Rice-based stable coin is being launched in Indonesia

Rice-based stable coin is being launched in Indonesia

MALANG, Indonesia, Jan. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ – Penjaga Lilin Nusantara, an Indonesian Cooperative in Malang- East Java is setting up Ricetron.com a Tron based DeFi (decentralized finance) to tokenized rice based stable coin. Ricetron aims to invite crypto enthusiasts to stake Tron and mint RET (Rice Economy Token), a governance token that will fund RIC (Rice Inventory Coin) stable coin.

RET & RIC token logo

RET token holder will benefit from 30% of all transaction fee and profit sharing of RIC DeFi, where once the DeFi platform running will be distributed back as Protégé Dividend to RET token holder wallets.

Total supply is 269,000 RET with only 190,000 RET minted through staking. It is TRC-20 token, using a TRX blockchain where the speed and the fee of transaction are much better compared to ERC based token.

Indonesia uses BULOG (state owned logistic agency) to stabilize staple price, which mostly focuses on rice. Due to lack of data reading skills, BULOG wastes 30,000 ton decayed rice every year, that amounts to almost 30 Million USD/year of Indonesian government budget.

Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM0hoA90T1A&t=6s

“The whole idea came from our meeting with a cooperative chairman named Mr. Steven Henry Raharjo. His cooperative has a rice savings program where with this program, he is able to make price stability for its members. Besides that, rice savers can also get additional rice at the end of the year as well as give zakat and sadaqah (donations) to those around them who need it without having to spend any more money,” says Mr. Victorinus Widyanto, COO of Ricetron.

Thus, the cooperative came up with idea to tokenized premium grade Rice and also taking advantage of the recent cryptocurrency bull run. By creating rice based stable coin, it gives people more access to rice especially BULOG rice. In addition, RIC can also be converted to DeFi savings and collateral, and it guarantees RIC holders to fresh rice at the time of exchange, since it is backed by BULOG’s purchase order (voucher) with no time expiration. 1 RIC cryptocurrency equals to 1Kg of premium grade rice, with more Rice-based stable coins will be launched in the future with different grade.

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This project also benefits BULOG in creating consumers-based data, optimizing the agency rice procurement and the most important thing reducing annual government budget loss.

“Meanwhile RET will also be used as an anchor token for cooperative future projects. So people can participate to fund future projects by staking RET,” says Eka Suwandana, CTO of Ricetron.

Ricetron started the staking program on 15th of January 2021, it is divided in 7 rounds. They also now offering Youtube Staking Contest, where 67.6 RET in total will be given as Prize. Checkout their telegram: https://t.me/ricetron, channel for more information.

SOURCE Cooperative Penjaga Lilin Nusantara

Credit Card Companies Should Offer Stablecoin Payments or Be Left Behind: Gartner

Centralized payment companies such as Visa, Mastercard and PayPal will need to adapt if they are to survive the potential demand for blockchain-based stablecoin payments, according to research firm Gartner.

In a Thursday blog post, Gartner notes that, while new bitcoin (BTC) offerings from such firms are helping to prepare the transition to a future payment infrastructure, their revenue is based on charging transaction fees for clearing and settlement.

The fee strategy, which sit at odds with blockchain’s peer-to-peer model, could be the very thing that sees these firms fall behind the competition from stablecoin payment networks, per the post penned by Avivah Litan, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.

Litan described such firms as “centralized decentralized finance” (CeDeFi) – in which centralized, mainstream firms with big bitcoin holdings bring innovation to the DeFi space and, conversely, adopt DeFi’s biggest apps.

But Litan points out that customers of these types of services are likely wondering if they will be obliged to pay centralized service fees for moving their cryptocurrency along the blockchain in the near future, defeating the technology’s initial promise.

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“Companies we speak to are justifiably skeptical of these services,” Litan wrote. “After all, the revolution of blockchain payments is that they execute peer-to-peer and eliminate central intermediaries and associated bank fees.”

However, the author added Gartner has yet to see a range of offerings from the crypto space for viable stablecoin payments, pointing to a lack of easily accessible applications and fees lower than are currently on offer from card networks or firms like Square and PayPal.

Litan said there’s potential for card firms to provide a range of as-yet-unseen offerings, such as transparent real-time stablecoin payments on the blockchain tied to underlying information regarding a given transaction, and protections for funds backing stablecoin sitting in partner bank accounts.

Card companies could provide the gateways for payors and payees and add functionality, according to the post.

“The card brands could still earn revenues from on and off ramp value-added services, and from interest on the reserves underlying the stablecoins,” Litan said.

By 2022, CeDeFi could be ready for enterprise adoption if the regulatory guidance is present, the research analyst predicted.

But, should the legacy payment companies fail to keep pace with the likes of fiat on/off ramps, such as fast-moving cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Gemini, other firms are going to step forward.

Tether’s Bank Deltec Says Stablecoin Is Fully Backed by Reserves

Tether Ltd.’s Bahamas-based bank, Deltec, said on Friday the company’s tether (USDT) stablecoin is fully backed by reserves, downplaying resurgent fears about the cryptocurrency’s integrity.

“Every tether is backed by a reserve and their reserve is more than what is in circulation,” Gregory Pepin, Deltec Bank deputy CEO, said on the latest episode of the “Unchained” podcast hosted by journalist Laura Shin. “We can see it firsthand, so I can confirm that.”

Tether Ltd., the company behind the tether stablecoin (which has a value linked to the U.S. dollar on a 1:1 basis), has been long accused of lacking of transparency about the coin’s backing. Indeed, a Tether lawyer said in 2019 each USDT was only about 74% backed by fiat equivalents.

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USDT’s market capitalization has grown from $4 billion to an astonishing $24 billion in the past 12 months. Reserves are said by Tether on its website to include “traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities.”

Fears about a shortage of backing resurfaced last week after a Medium post cited the discrepancy between the amount of tether issued during the nine months to September 2020 and the funds held at Bahamas-based domestic banks as evidence of a massive shortage of reserves at Tether.

“There weren’t nearly enough dollars in all the domestic banks in the Bahamas to back the tethers that were floating around in the crypto market,” the anonymously penned post stated, citing Bahamas central bank figures.

Pepin, however, refuted that claim, stating that Deltec is not a domestic bank and doesn’t have an authorized dealer license, which is needed to hold Bahamian dollars in cash and deposits.

“We cannot take domestic customers and we cannot hold domestic Bahamian dollars. So that report is actually not relevant,” Pepin told Shin. “And actually, if [the post’s author] took a little effort to go and dig a bit about the size of the Bahamian market of banking, [that person] would have found out that the entire mass of banks have around $200 billion in assets, I believe. And we are a part of that.”

Pepin also offered clarity on the bank’s recent disclosure of bitcoin (BTC) purchases for clients, which triggered rumors it was doing so on behalf of Tether. Both the bank and Tether denied the claim last week.

“We have a very competent and well-respected investment team. And as part of their portfolio education for customers, they actually did an allocation in bitcoin on behalf of those customers,” Pepin said, noting that the 50-year-old bank’s customers range from asset managers to high-net-worth individuals.