💍Blockchain, Marriage, and the Digital Priest

Indian couple celebrates blockchain wedding with NFT vows, digital priest (Cointelegraph, 2/5/22)

Cue Daft Punk’s ‘Digital Love’ because ’till death do us part’ may have just taken on a new meaning when marriage vows are immortalized on the blockchain. A recently married couple from Pune, India minted a nonfungible token (NFT) on OpenSea to digitize their love for each other for eternity on the Ethereum blockchain after receiving a blessing from their digital priest. The NFT description on OpenSea read, “This contract is between Shruti Sathian Nair, born March 17, 1988, and Anil Mohan Narasipuram, born October 11, 1986. The parties to this agreement are hereby declared husband and wife, on Nov 15 2021 and to have to hold, in sickness and in health, for now and in perpetuity.”

The groom, Anil Narasipuram, announced his marriage and minting via LinkedIn. Recordkeeping is a blockchain use case, so why not immortalize your love on a NFT? (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Cointelegraph)

Mitsui plans to issue gold-backed digital assets (Ledger Insights, 2/4/22)

Tokenizing physical assets, e.g. real estate, and recording ownership on a blockchain is one of the more tangible use case that is discussed to transform processes and industries. Last week Nikkei reported that Japanese conglomerate Mitsui plans to tokenize physical gold acquired via the London Metal Exchange at yen-denominated prices. The gold will be tokenized as ZipangCoins (ZPG) and will be sold to consumers as early as this month. Mitsui also plans to allow ZPG to be used for payments. This isn’t the first time that gold has been tokenized and Mitsui’s tokenized gold play represents more of a positive cultural shift in Japan towards blockchain and crypto. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Ledger Insights)

Crypto payment card ‘top priority’ for Binance Ukraine in 2022 (Cointelegraph, 2/1/22)

Ukraine may be on the brink of war but that is not stopping Binance from leaning in to be a dominant provider of crypto-related services in the country as they prioritize launching a crypto payment card in 2022. Crypto-based payments are a gray area in Ukraine because crypto assets are not recognized as legal tender, however, crypto-derived transactions are not banned. The way the Binance crypto payment card works is at the time of transaction the amount of the transaction is automatically converted from crypto to fiat. Crypto-based payment cards are all the rage at the moment with both Visa and Mastercard creating programs for companies to provide their customers cards to pay for goods with crypto where Visa and Mastercard branded cards are accepted. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Cointelegraph) 

Russian region struggles to keep up with Bitcoin mining energy demands (Cointelegraph, 2/1/22)

As crypto mining moved away from China and now continues to move away from Kazakhstan towards Russia (and the USA), Tass news reported last week that Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast (region), a major center of trade routes from China, experienced a fourfold increase in energy consumption in 2021 due to the rapid growth of crypto mining. Something particularly interesting about this is the quadrupling of energy use wasn’t solely because of large crypto mining firms but by local people installing mining equipment in their homes resulting in increased consumption and power grid outages. The growth of crypto mining in this region (and in Russia in general) has also attracted organized crime who specialize in the theft of mining equipment. Regional law enforcement reported YoY incidents of theft from 2020 to 2021 from once or twice a month to weekly and eventually daily occurrences. The official Russian perspective towards crypto is generally grim with calls of banning crypto entirely by the Bank of Russia as reported in last week’s newsletter. Energy consumption and proof of work consensus is one of Bitcoin’s biggest challenges and debates given the amount of energy the network consumes and the use of fossil fuels vs. renewable energy to mine Bitcoin. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Cointelegraph)

Celo Blockchain Holds First Uganda Community Meetup in 2022 with Makerere University Students (BitKE, 2/1/22)

Celo held their first 2022 meet up for the Celo Uganda community on January 28th. Students from Makerere University were invited to participate in the meetup where education on blockchain, crypto, and use cases were emphasized. Umar Sebyala, Celo Labs ecosystem lead for Uganda, indicated that, “The Celo foundation is committed to supporting initiatives around the world that foster the adoption of Celo and growth of the community around the platform. These meet-up events are a great way to activate local communities in an organic manner with the in-person experience now that the economy has been fully re-opened.” Celo Uganda is planning to schedule monthly meetups and February details will be announced via Twitter @celo_ug.

Celo is a mobile-first blockchain for emerging markets with over 1 million wallet addresses across 113 countries that makes financial dApps and crypto payments accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on BitKE) 

Scams Are on the Rise and Make Up 95% of All Crypto Crimes in Africa, Says Latest Luno Report (BitKE, 2/2/22)

Crypto and scams are a common talking point with many scams cropping up around the web promising riches quickly. One of Africa’s largest exchanges, Luno, indicated that 95% of all crimes on its exchange involved scams. Luno has found three main reasons behind the increasing rate of crypto crime in Africa:

• Low financial education and poverty that makes people more desperate
• Crypto is a new technology that users are uncertain about
• Poor data protection

Eva Crouwel, Head of Financial Crime at Luno, commented that “[There] is no specific demographic for victims, despite widely-held perceptions that scammers target either the ignorant elderly, or young mavericks looking to make a quick buck or previously disadvantaged users.”

Remember readers, be very careful online and remain skeptical whenever coming across something that seems too good to be true, it probably is. Stay safe! (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on BitKE)

El Salvador relaunches Chivo wallet, plans to deploy 1,500 Bitcoin ATMs (Cointelegraph, 2/1/22)

El Salvador is always in the news when it comes to Bitcoin and last week the Government of El Salvador relaunched their Chivo wallet in partnership with infrastructure provider, AlphaPoint. This relaunch was meant to fix concerns related to stability and scalability, extend support for point-of-sale systems, websites and the Salvadoran government’s administrative console, and improve integration with the Lightning Network to carry out instantaneous low-fee Bitcoin transactions. In addition, 1,500 Bitcoin ATMs are allegedly being deployed around the country as the great Bitcoin experiment continues in El Salvador. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Cointelegraph) 

Bitcoin Educational Center Launches in El Salvador (Bitcoin Magazine, 2/2/22)

Staying in El Salvador to round off this week’s newsletter, Paxful, a global peer-to-peer Bitcoin platform, launched a Bitcoin educational center in El Salvador. Known as La Casa Del Bitcoin, the center will provide free training and events to the local population to help increase awareness and understanding of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange and financial inclusion. La Casa Del Bitcoin will also double as a local office for Paxful and the Built with Bitcoin Foundation, a Houston, Texas, USA-based humanitarian organization devoted to creating equitable opportunities by providing clean water, access to quality education, sustainable farming, and humanitarian support with Bitcoin and crypto. (Read on EmergingCrypto.io; Read on Bitcoin Magazine)