Cryptocurrency and decentralised applications will revolutionise the freelance economy

Based on job market statistics, there is an increasing number of workers choose to escape the 9to5 jobs and work as a freelancer, desired for flexible work contents they prefer, expand their business networks and grow their personal brands. Oh yeah, I have my skill and I know what I want to do, so why go on stressing myself and wasting my time going from one place to the other looking for jobs and also wasting money on transportation and at the end get nothing in return, that is like the craziest torture one can go through in this era of modern technology (speaking as a Nigerian).

Freelancing is working on a contract basis directly with clients rather than working for a particular employer (job) long-term. It is more comfortably done and at least reduces the stress of going out there submitting applications and CV without fruitful feedback. Some people say you make a little extra cash from freelancing, I think they are right but if you get the little extra cash from more than 5 clients in the space of a week or two, then that will add up to give huge extra cash. That is how is see it from my view. Becoming your own boss, creating your own job, and working independently from home is what is very attractive and interesting to the majority and could be stated has the Savior Idea to the Masses.

ADVANTAGES OF FREELANCE

One of the biggest advantages of working independently as a freelancer is gaining the freedom of choice and steering forward without any restrictions. Freelancing makes it very simple for a person to choose the type of work based on what interests and benefits them best. Freelancing empowers individuals to lead the much sought after laptop-lifestyle. It comes with immense freedom to work anytime, from anywhere in the world as long as the job is well done and on time. “For a freelancer, the most important thing is to deliver quality work and he gets to choose his location of work and has the flexibility of timing.” Freelancing allows individuals to gain access to clients beyond any geographic barriers, be it different states in the country or even overseas locations.  This helps a person stretch beyond geography and work on what rewards their skill the best. “Today the way business & people work is changing rapidly. Freelancing opens up a new world of opportunities to the global workforce”

Freelancing enables faster growth opportunities as compared to any full-time job.  It also helps to nurture great interpersonal skills and the ability to deal with different kinds of situations. This is due to the exposure one earns while working simultaneously in a variety of fields and domains and with different people. “While it's always good to excel in one subject, freelancing exposes you to various kinds of companies and domains. As a result, you learn more in say five years of freelancing than being in one or two jobs in that same period of time”

Freelancing marketplaces

Most of the freelance works are landed via outsourcing platforms like upwork.com and freelancer.com. These platforms provide the facilities for the employer to post the jobs or the employee to apply for the jobs, serving as a job information center.

The key reason why these platforms are popular is they serve as the middleman for the working contracts and the funds. They have a set of rules to collect and calculate the ratings for both the employer and employee after completed the contracts.

The main duty of these platforms is maintaining and securing the contract made between the employer and employee.

Having a middleman to execute this duty comes at prices:

1. It is inefficient especially in the payment process. It could be taking days or even weeks to withdraw the money to an overseas bank account. They charge fees for the payments and introduce a cost to both the employer and employee. The fees could be as high as 20% to work for a new client.

2. The middleman could be biased when dealing with the conflicts of the contracts.

3. They are in charge of the rules in how the rating calculated and how they are displayed. The rating is the key element for the freelancers as this is how the employer does the evaluation when making the employment, and that needs years of time to cultivate upon the platform. These rating data is owned by the platform and can’t be shared among other platforms.

THE REVOLUTION

There are three main ways that decentralized apps/Cryptocurrency promises to revolutionize the freelance economy:

• Faster and more efficient payments with cryptocurrencies
• The elimination of middleman fees.
• The use of tokens and smart contracts to give new incentives for a better overall experience

Freelance marketplace is one of the exciting fields that blockchain technology could help transform. Imagine the freelancers can independently setup smart contracts with the employers to get rewarded either in cryptocurrencies or tokens that can be vested over time.

It would be a fundamental change in how people work together since it cut through the middleman and be more flexible for working relationships.

BENEFITS OF FREELANCER

Freelancers get the full benefits mentioned below

1.     Cash in their wallets faster.

2.     Lower fees mean that they can either increase profits or reduce their rates to be more competitive.

3.     The unbanked billions can start participating in the freelancer economy.

4.     Tokenized reputation means reputation = money, and clients always have something on the line too.

5.     Less centralized control means their business and income is safer, and can’t be unfairly held, hostage.

THE MAJOR BLOCKCHAIN TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE FREELANCE WORLD

Freelance on Blockchian is a new development and Canya.io is a great project that built platforms and protocols that reaps great benefits

CanYa is a blockchain-based freelance platform that has “Decentralized payments, decentralized governance, decentralized storage, and eventually decentralized computers.” Even more ambitious and general than Upwork, digital and in-home freelancer services are available on CanYa

CanYa have the following uniqueness attached to it;

• Simplicity. You can find, book, and rate service providers.
• The CanYaCoin. A cryptocurrency that can be used to buy real-world services. (Universal Payment system)
• Trustless, decentralized escrow with a hedge against cryptocurrency volatility.
• Low fees. At around 1%, some of which goes back into rewards to encourage growth and desired user behavior.
• Handpicked Talent

What more can a freelancer be seeking? Can Ya? (CAN YOU?) If Ya Can, then you need to check out what CanYa is cooking in the kitchen. Their system has built-in mechanisms and incentives to nurture their ecosystem.

You can get on https://canya.io/ to learn more about them and see what they are offering. You can as well join their twitter and Telegram community

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Future of Ethereum Constantinople Upgrade

In order for such an outcome to occur, though, and for the split chain to persist, there must be some incentive for users to want to continue to run the older instance. In that regard, Constantinople is an upgrade that has seen widespread community support.

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Yet while largely non-contentious, Constantinople hasn’t been without its drama. Because it features a tweak to the platform’s economics – reducing the block reward from 3 ETH to 2 ETH per block – in its run-up, developers were forced to navigate the conflicting views of investors and miners, each grapplingfor a different outcome.

Because of the change, Constantinople has also been nicknamed by some as “the thirdening,” a homage to bitcoin’s regular “halving” events, by which its software programmatically reduces the amount of new supply it introduces at intervals.”

However, while the interest and the expectation is already high with some persons already monitoring the countdown, there was a news that broke about the delay in the upgrade due to critical vulnerability discovered in one of the planned changes.

News have it that Smart contract audit firm ChainSecurity flagged Tuesday that Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1283, if implemented, could provide attackers a loophole in the code to steal user funds. Speaking on a call, ethereum developers, as well as developers of clients and other projects running the network, agreed to delay the hard fork – at least temporarily – while they assessed the issue.

Discussing the vulnerability online, ethereum’s core developers reached the conclusion that it would take too long to fix the bug prior to the hard fork, which was expected to execute at around 04:00 UTC on Jan. 17.

Called a reentrancy attack, the vulnerability essentially allows an attacker to “reenter” the same function multiple times without updating the user about the state of affairs, an attacker could essentially be “withdrawing funds forever,” said Joanes Espanol, CTO of blockchain analytics firm Amberdata in a previous interview with CoinDesk.

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No room for stolen tokens to trade on Binance – CZ

A twitter user with username @ShaftedTangu made a tweet  giving evidence that stolen token from Topia exchange is been moved to exchanges including Binance. Just immediately, the CEO of Binance tweet his response about how he just checked to confirm the transaction and gave his confirmation that the funds has been frozen, explaining the importance of social media in reporting issues as such, he went further to give their commitment to freeze any of such funds if they ever again made it to Binance

Just checked, we were able to freeze some of the funds. I don’t understand why the hackers keep sending to Binance. Social media will be pretty fast to report it, and we will freeze it. It’s a high risk maneuver for them.

He further that issues such as this brings lot of work which they wish to avoid, but they will do diligently to protect users.

Praising him, a twitter user eulogized the Binance CEO for being the most trustworthy CEO in the crypto space, and he was quick to respond that “he was doing his job which he loves and enjoy so much”.

In his tweet replying to a user, he mentioned that Binance is working with many blockchain analysis provider and users should feel free to suggest more.

He further stressed in response to a user that frozen funds are taking up with law enforcement who are expected to deal with the aftermath

We work with law enforcement, hoping they will take it and deal with the aftermath.

With several hack being faced by exchanges in recent times, many wonder if all the exchanges can be as responsive as this in freezing hacked funds sent to them or do we just conclude that CZ is a working machine doing everything to top his game? We hope to read your opinions

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OKEx Perpetual Swap goes live

The OKEx perpetual swap is the initiative of the OKEx exchange officially announced December 19th, 2018. According to statement issued by the exchange on the day of the launch,

The Perpetual Swap is OKEX’s latest derivative product characterized by no expiry and delivery. At the first phase, it supports BTC with a maximum of 100x leverage. The Perpetual Swap also features mark price, tiered maintenance margin ratio system, and partial liquidation mechanism for better risk management.

In reference to the operation of the swap, the exchange issued a statement on January 8th, 2019 about a maintenance in readiness for the BTC, ETH and EOS perpetual swap

In order to enhance the liquidity of Perpetual Swap trading and improve your trading experience, we will adjust the tiered maintenance margin ratio of BTC, ETH and EOS Perpetual Swap at 08:00 Jan 8, 2019 (CET, UTC +1). After the adjustment, the maximum size available for each tier will double. We will review and increase the ratios based on the increase in Perpetual Swap trading volume in the future.

The adjustments are as follows:

BTC：

            
ETH


EOS

However, early hours of today 17th January, the exchange issues another statement announcing 100x Leverage Available for ETH & EOS Perpetual Swap

The exchange however released the following guides to help users better understand about the OKEx ETH and EOS perpetual swap

Click to view Perpetual Swap Trading Guide
Click to view Interactive Guide to Perpetual Swap
Click to download OKEx App (with Perpetual Swap trading feature)

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Will the Blockchain Be Hacked?

For a great many people who aren't knowledgeable in the realm of bitcoin and different cryptographic forms of money, computerized coins and the hidden blockchain innovation can be extremely befuddling.

Basic inquiries include: What is the blockchain? How would you make coins? How would you confirm a coin exchange? Are coins unstable?

At that point there's the battery of inquiries identified with hidden security. Come it down into a basic inquiry: you may state – can the blockchain be hacked?

We're not going to go into the entire history of digital currencies here, however at the major dimension, blockchain is a "permanent record" innovation where exchanges are confirmed and recorded through a decentralized framework.

The thought is that the blockchain holds coins and proprietorship chains all the more safely on the grounds that it is decentralized – as such, information stream happens "at the edges" of the system and is inflexibly encoded.

There's an agreement in the tech world that the individual client hubs are pretty much completely secure – that you can't hack the blockchain by straightforwardly ambushing the encoded traffic from an end hub.

Nonetheless, there are different security dangers that are being considered important by blockchain specialists – here are a portion of the manners in which that security experts are thinking about ways you can "hack the blockchain." (Learn increasingly about bitcoin and hacking in Hacking Activities Increase Along with Cryptocurrency Pricing.)

Insider Threats

Bunches of specialists are bringing up that hacking the blockchain isn't generally the consequence of outside pernicious on-screen characters endeavoring to take advantage of the framework – now and then it's an instance of terrible performers really taking control of hubs and possession stakes in a specific blockchain framework. 

A typical case of this is the "Sybil assault" – where somebody holding access to numerous hubs may trap the blockchain by setting up false characters. 

"A Sybil assault is an assault in which a colossal number of hubs on a solitary system are claimed by a similar gathering and endeavor to upset system movement through flooding the system with awful exchanges or controlling the transferring of legitimate exchanges," composes James Risberg at CoinCentral, specifying this kind of hypothetical assault. 

Nonetheless, Risberg gives a key disclaimer: that coin frameworks are set up to foresee Sybils. 

"One of the principal plan choices made when building up a cryptographic money framework is the way to avoid Sybil assaults," Risberg composes. "Bitcoin forestalls them through its confirmation of-work calculation, expecting hubs to spend assets … to get coins, in this manner making owning most by far of hubs over the top expensive. Diverse tasks handle Sybil obstruction in an unexpected way, however about all handle it." 

For sure, blockchain frameworks are developed utilizing nitty gritty evidence of-work, verification of-stake and confirmation of-possession calculations that will deal with whether specific hubs ought to be trusted, and how their information ought to be assessed. Be that as it may, as a rule, deceptive and unconfirmed support in blockchain frameworks stays one of the greatest security issues encompassing the blockchain.

The Blockchain Ecosystem

There's likewise the possibility that while the decentralized hub framework itself has rather great security, there's not as great security in the majority of the helper regions that digital currency voyages – for instance, the trade. 

"While the security of most digital forms of money stays flawless, the security of the wallets, trades, and records of outsider administrations around these cryptographic forms of money remains bizarrely awful," composes Risberg. "Tons of dollars worth of bitcoin and different cryptographic forms of money have been stolen from the traded off records of people and trades throughout the years." (Blockchain is utilized for something beyond digital forms of money – take in more in Why Data Scientists Are Falling in Love with Blockchain Technology.)

Beating the Blockchain

As the blockchain network attempts to anchor and approve blockchain frameworks, they're going to quite sensational lengths to endeavor to manage unapproved get to or mysterious movement. 

Investigate the "Byzantine commanders" designation calculation – this intriguing confirmation method depends on similitudes of the past – especially, the conjoined activities of different individual officers in fight. 

In this sort of amusement hypothesis, specialists talk about what the results are from various player decisions – officers consenting to progress or withdraw – to apply to main problems around the utilization of the blockchain. 

"In a shared framework, hubs frequently recreate information for better security, accessibility and so forth.," composes Medium client Ameya in a piece that separates this kind of methodology. "So as to imitate this information, it is imperative to put this information on extraordinary/particular hubs, with a lion's share of them being right/genuine/well-carrying on hubs. In any case, a neighborhood hub can't know whether the remote hub is straightforward or not. Also, how might a nearby hub realize that a similar remote hub isn't introducing different characters? … the focal inquiry is: without a focal expert, can a right hub set up uniqueness of personalities displayed by another remote hub? This remote hub can be [a] right/fair hub or a broken hub for example for the right working of the framework, it isn't attractive for a remote hub to have the capacity to show numerous characters." 

The paper discusses what happens when agreement isn't come to. 

From various perspectives, that is the enchantment word – agreement. Absence of agreement ruins those old commanders' designs and gets the ruler's manors consumed – and absence of accord harms blockchain members since it endangers security and questions approval. 

At last, security on the blockchain is as much about checking participation as it is fighting off the solitary programmer clicking endlessly in someone's cellar. Different instances of concerns incorporate the centralization of bitcoin mining pools in China, and different kinds of centralization issues that may identify with less advanced evidence of-proprietorship calculations. Specialists taking a gander at blockchain accord have pondered in the case of solidifying influence in the hands of a couple of rich holders may present difficulties for blockchain frameworks later on. 

In case you're stressed over blockchain security, be watchful about where your cryptographic money goes. Research sellers and trades, and make sense of how to make your very own safe pathways – and dependably watch out for instability, which is additionally a noteworthy wellspring of misfortune for financial specialists. With respect to the general idea of blockchain security, the fintech network is buckling down to build up better and better frameworks that will accomplish more to expand the speed, security and comfort of our distributed monetary exchanges in a globalized world.

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Will Cryptocurrencies become True Future of the World's Economy?

Albeit a few people say that cryptographic forms of money speak to the genuine eventual fate of the world economy, pundits contend that regardless of how huge they could be, they will dependably be kept to a web marvel. The ongoing trade markets are still tormented by numerous issues that keep them from really contending with the customary ones. Could the blockchain world still keep away from the centralization risk by concentrating on the spryness of keen application based innovations, for example, Qtum and cryptocurrency ATMs?

Cryptocurrecncy ATMs and Banking Barriers

Monetary incorporation is a major part of our reality that decides the nature of our lives. Families and organizations need fast and solid access to moderate budgetary administrations, for example, credit and protection to confront startling crises, assimilate monetary stuns, extend business, and put resources into wellbeing, training and lodging. All inclusive, 69 percent of grown-ups have a record with a monetary foundation, yet this rate drops altogether in the creating scene, implying that more than 33% of them come up short on any type of budgetary access. Advanced installments obviously are on the ascent, particularly since countless individuals have a wireless that can be utilized to keep a computerized wallet. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, portable cash account proprietorship ascended from 12 percent to 21 percent. Cryptographic forms of money are, along these lines, a possibly amazing democratizing power that can build consideration and permit quick exchanges with no delegate included, even in the most devastated locales of the world. (To take in more, look at 5 Industries That Will Be Using Blockchain Sooner Rather Than Later.)

Bitcoin ATMs may speak to the appropriate response expected to take care of the issue of managing an account boundaries. More or less, crypto ATMs work by enabling a client to namelessly trade fiat monetary forms for digital forms of money through a wireless. Rather than pulling back fiat from a Mastercard or a ledger, the client just needs a mobile phone application to examine a QR code to send and get any advanced money which can be then traded into fiat and pulled back through any of the crypto ATMs. Also, since we live in a cutting edge world that truly resembles "Futurama" somewhat increasingly consistently, soon it will be conceivable to pull back fiat anyplace whenever, since the ATM will, truly, travel to us. Another San Francisco-based startup known as MANNA Robotics has as of late built up an automaton conveyance framework that gives moment cryptocurrency ATM benefit by flying straightforwardly to clients who have asked for their administrations.

Avoiding "Tragedy of the commons and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) System. 

One reason why commentators of the computerized monetary forms guarantee their future is bound is the naturally constrained accessibility. Conventional digital forms of money, for example, bitcoin and Ethereum utilize a proof-of-work (PoW) framework to work. Initially concocted as a wellbeing measure to stop malignant employments of registering force, for example, forswearing of administration assaults and spam on a system, this calculation was later executed to keep individuals from "duping" at cryptocurrency mining activities. Since the supply of computational power is constrained, deceitful excavators are debilitated from assaulting the system since that would cost them considerably more in assets than any potential benefit.

Nonetheless, today the PoW show requires an inexorably higher vitality utilization, which transforms into costly exchange costs. In the long run, if a strategy isn't concocted to address this issue, the whole framework will prompt a potential "catastrophe of the center," a future point where such a large number of individuals will seek similar assets (for this situation the cryptocoins). At the point when this occurs, the quantity of excavators will be altogether diminished since the square reward for mining will be negligible. As a result, at whatever point a mineworker controls 51 percent of the computational intensity of the system, he could begin making deceitful squares of exchanges for himself.

One arrangement that has been conceived to address this issue is the confirmation of-stake (PoS) framework. Following this methodology, a person's mining power is straightforwardly connected to the measure of coins the individual claims. A PoS framework replaces the computational power and vitality required by PoW with simply stake. Following the above precedent, the mineworker who has a 51 percent stake in a cryptocurrency will never assault the system since it would be against his very own advantages since he's the greater part investor.

So it might be sensibly contended that PoS-based digital forms of money speak to the eventual fate of blockchain, yet not very many of them have figured out how to productively actualize this framework up until this point. Among these, the one that appears to hold the greatest potential is Qtum, a keen contract stage which is centered around portable improvement programming. Initially intended to be an extension among Ethereum and bitcoin, Qtum combined Bitcoin Core foundation with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It goes about as a half breed esteem exchange convention that acquires the unwavering quality of bitcoin's protected blockchain, yet in addition has the adaptability to help brilliant contracts and dapps. Qtum additionally hopes to fathom one of the greatest inborn breaking points of Ethereum: the requirement for the grouping to start from within the blockchain itself. Qtum will enable outer triggers to be utilized from outside the blockchain to start contracts through "ace contracts," giving it the flexibility to be substantially more consistent with certifiable circumstances. In the event that Qtum can hold its guarantees and its showcasing effort is fruitful, it truly appears as though it could possibly turn into a cryptocurrency that can contend with conventional ones. Different PoS-based cryptos, for example, Dash or Neo are additionally accessible, yet nobody else appears to extremely offer whatever looks at to Qtum as far as turning into a substitute of customary monetary standards.

That's, indeed, on the off chance that we guess that cryptographic forms of money can extremely substitute conventional monetary forms. Be that as it may, at any rate, the broad usage of PoS cryptos can dissipate the across the board dread of an asset emergency.

Big Firms now Enters in the Market - Is the Decentralization of Dream Dead Already

It wouldn't have been long until the biggest players of the monetary world would focus on advanced monetary forms. A study from Thomson Reuters that included more than 400 accomplices found that just about 70 percent of the greatest corporate mammoths, for example, Eikon, Goldman Sachs and REDI plan to begin exchanging cryptographic forms of money before the finish of 2018. They need to set up a toehold in what speaks to a little yet critical bit of the cutting edge exchanging market. Furthermore, regardless of whether their ventures may appear to be constrained, when a 100-year-old bank chooses to oblige cryptographic forms of money, the choice has a strong emblematic importance.

The primary arrangement of caution signals demonstrate how cryptographic forms of money could be crashed by the world's national banks. On the off chance that the biggest budgetary organizations begin issuing their very own cryptos, the entire thought of "decentralized" may turn out to be only another marvelous air pocket, destined to barge in due time. Some contend that the decentralization dream is dead as of now, in any case. Today, just a predetermined number of mining pools have the computational power and hash rate expected to mine the bitcoins, to the point that these couple of associations control practically a large portion of the whole market. Systems are giving their capacity to the excavators, who are incorporating the crypto advertise similarly national banks strangulated the customary one.

Then again, if the exceptionally dubious bitcoin trade exchanged reserve (ETF) gets endorsed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), individuals could at long last to get tied up with bitcoin without managing perilous and precarious ongoing trade markets. A great many people are, truth be told, kept out of the blockchain advertise on the grounds that they need to battle with trades where the absence of security and high exchanging expenses are the greatest concerns. That is not including how much these business sectors are tormented by the unwieldy directions forced by countries that still neglect to move with the deftness required by the advanced world. What's more, the biggest crypto trades don't bolster fiat money, compelling brokers to confront extra downtime and costs as they should initially purchase BTC/ETH from a "door" trade. Be that as it may, once more, would the endorsement of the ETF, whose general thought could give the cost of the Bitcoin a chance to soar in July, truly be valuable for the eventual fate of cryptographic forms of money? Or on the other hand, would it simply drive the computerized coins into the bringing together hands of a couple of world-controlling elements? (To take in more about the clouded side of cryptocurrency, see Hacking Activities Increase Along with Cryptocurrency Pricing.)

Conclusion

Right now, it is difficult to make any expectation about the long haul fate of cryptos. Perhaps the aggregate long for a world free from individual obligation was somewhat implausible, however regardless they hold much guarantee. A portion of their characteristic points of confinement might be survived, however regardless of whether a portion of the new arrangements proposed appear to be strong, the eventual fate of computerized coins additionally relies upon how the conventional money related world will respond, and how the world's administrations will deal with them. And keeping in mind that we can discuss innovation throughout the day here, this is unquestionably not the opportune place to discuss governmental issues!

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Why Colombia Has Become a Hotspot for Bitcoin ATMs

American ATM network Athena Bitcoin is continuing its aggressive expansion in Latin America, with now 17 ATMs in five cities in Colombia. The company is sure the ATMs are a good investment but news.Bitcoin.com spoke to Colombians who were, if anything, baffled by the new machines. 

Venezuelans the Biggest Users

Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellin, saw its third bitcoin ATM installed this month, bringing the total number of machines in the country up to 17. The latest in Medellin is not fully funcional just yet but the Midwest US-based cryptocurrency ATM network Athena Bitcoin told news.Bitcoin.com that there had been “a really good reaction” to the ATMs throughout the South American country.

But just who are using the machines? According to Athena, Venezuelans in Colombia are the biggest users of the ATMs, followed closely by freelancers working in tech or marketing. Athena’s Latin America director, Matias Goldenhörn, said: “There’s more volume – more transactions and more people using cryptocurrencies for everyday things – in Colombia, though it’s picking up across the region.”

“There are a lot of freelancers in Colombia who receive their payments in bitcoin and they use our ATMs to get their money in fiat and then there are people sending remittances to Venezuela are using them. Those are the two main users we have now in Colombia.”

The machines, which support bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum (ETH), have sprouted up in Colombia’s five largest cities. The company plans to also open one in the border town of Cucuta, a hotspot for the thousands of Venezuelans now crossing into the country every day.

Athena also has opened one ATM in Argentina, one in Mexico and another in Chile. Colombia has seen the biggest investment because people are more open to cryptos here – and in neighboring Venezuela – than in other Latin American nations, according to the company.

Bafflement and Intrigue

Athena’s ATMs are designed to allow users to purchase cryptocurrency without a bank account, debit card or credit card. There are close to 70 scattered across the US and the company promises people can buy cryptocurrency from the machines in as little as 90 seconds with an appropriate crypto wallet on their smartphone.

Other than tech-savvy freelancers or Venezuelans using the ATMs and crypto to deal with an economic crisis after fleeing their home country, others seemed confused, albeit intrigued, with the new ATM in Medellin. Writer and journalist, Julian Tabares, 26, said: “I think there are a lot of people in the city that have heard about Bitcoin, but we don’t really know how exactly it works. Some say it’s a bubble and I’m not sure how I would work the ATM.” 

While 23-year-old student Natalia Hernandez said: “It looks incredible to me, like really futuristic. I’ve read a bit about the technology and it sounds interesting – but I’ve no idea what that machine does.”

And mother-of-four, Alicia Restrepo, 60, said: “I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what cryptocurrencies are. I’ve heard people talk about them, though.”

Others who spoke to news.Bitcoin.com were confused, disinterested or keen to learn more. A number were enthusiastic and said they’d research crypto after it was explained what it could do for them.

The potential in Latin America is therefore huge, Athena said. “Latin America has a high number of people who are unbanked or under-banked,” Goldenhörn told news.Bitcoin.com. “Around 70 percent. And there is a huge smartphone penetration, too, which makes a good case for using crypto.”

“Based on the success we’ve had, we’re trying to raise $15 million and we’re in the middle of the round to continue accelerating the Latin America dispatch, to deploy hundreds of ATMs in the region.”

Source: news.bitcoin.com

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