SOV is Announcing a New Feature: Built-in UBI To Its Holders by SOV Foundation

Second, that the growth of our money supply would be predetermined and tamper proof. And, last but not least, that compliance would be baked into the currency protocol itself, while maintaining privacy for individuals. Neema now plans to help the Marshall Islands start fundraising by launching an Initial monetary offering (IMO) where for the first time, a sovereign nation is issuing its own currency to the public without any central bank.

This legislative push is anticipated to be the most supportive of the crypto industry to date. Key issues include the Stablecoin Act, which aims to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins. The FIT21 Act, focusing on decentralized standards and broader crypto regulation. The legislation is expected to provide regulatory clarity for agencies overseeing digital asset markets and integrate digital assets into existing tax and banking laws. A Wyoming senator has proposed establishing a national Bitcoin reserve, though this lacks broad support. This legislative focus aligns with the growing institutional involvement in crypto through ETF investments, tokenized treasuries, and stablecoin initiatives.

The team is spending tens of millions of dollars to develop the technology needed for the nations people and their local businesses to begin accepting the currency. The team, led by CEO Barak Ben Ezer has been pursuing this opportunity for over a year. Ezer studied the regulatory landscape and discovered that there was one significant hurdle preventing Bitcoin and other crypto currencies from being considered legal money. On 19 December 2017, Yapian, the owner of South Korean exchange Youbit, filed for bankruptcy after suffering two hacks that year.186187 Customers were still granted access to 75% of their assets. Various government agencies, departments, and courts have classified bitcoin differently.

Also note that if a user does want to receive the UBI, they can opt-out for all accounts except for one dedicated solely to UBI, keeping data of all other accounts concealed. Identifying unique users enables the introduction of a global UBI with limited centralization of PII. I’ve analyzed some of the economic indicators for the Central American nation to see how its economy has progressed—or perhaps regressed—since it adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. The government said it expects the fund to promote the use of SOV both domestically and internationally, and to establish an environment in the Marshall Islands that is conducive to the growth of crypto-based industries.

In May 2018, Bitcoin Gold had its transactions hijacked and abused by unknown hackers.188 Exchanges lost an estimated $18m and bitcoin Gold was delisted from Bittrex after it refused to pay its share of the damages. Some miners pool resources, sharing their processing power over a network to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a block. A “share” is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial proof-of-work.

Can Bitcoin as Legal Tender Reshape a Nation’s Economy? Lessons from El Salvador

Unlike other blockchain-based currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Facebook’s Novi/Libra and many more, all of which face various regulatory issues, SOV is a national currency of a sovereign country. It therefore complies with all banking regulation and is subject to international treaties. However, unlike other national currencies, SOV monetary policy is governed by an algorithm rather than by a central bank.

Issuing a currency is of course the prerogative of any sovereign nation, but what is unprecedented is that we have chosen to issue our sovereign currency using blockchain technology. Statistics show that in El Salvador’s real-life use of Bitcoin as legal tender, its impact has been limited. Despite its legal status, the cryptocurrency’s integration into the daily financial activities of citizens remains minimal. A recent survey conducted by the Francisco Gavidia University revealed that 92% of respondents don’t use Bitcoin for transactions, while only 7.5% reported doing so.

Ezer and his team will have to figure out how to protect the currency from being influenced by market speculation. It’s not clear whether SOV coins will be listed on an exchange, or even who is allowed to purchase them when the IMO is launched. According to Ezer, 10% of the funds raised from SOV’s IMO will go to a fund that supports the use of green energy and other climate change efforts. 50 percent of the money will go to the State Budget Support Fund, and the last 20% will be distributed directly to citizens. The nation of 53,000 people, with a GDP of just $183 million does not have its own currency and instead uses US dollars. The right wing supports UBI for its economic efficiency and its potential to reduce bureaucracy in incumbent systems.

Lawmakers passed the cryptocurrency measure Monday following five days of heated debate. MAJURO, Marshall Islands — The tiny Marshall Islands is creating its own digital currency in order to raise some hard cash to pay bills and boost the economy. The Marshall Islands, in Micronesia, is set to become the first country to issue a sovereign digital token.

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According to FINMA’s150 requirements, VASPs need to verify the identity of the beneficiary of the transfer. These physical representations of cryptocurrency do not hold any value by themselves; these are only utilized for collectable purposes. Intriguingly, the release also added that, after the SOV is launched, the aim is “to transition to an alternative governance model based on blockchain. Specific technological solutions are still being investigated.” Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said this past week that a global speculative mania had encouraged a proliferation of the currencies, and that they needed to be held to the same standards as the rest of the financial system.

As more people become entitled to UBI, the amount of SOVs each user will receive will reduce; however, based on Metcalfe’s law, the value of SOV can be expected to grow quadratically with the number of users, utilizing the network effect’s economies of scale. All SOV users undergo an identity verification process by one of the many verifiers approved by the SOV foundation to onboard users (see SOV White Paper sec. 2). This identity verification process can be used to ensure that the UBI goes only to real people. To ensure that a user that is registered with multiple validators would not get more than one UBI allotment, the verifier can provide a one-way hash of the user’s country & ID No. that is unique to each user. This zero-knowledge proof enables the SOV Administrative Authority to verify the uniqueness of each user without directly revealing personal data. For users who aren’t satisfied with the privacy-preserving measures offered by the one-way hash, they can opt-out of the UBI and never have this hash generated and shared with the SOV Administrative Authority.

SOV Foundation Announces its Inaugurative Board and Final Steps for Public Auction on Algorand Blockchain

The patchwork of international regulation is dense, opaque, and easy to circumvent. First Hawaiian told the Marshall Islands that they would almost certainly leave immediately if the government did the SOV as a cryptocurrency without the strictest of anti-money-laundering procedures in place. On 11 April 2018, the US ambassador sent the Marshall Islands government a letter expressing US concerns about the abuse of the SOV for money laundering and terrorist financing, and warned that the islands could be cut off from the world financial system entirely. When he gets the SOV up and running in the Marshall Islands, or if the government opts to scrap it, Dr. Dittus said that he’ll take the underlying technology to one of several small, developing nations—he declined SOV to say which ones—who have expressed interest in the coin.