UAE-Saudi Arabian Digital Currency 'Aber' to be Restricted to Select Banks at Start

  

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) central bank (UAECB)

and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) have announced that the interbank digital currency they are co-developing will be called “Aber.” The news was reported by the national Saudi Press Agency on Jan. 29.

A joint statement from the banks has reportedly outlined that the use of Aber will be limited to financial settlements using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) “on a probational basis and [for] exclusive use by a limited number of banks in the two countries.” While news of the two countries’ plans for a digital currency for cross-border interbank settlement has previously been reported, this appears to be the first official indication of the currency’s name and initial circulation scope.

The banks clarified that the currency’s issuance falls within a proof-of-concept framework, aimed at:

“[…] studying the dimensions of modern technologies and their feasibility through practical application and the determination of their impact on the improvement and the reduction of remittances costs and the assessment of technical risks and how to deal with them.”

The statement did not determine an official launch date for the currency’s pilot issuance, but outlined that it would initially be focused on technical aspects. The announcement also reported that if “no technical obstacles are encountered, economic and legal requirements for future uses will be considered.”‏

The two countries said bilateral issuance is important as they consider that while national central systems for remittances and domestic transactions have proved their solidity to date, some aspects of international remittances require further development. The Aber project aims to ascertain whether a digital currency could be supportive of this development, the

statement adding:

“The project will also enable considering the possibility of using the system as an additional reserve system for [a] domestic central payments settlement system in case of their disruption for any reason.”

Issuance of Aber reportedly forms part of a seven-point bilateral cooperation plan between UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, negotiated in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Saudi-Emirati Co-ordination Council Jan. 17. As reported, the UAE is looking to join the list of leading destinations for blockchain firms in 2019 by establishing a new pro-crypto legal framework. In Saudi Arabia, customs authorities have recently concluded a pilot scheme linking their cross-border trade platform “FASAH” with IBM and Maersk’s “TradeLens” blockchain infrastructure.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

Marie Huillet is an independent filmmaker, with a background in journalism and publishing. Nomadic by nature, she’s lived in five different countries this decade. She’s fascinated by Blockchain technologies’ potential to reshape all aspects of our lives.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-central-bank-will-consider-expert-input-before-enacting-crypto-regulations

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Ex-Soviet State Uzbekistan Considers New Crypto Move

Uzbekistan cash.
The country’s new Digital Trust fund is studying raising funds via security token offerings.

The former Soviet state of Uzbekistan, finally under new leadership after decades of Islam Karimov running the show, has discovered cryptocurrency at a time when no one seems to want it. No, they are not launching a cryptocurrency like Venezuela’s Petro coin or the breakaway province of Abkhazia’s coin plans over in the nation of Georgia. New president Shavkat Mirziyoyev says crypto is legitimate tender, at least for cryptocurrency traders. He legalized exchanges in the Central Asian nation in September and created a fund that same month to invest in blockchain-related startups and research and development called Digital Trust. Other than being an investment vehicle for new technology, Digital Trust is stepping on the crypto bandwagon in trying to bring security token offerings (STO) to a country few in the crypto world have even heard of.

Uzbekistan may not be on anybody’s radar, but its foray into STOs are another testament to crypto being akin to a potential godsend for raising capital in emerging and frontier nations like Uzbekistan. “We are looking very carefully at STO and just starting to build the framework for it,” says Bobir Akilkhanov, investment director at Digital Trust. “We understand that ICOs were a hype tool for investors, with no assets to back up those coins. STOs are more of a legitimate investment because you can tokenize your assets. We are working on the laws to build the market. We don’t want to hurry through it and make all these mistakes and have something that is not useful.”Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev launched a blockchain fund in September, two years into his presidency. Crypto exchanges and trading is legal in Uzbekistan. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

He did not disclose the funds assets under management. And they have no STOs or cryptocurrencies in the portfolio. Right now, this is just Uzbekistan testing the blockchain waters, which is separate from the muddy crypto waters, of course. Neighboring country Kazakhstan is doing the same with blockchain so as not to miss anything. One of their core holdings in the fund is Delta City, a large scale real estate project in Tashkent with all the smart-city bells and whistles … and no tokens.

Uzbekistan traditionally attracts investors from South Korea, China and Russia. For crypto and blockchain, the ones showing interest are from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. STOs are sort of like the grown-up, Wall Street-ish version of the initial coin offering, the cryptocurrency market that ushered in the euphoria for crypto between 2016 and 2017 until that bubble burst in 2018. Coindesk, one of the premier publishers of crypto/blockchain news, hasn’t published a story about an ICO since December 5, and before that … November 14. If cryptocurrency investing is ever to professionalize, it needs traditional investors, and traditional investors seem to prefer the STO.

Digital Trust says it ideally wants to see if they can raise money for Uzbekistan assets in STO offerings, either belonging to private or public companies. The fund is currently looking to establish partnerships with leading blockchain service providers where they can test drive a homegrown STO market.Workers operate sewing machines at the Platinum Moynaq Cotton Cleaning Factory in Uzbekistan in March 2018. Proponents of cryptocurrency say that poor countries will have an easier time raising money from foreign investors via cryptocurrency. Photographer: Taylor Weidman/Bloomberg photo credit: © 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP© 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP

“Companies can raise money the old-fashioned way too, through bond offerings. But STOs are an interesting avenue because it makes some of your state assets more readily accessible to foreign investors,” says Igor Khmel, CEO and founder of BankEx in New York, a fintech company providing STO services. “For the same reason you are using a smartphone instead of a rotary phone, STOs are faster, cheaper and more efficient because of the blockchain-based securitization of assets. They are easier than an initial public offering, easier than venture funding and more accessible than the bond market."

Some are suggesting that STOs could help $1 trillion of assets migrate onto various blockchain platforms before the end of the decade. Like the dying ICO market, STOs have true believers. “If it plays out the way I think … it is likely to be the greatest investment opportunity humanity has seen in this era,” CEO of Polychain Capital in San Francisco, said during a panel discussion at the Web3 Summit in Berlin in October.Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder and chief executive officer of Polychain Capital. STOs are “the greatest investment opportunity” in crypto. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg photo credit: © 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP© 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP

According to a report in Longhash, a blockchain news and information portal with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, OpenFinance Network and tZERO are STO-focused exchanges set to offer a flood of listings in 2019. Coinbase recently acquired a broker-dealer license and an alternative trading system license, along with a registered investment advisor license, out of the expectation that cryptocurrency investing and fundraising is far from dead. Binance plans to launch an STO trading platform with the Malta Stock Exchange. And in Uzbekistan, BankEx is the early entrant in an otherwise tiny crypto market. Digital Trust brought them there.

“The main thing about these markets is you have to have open networks, which makes it kind of borderless, so it doesn’t matter where you are anyway,” says Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar, founder of RSK Labs in Argentina and a well-known bitcoin guru throughout Latin America. “Blockchain is just the combustion engine to all these things related to cryptocurrency, but you need the full car. You need an internet of value for all of these investment plans to come to fruition,” he says, adding that countries where economies are volatile are more apt to see crypto thrive over time, so long as the infrastructure exists to make it happen.

The Uzbek currency, the som, is relatively stable. It was allowed to free-float under the new government and lost over half of its value in the process. But since September 2017, it’s been relatively steady between 8,000 and 8,300 to the dollar. Their GDP growth rate has been over 5% since 2004, according to the World Bank. It’s poorer than India, with a GDP per capita of less than $1,600. It would take the average Uzbek a year to buy half a Bitcoin.

“Our goal is to starting our STO platform in niche markets, or niche regions like Uzbekistan,” says Khmel. BankEx is also present in the crypto havens of South Korea and Japan. They are moving into Thailand mainly for digital-asset custody. “Uzbekistan is different. We will be doing STOs there. The government wants to become a blockchain-centric government,” he says. “Each country has something unique to offer, I think. They can become one of the main markets in the region for companies considering STOs. We are taking the first steps with them to make it happen.”

Article Produced By
Kenneth Rapoza

Senior Contributor

Markets I write about business and investing in emerging markets.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

THE RESULTS of the reddit cryptocurrency survey – a comparison of opinions, demographics and portfolios of redditors from different subreddits

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Startup Nation’s SEC Turns To DLT To Battle Cyberterrorism
 

The Israeli Securities Authority, 

the equivalent of the American SEC, is incorporating blockchain technology into its information systems, in an effort to improve the cybersecurity of its nation-level critical systems against cyberterrorism attacks.

A public embrace of blockchain technology from any government agency signals a very positive move towards wide adoption, especially when coming from the innovative startup nation’s cybersecurity specialists. The ISA has already embedded the technology into their existing communication system used to deliver messages to entities supervised by the government regulator. It is also planning to use blockchain technology to develop two additional systems: one is an online voting system for investors to cast their vote on decisions taken in ISA assemblies and the other will be a system for tracking financial reports submitted by supervised entities.

BLOCKTV spoke to Eran Ovadia, the project lead from Taldor, who implemented the infrastructure for the ISA, in order to understand why they chose blockchain, and what blockchain technology does for the project that other technologies do not.

The ISA’s systems are constantly being targeted by cyberterrorism attacks and hacking attempts originating from hackers backed by foreign governments and hostile actors around the globe. Specialized teams monitor incidents 24/7. But the availability of the ISA's systems is highly critical, since if any hacker could manage to take it down, it would practically paralyze the stock exchange and the entire nation's economy. That is simply something the ISA cannot afford to let happen. 

The innate decentralized nature of blockchains make them resilient to hacker’s attempts to take them down, compared to taking down one central server. Another critical factor of the ISA’s systems is the integrity of financial reports submitted. The ISA cannot allow hackers to tamper with reports' data stored on central databases. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) helps make its systems more resilient to attempts of fraud or tampering with messages. It validates the immutability of the entire data within their system, similar to the way the Bitcoin consensus would not allow tampering with currency transactions. A hacker could not manipulate any part of the system without it being immediately detected. They even implemented smart contracts to automatically revert to the system's last valid state in any case of inconsistency.

In the vote casting system, Taldor said it’s using multi-factor authentication to verify voters’ identities, and is performing consensus validation by using a hybrid public and private ledger. They initially based their system on the Ethereum platform, but eventually chose to use a lighter validation method, since the algorithms used to validate cryptocurrency transactions were too heavy to process. The ISA’s new blockchain-based system is an attempt to keep up with the fintech industry’s global trend to apply innovative technologies, and according to Natan Hershkovitz, director of ISA’s Information Systems department, puts it ahead of the race as one of the leading government authorities in the world in implementing information

cybersecurity and authenticity.

"We are witnessing a growing trend toward incorporating of innovative and pathbreaking technologies in the financial industry. The implementation of blockchain technology in the ISA's information systems positions it as one of the leading government authorities worldwide in the security and reliability of information."

With the current step, the ISA is joining the growing trend of governments and official establishments adopting blockchain technology as a viable and useful technology. As the Israeli entity in charge of regulating the financial investment market, the equivalent of the American SEC, the ISA members are much quicker in expressing a more accepting approach towards blockchain technology, compared to their American colleagues, who are known for taking their time with the infamous Bitcoin ETFs submissions. 

Article Produced By
Ofer Sharon

Reporter

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Crypto Startups Forked Out $878,000 To White Hats In 2018

  
Bitcoin may have been dubbed the
“world’s most secure transaction settlement layer”

by Anthony Pompliano, but the industry surrounding the protocol may not be all too secure. Case in point, crypto startups have forked out over $878,000 in bounty to white hat hackers in 2018, specifically for solving bugs that slipped under the radar.

Crypto Startups Awarded $878,000 To “Goody Two Shoes” Hackers

The Next Web’s Hard Fork column recently reported that over the course of 2018, blockchain firms awarded $878,504 to goody too shoes hackers for rectifying bugs. Block.one, the company behind the crypto juggernaut in EOS, forked out upwards of 60% of the aforementioned sum. Considering that the startup raked in an approximated $4 billion for its EOS token offering, one of the most hyped cryptocurrencies of all-time, it makes sense why Block.one awarded $534,500 to white hats.

Interestingly Coinbase, the seemingly unhackable $8 billion upstart, comes in behind Block.one with $290,381 in paid bounties. But, HackerOne, the cybersecurity platform that compiled the data, didn’t divulge how much of that sum was a result of 2018 bugs, as Coinbase purportedly began its disclosure program in 2014. Justin Sun-headed Tron, which recently surpassed a number of pertinent milestones, has found itself behind Coinbase, allowing white hats to score $76,200. Yet these quintuple and sextuple figures are edge cases, as a HackerOne spokesperson told Hard Fork that “the average bounty [paid] for blockchain companies in 2018 was $1,490, that is higher than the Q4 platform average of around $900.”

Still Vulnerable 

While many crypto projects talk a big game, the bottom line is that many blockchains and cryptocurrency-friendly startups remain vulnerable. As reported by NewsBTC in early-August, Altex, a lesser-known crypto asset exchange, saw its ARQ stash get looted. The platform claimed that it “lost a big amount,” specifically due to a bug that hails from the Monero codebase.

Just two months later, Pigeoncoin (PGN) fell victim to an odd inflation bug, CVE-2018-17144, that allowed a bad actor to whip up 235 million PGN within a day’s time. Interestingly, the bugged line of code comes from the Bitcoin protocol. The issue has since been patched by Bitcoin Core (the software) developers, but this event still shocked consumers en-masse.

Ground-breaking bugs aren’t limited to the small-cap cryptocurrencies. In July, SlowMist, a Chinese cybersecurity firm, claimed that an anonymous user managed to double spend 694 Tether (USDT). According to SlowMist, a transactor was able to gain credit for 694 USDT on an exchange without sending the funds. Upon digging, it was discovered that the issue was the fault of the victimized exchange. Dacoinminister, a founder of the Omni Protocol, which Tether is based on,

wrote:

“It appears that what happened here is that an exchange wasn’t checking the valid flag on transactions. They accepted a transaction with valid=false (which they should not have), and then the second “double spend” transaction had valid=true, which they also accepted.”

Regardless of where this problem originated from, the three aforementioned cases only accentuate the fact that this industry remains nascent. So, this industry’s developers still have a ways to go until crypto is spick and span, and ready for worldwide consumption.

Article Produced By
Nick Chong

https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/12/30/crypto-startups-white-hats-2018/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

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Approximately 1,000 different cryptocurrency-related projects failed in 2018,

according to data from DeadCoins and Coinopsy. Some of them were relatively well-known bear market victims. Many of the dead crypto projects were outright scams which were orchestrated under the guise of initial coin offerings (ICOs). Included in DeadCoins and Coinpsy’s long list of abandoned and/or fraudulent digital currency schemes is BitConnect, which is considered one of the largest crypto-related Ponzi scheme scams in history.

Coinopsy: 483 Inactive Digital Currency Projects

Deadcoins, which has compiled one of the most comprehensive information sources on inactive cryptos, revealed there are at least 934 digital currencies that are now dead. In July 2018, DeadCoins reported about 800 abandoned crypto tokens. Meanwhile, Coinopsy has found 483 digital currency projects that are no longer active.

According to Coinopsy, a crypto may be considered dead if its token or coin has been abandoned by its founders, was a scam, and/or its website is dead. A crypto project may also be considered dead if its coin has no trading volume or transaction validating nodes to support it, Coinopsy noted. If there are unresolved technical issues with software supporting the cryptocurrency such as problems with wallets used to store it, then the crypto may be considered inactive.

Notably, Coinopsy has categorized dead coins as: ICO Dead Coins, Joke Dead Coins, Abandoned Dead Coins, and Scam Dead Coins. There are currently 113 ICO Dead Coins identified by Coinopsy, meaning these projects launched an ICO but never seemed to have delivered a product or updates regarding their platform’s ongoing development. Crypto tokens may also be classified as dead ICO coins (by Coinopsy) if they were used to carry out pump-and-dump schemes or other types of market manipulation, while not seeing any real adoption.

Wall Street Journal Finds Plagiarized Whitepapers

A Joke dead coin, according to Coinopsy, is any crypto launched with the intention of just being a joke and no serious plans of becoming a useful digital asset. There are presently 17 coins listed as joke cryptos on Coinopsy. Additionally, Coinopsy found at least 40 cryptocurrency projects that were scams and 313 abandoned coins. Coinopsy explains that a token may be considered dead if it ranks below 1000 in terms of market capitalization for 3 consecutive months. A token whose trading volume is below $1,000 for 3 months is also dead, Coinopsy noted.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) looked into inactive crypto projects as well. WSJ’s latest research findings showed that more than 15% of crypto projects that raised funds via ICOs during 2017 and 2018 had plagiarized whitepapers or just copied ideas from other cryptos. There were also a fairly large number of ICO projects that had promised “improbable returns” and then failed to deliver, the WSJ revealed.

Article Produced By
Omar Faridi

I enjoy writing about all topics related to Bitcoin, Blockchain, and other cryptocurrencies. The topics that interest me most are crypto regulations, quantum resistant blockchains, Ethereum and Bitcoin Core development, and scams orchestrated under the guise of ICOs. My academic background includes an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I also possess a Master of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Phoenix.

While completing my coursework, I engaged in independent study programs focused on public-key cryptography and quantum computing. My professional work experience includes working as an application developer for the University of Houston, data storage specialist at Dell EMC, and as Teacher of Mathematics in the United States, China, Kuwait, and Pakistan.

https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2018/12/nearly-1000-dead-cryptocurrency-projects-identified-by-coinopsy-deadcoins/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Survey Finds 14% of Chinese Citizens Have Invested in Cryptocurrencies

A survey conducted by Panews has found that 14% of Chinese citizens

have invested in cryptocurrencies. The survey also found that 98% of respondents indicated familiarity with the concepts of cryptocurrency and bitcoin – 3% more than those who stated that they had heard of blockchain technology.

Panews has published the findings of a survey that queried 4,200 Chinese citizens on their familiarity and opinions regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The survey found that just 75 respondents had not heard of cryptocurrency or blockchain technology, equating to roughly 2% of the survey’s sample. The survey also found that 40% of respondents expressed a willingness to invest in cryptocurrencies in the future, despite nearly 83% of the sample describing cryptocurrency investment as a new trend.

14% of the sample, or 598 respondents, stated that they have invested in cryptocurrencies, nearly 70% of whom purchased their crypto via an exchange platform. 266 respondents came to possess their crypto through airdrops, followed by mining, with 263. The sample indicated that social media is the dominant means through which Chinese citizens have become exposed to cryptocurrencies, with 38% of respondents claiming familiarity with crypto stating that they became exposed to such through social media, followed by “relatives and friends” with 26%. Panews also noted that the majority of respondents associated cryptocurrencies with investment products primarily, and not as a medium of exchange.

Cryptocurrency Moving Towards Becoming Household Concept in China

While 4,125 respondents indicated familiarity with the concepts of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and blockchain technology, only 372 individuals described themselves as possessing a strong understanding of pertinent topics, amounting to roughly 9% of all respondents. Only 17 respondents claimed not to have heard of cryptocurrency, while 103 stated that they were unfamiliar with Bitcoin. 60% of respondents described common perceptions regarding the complexity of exchanging and storing cryptocurrency as the primary barrier to greater crypto adoption.

Overall, the study found that bitcoin and cryptocurrency have made significant strides toward penetrating mainstream economic discourse in China, asserting that “the cryptocurrency industry has made considerable progress in the public’s cognitive level” since “the early days.”

Article Produced By
Samuel Haig

Samuel Haig is a journalist and entrepreneur who has been completely obsessed with bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012. Samuel lives in Tasmania, Australia, where he attended the University of Tasmania and majored in Political Science, and Journalism, Media & Communications. Samuel has written about the dialectics of decentralization, and is also a musician and kangaroo riding enthusiast.

https://news.bitcoin.com/1-7-chinese-invested-cryptocurrency/

ency/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

 Crypto Bear Market Triggers Rise in M&A Activity

 

In 2018 there was a rapid decline in initial coin offerings,

a slowdown in blockchain business launches, and a bearish crypto market. During this period, companies with good liquidity have been scaling up and strengthening by acquiring startups. 

 M&A Deal Frenzy in 2018

In 2017 the number of cryptocurrency and blockchain companies that launched more than doubled compared to the year prior. The current bear market that has since come to characterize 2018 has proven the ideal time for institutional investors and venture capitalists to make a land grab and acquire innovative startups. 

There’s been something of a deal frenzy involving cryptocurrency and blockchain-related companies seeing mergers and acquisitions (M&A), which have increased by 200 percent in 2018. M&A is the lifeblood of Wall Street and this activity is expected to continue to accelerate within the cryptosphere as we head into 2019. 

In an interview with news.Bitcoin.com, Danish Saxo Bank founder Lars Seier Christensen revealed that he is actively searching to acquire crypto businesses, saying: “I am also looking at a couple of serious fund vehicles that do extensive research across the space. Because of course there will be some gold nuggets that have been dragged down unfairly in this bear market as happens in all bear markets.” 

According to JMP Securities’ head of blockchain and digital assets investment banking, Satya Bajpai, the industry is witnessing a “land grab” for innovative technology, access to new markets, intellectual property, and talented employees through M&A, reports CNBC.  The most recent data from JMP Securities and data from Pitchbook shows 115 deals have already been announced globally this year, with roughly 30 more expected by the end of this year. This compares with just 47 mergers and acquisitions that were completed in all of 2017. 

Rundown of Key M&A Deals From 2018

There have been a number of key crypto and blockchain acquisitions this year, with one of the most active companies being Coinbase. The California-based exchange has not allowed diminished trade volumes to keep it from actively acquiring startups. Earlier this year, there were also rumors about a potential acquisition of Coinbase by Facebook, though this appears to have been little more than speculation. Coinbase acquired decentralized ERC20 trading platform Paradex. The company also acquired Earn.com for an estimated $100 million, a platform that lets users receive cryptocurrency for answering emails and completing tasks. Another notable acquisition involved Goldman Sachs startup Circle which acquired cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex.

Coinsource, a Texas-based cryptocurrency ATM operator, became the first digital asset ATM provider to be granted a Bitlicense in the state of New York. Japanese insurance group Sompo Holdings acquired a 10 percent stake in Bitpesa, a Kenyan digital currency exchange and payments company. Trade.io acquired British brokerage firm Primus Capital Markets for an undisclosed amount to offer BTC-backed Forex trading. Consensys, the software company established by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, acquired struggling space startup Planetary Resources.

Japanese mega ecommerce and internet company Rakuten Inc. entered the crypto space by acquiring an existing crypto exchange to fast-track its wat into the Japanese cryptocurrency market. Shapeshift completed the acquisition of Bitfract, a software firm which operates a service that allows users to swap from one cryptocurrency to many in an instant. Ernst & Young, one of the major global accounting firms, acquired technology assets and related patents from Elevated Consciousness.

Blockchain research and development firm Nchain announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the Bitcoin Cash-centric startup Handcash. Chinese bitcoin company BTCC was acquired by a Hong Kong-based investment fund. It seems the market downturn that has pervaded through 2018 has been the ideal time for large corporations to snag a good deal and secure a stake in the future of the rapidly developing crypto space.

Will M&A activity continue to accelerate as we head into 2019? Let us know in the comments section below.

Article Produced By
Tanzeel Akhtar

Tanzeel Akhtar is a British journalist covering financial markets for over a decade. She writes across all media platforms from traditional print newspapers to online media platforms such as Bitcoin.com. Tanzeel came across the concept of Bitcoin in 2012 while eavesdropping in on a conversation at a London wine bar called The Arches.

https://news.bitcoin.com/crypto-bear-market-triggers-rise-in-ma-activity/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

  

A new study reveals that cryptocurrency has surpassed

mailed checks and money orders as a way of sending money overseas. According to Clovr, 15% of respondents say they’ve used cryptocurrency to send money, while 11.8% say they’ve mailed checks and money orders.

More than half of the 707 people surveyed identify PayPal and Western Union, among other online services and traditional money transfer companies, as the most common way to send funds for food, household items and housing for friends and family living abroad.Traditional wire transfers, prepaid cards, cash and post office wire transfers round out the top methods for sending remittances.

Top Methods for Sending Remittances Abroad

1. Online services (i.e. PayPal) – 51.0%
2. Money transfer services (i.e. Western Union) – 50.9%
3. Traditional wire transfer (via bank or credit union) – 25.7%
4. Cryptocurrency – 15.8%
5. Prepaid card – 12.2%
6. Check or money order (via mail) – 11.8%
7. Check or money order (online) – 11.5%
8. Cash (via mail) – 8.9%
9. Traditional wire transfer (via post office) – 6.1%
10. Other – 1.9%

The study, conducted using Amazon’s Mechanical Turks to crowdsource data, also reveals high fees for sending money through traditional means. In order to send $500 abroad, banks charge an average of $52.05. Money transfer operators charge $30.75. The post office charges $34.05, and mobile operators charge $16.

The average person sends $3,315 per year and pays $585.99 in fees. Over 15% of people who used traditional wire transfers, paying the highest fees, reported being dissatisfied, while 10.4% of those who used money transfer services, with lower fees, reported dissatisfaction. The number one reservation respondents have about using cryptocurrency is that they don’t know enough about the technology. The second most common reservation is worrying the recipient won’t be able to use the crypto to buy goods.

Mexico, China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam were the top five countries to receive remittances from the US in 2017, for an estimated $150 billion sent, according to the World Bank. According to Dilip Ratha, head of KNOMAD, a World Bank initiative for Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development,

“While remittances are growing, countries, institutions, and development agencies must continue to chip away at high costs of remitting so that families receive more of the money. Eliminating exclusivity contracts to improve market competition and introducing more efficient technology are high-priority issues.”  The World Bank estimates that almost $150 billion in remittances was sent abroad from the US in 2017.

Article Produced By
Altcoins

https://dailyhodl.com/2018/12/26/cryptocurrency-use-for-remittances-leaves-checks-and-money-orders-in-the-dust-study/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden