Our Work In Memory: Three Years Ago


By now, the pieces of their puzzle are being set. What seems emerging from our government is nothing more than a centrally controlled CBDC. These by default run absolute customising controls allowing them to apply different interest rates to each person, even a negative one, or even to apply time limits to this currency!

After being continually lectured by our governments that digital payments should be left to the thieves, scammers, and criminals, and now they’re presenting to us exactly this.. except that it’s even far worse? Now, to say the very least, what does this tell you about the nature of our world governments?

The main concern they always voiced was “the protection of citizen’s deposits”, yes, for them to steal. I will never be interested in any CBDC.

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In Lebanon, Bitcoin is Proving to be a Safe Bet

Original post by: Hugo Lautissier

Liban banques
Lebanese citizens stand in line outside a bank to collect their salaries on 31 March 2020 in the coastal city of Tripoli (AFP/Joseph Eid)

Devastated by the drastic devaluation of the Lebanese pound, more and more people are embracing cryptocurrencies

It’s a small, unassuming office tucked between a dog grooming parlour and a slot machine room in Bourj Hamoud, Beirut’s Armenian neighbourhood. Hanging on the wall are two golf clubs, three golf balls and, above them, a framed poster showing the price of bitcoin, which is rising sharply.

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Why Everything That Should Hurt Bitcoin Only Makes It Stronger

AttackBitcoin

Original post by: Tomer Strolight

Bitcoin loves being attacked. Bitcoin especially likes it when something tries to kill it. And it’s also very fond of people trying to ban it or trying to replace it with something “better”. When it comes to attacks on Bitcoin, the question isn’t “what’s going to kill Bitcoin?”; it’s “what’s going to make Bitcoin bigger, stronger, better, and more valuable?”.

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Bitcoin Sees the Light of Day in a National World’s First

Bitcoin Eruption

El Salvador has been a country suffering from civil war, economic ruin and high organized crime & murder rates for much of its modern life. Yet the 39 yr old El Salvadorian President, Nayib Bukele, who enjoys a super-majority of his party in parliament, in a world’s first, enacted law making Bitcoin legal tender in his nation.

Since 2001 El Salvador has done away with its local currency, the Colon, and instead decided to use The US Dollar as legal tender. With Bitcoin also now as legal tender, El Salvador made the best choice for securing the nation’s wealth going forward during these uncertain geopolitical times.

Stating the ease of payments and remittances which much of the country depends on, as well as the fact that many El Salvadorians aren’t banked, Bukele sees Bitcoin as the ideal solution.

It doesn’t stop with making Bitcoin legal tender. Bukele asked the state owned geothermal energy firm, LaGeo, to devise plans for offering Bitcoin mining facilities to Bitcoin miners who want to use the nation’s geothermal energy resources to run their mining farms. According to journalist Max Keiser, to be able to attract these miners, El Salvador is also offering permanent residence for Bitcoiners who are willing to dedicate BTC 3.

This, first-time, comprehensive all-round adoption of Bitcoin by a whole nation is the light Bitcoiners have been waiting to see in a long time, and just as the first domino falls, we also envision many other nations eventually following in El Salvador’s path.

It’s Price Upside From Here for Bitcoin

Original Post by: Bashir Barrage

Sit tight if you’re at a net loss now, buy more if have the cash. This is a regular occurrence every 4 years, they FUD on it during the bull-run to buy cheaper.

Dark blue band: Multiply and divide the price by 2. Light blue band: Multiply and divide the price by 5.

This chart is the most accurate price model for Bitcoin that I found. The Bitcoin price has a 94% standard deviation accuracy from the model here. From here, any downside in price will be minimal, the upside will be tremendous. It’s like a coiled spring.

See the investing section of the Bitcoin Resources to learn more about the Stock to Flow model.

Seven Surprising Facts About Bitcoin Pizza Day

Original Post by: Pete Rizzo

The Bitcoin Pizza Day story is one of the technology’s most historic tales, but even if you know the Bitcoin pizza price, these facts might surprise you.

May 22 is now forever known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, the holiday marking the date in 2010 when the first real-world good was bought with the first decentralized digital money. 

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Crypto Slides After CFTC Probes Binance On Derivative Trades

Original post by: Tyler Durden

Crypto markets are sliding this morning following headlines that the CFTC is investigating whether the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which isn’t registered with the agency, allowed Americans to buy crypto ‘derivatives’ – which are regulated by the CFTC – and over ‘know your customer’ regulations.

Bitcoin slid back below $56k, plunging by $1000 in minutes.

Ethereum – the token behind the NFT craze – dipped below $1750…

In response to the probe, Binance told Bloomberg that it never comments on its communications with regulators, while adding that the company is committed to complying with rules. For instance, Binance blocks U.S. residents from its website and uses advanced technology to analyze deposits and withdrawals for signs of illicit transactions, the company said in a statement.

“We take a collaborative approach in working with regulators around the world and we take our compliance obligations very seriously,” Binance said. The CFTC declined to comment.

The investigation adds to the U.S.’s growing crackdown on crypto. The CFTC has already sued BitMEX for failing to register as a broker, with the exchange’s market share declining since it became a target of regulatory scrutiny. Coinbase Global Inc., the U.S.’s biggest crypto exchange, also disclosed last month that it’s responding to a wide-ranging CFTC probe.

Of course, such regulatory interventions always end up amounting to nothing as those who have followed crypto trading in the past five years know too well (only the Fed tightening monetary policy can burst the bitcoin bubble). Furthermore with a growing number of institutions now adopting crypto, it will be virtually impossible for regulators to squash the sector now that even vain Hollywood artists have adopted it in hopes of peddling their idiotic NFTs.

As such, we expect any dip in crypto to be promptly purchased by the growing number of institutions seeking a cheaper entry price.

Lebanon’s banking sector is dead but Digital wallets, and digital currencies are coming to Life

Original post by: Lara Abdul Malak

Whether the Lebanese want to or don’t want to believe it, whether the Lebanese government and banking sector want to accept it or not, the Lebanese banking industry is dead. No amount of capital raises, no amount of restructuring can bring back the lost trust. Trust is the basis of all activities in society, economy, finance and most importantly politics, and trust is lost in the banking sector for not only the old generations, the current but also future, the youth.

In the 1990s Lebanon was the first country in the region to have cellular or what we call a mobile network, the reason being that the entire landline infrastructure was outdated or destroyed during the war. Lebanon was the first in the Arab region not because they wanted to be the first but because they had no choice but to be the first to jump into the bandwagon of the latest technology, the era of mobility and later on the era of  internet.

Today we are at the same cross road. After the fall of the Lebanese banking sector due to their irresponsible lending to the Lebanese corrupt state and government, the Lebanese not only lost their life savings but today have lost whatever was left of their purchasing power in Lebanese Lira.  

While in some countries this would still be survivable because they have products and services or manufacturing industries that they themselves own, in Lebanon everything is dependent on raw material, or products from outside, making the economic and social tragedy a 100 times worse.

But maybe the Lebanese have a solution, a chance to not only free themselves from the expiration of the banking sector, the corruption of the state and its political regime but also a chance to help each other in a way like never before.

The answer is in digital currencies. It doesn’t have to be a crypto currency like Bitcoin or Ethereum it could just be a stablecoin like USDC, Tether , Japanese Yen (JPY) , or china’s upcoming digital currency stored in each person’s digital wallet, or with a crypto asset custodian.

So what would that mean for Lebanese and their economy, first and foremost if your money is stored digitally in your pocket, and securely then you could make payments from one digital wallet to another no matter where that other digital wallet was in the world. This would be a savior not only for individuals but also businesses, manufacturers and traders in Lebanon who need to pay for goods and raw material but need to traditionally go through a bank to do it. This is called Peer to peer payments and most of them are carried out on Blockchain public networks. One such company that is doing this for the Lebanese is Fluus.me

Companies such as Global Digital Money for example are even allowing people to hold digital currencies, crypto not only in a digital wallet but in a regular card and giving them the ability to make all payments using those cards at Point of Sales or ATMs within a country or from one country to another.

It would also mean that Lebanese could actually lend money as well, in what is now known as peer to peer lending. So instead of depending on a corrupt government and irresponsible banking sector to lend money to businesses and projects that need  funding to grow, expand or operate, or lending money to people who want to buy a house or car. Lebanese could lend to each other using smart contracts on the blockchain with agreed upon interest rates and terms.

Even more so, Lebanese expats who usually send money to their families as remittances wouldn’t even have to worry about using a bank or traditional money payment service provider, they could use blockchain enabled remittance providers like Telcoin , Cwallet,  Cashaa, or others.

The Lebanese and international community could even carry out a crowd funding campaigns, on crowd funding platforms or even deal making platforms to build an electrical plant utilizing stablecoins to pay for tokenized shares in this plant and take profits all put into their digital wallets in a transparent, secure, and efficient way.

While the central Bank of Lebanon showed shallow interest in launching a Lebanese digital currency for usage inside Lebanon, or launching the lending trade finance platform for Lebanese industrial sector, nothing happened because nothing ever does. Maybe it would have been better to use Banqu or others already in the space.

These digial currencies, wouldnt need traditional exchanges but Lebanese could use digital and crypto exchanges of which many of them are now being regulated in the region such as CoinMENA, Matrix, RAIN, and many others. 

In the final analysis, while death is scary to accept, and what is new is usually even scarier to embrace, the Lebanese need to start to understand that there are solutions out there in the digital age that weren’t available before, and they need to start embracing these new digital forms of money and the freedom as well as responsibility it brings.

The death of the banking sector is inevitable across the globe at some point in the future, and while it has started already in Lebanon this could be seen as an opportunity.. Lebanon and Lebanese have always been the first to embrace opportunities so don’t stop now.