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Widening Global Wealth Inequality Gap Can Be Narrowed By Universal Basic Income

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By Nir Yaacobi, Economics Lead, GoodDollar

Carrying the can: it is no fault of the poorest 3.8 billion people on the planet that global wealth is becoming more regressive — but to redress the balance new thinking is needed

The global wealth inequality gap is widening, according to Oxfam. To coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum 2019 in the Swiss ski resort of Davos on January 21, the development charity published its annual report on the state of the world’s economy.

The headline-grabbing finding from the research was that 26 of the richest people on the planet own as much, in terms of assets, as the 3.8 billion people that comprise the poorest half of the globe’s population.

This time last year the figure released by Oxfam was that the wealthiest 42 people owned as much as the poorest 3.7 billion. That statistic is used on the landing page for GoodDollar, a research hub that explores how decentralised cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology may enable models based on universal basic income (UBI) with the central aim of reducing global wealth inequality.

Need for change: GoodDollar’s website homepage is now out of date following Oxfam’s latest statistics showing the wealth inequality gap is widening

The figure needs updating, to reflect the worsening situation, alas. As Oxfam’s 2019 report summary states: “Our economy is broken, with hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top.

“The number of billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis and their fortunes grow by $2.5 billion a day, yet the super-rich and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades.

“The human costs — children without teachers, clinics without medicines — are huge. Piecemeal private services punish poor people and privilege elites.”

The accompanying press release points out: “Billionaire fortunes increased by 12 percent last year … while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent.”

The report promotes the urgent need for a new system. “We need to transform our economies to deliver universal health, education and other public services.”

At GoodDollar, we believe blockchain-powered UBI is the right tool to help fix what the report calls “inequality at home [with] developed nations currently failing to meet their overseas aid commitments [that] could raise the missing billions needed to tackle extreme poverty in the poorest countries by increasing taxes on extreme wealth”.

Simply put, a new decentralised mechanism is critical to tackling wealth inequality — and sooner rather than later, with many economists predicting another global financial crisis before long.

If the wealth transfer from the rich countries to the poor ones is operated by governments and authorities in individual countries, with their own interests at heart, then this approach is likely to finance the public administration in the rich countries and corrupt regimes in the poorer nations. Very little will arrive its destination.

“Upwards of 30 per cent of funds allocated to humanitarian aid is lost to corruption,” points out Ira Ryk-Lakhman, GoodDollar’s General Counsel, in a recent guest article on Cointelligence. “This is mind-blowing. Other estimates calculate that over 80 per cent of the funding that is allocated for charities does not make it to the final beneficiaries.”

A new way of thinking is needed to right the balance; GoodDollar and other decentralised, blockchain-backed UBI programmes should be explored. For instance, GoodDollar, once established, will cut out the middleman — in this case a government or custodial authority — and hand funds directly from the rich to the poor.

We believe that with the right decentralised tool the very rich people will be willing to donate more of their funds if they know it is destined for the right cause, rather than for a new tax that they will always find a way to avoid. Change has to come, and together we can narrow the wealth inequality gap.

Do you have the skills to help the GoodDollar project? We need builders, scientists, and experts in identity, privacy, and financial governance, as well as philanthropists and ambassadors. Contact us at [email protected], via our social media channels (Twitter and Telegram), join the OpenUBI movement, or visit our GitHub page.

Altcoins

XNO Token of Xeno NFT Hub listed on Bithumb Korea Exchange

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Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 25th January, 2021, // ChainWire //

Xeno Holdings Limited (xno.live ), a blockchain solutions company based in Hong Kong, has announced the listing of its ecosystem utility token XNO on the ‘Bithumb Korea’ cryptocurrency exchange on January 21st 2021.

Xeno NFT Hub (market.xno.live ), developed by Xeno Holdings, enables easy minting of digital items into NFTs while also providing a marketplace where anyone can securely trade NFTs.

The Xeno NFT Hub project team includes former members of the technology project Yosemite X based in San Francisco and professionals such as Gabby Dizon who is a games industry expert and NFT space influencer based in Southeast Asia.

NFT(Non-Fungible Token) technology has recently gained huge focus in the blockchain arena and beyond, making waves in the online gaming sector, the art world, and the digital copyrights industry in recent years. The strongest feature of NFTs is that “NFTs are unique digital assets that cannot be replaced or forged”. Unlike fungible tokens such as Bitcoin or Ether, NFTs are not interchangeable for other tokens of the same type but instead each NFT has a unique value and specific information that cannot be replaced. This fact makes NFTs the perfect solution to record and prove ownership of digital and real-world items like works of art, game items, limited-edition collectibles, and more. One of the ways to have a successful…

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XENO starts VIP NFT trading service and collaborates with contemporary artist Hiro Yamagata

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Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 24th December, 2020, // ChainWire //

The XENO NFT Hub (https://xno.live) will provide a crypto-powered digital items and collectables trading platform allowing users to create, buy, and sell NFTs. Additionally it will support auction based listings, governance and voting mechanisms, trade history tracking, user rating and other advanced features.

As a first step towards its fully comprehensive service, XENO NFT Hub launched a recent VIP service to select users and early adopters in December 2020 with plans for a full Public Beta to open in June 2021. 

“NFTs are extremely flexible in their usage, from digital event tickets to artwork, and while NFTs have a very wide spectrum of uses and categories XENO will initially focus its partnership efforts and its own item curation on three primary areas: gaming, sports & entertainment, and collectibles.”, said XENO NFT Hub president Anthony Di Franco.

He also added “This does not mean we will prohibit other types of NFTs from our ecosystem However, it simply means that XENO’s efforts as a company will be targeted into these verticals initially as a cohesive business approach.”

Development and Procurement Lead, Gabby Dizon explained, “Despite our initial focus, we found ourselves with a unique opportunity to host some of the works of Mr. Hiro Yamagata. We are collaborating with Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata to enshrine some of his artwork into NFTs.”

Mr. Yamagata has…

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My Crypto Heroes Announces Issuance of MCH Governance Token

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Tokyo, Japan, 24th November, 2020, // ChainWire //

My Crypto Heroes is happy to announce the issuance of MCH Coin as an incentive to players in the My Crypto Heroes ecosystem, aiming to allow them to craft a “User-oriented world”. The MCH coin is available on Uniswap with a newly created pool with ETH. 

My Crypto Heroes is a blockchain-based game for PC and Mobile. It allows users to collect historic heroes and raise them for battle in a Crypto World. Officially released on November 30th, 2018, MCH has recorded the most transactions and daily active users than any other blockchain game in the world.

What is MCH Coin?

MCH Coin is being issued as an ERC-20 Standard Governance Token. The issuance began on November 9th, 2020, with 50 million tokens issued.

Of the funds issued, 40% are allocated to a pay for on-going development and as rewards for advisors and early investors. 10% are allocated to marketing and the growth of the ecosystem, and 50% are allocated to the community. The Distribution Ratio of the MCH Coin is subject to change via a governance decision.

The MCH coin will be used as a voting right as part of the ecosystem’s governance, with 1 coin being 1 vote. It will also be used for in-game utilities and payments. Additional information can be found here:

https://medium.com/mycryptoheroes/new-ecosystem-with-mchcoin-en-a6a82494894f

During December 2020 the first…

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