#connie the crypto coin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tyrantisterror · 2 years

Video

youtube

Ok so this scam fell through and this isn’t the original upload of the video, so I feel no moral qualms in posting it to discuss a couple things about it I find (unintentionally?) funny about it. Everyone who’s watched this notices that it is very painfully and obviously terrible, but there’s some things that almost feel self aware about its terrible-ness and I find that just a bit fascinating.

Like, listen to the stolen background music in the first couple minutes, when they’re revealing Cryptoland, a giant capitalist wet dream resort where people go to revel in making money without government interference. It’s stolen from Jurassic Park, and is specifically the background music used in that movie when the titular island getaway dinosaur zoo resort is revealed. The theme part resort in Jurassic Park is also a capitalist wet dream, specifically built on an island the creators bought so it could be free of government interference.

How did things turn out for the resort island in Jurassic Park, again?

When asked how he came up with the ideas for this resort, Connie, the horrible anthropomorphic coin who’s like a twisted hybrid of Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park and the Genie from Aladdin, says nothing but looks as the camera cuts away to a fucking toilet with a stock cartoon horror music sting. Like... is the advertisement admitting this is a shit idea? It couldn’t be, right?

There’s a room called the de-stress room. They say it several times, emphasizing how it’s pronounced. It’s a Scrooge McDuck money pool in the short, but just... de-stress. deestress. DISTRESS.

At the restaurant where various bitcoin-themed dishes are served, the waiter inexplicably hands the protagonist a bowl fool of rat poison. This is never explained, and I guess it could be an in-joke for NFT lovers or whatever, but... what is the joke? What is this supposed to mean? Why is this luxury island resort giving its customers rat poison to eat?

There’s a horrible song, which is terrible, but it ends with a blatant ripoff of “Prince Ali” from Aladdin. You know, the song where Aladdin sells an entire city on the blatant lie of him being a powerful and rich Prince who can make their dreams come true if they let him marry into their royal family. The song about conning people.

A huge centerpiece of Cryptoland is a pyramid-shaped casino filled with machines that literally say they’re scams. Like, a casino alone is already pretty sketchy - a business built on the idea of telling hundreds of people they could get rich only to suck most of their money out of their pockets without giving anything in return - but the machines literally say they’re scams. The subtext is beginning to feel a lot like text here. One is called Ponzi Connect for fuck’s sake.

The Cryptoland scam has already fallen apart. They’re never going to build this gaudy, shitty ass island. But they did manage to get some people invested, and I think it’s interesting that their advertisement seemed to be proudly waving its red flags for all to see. And some crypto fanatics still bought into it.

106 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 2 years

Text

Janwum Update: 11,545

I’m further behind than I wanted to be, but I’ve still got 12 days left to cover 18,455 words, so I’ve been in tighter spots, I think. I still need to get my butt in gear, though. As a warmup, I’m going to discuss Cryptoland, which is some sort of scam based on the flimsy premise of crypto-dorks buying an island. It got a lot of attention recently because they made their own cartoon to promote the idea, and it’s really really lousy. You can watch it here.

A lot of people have already mocked this thing into the ground, so I won’t waste your time repeating their observations. There’s really just two things that I can’t get out of my head.

The first is this shot of the main characters, Christopher Adams and Connie, embracing when they meet up on the island. They’re just blinking here, but this is the freeze-frame they use at the end of the cartoon, which shows this as the photo in Christopher’s “wish you were here” postcard to his friend. It really implies this deep, tender friendship between the characters, except one of them is a cartoon coin, so it looks ridiculous.

The “plot” of the cartoon is that Christopher bought a property on the island, and he’s finally arriving to check out his investment, so he’s basically a proxy for the audience. “See how much fun he’s having? This could be YOU!” But it seems like his favorite thing on the island is his pal Connie. That’s what he put on his postcard, right?

And I can’t stop thinking about it, because what the hell does it mean? Christopher is just a stand-in for the viewer, but Connie isn’t even pretending to represent a real thing. The people running this scam are selling NFT’s of him, but that’s it. You’d never meet the “real” Connie on this island resort. I don’t think the Cryptoland people are delusional enough to expect this, and yet they sort of imply that you would have whatever Christopher gets when you invest in the island, and that seems to include a long hug with an old friend.

It reminds me of when I was a kid, and my family went to Disneyworld for the first time, and in the 80s they ran all these ads that made it look like Mickey Mouse would just hang out with you the whole time, or whatever. I knew it was bullshit even then, but I was really into Pinocchio at the time, and I thought it would be pretty cool if he and I could just cruise around the park, exploring tunnels or something. That still sounds pretty awesome, actually. But it’s a theme park. Disney tries to market the thing like it’s Toontown from Roger Rabbit, but it can’t be. Cinderella’s Castle just had a gift shop or something, and you couldn’t go to the top and look out at the view or anything like that.

Anyway, this Cryptoland cartoon reminds me of that childhood realization of marketing vs. reality. Except who is this for? They’re trying to buy a private island, and selling plots of land on it. Christopher had to be a millionaire just to get a piece of this thing, but he’s presented like a child.

Because there’s really nothing on Cryptoland that you can’t get someplace else. Christopher eats pizza for lunch, he checks out a cybercafe, plays a pinball machine, and he gets an extra hour in the ballpit. Everything is named after a bullshit cryptocurrency reference, which he finds brilliant and hilarious, but I feel like that would get old after about a week. He could have just bought a house in Branson, Missouri. But no, he had to come here, because that’s where his best friend Connie lives. And that’s fine for him, because he lives in a world where he can hug a shitty cartoon mascot, but the people watching this video can’t.

It hit me that what they’re really trying to sell with this crap is the community spirit, which isn’t exactly something you can put in a bottle. This is like Dashcon or those other conventions organized by people who don’t know what they’re doing. You’re supposed to go and support it because you can hang out with like-minded people and talk about Superwholock or whatever. The hug is a metaphor for the experience you’re supposed to have as you swap Bitcoin memes with your fellow jackasses in real life. They’re selling a fantasy, where you get to be rich and all your friends are rich too and you live in a paradise where you can have whatever you want. Christopher meets a girl in the cartoon, and they’re probably selling that fantasy too, which is amusing because they can’t deliver it. Even if they bought an island and set up a pinball machine, you’re not guaranteed to get laid, sorry. But they want you to think you could, so they use it to hide the fact that this is just a hotel.

The other thing that I can’t stop thinking about is that the cartoon is set in the future, a future where the Cryptoland resort is already bought, paid for, and developed. The idea here is that they wanted to show off all their “cool” designs and plans for the resort, but they haven’t bought the island yet, so they made a CGI model and did a shitty cartoon with that as the set. But it’s a real scummy move, because none of it exists, and yet the cartoon presents it as a finished product that you can go to right now. So the whole thing is Connie and Christopher doing a victory lap on a racetrack that hasn’t been built. At one point, Connie congratulates himself for how well his plan has come together, except it hasn’t happened yet. It’s this weird mix of past, present, and future, manipulated to trick people into sinking money into a pipe dream. It sickens me.

I bring this up because I’ve been trying to come up with ideas for Time Patrol stories, and I had once considered making up an original villain, but I couldn’t think of a good angle for a time-themed bad guy. Towa wants to harvest energy from historical figures, Demigra wants to rule time itself, and Cell just wants to go back in time to fufill a program that was obsolete before he was born. I’m not saying I would repurpose Connie into a time-villain, although that’s not the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. No, I just mean there’s something intriguing to me about depicting a possible future to deceive people in the past. And people would fall for it, not because they want a fancy resort, or a beachside mansion. In the end, all they really want is that hug with a friend who may not exist...

#janwum ii

10 notes · View notes

sonicspeeddemon · 2 years

Text

Can’t wait for the new arc in one piece where the straw hats go to crypto land, and fight Conny D Coin who has the crypto crypto fruit which gives him the power to turn anything into a shitty monkey picture .luffy and ussop buy an NFT with Namis money and she calls them idiots and hits them

2 notes · View notes

mintdiceofficial · 6 years

Text

THE WOMEN INVESTING IN CRYPTOCURRENCY

Research from eToro, a cryptocurrency exchange, indicates that the cryptocurrency market has been male-dominated, with women making up only 8.5% of all investors while men account for 91.5%. Others have estimated the number of women investors and users of cryptocurrency to range between a mere 1% to 5%. This gap mirrors the general lack of women in tech and finance.

According to senior business analyst Agnes de Roeyer of the London Block Exchange, that trend could now be changing:

“There’s still a common misconception that cryptocurrency is a game for men, but we’ve seen hundreds of women sign up for our exchange in the last few months and some of the most inspiring and knowledgeable investors, leading the way in the industry are female.”

It will be interesting to see how having more women in the crypto space could shape the industry. According to Perianne Boring, founder of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, a D.C.-based trade association for the blockchain industry: “...people don’t understand what Bitcoin is. The perception is skewed, and it won’t be accepted as a legitimate technology unless we find a way to get this imbalance sorted.”

BARRIERS TO WOMEN PARTICIPATION

Unfortunately, raising money has been a tall hurdle for women founders. According to a Babson College report from 2014, just 6% of partners at VC firms are women, and only 15.8% of startups worldwide have at least one female founder. And when it comes to venture capital, women have been getting only a fraction of what male founders are given. This has resulted in an imbalance of power that has even played out in abusive ways.

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are presenting a way to bypass this imbalance. Through ICOs, the public funds new projects so that entrepreneurs do not need to rely on just investors to raise capital. This method is showing much promise, especially with the successful funding of $3.6 billion in ICOs in just this past year. One of the largest raises this year— the $232 million ICO of Tezos — was co-led by a woman. Although ICOs might not be for everybody, Boring thinks that they “can allow for the democratization of ideas.”

CRYPTO GAINS TRACTION WITH WOMEN

The good news is that female involvement in cryptocurrency is growing steadily. In 2017, four of the 30 cryptocurrency ventures that led the largest fundraising rounds had female co-founders, double the number of women leading the 30 technology companies with the largest initial public offerings last year, according to Bloomberg. And in just the past 6 months the amount of women who are interested in investing in cryptocurrency has increased more than twofold from 6% to 13%.

“There are Women in Bitcoin groups popping up all over the world, with more established branches in San Francisco and New York boasting 381 and 986 members respectively. Some female cryptocurrency investors also see blockchain technology as a solution to common financial problems that women face, such as raising money to start a tech business."

A report from UK cryptocurrency exchange London Block Exchange that conducted market research shows that the cryptocurrency industry is most popular with millennial women. It could also be possible that women would invest differently from men, as the research suggests that women take a more strategic approach; they are being shown to be 50% less likely than men to suffer from a “fear of missing out” (FOMO), suggesting they would make fewer decisions based on impulse or an emotional urge to act in the moment.

Lastly, the report indicates that women are more collaborative than men, which is potentially tied to having a twofold greater likelihood of consulting with friends and family about any potential investments compared to men, who are statistically more likely to act independently. In reality, there is a wide range of characteristics and tendencies among women alone, and among men themselves; the likely scenario is that there will be varying investment behaviors among either group, but widening the pool of citizens involved in shaping the evolution of digital currency would help shape a financial system that benefits everyone in society.

WOMEN TO KNOW IN CRYPTOCURRENCY

While the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency has been deemed a man’s game thus far, Connie Gallippi, the founder of the first Bitcoin nonprofit BitGive, notes that there have actually been many women in it all this time, but the problem is that “they’re just not given the same level of exposure or recognition.” Margaux Avedisian, one of the first influential female bitcoin leaders, mirrors Gallippi’s sentiments on how the industry should be giving more recognition to women’s accomplishments. While the Polycon18 conference hosts a Women in Blockchain panel, this is a segregated group and a limited audience.

When it comes to Cryptocurrency conferences, the lineups are almost exclusively all-male speakers — a trend that has frustrated Gallippi enough to send conference organizers lists of qualified and talented women in the space who they could leverage for their events. Avedisian has also argued that there are plenty of women with years of experience whose insights would benefit a much wider audience — one that is not limited to just women. For example, the founders of the two biggest ICOs — Bancor and Tezos — are females. Surely, they have insights that would benefit men just as much as women. Especially since, according to Gallippi, women are filling some of the top posts in cryptocurrency.

Below are some of the names that everyone should know in the cryptocurrency game

MARGAUX AVEDISIAN

Executive vice president at Transform Group LLC and partner and co-founder at CooLPool Fund, Avedisian was among the first female bitcoin leaders to gain influence in 2012. Since then, she has co-founded multiple cryptocurrency exchanges.

ELIZABETH ROSSIELLO

Rossiello, who is running one of the most widely known companies in the cryptocurrency space, has been viewed as a model of the potential that the cryptocurrency revolution holds worldwide. She founded a foreign exchange, and payment platform in Africa called BitPesa in 2013. The company uses bitcoin and blockchain technology to make faster payments between African currencies and the rest of the world with greater ease. It's an evolution on what mobile money is today. Rossiello had a lot of momentum in raising capital after a successful series-A round of funding, which also saw a healthy amount of participation from billionaire investor Tim Draper. Today, BitPesa is in seven African countries, Europe, and the U.K.

KATHLEEN BREITMAN

The co-founder and CEO of Tezos, Breitman raised a record-setting two hundred and thirty-two million dollars for her cryptocurrency project during a public crowdsale last July. The idea for Tezos was sparked by her frustration with the “glacial pace” that it took for Bitcoin to evolve. Tezos presents a solution to this by giving voting power to everyone who owns “tezzies”— the system’s coins— so they could democratically choose upgrades to the network. Breitman and her husband had been iterating on this idea for years before she finally made the plunge to leave her day job as the senior strategy associate and go all in on this venture. Since then, she has developed most of the company protocol and provided the brawns to overcoming challenges such as lawsuits and a feud with the president of the foundation.

TAVONIA EVANS

She has created $GUAP, a new cryptocurrency that is specifically designed for black consumers. It rewards spending behaviors that keep the money circulating in an ecosystem of black-owned businesses. Additionally, all $GUAP transactions will be available for analysis on a public blockchain. This will allow Evans to build insights on the ways in which black consumers spend their money and the spending power that black consumers have at-large. Now, her greatest challenge is getting consumers to adopt the new currency.

CONNIE GALLIPPI

The founder of BitGive, the first nonprofit in bitcoin, Gallippi got the idea for her venture at a bitcoin conference in 2013. Her “aha” moment was noticing that the cryptocurrency world needed a philanthropic organization. Today, BitGive is the number one place to go if you have Bitcoin and you want to donate some of your digital cash to charity.

Most recently, Gallippi is aiming for even greater impact with a new platform called GiveTrack. The platform, which will live on the BitGive website, holds charities more accountable for the donations they receive through Bitcoin technology. It will use bitcoin’s public records of all transactions to reveal how money that has been donated is truly spent.

AMBER BALDET

Excited by the potential for social good with blockchain, Baldet left her eight-year career at J.P. Morgan to work on a startup developing software for businesses exploring blockchain. She has not yet made a formal announcement about the new company and has kept quiet about any other details.

During her time at J.P. Morgan, Baldet helped the firm to recognize the importance of Bitcoin and the movement in cryptocurrency, and she helped lead the Blockchain Center of Excellence for over two years. In that time, she was exposed to “a breadth of perspectives,” including startups, investment banks, central banks, and hardcore blockchain developers, which will now prove to be invaluable in her new venture.

TESS RINEARSON

When Rinearson learned about the game-changing potential of bitcoin, she decided that she wanted to help shape this future. She then made it her goal to get a job at Chain, a company that partners with other organizations like Visa and Nasdaq to build blockchain networks for their financial services. Currently, an engineering manager at Chain, Rinearson works on developing Sequence, a product that takes the blockchain technology and securely puts it in the cloud. With women accounting for only 26 percent of Chain’s employees, the male domination of the industry stays top of mind for Rinearson. She is committed to encouraging more women involvement. Her projects include working with high school girls through Girls Who Code to educate them about bitcoin and teaching a program at the MIT Media Lab about blockchain technology. Her blog on medium also translates the complexity of blockchain and cryptocurrency into layman terms to make the industry more accessible.

Other women to watch out for in the crypto industry include Galia Benartzi, Meltem Demirors, and Elizabeth Stark.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If cryptocurrency and blockchain are the future of our financial system, then it is even more crucial that the people developing this system are an accurate representation of the global society for which they are creating — that means involving both men and women.

According to Elizabeth Stark, the CEO of Lightning Labs, which has recently launched a cutting-edge software designed to make Bitcoin transactions faster, cheaper, and more private: “There’s a massive opportunity here to change the global financial structure, to change a lot of ways that society interacts with technology... And it is crucially important that women participate.”

In Stark’s view, today’s blockchain technologies are similar to the early times of the Internet:

“Women need to be building this new frontier... There’s way too much of the prior generation of the Internet that was not built by a diverse group of people... I want to see broader participation... broader perspectives contributing to better problem-solving.”

#women #cryptocurrencu #investing #etoro #ico #dao #bitcoin #litecoin #ethereum #bitcoin cash

3 notes · View notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 4 years

Text

Billionaires Buying Bitcoin: Bill Pulte Announces 11 BTC Purchase

The number of billionaires holding Bitcoin continues to grow. The latest magnate to go public with his BTC purchase is the philanthropist Bill Pulte, who now wants to promote the benchmark crypto’s adoption.

Billionaire Bill Pulte: “Cryptocurrency can help the world’s poorest.”

Bill Pulte is the head of Pulte Capital Partners, one of the directors at Pulte Homes, and the inventor of Twitter Philanthropy. He is also the grandson of the billionaire founder of the home-construction giant PulteGroup (PHM), which boasts a market cap of $10.9 billion.

Now, like many other billionaires, Pulte is joining the crypto community. In effect, on December 12, 2019, he announced that he had bought 11 BTC.

I recently bought 11 bitcoins

— Bill Pulte (@pulte) December 12, 2019

Through social media, Twitter, in particular, Pulte promotes the welfare of the poor. He claims to have a million followers, which he refers to as teammates.

Pulte wants to change the world. And, using BTC could certainly prove an effective way to instill change. Indeed, Pulte asserts,

“Cryptocurrency can help the world’s poorest…especially those who are “unbanked” … as a philanthropist, I, therefore, want to promote adoption. Leave a comment [on] why you need Bitcoin and I’ll pick one person to send some satoshis to … Yes, this is real.”

Bitcoin Is transforming Philanthropic Work

For some time, Bitcoin has been used for charitable purposes. Indeed, many donors benefit from the cryptocurrency’s versatility. For example, Bitcoin helps donors to make their philanthropic work more effective, improve transparency, and enhance tax benefits.

Thus, a growing number of charity organizations, such as the Red Cross, Save the Children, United Way, and Greenpeace, are accepting Bitcoin and making use of blockchain technology to become more efficient. Unicef also accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum.

BitGive, for example, is a worldwide philanthropic organization that uses Bitcoin to better serve its beneficiaries. BitGive’s mission states, “Leverage the power of Bitcoin and blockchain technology to improve public health and the environment worldwide.”

Executive Director of BitGive Connie Gallippi, explains:

“Bitcoin allows BitGive to confirm remote transactions, significantly lower transfer fees, provide transparency in real-time, execute cryptographically-secured transactions, and obtain fast settlements.”

Purchasing only 11 bitcoins could be just the start. Pulte might soon see the value of Bitcoin for his philanthropic work. And most likely, he will start buying more coins, eventually joining the long list of billionaires holding Bitcoin, which includes Blythe Masters, Dan Morehead, Tyler, and Cameron Winklevoss, and Michael Novogratz.

What do you think about billionaires buying Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below!

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter: @pulte, BitGive

The post Billionaires Buying Bitcoin: Bill Pulte Announces 11 BTC Purchase appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2YKmdWW via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes

michaelbennettcrypto · 5 years

Text

New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise

Diversity among crypto holders is increasing according to a new survey of European cryptocurrency investors and traders. The number of women in crypto is increasing as the industry shakes off is male dominated past.

The survey was carried out across three waves of research in 2018, sampling almost 120,000 unique internet users aged 16 to 64 in 17 countries across Europe.

Crypto Girls at 20 Percent

Vienna based fintech firm Bitpanda has partnered with GlobalWebIndex to produce an in-depth survey of cryptocurrency holders across Europe and Russia. According to the research paper, the goal was to determine what sets crypto investors apart from average investors.

One of the key findings was that the stereotypes are shifting which is leading to greater diversification. One in five crypto holders and investors are women, a figure that is on the rise from the estimated 5 percent in early 2018. Jason Mander, Chief Research Officer at GlobalWebIndex, commented;

“When it comes to attitudes, there’s very little difference between men and women. The slight differences pale when we compare cryptocurrency holders to the general public.”

Although the study did not go into the number of women in professional positions in the crypto industry, that number is also on the rise with prominent influencers such as Meltem Demirors, Amber Baldet, Connie Gallippi, and Joyce Kim leading the way in what has traditionally been a male dominated arena.

According to Coin Dance there are still very few women, around ten percent, engaged in the crypto community. However, this could be down to the nature of how things are conducted on Twitter and Reddit with little accountability and a lot of mudslinging.

Not all Millennials

The research made some other interesting findings that crypto is not all about the millennials. Around 40 percent of crypto investors are over the age of 35 according to the study. However, in line with current stereotypes it did add that most cryptocurrency holders tend to be young, highly educated, high-income males working in European financial centers in IT, engineering or finance.

It also stated that European crypto holders had a higher technical knowledge, more disposable income and were less averse to risk taking. They pursue novelty, are open to risk and have a strong sense of economic empowerment, it continued. Bitpanda CEO, Eric Demuth, stated;

“We wanted to demystify the people that shape the cryptocurrency industry. I’m hoping this report will help everyone to better understand who these people are, what their attitudes are, as well as their lifestyle, finance & investment behaviours,”

The new study challenges others that have reported female portion of the crypto pie at less than ten percent.

Image from Shutterstock

The post New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise appeared first on NewsBTC.

from Cryptocracken WP https://ift.tt/2ZmpqeP via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken WP

0 notes

brettzjacksonblog · 5 years

Text

New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise

The survey was carried out across three waves of research in 2018, sampling almost 120,000 unique internet users aged 16 to 64 in 17 countries across Europe.

Crypto Girls at 20 Percent

“When it comes to attitudes, there’s very little difference between men and women. The slight differences pale when we compare cryptocurrency holders to the general public.”

Not all Millennials

The new study challenges others that have reported female portion of the crypto pie at less than ten percent.

Image from Shutterstock

The post New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise appeared first on NewsBTC.

from CryptoCracken SMFeed https://ift.tt/2ZmpqeP via IFTTT

#IFTTT #CryptoCracken SMFeed

0 notes

fmservers · 5 years

Text

Basis, backed with $133 million from top VCs to build a price-stable cryptocurrency, says it’s shutting down and returning the money

Earlier this year, we told you about a now 18-month-old, Hoboken, N.J.-based cryptocurrency startup working on a “stable coin” whose elastic supply would ostensibly expand and contract to keep its value at about a dollar instead of all over the map. The company’s big idea: to develop a new token that people would actually use, instead of use to speculate.

Investors — a lot of them — fell in love with the concept. In fact, eight months ago, Basis landed $133 million in funding from Bain Capital Ventures, GV, longtime hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller, one-time Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, WingVC, NFX Ventures, Valor Capital, Zhenfund, Ceyuan, Sky9 Capital, Digital Currency Group and others.

Today, that same team, led by CEO Nader Al-Naji — who co-founded the company with former Princeton classmates Lawrence Diao and Josh Chen — says it is shutting down the project. Basis is also returning the capital to investors that it didn’t use in trying to make a go of things.

As Al-Naji explained it in a post at Basis’s site a bit ago, its technology road map and U.S. securities regulations didn’t quite mix.

More specifically, writes Al-Naji, the founders didn’t foresee the some of the ripple effects of the regulatory guidance it began receiving. For one thing, he writes, Basis soon realized that would be “no way to avoid securities status for bond and share tokens” and that “due to their status as unregistered securities, bond and share tokens would be subject to transfer restrictions, with [Basis] responsible for limiting token ownership to accredited investors in the U.S. for the first year after issuance, and for performing eligibility checks on international users.” Part of the problem with this scenario, continues Al Naji, is that “enforcing transfer restrictions would require a centralized whitelist, meaning our system would not only lose its censorship resistance, but also that on-chain auctions would have significantly less liquidity.” Ultimately, having fewer participants in those on-chain auctions would adversely affect the stability of Basis, which was sort of the whole point, he adds.

It isn’t clear from what’s happened to basis whether stablecoins are simply not viable, or whether its particular approach to an asset with price stability characteristics was ill-planned. Though it’s easy to grasp how they could spur the adoption of crypto payment applications, the technology remains unproven, even as a stablecoin rush got underway this past summer. As Garrick Hileman, head of research at the cryptocurrency services firm Blockchain, told Technology Review back in September, there were a handful of stablecoins in the works in early 2017. As of this fall, that number was closer to 60.

We’ve reached out to some of Basis’s investors to learn more. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that even when Basis raised that giant round of funding, Al-Naji was candid about not knowing when Basis’s token would be used in circulation. In short, he never made aggressive promises that Basis was unable to keep — at least, not to us directly.

You can read the full text of his letter to investors and supporters below.

Eighteen months ago, we set out with the ambitious goal of creating a better monetary system: one that would be resistant to hyperinflation, free from centralized control, and more stable and robust than the monetary systems that came before it. This was a goal we felt could create tremendous value for society if achieved, and one we also felt well-positioned to take on.

We started with a white paper that proposed a stable, decentralized cryptocurrency called Basis that had the potential to fulfill this vision.

Basis remains stable by incentivizing traders to buy and sell Basis in response to changes in demand. These incentives are set up through regular, on-chain auctions of “bond” and “share” tokens, which serve to adjust Basis supply. Because the Basis ecosystem would take some time to develop, we knew we’d need to initially play the role of trader ourselves, which would be capital-intensive. As such, after publishing our white paper, we raised a $133M round of financing. This allowed us to involve a diverse set of investors who we felt could add a lot of value to the project and enabled us to build a large stabilization fund to bootstrap the system. We then assembled an outstanding team and set our sights on launching the system.

Unfortunately, having to apply US securities regulation to the system had a serious negative impact on our ability to launch Basis.

As regulatory guidance started to trickle out over time, our lawyers came to a consensus that there would be no way to avoid securities status for bond and share tokens (though Basis would likely be free of this characterization).

Due to their status as unregistered securities, bond and share tokens would be subject to transfer restrictions, with Intangible Labs responsible for limiting token ownership to accredited investors in the US for the first year after issuance and for performing eligibility checks on international users.

Enforcing transfer restrictions would require a centralized whitelist, meaning our system would not only lose its censorship resistance, but also that on-chain auctions would have significantly less liquidity.

Having fewer participants in the on-chain auctions adversely affects the stability of Basis, making Basis intrinsically less attractive to users. Additionally, imposing transfer restrictions on bond and share token auctions materially hurts our ability to build the Basis ecosystem.

While transfer restrictions can generally lapse 12 months after a security is issued, because the auctions of bond and share tokens governed by our monetary policy would be continuously issued, transfer restrictions and a centralized whitelist would be required indefinitely.

We considered many alternative paths to launch to try and comply with the regulatory constraints while keeping our product compelling and competitive. These paths included launching offshore with added utility to make bond and share tokens less financial in nature, and starting off with a centralized stability mechanism. Ultimately, however, we don’t think any of the paths we considered are compelling enough for our users or our investors, or consistent enough with our vision to justify moving forward.

As such, I am sad to share the news that we have decided to return capital to our investors. This also means, unfortunately, that the Basis project will be shutting down.

Although this isn’t the outcome any of us wanted, we knew going into this that we were fundamentally making a binary bet on a favorable regulatory landscape. The binary nature of our bet is precisely why we included a return of capital clause in our token sale to begin with, even though it was something we hoped we’d never have to rely on. So, while we’re disappointed we couldn’t launch the system we were all hoping to build, we’re thankful that we can at least do right by our investors given these circumstances.

Finally, we owe our sincere thanks to everyone who supported us and our project—from the extraordinary backers and partners who believed in us, to the outstanding team that joined us in our mission. You gave us the opportunity to change the world, and we’re looking forward to trying again.

Until next time,

Nader Al-Naji, CEO

Via Connie Loizos https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

0 notes

cryptnus-blog · 5 years

Text

How Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Are Changing Philanthropy — Inside Philanthropy

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/11/how-cryptocurrencies-and-blockchain-are-changing-philanthropy-inside-philanthropy/

How Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Are Changing Philanthropy — Inside Philanthropy

Blockchain technology and the cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that rely on it are becoming more prevalent in many fields. When you see a technology being used in diverse arenas like regional voting trials, major retail, NASA research projects, and refugee ID initiatives, it’s not surprising to find that funders and nonprofits are also getting in on the game.

Here, we look at some of the interesting ways blockchains and cryptocurrencies are changing philanthropy, along with some of the challenges and pitfalls.

What Are Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains?

If you already know, skip ahead! Cryptocurrencies are digital monies secured through encryption that are typically not controlled by central banks. Blockchain technology is diverse and quickly evolving, and this is just a very general overview. A blockchain is essentially a ledger that holds records (like the details of a digital money transaction) locked in groups called blocks. It’s often called a distributed or decentralized system because it keeps copies of these blocks on a spread-out network of computers, rather than on a centralized server. Every computer in the network has a matching copy of all the blocks and is said to be “running the blockchain.” The blocks of records are verified, added to the chain, and secured through cryptography, or the encrypting of information. “Crypto-mining” — a complex and energy-guzzling computer process that we won’t fully cover here — both verifies the encryption of many blockchains and mints new cryptocurrency.

Though not infallible, these systems are considered very difficult to tamper with because, in order to pull that off, all the connected computers around the world in the blockchain network would have to be compromised at the same time. While blockchains can be now designed for many different purposes and programmed for application in almost any field, they are often used to offer secure, traceable record-keeping and quick peer-to-peer virtual currency transactions.

Crypto-Donations

Many nonprofits now accept cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether, including the United Way, Red Cross, and Save the Children. All three receive digital monies through a bitcoin payment processor called BitPay.

Save the Children, along with the Water Project and other groups, has also received donations through the BitGive Foundation, which in 2013 became the first nonprofit organization specializing in using bitcoin to fund charitable works. BitHope is another example of this type of foundation. BitGive’s campaigns thus far have raised modest thousands, making its programs similar to average crowdfunding endeavors. It also has a blockchain-based transparency initiative called GiveTrack that seeks to make donation processes clearer for all involved. (We’ll look at that in more detail below.) Founder and executive director Connie Gallippi said some of the benefits of fundraising in bitcoin are:

When you don’t have to go through the traditional system of banks and governments, the money gets there a lot faster, it is much less expensive, [and] it is also cryptographically secure, so you know it is getting to who it was intended to get to.

On another scale altogether, Fidelity Charitable, which holds the nation’s largest donor-advised fund, received nearly $70 million in cryptocurrency in 2017—10 times more than the year before.

“It is one of the fastest growing assets that we are seeing wanting to be contributed to charity. Many people who own bitcoin or other forms of cryptocurrency do want to be philanthropic,” vice president Amy Pirozzolo said.

In 2014, for tax purposes, the IRS categorized digital monies not as currencies but as properties, similar to stocks or bonds. Donating these assets prevents the giver from having to pay capital gain taxes (taxes on the profit of a sale) and gives them a tax deduction for the donation to boot. So, just as many philanthropists get big tax benefits from donating their stocks, they can now do the same with cryptocurrency holdings.

In the political realm, candidates can accept bitcoin as an “in-kind” donation, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). A handful of politicians are on board, but with some FEC guidelines creating potential gaps (like donations under $200 not having to be reported), the totals are hard to track. Missouri Republican Austin Petersen is believed to have gotten the largest single digital currency donation in federal election history of 0.284 bitcoin, or $4,500 at the time of donation. He used BitPay to receive the gift. Democrat Brian Forde’s congressional campaign in California’s 45th District received multiple bitcoin donations worth more than $66,000 in August and September 2017.

“A number of members of Congress have asked for my advice about how they can accept bitcoin as well,” Forde said.

Big Crypto-Philanthropists

Several blockchain and crypto-based organizations and funders have made big payouts to nonprofit organizations. The Pineapple Fund, backed by an anonymous successful crypto-investor going by “Pine,” is a well-known, but now spent-out, star in the crypto-philanthropy sphere. The fund’s motto is, “Because once you have enough money, money doesn’t matter.” It has committed 5,104 bitcoin and donated $55.7 million to 60 diverse charities including the Water Project, Give Directly, the ACLU, the Tennessee River Gorge Trust, and Women Who Tech.

In March 2018, San Francisco-based global blockchain banking platform Ripple gave $29 million to fund all the donation requests on the teacher fundraising site DonorsChoose.org—the biggest known single donation ever made in cryptocurrency. As we’ve reported, Ripple also recently committed $50 million to expand academic research on blockchain “with top universities around the world.”

Also in early 2018, decentralized payment provider OmiseGO and ethereum blockchain founder Vitalik Buterin partnered with the nonprofit GiveDirectly to send $1 million to refugee families in Uganda. GiveDirectly “allows donors to send money directly to the poor with no strings attached,” and its site shares extensive research showing the power of direct cash donations, which are usually well-spent by those in poverty. More than 12,000 households benefited from this crypto-donation, which was exchanged from the OmiseGO digital tokens into local currency.

The reduction in intermediaries that characterizes GiveDirectly’s funding structure makes it a great fit for the peer-to-peer, decentralized nature of blockchain transactions. And, blockchain and crypto-finance, which are often accessible with very low fees through a smartphone app, can empower people who don’t have established traditional banking systems in their communities. As we’ve covered, the Gates Foundation has been backing innovations using blockchain systems to boost financial inclusion for several years now.

In June 2018, Brian Armstrong, CEO of leading digital currency exchange Coinbase, started GiveCrypto.org, “a nonprofit that distributes cryptocurrency to people living in poverty.” Similar to the GiveDirectly model, this organization seeks to place funds right into the hands of people in struggling economies, where they can convert crypto into their local currency, carry out crypto-transactions, or hold it (“hodl” in crypto-slang) over the long term. Armstrong already donated $1 million himself to the organization, which has now raised $4 million in total. He hopes the fund will grow to $1 billion within two years.

Armstrong pointed out in a blog post that like many quick-rising tech entrepreneurs, crypto-investors amassed large amounts of wealth very quickly. He wrote :

[The] reputation of the crypto community has been dominated by images of ‘bros in Lambos,’ whose antics get a lot of attention. This doesn’t represent the best of our community. Most people I respect and know in the crypto-ecosystem believe we have a responsibility to help this technology reach a much wider audience.

Other Crypto-Giving Formats

Charity coins are cryptocurrencies that are usually created to fund specific causes. For example, the nonprofit Charity:Water is raising money through the sales and mining of its own digital currency called, the Clean Water Coin. Similarly, the RootProject sells its Roots Tokens and uses them in crowdfunding campaigns to support various “social good” projects and nonprofits around the world, including those relating to homelessness, education, and reforestation. And, some charities like UNICEF Australia ask backers to donate extra computer power to help them mine various cryptocurrencies.

Then there is the new GiveTrack system from BitGive. It aims to use a public blockchain (record of transactions) to offer supreme transparency, a trait often coveted within the philanthrosphere.

“GiveTrack is a platform nonprofits use for taking donations and sharing with donors exactly how their contributions are used, while tying donations directly to a project result,” the site states. It is currently in BETA version and uses an “immutable and transparent” blockchain ledger to provide financial transaction information in real time. For example, a nonprofit would identify the specific costs for a program and once funded in bitcoin, all of its purchases would then be viewable on GiveTrack.

“Project results are tied into GiveTrack through a reporting mechanism that provides notification of project milestones and written updates from the charity’s representatives in the field,” the site states, which enables “donors to watch the progress of the project all the way to completion.”

While this initiative aims to be the epitome of precise and accountable programmatic funding, it may leave little room for nonprofits to be flexible or responsive during a project and is a long way from the general operating support that many organizations crave. Still, the intention to provide transparent record-keeping and tie donors more directly to a project’s progress is certainly interesting, and many types of works are now being funded on the platform, including wildlife crime scene training for African rangers, kids’ vision screening, and sustainable agricultural initiatives.

Downsides of Crypto-Giving

Each transaction on a public blockchain like the bitcoin blockchain can be viewed online, but the parties involved can remain largely incognito, carrying out their business with the use of numeric public addresses and private keys (other privacy measures for some blockchains also exist, but we won’t explore those now). The secrecy of blockchains is an interesting feature to consider in the realm of philanthropy, potentially adding another layer of shadow-giving to a sphere where donation sources can already remain largely hidden. Within blockchain interactions, an individual’s transactions are sometimes linked to their real identity somewhere in an online account and/or can sometimes be traced to an IP address, so they are not considered 100-percent-anonymous.

Blockchain-based currencies can both cloak personal finance and be adopted for criminal uses like investment scams and money laundering. Regulations on cryptocurrency are complex and controversial, varying widely from country to country. For example, China banned cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings (ICOs). South Korea banned anonymous crypto-trading, and Japan blocked the trade of certain “privacy-rich coins.” Meanwhile, Venezuela launched a state cryptocurrency in October 2018, and central banks in Norway and Sweden are considering taking this step as well.

In the EU and U.S., regulations are still in development. Distinct branches of U.S. government currently refer to digital currencies differently; as properties, securities, commodities, and funds. New York opted to create its own BitLicense system to regulate in-state crypto-businesses.

In addition to unclear and developing regulations, market volatility can be a major deterrent to many who are considering transacting with cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in 2017 and significant crash in 2018 is a prime example of the intense value changes that these unregulated monies can undergo. A crypto-donation’s worth can certainly change after being sent to a nonprofit. Of course, charities can choose to immediately sell/convert the digital currency into fiat, or government-issued money, upon receipt. Because tax-exempt charities don’t have to pay capital gains taxes, if they sell the crypto, the full value of the gift persists.

And, like all technologies, blockchains and digital currencies are not perfect. For example, blockchains can become congested with traffic and cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets can be hacked.

***

Despite complications, imperfections, and growing pains, the diversity of applications for blockchains and cryptocurrencies speak to the core technology’s usefulness, adaptability, and endurance. Across the globe, innovations in this space continue to move forward as regulators play catch-up, and they don’t show any signs of stopping. When successfully utilized, blockchain systems can move funds in a direct, secure, and egalitarian manner, and certainly seem like a fertile area for philanthropists and nonprofits to keep (cautiously) exploring.

0 notes

cryptoquicknews-blog · 6 years

Photo

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/4nb1cA

What China's Cashless Revolution Can Teach the West About Crypto

This post was originally published here

Michael J. Casey is the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative.

The following article originally appeared in CoinDesk Weekly, a custom-curated newsletter delivered every Sunday exclusively to our subscribers.

Cash appears to be disappearing from China’s teeming cities.

Foreign tourists talk of struggling to buy things because they don’t have Alipay or WeChat Pay installed on their smartphones and because merchants no longer bother to accept the banknotes they get from ATMs.

These stories elicit fascination among Americans, but not much more. Here in the U.S., many can’t grasp what the big deal is about digital payments. After all, pulling a credit card from your wallet isn’t much more inconvenient than pulling a smartphone out of your pocket and it costs you – if not the merchant – no more than if you used cash. To the average American, China’s system seems no different from Venmo or Paypal, just more pervasive.

But as Andreessen Horowitz partner Connie Chan told me during a fireside chat at the HYTSA conference at Stanford a week ago, the real benefits of China’s cashless revolution lie in how this new, software-based system of value exchange has become a platform on which new business models can be built.

Digitizing payments in this way, at very low cost, enables micropayments and seamless integration across different service providers, which in turn means merchants can provide a variety of new services to customers over an app. This helps to enhance the user’ experience, boost loyalty and engagement, and build network value.

Consider how Kuguo, the most popular of a number of Chinese music apps, provides “song coins” to fans, based on their level of engagement, which they can exchange into renminbi, the local currency.

Essentially, by removing intermediation costs from the payments system, Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay – which together now boast a billion users, according to Aite Group – have created a seamless foundation for a whole new digital economy. Chan says this is where U.S. app developers are being left behind, because their products can’t integrate with this new model.

The relevance in this for CoinDesk readers, with their interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, starts with the fact that this dream of a seamless, micropayments-enabled system of hitherto impossible new services is one that’s often cited by crypto enthusiasts.

So, does China prove that you don’t need a blockchain to build a new Internet of Value, powered by device-to-device exchanges in an Internet of Things economy?

Well, yes, and, no.

Crypto dream, Chinese characteristics

There is a very real and illuminating limit to China’s system: It can’t easily go outside its borders.

Although some U.S.-based providers are now creating services for Chinese tourists so they can buy things in America with their WeChat Pay or Alipay accounts, most of the activity on these networks happens in China. Most importantly, while Alipay and WeChat Pay are trying to crack other markets, there is no cross-currency facility. For all intents and purposes, this “cashless revolution” is happening within the boundaries of a renminbi universe.

The reason for that is that unlike cryptocurrency systems, the Chinese digital payments system is entirely built on the rails of the Chinese banking system, which deals almost exclusively in the Chinese currency. In that sense, it does share a foundation more like Venmo’s and Paypal’s, whose accounts also settle back into the banking system, than that of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

The big difference is that for a host of reasons, the banks don’t charge the same kind of exorbitant interchange fees to Chinese merchants that U.S. banks do to U.S. businesses, allowing the digital payments providers to build a much more fluid micropayments model on top.

But here’s the thing: the Chinese banking system is essentially an instrument of Chinese policymaking. The four biggest banks make up the bulk of the financial system and are all majority government-owned. Their capacity to make profits, essentially on the spread they charge for loans over what they pay for deposits, is enabled by a carefully managed monetary policy. The People’s Bank of China sets a ceiling for deposit rates – often below inflation – and can get away with that because it imposes capital controls on savers to prevent them fleeing low rates for higher-earning currencies.

To be sure, Ant Financial and Tencent both have a variety of financial and banking licenses of their own. But their own financial profits are very much enabled by the same interest rate policy framework that a wider state-run Chinese banking system is compelled to accept.

For now, that policy framework has sustained a quid pro quo arrangement with Chinese savers, who more or less support a banking system that otherwise eats into their savings because the benefits are manifest in continued economic growth and in services like those of Tencent and Alibaba.

But for some time, there has been an expectation that China, in its desire to “internationalize” the renminbi, will relax both its interest rate and capital controls, which could seriously undermine banks’ profit margins. If China were also to allow more private and foreign investment into the banks, would those institutions continue to subsidize the digital payments economy? Maybe, maybe not.

Since we can’t be like China, maybe embrace crypto?

The bigger point is that China’s circumstances are unique. There aren’t many governments, if any, that could get away with this kind of control over the banking system. Others have tried – such as Venezuela and Argentina – and have destroyed confidence in their currencies in the process.

So, if the rest of the world can’t use compliant banks to subsidize a fluid, digital payments system, what instead will it use as the platform?

The answer may well lie in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based protocols. And as the race to build a stablecoin proceeds, a foundation for something that could viably compete with China’s model may emerge. It might even go one step better, as it would allow for cross-border payments.

As U.S. government officials look nervously across the Pacific at China’s growing economic clout, rather than launching destructive trade wars that do nothing but prop up outdated, 20th-century industries, they should instead be figuring out how to emulate and compete with China’s new Internet of Value model for business development and innovation.

It’s in that context that they should be looking at cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology less as a threat and more as an opportunity.

Cashless payments in China image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #btc #xrp #litecoin #altcoin #money #currency #finance #news #alts #hodl #coindesk #cointelegraph #dollar #bitcoin View the website

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/4nb1cA

#Uncategorized

0 notes

24prnews · 6 years

Text

Travel Industry Technology Trends in 2018

Travel Industry Technology Trends in 2018 https://ift.tt/2IXi9Os

Revolutionary tech trends will vigorously entertain the travel industry in 2018. With all recent innovations, a new window of opportunities has opened in 2017. Johnny Thorsen, VP of Mezi, says it was the most important year in the travel world since 1994 . Technology innovations are definitely in the front seat leading the way on this transient journey.

One concept that drives all technology innovations is the Smart Society. More and more countries are recognising the growth opportunities and therefore are moving towards building smart societies . The aptitude with which smart societies are expected to grow, shows the influence they will have on a range of industries. According to CTA, the global spending on smart cities is expected to reach $34.35 billion by 2020 . Therefore, a future with Smart Cities is one of the inevitable trends to influence the travel industry in 2018.

To ensure continued arrivals growth and sustainable expansion, cities are steaming ahead with initiatives to become smart cities. – Euromonitor International

Cashless Revolution

A big step towards a “smarter” society is the growth of digital payment facilities – Euromonitor International

From WeChat and Alipay to Mobile wallets and Bitcoin, countries and companies are adapting their infrastructures towards the cashless society. How does this affect the travel industry? With travellers’ high expectations of booking process simplicity level, travel companies will need to stay ahead by reducing friction at the point of payment.

While other parts of the world are discussing how would a future of cashless society look like, Asian countries are already living it. With advanced infrastructure technology and high digital payment adoption rates, they are leading the cashless revolution . China with mobile wallets as WeChat and Alipay, and South Korea with Samsung Pay are on their way to become almost cashless.

What other countries and travel companies can benchmark out is the influence of the convenience that travellers are getting with simple and seamless transactions. The fact that WeChat and Alipay handle 94% of China’s US$5 trillion mobile wallet transaction , clearly shows the potential of e-wallets.

Travel companies and countries, in general, will need to evolve in line with the cashless revolution to ensure their share of the travel market. Thinking differently and getting creative in developing their own technology platforms and QR codes for e-wallet transactions is one way to act.

However, there is another aspect that presents an opportunity for all sectors in the travel industry, and that is the Chinese travel market growth. Considering that 200 million Chinese citizens are expected to travel abroad by 2021 , it is a wise strategic decision for travel companies to understand how Chinese consumers search, shop and pay. In this direction, accepting WeChat and Alipay platforms will give travel businesses access to the 1 billion monthly users and share of the Chinese outbound market .

There are few European players already adapting to this concept. From European carriers KLM and Finnair offering WeChat payments and customer service , to Finland taking this to the next level with becoming the first country to provide all-Alipay travel experience .

While it is certain that countries and travel companies will follow the trend of the cashless revolution, there is the uprising of the new trend in the digital payment world – the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Travel Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies

Travel Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies are definitely the two hottest topics this year, and possibly the ones bringing the most confusion in their interpretation. While Blockchain has been mainly associated with the technology behind the cryptocurrencies, its potential goes way beyond that. Blockchain represents a giant secure digital ledger that keeps track of every single transaction of any particular asset – cryptocurrencies being only one of them . The main pillars on which this technology is built are trust, immutability, disintermediation and decentralization.

As for the crypto world, we could comment that the ecstatic growth of Bitcoin, the first decentralised cryptocurrency, provoked the rise of now 1500+ cryptocurrencies. TOA Coin, JIO Token, Travel Coin, BitAir, Lif, PallyCoin are just a few cryptocurrencies active in the travel industry .

Other than the buzz, the volatility of the cryptocurrencies raises the question of whether they are mature enough for advance customer payments for travel products. Daniel Scott, Co-founder of CoinCorner, is optimistic and believes cryptocurrencies will stay and stabilise in the future. However, there are many thought leaders like Warren Buffet and Robert Herjavec who believe this to be another bubble waiting to explode .

While for the cryptocurrencies we will have to wait and see whether they will remain in the game, the situation with Blockchain technology is slightly different. From the Oracle claiming it to be today’s most disruptive emerging technology to Skift naming it ‘the travel industry’s Space Race’, it will undoubtedly disrupt the travel industry. Starting from loyalty programs, automation in billing processes, to hotel inventory, it will be a dynamic journey for travel businesses.

Even though the blockchain technology is still in its infant phase, the benefits that it brings to the table are opening up so many opportunity windows that could completely change how the travel industry operates.

Winding Tree, the travel distribution platform that caught the attention of many investors is changing the role of middleman in the travel market. According to COO & Founder Pedro Anderson, the idea behind Winding Tree technology is decentralising the complex travel distribution. With their platform, all innovators would be able to build in the travel booking space without having to deal with gatekeepers and intermediaries, complex legacy systems and double marginalisation.

If we take a closer look at the hospitality market, hotels are the most dependable on intermediaries, hence paying quite high fees. Blockchain platforms will be a game changer by providing a new place to list their inventory and reach mass exposure without paying high intermediary fees. Following the example of Lufthansa Group and Air New Zealand, Nordic Hotel Groups is testing the Winding Tree platform and looking to be the first company in the hospitality industry to experience the benefits of this technology .

Another important area where blockchain technology will have a significant impact is the loyalty programs. The challenge for all travel businesses when it comes to loyalty programs is to maintain high consumer engagement. The reason behind it is the complexity and diversity of the loyalty programs. Every travel business has its own loyalty scheme with different features and conditions. Therefore, consumers are required to visit each platform and get familiar with all different conditions in order to receive their prize.

Blockchain technology opens up the opportunity to simplify the process and store all loyalty programs in one place. Few companies that use blockchain technology to create blockchain based programs are Travelkoin, Loyal and Trippki . Following the behavioural changes in consumers, seeking simplicity and instant rewards, these start-ups recognise the benefits of seamless and customised loyalty programs .

Artificial Intelligence

While AI joined the hype in tech trends a few years ago, we can say that in the travel industry it started its momentum in 2017 . With the high demand for personalized customer experience and benefits of simplified and holistic booking processes, travel businesses couldn’t resist to at least test what difference can AI make for them.

Although each segment of the travel industry will apply AI differently, there are still common areas where AI implementation can equally improve performance among airlines, hotels, car rental companies or cruises. These basic features start with big data analysis and predicting customer preferences, which then allow travel businesses to provide tailor-made offers and unique customer experience. Another field where big data analysis plays an essential role is the dynamic pricing. With AI, travel companies can adjust their prices more frequently and accurately, taking into account not only competitiveness but many factors at once. The list can start with seasonality and then it can add up demand and availability, weather forecast, booking patterns, preferences, urgency and many more.

Chatbots

Leaders in the travel industry have already applied some of the AI solutions and have experienced the positive impact. Skyscanner is leading the way with chatbots application, offering an extensive range of booking solutions with Amazon Alexa, Facebook messenger, Microsoft Cortana, and Skype Group Chat Travel bot . In terms of recommendations, Kayak with its map view gives customers suggestions for places and activities in their visiting area .

When it comes to support in the booking process, Booking.com is ahead of the game with its AI-powered Booking Assistant chatbot that currently answers up to 30% of customer inquiries in less than 5 minutes . Further, the hotel industry is going one step further in the customer service area with implementation of AI concierges. Hilton’s AI concierge Connie gives guests suggestions of activities and places they can visit and Rose AI concierge at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas takes over all phone inquiries .

And then one very interesting case for the role of AI in dynamic pricing is Starwood Hotels. With its development of analytics engine for price adjustments on the fly, they improved demand forecasting by 20% since 2015 .

It is definitely appealing to be part of the future with AI, especially when we know that its application and influence was just warming up. However, AI opens up questions not only about its ability to develop human-like capabilities but also about the level of its advancement. Could we see in near future a completely smart hotel? Or a smart airport where travellers can manage all processes from ticketing to luggage and car rental pickups without human support? Could AI cave in the way to pilotless airplanes and autonomous cars? Will machine learning and robots completely replace travel agents, pricing analysts or they will act as a supporting factor in the process?

The current preference of travellers in terms of customer support is still leaning towards human interaction. In stresful situations like a cancelled flight, people prefer talking to people . It is perfectly logical for a customer to prefer actual human empathy, rather than a programmed response from a machine.

The result is not different when it comes to autonomous planes. According to UBS report, only 17% of travellers are willing to trust trained pilots with their live .

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality – another buzzword in the travel industry in 2018. Although it started its popularity in 2008, experts believe 2018 to be the year when augmented reality will become an actual reality in many industries .

Augmented reality technology, spicing up the image of existing environment with artificial elements, opens up a whole new window of creative opportunities for travel businesses. Being able to give customers an immersive and authentic experience, AR will definitely change how businesses interact with their customers and how customers make decisions. While all sectors of the travel industry will gain the advantage with AR in winning customers attention, OTAs will be the ones benefiting the most.

64% of travellers say they would like to ‘try before they buy

We know that for consumers, travel choices are driven by perception and are mostly visually orientated . Consequently, the biggest challenge for tour operators is to prove their offers’ worth to travelers in the online booking process. Now, with augmented reality, tour operators can capture real video experiences of tours and allow travellers to experience them during their online booking journey. This allows customers to have much better representation and feel confident in the product they are buying. Furthermore, the easier decision making will result in higher satisfaction for travellers and deserved loyalty for tour operators.

Two other very appealing applications of augmented reality technology are navigation and translation services. When it comes to navigation, car rental companies can use AR to their advantage and create an immersive navigation experience in top destinations. However, navigation combined with live translation brings the travel experience to another level, giving customers augmented directions in the language of choice throughout their journey.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the degree of innovativeness in the technology world is only going forward. The cutting-edge advances in robotics, codification of money, security and big data will change not only how industries will operate, but also how we work and live. The travel industry, among others, will have to get in line and find a way to use this rapid changes as an advantage in order to remain in the already highly competitive race.

But what travel businesses must not forget, is that technology trends, however important, shouldn’t be their main focus. The main focus are the customers and the behavioural changes they are experiencing. The traveller of the future seeks simplicity and much higher level of quality service, personalized offers, frictionless payments and unique experiences. And every travel business needs to recognise their strongest attributes in winning the travellers’ attention and balance them with the, relevant for them, technology trends. While for ones blockchain technology could be the answer, for others that might be robotics or AR .

Being experts in the car rental industry, we believe that for the car rental businesses a strong influence from all these technologies will have the advancement in dynamic pricing and demand forecasting with AI, navigation and translations with AR, as well as simplification of loyalty programs with the help of Blockchain technology.

At Car Target Group we recognise the relevance of these revolutionary trends, actively work on innovations and incorporate what we find relevant to our success story.

This article was originally published on Car-target.com.

The post Travel Industry Technology Trends in 2018 appeared first on 24PRNews.

#24PRNews

0 notes

joshuajacksonlyblog · 5 years

Text

New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise

The survey was carried out across three waves of research in 2018, sampling almost 120,000 unique internet users aged 16 to 64 in 17 countries across Europe.

Crypto Girls at 20 Percent

“When it comes to attitudes, there’s very little difference between men and women. The slight differences pale when we compare cryptocurrency holders to the general public.”

Not all Millennials

The new study challenges others that have reported female portion of the crypto pie at less than ten percent.

Image from Shutterstock

The post New Research Reveals Crypto Girls Are On The Rise appeared first on NewsBTC.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2ZmpqeP via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

0 notes