SOVEREIGNTY

Suppressed By World Superpowers, Ethiopia Should Turn To Bitcoin
By Project Mano

In a statement on Saturday, the U.S. Trade Representative said it terminated Ethiopia, alongside with Mali and Guinea, from a duty-free trade program called the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), over alleged human rights violations. This effort to put pressure on the Ethiopian government will instead affect mostly the Ethiopian working class. More than 200,000 people, 80% of whom are young women, will lose their jobs, an article in Foreign Policy said. 

To counter the AGOA sanctions, Ethiopians have the opportunity to use their 60,000 megawatts of untapped potential energy capacity to mine Bitcoin, an action that does not need any other government’s approval. To put things into perspective,  6,000 megawatts would yield something around $4.5 billion to $5 billion annually at today’s BTC prices, according to Project Mano’s projection. 

Intel To Join Bitcoin Mining ASIC Market With New Chip
By Namcios

The market leader in computer chip manufacturing, Intel, is about to join the bitcoin mining industry by presenting an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient bitcoin mining ASIC." The “Bonanza Mine” will be presented in the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) on February 23. However, It is still unclear if the presentation will be about the product’s launch, a proof of concept demonstration or simply a project sharing.

“Being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost, much lower power, is a pretty solvable problem. And hopefully not too far into the future, we will share some interesting hardware for that.” the senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group, Raja Koduri, said.

THE DAILY BITS

BITCOIN MORTGAGE

Milo Launches Bitcoin Mortgage In The U.S.
By Namcios

Real Estate fintech company Milo will launch the first U.S. bitcoin mortgage offering, enabling customers to leverage their bitcoin holdings, to purchase properties in the country. There is often the question of why would someone decide to have such risk or a volatile collateral instead of selling?

The answer is simple, if one is able to get a low interest rate for an over-collateralized loan, then people would be able to:

• Continue to be exposed to bitcoins appreciation
• Not incur a massive capital gains % tax
• Only pay a low % annual interest rate
• Obtain the "dream house"

“Milo’s clients will be able to pledge their Bitcoin to purchase property and finally qualify for a low-interest rate 30-year crypto mortgage. This solution will allow clients to continue to own their bitcoin and diversify into real estate, all while keeping the potential price appreciation of both. Clients will be able to finance 100% of their purchase with no dollar down payments required and do this faster than a conventional mortgage". - Milo 

CROWDFUNDING

Crowdfunding Is Broken, Here's How Bitcoin Can Fix It
By Mick Morucci

Crowdfunding is a powerful mechanism for innovation and supporting social enterprises. Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have led the crowdfunding movement, which has led for the creation of several billion-dollar tech startups.

As good as it can be, Crowdfunding's major issue is its reliance on the legacy financial system, which is not only costly but globally fragmented, as the platforms mainly operate in developed economies — roughly 30 countries.

Bitcoin changes the course of the game. By utilizing open monetary networks, crowdfunding projects have been enabling developing countries to have access to the same kind of tools developed ones have for the first time.

Some of the projects :

• Bitcoin Smiles: Which raised 1.88 bitcoin for supporting dental care in El Zonte
• Kivéclair: Development project educating people about Bitcoin in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

MEME OF THE DAY