Unbankd Newsletter: 09/18/2018 -
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<h1 style="font-family:Arial;font-size:20px;color:#000000">Palestinians Are Using Bitcoin to Transact Across Borders During Conflict</h1>
<img src="http://ourpolitics.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/53d4c35361798.jpg" width="100%" style="margin-bottom: 5px;margin-top: 5px" alt="102369471-187884864.jpg?v=1530908433"><br/>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">BITCOIN'S REAL USE CASE</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>According to CoinDesk, there is a handful of Palestinians utilizing Bitcoin to transact outside of the country's borders amid conflict</li>
<li>Ahmed Ismail, a financial analyst in Gaza, estimated 20 unofficial Bitcoin dealers, including himself, who help clients purchase Bitcoin to send money abroad, purchase investments abroad, or shop abroad</li>
<li>One of the Bitcoin dealers has helped up to 50 different families over the last four years to purchase an average of $500 worth of Bitcoin each month so they can transact freely</li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px">The dealer expressed his support for Bitcoin use in Palestine:</p>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;background-color:#8CEFD6;padding-top:6px;padding-bottom:6px;padding-left:12px;padding-right:12px;text-align:center;line-height:24px">
<i style="color:#000">"Bitcoin, in their opinion, is cheaper, safer, and quicker. Nothing works with Palestinian banks. Bitcoin wallets are alternative banks."</i>
</p>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">FIGHTING CENSORSHIP RESISTANCE</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>Though Palestine does not have the burden of hyperinflation unlike Iran, Turkey, and Venezuela, the citizens need Bitcoin to fight censorship</li>
<li>With the country's population restricted from the global economy during its ongoing fight with Israel, citizens are struggling to find payment gateways in and out of the country through regulated banks</li>
<li>In some cases, bank accounts have been shut down if the user attempted to send money to family across borders</li>
<li>However, though an illiquid, decentralized, digital asset is not the most convenient in a cash-focused economy, it is a glimmer of hope for Palestinians wishing to operate free of government intervention</li>
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<div style="color:#fff;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;background-color:#60e1c1;padding-top:3px;padding-bottom:3px;padding-right:7px;padding-left:7px">OPINION</div>
<h1 style="font-family:Arial;font-size:20px;color:#000000">Blockchain is 'Meaningless' Unless it Builds Greener Future, Says Alibaba Founder Jack Ma</h1>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">JACK MA</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>Jack Ma is a Chinese business magnate who is the co-founder of the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba</li>
<li>Ma recently shared plans for his retirement from Alibaba to focus on philanthropy</li>
<li>Retirement is well deserved for Ma, Forbes estimates his net worth just shy of $37 billion</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">MEANINGLESS</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>Ma recently gave a keynote at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference</li>
<li>The focus of his speech was artificial intelligence, but Ma took some time to speak about blockchain also</li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px">The Alibaba founder said that technologies like blockchain are meaningless if they don’t do good:</p>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;background-color:#8CEFD6;padding-top:6px;padding-bottom:6px;padding-left:12px;padding-right:12px;text-align:center;line-height:24px">
<i style="color:#000">“The data age is major opportunity for manufacturers to reform the industry. But blockchain and IoT will be meaningless tech unless they can promote the transformation of the manufacturing industry, and the evolution of the society towards a greener and more inclusive direction.”</i>
</p>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">HISTORY WITH CRYPTO</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>Although Ma did say that blockchain May become meaningless, he has a long positive history with the technology</li>
<li>Ma has critiqued the bubble argument in the past and stated that he has studied blockchain for years and believes in its potential</li>
<li>Alibaba holds more crypto and blockchain related patents than any other business entity in the world</li>
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<div style="color:#ffffff;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;background-color:#60e1c1;padding-top:3px;padding-bottom:3px;padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px">NEWS</div>
<h1 style="font-family:Arial;font-size:20px;color:#000000">Dogecoin Creator Rescues Elon Musk from ETH Scam Bots on Twitter</h1>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">ELON vs SCAMMERS</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>Twitter ETH scammers do not only go after crypto related accounts, Elon Musk's Twitter is one of the most targeted accounts for these sort of scams</li>
<li>The tech poster boy has taken to Twitter in the past to voice his displeasure with scammers impersonating his image</li>
</ul>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000">DOGE TO THE RESCUE</h4>
<ul style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;padding-left:20px;color:#000000">
<li>On Monday, Elon reached out to the founder of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer, for his assistance to hush the bots</li>
<li>Palmer who has developed a script that blocks all scammers that reply to a users' tweet responded to Elon telling him to slide into his direct messages</li>
<li>Palmer later gave an update to his followers that Elon is now equipped with the script and shared that the two spoke about how Twitter should fix this problem</li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px">Here is Musk and Palmer's back and forth on Twitter:</p>
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<div style="color:#ffffff;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;background-color:#60e1c1;padding-top:3px;padding-bottom:3px;padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px">LAUNCH</div>
<h1 style="font-family:Arial;font-size:20px;color:#000000;margin-bottom:0px">Ripple Hints xRapid Will Go Live Within 'Next Month or So'</h1>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000;margin-bottom:0px">xRapid is coming…</h4>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;margin-top:10px">It’s crunch time for the 3rd largest cryptocurrency in the world as Ripple gears up to possibly launch its flagship product xRapid within the next month. So far, the San Fran-based startup says they have already racked up more than 120 different partnerships with banks who are using their xCurrent product.<br>
<br>But if banks are already using xCurrent then why do they need xRapid?</p>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000;margin-bottom:0px">What is that xCurrent thing?</h4>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;margin-top:10px">Well, the two products provide different perks. xCurrent is used by banks to communicate and facilitate distributed ledger transactions and it can also transact any currency, not just cryptocurrencies.</p>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000;margin-bottom:0px">XRP hodlers can thank xRapid later</h4>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;margin-top:10px">As for XRP’s baby xRapid, it needs the cryptocurrency to provide liquidity for banks. With xRapid, Ripple imagines banks swapping assets for XRP to move payments even faster through the xCurrent ecosystem.<br>
<br>That means for you hodlers out there, this will create demand for XRP on the public market.
</p>
<h4 style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;color:#000000;margin-bottom:0px">Pushing on regulators</h4>
<p style="font-family:arial;font-size:15px;line-height:25px;margin-top:10px">So how does Ripple stack up against regulations? According to an interview yesterday with Sagar Sarbhai, Ripple’s head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, things are beginning to come together as regulators begin to see a “strong benefit” to digital assets.<br>
<br>If he’s right, Ripple may soon see regulatory doors open. However, as of right now, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to confirm XRP is not a security.<br>
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<br /><center><hr/><em>Posted from my blog with <a href='https://wordpress.org/plugins/steempress/'>SteemPress</a> : https://whalereports.com/unbankd-newsletter-09-18-2018/ </em><hr/></center>
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