After months of speculation and a nonofficial statement from the Facebook team after the news break by Bloomberg reports on the rumoured cryptocurrency project secretly being worked, Facebook’s Libra Project White Paper is officially out.

Facebook clearly outlines its mission and vision for the Switzerland registered project.

It’s mission according to the whitepaper reads

“Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.”

Facebook is clearly ready for another phase of its reign as a social media giant housing more than a quarter of the world’s population. It is home to more than 2 billion users with its aggregated user base for WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.  

With the Libra’s project cryptocurrency dubbed the Globalcoin, Facebook is going to have an impact in the cryptosphere coupled with the influence of the founding members such as Coinbase, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, Paypal, and others who have invested about $10million each into the project.

Facebook wants to make Libra the evolution of Paypal with the wish that it will be simpler to establish, easier to use as a payment means with fewer transaction fees, more accessible to the unbanked, more flexible and durable through decentralisation.

In its Libra document, Facebook writes:

“Success will mean that a person working abroad has a fast and simple way to send money to family back home, and a college student can pay their rent as easily as they can buy a coffee.”

Alongside Libra network, Facebook is also launching Calibra, a subsidiary company that will handle the transactions and protect users privacy. The goal of Calibra is “to provide financial services that will let people access and participate in the Libra network,” and it will be readily available in Messenger and WhatsApp and also as a standalone app.

The control of the Libra network will not be solely Facebook’s duty since it is decentralized to include all the 28 founding members. It is the association’s duty commonly referred to as “Libra Association” to promote the open-sourced Libra blockchain and also sign up businesses to accept Libra for payment. It rests upon them to recruit more founding members as Facebook says it wants to reach 100 members before the official launch of Libra.

The unit of the Libra cryptocurrency is Libra just like the unit of a dollar is cent. Libra is represented by a three wavy horizontal line Unicode character ≋ like the dollar is represented by $ or the naira by #. The value of a Libra is meant to stay largely stable since it is a stable coin. Its stability will make it be a good medium of exchange, as merchants can be confident as they will be assured they won’t be paid a Libra today that will be lesser than the amount tomorrow.

Block.one, the firm behind EOS, on 1st June 2019 announced that it is introducing a blockchain-based social media, Voice, that will bring alignment and transparency to social media users. This was made open at the company’s June 1 event at the DC Armory in Washington, DC. which drew about 300 attendees who included industry influencers, developers, investors, media and members of the community.

Block.one claimed that “Social media is fundamentally broken and is in need of a complete overhaul.” Noting that Voice will be launched on EOS public blockchain and therefore is a more transparent social media platform for the world. And hence, the value of good content gets circulated right back into sustaining the community, not corporate bottom lines as it will return to users. Voice is then meant to cultivate creation, sharing, discovery, and promotion of contents by real users, not bots and fake accounts just like on Facebook or Twitter and users will directly benefit from their ideas and engagement on the platform.

Voice will be on the public blockchain of EOS and it will allow for alignment and transparency – no hidden algorithms nor invisible interests.

Brendan Blumer, CEO of Block.one, who opened the company’s June 1 event at the DC Armory in Washington, D.C. with the announcement of Voice said that “the truth is, current social media platforms are designed to use their users.” However, pertaining to Voice, he said, “just look at the business model. Our content. Our data. Our attention. These are all incredibly valuable things. But right now, it’s the platform, not the user, that reaps the reward. By design, they run by auctioning our information to advertisers, pocketing the profit, and flooding our feeds with hidden agendas dictated by the highest bidder. Voice changes that.”

Is Block.one Capable of this Social Media Revolution?

Block.one is well positioned to lead this social media revolution because its first product, EOSIO, was a global initiative to build a more scalable, secure and flexible blockchain framework that enable people to reimagine, rebuild and restore trust in the systems enterprises. Its success with EOS has led to it offering early backers a huge returns for their investment. And notably, the numerous networks built on the EOSIO software are consistently the most used public blockchain platforms in the world, accounting for upwards of 70% of all blockchain activity. For example, Everipedia and Galaxy Digital LP are such networks that utilized EOSIO network. Security, privacy and ease-of-use will always be critical in Block.one’s projects.

Pizza is well known all over the world the juicy cheesy meal has won many a heart. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is also breaking boundaries. The story of Bitcoin Pizza Day begins on May 22, 2010. It isn’t just a story of how one man bought a pizza for 10000 Bitcoin, it is a story of Bitcoin adoption.

Nine years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz traded 10,000 BTC for Pizza and has since been known as the Bitcoin Pizza guy. At that time one BTC was less than a dollar, but today, it is worth over a $7,000. Laszlo Hanyecz had announced on the bitcointalk forum that he was willing to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for the delivery of two Papa John’s pizzas. He wrote on the platform,

“I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day.”

At that time, all Hanyecz, a software engineer from Florida wanted was to get Pizza in exchange of BTC. Pretty soon, a British man took up Hanyecz’s offer. He offered to get the two pizzas for him at the price of $25 a piece. It was quite a bargain because at that time 10,000 Bitcoins were worth around $41. Nine months after exchanging his BTC for Pizza, Bitcoin became equal with the U.S. dollar, which means the two pizzas were now worth $10,000. Today, the price of one BTC is worth $7918.69 as at the time of writing.

While it is easy to make speculations as to why Hanyecz was willing to part with his digital currencies for Pizza, we cannot deny that he has made a contribution to adoption. It is important to note that the Bitcoin Pizza story is the first known real-world bitcoin transaction. Hanyecz claims that buying the pizza helped legitimize BTC. And although he doesn’t think about how wealthy he could have been if he had held onto his coins he doesn’t regret it. He claims that he is proud to have been a backer of Bitcoin and a proponent of its use in the real world.  

Today, Bitcoin use has exceed pizza purchase. Bitcoin and other altcoins can be used for varied purposes. A lot of businesses have adopted digital currencies as a means of transacting since the Bitcoin boom of 2017. You can now purchase a house with bitcoin and even receive your salary in Bitcoin. Today, May 22 has been named Bitcoin Pizza Day. In celebration of the day, crypto companies such as Huobi are celebrating Bitcoin pizza day with special offerings for their users.

Can you spend 10,000 BTC on Pizza? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

Cryptocurrencies have come to stay and have found a way into the entertainment industry. Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009, getting cryptocurrencies to go mainstream has been the aim of crypto and blockchain enthusiasts. A huge breakthrough has been made over the years with Bitcoin finding its way into the Merriam Webster Scrabble dictionary. Asides this, a couple of businesses now accept bitcoin. The importance of the media in creating awareness cannot be overemphasized. Now, the question revolves around whether crypto related movies have any positive impact on adoption or awareness.
A lot of documentaries have been made on cryptocurrencies since the inception of Bitcoin. The movie ‘Banking on Bitcoin’ is a documentary released in 2014 which explains the disruption bitcoin can bring into the financial system. The great thing about these movies is that they spend time educating people on different aspects of cryptocurrency. “Bitcoin in Uganda – Empowering people” is a 5 minutes crypto documentary created in 2018. This documentary shows the real power of cryptocurrency in remittances and cross-border transactions.
While most of these crypto movies are not mainstream, they do a lot in explaining the power of digital currencies. These documentaries chose different aspects of digital currency and focus on revealing more details about them. In fact, Bitcoin Big Bang, a 104-minute screen piece gives details on the Mt.Gox hack. The story focuses on the arrest of Mark Karpales, the CEO of Mt. Gox in Tokyo after the exchange was hacked and about 850,000 Bitcoins was reportedly stolen. The importance of documentaries such as this cannot be overemphasized

Going Mainstream Media With Crypto
Although there are a lot of low budget documentaries on cryptocurrency, high budget movies are beginning to spring up. ‘Deep Web’, a documentary about Ross Ulbricht trial on Silk Road had a budget of about $80,000 which was raised through Kickstarter. TV Shows such as Billions have episodes dedicated to cryptocurrency.
In fact, Dope is one of the first movies to accept Bitcoin. The movie which had a budget of $7,000,000 was the first movie to accept Bitcoin, this was due to a partnership between GoCoin, Lionsgate and Movie Tickets. Partnerships such as these go a long way to push crypto education mainstream. Also Hollywood blockbuster, ‘Crypto’ was released in April 2019, however, it was a movie about money laundering which involves crypto.

Is Crypto the Big Bad Wolf
As more movies begin to talk about cryptocurrency, the question remains if these movies are for crypto education or just on the move to portray crypto in a bad light. Crypto, the movie which features Beau Knapp and Kurt Russel promises to be a movie about digital currencies or is it? While many have praised the movie for the talent of the actors, a lot of persons are not so pleased with the script with many accusing it of scaring people away from Bitcoin.
Typical of every money laundering or compliance movie, the Russians are always the bad guys. However, does this movie portray crypto as a means of payment which is secure and fast or is it just an easy way for laundering money? While Hollywood still has a long way to go in crypto education and awareness, they must be praised for paying attention to details. From the representation of Ledger’s Nano in Billions to Crypto featuring images of a cryptocurrency exchange called Cryptocurrency market, progress is being made. However, anyone looking for cryptocurrency education will do well not to rely totally on these Hollywood movies.
This is why we have decided at Cryptotvplus to take it a step further at educating the populace on Crypto, its impact and what the future holds. Cryptotvplus will be reeling out interesting short movies bothering on crypto where anyone whether you understand the intricacies of cryptocurrencies or not will not only be educated but also become more than a spectator by participating in this revolutionary shift in the evolution of money and global finance. More on this in my next piece.

What topics or areas in Crypto would you like to see a short film done? Do you have any title in mind? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.