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India Asks WhatsApp to Rescind its New Privacy Policy

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WhatsApp has failed to convince India that its new policy update is harmless and should be allowed to stay. The controversy surrounding the new policy has lingered for months, with India asking the messenger app to halt the policy earlier in the year. Now the country is reiterating its stand on the matter.

The nation’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has once again directed the Facebook-owned company to withdraw the planned update. TechCrunch has the story.

In a letter to WhatsApp on Tuesday — which was read to TechCrunch — MeitY has given the popular instant messaging provider seven days to offer a “satisfactory” response. Failure to do so, the ministry warned, will prompt lawful measures.

“In fulfilment of its sovereign responsibility to protect the rights and interests of Indian citizens, the government of India will consider various options available to it under laws in India,” the letter reads.

The letter comes at a time when the ministry is also pursuing a legal case on this matter in the Delhi High Court — and the second-largest internet market is also conducting an antitrust probe on the subject.

This is not the first time New Delhi has issued a notice to WhatsApp about the new privacy terms. Earlier this year, in a similar letter, the Indian government had expressed “grave concerns” about the planned update.

Following backlash from several governments and users, WhatsApp earlier this year delayed enforcement of the privacy update by three months — to May 15. Last week, it somewhat relaxed the deadline, though users still need to comply to access some basic features.

A spokesperson at the time told TechCrunch that the vast majority of users who had seen the new privacy terms on the app had accepted it.

With over 450 million users, India is WhatsApp’s biggest market by users.

The ministry in its notice this week has asked WhatsApp why it needs to enforce the new changes to its terms of service — the first major update in years — to users in India when those in the EU have been exempted from it.

The updated privacy terms grant WhatsApp the consent to share some personal information — such as their phone number and location — with parent firm Facebook. WhatsApp has clarified that communication between two individuals remains just as private as before.

“It is not just problematic, but also irresponsible, for WhatsApp to leverage this position to impose unfair terms and conditions on Indian users, particularly those that discriminate against Indian users vis-à-vis users in Europe,” the ministry wrote in the letter.

In response to a petition filed in the Delhi High Court earlier this month, WhatsApp argued that many Indian firms maintain similar policies and share more data. In the petition, WhatsApp had identified food delivery startup Zomato, ride-hailing giant Ola, online grocer BigBasket, as well as Swedish giant Truecaller, which counts India as its largest market by users, as some examples.

This faceoff means WhatsApp may risk losing its biggest market, a situation that will not only curtail its user population, but will also undermine its WhatsApp Pay, a messaging-powered payment system that Facebook is piloting.

Crypto Crash: There is Light at the End of the Tunnel

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Bitcoin is soaring

It has been weeks of chaos and reverberating pains for investors and the cryptocurrency market. The much touted digital gold has been on a free fall since more than a week ago, triggered by the announcement of one its cheerleaders Elon Musk, to halt Tesla’s bitcoin transactions, and Chinese government’s decision to stop financial institutions in China from conducting cryptocurrency transactions.

These two decisions resulted in the crypto market’s crash that has seen the over $2 trillion valued market lose nearly half of its value.

But as the loss stirs emotions and concerns about the future of cryptocurrency, validating negative predictions by governments and many business leaders, Crypto experts believe it offers an ample opportunity of correction that will buoy further growth.

Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, a London-based company that offers digital asset investment strategies, told CNBC on Wednesday that the current correction in crypto is “healthy” and “normal” and that she remains a long-term crypto bull.

Bitcoin has plunged more than 40% in value, from its all-time peak of $64,829.14 in mid-April, going as low as $30,000, while Ethereum has dropped by a similar amount from its all-time high of $4,382.73 set earlier this month, to as low as less than $2,400.

Altcoins aren’t spared either, with each of them recording a full share of the plunge, the cryptocurrency market is having one of its worst moments in time.

There has been mass liquidation that got more than $8 billion wiped off in different future exchanges, and more than 800,000 individual accounts lost their complete funds.

Luke Lloyd, investment strategist at Strategic Wealth Partners, a self-described crypto bull, told Forbes that corrections like this play a large part in crypto markets because they are speculative assets based solely on supply and demand.

He added that once there are large gains on the table for a certain crypto, people “tend to take profits and cash out to go somewhere else — that’s what we are seeing with many cryptocurrencies right now that have had huge gains.”

But as panic strikes through the market, especially among the newbies, the coins are beginning to retrace their steps back to high. Musk said Tesla has no plan to sell its bitcoins, and he is not selling his Dogecoins either, fueling a rebound. Bitcoin is trading nearly $37,000 and Ether, less than $2,500 as of the time of writing.

Corporations are still buying bitcoins, augmenting investors’ push to buy the dip. More than one million addresses bought bitcoin between $32,300.26 and $43,781.97, according to On-Chain Data. That’s more than 68.5% of the total On-Chain volume on Thursday.

Data from ForexStock shows that 35 companies are still holding more than 200,000 bitcoins. Tesla holds more than 42,000 bitcoins, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust holds 653,274 bitcoins and 3,165,721 Ether. Microstrategy which holds about 111,000 bitcoins bought more during the market pullback.

The China ban was a major blow to bitcoin as it has been in the past. In 2017, China’s move to ban cryptocurrency resulted in about a 23% dip. But bitcoin bounced back quickly and recorded about 30% growth in the next one month. It means that China’s narrative has been part of bitcoin’s bull cycle story. Analysts believe it will not be different this time around.

Hitesh Malviya, founder of ItsBlockchain said there are going to be a lot of similarities between 2017 and now.

“On Daily Chart, we found a lot of similarities between the September 2017 drop, and yesterday’s pullback. Bitcoin is showing strong buying pressure on the lower time frame, if the current daily candle manages to close above $40,000 then I think bitcoin will quickly recover from the recent pullback, and BTC prices should retest to $48,000 area soon,” he said, adding that there is a decent chance for a possible V Shape recovery if it happens then we can find a bitcoin price above $100,000 in the next few months.

Another factor that is expected to fuel a bitcoin bounceback is Taproot, a soft fork that improves bitcoin’s scripts to increase privacy and improve upon other factors related to complex transactions. Taproot will bring major improvements to Bitcoin’s privacy. When combined with Schnorr signatures, it is also expected to boost efficiency when performing transactions.

While there have been many bitcoin corrections, Taproot is the most significant upgrade to its network since 2017. With its potential to improve bitcoin’s usability, Taproot is expected to widen bitcoin’s value and usability. The activation is expected to happen in November.

Another factor that may help to curtail bitcoin’s volatility is sustainable energy. Musk had cited it as a reason while his electric vehicle company would no longer use bitcoin. He said Thursday that top bitcoin miners should post audited data of the renewable energy they possibly use in order to ease concerns over the digital asset’s impact on the environment.

“I agree that this can be done over time, but recent extreme energy usage growth could not possibly have been done so fast with renewables. This question is easily resolved if the top 10 hashing orgs just post audited numbers of renewable energy vs not,” Musk said in a tweet responding to a tweet from Ark Invest’s director of research, Brett Winton, about bitcoin mining encouraging the adoption of renewables.

Ethereum says its blockchain – which powers the second most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, ETH, as well as much of the recent rise in NFTs – will be moving from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, a less energy consuming and more environmental friendly mining system, “in the upcoming months”, according to a blog post from the foundation that runs it. The aim is to lower its mining energy and mitigate its impact on the environment. Many other cryptocurrencies are also working to switch to Proof-of-stake.

The move, if followed by other cryptocurrencies, will take the concentration of China, giving other countries a chance to increase their mining activities. Chinese mining pools control more than 60% of the Bitcoin network’s collective hashrate largely due to cheap electricity.

With proof-of-stake, many countries worried about the energy consumption of bitcoin mining and its environmental impact will likely tolerate mining activities, thereby minimizing the huge influence of China on the cryptocurrency market.

Although the growing influence of cryptocurrency is rattling many governments, pushing them to make abrupt rules hurting the market’s growth, the future doesn’t seem perpetually dark. Uptick in institutional investments, crypto bull ideas like NFT, adjustments and corrections in this dark period of the cryptocurrency market show that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Nigeria Has Latent Opportunities in Technology And Building/Construction Materials

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The United States’ largest capitalized (public) companies are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google* and Facebook. In Nigeria, you have Dangote Cement, followed by MTN Nigeria, Airtel, BUA Cement and Nestle Nigeria. Do you see something there? The US leaders are united by one gene – technology.  The Nigeria cohort does not have a clear pattern. 

Yet, if you remove MTN Nigeria, Airtel Africa and Nestle Nigeria (the trio have foreign linkages), one thing becomes evident: indigenously, cement seems to be it. Technically, in a developing economy, that is expected. But the problem is that no building parts supplier registers in the top 40 of the Nigerian Stock Exchange chart.

That is expected since, unlike cement, none of the core building and construction raw materials are produced or packaged in Nigeria at scale. Looking at this chart, a smart government can get insights for a policy.

Yes, cement cannot just power the two wholly indigenous companies when other building & construction materials firms do not make the top 40. Largely, people import those materials and buy cement locally. A policy designed for cement can work on steel, POP, ceiling sheets, etc to drive import substitution.  Yes, we can get Dangote Cement and Bua Cement for iron sheets, ceiling sheets, etc, since from the cements, it is evident that people are buying buying materials.

And the big message: the technology space in Nigeria remains at infancy. Huge opportunities would be captured ahead.

Tekedia Live on Satellite Broadband, SpaceX Starlink Opportunities [Video]

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Tekedia Institute has scheduled a Tekedia Live (a Zoom session) to discuss the emerging opportunities as the era of satellite broadband emerges. We are expecting this era to unleash the cambrian moment on digital entrepreneurial capitalism across Nigeria and broad Africa. CDMA telcos knocked out state telecom monopolies, and the CDMAs fell to GSM operators, the satellite era can provide a new basis of competition, changing the ordinance in the telecom market systems.

Yes, we do think that if SpaceX Starlink arrives in Nigeria and Africa, new opportunities will emerge. Also, there would be disruptions – and more. Join us as follows:

  • Topic: Satellite Broadband, SpaceX Starlink and Opportunities Ahead in Nigeria & Africa
  • Speakers: Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe (Tekedia Institute), John Enoh (Beeptool Satellite, Texas), Joseph Ibeh (Northern Sky Research, Cambridge, USA)
  • Date: Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 7pm WAT
  • Zoom link – click here. Only the first 100 will be on Zoom; others watch on this link via YouTube Live https://www.tekedia.com/live/

Meanwhile, we invite you to register for Tekedia Mini-MBA (June – Sept 1, 20217) via any of the payment methods here – https://school.tekedia.com/course/mmba5/ . Our program is 100% online, self-paced and costs $140 or N50,000 with optional thrice weekly live sessions. We are adding new courses on AfCFTA, product development, global markets, China, Forex, etc. Join us.

Tekedia Institute offers an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.

It is a sector- and firm-agnostic management program comprising videos, flash cases, challenge assignments, labs, written materials, webinars, etc by a global faculty coordinated by Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe.

U.S. Responds To China’s E-Yuan; E-Dollar On The Way, And BIG Risks to Bitcoin

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In April 2021, Tekedia wrote: “The United States government has been rattled by China’s push to develop a digital alternative to its currency yuan. Bloomberg reported that the Biden administration is stepping up scrutiny of China’s plans for a digital yuan, with some officials concerned the move could kick off a long-term bid to topple the dollar as the world’s dominant reserve currency, according to people familiar with the matter.” The step went further this week when China began to wean its personal, corporate and sovereign ecosystems of anything cryptocurrency, preparing the grounds for the ascension of e-yuan, a digital currency equivalent of Chinese currency.

But America is not going to just watch. Yes, the Biden Administration is opening the playbook. Interestingly, the Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, who did not say many nice things about crypto is the one to lead the charge: “Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell says the central bank will release research this summer that explores developing a digital currency of its own. The discussion paper would break down the Fed’s “current thinking on digital payments, with a particular focus on the benefits and risks associated,” then seek public comment”.

 Powell said the digital currency, which won’t be a cryptocurrency, would need to be efficient, safe to use and offer “broad benefits to American households and businesses.” Fed officials say they’re focused on getting it right, though China’s creation of a digital yuan has raised the stakes.

This is my call: I warned that if e-yuan continues to advance, cryptocurrency will continue to struggle because without China, the cryptocurrency world will lose a big part of itself. If the US decides a future will include digital US dollars, Bitcoin and cousins will have major competitors, and I expect the US dollars to win in America just as E-Yuan will win in China. The same will happen when digital Euro will emerge. 

So, to a large extent, as nations begin to move into cryptocurrency 2.0, the current generation of cryptos will struggle. That remains the biggest risk on cryptos as someone can make something which is better than what is currently available. And with that, adoption moves!

Finally, Bitcoin and its cousins have been heralded as being decentralized. Nothing like that. They are decentralized on technology stack but centralized on exchanges. Provided exchanges are regulated by nations since they are registered to operate with licenses, all Bitcoin accounts are under the control of governments (think Nigeria, China bans). The FBI has been seizing wallets through exchanges, and suddenly the decentralized myth looks like snake oil!