From the mine #1

There will be five sections in each edition, with a subtly integrated social media post from Flint at the end. Here’s a brief description of what each section shall contain:

• The big picture
  Crypto related news from around the world.
• The state of crypto
  Policy changes and government actions that reflect their attitude towards crypto.
• The story
  A real life tale about the impact of crypto.
• What’s up at Flint
  What’s happening at Flint and what we are building for you.
• Our two cents
  Commentary, musings, and analysis from our crypto experts.

The Big Picture

Back in February, Snoop Dogg purchased Death Row, the record label whose artists include Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, and Snoop Dogg himself.

Over the past few weeks, these artists' tracks have been disappearing from music streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music, as they are being shifted to their new home, the Metaverse.

Snoop Dogg stated the reason for doing so is that traditional music streaming platforms don't pay the artists enough. Snoop Dogg has been very enthusiastic about crypto-projects and released his latest album on blockchain itself, with one of the tracks available as an NFT.

Exact details of how Death Row will look in the Metaverse are yet to be disclosed.

The state of crypto

Governments start mining bitcoin

US now has its first city government that’s mining bitcoin. Fort Worth, Texas, will have 3 mining rigs running 24/7 in its City Hall. In 6 months’ time, the city will evaluate the project and decide if it should be scaled up or down.

Bitcoin gains acceptance

The Central African Republic (CAR) becomes the second nation in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, El Salvador being the first. CAR is currently struggling with major human capital challenges and hopes to bank the unbanked as it adopts Bitcoin.

ATMs in the senate

Mexico’s 14th Bitcoin ATM has been installed it its Senate, allowing senators to make transactions in Bitcoin itself. A legislator of Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) stated that Bitcoin has already surpassed traditional payment systems, like MasterCard, Visa and Paypal, in terms of transaction volume.

How is Crypto impacting our lives?

Sarafu: Community Inclusion Currency

When a country gets hit by a recession, it's the rural areas that suffer the most. People stop spending money and hold onto their reserves tightly, reducing the cash in circulation.

This makes it difficult for the daily wagers to sustain their lives, as money doesn't enter the rural economy but keeps flowing out of it steadily.

It's not that rural communities aren't self-sufficient. On the contrary, they are more so than their urban counterparts. But in times of recession, they are left with no medium of exchange to facilitate the trade that can take place inside the community.

Solution: Community Inclusion Currencies

Members of a community can join a blockchain-based credit network to create a stable marketplace for trading amongst themselves. People create digital vouchers which are redeemable as payments for their goods and services and circulate these amongst the community—allowing a hyperlocal economy to run independently of the national currency.

Sarafu is one such blockchain-based credit system that has seen mass adoption in rural Kenya. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, many regions of Kenya have lost liquidity. People had very few Kenyan Shillings left with them, and they were afraid to spend any of it. But as more people started using Sarafu, rural communities were set in motion again, without using any of their Shilling reserves.

Community Inclusion Currencies add a line of defence between the damage a national currency causes and the nation's citizens most likely to be affected by it.

What’s up at Flint?

From the co-founder’s desk:

Dear readers,

I hope you have enjoyed this read so far, for we are only getting started.

Today, we are adding value to you in the form of such news and stories. Tomorrow, we shall add value by generating stable returns on your crypto wealth.

At Flint, we strive to build wealth management products optimised for crypto; after all, crypto is the best thing to happen to money, since money itself.

Next month, we shall make our first product available for all those eagerly waiting for it on our waitlist. We have built a home for crypto-natives, where wealth grows quickly and is never far from your reach.

I hope to see you on the app, managing your wealth the smarter way.

Until then, enjoy From the Mine.

Anshu Agrawal

Our two cents

2022 is already breaking records of stolen cryptocurrencies from hacks and exploits. Last year, digital currencies worth $3.2 billion were stolen. This year, in the first quarter alone, we have recorded $1.3 billion as stolen. If we linearly extrapolate those figures, we can estimate digital currencies worth $5.2 billion being stolen by the end of this year.

According to a report, 97% of the funds stolen in 2022 (so far) were drawn from DeFi protocol exploits, which is a significant increase from the previous years. DeFi protocols only accounted for 72% in 2021 and 30% in 2020.

While blockchain and cryptocurrencies promise us a decentralised financial system, they come with their own challenges. And as the crypto economy ages, we shall find our way around these.