Crypto Industry Fights COVID-19, Scammers Don’t Rest, Bad Luck for Telegram, Trump’s Predictions — Anchor Cryptocurrency
In this edition:
- Crypto and Blockchain Are for Good
- Football Star Impersonated by a Crypto Scam
- No Grams Allowed
- Trump’s Predictions — BTC and Oil
What day is today, fellow Anchorians? If there was no Crypto Roundup, I probably wouldn’t even know. One thing is certain though, this troubling March is officially over and let’s congratulate ourselves for enduring it! I mean, it lasted longer than January, don’t you think? Let’s hope that April has prepared for us more positivity and finally some good news. Anyway, within the Anchor team it’s business as usual — we are safe and staying home, but the work continues!
In these circumstances, it can be difficult to organize your professional and personal life while managing to stay sane and productive. Don’t blame yourself, we are all a tad confused! Now, more than ever is the time to practice patience and strengthen your willpower. Sometimes it’s best to occupy your mind with something useful, as is staying well-informed on other topics, too! Rest assured, we’ve got you covered. Without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s latest news!
Crypto and Blockchain Are for Good
Every person alive knows — we are currently facing a global crisis, in terms of a COVID-19 pandemic and following economic recession. What’s the cryptocurrency industry’s answer to this?
We talked about this earlier, crypto and blockchain can indeed offer a solution to certain emerging issues worldwide. For starters, major cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s Charity Foundation has recently launched an initiative called Crypto Against COVID. In this way, crypto and blockchain enthusiasts can help the global situation by making a donation in bitcoin, binance coin and binance USD. So far, a sum of $1,173,893 in BTC has been collected and every donation has been, logically, recorded on the blockchain before converting to fiat in order to enable transparency.
Binance’s Charity earlier this year helped in fundraising for Australian bushfires, and also participated in projects aiming to feed starving children in Africa.
In the meantime, the Dutch government has embraced blockchain as an efficient way to fight coronavirus pandemic. The initiative came from an association of Dutch companies and it’s dubbed ‘Tech against Corona’.
This essentially means that Tymlez, the Netherlands-based distributed ledger technology company, has offered its blockchain platform to track and manage the medical supply chain within the country. Panic can cause a massive buying of certain medical equipment and, in this manner, the Dutch government can prevent price oscillation and shortage of supplies.
Another amazing initiative comes from the US by a cryptocurrency project Althea. These guys came up with an idea to enable Internet access for people in rural areas. Since people in the USA are urged to stay home at the moment, those who don’t have proper access to the Internet found themselves unable to conduct everyday business and stay informed. Althea is fixing this problem! The network devices accept payment in ETH and DAI while considering adding others.
Hopefully, we are going to see more initiatives and projects like these, especially in the months to come. While crypto and blockchain are associated with schemes and illegal activities in the mainstream media, moments like these prove that they both can be used for good!
Football Star Impersonated by a Crypto Scam
Kylian Mbappé, a young French international football star playing for Paris Saint-Germain, recently filed a complaint against a cryptocurrency scam network for the unauthorized use of his name. This situation is currently being investigated by the local authorities, L’Équipe reports.
Mbappé won the FIFA World Cup with the French national football team in 2018, making him one of the rising stars at the global football stage. His now well-known name was used in an advertising campaign to persuade people to invest in an alleged cryptocurrency acquisition scheme. Not very nice of them, don’t you think? Kylian can indeed score goals but he can’t make you a millionaire in two months, at least not this way.
Unfortunately, many people are using crypto as a shortcut to make ‘easy money’ and deceive parties into thinking they can make money and become rich in a short period of time. That’s not how it works, guys! The damage is not only being done to the famous people who are unknowingly involved, but to the entire industry as well. Beware of the scammers!
Mbappé’s Twitter account had been previously hacked in 2019 to post fake tweets where ‘he’ encouraged his followers to invest in crypto scams. One thing is certain, his opinion regarding cryptocurrencies can’t be very good by now.
No Grams Allowed
Apparently, no can do. In New York, a federal judge P. Kevin Castel addressed Telegram’s request to distribute Gram tokens to its non-US investors. The answer is NO. Still, TON is likely to be launched anyway since it’s ‘a decentralized open-source solution’ and ‘nobody can prevent it’.
A quick reminder, in 2018 Telegram made a successful $1.27 billion ICO sale of its Gram token. That also brought them a six-month-long court battle with the SEC. Simply, this kind of precedent can’t be made yet since it would essentially mean a great victory for crypto. Concerns regarding the legitimacy of the industry still remain.
Telegram’s Open Network (TON) project raised a great amount of money, people were eager to see how this messaging platform will do in the world of crypto and blockchain, but the SEC put a stop to that dream. For now, the law is the law and issuing Gram tokens to anyone is non-negotiable.
The TON community was prepared for this scenario but stated that the network could be launched despite the court’s ruling. Community’s representative Fedor Skuratov said for Cointelegraph: “No one can prevent the launch of TON by any other entity, person, or community, because TON is a decentralized open-source solution. Already, there are two different test networks, and within the community, there is at least one group planning to launch.”
Trump’s Predictions — BTC and Oil
The US President Donald Trump likes to tease us with BTC comments now and then. Last week, he accidentally ‘advertised’ bitcoin after his “It’s our money; we are the ones, it’s our currency” speech about the USD. Dollar is definitely on a rocky road, but aren’t we all?
In a press conference held on March 31st, President Trump commented on the current situation in the crude oil market. Allegedly, the price might get lower in the near future since both Russia and Saudi Arabia intend to increase their oil production in April.
“That’s like from the 1950s, it really is — to think that it was $50, $60, $70, $80 — and now it’s $22, but you know, if you put a good bid in at $9, I think you could probably get what you wanted, right?”
Is it a hint, a prediction or something just said out loud? Honestly, who knows.
The truth is that both crude oil and the US dollar have been through a lot recently. WTI crude prices went down 50% only in the past month. The Fed had to react in terms of cutting the interest rate and Congress discussed stimulus measures to respond to COVID-19’s economic carnage.
Do the world leaders know something we don’t or is it just an attempt to show everything’s somewhat under control? Anyhow, we are 100% certain in uncertainty now and the only thing left to do is to stay informed and make your own decisions and choices.
Final Thoughts
We summed it up again, for the 34th time. As usual, there has been good and bad news. While the industry tries to help in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the underlying issues remain. Well, as a famous Tumblr post said — give me coffee to change the things I can, and wine to accept those I cannot.
Focus on the things you can control in your life and for the others… Remember you’re not the only one stressing about them. Anchor Telegram Community is always here for you! Until next week, you know the drill — I wish you fair wind and the following seas, fellow Anchorians!
Disclaimer: The information provided in this post is not legal, accounting, or financial advice. I am not a lawyer, accountant, or financial advisor. I am not registered as an investment adviser with any federal or state regulatory agency. The Information should not be construed as investment or trading advice and is not meant to be a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any cryptocurrencies.
Originally published at https://theanchor.io on April 2, 2020.
