
Facebook Seeking $1 Billion in Funding for Crypto Project
Social media Facebook seeking to raise as much as a billion dollars in outside funding for its cryptocurrency project. Nathaniel Popper, a technology reporter at The New York Times, said Facebook is targeting “big sums – as much as $1b” from venture capitalists to support the stablecoin effort. The company would use the funds as collateral to back the token.
'Free' Money: How Students Mine Cryptocurrency In Their Dorm Rooms
Many students don’t have to worry about paying power bills, as per their university housing contracts, which tend to cover electricity expenses. That “free” power allows them to host cost-efficient mining rigs, where the only expense is the actual hardware. It almost seems too good to be true: Mining students receive a passive income, which can potentially cover the purchase of a few textbooks — or even pay for the whole semester and more. However, there’s a catch: No electricity is actually free, and someone ultimately has to pay the price.
How popular is mining among students? Cisco’s security researchers investigated cryptocurrency mining activity across various industry verticals. The research was carried out with the company’s cloud security platform Umbrella, which monitors clients’ network connections to screen malicious activity, allegedly revealing incidents of crypto mining. According to the findings, university campuses are the second-biggest miners of virtual currency across industry verticals at 22 percent, second only to the energy and utilities sector, with about 34 percent. Cisco threat researcher Austin McBride explained the trend to PCMag, saying that "you leave [the mining rig] running in your dorm room for four years, you walk out of college with a big chunk of change." Students who take advantage of this “free power” in turn, are “simply being opportunistic as the value of cryptocurrencies surged over the past year.” Most of the mining seems to be coming from students' old-fashioned PCs. “I was able to make about $120. With bitcoin currently around $5,000 it is profitable, considering I was getting free electricity.”
It Is Hard To Ignore Ripple When The White House, World Bank, Federal Reserve, IMF And Central Banks Are Involved
Ripple (XRP), is one of the best performing digital asset over the past few months. It’s all courtesy of Ripple Inc which is rolling out several products designed to ease and hasten the way cross-border transactions are carried out, with the primary aim of replacing SWIFT.
Ripple Has Some Strong Backings
It is safe to say that it is virtually impossible to ignore the progress made by Ripple in recent times. In a tweet by XRP Harvester, he stated that “it’s hard to turn your head when you know the White House, Federal Reserve, IMF, and central banks are currently involved with Ripple. XRP will solve the liquidity crisis not only in this country but worldwide.”
Chris Larsen, the IMF–Ripple Inc Link
In the first instance, the co-founder of Ripple Chris Larsen has been chosen as one of the people to discuss with the IMF on the different ways blockchain and other emerging technologies could be used to streamline some of the activities carried out in the financial landscape. Lagarde did warn banks that they would need to step up and adopt new technologies that would help them serve their customers better and Ripple is one of those technologies. She believes that Ripple and similar blockchain companies would help banks reduce costs and hasten transactions carried out globally.
World Bank Report Mentions Ripple’s xRapid
Another international monetary body, the World Bank recently published an article where it praised blockchain tech and the efforts made by Ripple and others. The World Bank is optimistic about the impact xRapid has to make in improving the global remittance ecosystem due to the fast transaction time and the reduced cost involved.
The global financier, in their report says, “In 2018, Ripple, a FinTech company, piloted xRapid, a DLT-based cross-border payments solution, along with the very competitive U.S.-Mexico corridor. Financial institutions involved in the program were able to save 40-70 percent in foreign exchange costs, and the average payment times was roughly two minutes. The transfer of funds on the xRapid platform occurred within two to three seconds, with most of the processing time explained by local payment rails and intermediary cryptocurrency exchanges.” The World Bank has been impressed by the blockchain solutions offered by Ripple and is optimistic of its benefits to the world of finance.
The Feds and White House Also in on Ripple
The United States Federal Reserve may even adopt any of the three Ripple Inc solutions. The apex bank is aiming to adopt technologies that would support interbank settlement for faster payments and Ripple is one of them. In the report submitted to the Fed, Ripple advised that for the US to retain its competitive advantage and drive payment innovation, it is crucial that new systems are researched and adopted.
Dave Sapenaro, the First Vice President and COO of the Fed of St. Louis is of the view that no single body could solely improve the payment system in the US. However, if the Fed collaborate with companies like Ripple, then they would be able to achieve great results.
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