The cryptocurrency market remains range-bound, with Bitcoin continuing to trade between $35,000 and $40,000. While preparing this document, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $40,028, reflecting a gain of 1.5% in the past 24 hours. For bullish trend reversal, Bitcoin needs to consolidate above the $40,000 level. Ether (ETH) has gained 2.8% to trade at $2,580. XRP has rallied 0.1% to trade at $0.8829.
Major altcoins which have gained ground in the last 24 hours includes ChainLink (LINK-$25.29, 7.50%), Tron (TRX-$0.0722, 1%), IOTA (IOTA-$1.12, 4%), EOS (EOS-$5.28, 4%), Polkadot (DOT-$25.34, 14.70%), Cardano (ADA-$1.57, 1.10%), Tezos (XTZ-3.34, 2.30%), Dash (DASH-$176.78, 2.90%), Bitcoin SV (BSV-$174.31, 2.1%), Binance Coin (BNB-$372.64, 2.20%), Bitcoin Cash (BCH-$639.32, 3.60%), Stellar (XLM-$0.3449, 0.40%) and Cosmos (ATOM, $13.41, 8%).
Government level initiatives
Chinese banks trialing the digital renminbi in senior citizen communities
China’s Shanghai province has commenced the next phase of its digital yuan (central bank digital currency) trial. The pilot program will involve more than two million people throughout the country. Furthermore, additional features custom-built for senior citizens are also being tested.
For this purpose, China is conducting a Shanghai ‘Happy Shopping’ event, which will involve the disbursement of 350,000′ red envelopes’, an indication of China’s conventional style of gifting cash.
Each of those envelopes will contain 55 yuan ($9). Registration began on June 5th and was completed on June 6th. The funds can be expended from June 11th to 20th, even though the list of vendors participating in the trial is yet to be announced.
Notably, on May 31st, 300,000 “red packets” were given out to the lucky winners among 1.30 million lottery participants.
In the meanwhile, Chengdu-based Chinese banks have started trialing the use of digital renminbi in senior citizen communities. The digital yuan offers several benefits, including zero transaction charges, easy payment, and offline usage.
Private sector initiatives
Club Necaxa to auction NFT for partial ownership in the club
Club Necaxa, a Mexican professional football club in Liga MX, is auctioning a non-fungible token (NFT) representing partial ownership in the club. The auction will happen on the OpenSea marketplace with a starting bid of $1.30 million.
The NFT accounts for 1% ownership in Club Necaxa. Al Tylis group, which owns a 50% stake in the club, is offering a 1% stake in the form of NFTs. Notably, Al Tylis was previously the CEO of Northstar Asset Management.
An attractive characteristic of having a stake in the club in the form of NFT is that the ownership is permanent and also transferable, implying that the percentage of ownership in the club will remain unchanged even if the equity gets diluted.
Furthermore, the owner of NFT will receive all the benefits without making any further investments in the club. Also, there is no need to offer the token to prevailing stock owners, in case an owner of the NFT wishes to sell it.
However, an owner of NFT will not have any voting rights. Notably, Tylis investors will receive 10% of the sale proceeds whenever an NFT is sold.
IBM and Nueva Pescanova partner up
IBM has joined hands with Spain’s headquartered seafood company Nueva Pescanova to track its seafood products on the IBM Food Trust platform, which uses blockchain as its core technology to facilitate a seamless, trustworthy supply chain tracking process.
The primary goal of the partnership is to guarantee the sustainability of oceans. The IBM Food Trust tracking platform documents supply chain info related to products on an almost real-time basis, including info such as catch venue, time, fish feed, and other shipping details.
By establishing a network between fisheries, distributors, and producers, the platform is expected to boost efficiency and accessibility of product info, minimize fraud and offer consumers validated provenance data.
Nueva Pescanova has already adopted the IBM Food Trust platform in its shrimp fishing (Argentina) and prawn cultivation (Ecuador) operations. IBM’s technology paves the way for fisheries to upload their catch info through satellite before reaching shore.
With respect to the blockchain platform, IBM Food Trust makes use of the enterprise-level blockchain named Hyperledger Fabric.
Jeju Air and LG CNS studying blockchain systems for the aviation sector
Korea-based low-cost airline Jeju Air and LG Corporation’s IT service subsidiary LG CNS are collaborating to study blockchain-based systems for the aviation sector.
The initial phase in the venture will provide a solution for aircraft maintenance. Guaranteeing the proper functioning of all parts in a commercial aircraft is not an easy task.
The aircraft industry is very much dependent on the reuse of aircraft parts. Therefore, assessing the maintenance history and quality is not easy and is subject to cheating with duplicate parts.
Blockchain technology-based platforms can monitor the record and utilization of aircraft parts and offer an extra layer of trust regarding the trustworthiness and security of the installed components.
Similar to a majority of blockchain systems, the successful outcome of the project depends on the effective auditing of data saved on the blockchain.
One of the main objectives of blockchain adoption in commercial aircraft parts monitoring is to make the assessment procedure cost-effective and time-efficient. The consulting company PwC assesses that the technology can minimize maintenance costs in the sector by 5%, which translates to $3.50 billion.
Disclaimer: Any financial trading analysis offered here is our opinion and is not intended as advice or direction for investors. We cannot guarantee the success of any trades made as a consequence of this article, and we encourage traders to incorporate a strong money management strategy to limit losses when they enter the markets. Please use this article as part of your own research before formulating strategies prior to trading.
