The Markethive Wallet Phase Two Complete

Phase Two of the Markethive internal wallet is complete, a considerable milestone for the company and the Markethive community. The impending release of the wallet is a pivot point for Markethive to secure its future as a completely decentralized social media broadcasting and marketing platform the world so desperately needs for these significant times: The End Times.

About The Wallet – Phase Two

The Markethive wallet is not just an ordinary wallet: It’s a transactional interface that services and keeps track of all your accounting and transactions, including your loans to Markethive and interest paid by Markethive to you via the ILP. 

With Phase Two now in operation, you can access and set up your personal requirements and view your status in The Vault, Hive Rank, Staking, KYC Application, ILP Report, payments, and Markethive Credit threshold and balance. Plus, you can now transfer Markethive Credits to other members within Markethive. 

Note that full access to all of the Markethive systems requires complete KYC documentation and an Entrepreneur One membership. The Markethive platform, with its general newsfeed, is free to use; however, the marketing systems and aspects thereof within Markethive will be limited, including Hivecoin transactional activity and micropayments of MHV. 

Once the Markethive wallet is fully operational and launched, the Premium Upgrade will be introduced, which offers additional features and benefits to achieve a significant presence online for your marketing efforts and business growth, especially with the upcoming unique dashboard interface. It will be beyond anything else out there today. 

KYC Application (Know Your Customer)

KYC Application is now functional in your wallet. It is required for you to have access to the Hivecoin Wallet and use inbound marketing tools. You will need to be KYC verified to receive Markethive Tokens (MHV) via registration, tips, and bonuses and to activate the first-level micropayment earnings.  

The reason for this is for the community’s benefit by knowing who they are engaging with and not for governmental regulations. It assures Markethive members that you are a real person, dedicated to honest and transparent relationships in business and socially. The purpose is to have an active, very dynamic, and secure “hive of people,” unlike Twitter, which has been plagued with bots. Also note: Once KYC is approved, the documents uploaded to attain approval are all deleted. We do not keep these documents. 

Once you’re KYC verified, the documents you upload are transferred and kept in your wallet, not on the Markethive system. This ensures third parties or government authorities do not gather your information. There will be a small charge for the KYC process for the purpose of credit card information and verification. 

The Vault, Markethive Credits, And Staking

The vault is now operational in your wallet. This means you can buy Markethive Credits to set up or manually fund your subscriptions, transfer to other members, and activate your threshold and auto fund. Once you purchase Markethive Credits, they can be used to purchase services from Markethive and trade goods and services with other members. 

Markethive Credits are not cryptocurrency coins and cannot be used to purchase other cryptos from Markethive, including Hivecoin. MH Credits also cannot be transferred to a crypto wallet or exchange. Markethive Credits facilitate commerce for any business and can be built into a storefront for your marketing co-op campaigns. 

The vault funding threshold is the mechanism you use to maintain a viable Markethive Credit balance. Keeping a balance in the vault is like a bank account; you can accumulate interest on that balance. The higher the ratio, the more interest you earn, which is paid in credits. 

The terminology used for this is called Staking. Staking your MH Credits balance allows you to earn additional credits based on your number of credits and your level of activities within Markethive. These activities are reflected in your Hive Rank, also located in your Markethive wallet. Note that joining a Markethive loyalty program and even just logging in every day adds to your staking interest.

ILP Reports 

Thomas has updated the tracking of the ILPs acquired through Entrepreneur One by adding up all monies spent between January 1st, 2019 to December 1st, 2021. All ILPs acquired through the Entrepreneur One Program are now reflecting the true result of all monies spent. 

In December 2022, all E1s that have been active with their subscriptions for 12 consecutive months will receive the promised bonus of 0.5 ILP. Also, a little birdie told me that something big is planned for members who upgrade to E1 upon the announcement of the 30-day cut-off. Stay tuned.

Now that Phase Two is operational check it out and navigate around the wallet. It’s intuitive, comprehensively explained, and very easy to manage. It’s important to know that the mechanisms behind all the applications in the wallet are fully functional on Markethive’s development site, including a Solana wallet assets interface.

Our Markethive wallet also displays the wallets of four crypto coins, Hivecoin, Solana, Bitcoin, and Elrond. The coin price comparison reports powered by Coingecko are now active in the wallet (except Hivecoin), so we are close to Phase Three, the final stage before launching. The dynamic free market value will be operative when Hivecoin is listed on coin exchanges.  

When we announce that the full wallet release will be in 30 days, we will also have built an Entrepreneur One exchange for current active owners so that they can sell their E1s and others can buy them in an auction platform within Markethive. So to summarize, we are now preparing the four wallets (Hivecoin, Bitcoin, Solana, and Elrond) to be active with 2FA verification and required to send any of the coins from your wallet and the E1 exchange. When these are ready with 2FA in place, then the 30-day final launch of the wallet will be announced.

Once the 30-day period is over, anyone desiring an E1 subscription will only be able to acquire one through other E1 associates via the E1 Exchange. It is fundamentally an open market, and the seller will determine the acquisition price of the E1 subscription. Once purchased, it is required and in your interest to continue with the monthly payments. E1 upgrades will no longer be available through Markethive, the company. 

The E1 Advantage. The Incentivized Loan Program (ILP)

Apart from all the other benefits you receive as an E1 associate, you are essentially a shareholder as you acquire 1/10th of an ILP per year, providing you are current with your monthly subscription of US$100/month. 

The ILPs are essentially a loan to Markethive for a 20-year promissory note which you can recoup with a principal balloon payment at the end of 20 years. You also have the option to roll it over or reactivate it. This window of opportunity is precious as the ILP represents 20% of the net revenue of Markethive, so let’s crunch some numbers. 

The projection of a member base of 500 million will yield a monthly income of $5.6 billion. 20% equals $1.2 billion allocated for the ILPs, divided by the maximum of 1000 ILPs or shares, and returns a $1.2 million payment per ILP. 1/10th of that ILP, earned via the E1 upgrade per year, produces a monthly income of $120,000. 

Markethive is a grassroots project owned by the community, not wealthy venture capitalists. When committing to an Entrepreneur One membership or purchasing an ILP outright, you are effectively a virtual owner of Markethive; it's your company where you receive valuable tools and considerable returns from the ILP. 

The great news is that you can now purchase ILPs with the Markethive Token (MHV) in anticipation of the wallet's launch. Click on the rocket icon in the tray at the top of the home page and follow the prompts. If you have MHVs, now is an excellent time to invest in the next-generation social market network, as Markethive is now coming into its own. 

Once the wallet is complete, the next important step is to build a Markethive coin exchange. Unlike various exchanges currently operating, the Markethive exchange will have a community, enhancing the ability to become successful and profitable. 

Crypto projects and exchanges that have utilized their crypto coin, along with robust communities, tend to weather the storm, the bear markets, and the like. We see many prominent exchanges failing, particularly centralized ones, due to being affiliated with nefarious actors and agendas. 

Markethive’s mission is complete decentralization and distribution worldwide and the perfect armor to circumvent the chaos of these dark times. Markethive’s vision is to provide a sanctuary for the people and those hurt by the events, the evil and tyrannical pressure by the elites of big tech, NGOs, and governments. 

Markethive is building a system outside of the traditional elite economy. We are building an ecosystem that works regardless of what’s happening worldwide. Although Markethive will accept fiat payments with credit cards, the whole nature of how our system will work is based on Hivecoin and Markethive credits. As Markethive grows, it allows us to develop an even more powerful ecosystem. 

Be sure to attend the meetings on Sundays at 10 am Mountain Time. (MST). All updates and orchestrations are discussed at the Markethive meetings, with the latest news and developments of Markethive as they happen. To access the meeting room, go to the Calendar and click on the link provided. 

I will keep you updated with further articles on Markethive’s progress in its monumental project to deliver financial sovereignty, freedom, and liberty. The world needs what we are building. 

PCAs Are Coming!  What Are They? How Will They Impact Our Lives? 

Is This For Real, Or Is It Just One Big Elitist Sham? 

Now that we’re coming out the other side of the initial C19 pandemic with the mainstream narrative falling apart, climate change seems to be the hot topic. One strategy introduced to reduce carbon emissions is to issue Carbon Offset Credits to companies in a bid to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. More recently, during the World Economic Forum's Davos Summit, Alibaba President Michael Evans revealed that the elites are working on an individual carbon footprint tracker for consumers. That means you and me. 

As it turns out, many countries worldwide have been researching and developing an individual carbon credit system for over a decade, and it seems they're on the brink of being rolled out. Let’s find out what we need to know about this impending dystopian system and why it’s being implemented. We’ll start with when Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) became a concept and who’s behind it.

Image source: MyCarbon.co.uk

When Did It All Begin?

The history of individual carbon credit allowances began with the United Nations' first Earth Summit, held in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. The Summit was significant because it laid the groundwork for the collective climate action of the countries in the UN. Later that year, UN countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions to fight climate change. As of 2020, 192 countries have signed up for the Kyoto Protocol, which is basically the entire world. 

Interestingly, the Kyoto Protocol laid the foundation for the issuance and trading of carbon credits. So when the concept of carbon credits was introduced, it was intended for institutions, not individuals. However, it didn't take long for the concept of carbon credits to be applied to individuals. The catalyst was British Petroleum or BP, the oil company that used the idea of an individual carbon footprint for its massive marketing campaign in the early 2000s; it even created an individual carbon footprint calculator. 

Obviously, these ongoing marketing campaign's purpose was to blame climate change on consumers, not corporations. After all, were it not for the demands of the consumer, then these corporations would not have to pollute as much as they do to provide the goods and services consumers desire. 

Image source: Twitter

United Nations First Experiment

The UN's first global governance experiment, or global control, was called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the Millennium Summit established in 2000. 191 UN member states and 22 international organizations agreed upon 8 Millennium Development Goals that were supposed to be achieved by 2015. These included eliminating poverty, combating deadly diseases, and environmental sustainability. 

It appears that BP’s concept of an individual carbon footprint was something that the countries looking to meet their environmental MDGs found interesting. As some countries thought creating an individual carbon credit score for their citizens would help them meet their MDGs, the first wave of academic research emerged in the mid to late 2000s. 

The British government created a legal framework for PCAs in 2008. To take it one step further, according to Wikipedia, “The Climate Change Act 2008 also grants powers allowing the UK government to introduce a personal carbon trading scheme without further primary legislation.”  And similar laws are likely in place in other countries.

Given the concept of a personal carbon allowance has been around for a decade or more, it begs the question of why it’s only surfacing now. The answer seems to be that the UN's MDGs experiment fell short. In 2015, the MDGs were unmet, as environmental issues, deadly diseases, and poverty were still plaguing the planet. 

There are many reasons why the MDGs were limited. Still, the main three factors were a lack of funding and coordination and the 2008 financial crisis, which threw many countries into chaos in the following years. So the UN did what every institution does when it fails, rebrand and try again.
 

Image source: United Nations

The Second Experiment – Rebranded

In 2015, the UN announced its second experiment in global control called the sustainable development goals or SDGs, which superseded the MDGs as per the UN's website. Note this transition didn’t happen overnight. In 2012, the UN set up the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, or SDSN, to figure out what went wrong with the 8 MDGs and ensure that the SDGs, which were increased to 17, were implemented. 

Whereas the 8 MDGs were supposed to be met by 2015, the 17 SDGs are supposed to be completed by 2030. The SDGs are the same as the MDGs, just with more extreme and vague language, probably to allow for interpretations with serious outcomes. You can sum up the SDGs as being the MDGs on steroids because the SDGs are backed by both the public and private sectors. 

The MDGs were backed almost entirely by the public sector, which is a big part of why there needed to be more funding and coordination. Global corporations have no shortage of capital, and they're able to coordinate because their operations transcend borders. More importantly, they can ensure compliance with SDGs without governments having to pass any laws. 

The Plot Thickens

The 17 SDGs are also part of a bigger plot by the UN called Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset, which includes lots more controversial stuff like the Tri-State City in the Netherlands. This involves removing the Dutch farmers from their land and livelihoods under the guise of climate protection. Notably, the SDGs are based on the Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG) that the world's largest institutions use to guide their investments and operations. 

In theory, the primary benefit of pushing SDGs through ESG is that it makes it possible for these global corporations to crush small competitors and acquire their assets. This is because it won't be possible for small businesses to comply with ESG criteria, and it is arguably the entire purpose of ESG. However, there is a limit to how lucrative this would be for global corporations because they will eventually succeed in acquiring all the resources and customers that exist. 

When that happens, these elites will be confronted with an economic reality that most are aware of, a demographic decline in developed countries. Each year there are fewer and fewer consumers with the kind of capital these global corporations need to continue growing. If you read this article about why you will own nothing and be happy, you'll know that demographic decline is why these Global corporations are slowly trying to make us rent everything instead of owning it.

This makes products more accessible on a global scale and creates a constant stream of cash flow. However, even this Hardware as a Service scheme would only last so long. Eventually, these global corporations will run out of people to rent their products to, and they'll again face the economic reality of demographic decline. 

This would suggest the primary benefit of pushing SDGs through ESG is temporary and short-lived or is it? So what would make it possible for these global corporations to create an economy where they continue to grow regardless of demographic decline? The answer is their Carbon Credits System.

Image source: Global Asset Management 

Carbon Credit System For Companies

As it stands, each carbon credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that were removed or were never emitted. So, when a company does something that removes or prevents future carbon emissions, such as planting trees or installing solar panels at their business, they are given carbon credits by a governmental authority. 

These carbon credits are then sold to other companies that want to emit more carbon without penalty. This kind of carbon credits issuance, trading, and redemption is done because of environmental regulations and is called the Compliance Carbon Market. Compliance carbon markets in California, Europe, and China account for 99% of all carbon credit trading. 

Image source: S&P Global

The remaining 1% of carbon credit trading happens in the Voluntary Carbon Market. This is where companies looking to emit more carbon voluntarily purchase carbon credits from companies who are voluntarily looking to emit less. This is, of course, done to increase their ESG scores.

Spoiler Alert! As I mentioned earlier, carbon credits are supposed to represent one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that were either removed or never emitted. Well, it's estimated that around 85% of all carbon credits are not reducing carbon, and research suggests they actually increase emissions. 

United Nations Global Carbon Credits Market

During the UN's COP26 climate Summit in Glasgow last year, 200 countries adopted Article 6 of the 2015 Paris agreement. The main takeaway is that it will create a single global carbon credits market that an upcoming UN agency will regulate. 

This “supervisory agency” will also issue “UN-recognized carbon credits to eligible institutions.” It also appears that under Article 6, trades on the UN's global carbon credits market will be tax-free, meaning the global corporations will not only reap the benefit but thoroughly clean up. 

As the goal of carbon credits is to reduce carbon emissions, it’s interesting to note that it will be achieved by slowly reducing the number of carbon credits issued to companies each year. The EU Carbon Market is the largest, and the European Union has a carbon credit reduction schedule on its website, stating, “to increase the pace of emissions cuts, the overall number of emission allowances will decline at an annual rate of 2.2% from 2021 onwards compared to 1.74% currently”.  

As we know, when the supply of something gradually declines, and the demand for it stays the same or increases, prices eventually rise. This is precisely what's been happening to the cost of carbon credits, especially those in the compliance markets. 

And that, folks, is how global corporations can ensure continued growth in the face of a demographic decline. All it takes is a few billion carbon credits issued to them by their friends in government or the United Nations and a bit of supply and demand manipulation through regulation. 

Case in point, according to this article, Tesla earns most of its money by selling carbon credits. Considering Tesla is one of the largest companies in the world, it's more than likely other big brand names will follow suit with this economic phenomenon.  

Image source: Twitter

Individual Carbon Credit System

Now let’s see how we will measure up in the carbon credit equation and what they have in store for us. As I mentioned at the start of this article Alibaba's President and former Goldman Sachs banker, Michael Evans, revealed that [they] meaning other so-called stakeholders on the panel and in the audience at the WEF’s Davos Summit are working on an individual carbon footprint tracker. 

Because Alibaba is a Chinese company, Michael’s comments went viral as people interpreted his remarks to mean they were developing an individual carbon credit system akin to China's social credit system. While it’s true that some corporations are developing ESG scores comparable to China's social credit score, the individual carbon footprint tracker Michael and other wealthy elites are obsessed with is entirely new. In many ways, it's much worse. That’s because almost all the countries at the UN are planning to create an individual carbon credit market practically identical to the one that institutions have today. 

How Will it Work?

Each year, you will be allocated carbon credits that allow you to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. The possibility of how much carbon you’re issued will depend on your ESG score may be speculation at this stage, however, note that everything stated here has been researched by governments for years and is probably in development in most developed countries.

If you use up your annual carbon allowance before the year is over, for example, by eating too much meat or traveling too much, you will no longer be able to do carbon-intensive things. That is unless you purchase more carbon credits from individuals who have yet to use up their annual allocation. 

If you're wondering how the government will prevent you from purchasing carbon-intensive things, the answer is a central bank digital currency. (CBDC) CBDCs are necessary for an individual carbon credit system to work, as are government-issued digital IDs, which are also prerequisites for CBDCs.

As with the issuance of institutional carbon credits, allocating individual carbon credits will incentivize individuals to minimize their carbon emissions. At first glance, this seems fine, but upon closer inspection, it's easy to see why a carbon credit score is much worse than a social credit score. In a simple social credit score system, you can still get ahead by being a good citizen. In a carbon credit score system, however, the only way we’ll be able to live a good life, or even the life we’ve been accustomed to, is to purchase the carbon credits we need to do things a good life entails. 

This includes going where you want, eating what you want, and living in something that's not a pod. For some, a good life will involve having children. Chances are you'll need a lot of individual carbon credits to do all of the above. The main reason is the Scope 3 Emissions Cap that only currently applies to institutions, which I mention in this article and how it impacts companies. 

And it looks like individual citizens will be next. That's because Michael pointed out that Ali Baba and the other WEF stakeholders are working on a “Scope 3 Emissions Plus,” which will indeed apply to individuals. This means that in an individual carbon credit system, you will probably have to provide enough carbon credits to cover the carbon emissions of your friend traveling to see you. It could be that you have to provide enough carbon credits to cover the future carbon emissions of your children. 

By now, you’ve probably realized that this will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The poor will live in pods and eat bugs, so they can save up their carbon credits to sell to the rich for food and shelter. In turn, the rich will use these carbon credits to continue living as normal. Furthermore, given that the purpose of carbon credits is to reduce carbon emissions, there’s a great likelihood we’ll see the same decreasing issuance for individuals as they’ve proposed for institutions. In turn, this will increase the price of individual carbon credits and make it more challenging to afford the credits to “live a good life.”

Image Source: Southern Cross University 

When Is This Insane System Coming?

It’s already in play on Norfolk Island, a small island off the coast of Australia. With a population of 6000, it seems that was a perfect place to trial this form of control, and it has had an individual carbon credit System since 2011.

Also, the second region, the European microstate of San Marino, is using Ve Chain to set up its own individual carbon credit system to become the first country to comply with the UN's SDGs. It has a population of around 34,000.  

We can assume that individual carbon credit systems will be rolled out in smaller countries first. This makes sense given that, so far, most of the research and development of personal carbon credit systems has been theoretical, so more actual testing is needed. Beyond that, we will likely see individual carbon credit systems introduced in the next couple of years.

The ‘ESG-induced energy crisis’ will present the perfect opportunity to do this, as governments can use the allocation of limited energy as justification for the rollout. However, PCAs will only be effective once they implement Digital IDs and CBDCs, and given that governments have been openly testing Digital IDs during the pandemic, they will come first. Notably, a recent article about an individual carbon allowance by the WEF blatantly states that the pandemic was a quote test for what's coming and how the elites are amazed at how easily we submitted. 

To add insult to injury, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), Michael Sheren, Former Bank of England Senior Advisor, stated that carbon will be very close to a currency; tokenizing nature is next. 

Will the UN and its cohorts succeed in rolling out its sinister global carbon credit scheme? That depends on if it can get all its ducks in a row by 2030, as this is the deadline for SDGs to be achieved. 

History suggests it's unlikely to happen as the UN is in a similar position today as it was with the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, which was the main reason why the UN's MDGs failed. We are now facing another financial crisis that has only just begun. This means that the full extent of the fallout has yet to come, and we already see cracks form on the international stage. 

Moreover, for the UN’s SDGs to succeed, it needs just about every country to be on board. This is becoming increasingly less likely by the day as conflicts arise between countries and nationalists candidates turn a cold shoulder to globalist organizations. The UN must get every country on board because if people see other countries overseas or even other states within a country that are not abiding by the SDGs, they might compare and contrast their quality of life. 

It happened during the pandemic, with some countries implementing severe restrictions while others did not. More recently, Sri Lanka collapsed under its own weight after it achieved one of the highest ESG scores the institutions’ could offer. It just shows that energy is the economy, and some emissions are required for the world to function.

Image Source: Markethive.com

How Can We Prepare? 

How can we prepare for such a system if it's successfully rolled out? The most intuitive is to hold and use cryptocurrency or any other money outside this dystopian system so we can continue to transact without restrictions or carbon credit tracking. 

The centralized control of carbon credits means the UN and others could limit how many carbon credits you can hold. If they're tokenized, it would be effortless to set these limits. It is also easy to block transactions through CBDCs. This is why using a genuinely decentralized cryptocurrency as a hedge might be a better strategy. 

There are ecosystems that are purpose-built to counter the totalitarian initiatives they’re trying to impose. The crypto and blockchain projects that uphold the interests and fundamental freedom of the people provide the foundation for truth, not propaganda, applying critical thinking and seeing through the shams the self-interested elites are propagating. It’s becoming increasingly clear that there is no climate emergency that warrants these dystopian measures. It's just all about money and control. 

Could This Company And Its Cohorts Overshadow Cryptocurrency? Look What's Coming

Wall Street titans such as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs have backed a crypto company that has received more funding than almost every prevalent crypto project. In addition, this firm has funded the federal government's spending and has close connections to the Federal Reserve. It's anticipated that its stock will be listed on exchanges later this year. 

The company is Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, and it seems to be setting its sights on slowly dominating the crypto industry. It’s one company we must be mindful of if we value our financial freedom. 

Circle’s History

Interestingly, Circle didn’t start out as a stablecoin project; its history is rooted in the crypto industry and runs very deep. Circle Internet Financial Inc., or Circle, was founded in 2013 by Jeremiah Allaire and Sean Neville. Jeremy and Sean have been working together for decades to build and then sell or IPO cutting-edge technology companies, notably the Allaire Corporation and Brightcove.

One of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube is a presentation he did shortly before leaving Brightcove to create Circle. In this video, Jeremy explains how the final step of building a successful technology company is to exit. In other words, to sell to a more prominent company or list it on a stock exchange. Jeremy Allaire has also been involved with the World Economic Forum for many years and has videos on the WEF’s YouTube channel and a profile on the WEF’s website. 

Circle’s Vision

Jeremy has served as the chairman and CEO of Circle since it was founded, and Sean served as the president of Circle until late 2019, when he stepped down to join Circle’s board of directors. In the beginning, Circle’s focus was Bitcoin payments, similar to other payment companies like Visa and Mastercard, with a vision for bitcoin to become the base layer for a new financial system. However, the concept envisioned was not open and decentralized but closed and centralized. 

To set things in motion, Circle effectively tried to force Bitcoin to fit their vision by pushing for all the altcoin innovations, such as tokenization and smart contracts to the Bitcoin ecosystem. They also urged Bitcoin to increase its block size for scalability purposes, along with the founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, Gavin Andresen, and 60 other corporations. 

The efforts of these entities to increase Bitcoins block size hit their pinnacle in 2017 with the so-called New York Agreement. Furthermore, Digital Currency Group (DCG) reportedly oversaw the New York Agreement.  The DCG conglomerate owns Grayscale and CoinDesk and holds stakes in top crypto projects, including Coinbase and Circle. It’s not surprising that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also wanted to increase Bitcoin's block size. In short, 60 corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin Community to increase Bitcoin’s block size. In short, 60 corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin Community to increase Bitcoin’s block size.

Digital Currency Group 

A Rough Start For Circle

In the bull run of 2017, Circle had already raised around $27 million from Goldman Sachs and others. It used this capital to create a suite of crypto services, including an OTC trading desk, and purchased the Poleniex Exchange. Around the same time, Jeremy joined the International Monetary Fund as part of the IMF’s high-level Advisory Group on Fintech. 

For context, the purpose of the IMF is to ensure that the current US-centric financial system continues without interference from cryptocurrencies and other such technologies. Curiously, Circle and other Wall Street-funded crypto companies also held a closed-door meeting with the IMF in 2017, much to the scrutiny of the crypto community, and it seems there have been many meetings since. 

By this time, Circle realized Bitcoin was not the future of payments, although Jeremy still believes BTC is digital gold and could serve as the world’s next reserve currency and has stated he holds mostly BTC and cash. Central banks also hold alternative currencies as part of their balance sheets, with the US dollar declining.  

Since the conclusion that Bitcoin couldn’t be the payment platform, Circle and others turned to Ethereum, the next-best cryptocurrency. Ethereum grew significantly during the previous bull market cycle and established ETH as the second-largest crypto by market cap. They settled on the decision the build a US dollar stablecoin in 2017, and in 2018, Circle raised $110 million from Chinese crypto mining company Bitmain and others to build its stablecoin. 
 
That same year Coinbase and Circle founded the Centre Consortium to set standards for stablecoins issued on public blockchains and to govern the issuance and redemption of the USDC stablecoin. It’s important to note that any entity part of the Centre Consortium can mint and redeem stablecoins. 

The USDC stablecoin had a rough start when it launched in September 2018 because it was in the middle of a crypto bear market by then. So there wasn’t much demand for stablecoins, and USDC's market cap remained flat primarily during this period. 

Subsequently, Circle sold its suite of products and services to focus on its stablecoin in 2019. The buyers included Kraken’s purchase of Circle’s OTC trading desk and Tron founder Justin Sun, who reportedly purchased Poloniex from Circle.

The WEF, FED, and Synthetic CBDCs

In early 2020, Jeremy attended the WEF’s annual conference in Davos, where he preached about the power of programmable money. He also discussed the importance of a partnership between the public and private sectors to “support the development of global stablecoins backed by central bank money.” Circle also published a stablecoin white paper [pdf] for the WEF.

Image source: Circle Blog

In previous interviews, Jeremy stated that the assets backing USDC would inevitably be held at the FED. As a matter of interest, most stablecoins are backed by US government debt. So, when you buy a stablecoin, you are essentially subsidizing the US government spending. That is a bit of a worry, considering many use stablecoins for safety. 

According to Grant Thornton of the Centre Consortium, the USDC in circulation is backed by the following assets: 61% cash and cash equivalents, 13% Yankee certificates of deposit or CDs, 12% US treasuries, 9% commercial paper, 5% corporate bonds, and less than 1% in municipal bonds.

Almost all of the assets backing the largest stablecoins are some form of debt, i.e., money that’s been lent out. If you’re wondering why all these stablecoin companies hold so much debt, the answer is Interest. The companies behind these stablecoins can make money on their clients’ money by lending it. This makes it possible for Circle to make billions of dollars in passive income.

What’s important to understand is that Jeremy’s repeated prediction that the FED will hold USDC reserves relates to a Synthetic Central Bank Digital Currency. (sCBDC). Synthetic CBDCs involve a partnership between a private company, in this case, Circle, and the central bank of a country, the Federal Reserve, to issue a de facto CBDC, in this case, a de facto digital dollar. 

Unsurprisingly, the IMF and the WEF are particularly interested in this synthetic CBDC setup. The question is, which Blockchain will they agree on to power a synthetic CBDC? Will it be a private and permissioned blockchain created by a big bank or a cryptocurrency? Jeremy has consistently posited the prospect of a global stablecoin that will be modeled on the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights or SDR. The SDR consists of multiple national currencies, and Jeremy believes it will eventually include BTC. 

Image source: Coingecko

A Parabolic Shift For USDC

In mid-2020, the USDC’s market cap was on the move parabolically and continued to grow as  USDC expanded to new exchanges and smart contract cryptocurrencies. Algorand was one blockchain that USDC expanded to and seemed to have a very close relationship with both Circle and the Federal Reserve. Interestingly, Circle is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and in the same proximity as MIT, where Algorand founder Silvio Micali is based. 

CBDC reports by the FED note that the Central Bank partnered with MIT to develop its digital dollar and that the FED would begin testing quantum resistance on its would-be blockchain this year. As it so happens, Algorand recently achieved Quantum resistance by introducing State proofs.

Shortly after Circle announced its multi-chain framework, Wall Street veteran and former CLS Bank CEO David Puth was appointed the CEO of the Centre Consortium. You may not have heard of the CLS Bank; however, according to Jeremy, the CLS Bank is the “biggest bank that nobody knows” and, apparently, settles more than $2 trillion of transactions per day between the 70 largest banks on the planet. 

As per the Centre’s blog post, David's job is to ensure “the most significant transformation of the international monetary system since the formation of the Bretton Woods system.” Oddly enough, David recently stepped down from the Centre Consortium to become a senior advisor to Circle, possibly because of Circle's exponential growth, which began in 2021 as Circle raised a staggering $440 million from various crypto VCs, including DCG and FTX. 

During this time, Circle offered high-yield USDC accounts to institutional investors that were returning 8% – 11% yearly, according to an interview with Jeremy from February 2021. This eventually led to allegations by skeptical journalists that Circle was engaging in extremely high-risk, DeFi activities behind the scenes to earn this high yield. Note that this is the same stuff that crypto platforms like Celsius and Voyager Digital did before they went bankrupt. 

Stablecoins Scrutinized Over Collateral Quality

Following the collapse of the crypto market and the appointment of SEC chairman Gary Gensler, stablecoins began to experience a lot of scrutiny, including USDC. The backlash prompted stablecoin issuers to publish details about the assets backing all their billions of tokens in circulation. Paxos came out as the winner for collateral quality, and Circle has since changed the composition of the assets backing USDC to match those of Paxos’s BUSD. As it stands, the USDC in circulation is currently backed by around 80% short-term US Government debt, and 20% is backed by cash. 

Image source: Cointelegraph

Assuming short-term US Government debt means 2-year treasuries, it implies that Circle is earning a yield of around 4% on almost $40 billion of reserves. If you crunch those numbers, that equals over $100 million in pure passive income every month. This incredible potential for passive profit is probably why Circle managed to secure a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) deal for its stock to list on US exchanges.

Towards the end of 2021, Circle started to call for reasonable crypto regulations and seems to have lobbied to that end. The company also continued to expand USDC to other blockchains and started looking into stablecoins for other fiat currencies, notably the Japanese Yen and the New Zealand dollar. 

Also, in late 2021, Terra’s algorithmic UST stablecoin began to gain serious ground in DeFi protocols, where USDC had reigned supreme for almost two years. According to Decrypt, decentralized stablecoins try to avoid governance issues by maintaining their pegs through algorithms instead of through vast reserves of cash and debt. It also means their creation and destruction are done via voluntary free market arbitrage, and nobody can freeze or confiscate these tokens.

Note that all centralized stablecoin issuers have frozen tokens in the past. This occasional freezing of tokens is just the tip of the iceberg because, in a 2020 interview, Jeremy confirmed that Circle has the power to freeze all its stablecoins in circulation. This prospect is disturbing when you remember that Circle has uncomfortably close ties to Wall Street, the IMF, and the WEF. It's also disconcerting to consider that supposedly decentralized stablecoins, like MakerDAO’s DAI, are backed mainly by USDC. MakerDAO’s founder actually called for DAI to drop its peg to get off of USDC after Circle froze a bunch of tokens related to Tornado Cash. 

Digital IDs And BlackRock Emerge On The Scene

In February 2022, Circle announced the release of the Verite platform, which is instrumental in the rollout of digital identities in cryptocurrencies. Two months later, Circle announced that it had received another $400 million of funding in a round led by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. BlackRock and circle also entered a “strategic partnership,” which would see BlackRock manage Circle’s cash reserves. 

Image source: Decrypt

BlackRock's buy-in bought Circle’s total funding to well over $1 billion, and Crunchbase suggests that this figure is much higher, though the details of all these investments were apparently not disclosed. In any case, the market cap of Circle’s USDC hit an all-time high of over $55 billion in the aftermath of the collapse of Terras UST and the concerns around Tether’s USDT that arose during the chaos. 

Incidentally, in previous interviews, Jeremy had admitted that both stablecoins were competitors to USDC. As expected, Terra's collapse and the temporary de-pegging of USDT led to renewed calls for stablecoin regulation worldwide. It appears Circle has been involved in influencing the regulations relating to the EU’s final draft of the MiCA Bill. According to CoinBureau, this could be very favorable for Circle, in Europe anyway, and opines that it could also be the catalyst for the next bull run. 

Competition Is Rife

It’s nothing new if Circle is leveraging regulations, as incumbents have often used regulation to prevent competition. Even the Goldman Sachs CEO admitted that “burdensome regulation protects our business from startups” shortly after the bank invested in Circle in 2015. What’s interesting is that  XRP is a top competitor to the global system that Circle and the Centre Consortium are trying to create.

And it’s not just regulations these stablecoin issuers are competing with; Cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently announced it would end support for USDC and has since de-listed Circle’s prominent stablecoin. USDC's market cap has been slipping, but it took a plunge when Binance dropped USDC in September 2022. 

This means that Circle has to sell assets behind the scenes to ensure that the supply of USDC is in line with the lower level of demand for USDC following its de facto delisting. It's well within Binance’s right to make this move, and it just goes to show that crypto is hyper-competitive, and every crypto project and company has its way of cementing itself in the industry. 

In Circle’s case, this involves working with questionable global organizations and expanding on-chain, including issuing stablecoins denominated in currencies besides the USD to appease foreign governments and regulators. At this rate, it's more than likely that every national currency will have its own stablecoin issued by the Centre Consortium, a perfect synthetic CBCD. 

As with USDC, all these synthetic CBDCs will be backed by the government debt of their respective regions. It means we’ll all be subsidizing our government’s spending along with lower interest rates for institutions when the “powers that be” inevitably phase out cash. 

But Wait…There’s More

Image source: Coindesk

More recently, Circle announced that it would expand to five additional smart contract cryptocurrencies and introduce a cross-chain interoperability protocol for its stablecoins. It also announced that it had partnered with Jack Dorsey’s Block to bring USDC to Bitcoin and to think Jack Dorsey is a Bitcoin maximalist! 

Circle is also quickly taking over every smart contract cryptocurrency. With its stablecoin reserves being held by the FED, Circle could potentially have access to unlimited liquidity, aka the money printer. With the money printer in its grip, Circle will have the power to control every proof of stake smart contract cryptocurrency. Case in point, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin recently admitted that Circle would have the power to decide the future of forks on Ethereum due to its stablecoin liquidity. 

For what it's worth, it looks like Bitcoin’s BTC and physical cash will offer protection from the upcoming dystopia that Circle and its affiliates are not so subtly rushing to roll out. Which begs the question, why else would Jeremy hold most of his wealth in cash and BTC? Maybe, he knows what's coming? 

To Jeremy's credit, he wants stablecoins to be as cash-like as possible, meaning transaction privacy and no KYC. The problem is that the regulators will probably never allow this. As we already know, the institutions' that Circle has aligned itself with explicitly want to take control of every transaction we make forever. 

As mentioned earlier, Circle’s co-founders have a history of building up and then exiting cutting-edge tech companies. This raises the question of whether Jeremy and Sean will do the same with Circle once its stock has IPO’d via the SPAC. Circle could become the most valuable company on the planet if it succeeds in its mission of literally recalibrating the global financial system around stablecoins. 

The only issue with this analysis is that fiat currencies are failing, and stablecoins probably won't help much. Jeremy seems to be highly aware of this, and that is ostensibly why he's so bullish on BTC. As such, it's probably wise to watch whether he leaves Circle after its IPO. If he does, it probably means he knows that Circle will inevitably fail. 

On another note, if you’re wondering which blockchain Jeremy believes will support all of Circle stablecoins, the short answer is all of them. The Circle team seems to be genuinely blockchain agnostic, and Jeremy thinks each smart contract cryptocurrency will have a piece of the financial puzzle. In sum, Circle will probably become the most influential company in cryptocurrency, maybe even the entire world, but it will arguably fail because it's fundamentally leveraging failing fiat currencies.

Image Source: Markethive

The Optimistic Approach

A redeeming feature is that Circle’s domination will make the average person comfortable with cryptocurrency. With special thanks to Guy at CoinBureau for his insights and his take on the final objective, he postulates,

“If I had my tinfoil hat on, I’d tell you that was the end game all along. Partner with all international organizations and the financial system, convince them to adopt stablecoins, sneak BTC in through the back door with an IMF SDR stablecoin and turn BTC into the world's next Reserve currency.” 

That is an outcome we would all love to see because the alternative will see us perpetually enslaved by these technocrats. We must also remember that decentralized cryptocurrency is vastly different from a centralized digital currency and extremely difficult for so-called authorities to over-regulate. I doubt they even know what they’re dealing with to the full extent. 

We have committed and robust communities that are creating ecosystems with crypto utility, built on supply and demand with a free market principle, and will always have a place in society, even if it’s in a Parallel Economy. This is where entrepreneurs rise, reclaim their sovereignty and freedom, and thwart the misaligned, agenda-driven elite. I’ll follow up with an article where we’ll discover what the individuals in power are planning about a new kind of social credit score. It’s wise to be aware. 

Cryptocurrency Is Here To Stay. Here's Why.

In 1995, many seriously claimed that Internet use was about to collapse. That has been one of the worst predictions ever made. Innovation and digitization are paving the way for a future world we can't imagine. Cryptocurrencies, Metaverse, and Web 3.0 are taking the world by storm, providing secure information on the Internet and a whole new virtual experience.

In just a few short years, cryptocurrencies have grown from a digital novelty to a trillion-dollar technology with the potential to disrupt the global financial system. Government officials worldwide have also voiced concerns about digital currencies' stability and risks. Having witnessed every internet fad, we believe this is not one.

Cryptocurrencies are a force, taking money creation and control away from central banks and Wall Street. However, critics say the new technology is completely unregulated in most parts of the world and gives more power to criminal groups, terrorist groups, and rogue states. They argue that power-hungry crypto mining is also destructive to the environment.

Depending on who you ask, cash will not remain king ever again. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the shift toward digital and contactless payments. It led to a more mainstream acceptance of physical cash alternatives like a cryptocurrency that will likely stay.

UK lawmakers recognize crypto as a financial instrument

British lawmakers in the House of Commons have voted to recognize cryptocurrencies as regulated financial instruments in the country. The proposal, introduced by Parliamentarian Andrew Griffiths, was approved by the House of Commons after its second reading on October 25.

Griffith's proposal seeks to include crypto assets as part of a service regulated by the proposed Financial Services and Markets Act. As such, cryptocurrencies are subject to the same regulation as other financial assets included in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2022, except for stablecoins payment.

After the bill is finally passed, the UK Treasury will have the power to regulate the crypto market. At the same time, Griffith said the Treasury Department would consult with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the framework fully maximizes its benefits and addresses the risks of the crypto activity.

How cryptocurrency is here to stay

The invention of cryptocurrencies has revolutionized how people exchange money and buy goods and services. Facilitating rapid and secure transactions is one of the most significant benefits of using cryptocurrency. Below are some reasons why crypto isn't going away any time soon.

The beginning of decentralization: We have entered an era where we can own and control all our assets. Decentralization provides financial freedom from changes in banks and governments. Without third-party involvement, it can provide greater transparency and better transaction security. A network built on the blockchain does not require the trust or knowledge of others. Decentralized finance (Defi) as a system can easily replace traditional financial processes for obvious reasons.

Peer-to-peer transactions: "Saving extra fees" is the most convincing factor for everyone. Intermediaries on financial blockchains added additional costs to transactions. More middlemen mean more money! The appeal of P2P is that you can transfer ownership of assets or goods without the involvement of a third party. Peer-to-peer transactions are transparent, secure, and less complicated. In short, peer-to-peer transactions provide privacy and no additional transmission costs.

Ease of use: We spend valuable time in long lines, filing and filling out forms and slips to send and receive money. Remember when our financial work was suspended due to server outages and holidays? Pretty scary! The advent of digital currencies has paved the way for endless possibilities. The undeniable advantage of digital currency is its ease of use. With a smart device, you can be your own bank, making transactions easier and time-saving.

Fraud Prevention/Transparency: We are constantly concerned about whether the banking details we enter lead to misconduct or whether third-party systems track our transactions and usage. Blockchain concerns user privacy, so data breaches are rare because it contains limited personal information. All transactions are encrypted between "digital wallets" and produce precise parity calculations in the ledger. Blockchain technology is poised to disrupt every aspect of our existence through this security.

Global acceptance: In the past, people had to invest more to send or receive payments across borders. By overcoming international borders, digital currencies promise flexibility and economic growth. Aside from the overall look, it's cheap, easy, and fast. Digital currencies can facilitate trade and provide multiple opportunities to strengthen the financial health of countries. There is no denying that digital currencies are securing themselves to be the currency of choice for future generations.

Summary

Cryptocurrency is here to stay since people have found it helpful in our fast-paced world. New cryptocurrencies keep popping up daily to meet users' needs; some have gained popularity among tech enthusiasts due to their unique features.

People are excited about using bitcoin as payment for goods and services and investment vehicles for traders. However, many factors still keep it from mainstream use today- especially compared to traditional currency systems. While there's always room for improvement, it is clear that this new form of currency isn't going away anytime soon!

Cryptocurrency Decentralization: What Does It Take To Become Fully Decentralized?  Which Crypto Projects Meet The Criteria? 

What differentiates cryptocurrency from traditional finance technologies? Crypto is decentralized, whereas the financial system we have been locked into is centralized. It has undoubtedly been a hot topic since the first bitcoin block was mined in 2009, and now with regulators worldwide converging on the crypto industry, decentralization is more critical than ever. This article explains what decentralization means and looks at the different layers of decentralization in cryptocurrency and which cryptos are the most decentralized.

Decentralization Defined

What is decentralization, and why is it so important? According to this dictionary,  decentralization is the process of shifting control from one main group to several smaller ones. In business, decentralization describes a structure that distributes control among many smaller groups or locations rather than giving that power to a single, central organization. In government, decentralization is often thought of as a way to move power into the hands of individual citizens.

Image by: Markethive.com

As it happens, decentralization is a political philosophy that emerged in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Decentralization fits under the broader umbrella of Libertarianism, another political philosophy associated with the French Revolution, which puts Liberty Above All Else. Liberty is what cryptocurrency is all about; hence, the blockchain networks underpinning crypto are often designed with decentralization as a focal point.

However, it's not just decentralization at the blockchain level that matters. In many cases, being centralized at other levels makes decentralization at the blockchain level irrelevant. Complete decentralization is of the utmost importance, primarily for two reasons. 

1. Security: When a cryptocurrency is decentralized from top to bottom, it’s almost always highly secure because there's no single point of failure. It also creates censorship resistance, as no central authority can decide what you can and can't do with your digital property. 
2. Crypto Regulations: A genuinely decentralized cryptocurrency is next to impossible to regulate as there's no identifiable individual or institution that can be coerced or sanctioned. In other words, if a cryptocurrency is truly decentralized, it's challenging, if not impossible, for a central authority to shut it down.

Regulations will destroy crypto projects that are not truly decentralized, and they are the ones that are really not all that different from existing financial technologies. Below, we look at the five layers of cryptocurrency and how important decentralization is at each layer. CoinBureau.com coined the names depicting the various layers for simplicity.

Image source: Coin Bureau

Layer 1: Decentralization At The Developer Layer

The developer layer involves the individuals and institutions that create the crypto project. Arguably, decentralization at this level means the more unaffiliated individuals and institutions a cryptocurrency has, the more decentralized this layer is. Decentralization is vital at the developer layer for a few reasons. The first is regulation; you may know that the SEC uses the Howey Test to determine what cryptos to track. 

In short, this means that if the SEC can identify an individual or institution creating the expectation of profit you have when you invest in a particular coin or token, then that cryptocurrency is a security subject to strict regulations. 

So, what does the SEC think about cryptocurrencies with multiple individuals and institutions creating profit expectations for a particular coin or token? According to the now-famous 2018 speech by SEC director Bill Hinman, he stated that Ethereum wasn't a security because it's “sufficiently decentralized.” 

The second reason why decentralization is essential at this layer is longevity. Simply relying on a small group of individuals or institutions for development means there’s a high risk a crypto project will sink if the core team disbands. One example is the recent departure of the DeFi star developer Andre Cronje, with many of the crypto projects he left behind now facing severe uncertainty. 

The security of the cryptocurrency is the third reason decentralization is important at the developer layer. This is simply because relying on a small group of individuals or institutions for security is much more likely to be compromised by either internal or external actors. A recent example is the hack of Axie Infinity’s Ronin side chain, where the hacker managed to take control of the private keys belonging to Ronin's validators by hacking Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity and Ronin. 

Layer 2: Decentralization Of A Coin Or Token

The second layer, which is coin or token decentralization, ties in with the first, specifically the distribution of a particular coin or token. The coin or token layer is where the definition of decentralization becomes exceptionally nuanced. It varies from crypto to crypto, along with the effects of centralization at this layer on a cryptocurrency’s market cap, governance structure, and blockchain security.

For all cryptocurrencies, the distribution of a coin or token must be decentralized. In other words, evenly spread out because if a handful of whales hold most of the supply, they can easily manipulate the price. For coins or tokens used in voting for changes to a cryptocurrency’s project, blockchain, or protocol, centralization at the coin or token level means that a handful of token holders can easily monopolize significant decisions about the project. 

For coins belonging to a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency blockchain, if a handful of wallets hold most of that coin supply, they pose a security threat to that cryptocurrency’s blockchain. Although many have come close, there’s yet to be a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency subject to this type of corruption. That’s why Solana actively monitors how much its largest validators are staking to ensure their blockchains remain secure. 

Note that decentralization at the coin or token layer is also essential for proof-of-work cryptocurrency coins because of the price manipulation factors. If too much of the supply of a proof-of-work coin is held by a handful of whales, they could crash the price below the point where it would still be profitable for miners to process transactions on its blockchain. 

Layer 3: Infrastructure 

The third layer of decentralization in cryptocurrency is the infrastructure layer. This refers to the different technologies you use to interact with or access cryptocurrency blockchains. Although many may think crypto wallets, cryptocurrency exchanges are arguably first on the list in any cryptocurrency infrastructure. That’s because it's challenging and sometimes impossible to acquire a coin or token without using a centralized exchange. 

It may seem a bit of a paradox, but for quite a while, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges were surprisingly decentralized as many didn't have an official headquarters. Sometimes, even the company running the exchange didn't even exist. It was just a series of subsidiaries registered in countries with little to no regulation. 

Often, these subsidiaries were established by various individuals or institutions where the people and the physical infrastructure were spread out worldwide in mostly unknown locations. However, this isn’t the case today, as most cryptocurrency exchanges have been forced to register with regulators and impose KYC on their users. The KYC aspect isn’t necessarily bad but leads to centralization as the non-compliant exchanges are shut down. 

Decentralization at the infrastructure layer has also been problematic for some of the most significant crypto projects. It’s an issue for Ethereum because many of Ethereum’s applications rely on Infura for infrastructure to interact with the Ethereum blockchain, including the Meta Mask browser extension wallet. 

As a result, many of Ethereum's services go offline whenever Infura has an outage. It’s only happened twice in the last few years, but it continues to be a wake-up call for the Ethereum community.  Another big wake-up call has been in Infura’s recent decision to begin blocking access to any services using its technology where the end user lives in a sanctioned country. 

Layer 4: The Blockchain Layer 

The fourth layer of decentralization in cryptocurrency is the Blockchain layer. It’s often the layer that's referred to when you hear or see anything related to decentralization in cryptocurrency. Similarly to the coin or token layer, decentralization at the blockchain layer can look very different depending on the cryptocurrency in question; in some cases, the number of nodes doesn't necessarily matter.

Algorand is an excellent example of this, as its blockchain has thousands of participation nodes involved in consensus. However, all transactions on Algorand are processed by a smaller group of 120 relay nodes, most run by the entities behind Algorand and its affiliates. Some would argue that Algorand is technically decentralized because its relay nodes don't participate in consensus, but others disagree. 

Solana, whose mandate is to support its blockchain's decentralization, security, resilience, and adoption, has over 3,400 validator nodes across six continents, including over 1900 consensus nodes, according to its first-ever “Validator Health Report.” Furthermore, an average of 95 consensus nodes and 99 RPC nodes have joined the network every month since June 2021. A large, diverse set of validator operators are essential to maintain a resilient, distributed and credibly neutral network for global usability.

Image source: Solana

There are 1,900 block-producing nodes on the Solana network, but that doesn’t mean all 1,900 are separate entities running each of these nodes. Several companies have built businesses off of running multiple validators on multiple chains. However, it’s critical for the health of the blockchain that no single entity builds up too much control over the validator network of the chain, even if their running multiple validators.

The Solana Foundation has verified that of 1,915 consensus-producing validators, at least 1,688 (88.14%) are run by independent entities. The remainder may also be independent of each other, but it has yet to be verified. 

The other critical issue is centralized Cloud Computing Services, and almost every cryptocurrency uses servers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their Blockchain operations.  The decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol, dYdX, went down during the AWS outage last December, and a handful of other cryptocurrencies were also affected. 

Some crypto projects took the AWS outage as a sign that they must ensure all their validator nodes aren't all relying on the same centralized infrastructure. Others have gone as far as integrating with decentralized cloud providers, like Akash Network.

On another note, AWS and Azure have been guilty of banning or suspending newly established free-speech platforms from their hosting services, leading to some forward-thinking crypto social network platforms building their own independent cloud servers. 

Another centralization issue at the blockchain layer for many crypto projects is the storage of their complete transaction histories. You could have a blockchain with thousands of validators leveraging all kinds of computing services, but if only a handful of them have access to the entire transaction history, it’s possible it may result in transaction manipulation, so it would be difficult to determine that the Blockchain is decentralized. 

Only a few crypto projects have been transparent about how their full transaction history is being stored. One of them is Bitcoin, whose full nodes store its full transaction history. There are currently around 15,000 Bitcoin nodes worldwide, arguably making it the most decentralized at the blockchain layer. 

Image source: https://bitnodes.io/

Layer 5: The External Layer 

The fifth and final layer of cryptocurrency decentralization is the external layer. As the name suggests, the external layer is everything cryptocurrencies rely on that isn't necessarily exclusive to cryptocurrency. This is where the definition of decentralization gets complicated because the external layer includes websites, internet service providers, and in some cases, financial institutions. 

Websites for almost every crypto project are hosted on a centralized service. Although some crypto projects are okay with it, it creates a real problem for decentralized applications and other interactive Web3 technologies. The world’s leading decentralized exchange, Uniswap, was forced to delist 100 tokens from its interface, which calls its purported decentralization into question. This has prompted other DeFi protocols like Aave to migrate their front ends to decentralized storage solutions, like the Interplanetary File System. (IPFS)

It gets interesting with internet service providers (ISPs) mainly because banning ISPs from allowing their users to access cryptocurrency-related websites, albeit limited to select countries, has proven that it’s possible. Although it’s presumably unlikely to be enforced elsewhere, the worst-case scenario is that we could see governments dictate that ISPs stop serving cryptocurrency miners and validators. Fortunately, Blockchain projects are hoping to decentralize the internet itself using peer-to-peer signals on open-source infrastructure.

Banks also fit into the external layer with their defacto digital dollars. These are the Stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and BUSD and have some of the largest market caps in cryptocurrency. This is because there's always demand for stablecoins, regardless of market conditions. Also, most of the crypto market's trading volume involves stablecoins. And that means they are one of the core technologies that make most of the cryptocurrencies possible in their current form.

This is why a stablecoin crackdown is one of the biggest threats to the crypto industry. All regulators would have to do is restrict access to the reserves backing the stablecoins in circulation, which centralized financial institutions hold. In fact, most of the reserves backing the USDC stablecoin are in the custody of the world's largest asset manager, Blackrock. More about that in a forthcoming article. 

Image by: Markethive.com

Which Cryptos Are The Most Decentralized?

According to a survey conducted by Cointelegraph of various experts in the crypto industry, there aren’t any cryptocurrencies that come close to Bitcoin's overall decentralization. Bitcoin is leading the charge because dozens of individuals and institutions are building on Bitcoin. Also, BTC supply is broadly distributed, there's no shortage of infrastructure available to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, and the Bitcoin blockchain has over 15,000 full reachable nodes. 

Considering the five layers explained above, no cryptocurrency has yet scored ideally on all criteria. Even Bitcoin falls short at the external layer. Also, some believe Ethereum’s decentralized applications are more critical as users can participate in fully-fledged economies, whereas that’s not possible with Bitcoin. 

So we could say Ethereum is a runner-up, along with Monero, but as mentioned above, Ethereum decentralization still seems to be lacking on some layers. As for Monero (XMR), it’s constantly at risk of getting delisted from centralized exchanges due to unreasonable crypto regulations.

It’s evident that most of the more decentralized cryptocurrencies have been around for a long time, and many believe that it’s ultimately ‘time’ that has allowed Bitcoin to decentralize so much. However, technology is evolving at a much faster pace today, and it looks like Solana and Cardano may well be the next runners-up. 

A Lifeline For Emerging Decentralized Social Media and Marketing Platforms.  

This is good news for other sectors like social media, marketing, and digital broadcasting. With all the events and censorship issues around social media and tech giants, given their propensity to ban or suspend their services to individuals and companies that go against their narrative, a decentralized blockchain that can handle large crypto-based communities and be part of a parallel economy is of the utmost importance. 

The crypto and blockchain projects that uphold the interests of entrepreneurs and advocate for free and critical thinking are paving the way. They will ensure that individuals and the developing ecosystems will have the financial freedom, liberty, and sovereignty that is fundamentally our right of passage, which seems to be all but forgotten by the monopolies and so-called authorities and their over-zealous regulations. 

Also published @ BeforeIt’sNews.com; Steemit.

Does This New Trend Correlate With This Flagrant Prediction?

By now, many of us have heard of the declaration, “You’ll own nothing and be happy,” cited by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum and all part of The Great Reset. Yet, only a few believe this infamous prediction will actually become a reality. Sadly, our ownership of things is vanishing, and many of us unwittingly embrace this new normal. 

There is an alarming trend permeating every sector of the economy, and in this article, we’ll cover where this trend came from and why cryptocurrency could be the only defense. The following will explain how “they” plan to make you happy while owning nothing, and there can be no doubt it’s nothing to be happy about. 

The Ownership Predicament

One of the things we all believe we own is our mobile phone. An essential item that all of us have and these days has become an extension of ourselves, and it’s difficult to function without it. So, the question is, how often do you need to change or upgrade your phone due to poor performance? 

Statistics show that we change our phones every 2 to 3 years, consistent with the battery's life span. A solution to the periodical upgrades would be just to install a new battery so you can enjoy your phone for another two years until you need to replace the battery again, and so on. Well, that’s the theory.

Image source: rapidrepair.in

In practice, however, changing the battery is not so simple and can damage the phone, providing you can actually get a replacement battery. In the case of newer iPhone models, the phone will detect when you've replaced the battery and give you all manner of warning messages, which push you to go to the Apple Store for an extensive repair, which could cost as much as a new phone.

Now, critics of this scheme have accurately observed that the inability to independently open, modify or repair a device that you own means that you don't actually own it because ownership literally means the ability to do all of the above and more. 

These and other issues have given rise to a global movement called Right To Repair, which has pressured Apple and other tech giants to make repairs more accessible, albeit to a limited degree due to the lobbying power these corporations wield. 

However, the right to repair doesn't entirely eliminate the underlying ownership issue. Did you know manufacturers slow down a smartphone’s performance to force you to buy a new one? 

Samsung was fined for this practice in 2018, and as usual with all the big tech companies, Samsung’s fine amounted to nothing more than a rap over the knuckles compared to the profits it probably made from artificially slowing down phones. It’s something that the company is allegedly still doing today, and this level of control negates any aspect of ownership. 

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko with Solana smartphone. Image: Solana Labs/Decrypt

On a positive note, Solana has developed a smartphone that has unique functionalities setting it apart from other phones. It is a web3-enabled device that features tight integration with the Solana blockchain. Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana, believes the key to unlocking the potential of crypto is to bring it into everyone’s hands. Solana Mobile bridges this gap by allowing easy access to the world of crypto and web3 and provides greater adoption and understanding of crypto. 

The project is an open-source platform that aims for widespread adoption and seeks collaboration from other smartphone manufacturers. If these companies believe crypto is important enough, then billions of users can have the opportunity for self-custody. This has the potential to disrupt the industry, creating a new ecosystem that is not burdened by legacy software and hopefully minimizes artificial manipulation.

Planned Obsolescence 

The practice of forcing people to upgrade through some nefarious means has found its way into everything from household appliances to hospital equipment, and it’s not a new practice. It’s been around for nearly 100 years, known as Planned Obsolescence. The term was coined by an American real estate broker named Bernard London in a paper titled “Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence," published in 1932.

Bernard said that the Great Depression made no sense because “factories, warehouses, and fields are still intact and are ready to produce in unlimited quantities, but the urge to go ahead has been paralyzed by a decline in buying power and, by extension, a decline in demand.” Given this situation, Bernard proposed the following solution;

“I would have the government assign a lease of life to shoes and homes, and machines to all products of manufacture, mining, and agriculture when they are first created, and they would be sold and used within the term of their existence, definitely known by the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally dead and would be controlled by the duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment.”

In other words, everything produced in the economy would be artificially made obsolete by the government at a specific date to cause the population to consume more. So that the economy recovers while simultaneously providing ample employment, further fostering economic growth. 

Bernard's problematic idea of planned obsolescence never really caught on because, arguably, it was the second world war that ended the Great Depression. This is primarily because the post-war period was one of incredible prosperity, particularly for the United States, as it managed to reap much of the rewards of victory while incurring little in the way of losses compared with its allies. Also, the US dollar had just become the world's reserve currency.

Image source: Investopedia

More importantly, the populations of countries like the United States and Canada exploded after the second world war; hence the generation referred to as Baby Boomers. It’s important because the rapid increase in population meant a rapid rise in consumption, so there was no need for planned obsolescence business practices. 

Companies could comfortably sell high-quality hardware that would last for decades because they knew there would always be another wave of buyers coming next year as more baby boomers became adult boomers. However, by the 1970s, it became clear that baby boomers weren’t having the same number of children as their predecessors.

Ostensibly, many western countries tried to fill this future demographic gap by introducing immigration, and this seems to have worked for a while. However, by the early 2000s, it turned out that immigration alone wasn't enough to fill the demographic gap, which continued to grow as companies needed increasingly future consumption to continue their future expansion. 

Meanwhile, native birth rates continued to decline, and this seems to be the period when Bernard's idea of planned obsolescence started to become a reality. Companies were effectively forced into selling low-quality products requiring a repurchase every few years to continue consumption trends in the absence of a growing population. 

Hardware As A Service

So, what does all of the above have to do with us owning nothing and being happy? If you’re an iPhone user, you may recall that Bloomberg reported that Apple would be rolling out a subscription service, and it’s nothing like their current service. It applies to the hardware, not the software, meaning that the subscription service will be for the physical phone itself. 

Louis Rossmann, a popular YouTuber, and computer repair shop owner who has gone head-to-head with anti-repair corporate lobbyists, reacted to the Bloomberg article, pointing out that a service is when someone or something does something for you. A phone is not a service; it’s a product, and it should be yours entirely from the moment you purchase it. 

Louis also highlighted that many Wall Street investors are pushing for publicly traded companies to adopt this so-called Hardware as a Service business model (HaaS) because it will make them trade at higher valuations, regardless of their actual earnings. 

This sounds disturbingly similar to the ESG investment trend, which effectively consists of asset managers moving their money into companies that comply with their ever-changing criteria, causing their stocks to pump even though no actual profits are being made.

Hardware as a service satisfies Environmental criteria because the number of devices in circulation can be reduced, and the ones in circulation can be reused. Any old devices can be easily recycled; you'll likely need to give back your old device to get a newer version. 

Hardware as a service also satisfies Social criteria because everyone will have subscription services for the same devices. There will be no phone with a better camera or a bigger memory.  Nor will there be a faster or slower, bigger or smaller car, which means everyone will be truly equal. 

Hardware as a service satisfies Governance criteria because it will put the company producing the product in total control of its creation, use, and destruction. Furthermore, HaaS will result in actual profits because people will pay for subscription services for just about everything they have in their possession until they die. 

Whereas Planned Obsolescence was formulated to solve the Great Depression, it appears that Hardware as a Service is being introduced to ensure consumption continues to increase even as the demographic decline continues. 

HaaS is not likely to be forced upon us consumers. As we’ve recently seen in other products, applying too much force tends to result in an equal or more significant amount of resistance because people know something is up when they don't have a choice. 

Instead, however, the ability to own anything will likely become ever more difficult as time goes on, starting with items that tend to be the most expensive purchases for the average person. Housing is at the top of the list, with costs going through the roof. 

Image source: The Guardian

Housing

The housing market and the rising costs in this sector of the economy will eventually cause the population to push politicians to do something—for example, Berlin’s campaign to resocialize housing. One of the outcomes could be that the government starts nationalizing housing. In other words, taking it away from landlords in the name of the greater good, and while these policies will be directed towards the big fish at first, the small fish will come next, just like with taxation. 

Alternatively, if the housing market collapses, we could see asset managers like Blackstone swoop in and acquire as many properties as possible with the freshly printed money they received from their respective central banks. Basically, you’ll rent from the government or Wall Street. 

Personal Transport Vehicles

The next item on the list is vehicles of all kinds. A lot of activity is already in play by car-sharing companies, electric scooter companies, and shared bicycle companies. There’s every chance these entities are extracting as much data as possible in preparation for HaaS models for similar vehicles. And the fact that many of these companies continue to receive large investments, despite being barely profitable is evidence of this effect.

Interestingly, HaaS in cars is likely a reason why there's such a massive push for electric vehicles. That's because it's easy to break the rules of a sharing economy when the car is powered by petrol and hardware, but it's much harder to break the rules when the vehicle is powered by electricity and software. 

Moreover, there's a limit to how many electric cars can be made because there doesn't seem to be enough lithium on the planet to replace existing vehicles with electric cars, according to the World Economic Forum's own research. So it effectively guarantees that electric vehicles will need to be shared. 

Phones And Computers

Phones and computers will probably be the third class of products to get sucked into the hardware as a service scheme, but the average person could take quite a while to accept it. That's because phones and computers are frequently listed as a person's most valuable possessions, primarily because it's something that you can truly shape to meet your personal needs.

These devices also contain lots of sensitive personal data that you'd rather keep to yourself and not share with anyone. Keeping track of phones and computers would also be very difficult without a digital ID, which is also a prerequisite for the rollout of Central Bank Digital Currencies and internet censorship, which the powers that be have explicitly stated they want to enforce.

Is The Tradeoff Worth it? 

The number of people on board with this Hardware as a service idea seems to be increasing. This is simply because an increasing number of people can't afford a home, a car, or even a quality computer or phone. But many think the tradeoff is too great, given that we are all unique, inherently sovereign human beings with Divine free will bestowed upon us. It’s not in our nature to be enslaved by any physical entity without the freedom to make choices, grow and prosper.

There is something precious that we do own, and that is ourselves. The few things we should have a right to own are ultimately an extension of ourselves. They allow us to exercise ownership of ourselves in the world so long as the path to ownership exists. This is why having a place to call home, a way to get around, and the ability to communicate and express oneself is objectively vital and universally sought after. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. 

I can’t imagine anyone being “happy” in a world where the path to ownership of literally everything except our physical body is obstructed. To make matters worse, we may even lose ownership of ourselves because of a digital ID “they” plan to roll out.

What’s The Solution? 

It should be clear by now that our current financial system is not working, and some say it hasn’t been working for decades or even longer because it’s not just Hardware as a Service, as Planned Obsolescence was proposed almost 100 years ago. As all crypto enthusiasts know, cryptocurrency was built to replace this broken financial system. Although cryptocurrency still has a very long way to go, it has already fixed one of the most critical aspects of finance: the ability to truly own your assets. 

Image source: wtfhappenedin1971.com

Some may consider this is nothing new, but it really is! The money in your bank can be seized, and authorities can confiscate any physical property you have. Even your house can be taken from you if you don't pay your taxes, and in some countries, the government can take your property at will using Eminent Domain.

Some might think this is fine, but it's not. These are the sorts of legal levers that governments and corporations are slowly starting to pull to take control of everything you own. Once realized, it’s easier to understand why the Entrepreneur and CEO of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, is a colossal Bitcoin advocate. 

Image source: Markethive.com

BTC can't be seized because a third party does not technically own it. It can't be confiscated because it's not physical. And it can't be taken by the government through some obscure law because the only law in crypto is immutable computer code. This makes BTC the best hedge against a world where you will own nothing because it guarantees you will own something.

A growing number of companies and individuals also realize what’s happening and are building a Parallel Economy to counter the “woke trend” and the elite pushing for this new world order and planning the great reset of the world. We must be aware of what’s happening and what’s in store before we are blindsided. Be part of communities that believe in liberty, financial sovereignty, and the freedom to live the way we have been accustomed to so that the legacy may continue for future generations.