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Bitcoin Part 1: Stores of Value

By | Edited By admin,,

The 4,600 year old Meroe Pyramids from the Kingdom of Kush in the eastern Sahara desert, Sudan. A store of value hasn’t changed much since then in parts of Africa. Bitcoin is changing that. Picture is mine.

The unbanked is really just a polite word for the oppressed.

There is an important but overlooked difference in how a store of value is viewed from the perspective of the unbanked versus from the relative safety of a western republic.

This disparity in how a store of value is viewed will drive the value and demand of bitcoin going forward in the future as the oppressed will see the value in bitcoin — regardless of what regulatory bodies or investors decide in first world societies.

For the BILLIONS of people who are unbanked in the world, they have only another day of trying to survive to look forward to tomorrow.

Another day of trying to meet the two lowest levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for themselves and their families.

Bitcoin provides the best way to store value in case they have to flee from armed conflict in their own country, their government hyperinflates their savings away, or criminals and corrupt government officials try to steal their wealth.

Those are the measurements the oppressed use when evaluating a store of value — not whether the price dropped against the US dollar for the last eight months.

The hard reality for the unbanked and oppressed

Two trucks raced by me into oncoming traffic, the Special Police insignia of the hand and all seeing eye unmistakably emblazoned on their doors as the midnight blue 2-ton trucks careened back into the lane ahead of me.

In the shadows of the back of the truck, hard men with grim faces in blue camouflage and full riot kit held on, swaying back and forth.

Brake lights suddenly at the next intersection.

Damn it. Another riot.

Braking hard and moving to the right as a wave of blue and black camouflage started pouring out of the trucks, getting online facing the protestors who were to the left down the side street.

I was just trying to get to the grocery store and pick up a whole beef tenderloin from Hamid, the butcher at my local supermarket. Was hosting a dinner party tonight at my villa.

Dodging a riot on the way to the grocery store. Just a normal Friday in Khartoum.

It didn’t even feel out of place anymore. The surreal part was living this way just felt normal now.

Through the intersection to the left, past the police line formed up now like Spartans at Thermopylae with their shields overlapping, I glimpsed a large crowd swirling around a gas station with a line of cars stretching further than I could see, at least 300 meters, dusty from waiting for days to get gas.

Fuel shortages, rising inflation, and basic food items increasing over 100% in price overnight had resulted in injuries, deaths, and mass arrests of people as the riots and protests continued the last few months.

Political opposition leaders had started being kidnapped off the street in broad daylight by the Secret Police.

The Secret Police would tell their families to never ask questions or talk about it. If they did, their loved ones would suffer even worse.

This wasn’t the west. Or even Dubai for that matter.

Shooting protestors in the head, firing indiscriminately into an unarmed crowd of protestors, even flooding protestors with 10,000 gallons of raw sewage to disperse the crowd.

Firing 40mm tear gas grenades directly into mosques while people were praying because the Imam was speaking out against the terrible effects on the poor of the city from the 100% inflation in bread prices.

Using 2-ton police trucks to plow through protestors, like a game of human demolition derby, as they crushed protestors to disperse crowds.

All of that was done here — and the people kept protesting.

Level 1,000 kind of courage.

The protests and social media were now calling for ousting President Bashir completely.

When that happened, the regime brought an entire battalion of the hated and feared Border Guards militia into the capital — over 1,000 men in 250 brown camouflaged hilux pickups with technicals (large anti-aircraft machine guns)mounted in the bed of the trucks.

A few of the Sudanese I worked with actually left the country with their families, fleeing to Egypt, after that long convoy drove in from the desert.

Khartoum Special Police. When they got on line, it’s about to go down — those sticks ain’t for walking.

The Border Guards militia used to be Janjaweed, responsible for almost half a million people killed in the Darfur genocide.

How in the middle of a fuel shortage and inflation crisis could the regime still have battalions of militia fully outfitted and loyal to the regime?

With the migration crisis in recent years, the EU has given over $200 million in migration-related funds to the regime in Khartoum to help stem the flow of migrants through Sudan to Libya and then onward to Europe.

The sad and terrible truth is the corrupt regime takes those funds intended to help refugees, takes their personal cut, and funnels the remaining funds to militias like the Border Guards for additional equipment, training, and money for them to stay loyal and continue torturing, extorting, raping, killing, and selling people to Libyan slave traders.

This policy by the regime also applies to ISIS.

As long as ISIS doesn’t do anything to attract any unnecessary attention from western powers to disrupt the flow of money from the EU or bring US sanctions back, they are left alone to freely transit Sudan to Libya or Egypt because terrorism and unrest in the region is good for business in the regime.

Why?

If the Sudanese regime actually stopped those who perpetrated the violence which led to migration in the first place of the oppressed and unbanked, then the money flowing in from the EU to the regime in Khartoum to help refugees and stem the flow of migrants to the EU would stop.

By ensuring the violence continues, the regime in Sudan insures they will always receive more money from the EU to stop the violence.

This isn’t unique to Africa or the Sudan. Very similar economics of violence in the governments of Afghanistan and even in Pakistan to an extent.

Pretty sickening seeing how this works first hand, isn’t it?

This is the world the unbanked and oppressed live in every day, and the environment which shapes how they view a store of value.

Rams guarding the temple of Amun in Naqa, one of the capital cities from the Kingdom of Kush in the 4th century BC. Take a right off the highway about an hour north of Khartoum, drive through the desert — no roads, just GPS coordinates for 40 minutes — and all of a sudden, these ruins are sitting there, in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Not another living soul out there. It’s an absolutely amazing site. Picture is mine.

4,600 Years Old and a Store of Value is the Same

Africa is amazing. From the hand carved churches in Lalibela, Ethiopia, and ruins of the Kingdom of Kush in Sudan, to the Skeleton Coast of Namibia.

Most Africans are incredibly kind people.

I had a flat tire on a dark street in Khartoum one night. Most of the street lights don’t work, so it’s usually pitch black, even in the middle of the capital.

A hilux pickup pulls up behind me shining their lights so I could see what I was doing. Turns out it was three Sudanese mechanics from the tire shop down the road. They saw me breakdown, stopped cooking their dinner, loaded up their shop jacks, and came to help.

Just a lot of good people, trying to do the best they can in pretty rough conditions under a totalitarian regime.

In Africa it is still common to use real estate and gold for a store of value.

Just like it was when the Black Pharaohs of the Kingdom of Kush set the first block in the picture above for the temple of Amun in Naqa, 400 BC.

Or as he was more commonly known in Egypt, Amun-Ra, the sun god.

Think about that.

From Pharaohs to Facebook. For 25 centuries — 2,500 years — a store of value has not changed in this part of the world.

The demand for gold is still significant on the continent, with nearly 28 metric tons of gold for jewelry in Egypt alone, and the South African Kruggerand is still one of the most popular and recognized gold bullion coins overseas.

Land is also still widely considered a store of value in Africa.

The unfinished buildings in the photo below where I’m talking to the Gulf War veterans were common throughout Khartoum.

Families would pool income for years, building houses as they could afford the construction.

The thought process behind it was the government could not inflate away construction like savings in a bank account, and soldiers or criminals couldn’t take the foundation of an unfinished house away at the barrel of a rifle like they could their car or other valuables.

Only problem, if a family had to flee armed conflict, they abandoned their life savings in their house, which now had little to no value in an unsafe conflict zone.

The oppressed firmly understand what a store of value is on a continent where inflation and corruption are real problems in every day life.

Talking with Sudanese veterans of the first Gulf War. Prime example for bitcoin and a blockchain store of value. They lost everything leaving Iraq and the government of Sudan will not help them. The Secret Police and Riot Police are out of frame but there. I was trying to convince them to leave — I didn’t want to see old veterans getting beat by the Police cause it embarrassed the Regime to have veterans begging America for help. Really felt bad for these guys. Picture is mine.

The people who need bitcoin the most don’t care about blockchain or peer to peer digital currency.

Wait, what?

Let me explain.

Sudan, and to a larger extent, Africa, desperately needs a store of value that is safer and more portable.

One that is harder to be stolen by criminals, inflated away by the government, or confiscated by corrupt officials in times of conflict.

Bitcoin fills these needs perfectly. Better than property, gold, or US dollars.

The people who need bitcoin the most — whether that is in Sudan, Zimbabwe, or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — spans a continent larger than the US, China, India, and most of the EU combined.

Expecting a person in one of these places that desperately needs a portable store of value to understand scarcity, proof of work mining, decentralized public ledgers, and the difference between a store of value, peer to peer digital currencies, security tokens, and utility tokens is absolutely ridiculous.

That is like expecting someone to understand the SWIFT banking network, fractional reserve banking, the treasury yield curve, and the last 70 years of geopolitical strategy which has ensured the US dollar as the world reserve currency before they trade Sudanese pounds for US dollars on the black market.

Great if they do, but most people don’t. They just know the dollar holds its value better in times of uncertainty in their country.

They know as they continue to try and just meet their families daily needs amidst chaos, or flee conflict, they stand a better chance of not being left destitute if they have US dollars.

Similarly, we are entering a time where bitcoin as an emerging asset class will start to be accepted as a store of value at face value just like the US dollar.

And just like the U.S. dollar was before it, for the people that need it most, they won’t be able to explain why the system works, they’ll just know it does work and they didn’t lose everything.

And there’ s nothing wrong with that.

Driving at 8am through a haboob (sandstorm) blowing in from the Sahara in Khartoum. Picture is mine.

For Africa, a lot of places are 100% cash based with the US dollar being dominant — especially where cut-off from SWIFT banking relationships and they only have the black market for buying US dollars.

But technology is changing this, unleashing a Pandora’s box on corrupt governments throughout the continent as people no longer have to rely solely on US dollars through the black market, gold, or property as stores of value.

Mobile payments was the first step. Governments can no longer marginalize and oppress people by shutting them out of traditional banking infrastructure or put restrictions on assets held in their accounts.

SWIFT recently noted the impact mobile payment has in African Payments: Insights into African transaction flow.

Since 2014, SWIFT notes the percentage of Sub-Saharan Africans using mobile payments has doubled to 21%, while the amount of traditional financial accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa has not changed.

The paper also noted 200,000 households emerged from extreme poverty in Kenya after the mobile money service M-Pesa became available to them.

Why is that significant?

Sub-Saharan Africa currently has the lowest savings rate in the developing world according to the UN at 18%.

Think about it this way, for all the decades of humanitarian aid to the continent in various forms through governments and the UN, the ability for people to save their earnings, start businesses, and accumulate wealth was still the lowest in the world at 18%.

Mobile payments started from zero, and in only four year has more than doubled, now beating traditional savings in Sub-Saharan Africa at 21%.

Mobile payments was the tool the oppressed and unbanked needed to directly surpass traditional banks in the region and regain some control over their own lives. They did this in only four years.

The Old Way — From African Payments: Insights into African transaction flow

The New Way — From CNN

Bitcoin — Starving Corrupt Regimes of Income

In the illustrations above, it is striking that currently utilizing traditional banking infrastructure, payments from Africa to China must still go from an African bank, through a US institution, then to a Chinese bank for business transactions.

Similarly, any aid which is sent to Africa from the US, EU, or other programs must go through a government and bank in Africa.

Bitcoin and blockchain changes all that.

In the future, nothing will prevent the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner on Refugees) from registering refugees with their own cryptocurrency wallet and aid organizations sending funds directly to refugees if they desire.

No more funding being redirected by corrupt officials.

No more feeding militias or terrorist organizations, enabling the very evil which aid organizations try to stop.

Just bitcoin and blockchain starving these evil organizations from their main source of funding — the exploitation of human beings.

Sure, sounds great, who doesn’t want to save the world, but can we really expect refugees to understand how this works?

They already do.

Mobile payment in Africa is not only paving the way for adoption, but already proves the model in the free market by overtaking traditional savings through banks in only four years.

M-Pesa already serves over 32 million customers in Africa with US$1.713 billion transferred on the network in 2017.

BitPesa, using the bitcoin blockchain, is another step beyond that entirely.

Now, an African business can transfer funds from their bank account to Bitcoin in BitPesa from the Democratic Republic of Congo to pay a Chinese supplier for parts.

BitPesa then convert the bitcoin to Chinese Yuan and deposit to the supplier’s account.

In addition, the UN is already seeing evidence of Africans turning to bitcoin for savings. Referencing Zimbabwe’s inflation in 2015, the UN estimates there will be 725 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa by 2020.

32 million customers at US $1.713 billion using M-Pesa to 725 million mobile subscribers in two years.

Saying that sentence out loud is the sound of freedom and self-determination for the oppressed.

What about Bitcoin price volatility?

As a store of value for the oppressed, bitcoin’s volatility is a non-issue.

Whoa, what?

It’s true. What they really value is portability and the ability to hide in plain sight when it comes transiting with their life savings.

BTC currently having a higher return (+35.70% BTCUSD for last year) than either gold or the US dollar is just a bonus.

Bitcoin is the best solution on the planet to meet the demand of portability and hiding in plain sight.

Before bitcoin, holding their savings in US dollars or gold was as good as it got for portable wealth.

Gold and US dollars still ran the risk of being stolen at checkpoints in transit, and is hard to disguise any serious amount of life savings.

But people still risked it.

Given the choice, people always choose what gives them the most value to protect their family, even if there is a risk.

What about property?

The other option for saving wealth is pouring a foundation of a house a person couldn’t afford to finish for another four years.

Just so the corrupt government couldn’t inflate their savings away through terrible and unstable monetary policy.

Knowing full well it was entirely possible they may have to flee from an armed conflict with their family before then, leaving the unfinished house and their entire life savings behind.

Which would you prefer if you were living in this situation?

The Final Reason — BTC Still Worth More Than Local Currency

The Sudanese pound inflated over 465% in less than a year to the US dollar on the black market when I was there, going from 8:1 to 52:1 in 2018.

The price of bread literally doubled overnight one weekend, from Thursday night to Friday morning.

They lost over 85% of their purchasing power in less than year. What cost 8 Sudanese pounds now costed 52 because all imports are priced in US dollars.

Then the government started restricting bank withdrawals and publicly beating currency exchangers who were dealing in US dollars.

People withdrew what savings they could and bought US dollars, holding them in secret at home.

Knowing the daily inflation rates, where to buy US dollars on the black market, the cost of cooking gas just to be able to eat — all just daily life in Khartoum.

And Khartoum was considered nice and safe by comparison to other places on the continent.

For the oppressed in the world, an 85% drop in price on BTC is going to be inline or even much less to the hyperinflation that will be happening around them in a country which is truly in trouble.

When the economy and country is in shambles, having a private key written down somewhere on their person to a BTC wallet will be the lightest, most secure method of traveling to get to safety with their life savings available to them — all while looking like they have nothing of value to steal.

For the people that live this everyday — they know that.

The corruption and friction points in banking that the oppressed and unbanked currently have to deal with are driving bitcoin adoption as a store of value faster than in western markets where people can depend on their currency being stable, peace, and prosperity.

After 4,600 years the world finally has a better store of value for the oppressed than property, gold, or a reserve fiat currency.

The oppressed are getting theirs. I got some as well. Hope you consider getting some, too.

Next up, Bitcoin Part 2: The Not So Distant Future

Until then, I’ll be grilling in the backyard, drinking bourbon, and missing the sound of gunfire in the distance. — Radigan

 

Meet The Founder Beatzcoin

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Tron is a blockchain-based decentralised platform that aims to build a free digital entertainment system that allows easy sharing of content and provides a decentralised storage technology. Tron attempts to bridge the gap between content creators and content consumers. The Tron ecosystem is experiencing immense churn with various digital currencies being introduced in the market Both Beatzcoin and Tron work on the same share principles of secured content and providing creators a platform to showcase and leverage their talent

Beatzcoin is a front-runner in digital currencies that utilizes blockchain technology and is traded on VibraVid, a multi-chain decentralized podium.. VibraVid is a platform that taps into this space, offering a free peer to peer desktop and mobile streaming application that enables viewers to view and listen to content in the form of videos and audios. Content creators can upload, store, market, lease and sell their content to the users of this app alongside activities such as crowdfunding and sell merchandise and event tickets.Beatzcoin is a cryptocurrency which is the value of exchange on the VibraVid platform

Meet  Steven Zambron the founder of BeatzCoin

Beatzcoin, Steven wants to reinvent the global marketing platform for the digital content producers and the consumers

 Could you tell us about yourself and your position within VibraVid/Beatzcoin?

Sure. My name is Steven Zambron. I am the founder of BeatzCoin, the TRC20 (Tron Network) token for the VibraVid platform.

What inspired you to start VibraVid?

I was an aspiring rapper and then producer in my younger days. One of the greatest challenges my peers and I faced was ‘being noticed’. It is still very difficult to drive attention to your music (or Youtube™ video) without having a fair marketing budget, or spending hours a day begging for views. A lot of people with a ton of talent simply go un-noticed in this space. Once I became more aware of blockchain technology, it became apparent that the digital content industry not only needed to be tokenized but tokenized to the extent where extra incentives are put into place. Using fiat currency simply cannot achieve what we are doing.

When did you know it was time to convert the idea into reality?

I began teasing with the idea as far back as December of 2017. In early January I devoted most of any spare time I had to creating a business plan. As time went on, I reached out to a friend of mine, George Tobias, who was mining cryptocurrency at the time, and I pitched my ideas to him. I asked him if he’d help me to start putting the plan into motion. He agreed to come aboard, and we both began researching and testing ideas. In March I began reaching out to other people, as I definitely needed more help. Slowly but surely I put together a very small team, and I continued with the leadership role. By mid-April, the project had become a full-time job for me, even though I still continued to work a day job. Here we are today, after several thousands of devoted hours, our webpage and token (BeatzCoin) are alive and well!

What is Beatzcoin, and what differentiates it in the market?

BeatzCoin is a TRC20 token on the Tron (TRX) network. When using the TronScan wallet, transactions are extremely fast (usually 1-2 seconds), recorded on the Tron blockchain, and extremely cheap to process. Right now, BeatzCoin can be used in conjunction with the GoSeedit Bot to instantly send and tip BeatzCoin to Telegram™ users. This usage will be available on more platforms as time allows. What differentiates BeatzCoin from other tokens is that it is the primary token on the VibraVid social video and music sharing platform. VibraVid was taken down as there were some vulnerability discovered, and our team is working on correcting these issues, as well as adding some updates.

How will the investors benefit from investing in your project?

We do not recommend anyone to invest in BeatzCoin as our token is not any type of investment or security. Cryptocurrency presents many risks, and the market is very volatile. Anyone is welcome to join our bounty campaigns, airdrops, and giveaways. We have dedicated a whopping 6% of our total supply right now to these offers, and have frozen an additional 15% to launch more reward programs beginning 2 years from now! The VibraVid platform and the entire model of BeatzCoin are optimized for user and token holder reward. Aside from our standard campaigns, the VibraVid platform will provide users with several ways in which to earn more BeatzCoin. For example, someone may upload a video, and provide a bounty for you to view their content. VibraVid will also offer rewards in the form of contests. For example, we may announce that the video with the most views in 24 hours will receive 1,000 BeatzCoin. These are just some of the many ways we will continue to reward our community.

You started your journey from January 2018. How have the past 8 months been for you?

Like anything else in life, it has been a real roller-coaster ride. We have had many ups and downs. Several roadblocks have come our way but we’ve always managed to move forward! We’ve reached milestones that we did not see as possible. To do what we are doing takes a lot of time, dedication, and patience…and of course, money. All-in-all, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, and we are only in the beginning…

 What are some of the learning points and challenges you have faced so far?

There is no particular order; however, I would like to note that funding and dedicated people are the 2 most difficult assets to acquire. I am no expert on all things, so I needed help. In the beginning, I had to pitch my idea to 100’s of people in order to add 1 person to the team. That was the ratio I was working with. The learning process was never much of an issue for me. The problem that usually arose was not having enough time to do things, and needing other, more knowledgeable, people to work on different areas of the project. We started with absolutely no budget. In that scenario, it becomes very difficult to convince people to work for free, however, every now and again you find the right person with the right talent, and they see the same vision. Another challenge for me was working with a completely remote team, as well as people that were not fluent in the language that I speak. Then, of course, were legal concerns. We basically restructured our entire project in order to not be considered any type of security offering.

 To what extent are you trying to innovate to stay ahead of the competition?

During the past 8-9 months we’ve discovered or seen similar projects appear. Some of our competitors are Veracity, Steemit, Vuily, among a few others. Although you may find similar projects, most of them are very fancy in appearance, have some money backing them, have spent a lot more than us on PR but when it boils down to it, none of these projects are creating what we are creating. For instance, some of these projects are using Ethereum. I respect Ethereum but it is not good for micro-payments. We, in fact, were forced to abandon the idea of using Ethereum, specifically due to this issue. I often wonder why people invest in these projects. Another thing that concerns me is that a lot of these projects are using centralized methods of hosting and storage, yet claim to be some type of revolutionary, decentralized project. We are not concerned with the performance of our token. We are testing our own blockchain but we have full confidence in the Tron network. BeatzCoin will continue to remain involved in the building of the Tron community and infrastructure, and that, in my opinion, keeps us ahead of any competition.

At the moment how do you measure your success? What are your metrics?

I don’t see myself, or our project getting comfortable anytime soon. In fact, right now is more important than ever as we push for community adoption and usage. We have set many goals, and continue to achieve them. We, in nearly all cases, meet strict deadlines. Our roadmap is right on course. That is the only measure of success that I can give you at this time.

For someone establishing their own start-up, what advice would you give them?

Gather your ideas. It is very important (and sometimes difficult) to extract the ideas from your mind and put them into words or on paper. Keep editing your ideas until they are reasonably complete. It’s a never ending process but at some point you need to leave that alone and move forward with action. Build a good team. Don’t settle for people who are not willing to give 100%. It will only cause you heartache. In the beginning, not many people will see your vision as clearly as you do. This is perfectly normal, just understand it and accept it. Have patience. Don’t let anyone tell you that it cannot be done. Find and make ways to get it done! Read, study, and observe those who have found success. See what they did…and do it! Utilize any open-source or free methods to do things. You do not need tons of money to start your project or business, though many people will try to convince you otherwise. Lastly, believe in yourself, and always learn from mistakes.

It was our great pleasure to interview Steven Zambron. We TronWeekly Journal  are very impressed with project Beatzcoin is going introduce. With thousands of applications, platforms and websites available, over 5,00,000 hours of music video content is uploaded daily from across the globe on this wonder that is the internet. Add technological advancements, better mobile data connectivity and superior streaming services to the mix, and we notice a steady shift from conventional music platforms to digital music. While this is a boon for the music industry at large, it certainly creates a difficult situation for emerging talent to gather resources to fund their content as well as be noticed in the online space among a herd of creators.. Existing platforms also focus on marketing and revenue generation as their primary motives, failing to incentivize new content creators or users who give fresh content a chance. Here’s where VibraVid and Beatzcoin come in.

The beauty of this application is that at every point a user and well as a creator has the chance to earn Beatzcoin which they can use for a wide plethora of activities on the platform. A user earns Beatzcoins by signing up on the app, participating in bounties, watching paid to view advertisements, completing daily weekly/challenges and much more. On the other hand, creators cash in when someone watches/listens to their content, allowing paid to view videos ads on their content, crowdfunding among other activities. VibraVid has effectively tapped into a gaping market gap that is certain to benefit and reward video creators, record producers, musicians, music enthusiasts and the entire industry at large. VibraVid & Beatzcoin certainly make for a fun experience for one and all!

Meet The Founder Tron Loot

By | Edited By admin,,

Tron Loot takes digital assets distribution to the next level by taking the initiation of introducing new tokens on the Tron network to the Tron community in a fun and unique way.

This is great honor for Tron Weekly Journal to kick start the segment “Meet The Founder” with the Founder of TronLoot.

What do you and your team bring to table

TronLoots mission is to bring excitement, fungibility and asset sharing to the Tron Mainnnet. We aim to get as many unique and interesting tokens into as many wallets as possible in an incredibly fun way, which inadvertently promotes those assets to be shared and traded; increasing their desirability and overall value.

At this moment how do you measure success? what are your metrics

We measure success through positive token trade activity by the Tron community. We regularly monitor trade channels after introducing a token into the TronLoot Reward Pool to watch for an increase in that tokens tradability. Fairly reliably we see that after introduction, a token will become more desirable by the community due to big winners trading their newly acquired token in trade channels for a profit which in turn spreads that token into a larger pool of Tron wallets. This spreading further improves a tokens trade value and in effect it’s desirability.

How will the investors make money by investing in your project?

Making money through the TronLoot project is fairly straight forward. A user purchases TronLoot through either trade channels, or through TronScan, then sends TronLoot to our main collection address which is posted on TronScan, Telegram and Twitter, and in return that user receives back a random token in a random amount as a prize to their sending address. This prize is selected using random.org (for amount awarded) and a digital spin wheel with all token choices included on the wheel (for token awarded). This prize is variable based on the amount of TronLoot you send in; 1 TronLoot = a chance at between 1-10 of a random token sent back to you, 10 = 11-100, 100 = 101-1000, and our Max allowed amount per spin is 1000 which rewards between 1001-10,000. We include “a chance at winning” in our description due to the “You Lose” option included on the digital spin wheel, which has a chance of 19.79% per spin. All reward amounts, proof of payment, and proof of fairness is provided in our TronLoot Rewards Chat so that users have peace of mind when participating. We have also recently included multipliers on wins to make big wins even bigger! An example of this is “A user sends in 1000 TronLoot, and their spin on the Prize Wheel is (IGG x2), then random.org is rolled for a prize between 1001-10,000 and the result is 9567, this user has just won 19,134 IGG, which is a 382 TRX win on a 250TRX investment based on the TronScan trading prices of IGG and TronLoot.”

What do you hope to accomplish within one year?

We hope to have TronLoot known as a popular and exciting choice by token founders, collectors, and traders of the Tron ecosystem within one year. Currently we are fairly unknown, as our project has only been listed on TronScan for 6 days. But in those 6 days we have formed 13 Token strategic alliances, have built up the trading value of over 30 tokens including TronLoot and we have built a following of 145 users on our telegram chat. We have also released huge updates to trading (multipliers) and have continued to add onto our list of future developments.

Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t have ?

We believe that we have found a particularly interesting niche in the Tron ecosystem by having an early entry on being the foundational force behind spreading tokens in a fun and exciting way. We will continue to update and upgrade our systems as demand and feedback increases and hope to form a long lasting legacy within Tron.

why is now the time your company to exist?

Now is the perfect moment for TronLoot to come into existence. Tron Mainnnet is at an early stage, with only 200 tokens (increasing daily) available on TronScan; this allows TronLoot to spread these tokens and build a long term userbase before the amount of tokens available is far to over encumbering to feasibly build a foundation of value (which tokens need to be vetted for addition to the TronLoot Pool, What should their value be i.e. what multipliers are reasonable, is this addition long term or is this addition going to be detrimental in the long run, etc.). All of these variables are much easier to decide when the potential pool of choices is much smaller.

According to you what will be your biggest threat?

Our biggest threats at the moment are scam coins. We want to make sure that we include tokens of potential future value on the TronLoot Prize wheel and given that 99% of projects out on mainnet are new and information on them is coming out daily we have to tread lightly when choosing Prizewheel additions. The last thing we would ever want is to spread scam tokens into potentially thousands of wallets.

China & Blockchain Part 2 : The World’s Most Undervalued Market

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Imagine if Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google had just gone public. You were a programmer building the platform — but you couldn’t own any shares.

That is exactly what is happening in China today.

Mr. David Li, the founder of Trinity recently explained on an AMA an interesting difference on how blockchain projects are valued between China and the West.

“For the Chinese who are working on blockchain projects, the price of the underlying project means nothing to them — since they can’t own it. They are focused solely on the tech.”

Thinking about the significance of that statement, I looked at the current daily trading volume for bitcoin to Chinese Yuan (BTCCNY).

The Chinese Yuan accounted for only 0.79% in daily trade volume to bitcoin.

Interesting.

When was the last time the Chinese public had a straight forward onramp from Yuan to bitcoin anyway?

December 2013. Almost 5 years ago.

China stopped mainstream financial institutions on the mainland from dealing with bitcoin in December 2013, when the overall market cap for all cryptocurrencies was only $15.7 billion U.S.

 

Logarithmic chart from 2013 to Present — Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap

Closer look at May 2013 to December 2013 market capitalization

The last time there was direct Chinese participation, the total market capitalization went up 881% in 6 months.

Since then, almost 5 years, the market has risen 1310% without the Chinese having a direct path to market participation.

That is a lot of pent up demand.

Imagine working in Shenzhen, seeing the market go up over 1300% while you are programming a blockchain project — and you can’t legally own any of it.

But that still doesn’t paint the entire picture.

The other part to remember is the difference in projects which made up the market in December 2013 at $15.7 billion compared to today, at $221 billion.

It’s a different world.

Here are the Top 25 cryptocurrencies by market cap in December 2013. I pulled this off archived pages from www.coinmarketcap.com

Some of these projects no longer exist from five years ago.

Today is a very different picture where the projects in scale and function go well beyond the scope of most projects in the Top 25 in 2013.

In fact, just the four Chinese projects below in today’s Top 25 by market cap would have equaled 44% of the entire market capitalization of all blockchain projects in 2013.

#13 Tron — $1.4 billion

#14 NEO — $1.2 billion

#16 Binance — $1.1 billion

#19 VeChain — $719 million

With China not having a direct route to cryptocurrency markets and western institutional investors not in the Chinese blockchain space yet, these current valuations are based mostly on western individual buyers.

The next questions then are:

If China has no direct route to buy any of the projects they are currently working on, are they really even accurately valued at current prices?

Would China want their projects to be accurately valued before the Chinese had a chance to buy their own projects?

How is it possible to gauge current western institutional involvement in the Chinese blockchain space?

The impact on the value of Chinese projects when the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has their own cryptocurrency in place.

Yesterday, it was reported “Bank of Communications (BoCom) a Chinese state-owned commerical bank has issued RMB9.3 billion (US $1.3 billion) of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) through its proprietary blockchain network, Jucai Chain.”

China is getting closer to issuing a Chinese sovereign cryptocurrency. That day is coming.

President XI is calling blockchain a breakthrough technology, the PBoC have filed for 41 blockchain patents this year, and China State Television say blockchain will be worth 10x more than the internet, estimated at $34 Trillion U.S. dollars.

The Digital Currency Research Lab (DCRL), the research wing of the People’s Bank of China, is the organization furiously filing blockchain patents.

From a report in November 2017, the DCRL said:

“ — it’s inevitable for the central bank to launch its own digital currency to upscale the existing circulation of the fiat currency.”

When that happens, we will see China reopen exchanges on the mainland.

But it won’t be a bitcoin to Chinese Yuan pair.

It will be a — for lack of a better term —a CryptoYuan, paired not just to bitcoin, but to most other Chinese blockchain projects as well.

Similar in function to tether pairings currently, but fully backed by the PBoC and stable in value to the Yuan.

Where Chinese can transfer CryptoYuan direct from their bank accounts to an exchange and buy projects through the direct pairing.

In essence, the Chinese government is signaling their intent of competing directly with stable coins like Tether and cutting out BTC completely as a reserve cryptocurrency, all while maintaining control of their own money supply.

By launching a CryptoYuan, controlled by the People’s Bank of China, this will align the interests of the government, banks, and people simultaneously.

It will give the Chinese government the taxing mechanism that they need through financial transaction transparency. They will not be relying on people to self report like what is currently happening in the West.

Think of it like a 1099 from a brokerage account. The person gets a copy for their records, as does the taxing authority for the Chinese government, but it’s on the blockchain and immutable.

Also, this will not be unique to the Chinese government. The West will eventually follow as taxation through transaction transparency is a driving factor for countries with record low, or negative interest rates as they all seek maximum tax revenues available.

It is the reason the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) has been adopted by most major economies in the world through the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to determine which country has taxing jurisdiction over assets without relying on the owner to self report.

A Chinese sovereign currency will also give the Chinese banks a secured place in the new Chinese blockchain future. The banks will be running the nodes for the blockchain, tracking the transactions from CrpytoYuan to digital assets and back in all accounts.

Notice how you never hear so much as one Chinese banker ever say a bad word about blockchain?

Compare that to the West, where every week it seems like a different banker is on CNBC espousing his personal views on why blockchain will never work and cryptocurrencies are a terrible idea.

Not in China.

The only person that occasionally speaks is the PBoC Director and when he does, all he says about blockchain is “the blockchain belongs to the public and serves the public interest.”

And he calls bitcoin “inspiring”, saying it gives “ordinary people (the) freedom to participate.”

The PBoC sets the tone for the entire financial sector in China.

The silence from the rest of the bankers in China is deafening.

They know their government is putting the pieces in place for their entire country to participate and they will play a key role. They don’t have to say anything.

A sovereign cryptocurrency will give the Chinese people a direct link to their bank accounts to buy blockchain projects.

We will see what the final product looks like when it launches, but if it is what the government is hinting at, China will actually have a more frictionless way to buy blockchain projects and cryptocurrencies than the West.

The Western Disconnect in the Way Chinese Blockchain Projects are Viewed

Global Coin Research recently wrote a fascinating article describing the difference in mindset between Chinese market participants vs western market participants.

Market participants in China know there are bad actors and fraud to watch out for in all markets, cryptocurrencies and blockchain included.

For most western investors, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are their first taste of what an unregulated market feels like.

For individual investors in the blockchain space, we willingly accept this is the digital frontier and know there is no safety out here.

Win or lose, it is completely on us.

There is no regulatory body coming to save us. No bank to call when we send funds to the wrong address on the blockchain or lose a private key.

But for institutional investors, all of that sound terrible, and being comfortable with it completely insane.

In the last two to three years we have seen institutional money start to make forays into the western blockchain space.

But it has been completely safe expeditions.

A long only bitcoin fund.

Possibly buying tokens at steep discounts before the project launches to the public.

Buying a percentage of platforms or exchanges with known entities from previous deals in traditional markets.

Why?

Think about the makeup of the investors who are in these institutional funds. The smallest Limited Partner (LP) allowed in these funds are Accredited Investors who have $1 million liquid net worth. There are different opportunities and rules when these investors hit the $5 million and $10 million mark depending on the fund.

The average age of a millionaire in the U.S. is 59 years old, almost perfectly in the middle of the baby boomer generation in America which is the massive aging population born between 1946–1964.

Talk to most baby boomers. What do they have to say about bitcoin, let alone the blockchain or other cryptocurrency projects?

How about investing in China?

If they have an opinion, far and wide, it is mostly negative on both accounts.

This mindset is what institutional Fund Managers are up against when they bring blockchain deals to their LP’s to invest in.

Chinese markets and Cryptocurrencies combine their clients worst fears.

If the millionaire baby boomer isn’t comfortable with the deal, they won’t invest. If they don’t invest, the fund doesn’t make money.

So the fund managers have stayed with the majority of western projects and traditional type venture investing in the space so far in order to close deals and keep the funds viable.

This is the greatest strategic advantage to the individual investor currently available, but will not last forever.

Eventually the fund managers will have the right connections in China to convince their baby boomer clients to invest in Chinese blockchain deals.

Just look at Global Coin Research’s twitter followers. Venture Capitalists and Institutional Investors reading the same research individual investors are — all looking for an edge in news which is not usually translated to english.

This is not by accident.

China is the only level playing field currently for western individual investors competing at the same price point as institutional investors for projects — for now.

The Dragon Awakens

There is a lot of action currently behind the scenes in the West as institutions prepare custody solutions to allow institutional money from endowments, hedge funds, state pension funds, etc. to join us brave privateers that beat them to this New World of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Bakkt even announced yesterday their first contracts for BTC in November will be a one to one ratio.

All this is bullish.

But the real news has not been announced yet.

China launching the first sovereign cryptocurrency in the world and reopens exchanges so their country can participate.

When that happens we’ll see how high this dragon can go with five years of pent up demand and the largest middle class in the world reentering the cryptocurrency market.

And this time, it will be with the full support of the Chinese government.

Combine that with institutional money eventually flowing into Chinese blockchain projects and we’ll see Chinese projects accurately valued for the first time since they launched.

We will also see if this is when the West wakes up to the fact they are losing the blockchain race.

Whether China launching the CryptoYuan and reopening exchanges is the 21st century Sputnik moment the West needs to spur them into action remains to be seen.

None of this is financial advice. I only know I cannot accurately value any Chinese projects until the PBoC Director lets China participate again.

See you there. — Radigan

Beatzcoin- A New Digital Currency You Should Reckon With

By | Edited By admin,,

Satoshi Nakatomo founded the Bitcoin network 2009 kick-starting what has now become one of the biggest global financial revolutions in the area of financial transactions and transfer of assets. Close to a decade later, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is experiencing immense churn with various similar digital currencies being introduced.  The newest kid on the block is Beatzcoin, a digital token that utilizes blockchain technology and is traded on VibraVid, a multi-chain, decentralized platform. This article aims to strengthen the cognizance about Beatzcoin amongst blockchain enthusiasts and potential investors, and the overall blockchain community. Let’s delve into what this newest cryptocurrency has to offer.

What are VibraVid and Beatzcoin?             

It is the need of the hour today for businesses to take their service offerings and products on the mobile platform to cater to a growing consumer pool that needs everything to be accessible in the palm of their hands. From insurance purchases to movie bookings, every service is now packaged into a convenient application. Music is no different.

With thousands of applications, platforms and websites available, over 5,00,000 hours of music video content is uploaded daily from across the globe on this wonder that is the internet. Add technological advancements, better mobile data connectivity and superior streaming services to the mix, and we notice a steady shift from conventional music platforms to digital music. While this is a boon for the music industry at large, it certainly creates a difficult situation for emerging talent to gather resources to fund their content as well as be noticed in the online space among a herd of creators. Added pressure is also on the content creator/artist to shoulder the mantle of promotion and marketing, thus taking their focus away from pure content creation. Existing platforms also focus on marketing and revenue generation as their primary motives, failing to incentivize new content creators or users who give fresh content a chance. Here’s where VibraVid and Beatzcoin come in.

VibraVid is a platform that taps into this space, offering a free peer to peer desktop and mobile streaming application that enables viewers to view and listen to content in the form of videos and audios. Content creators can upload, store, market, lease and sell their content to the users of this app alongside activities such as crowdfunding and sell merchandise and event tickets.

Beatzcoin is a cryptocurrency which is the value of exchange on the VibraVid platform. This ecosystem created by Beatzcoin and VibraVid provides creators and users with a means of exchange to share and purchase content. Users and creators are bestowed with Beatzcoin which they can use to purchase tickets, content and merchandise as well as promote their own content. In such a setup, the content creator is incentivized for their efforts, while the user too gains from giving new and exciting content a listen. Such a system encourages talented artists to go out there and create fresh music, while also giving them a chance to generate a fair income based on how catchy their content is.

VibraVid aims to create 3,000,000,000 Beatzcoin which can be purchased/exchanged using Tron (TRX). For the uninitiated, Tron is a blockchain-based decentralised platform that aims to build a free digital entertainment system that allows easy sharing of content and provides a distributed storage technology. Tron attempts to bridge the gap between content creators and content consumers. Both VibraVid and Tron work on the same shared principles of secured content and providing creators a platform to showcase and leverage their talent. Tronscan.org and Beatzcoin.io will be the only two platforms on which Beatzcoin can be traded.

Now that we have understood the business model of this revolutionary application, let’s understand how exactly users can earn Beatzcoin on the VibraVid platform. The beauty of this application is that at every point a user and well as a creator has the chance to earn Beatzcoin which they can use for a wide plethora of activities on the platform. A user earns Beatzcoins by signing up on the app, participating in bounties, watching paid to view advertisements, completing daily weekly/challenges and much more. On the other hand, creators cash in when someone watches/listens to their content, allowing paid to view videos ads on their content, crowdfunding among other activities. VibraVid has effectively tapped into a gaping market gap that is certain to benefit and reward video creators, record producers, musicians, music enthusiasts and the entire industry at large. VibraVid & Beatzcoin certainly make for a fun experience for one and all!

How Secure is VibraVid?

VibraVid is conceptualised around a reward structure for accessing, watching and listening to content while also allowing the creator of the content to hold the licensing control and ownership rights. Leveraging the IPFS protocol, a file system that makes it possible to distribute high volumes of data with high efficiency, VibraVid ensures that data security and sanctity is maintained. The IPFS protocol supports fast bandwidth speed by splitting large volumes of data into logical chunks for easy transmission through a pre-existing network structure. In order to nullify any possible loophole in the IPFS system, VibraVid encodes its videos with an overlay layer, making sure that either a Beatzcoin wallet or a node is required to decode it. This comprehensive framework protects the content of the creator ensuring their rights and ownership of work is upheld.

The problem of pirated content is plaguing the entire global music industry. Due to some bogus and spam links, pornographic materials too find their way into legitimate platforms. Their problems are tackled by a comprehensive watch and control system that identifies and blacklists the hash or the code of such videos rendering them unwatchable.

The Future of Beatzcoin

The creators of this one of a kind music platform have done their best to fashion a platform to streamline creative content and give deserved recognition and monetary benefit to talented creators. However, they plan on leaving the future of VibraVid and Beatzcoin to be decided by market dynamics and sentiment. A small percentage of the value of the transaction will be rolled back into the VibraVid platform as an operational fee, in order to fund the functioning and operating costs of the platform.

The creators aim to see VibraVid as a go-to platform for all entertainment needs as well as a space where upcoming talented creators can showcase their work without feeling the pinch of limited resources of the hassle of dealing with middlemen. The enthusiasm and involvement of creators, as well as users of this platform, will largely shape the future trajectory of Beatzcoin as a digital currency and VibraVid as a successful platform.