Month: November 2020

According to an SEC filing, Ripple is selling approximately one-third of its MoneyGram shares.

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Ripple is selling about a third of its stake in remittance giant MoneyGram. All of this, according to a document released Friday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

It should be noted that this is his first sale of shares since he invested in MoneyGram in 2019.

According to the document, on November 25, Ripple Labs entered into an agreement with MoneyGram. Basically, under which it has the right to sell up to 4 million shares.

This option will expire on 31 March 2021. The date on which the maximum amount will have been sold. Or when other usual events affecting the issuer occur.

About MoneyGram
MoneyGram International Inc. is a US company. A world leader in payment and money transfer services. Indeed, it enables friends and family to send money safely and conveniently for everyday needs in over 200 countries and territories.

What do the whales do with Ripple and Bitcoin?
Ripple sells its shares
As indicated in the SEC filing, Ripple owns approximately 6.23 million shares of common stock. And, it has the only voting and investment rights with respect to those shares.

Ripple also holds the warrants on 5.95 million common shares. This represents a total capital position of 12.2 million shares or 17% of MoneyGram’s outstanding shares.

In fact, after the sale, Ripple will own at least 3.22 million shares or 4.44% of MoneyGram.

According to a Ripple spokesperson: “This is a purely financial decision, to make some profit on Ripple’s investment in MoneyGram. And in no way does it reflect the current state of our partnership.

Very importantly, as stated by the spokesperson, Ripple confirmed that it will continue its cooperation with MoneyGram.

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Ripple and MoneyGram
Last June, Ripple acquired the shares of MoneyGram at a price of $4.10 per share. After the investment, Ripple owned 9.95% of the outstanding MoneyGram common shares.

MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes said, “The partnership is transformational.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse added that his company would support MoneyGram’s “further expansion” into European and Australian payment brokers.

In November 2019, Ripple even completed the acquisition of its $50 million stake in the MoneyGram remittance platform.

In fact, MoneyGram’s intention was to use this capital inflow to support its operations. In particular, as it expands its use of Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity product.

Clearly, as 2020 became unpredictable and MoneyGram noticed that its services were growing digitally, the value of its shares also skyrocketed.

Indisputably, its share price grew by 260% this year and closed at $7.42 on Wednesday. Therefore, Ripple is making a significant profit on its sale.

I leave with this quote from Warren Buffett: “Never be afraid to ask for too much when you sell. Or offer too little when you buy.

Faced with US presidential elections that drag on and crystallize all tensions, the crypto community is calling for the development of a blockchain-based voting system.

Blockchain voting to clean up the next American elections?

The United States is in the midst of a political crisis, as the results of the presidential elections are slow to be known. Donald Trump has embarked on a legal battle to try to suspend the counting of votes. He also asks that they be counted again.

Several figures in the blockchain community have therefore raised the idea of an extended blockchain vote for the next large-scale elections in the United States. In particular, they would make it possible to count the votes automatically, and to avoid suspicion of fraud. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao thus urged the community to build a reliable blockchain-based voting system, in order to propose it for the following US elections:

“If there is a Bitcoin Evolution voting mobile app (with efficient KYC of course), we won’t have to wait for results , or question their validity. The privacy [of voters] can be protected using several encryption mechanisms. ”

Equal to himself, CZ doesn’t bother with caution. He estimates that if a company chooses to develop something now and get government approval, it will have ” Over 300 million users in 4 years . ” And to add that any competent developer should be happy to develop this app for free …

A particularly complex task in reality

A vision shared by Vitalik Buterin , who however explained that developing an app of this type would represent a particularly hard challenge :

“The technical difficulties associated with the development of an encrypted and secure voting system are significant (and often underestimated). But in my opinion, this is 100% the direction to take . ”

The creator of Ethereum also recalls the limitations of postal voting, citing a statistic: the US postal services have failed to deliver 27% of votes remotely . It would appear, however, that this figure is misleading .

Still, the US presidential elections turned into an imbroglio that could undoubtedly have been simplified by using other forms of voting. However, we must be careful . In Russia, blockchain voting has already been tested in Moscow, and it will be extended for the next legislative elections . But already, it has shown its limits: the site used had been attacked and sensitive voter data ended up for sale on the Darknet .

If there is a blockchain solution, it will therefore require a considerable phase of testing to ensure that it is suitable for a large-scale vote such as the American elections. Gradually, however, the idea gained ground. This summer, we learned that India was also considering blockchain voting .

Grayscale’s CEO says Bitcoin will win the election race between Trump and Biden.

A Democratic victory led by Joe Biden or a re-election of Donald Trump would make Bitcoin (BTC) the real winner. Industry executives, including DCG and Grayscale CEO Barry Silbert, say both a Trump victory and a Biden victory would boost BTC.

The optimistic stance of industry executives, despite the electoral risk, comes after Grayscale’s Bitcoin study.

Grayscale, a major cryptomoeda investment company with $7.6 billion in liquid assets under management, released a study on October 27 highlighting that the potential market for Bitcoin has expanded significantly in 2020.

In 2019, Grayscale found that 36% of US investors were interested in investing in Bitcoin. This year, 55% of investors in the US are looking to Bitcoin. The study says:

“Interest is increasing: More than half of US investors are interested in investing in Bitcoin In 2020, more than half (55%) of survey respondents expressed interest in Bitcoin investment products. This marks a significant increase over the 36% of investors who said they were interested in 2019”.

The increase of almost 20% represents a substantial increase in popular awareness over a short period. It also coincides with the growing demand for Bitcoin from institutions following the impressive 200% + recovery of Bitcoin since March.

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The participation in Bitcoin increases from 36% to 55% in one year. Source: Grayscale
Mainstream adoption strengthening BTC

The strong fundamentals behind Bitcoin and rapidly growing demand may offset the electoral risk in the fourth quarter.

For example, a particularly positive statistic showing the clear increase in demand for Bitcoin in 2020 is the rate at which individuals interested in BTC become real buyers.

According to Grayscale, of those individuals who have expressed an intention to invest in Bitcoin, 83% have bought BTC. The researchers wrote:

“Among those who reported investing in Bitcoin, 83% made investments in the past year, indicating that digital currencies are an increasingly attractive component of modern investment portfolios.

The higher conversion rate of individuals interested in investors is important because the potential Bitcoin market has expanded rapidly.

Moreover, the US market of about 32 million investors does not include other important markets such as Europe and Asia.

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Meanwhile, the number of investors familiar with Bitcoin has also visibly increased. The survey found that 62% of investors already know BTC, compared to only 53% in 2019. The study said:

“Based on this year’s survey, the market for potential investors in Bitcoin is 32 million – compared to 21 million investors just a year ago. This year, 62% of investors reported that they are ‘familiar’ with Bitcoin, compared to 53% in 2019”.

The potential market for Bitcoin in the US is now 32 million investors. Source: Grayscale
What is BTC’s greatest attraction to investors?

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The main reason behind the Bitcoin race remains its exponential growth potential. However, in the eyes of institutional investors, it is also a hedge asset.

Bitcoin, being a hedge asset against inflation and having demonstrated exponential growth potential, makes it an attractive portfolio asset for institutions and professional investors.

Consequently, the number of investors buying Bitcoin with a fraction of their capital or portfolio and building on existing positions has also increased. Grayscale’s research says:

“The factors that drove interest in Bitcoin last year have had even greater impact on investors in 2020. In 2019, 59% of respondents indicated that the ability to start with a small amount and increase their investment over time would be a motivating factor when considering Bitcoin investment products; in 2020, that figure rose to 65%. ”