Particle Network has introduced its modular Layer 1 solution for chain abstraction and universal accounts, aimed at simplifying user interactions across multiple blockchains. The design of this modular Layer 1 makes it an ideal tool for both new and existing ecosystems to leverage. Particle Network plans to launch its Testnet and V1 Mainnet in the […]
Bitcoin News
Joe Rogan Says Bitcoin Is the Most Likely Contender for a ‘Universal Viable Currency’
This week, Openai’s CEO, Sam Altman, delved into the nuances of artificial intelligence (AI) on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. As they conversed, Rogan articulated that the “real fascinating crypto is bitcoin.” He then expounded on his belief that bitcoin holds the most promise to emerge as “a universal viable currency.”
Openai’s Sam Altman and Joe Rogan Dive Deep into Bitcoin’s Promise and AI’s Potential
According to statistics, Joe Rogan’s podcast reigns supreme as one of the world’s most profitable and widely heard shows. In episode #2044, Rogan sat down with Openai’s CEO, Sam Altman. The duo delved into AI’s pros and cons, but also branched out into discussions on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), the FTX debacle, and the leading crypto asset, bitcoin (BTC).
After Altman shed light on the expanding American surveillance landscape, Rogan candidly expressed his deep concerns regarding CBDCs, especially the potential linkage with social credit scores. He was assertive in his belief that the CBDC movement wasn’t for societal benefit but for “control.” Responding to Rogan’s CBDC apprehensions, Altman lamented how “the war on crypto” saddened him about the nation’s direction.
The dialogue pivoted to the FTX fiasco. Altman quipped, “FTX was sort of a comically bad situation that we shouldn’t learn too much from.” Rogan found the FTX narrative “fun,” admitting his fondness for the wild tales of partying and romances that surrounded it. “I really do, I love the fact that they were all doing drugs and having sex with each other,” the podcast host said.
He then segued into his intrigue for the leading digital currency, bitcoin (BTC). Rogan stated:
The real fascinating crypto is bitcoin, to me, that’s the one that I think has the most likely possibility of becoming a universal viable currency. It’s limited in the amount that there can be, people mine it … that to me is very fascinating, and I love the fact that it’s been implemented.
Reacting to Rogan’s bitcoin musings, Altman introduced his foray into the Worldcoin initiative. This venture, Altman revealed, enriched his understanding of the crypto realm. “I’m excited about it for the same reasons,” Altman remarked. “I’m excited about bitcoin too, but I think this idea that we have a global currency that is outside of the control of any government, is a super logical and important step.”
Rogan resonated with Altman’s sentiments. He pondered the necessity of governmental currency control, suggesting that authorities should prioritize critical matters like infrastructure. A decade ago, Rogan’s podcast introduction to bitcoin was through a conversation with libertarian writer Stefan Molyneux. Their discussion followed Molyneux’s critique of fiat currency’s pitfalls. Rogan mused back then, “Can we bitcoin our way out of this?”
What do think about Rogan’s statement about bitcoin and his discussion with Altman? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
Bitcoin Dips Below $25,000 As Former Paypal President Hails It As Universal Internet Currency
In an interview with CNBC on Monday, David Marcus, former President of Paypal and Head of Facebook Payments, expressed his belief that Bitcoin (BTC) is the universal protocol for money on the internet.
He emphasized Bitcoin’s significance as the flagship cryptocurrency and its core value as a payment solution while discussing its potential as a global payment network.
Bitcoin As The Universal Protocol For Internet Money
Despite enduring a challenging period and navigating various headwinds in recent months, Bitcoin remains at the forefront of the cryptocurrency market. According to Marcus, Bitcoin’s prominence is not solely due to its market position but is also driven by its ability to serve as a universal protocol for internet money.
Marcus highlighted the absence of a universal protocol for value transfer on the internet, stating, “There’s no universal protocol for money on the internet that enables value to be transported.”
He explained that the vision is to transform Bitcoin into a global payment network, providing a seamless and efficient means of transferring value across borders.
One of the advantages Marcus cited for Bitcoin is its availability and accessibility. Unlike traditional financial systems, where individuals may face fees and the need to visit a branch during limited hours, Bitcoin operates 24/7.
This inherent characteristic of Bitcoin allows for greater convenience and flexibility, enabling users to transact at any time, including weekends.
While acknowledging Bitcoin’s potential as a payment network, Marcus noted that its primary function may not be as a currency for everyday purchases. He stated, “Our view is that BTC is not the currency people will use to buy things.”
However, he emphasized Bitcoin’s role as the universal protocol for money on the Internet, enabling secure and efficient value transfer across various digital platforms.
As Bitcoin continues to gain attention and recognition, Marcus’s endorsement further solidifies its position as the flagship cryptocurrency and reinforces its potential as the universal protocol for internet money.
BTC Trading Volume Hits Lowest Level Since 2019
According to Satoshi Club data, Bitcoin is experiencing a significant slump in its daily trading volume, reaching its lowest point since February 2019 at just .4 billion.
This decline has been attributed to a lack of market enthusiasm following the collapse of FTX. Furthermore, Bitcoin’s price dipped to ,900 on Monday, the lowest level since June, exacerbating concerns about a potential extended decline shortly.
The dwindling daily trading volume of Bitcoin indicates a prevailing apathy among traders, with reduced participation and a lack of significant buy or sell activity. This trend is reminiscent of the market sentiment observed after the collapse of FTX, which has had a lingering impact on investor confidence.
Of particular concern is that Bitcoin’s price dropped to ,900 on Monday, reflecting a downward trend that has persisted since BTC reached its annual high of ,800 on July 14.
This decline has intensified worries among market participants about the possibility of a prolonged downward trajectory for Bitcoin in the coming weeks.
The cryptocurrency has successfully reclaimed the ,000 level; however, it continues to decline by over 1.5% within just a few hours of Monday’s trading session.
Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView.com
Grayscale Removes Bancor (BNT) And Universal Market Access (UMA) From Its DeFi Fund
The Grayscale Investment manager undertakes another phase of balancing its Grayscale DeFi fund. This round of rebalance inculcate the adjustment of the project’s Digital Large Cap Funds. This move marks its second balancing process after its launch in July 2021.
An announcement on January 3 revealed the in-depth adjustments to Grayscale’s two funds. The first rebalancing employed the Flexa payment network’s native collateral coin.
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Hence, Grayscale DeFi Fund’s weighting was rebalanced with the addition of AMP. Conversely, the rebalancing process led to the removal of Universal Market Access (UMA) and Bancor (BNT).
Though Grayscale created some adjustments to its funds’ weightings, the Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLC) suffered no alteration to its token list. According to Grayscale’s announcement, the rebalancing process is the time to include AMP within a Grayscale investment vehicle.
Using its native token, Flexa can collateralize crypto payments and engage in fiat settlements. Thus, merchants and other users could quickly receive cryptocurrencies without delays.
Significance Of Grayscale Rebalancing Process
Following this second rebalancing process, the addition of AMP brings the number of crypto assets within the Grayscale DeFi Fund to nine in the DeFi ecosystem. Also, the alteration to the Grayscale Fund reflects the changes on the DeFi Index (DFX) of CoinDesk. Among the components of crypto assets that made the Fund, the highest weighting goes to Uniswap (UNI) with 42.33%. The newly added AMP takes up 7.39% of the Fund’s weighting.
Having its popularity as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale now has about .1 billion assets under management (AUM). The share trading at .27 shows a 23% up from July 14, 2021, and a 59.16% up within the last 12 months.
The share price of Grayscale DeFi Fund at the press time is .56. This depicts an 11.2% rise from its launch price of on July 14, 2021. Moreover, the Fund’s assets under management as of its launch period were .6 million with a share outstanding of 2.08 million.
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The ‘s performanceGrayscale Bitcoin Trust’s performance and its DeFi Funds is highly above the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI), which is the biggest retail DeFi Index based on the market cap from July 14. However, despite the huge trading volume of the DPI, it still indicates a dip of about 2% within the same interval.
Bitcoin continues to drop | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Among all spot Bitcoin ETFs and Corporations, Grayscale possessed the most significant upsurge of BTC holdings through 2021. By the end of the year, the Fund accrued 645,199 BTC. This explains 71% of the corporate market and spot ETF BTC holdings.
Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com
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Universal Solutions – The Future of Crypto
The crypto ecosystem is probably the most dynamic field of information technology. New solutions pop up almost every day and it’s pretty hard to find a startup that will blow your mind in some special way. Even at the beginning of its path, the crypto space didn’t seem like something boring and conservative. But it’s nothing compared to what we can observe in the market now.
At a first glance, the current ecosystem looks a bit chaotic and complicated. Looking at the variety of DeFi solutions it’s quite hard to estimate the benefits they commit to bringing. But if you remember the core values that were proclaimed with the coming of Bitcoin you will realize that the number of key benefits of blockchain and crypto is definite and limited: reducing intermediaries, decentralization, secure storage of data, and privacy.
Projects committed to privacy have long received attention and it promises to be one of the most popular trends in the coming years. It corresponds with the current situation when a lot of people are not satisfied with the authorities, banks, and key social media players that own too much private data. Anonymous cryptocurrencies are regarded as good alternatives to Bitcoin, the public ledger of which allows anyone who wants to track all transactions.
The emergence of demand stimulates projects to come up with features that ensure the desired privacy. For example, BEAM protocol, where privacy is the team’s first priority. This platform offers anonymous transactions and ensures that third parties can’t see the sender, receiver, and transacted amount.
Moreover, if you take a look at projects like BEAM, you will notice that they bring other core values that blockchain implies. It’s a big, scalable DeFi ecosystem with the full range of tools needed, including embedded DAPPs, wallet, atomic swaps, decentralized bridges, smart contracts, confidential stablecoins and oracles. And the protocol also relies on decentralized governance.
The Beam protocol is governed through the implementation of the BEAMX governance token. Token holders become BeamX DAO members and participate in the management of the ecosystem. And the extent of $BEAMX holders’ power will be far larger than in other crypto projects – they will be able to shape the roadmap of the BeamX DeFi ecosystem itself. The community can create proposals and vote regularly for important changes they think will be beneficial for the project. This will be done through a special DAPP implemented in the BEAM wallet.
Moreover, users get an additional incentive via staking, earning more tokens as a reward for holding BEAMX in their wallets. Staking is risk-free – staked tokens won’t be locked in any pool and users will be able to withdraw their tokens without any delay. Staking will become available on October 21 in the proprietary BEAM wallet. As a part of a staking campaign, DAO is going to distribute 1% of all tokens among early users. It can be a good reason for crypto enthusiasts to explore the emerging ecosystem and contribute to DAO that will rule the way this system functions.
BEAMX is listed on Binance and has already grown by more than 50% – people buy tokens en masse in preparation for staking.
If you step away from the hype of the crypto world, you’ll notice that some platforms have a strategic intent to bring core values for which cryptocurrencies were created. And some of them also bet on community involvement in the development of the project. Because the project that the user has contributed to creating can count on his greater loyalty.
Today it becomes clear that the recent trend of a flat organizational structure is growing in many industries. And one more variant of such a structure can be proposed and established by blockchain-based DAOs. In the case of BEAM, creators focus not only on decentralization and privacy. It was meant to be a complex solution that gives people the privilege to save time and to manage all the operations related to crypto in one environment.
Indeed, looking back at the development of the blockchain world it is obvious that universal solutions will conquer the audience. And chances to succeed are rising at a gigantic rate when such projects are committed to key values blockchain technology was supposed to bring from the very beginning.
Game Changer: The Universal in-App Currency Made for Both Users and Developers
Global gaming revenues are booming, with mobile games surpassing 75 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue, which accounted for 43 percent of the global gaming market in 2020 (Source: Statista). While purchasing the game used to be the main monetization method of games, today, the reality is much different. Subscription services, paid downloads of additional content, microtransactions, mystery boxes containing in-game items and cosmetics are the main source of income for developers today.
Not less astonishing is the development of the mobile app market. In 2020, global mobile app revenues amounted to over 581 billion U.S. dollars (Source: Statista). This is a tremendous 6 fold increase from the year 2014 – merely 6 years ago. It is projected that apps will close on 1 trillion U.S. dollars in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising until 2025. Such unprecedented growth marks a clear trend – the future is mobile.
Still, the industry is not without its flaws. A new blockchain project has decided to tackle these and combine the novel technology with one of the most rapidly expanding industries to become a trendsetter.
Meet Game Changer
Game Changer is a universal blockchain currency that can be used for cross in-app purchases. The project simplifies microtransactions, adds a much higher degree of flexibility in spending virtual currencies, facilitates the creation and transfer of NFTs and enables a wide array of additional monetization methods for both app users and app developers. The Game Changer project is one comprehensive ecosystem, which acts as an app store with multiple additional functionalities. App creators can exchange feedback with consumers more efficiently, which is particularly important in the context of games, where the community plays the most defining role whether a game becomes successful or not. With Game Changer, developers are able to create better products that fit the exact needs of players, which encourages higher spending through higher satisfaction.
Use cases of Game Changer
Universal cross-compatible currency
A universal currency that is not reserved for use just within one specific mobile app or a game and can be transferred from one user to another, including cashed in for real money, means that users have a much wider scope of options in terms of how they decide to use their funds. There are many positive effects of such a scenario that result in a win-win situation for all stakeholder groups involved.
First, through higher incentives to spend for in-app currency that they can easily cash back, app users and gamers are more inclined to deposit higher amounts, knowing that their funds are not irreversibly tied to the app they deposited them in. The availability of more funds is correlated with higher spending, which is in favor of the creators.
For app developers, this means that the competition shifts to the fundamentals – namely, the end product itself and the value it brings to the user. What is more, they do not have to spend money on marketing anymore – the interests of Game Changer, the users and the creators are fully aligned, which means that the ecosystem itself takes over the popularisation of the products it is offering. Lower marketing costs mean that more resources can be dedicated to creating a quality product. The Game Changer ecosystem will combine both in-house developed apps as well as products from third-party developers who meet the quality standards, much like the conditions on the App Store and Google Play, but with a much more generous and transparent fee structure.
Second, the door to many further monetization methods becomes wide open. Players can earn real money while they are playing their favorite games or using apps they love. For example, in-app rewards can now be traded with other users or converted straight to real currency due to the transactional value they have.
Non-fungible tokens
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have become a new hot trend in the last months, with some tokens already being sold for millions of dollars. For those who are not familiar with the concept, NFTs are used to assign a monetary value to a digital asset. The Game Changer token enables the same concept – it can be used for the purchase and transfer of digital assets inside the ecosystem from one user to another, much like in an independent marketplace without any intermediaries. An example of this would be a scenario where a well-known streamer has acquired a certain in-game item, let’s say a skin, which they can then make branded and then sell it to any other user for GC tokens. These tokens can then be exchanged for real money, giving players an additional way of monetization.
Game Changer position themselves for the win
The Game Changer project has already started the development of their first games. The German company has partnered up with an app development studio and the first prototype – an RPG adventure mobile game – has already been created. Many further apps are already in the making and others are planned to be released immediately when the ecosystem launches. At a later stage, the project is planning to introduce a blockchain-based social media network powered by the GC token.
To learn more about Game Changer, their blockchain initiative and ongoing funding round with special bonuses for early adopters, visit https://gc-token.com/.
eToro Launches GoodDollar And Begins Delivering Universal Basic Income
With enforced shutdowns driving governments to enact emergency stimulus measures and airdrop funds into citizens’ accounts, Universal Basic Income (UBI), also known as Basic Income has attracted renewed interest. This fact hasn’t escaped the attention of e-trading brokerage eToro, whose launch of corporate social responsibility initiative GoodDollar (G$) aims to bring Basic Income to the mainstream, delivered on the blockchain.
GoodDollar, launched publicly on September 7, and delivers a solution that empowers citizens around the world to claim Basic Income via the G$ coin, a digital currency that any cell phone owner can claim, and convert to local currency.
Basic Income is a long-standing scheme that has recently gained new attention and relevance as governments have begun to give money directly to citizens through financial rescue packages. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, is a departure from past financial stimulus packages for its signature policy of providing each American with a one-time ,200 cash payment.
Putting aside the pandemic, the wealth gap continues to widen, with the world’s wealthiest 20 percent of the population owning 94 percent of the planet’s wealth, a topic helping to stimulate the growing interest in Basic Income with thought leaders and policymakers alike.
“Our current economic model doesn’t necessarily always work well and generate good and there are two reasons for that: One is the level of inequality that is driven by how the system works, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; and the second is the lack of transparency of how money is being used and moved around the system,” says Yoni Assia, the chief executive officer of eToro.
The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted an urgent need to protect those in society whose livelihoods are being made insecure because of the crisis. It is a global health crisis driving a global economic crisis, unprecedented in modern times and deemed a once in a generation phenomenon. It appears no governments or global agencies have a comprehensive playbook for successfully managing the crisis, we are writing it as we go along.
Basic Income pilots have popped up all across the United States and other parts of the world with payments being dispensed to citizens to meet their basic needs.
In July, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a vocal advocate of Basic Income, pledged million to support Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a coalition of mayors from U.S. cities including Los Angeles and Atlanta. Dorsey, who months earlier moved billion of Square stock to charitable fund Start Small LLC, called the initiative a “tool to close the wealth and income gap, level systemic race and gender inequalities, and create economic security for families.”
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also thrown his weight behind Basic Income in the past, as has Tesla’s Elon Musk and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Yang’s non-governmental-organization Humanity Forward has raised millions of dollars from Jack Dorsey to support Basic Income pilots and some of the emerging political candidates that embrace the idea.
It is not just U.S. philanthropists with a focus on Basic Income either. In a recent groundbreaking study published by the University of Oxford, led by Professor Timothy Garton Ash, 71 percent of the respondents across Europe supported the idea of Basic Income, a social policy once considered radical. As more countries examine the benefits of Basic Income to society, the World Bank has recently issued a guide to helping to navigate concepts, evidence and practices.
Universal Basic Income Made Possible by Blockchain
Economically empowering people is the central tenet of Basic Income with direct, unconditional payments giving citizens the ability to purchase groceries, clothing, and vital medicine for their families. How to best get the payments to citizens in a safe and reliable way is one of the big questions that need to be addressed.
Many in the U.S. believe the current systems of getting money to people, like checks in the post, are unfit for the job and emphasize the glitches and programming errors that have prevented tens of millions from receiving their Covid-19 stimulus checks.
Governments simply are not set up to deliver cash to citizens at scale.
In May, Andrew Yang advanced the case for a “citizenship portal” where individuals could freely access benefits, view tax information, renew licenses and connect bank accounts. Scandinavian countries already have many of these systems in place, linking citizens’ and their bank accounts, taxes, business, and health records. Now, governments around the world are looking at these models and new technologies to underpin new solutions.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) is emerging as a promising option for the next generation of infrastructure for government tax and payment infrastructure due to its security and transparency in enforcing an accurate ledger of transaction data between large numbers of counterparties. As importantly, the secure speed you can move money around on the network and globally is a social innovation.
Basic Income isn’t the only idea under consideration that represents a departure from conventional thinking. The booming decentralized finance (Defi) sector aims to shake up the current financial system by introducing accessible new solutions to long-standing problems such as wealth inequality, centralization, monetary exclusion and high transaction fees.
Defi products such as lending, borrowing, staking, and trading enable users to interact directly on secure, decentralized protocols, while novel blockchain-powered identity solutions may better help governments distribute funds fairly and transparently. One of the often-cited use cases of Defi is to bank the 1.7 billion people in the world unbanked and left behind by the traditional financial system.
Promoted as finance for the 21st century, Defi utilizes permissionless smart contracts on the blockchain. The DeFi market is growing rapidly with an estimated billion of value currently locked in self-executing financial products built via computer-code that often “cuts out the middlemen.”
GoodDollar Is A Novel Basic Income Solution
GoodDollar is the result of a desire to build a Basic Income product that is detached and not controlled by one specific government while benefitting from the governance and support mechanisms of the public blockchain network.
“When researching GoodDollar and the concept of Basic Income, what we realized is that the problem with the current economic model is the definition of the interest rate, which actually goes to those who have the most money. If we want to create a more fair and equal economy, we needed to take the concept of the interest rate and just divide it differently.
“If the interest rate and system is not controlled by a country, how is it governed and how can you trust it eventually? Blockchain is a very clear answer – decentralized finance enables us to build this as something which is a common good, which is open source, which is public, transparent, governed by smart contracts in the code, and therefore could potentially scale globally,” says Assia.
In a few short days, GoodDollar has onboarded thousands of users from over 40 countries including regions with large numbers of unbanked citizens including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Argentina, and Venezuela. All of the minting and transactions of G$ coins are visible on-chain, with side-chains enabling low transaction costs.
As a part of the ongoing solution, the project aims to provide the infrastructure for the deployment of Basic Income at local, state and national level, and to bring in tens of millions of citizens.
COVID-19 has accelerated the need for a solution to the economic crisis. It is not just those citizens who have been traditionally financially excluded that can benefit from Basic Income, the pandemic has created vast unemployment in the working and middle classes around the world.
“We are truly fortunate at eToro to have experienced significant growth in our business during the crisis, but we realize that the financial inequality gap in society is widening at a quicker rate due to COVID-19. There are significantly more people unemployed around the world today than nine months ago, and that focuses us on further delivering solutions, now. We want people to go to the website and claim their GoodDollars, find usage for them and tell the world about it,” says Assia.
About the Author: Lawerence Wintermeyer is a Fintech Contributor Image: Clark Cruz
OKEx Now Supports Financial Innovation Project Universal Market Access (UMA)
Universal Market Access (UMA), an open-source, permissionless, and censorship-resistant protocol for financial innovation has achieved a milestone by getting listed on a major exchange. UMA token went live on leading global crypto spot and derivatives exchange OKEx on August 31, 2020.
According to an announcement by OKEx, UMA is now available for spot trading against USDT and ETH on the platform. The latest listing comes just a couple of days after OKEx created a record of sorts by listing 8 DeFi projects in a single day. With UMA listed on the platform, OKEx now supports 29 DeFi tokens.
UMA is a protocol for building synthetic assets based on concepts borrowed from fiat financial derivatives. It allows any two counterparties to design and create their own decentralized financial contracts and oracles with economic guarantees using self-enforcing contract design patterns, all in a permissionless blockchain setting.
The project’s co-founder Hart Lambur said, “The UMA project is excited to launch on OKEx. We are committed to supporting DeFi growth for OKEx’s users and to grow more in the Asia market.”
In the past month, UMA has gained a lot of attention, becoming the second-largest blockchain oracle with a market cap of 3 million. According to Coin98 Trading Analysis, as of August 8, UMA was preceded only by the Chainlink project.
Responding to Lambur’s comment, CEO of OKEx Jay Hao said, “OKEx also believes that financial markets should be universally accessible and open, a vision we know is shared by UMA. We have witnessed the impressive strides that UMA has made within the DeFi space and are glad to be collaborating with them.”
With this collaboration, OKEx is on its way to achieving its #FinanceAll goal where everyone will have access to financial services.
Case for Universal Basic Income – and Its Higher Purpose – Strengthened by Justice Protests
What is the value of a human life? What level of protection should a person – any person – reasonably expect? In this epochal period these critical questions are being fiercely debated around the world. Is it time to renegotiate the social contract?
GoodDollar’s mission is to achieve greater equality, shaping a world where every person is given an opportunity to pursue their life’s purpose, regardless of their circumstances at birth. Our proposition is founded upon the central principle of universal basic income (UBI): namely that everyone – no matter the creed, colour, or employment status – deserves a better level of protection. This support is made possible by regular no-strings-attached financial assistance.
On May 25, George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe”, were captured on a smartphone camera and beamed around the world as the 46-year old was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. The “I can’t breathe” plea, adopted by protesters and activists, has become a parable for something larger: an inability to live with security and safety, a blocking from realising one’s life purpose. In most recent memory, it recalls the horrific downing sensation experienced by victims of the coronavirus – a disproportionate number of whom are black or from ethnic minorities.
This feeling of unrest has spread across liberal democracies, but this moment has created a moment of darkness, with underlying and profound racial and economic inequalities being exposed. The triple whammy – of longstanding, systematic racism, the unbalanced impact of COVID-19, and the deep unemployment triggered by the virus – currently felt by BAME people (those from black, Asian or minority ethnic groups) has precipitated a watershed moment for many. People have taken to the streets, in the US and elsewhere around the world, in protest against Floyd’s murder in search of justice, and even looting when they feel they have little to lose. On a practical level, America’s unemployment level of 13.3 percent has enabled more people than normal to protest and campaign.
Lack of protection
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis has built a tinderbox atmosphere, and Floyd’s death has sparked the flames of unrest sweeping America, and beyond. Consider that the virus has killed black Americans at almost three times the rate of white Americans. Further, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has increased African-American unemployment to 16.7 percent (compared to 14.2 percent for white people).
In America, the so-called “land of the free”, unrivaled wealth coexists with social and economic inequality and mass incarceration, which falls disproportionately on black Americans. This is the systemic racism that recent protests have highlighted. “According to the Census Bureau, African-Americans earn barely three-fifths as much as non-Hispanic whites,” reports The Economist. “In 2018 average black household income was ,400, compared with ,600 for whites. That gap is wide.”
The article continues: “The American gap is narrower than it was in 1970, when African-Americans earned only half as much as whites. But all the improvements happened between 1970 and 2000, and since then things have worsened again. The black income gap has been eased somewhat by post-COVID federal spending increases. But it may soon yawn wider because African-Americans have many of the low- or unskilled jobs that could be most vulnerable to a coronavirus recession.”
In America, the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately fallen on black and minority populations: blacks are the most likely to hold “essential jobs”, keeping them in the workforce and exposed to the virus. Additionally, those same people have been disproportionately affected by job losses. Indeed, May’s figure of 16.7 percent black unemployment has remained virtually the same compared to April (16.8 percent), despite the overall drop from 14.7 percent to 13.3 percent, as pointed out by The Guardian. The pandemic – and the unjust death of Floyd – should not have been required to bring this issue to global political attention. Those marching for justice and meaningful change are desperate.
Only in America?
Equally, in the United Kingdom, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare systemic discrimination. Black Britons are over four times more likely to die from the virus than white people, while Britons of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage are more than three times as likely and Indians more than twice as likely to die from the virus, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Alarmingly, 72 percent of all health and social care staff who have died with or from COVID-19 in the UK are BAME, constituting another version of institutionalised racism. “These deaths are the collateral damage of British racism – the indirect consequence of decades of exclusion that have corralled black and Asian people into the kind of jobs, housing and health situations that would make us particularly susceptible,” writes Gary Younge, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, in The New Statesman.
“COVID-19 has demonstrated how racism can kill in far less dramatic ways and in far greater numbers without offering a morality play that might be shared on social media. When the police and politicians order the protesters to go back to their communities, there seems little recognition that that is where they were dying in such disproportionate numbers.”
Consider that in 2016 the unemployment rate for black male graduates aged 16-24 in London was 18 percent, in comparison to 10 percent for their white counterparts, ONS figures show. Further, black male graduates earn £7,000 less per year than their white counterparts in the UK, the Guardian calculated in 2018. Moreover, only 11 percent of FTSE 100 directors are BAME, new research highlights.
Rewriting the social contract
This situation has not been caused solely because of police brutality, which is sickening. There is turmoil in the cities of America and around the world because basic principles around the security and value of a human life have been eroded. We have signed a social contract that no longer protects us all. These are the larger, more entrenched challenges that face our system.
People are miserable, mental health is worsened, and emotional stress is heightened by a lack of financial support, ultimately. Adopting UBI will be a step in the right direction to alleviate these core issues. The time for change is now.
“We need to reimagine public safety in ways that shrink and eventually abolish police and prisons while prioritizing education, housing, economic security, mental health and alternatives to conflict and violence,” a New York Times opinion piece published on May 30 read.
Suggesting a reallocation of some of the 0 billion spent on police in America, the article concluded: “People often question the practicality of any emergency response that excludes the police. We live in a violent society, but the police rarely guarantee safety. Now more than ever is the time to divest not only from police resources, but also the idea that the police keep us safe.”
The central goal of UBI is to offer a predictability and security that is missing from the social contract for so many people in 2020. At GoodDollar we believe that every life has value regardless of what you do, and that basic income helps to provide a sense of purpose. With a baseline level of income, which is delivered regularly and reliably, people won’t feel completely desperate and destitute if they lose their jobs or have to stay at home.
Our project comes from the position that we owe one another a level of safety and dignity – and at the centre is money, and financial security. While the protests continue, the deeper question remains: in this society, what do we owe each other?
GoodDollar: Changing The Balance – For Good
Do you have the skills to help the GoodDollar project? We need builders, scientists and experts in identity, privacy, and financial governance, as well as philanthropists and ambassadors. Contact us at hello@gooddollar.org, or via our social media channels (Twitter, Telegram, or Facebook). Check out our community website, join the OpenUBI movement, visit our GitHub page, and explore our Medium page and YouTube channel.
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Crypto Entrepreneur Pledges Match of Presidential Candidate’s Universal Basic Income Scheme
Justin Sun, the founder of the crypto asset network TRON and CEO of BitTorrent, has just announced that he intends to match a presidential candidate’s unorthodox campaign strategy. The crypto-friendly democratic candidate, Andrew Yang, has stated that he plans to use campaign funds to extend universal basic income of ,000 per month to 10 people for the next year.
In a move clearly supportive of the candidate, Sun has pledged to give ,000 of his own money to 100 people each month for the next year. The crypto entrepreneur has also offered a seat at his lunch date with legendary investor Warren Buffet.
Justin Sun Backs Pro-Crypto Candidate with UBI Match
Earlier today, The New York Times reported on democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s announcement that he planned to award 10 people ,000 per month for a year. The move would be a much scaled down version of the universal basic income package he plans for US citizens should they elect him president in 2020.
The legality of Yang’s “freedom dividends” have been called into question since he plans to finance them using campaign funds. However, Yang argues that the payments are not against federal law since they would not exist if it were not for the campaign.
Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun today pledged to match Yang’s UBI experiment by extending the monthly ,000 to another “100 ppl”. He gave scant few other details of his plans via Twitter:
Yang’s initiative to UBI k to 10 ppl per mth for 1 yr, I'll pledge UBI k to 100 ppl per mth in 2020! I'll pick 1 to attend lunch w/ me & @WarrenBuffett 2020! I'll let Yang assist me in picking the lucky 100! Join us! #YANG2020 @AndrewYang https://t.co/YQFnXwXtuf
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) September 13, 2019
Sun does not tell followers if they need to register interest in the competition, if it will be exclusive to US citizens, or if all entries must be a Tron holder. He also does not state if he will be paying the UBI in the crypto asset he founded, TRON.
He does, however, extend an invitation for one of the 100 recipients to join him at his lunch date with Warren Buffet. Yang will reportedly help him select who to bring along. The entrepreneur won a charity auction for the opportunity for him and a handful of others to have lunch with the legendary investor and cryptocurrency naysayer. He paid .6 million for the opportunity to turn Buffet around to his way of thinking. The lunch has already been postponed once due to apparent health concerns of Sun.
Already known to be joining Sun at the dinner is Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle; eToro founder, Yoni Assia; Livio Weng, of Huobi; Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin; and a representative of exchange giant Binance. Each gave their agreement to attend the lunch prior to the now postponed date.
Presuming that those five names are still interested, that leaves two of the seven places yet to fill. With one going to the winner of the crypto entrepreneur’s UBI pledge competition, and President Trump looking increasingly like he snubbed his own invitation, it’s unclear who will fill out the table when the lunch is finally rescheduled.
Mr. President, you are misled by fake news. #Bitcoin & #Blockchain happens to be the best chance for US! I'd love to invite you to have lunch with crypto leaders along with @WarrenBuffett on July 25. I guarantee you after this lunch, nobody will know crypto more than you!
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) July 12, 2019
Related Reading: Crypto Crisis: Pro Trader Compares Altcoins To Crushing Student Debt
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