The cacophony of two cents on Libra is getting deafening, so I thought I’d join the party =)
Actually fielding a handful of questions as to what this actually means for Asia and why there is nothing of the likes being developed in this part of the world. umm.. there is and its actually the only token that I believe where the majority of the demand (both ways) stems from real life use cases; a.k.a. Tether ($USDT).
Cross border foreign currency controls are real and they are getting circumvented all day by $USDT. Why bother with the other options that potentially put you at risk of being on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s wrath by dipping into the options out of the US? I’ve said this before but the reality is USDT is simply too embedded in the current set up to be dethroned by the myriad of substitutes out there. Yes the tracking error vis-a-vis others is wider no doubt but if the spread is in your favor, why not make some lunch money as you move your funds around? Sure $USDT also serves as trading pairs for crypto/crypto exchanges with no fiat on/off ramp but the lions’ share of the circa $20bn that trades daily is used for remittances. This accounts for 1/3 of all crypto transactions combined.
And then you have Kakao (035720 KS) & Line (3938 JP) the default chat channels in Korea and Japan. Put it simply, if you are a national of one of those countries and have a smartphone, you are using these platforms.
What's more, they have already created a buzzing ecosystem where users are paying for everything from cartoons to hailing taxis translating into some of the highest ARPUs for any social media platform, eclipsing Facebook & Telegram.
$KLAY will be added to Kakao’s wallet (most widely used in Korea, they also run the biggest internet bank in the country) and users will be able to pay not only for the existing 30 odd in-app applications but also for the 40+ dApps that will be providing their services on Klaytn. The best part is that from the perspective of the end user, they won’t be able to tell the difference between an existing regular app and a blockchain dApp. #RealLifeUseCase.
The biggest upside to KLAY however, will come from the staking demand from the dApps as they will be required to stake KLAY for computing power & memory on the blockchain.
OSL is in touch with both projects. If interested, please reach out to your traders through your respective group chats.
May the trend be your friend… Happy trading!
