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Regulatory sandbox and DeFi boom: How Spain pushed crypto adoption despite the pandemic

A summary of the events that marked 2020 in the Spanish crypto space and opinions from different people of the industry who lived it from the inside.
The year 2020 will go down in history for how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the…

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A summary of the events that marked 2020 in the Spanish crypto space and opinions from different people of the industry who lived it from the inside.

The year 2020 will go down in history for how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Spanish economy. Beyond that, however, there have been important events from a governmental and regulatory point of view, as well as those related to private companies and the adoption of cryptocurrencies. 

Cointelegraph en Español is presenting you a summary of the events that marked last year as well as highlights from various representatives of the local crypto ecosystem and opinions on what the industry can expect in 2021.

January

  • Eurocoinpay asks the Spanish Minister of Economic Affairs to regulate cryptocurrency.

February

  • In an interview on Feb. 14, the general secretary of AEChain states that the financial sector is where blockchain is being developed the most in Spain.
  • The FinTech & InsurTech Spanish Association presents a WealthTech white paper.
  • The Council of Ministers approves a draft law called The Digital Transformation of the Financial Sector, which includes the creation of a sandbox.

March

  • DASI, Crypto Plaza and Quum launch a guide of crypto companies in Spain.
  • In an interview on March 16, Bitcobie’s CEO states that the adoption of Bitcoin in Spain is lower than in Latin America.
  • Bitnovo affirms on March 20 that cryptocurrencies have recovered more than the traditional markets have amid the coronavirus crisis.

April

May

  • Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Spaniards are relying more and more on cryptocurrencies.
  • The Bitcoin halving occurs on May 12.
  • Former chief operating officer of Bitnovo is appointed as director of Binance in Spain.
  • Bitcobie holds a virtual party on May 26 to celebrate its second anniversary.

June

  • Bitpanda launches its platform in Spain.
  • A new version of the Crypto Business Guide to Spain 2020 is presented.
  • A draft project establishes that cryptocurrency providers must comply with Anti-Money Laundering regulation.
  • It is reported that a Bitcoin trademark and logo are registered at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.

July

  • Following the Wirecard bankruptcy case, pressure mounts for the approval of a fintech sandbox in Spain.
  • Spain becomes the country with the sixth-most Bitcoin ATMs in the world.
  • On Friday, July 31, the 2gether platform suffers a hack that affects crypto investment accounts.

August

September

  • Crypto.com launches the Spanish version of its APP and exchange.
  • Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands call for strict rules on cryptocurrencies from the European Commission.
  • The Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Commission of the Spanish Congress unanimously approves the bill for The Digital Transformation of the Financial System.
  • On Sept. 23, a real estate debt tokenization operation is carried out.

October

November

December

Government and regulations

On Nov. 4, after much insistence from the Spanish fintech sector, the senate’s Committee on Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation definitively approved a law for The Digital Transformation of the Financial Sector which included the creation of a sandbox.

The Spanish Association of Fintech and Insurtech highlighted the importance of the sandbox: “Its immediate implementation will allow the generation of new initiatives in the Fintech ecosystem, facilitate access to financing, promote greater competition and reduce entry barriers.”

Ismael Santiago, professor at the University of Seville and CEO of OlivaChain I+D+I believes that these regulatory developments will favor “the creation of new value-added jobs, technological development and economic competitiveness.”

“Since its appearance in the crypto scene of our country, the doors of many international companies have been opened to the potential of the crypto world; being a very important step, in order to allow a greater arrival of crypto actives to the general public. There is still a long way to go, but of course, with the foundations established in 2020 with all these milestones, it is tremendously promising for the sector,” commented Álvaro Alcañiz, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Onyze, which offers custody and infrastructure services for digital assets.

Raúl López, country manager of Spain at Coinmotion argued:

“If this sandbox is carried out, it could make Spain a reference point in Europe, which could attract high investment in the sector, which would be a great stimulus for the crypto ecosystem and would also help to retain and attract national and international talent.”

However, as Spain is part of the European Union, it is also important to bear in mind that a proposal for regulation from the European Commission, related to crypto markets, has been made public. This is how the acronym MiCA came to be known, which refers to markets in crypto assets. Another important document is the Fifth EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive.

Crypto adoption and a hack

The adoption of cryptocurrencies in Spain has continued to grow in 2020. Besides, as far as Bitcoin ATMs are concerned, Spain ranks in the top 10 countries with the most units in the world, with a total of 119 at the time of writing.

Raúl López, country manager of Spain at Coinmotion, also offered his perspective: “The year 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered mainly for the appearance of COVID-19, which affected all sectors and industries worldwide. The stock markets collapsed, and market mechanisms did not work properly because even the traditional gold value refuge suffered a sharp fall. It is possible that investors were looking for liquidity, and the collapse in traditional markets may have forced crypto investors to liquidate high-risk investments to compensate for losses elsewhere or just to have liquidity in euros.”

He gave an example of his company to illustrate the increase in the total volume of operations: in February it increased by +53%, in March, the same trend was maintained, with an increase of +27% with respect to the previous month, where 65% came from purchase operations. “And in the following months, for example, in April, the volume reached in March was almost multiplied by four. And the same happened in May with respect to the volume achieved in April,” he remarked.

Another story that impacted the Spanish crypto world this year was the attack on the 2gether platform at the end of July. On Aug. 31, Cointelegraph en Español reported that the hack had resulted in the theft of a significant amount of Bitcoin and Ether (ETH). It should be noted that, after the attack, the company took a number of measures to overcome this situation and to compensate the users who were affected. In an interview, Ramón Ferraz, CEO of 2gether, explained in further detail.

Increase of crypto culture

Jorge Soriano, co-founder of a crypto platform Criptan, preferred not to highlight any Spanish development in particular, and considered that it does not have to happen either because “the crypto world is designed to be something global,” continuing:

“Its objective is precisely that in this ecosystem there are no borders or barriers throughout the world. What we can observe in Spain is that the consequences of what happened on a global level have been experienced. And in this sense, we have seen that in 2020, adoption has grown a lot. The number of users, purchases and sales has been increasing at a very high rate.”

He also said that a certain crypto culture has been increasing: “We are checking how users have more and more exposure to cryptomarkets. From our experience in Criptan, we have observed that users, instead of trading, buy crypto to sell and take out in euros. What they want is to be with part of their capital in Bitcoin.”

Álex Fernández, CEO of BitBase, highlighted the significant concern raised by many people who want to be informed and understand all the disruptive changes that are coming in relation to Bitcoin and blockchain. “We have established a closer relationship with the people, and many of them come to our points of sale to be advised on the matter. They inform us that the economic uncertainty we are going through has generated a lot of distrust with the politicians who lead and manage our country, as well as with the financial institutions, which have largely caused the economic situation we are currently experiencing, and which is unsustainable,” he said.

“They see in Bitcoin and blockchain an alternative when they know it gives them security and confidence.”

According to Ramón Ferraz, the rise of the BTC “shows the reality of a new currency based on the new decentralized economy, a refuge of value that is increasingly attractive to society.”

In a Sept. 21 interview to Cointelegraph en Español, Mariana Gospodinova, general manager of Crypto.com’s European division, stated that in Spain, the interest in cryptocurrencies has grown significantly.

Pandemic changes the narrative

Javier Pastor Moreno, sales director at Bit2Me, crypto services provider, put the focus on the pandemic, saying it “has changed everything.” He went on to say:

“The need to have a more modern, open and free monetary system, while sheltering from the massive fiat money printing by central banks, has caused the adoption to accelerate and put Bitcoin and crypto on the map. We are in the early stages of a process that will probably last a few years, but undoubtedly, the catalyst by luck or misfortune has been this crisis.”

Antonio Sánchez, CEO of Inforbyt and Cardano’s ambassador to Spain, commented: “We have seen a considerable increase in people asking the big question of: ‘What is Bitcoin, and what is it for?’ We are living in a historic moment: We are going through a global pandemic in which banks and big companies are reeling as Bitcoin goes up without a break.”

“The crypto market has been growing considerably in recent days, and adoption is taking place much more, perhaps out of fear of what might happen to fiat money, or perhaps out of boredom of seeing all the banks start charging even for holding large sums of money.”

DeFi boom

The DeFi phenomenon was also present in Spain. Various activities were carried out, such as talks and virtual events, as well as some hackathons. The movement of decentralized finance, as it did on a global level, also aroused interest in the Iberian territory.

Juan Pablo Mejía, trainer and content disseminator, also known as “John in Crypto,” shared:

“Besides the big rise in the price of Bitcoin, I think the explosion of DeFi protocols has been the most important thing in the crypto ecosystem in 2020.”

Along the same lines, Guillermo Abellán Berenguer, co-founder of DeFi Lab, shared his point of view, saying: “It has become very clear that smart finance contracts allow interaction with services and products that, until now, needed a trusted intermediary. Currently, borrowing, lending, managing an investment fund or providing liquidity in decentralized exchanges, among many others, is possible without trusted intermediaries.” In an interview to Cointelegaph en Español, DeFi Lab explained how it is working on boosting decentralized finance in the Spanish-speaking world.

It was Josh Goodbody, director of growth institutional business for Latin America and Europe at Binance, who managed to concisely summarize the past year:

“2020 has been the perfect storm for cryptocurrencies, where everything apparently started happening at the same time.”

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Spread & Containment

Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.

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March 9, 2024

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Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.

It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.

Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business. 

And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.

During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.

Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Overall beer sales have fallen.

Image source: Shutterstock

Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies

While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,

Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts

"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.

Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.

Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. 

"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained. 

Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors. 

The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.

"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.

The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).

Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.

 

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