Anton Dzyatkovskii is the blockchain architect lead of Platinum Q DAO Engineering, a passionate entrepreneur and a skilled negotiator. He is a hardworking business leader with more than 13 years of experience in different positions in FinTech, Retail, and E-Commerce. Experienced in expanding financial businesses to new markets. Moreover, Anton is also a co-founder of Platinum Q DAO Engineering, where he has helped to develop USDQ, JPYQ, and KRWQ, the fully decentralized stable coins that simplify Bitcoin collateralization.
For the past 3 years, Platinum Company became the biggest Listing Broker in the world: we have listed more than 300 projects on Top Exchanges and supported Market Making for more than 70 projects.
Platinum STO/ICO fundraising dashboard and tokenization platform are now installed to 30+ projects, and it has helped them to raise more $350,000,000
In Platinum Q DAO Engineering we are creating a lot of cool stuff:
BTCNEXT - most secure, compliance and regulated exchange, built by traders for traders;
Decentralized stablecoins KRWQ, USDQ, JPYQ, CNYW (we are second Stablecoins DAO after Maker DAO)
Read this article and start learning about a decentralization wave, currently disrupting stablecoins.
Facebook (FB) will launch its own cryptocurrency, called GlobalCoin, in early 2020 enabling users of the social media platform to convert fiat currency into GlobalCoins which could then be used to purchase goods and services. Facebook would gain access to valuable spending data by creating its own payment system. Why should people trust Facebook to run their money when the platform is perceived by many critics as having a poor track record on data privacy and protection? Instead, the crypto community needs a truly decentralized stablecoin that promises transparency and superior technology – like USDQ.
The FB social media platform has 2.5 billion users around the world and has gained a lot of experience navigating regulations to push the envelope of what is ethically acceptable behavior for an IT company in this era of big data and cloud computing. Its vast experience will surely be a help as FB attempts to convince financial services regulators in the US and internationally about GlobalCoin since today’s digital currency is not considered legal tender in most countries worldwide.
How will Facebook assure users that their financial information is safe?
In 2018, The Guardian newspaper in the UK broke thenews that FB data of up to 87 million people had been improperly shared with a third-party company called Cambridge Analytica. The lax privacy controls at FB led to the data on users being harvested and used to build a software program to predict and influence voters during both the Donald Trump US presidential election and UK Brexit referendum campaigns.
The Cambridge Analytica debacle led to renewed interest from governments and financial services regulators in privacy rights and data collection in the digital economy. Facebook’s CEO was called to testify by both the US and UK authorities, as their governments continued efforts to grapple with the collection, use, and protection of sensitive information by private companies.
In the lead up to the announcement by FB of its plans to launch a cryptocurrency, the US Senate committee on banking wrote an open letter to FB’s CEO asking how the currency would work, what consumer protection would be offered and how data would be secured. Answers to all of these questions still remain unclear.
According to the letter, the US Committee is preparing to issue a law to regulate how large social media platforms like FB make data available to third-parties about users’ financial lives, and including data that can be used to market financial products and services. In light of the recent news on FB’s GlobalCoin launch, there is well grounded suspicion about how FB will use personal financial data to profile and target its users.
According to the US Senate committee letter to FB above-mentioned, “last year FB asked US banks to share detailed information about consumers.” In addition, privacy experts have raised questions about FB’s extensive data collection practices and whether any of the data collected by FB is being used in appropriate ways, or should FB be subjected to regulatory oversight.
Raising the financial stakes for crypto
GlobalCoin threatens to disrupt the traditional, lucrative e-commerce payment mechanisms which have made the biggest incumbent banks and finance companies rich running money around the world.
FB’s digital coin could become the most mainstream application of cryptocurrency ever if it succeeds where Bitcoin, Ethereum and other popular cryptocurrencies have so far struggled – making cryptocurrency a viable way to pay for things every day.
The hope for FB is that GlobalCoin could steal a march ahead of its rivals by being the first mass adoption event for a digital coin that leads to a payment method for everyday purchases, and by creating a preferred payment platform that could eventually become ubiquitous - like Visa and Mastercard are today.
“If it succeeds, [GlobalCoin] threatens the card networks’ dominance over global payments,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal dated 02 May 2019, by facilitating payments on third-party websites, apps, and stores it could theoretically become the largest payment platform in the world and could challenge PayPal, Apple Pay, Alphabet's Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Square.
GlobalCoin makes its opening move
According to the WSJ report, FB is recruiting dozens of financial firms and online merchants by offering the opportunity to eliminate card processing fees if they accept GlobalCoin as a payment method at their points of sale. The strategy is to first get the acceptance of financial firms like Visa and Mastercard, and e-commerce vendors and then hope FB users will be incentivized to use GlobalCoin once it becomes a mainstream method of payment that would be accepted by top retailers.
One of the biggest pain points in any retailer’s business, whether online or bricks and mortar, is the debit and credit card processing fees (generally around 2–3 percent) which are paid by merchants to banks, payment processors and networks on nearly every daily retail transaction at points of sale all over the world, whenever customers pay with a debit or credit card.
Visa and Mastercard are two traditional credit card companies who would be severely disrupted by such a move if FB was successful. Both companies make a good deal of their profits from swipe and card processing fees. Facebook is reportedly seeking partners to invest $1 billion to support the project, and Visa as well as Mastercard are reportedly considering a partnership.
Perhaps these finance heavyweights have read the writing on the wall, and want to ensure they are part of the future. A blockchain-based, decentralized payment platform could be considered an existential threat to them, and they have perhaps learned a valuable lesson watching the music industry fall to the disruption of digital music piracy by upstart services like Napster.
Or perhaps FB is making Visa and Mastercard an offer so good that they cannot refuse - like providing access to spending data and financial profiles of FB’s billions of worldwide users?
How will GlobalCoin use the blockchain?
Cryptocurrency is not managed by a central authority such as a bank or a government. Bitcoin, for example, was designed to ensure security and anonymity for users, by preventing tampering or hijacking of the network. The blockchain makes it possible to keep shared records of financial transactions on several computers, rather than relying on one big central player like a bank, or a PayPal or a Visa.
However, if FB is going to be responsible for approving every financial transaction and keeping track of every GlobalCoin user, is that a decentralized solution? Of course not. There is no difference between the traditional system and FB’s system. GlobalCoin will simply be another one of the traditional, centralized systems like PayPal, Visa or Mastercard but in a different package.
Stablecoins
The main disadvantage of cryptocurrencies is the volatility of their value, which makes people wary of using them for transactions or as a financial provision. According to the WSJ report, FB is going to guarantee the value of its GlobalCoin by backing every coin with a set number of US dollars, euros and other national currencies held in FB bank accounts. As a company, FB earns more than $40 billion in annual revenue. It could be one of the only companies in the world today with the financial resources to succeed in such an endeavor.
Stablecoins reduce price volatility by pegging a token’s value to a fiat currency or a basket of established currencies. The result is a digital coin that is designed to maintain the value of government-backed currencies like the US dollar. That makes them far easier to use on daily purchases since its value would be more stable than currencies like Bitcoin, and allow consumers to hold it for a longer time.
Users of stablecoins can pay for things offline and online without worrying about the value of the coin rising and falling. At the same time stablecoins, like all cryptocurrencies, could also benefit people who don’t have a bank account, or who don’t have a stable national currency due to political or economic turbulence in their home countries.
Q DAO with USDQ and KRWQ is the superior solution
FB has capitalized on the growing demand for a stable, decentralized payment platform, but it cannot be the solution. The cryptocurrency community will not be satisfied by a stablecoin that is issued and managed by FB. Instead, the crypto community needs a stablecoin that is transparent and delivers a truly decentralized solution that creates a cryptocurrency payment method that is controlled by its users, and not by another centralized corporation or financial services behemoth.
A great example is Q DAO, a governance token that is based on the Ethereum blockchain – ERC20 standard. Its task is to allow users to govern their stablecoins pegged to different national currencies, including USDQ (USD) and KRWQ (KRW). With Q DAO, holders will be able to pay for fees when they want to exchange their collateral in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Moreover, they will be able to vote for some changes made throughout the ecosystem.
Inside Q DAO ecosystem PLATINUM Q DAO ENGINEERING has created specific stablecoins that share a peg with the South-Korean Won (KRWQ), and shortly the Chinese Yuan (CNYQ), and the Japanese Yen (JPYQ) to expand the reach of the project and stimulate its use amongst the most important Asian regions in terms of cryptocurrency adoption.
USDQ will utilize complex algorithms—based on smart contracts —to stay pegged to the US dollar regardless of market events. It is superior to FB’s GlobalCoin in that it is a technology built on the platform of transparency and trust.
Customers can acquire USDQ tokens in several ways. The first way is to buy them on the cryptocurrency exchange, like BTCNEXT (next generation spot and margin trading platform by the Platinum Q DAO Engineering team), Hotbit, BTCAlpha and soon many other exchanges too.
The second way is to get USDQ as collateral in Bitcoin, or any other top 10 coins in the future. Users should send a certain amount of their digital assets through the website and receive the specified quantity of stablecoins. The mechanism is similar to a pawn shop, only your cryptocurrency assets are presented as collateral.
In this way, you can always ensure the value of your crypto assets is insured against the unstable price fluctuations of this volatile market, by parking the value in a truly transparent and decentralized stablecoin – USDQ/KRWQ to start and soon others.
Also, PLATINUM Q DAO ENGINEERING team has announced the release of the highly anticipated bounty campaign for the decentralized stable coins USDQ and KRWQ. The bounty campaign will allow participants to sign up and complete simple tasks in order to get compensation in USDQ/KRWQ without having to invest anything other than a bit of their time and attention.
PLATINUM have also created a detailed guide on how to buy and sell cryptos on BTCNEXT which will be extremely useful if you want to participate in the next round of Q DAO IEO on BTCNEXT. The first round was on 1 June, and 15,000 Q DAO tokens were distributed during 1 hour. There will be 9 more rounds and the next one will be conducted on 1 July 2019.
FB and the Tether controversy – is there any difference?
In order for a stablecoin to work, users need to trust that there is real money actually in an account somewhere that is backing up each stable coin – 1 to 1. Can Facebook inspire such trust? Especially since it is presently facing accusations that it violated user agreements on personal data.
An illustrative example is Tether, a popular stablecoin which has been in circulation since 2014, and which has promised investors it is backed by an equivalent value of US dollars. Tether has been used primarily by cryptocurrency traders to safely park their gains in other crypto investments without having to convert their gains back into fiat currency.
Tether has grown into a multi-billion dollar engine on the selling point that it is backed by the US dollar, but it has not been without controversy. Investors have long been worried about whether Tether has the money to back up the cryptocurrency as claimed. The company’s refusal to be audited has also raised a lot of questions. Searching Google for “Is Tether a scam?” returns thousands of results.
In January 2018, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued subpoenas to Tether Ltd. to check whether there was such a cash stockpile in its reserve. An investigation left many unanswered questions, like where do Tether’s funds originate from and where do the funds go after reporting them?
Tether has been characterized as a quasi-bank because its digital coin can be conveyed anywhere in the world without the involvement of traditional financial institutions or governments. Unlike U.S. dollars, which must be sent via correspondent banks.
Conclusion
It is also speculated that perhaps FB wants to offerGlobalCoin for investors on cryptocurrency exchanges, which may relieve FB of some of the regulatory burden since the exchanges would be held responsible by regulators for holding the digital coins and vetting investors. If that is the case, then you will soon find GlobalCoin on BTCNEXT which is the best cryptocurrency exchange for transparency, security and versatility.
USDQ/KRWQ and soon many more stablecoins on Q DAO have many advantages over FB's GlobalCoin: it is truly decentralized and stored securely and privately in your own crypto wallet. These stablecoins can be transferred globally in almost no time and is an important development towards a more open financial system. The Q DAO family stablecoins designed to mitigate the market risks caused by the high volatility of virtual coins. This is much better than just handing over your money and personal data to FB.
# Q DAO diary { dev.day: 383, round: 1, 11 days until ieo#2, Q DAO price: $2.6 }
# BTCNEXT diary { dev.day:276, daily volume ~$14200k, 26 coins listed, IEO count ""3"" , BNX price $0.753 }
