Category: Worldwide

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Banking CBDCs Crypto News Payments Worldwide

Study Postulates: Nearly 45% of Consumers Around the World Will Use Crypto for Payments by 2023

According to a report on worldwide payments by the Capgemini Research Institute, the global leader in independent analysis, the payment industry “faces intensifying, multi-dimensional disruption” with next-gen payment methods like cryptocurrency increasing to 45 percent usage within the next two years.

Capgemini surveyed customers and industry stakeholders to provide an overview of the current global payments landscape. The research team analysed statistics from the Bank of International Settlements, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other central banks.

The report details how payment networks aim to become faster and more cost-effective. Capgemini predicts nearly 45 percent of customers will use the cryptocurrency payment method within the next one to two years due to the growing need for cross-border payments in addition to concerns about high transaction fees.

Newfound Payment Technology Drives Regulators to Mitigate Risk

The study states that the outlook for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins is “hazy”, citing the mixed reactions to crypto assets by governments and regulators around the world.

According to the report, regulators are focused on Key Regulatory and Industry Initiatives (KRIIs), which recently have been centred on customer protection and risk mitigation for new payment methods. The nature of cryptocurrency means there are very low barriers to entry – anyone, knowledgeable or not, can use the technology, creating a potential financial risk to novices as well as exposure to illicit financial activity.

Capgemini reported that Russia, India and the United Arab Emirates see potential in the adoption and regulation of crypto assets and stablecoins. Meanwhile, the study also noted other countries such as China and Egypt have moved to ban crypto assets due to the rising risk of illicit transactions.

CBDCs as an Alternative to Private Cryptocurrencies

Central banks want to leverage blockchain technology such as smart contracts in order to better manage monetary policy functions like money supply, interest rates, and direct stimulus payments to individuals. Therefore CBDCs have become a trending topic for banks and regulators alike.

CBDCs aim to facilitate frictionless payments and create a gateway for the unbanked to join the digital economy as the payments landscape evolves. Considering the potential benefits of CBDCs, several central banks have started experimenting with the technology.

Currently, the main challenges for CBDCs are that the ecosystem requires collaboration with payment infrastructure companies and various other entities. With the current hype and speculation, it’s important that the necessary action is taken with regards to “implementation, migration, tax structures, settlement speed, governing regulation, integration of players, and checks and controls”.

If introduced, retail CBDCs should be developed and implemented through public/private sector collaboration from the start to ensure that deployment complements other payment methods and leverages payment service providers’ expertise, market knowledge, and customer relationships.

Etienne Goosse, director general, European Payments Council, Belgium

It may yet take years for the CBDC concept to transition to reality, according to the Capgemini study:

It’s too soon to count on nascent central bank digital currency (CBDC) as an alternative to unregulated cryptocurrencies or an additional pathway to financial inclusion.

Capgemini Research Institute

Crypto Credit Cards Spurring Adoption

Currently, major names including PayPal, Yum brands and Coca-Cola accept payments in crypto, but a major driving factor is crypto-linked cards “fuelled by global card player initiatives to create a fertile crypto-payment ecosystem”.

Cryptocurrency market volatility indicates a lack of maturity. Still, crypto-linked cards are taking the lead in the crypto-payments space.

Capgemini Research Institute
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Blockchain CBDCs Crypto News Payments Stablecoins Worldwide

Visa Aims to be the Bridge Connecting International CBDC Blockchains

Visa has unveiled a paper outlining the development of a protocol to make cross-border payments with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins from any blockchain connected to the network.

According to a post by the payment colossus, the company is in the midst of developing a protocol to send digital currencies between blockchains in order to operate as a “universal payment channel” (UPC). This dedicated payment channel will connect CBDC networks between countries, as well as linking CBDCs with private stablecoin networks.

The Visa research team originally began working on the UPC concept in 2018, developing an interoperability framework that would run independently of the underlying blockchain mechanisms.

Catherine Gu, global CBDC product lead at Visa, stated that the key problem it was looking to solve is that of interoperability, to “get different digital currencies, relying on different tech stacks and protocols, with different compliance standards and market requirements to ‘talk’ to each other in a wider network of value”.

VISA’s Universal Payment Channel (UPC).

This is a much longer-term future thinking concept around a way that Visa could potentially help become a bridge between one digital currency on one blockchain and another digital currency on another blockchain.

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto

The Future of Blockchain is Interoperable

The paper developed by Visa’s R&D team posits the UPC as a hub interconnecting multiple blockchain networks and allowing for secure transfer of digital currencies. The point of the hub is to allow central banks, businesses and consumers to seamlessly exchange value, no matter the form factor of the currency. 

We believe that for CBDCs to be successful, they must have two essential ingredients: a great consumer experience and widespread merchant acceptance. It means the ability to make and receive payments, regardless of currency, channel, or form factor. That’s where Visa’s UPC concept comes in.

Catherine Gu, global CBDC product lead, Visa

Visa highlights the need for a UPC due to the large number of digital currencies and the necessity for a common network. The UPC’s specialised payment channels would be established off the blockchain and leverage smart contracts to communicate with the various blockchain networks. This is done to deliver high transaction throughput securely and reliably while improving overall speeds. 

Due to this gap, Visa has openly shared how the mechanics of the UPC will work, along with policy guidelines for central banks and regulators on the implication of this research.

In December 2020, Visa partnered with Circle to connect its merchants with Ethereum-based US Dollar Coins. Various other blockchain projects are also working to solve the interoperability issue.

Why CBDCs Need Cross-Chain Interoperability

Over the past two years many central banks around the world have been exploring CBDCs, a digital form of central bank money that can be used directly by consumers, merchants and financial institutions.

Imagine a world where everyone at the table is using a different type of money – some using a central bank digital currency (or CBDC) like Sweden’s eKrona, others preferring a private stablecoin like USDC […] now imagine all this happening in real-time, across multiple networks, and compatible with multiple digital wallets. 

VISA

In order to process a payment with various currencies, there needs to be a layer where all wallets and protocols can communicate with each other before processing the payment for the merchant. As part of developing the UPC concept, Visa has deployed its first-ever sample smart contract on Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet. The smart contract shows a payment channel that accepts both ether (ETH) and the USDC stablecoin.

What concerns many blockchain supporters is the idea of having a centralised node authorising transactions. However, the Visa paper states that “clients register with a UPC hub to route their transactions to other clients. Note that this routing requires zero trust to be placed on the UPC hub (the UPC hub does not need to be trusted like a central intermediary).” 

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CBDCs Crypto News Regulation Worldwide

IMF Recommends Standards for CBDCs and Crypto to ‘Ensure Financial Stability’

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released a set of policy recommendations for crypto regulation to stave off financial stability challenges amid the global adoption of crypto.

As rightly stated in the IMF blog, “As crypto assets take hold, regulators need to step up.” As the use of blockchain and volume in the crypto industry increase, there have been pleas for more regulation to act as a guiding light for individuals and companies in the space.

The total market value of all crypto assets surpassed US$2 trillion as of September 2021, a tenfold increase since early 2020. Stablecoin supply in particular has quadrupled throughout 2021 to reach US$120 billion.

As ecosystems fill up with more decentralised exchanges (DEXs), wallets, and a plethora of dApps, it seems crypto assets are seeping into the mainstream. The use of this new technology has many benefits as far as innovative financial services go, but as the impacts and risks on financial stability and wider economy become apparent, bridges need to be built to protect consumers.

Cryptoisation is much like dollarisation, where residents start using crypto assets instead of the local currency. This phenomenon can reduce the ability of central banks to effectively implement monetary policy. It could also create financial stability risks, such as through funding and solvency risks arising from currency mismatches. Increased demand for crypto assets could also facilitate capital outflows that impact the foreign exchange market.

Policymakers should implement global standards for crypto assets and enhance their ability to monitor the crypto ecosystem by addressing data gaps. Emerging markets faced with cryptoisation risks should strengthen macroeconomic policies and consider the benefits of issuing central bank digital currencies.

IMF

IMF Policy Recommendations

In the document curated by the IMF, one of the main points is that regulators and supervisors need to monitor developments in the fast-evolving crypto ecosystem, with the ability for “cross-border coordination to minimise the risks of regulatory arbitrage and ensure effective supervision and enforcement”.

On a national level, regulators also need to prioritise the implementation of global standards. However, at the moment they are mainly focused on money laundering and proposals regarding bank exposures. These need to be extended to “areas such as securities regulation, as well as payments, clearing and settlements may also be applicable and need attention”.

In developing countries, “cryptoisation can be driven by weak central bank credibility, vulnerable banking systems, inefficiencies in payment systems and limited access to financial services”; this inadvertently leads to the use of digital assets and DeFi, due to low barriers for entry and use.

IMF

The decentralised finance (DeFi) sector grew from US$15 billion at the end of 2020 to about $110 billion as of September 2021, with the lion’s share of volume coming from countries with historically the largest institutional and professional markets.

Authorities should prioritise strengthening macroeconomic policies and consider the benefits of issuing central bank digital currencies and improving payment systems. CBDCs may help reduce cryptoisation pressures if they help satisfy a need for better payment technologies.

IMF

In addition to CBDC implementation, de-dollarisation policies will help governments tackle macro-financial risks, and as the role of stablecoins grows, regulations should be proportionate to the risks they pose and the economic functions they serve.

Since the development of blockchain and related technologies doesn’t seem to be slowing down, regulators need to act swiftly to address vulnerabilities to ensure users’ safety.

Digital Assets Comparable to Mainstream Benchmarks

Three years of IMF data suggests that risk-adjusted returns of non-stablecoin crypto assets like Bitcoin are comparable to other mainstream benchmarks such as the S&P 500.

IMF

During the past three years, an exceptional amount of money has flown into digital assets, both creating and destroying wealth. As adoption increases, more people are exposed to these technologies and their exponential growth could have major consequences.

The IMF report stated that “financial stability risks are not yet systemic, but risks should be closely monitored given the global implications and the inadequate operational and regulatory frameworks in most jurisdictions”.

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Australia Bitcoin Economics Ethereum Gold Markets Worldwide

‘Rich Dad’ Author Robert Kiyosaki Warns of Global Financial Crash Looming

Author Robert Kiyosaki has been outspoken on Twitter, expressing his take on the current economic situation, America’s leadership, and a fear that the world is headed for “the biggest crash in world history”. He urges citizens to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold, and silver.

Concerns over US spending and approval of a monumental stimulus package are driving fear and uncertainty over the value of a dollar. Inflation is looming as the US continues to enter money into circulation. Bitcoin and other cryptos are gaining value, while the US Dollar (USD) continues to lose.

In a video posted to YouTube, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad expresses his views on the current world economy, his disapproval of US monetary policy, and the benefits of crypto.

US Dollar is Losing Its Purchasing Power – Buy Bitcoin

Since 1900, the USD has lost about 97 percent of its purchasing power. This means that whatever used to cost US$1 now costs US$31 – keep in mind that inflation affects this estimate.  

The US recently approved a stimulus package to the value of US$1.9 trillion, which suggests that the purchasing power of the USD against bitcoin may decline even further. When comparing the USD price against the Satoshi, which is 100 millionths of a bitcoin, it appears that since the inception of BTC the USD is losing up to 99 percent of its purchasing value each year. The US$1,400 stimulus cheque that the US Government is handing out to every citizen is likely to continue this trend.

Australia Is Turning to Crypto

The worrying US economic situation is being observed all over the world, and Australia is feeling it too. Many Australians are turning to crypto as wages fail to keep up with the consumer price index (CPI), the cost of living continues to increase, and job insecurity is at an all-time high.

Figures from Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that the CPI has been rising consistently over the past 10 years.

The Australian CPI quarterly change. Source: ABS

The number of Australians turning to crypto to become financially free is on the rise, keeping pace with the demand for workers to be paid in crypto and millennials turning away from traditional avenues of investing, such as property, instead opting for crypto.

Take Note from Venezuela

Venezuela is a prime example of what happens when hyperinflation sets in. The Latin American country’s currency, the bolívar, is the world’s weakest and literally no longer worth the paper it is printed on. Creative artists have instead started turning the notes into bags and wallets, which they can sell for more than the currency is worth.

Venezuela is now ranked third in terms of bitcoin adoption and joins many Latin American countries to take the crypto route. Extremely high levels of inflation are forcing nations to turn to crypto as their native currencies continue to lose purchasing power.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Regulation Worldwide

El Salvador Becomes The First Country To Adopt Bitcoin As Legal Tender

Bitcoiners have long speculated as to which country would be first. Few would have suspected that it would be El Salvador, a small Central American country with a population of 6.4 million and GDP roughly equivalent to Polkadot’s market cap of approximately US$25 billion.

The news came on Saturday at the Bitcoin 2021 conference as Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, announced via prerecorded video that he would be submitting a bill to Congress that would effectively treat Bitcoin as legal tender. Bukele also showed support of Bitcoin by updating his Twitter profile image with laser eyes.

Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador
Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador

Although not officially law as of yet, given that Bukele enjoys a supermajority in Congress, it is expected that the bill should pass with little difficulty. Bukele cited financial inclusion to the bankless and job creation as part of the bill’s motivation. With the US dollar as his nation’s currency, he went further in saying:

 Central banks are increasingly taking actions that may cause harm to the economic stability of El Salvador. In order to mitigate the negative impact from central banks, it becomes necessary to authorise the circulation of a digital currency with a supply that cannot be controlled by any central bank and is only altered in accord with objective and calculable criteria.

El Salvador to Use Bitcoin Lightning Payments

Jack Mallers, CEO of Zap and Strike, a payments app built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, noted that he would be working with the president to implement a plan to help provide relief to the 70 percent of the population who don’t have access to banks. Going further into Bitcoin’s benefits within the context of international remittances, Mallers noted:

Over 6 billion dollars a year are transmitted in remittances and a big chunk of those money transfers are currently lost to intermediaries. We want to make cross-border payments free and solve the remittance problem for places that need it the most.

Jack Mallers, CEO Zap and Strike

If passed, the bill would result in El Salvador becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender and the first government to hold it as a reserve asset.

The inflation rate in Argentina rose to 42.6% recently; could we see it follow suit?

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Crypto News NFTs Worldwide

Emoji Usernames Could Become New Internet Identity System

Y.at is making unique identities through using emoji strings that can be connected to everything that’s connected to you.

“Your Yat is your @ for the whole internet”, is the slogan for Y.at, the project that aims to make personalised emoji usernames that could become your universal internet identity and much more. For example, instead of coffeequeen98 or *insert generic email here*, you could be known as 🤖👻👑.

When you own a Yat, it’s yours forever. You own that specific sequence of emojis and that is your unique identifier, since they’ll never mint another like that again.

YAT Examples

Yat Can Be Used for More Than Just Socials

Your Yat can be linked to other services like payment apps, storage locations, or you can make a Yat Link Page that has everything you want inked to you in one place – send and recieve money, chat or build a website.

One of the aims for Yats is to be used instead of long crypto addresses which can increase user experience as well easing the process complex validating and testing efforts to authenticate a crypto address.

The possibilities are endless with Yat. You can receive payments, use it on your socials, and eventually much more. Your Yat can be used as a link like this: https://y.at/🌊🔱🌴 (click it to see it!) and automatically redirect visitors to any website you want.

Y.at

How They’re Made Unique

A Yat’s Generation indicates the time period in which it was created. People on the waitlist are Gen 0 and every year generation increases with one. The other is Rhythm score, is a number between 1 and 100, determined by: length, popularity, and pattern. The higher the Rhythm Score, the more rare a Yat is, and the more in demand it may be.

Our mission is for Yats to become the best, and most expressive censorship resistant, self-directed, self sovereign identity system ever. We care deeply about privacy as a basic human right, and internet freedom.

Y.at

They are in the process of developing an oracle service so that Yats can be issued as NFTs on EVM compatible chains such as Ethereum or BSC, aiming to become fully decentralised in the near future.

Having a Yat can help privacy by not giving away any unique identifiers and having the extra bonus of an identifier that expresses you. However, this could cause a problem with unwanted sites or portals that would be avoided by checking a more traditional URL.

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Crypto News Dogecoin NFTs Sports Worldwide

Crypto.com to Launch an NFT Platform Featuring Celebrities in Music and Sports

Crypto.com to Launch an NFT Platform Featuring Celebrities in Music, Sports

Popular digital currency exchange and trading platform, Crypto.com is venturing into the non-fungible token (NFT) market. 

The exchange announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a NFT marketplace, which will exclusively feature content from celebrities in different industries, including sports and music. Noteworthily, this follows the growing interest and boom in the NFT market.

Crypto.com Collaborates with Snoop Dogg, Aston Martin, and Others

The Crypto.com NFT marketplace is launching this Friday as an invite-only platform, per the announcement. It’s basically aimed at delivering unique and compelling content. Hence, the exchange partnered with celebrities in sports, athletics, music, and art for the inaugural contents on the soon-to-launch NFT marketplace. 

The partners include Snoop Dogg, Aston Martin Cognizant Formula OneTM, Klarens Malluta with Lionel Richie, Axel Mansoor, Bag Raiders, BossLogic, and many others. The crypto exchange intends to collaborate with more mainstream artists in the coming weeks. 

First F1 Team to Join the NFT Market

The partnership with Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team comes as they are planning to return to F1 racing after 60 years.

We’re excited to be the first Formula 1 team to offer a new way for our fans to own a piece of our history. The collection of NFTs we’re making available capture the very first moments of our return to F1 after more than six decades

Jefferson Slack, Managing Director at Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team.

Meanwhile, Crypto.com noted in the announcement that the NFT platform would be open to both users and non-users of the exchange. Among other things, the platform will allow collectors or the celebrities’ supporters to purchase or sell their NFTs using over 20 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE).

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Bitcoin Crypto News Scams Worldwide

Man Loses $700,000 in Fake Elon Musk Crypto Scam

A man from Germany has fallen victim to a Bitcoin scam, losing over AU$700,000 to a fake Elon Musk giveaway.

Sebastian (not his real name) said that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, tweeted, “Dojo 4 Doge” and was curious about what he meant as Musk often tweets about crypto. Apparently, under the tweet, there was a link to an event that was giving away Bitcoin, which Sebastian clicked on.

Seemingly run by Musk’s Tesla team, the so-called giveaway invited people to send anything from 0.1 Bitcoin (AU$7,700) to 20 Bitcoin (AU$1.5 million) with the promise of sending back double the amount, reports the UK’s BBC News. A common impersonation scam which we’ve covered in our Bitcoin Scams Guide.

“It Was a Big Fake”

Believing he was on to a good thing, Sebastian sent 10 Bitcoin, amounting to over AU$700,000. For the next 20 minutes, Sebastian waited for his Bitcoin wallet’s value to increase.

It was only after the countdown ended that Sebastian realized he’d been scammed. He said:

I realized then that it was a big fake. I threw my head on to the sofa cushions and my heart was beating so hard. I thought I’d just thrown away the gamechanger for my family, my early retirement fund and all the upcoming holidays with my kids.

Even though he tried to get his money back, he finally accepted he wasn’t going to see it again.

Crypto Scams Soar

In recent years, crypto scams have risen targeting unsuspecting people with false promises that they can earn more if they just give a little. According to data from Chainalysis, scams made up the majority of all crypto-related criminal activity at 54%, in 2020, representing AU$3.35 billion.

Value received by illicit services monthly 2020 [source: Chainalysis]

Fake crypto giveaways are also gaining traction and often target high-profile pages in the hopes that they will trick people into thinking it’s real. They either achieve this by disguising the account to look like the real one or hacking into the account. Musk is one figure who has been used before.

However, it was in 2020 when hackers managed to steal AU$153,000 after a short-lived hack enabled them to tweet from celebrity accounts, including Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian-West.

Unfortunately, with interest in crypto continuing to rise amid increasing prices, crypto scams are going to remain. Speaking on this, Whale Alert founder Frank van Weert, said:

When the Bitcoin price goes up, people go crazy and a lot of them are new to the market and they want this idea of quick money.

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Crypto Trackers Cryptocurrencies Ethereum Investing Markets Stablecoins Tether Worldwide

Crypto Market Cap Hits One Trillion US Dollars

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has reached one trillion US dollars for the first time in history, according to data from the leading crypto statistics site Coinmarketcap.com.

Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have seen exponential gains over the past few months, both rising by over 300% since November. Some smaller cap crypto assets and digital tokens like Chainlink (LINK), Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT) have enjoyed similar price rallies.

Bitcoin’s market valuation recently catapulted to $650 billion, overtaking major US investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, with a $533 billion market cap. Berkshire Hathaway was acquired and reformed in the 70s by iconic investor Warren Buffet, who remains its chairman and CEO to this day. Buffett has historically been very vocal about his dislike of cryptocurrencies, once famously calling Bitcoin “rat poison squared”. 

Despite Bitcoin being the best performing asset of the past decade by a large degree, Buffett continues to discount its worth, insisting that it has no value and is purely speculative. However, several major tech firms and financial institutions disagree, such as 170-year-old Mass Mutual which recently bought up $100 million worth of Bitcoin. A small amount compared to the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, Grayscale, with over $20 billion invested in crypto assets.

Image from Howmuch.net
Image from Howmuch.net

Criticism

Naturally, the extreme gains mean the cryptocurrency market has once again come under fire from critics who believe that asset prices are being manipulated. As with the previous 2017 rally, many critics believe that USDT tokens printed by stablecoin company Tether are being used to artificially prop up the cryptocurrency market – much like the US Federal Reserve props up traditional stock markets with seemingly endless USD issuance.

The concerns are not without merit, especially considering Tether’s continued reluctance to prove that it’s USDT tokens are fully backed by genuine dollar reserves. Tether has been minting millions of dollars in USDT tokens lately, presumably to meet the demand of consumers cashing out their Bitcoin profits or buying USDT as a digital onramp to the crypto world. Without clear and transparent auditing of this issuance, it’s fair to say the situation has the potential for abuse and manipulation.

One argument that challenges this theory is PlanB’s Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, which has accurately tracked the price movements of the BTC/USD trading pair over several years. The model reveals how the price of Bitcoin closely follows a set pattern dictated not by buyers or sellers but rather scarcity created by the algorithm which halves the BTC mining reward every 210,000 blocks. Price movements from the very first Bitcoin halving in late 2012 – long before Tether started printing in 2015 – correlate with Plan B’s stock-to-flow model. This suggests that the current price rally and the one following the previous 2016 halving are simply a result of Bitcoin’s coding rather than any external manipulation.

Image from PlanB (@100trillionUSD) on Twitter
Image from PlanB (@100trillionUSD) on Twitter
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Blockchain Crypto News Industries Worldwide

Blockchain solution SIMBA May Become A Strategic Solution For The USA And Its Partners

Two weeks ago, Australia’s Flinders University and SIMBA Chain grew closer via an MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) targeting future research.

At the time of signing, the lead executive at SIMBA stated that, as a platform built by the University of Notre Dame and ITAMCO, SIMBA would like to help not just the USA, but it’s strategic partners in NATO and The Five Eyes as well.

Boeing Beaten By Blockchain

Following their participation in the Advanced Manufacturing Olympics that took place between the 20th and 23rd of October – a competition held by the US Department of Defense as a way to find innovative solutions for military manufacturing and communications – SIMBA won first place in one of the technical challenges.

Taking home USD 100,000 – and beating Boeing and Stratasys – SIMBA focused on blockchain-secured communication networks between fictional factories producing wartime material.

The challenge required competitors to find more efficient ways of getting supplies to soldiers and paramedics fighting on a fictional island under siege.

Joel Neidig – the CEO of SIMBA – explained the approach taken by SIMBA and what differentiated his company from the competition.

“We […] had six days to put together an entire war games solution to deliver critical parts to a battlefront, keep field hospitals operational and infrastructure like runways intact. What was different about our approach was how we met both the physical challenges of war fighters as well as the cyber threats that are playing a growing role in modern warfare.”

Using blockchain as a way to guarantee quality standards in 3D printing and mining – as well as guaranteeing against tampering with the materials in transit, sabotaging the war effort – SIMBA stood out and proved once again the many qualities of blockchain.