• Fairness and efficiency: a desire to see transferring money more like sending a text message — instantaneous and low cost to all, and not something that often takes days and costs greater than 10% in middleman fees for those who can least afford it.

• Privacy: it seems not a day goes by that yet another privacy destroying cyber exploit or revelation of an abuse of trust is revealed. Blockchain technology can protect individuals from predatory practices and help us take control of our personal data and financial information.

• Open access: over a billion people around the world do not have a bank account, including a significant percentage of citizens in developed countries (over 5% of Americans lack a bank account). To use bitcoin you do not need to first apply and gain approval from a gatekeeper like you do to open a bank account. Anyone with a computer and internet connection can access crypto.

• Democratizing finance: small investors in many countries have traditionally lacked access to financial services and opportunities available to the wealthy (e.g. overly restrictive accredited investor rules). Crypto is helping to level the playing field. In a world of rapidly rising consumer prices and seemingly out of reach home ownership, we believe strongly that crypto can help address the sense of despair many younger people in particular feel around their financial future.

In the US, crypto has always been an “easy sell,” as it were, to the end of the political spectrum that favors a more deregulatory and free market approach, but recent legislation in both the Senate and House had support from both Democrats and Republicans at introduction, a surefire sign that any perceived partisan gaps around crypto are beginning to close.

Even some officials within the Biden Administration (which many perceive as anti-crypto) have begun to draw subtle but important distinctions, with Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo saying that his agency’s focus is on “the illicit use of” cryptocurrencies, not debates about the legitimacy cryptocurrencies themselves. He also told a November conference that “digital assets are yet another innovation with the potential to be transformative…they offer the potential to unlock new opportunities,” and that Treasury’s goal is to “…create a regulatory environment that fosters responsible innovation.”

In sum, increased fairness and transparency of our money and financial system is a goal that is shared by more people, and not surprisingly more policymakers across the political spectrum are coming to support crypto.

Summary:

Market Movements In January crypto sold-off alongside other asset classes, with Bitcoin (BTC) down -17% and Ethereum (ETH) down -27% As we are set to publish crypto has rallied strongly to start February, with bitcoin recouping almost all of its January loss There is some evidence that the frost that set on crypto markets these past few months is abating 2. On-Chain Insights

The continuing increase in bitcoin’s estimated hash rate despite another monthly bitcoin price decline speaks to the medium-term price confidence of bitcoin miners and the availability of economically attractive sources of energy Overall bitcoin on-chain payments, transaction activity, and fees continued decreasing in the month of January 3. What we’re reading, hearing, and watching

Bitcoin Magazine, Bloomberg, NY Times, and more

Thanks for being here! One month equals to eternity in the crypto space, so we’re here to help you remember. What a busy month we have behind our back (yet again). To make things easier for you to digest, we decided to launch this Monthly Recap series. At the end of each month, we’ll give you a brief overview of everything newsworthy that happened to and on our platform.

So let’s get scrolling, see what we’ve been through in the past 30–31 days, and help us by sharing this post with someone!

In the last few months Next Earth wasn’t progressing as expected. Reason for it is that too many things came at once, and we wanted to deal with everything. Like a tree growing too fast, with too many branches… So we need to cut the unnecessary branches, because even though it looks good, overall it makes things move slower, and that is not good strategically.

• IT had to be restructured. CodeCluster and Limitless got a little overwhelmed with too far away things, thus dividing focus, and directions, that had to be put to place

• We terminated the contract with CodeCluster and Limitless, so Next Earth can be free again, since it felt like it was chained down, and guided by other incentives that came from outside — the fund will still be created, (no money was lost) but much more Next Earth and Metaverse focused, and clearly controlled by Next Earth alone.

• New Roadmap will be announced in two weeks from now with more details

  • Iomob — Next Earth and Iomob are an exceptionally good match and use case. The development of methods to visualize and experience sustainable journeys within Next Earth fits perfectly with the natural evolution that defines our environment. This is a great next step for our company’s platform and evolution.

  “We are working alongside Next Earth to create the transportation infrastructure that enables a more exciting, purposeful and immersive way to traverse the planet,” said Boyd Cohen, CEO of Iomob. “Airlines are actively strategizing about how to bring their presence into the Metaverse, so extending our relationship with Vueling Airlines to augment their Web3 bookings is a fantastic initiative for everyone.”

  • Vueling — The third member of the partnership has become the socially responsible Vueling Airlines. 32 million passengers in 2019, and the very first airline to join the metaverse, thanks to us. Under the new partnership, these companies will work together to develop tools and services that allow Next Earthians to visualize and plan real-world journeys. From now on, users will be able to track carbon emissions and book “carbon positive” transport through the Metaverse and Iomob companion app.

  “Visualizing real-world journeys and the carbon footprint for each leg and using a Metaverse interface to select and book the least environmentally harmful trip has never been done before.” — Jesus Monzo, Distribution Strategy and Alliances Manager of Vueling added.