Haiti has seen a blockchain boom.
In agriculture, AgriLedger, founded by Haitian entrepreneur Genevieve Leveille, will launch this year to transform the food supply chain landscape. Another initiative, the Blockchain Cotton Project (BCP), is set to help the country produce millions of pounds in cotton. Plastic Bank has partnered with IBM to launch a recycling initiative via blockchain.
“These recent developments illustrate how blockchain is already improving life for ordinary Haitians,” wrote Sheikh Irfan Mohammed, Bloccelerate VC on VentureBeat. “It seems 2019 is a critical moment, as these projects begin to take effect and demonstrate their full potential. The industry in Haiti is a perfect example of blockchain’s application, not just for commerce, but as a catalyst for social change by ensuring quality, fair conditions and reduced economic volatility. The potential to reshape society, to connect people in new and transparent ways, addressing the unique challenges of emerging markets, is within grasp.”
In other news, Facebook has taken down a fraudulent sponsored post that has been shared with hundreds of thousands of users. The post reportedly directed victims to a fake story about Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the armed forces, claiming that he wants to make people rich via a fake bitcoin trading platform.
The post even included a made-up quote from the crown prince, saying that trading platform is “my way of giving back to the people,” according to The National. It is unknown how many people were tricked by the scam, but before Facebook took it down, the post had more than 37,000 social reactions, 8,100 comments and nearly 5,000 shares.
Binance’s Strategy Officer Gin Chao revealed that the exchange has spoken to Facebook about listing the social media giant’s digital currency, Libra, set launch next year.
“We have had official dialogue with Facebook. With regarding to listings specifically, right now they are going to be on a so-called ‘private chain.’ So, that means they won’t be looking for external liquidity,” he said, according to Finance Magnates.
The CEO of the OneCoin cryptocurrency scam, Konstantin Ignatov, will go to trial after the New York Southern District Court’s Judge Edgardo Ramos denied a bond application.
Ignatov is accused of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a crime that could see him serve a maximum of 20 years in jail. Though his lawyers proposed a $20 million personal recognizance bond, as well as GPS tags and round-the-clock armed guards to make sure he doesn’t flee, prosecutors still argued that he is a flight risk. In addition, the government said Ignatov could cause harm because OneCoin is still operational, Finance Feeds reported.
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