Newsflash: Gates Foundation partners with Ripple and Coil, Tron (TRX) launches a payment card program while Huobi creates a native stable coin
As the morning of October 20th opened the curtains on the cold, autumn day ahead, we decided to warm you up by giving you the hottest crypto takes from the night before. There certainly was no lack of those as the market looked to enter the post-Tether panic weekend on a high note. These are the scoops we singled out for you:
- Gates family partners with Ripple and Coil
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced their partnership with Ripple Labs Inc. and Coil, a digital payments company. The partnership will be aiming to implement Ripple’s Interledger Protocol and explore ways Mojaloop, foundation’s Interledger-powered open-source mobile payment stage for financial associations, government regulators and other Fintech industry players, can help improve various “pro-poor payment systems”. The focus of this program will seemingly be on the underbanked individuals of the world, a population of 1.7 billion people according to information from the World Bank.
- Tron launches a payment card program
Sesameseed, a community of TRON enthusiasts and a Super Representative in the project’s validator network, announced they will be releasing a TronCard Beta program. Eligibility to this program is achieved by amassing 10,000 or more Poppy tokens that are currently being awarded for taking part in Tron’s latest crowd funding effort organized by SEEDGerminator, a Tron-based project which acts as an accelerator for on-chain development of dApps, tokens and technology. These individuals will receive the initial versions of this card for no charge and will be able to utilize it at any Poppy wallet supporting retailer, as well as across any number of integrated TRON wallets.
- Huobi launches a native stable coin
As the market clearly needs more stable coins, Huobi decided to deliver on this front. Just yesterday it was announced that the exchange will be launching its own stable coin product called HUSD. The coin will be aimed at and directly tied to multiple other stable coins to eliminate the need to choose between multiple stable coins and reduce costs of switching from one coin to another. Depositing any kind of stablecoin on the exchange will have it shown as HUSD in your account. Currently, the HUSD solution supports four kinds of stablecoin: Paxos Standard (PAX), True USD (TUSD), USD Coin (USDC) and Gemini Dollars (GUSD).
- Power Ledger wins Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge
The title of Extreme Tech Challenge 2018 winner went to Power Ledger, a blog post made by the project revealed. This contest is owned and organized by Richard Branson, eccentric millionaire who created Virgin Group, an entity which controls more than 400 companies including Virgin Air and Virgin Mobile. His Extreme Tech Challenge aims to “empower entrepreneurs with visibility, resources and a rolodex”, giving these talented, creative people funds and mentorship required to take their first steps in the world of entrepreneurship. Power Ledger, a company developing solutions for peer-to-peer energy trading, won the award in front of projects like Revl, a smart action camera company that uses AI powered editing software, and Owlet, an infant health platform that empowers parents to care for their children.
- Why Bitcoin and Crypto Have No Future
A post with the above title was recently published on Medium, and on the first sight you might think it will lead you into a spiral of FUD aimed at your crypto holdings. However, reading the first sentence will reveal that the title is nothing more than a bait-and-switch move made by its author Think Outside the Blox. Reading further down will reveal that the article is actually a collection of all the cryptocurrency-related stories that should make you regain belief in the future of crypto. From NYSE creating Bakkt, over Fidelity, Steve Wozniak’s crypto asset investment firm, Katy Perry’s nails, Amazon, IBM, MLB, Alibaba to John Mcafee, Rockfeller, Soros, Steve Bannon, NBA, NFL and crypto’s potential to solve world poverty, there are many topics covered in the article that will ease your mind in this troubling crypto times. As one Reddit user called it, the article is basically “instant FOMO”.
