

Sambuaga added that the ministry’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) will issue the new rule soon.

However, a timeframe has not been provided.

According to a document issued by the ministry, the new rule will require will also require an exchange to use a third party to store client funds and prohibit exchanges from re-investing stored crypto assets.

Didid Noordiatmoko, acting head at Bappebti, told the parliamentary hearing that ensuring two-thirds of the board were Indonesians based in the country “could prevent the top management running away when a problem hits the exchange.”

Sambuaga added that the plan to launch an Indonesian crypto asset bourse could hopefully be completed within this year. It has already been delayed from last year.

According to a report by Deal Street Asia, the proposed digital assets exchange is an attempt by the government to protect its masses as the interest in cryptocurrencies has continued to grow among the populace.

The crypto exchange was initially planned to go live in 2021 but was later postponed to the first quarter of 2022. This postponement did not also stir the launch of the exchange as its complexity forced the government to abandon the plan to date.

Bappebti’s data shows that cryptocurrency has gained popularity in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, with a total transaction volume of crypto assets up more than 1,000% in 2021 at 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.37 billion).

The country’s performance in terms of transaction taxes has also improved.

Since the rollout of fintech and crypto transaction taxes in May, Indonesia has amassed nearly $6.8 million, according to the nation’s tax compliance special staffer Yon Arsal.

The Indonesian finance ministry imposed a value-added tax (VAT) of 0.1% on crypto-assets purchases on May 1 this year.

The Indonesian administration decided to tax crypto transactions based on surging popularity among local investors.

Furthermore, crypto interest on Indonesian soil has skyrocketed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of crypto owners stood at 11 million in 2021.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Indonesia / Regulation / Zipmex

Colorado Emerges as First U.S. State to Accept Crypto as Tax Payments

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Colorado has set the ball rolling as the first U.S. state to offer residents the option of paying taxes using cryptocurrencies.

Governor Jared Polis made the announcement, noting that it was a stepping stone toward making Colorado a digital innovation hub.

The governor pointed out that the state would collect the crypto payments and deposit the converted value in dollars into the state treasury. He added:

“Taxpayers can now select cryptocurrency as a payment option, just showing again from a customer-service perspective how Colorado is tech-forward in meeting the ever-changing needs of businesses and residents.”

To foster bold ideas in the state, Polis believes taking the crypto payment route is the way to go.

Earlier this year, the Colorado governor disclosed that the state was in high gear to permit crypto tax payments as early as this summer, Blockchain.News reported.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Colorado / Cryptocurrency / Cryptoeconomics / Ethereum / JARED POLIS / Litecoin / Payment / Tax

Crypto Firms Spend Over $3B on Sports Advertising, Research Shows

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Crypto firms are eyeing this sector to harness a new generation of investors, according to a study by Safe Trade Binary Options.

Saqib Iqbal, a Safe Trade Binary Options analyst, stated:

“For many years, non-crypto businesses such as Red Bull and Coca-Cola have targeted young people through their sports team affiliations. Crypto firms have observed this and are beginning to adopt a similar approach in order to broaden their appeal and bring in a new, more tech savvy generation of investors.”

Crypto firms have realized that sports businesses are a significant outlet for high-profile marketing collaborations, major sponsorship deals, and spending. Iqbal noted:

“The largest partnership so far is Crypto.com’s $700 million deal for the naming rights to the Los Angeles arena, which was formerly known as the Staples Center.”

Iqbal pointed out:

“2022 has really been a turning point for Crypto marketing and we’re seeing many brands seriously ramping up their sports advertising.”

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Tagged : Advertising / Crypto / Industry / Sponsorship / Sports

Crypto Firms Spend Over $3B on Sports Advertising to Tap New Investors, Research Shows

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 21, 2022

Crypto firms are eyeing this sector to harness a new generation of investors, according to a study by Safe Trade Binary Options.

Saqib Iqbal, a Safe Trade Binary Options analyst, stated:

“For many years, non-crypto businesses such as Red Bull and Coca-Cola have targeted young people through their sports team affiliations. Crypto firms have observed this and are beginning to adopt a similar approach in order to broaden their appeal and bring in a new, more tech savvy generation of investors.”

Crypto firms have realized that sports businesses are a significant outlet for high-profile marketing collaborations, major sponsorship deals, and spending. Iqbal noted:

“The largest partnership so far is Crypto.com’s $700 million deal for the naming rights to the Los Angeles arena, which was formerly known as the Staples Center.”

Iqbal pointed out:

“2022 has really been a turning point for Crypto marketing and we’re seeing many brands seriously ramping up their sports advertising.”

Image source: Shutterstock

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Tagged : Advertising / Crypto / Industry / Sponsorship / Sports