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Crypto and Blockchain: Looking Ahead To 2021 and Beyond | Ripple
2020 was certainly not the year anyone expected. Within the financial services sector specifically, 2020 did not meet early expectations for more mainstream blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption.
However, the pandemic did demonstrate new and greater use cases for cryptocurrency. And ultimately, the past 12 months proved to be ones of steady progress that helped strengthen the foundation for the technology. But, obviously, U.S. and global regulation continues to be top of mind not only for Ripple, but for the industry as a whole.
Looking ahead, Ripple’s leadership anticipates a year of continued acceleration for blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation and shares their insight of what 2021 might bring.
A Crypto Quickening
RippleNet General Manager Asheesh Birla says the line between crypto and banking is blurring, providing an opportunity for nimbler fintech companies to leverage crypto to erode the market share of larger, slower-moving incumbent banks.
That changing embrace of crypto is already being exhibited by consumer-facing fintechs like Square, Robinhood and PayPal. Those companies originally made mobile and digital banking services more accessible to a wider swath of customers. Now, their adoption of crypto is helping introduce more people to digital assets and blockchain enabled financial services.
Birla anticipates that the use of crypto and streamlined fintech regulations will help even more fintechs compete with banks on a level playing field in 2021.
At the same time, crypto companies are exploring more traditional banking opportunities as evidenced by the number of crypto and blockchain firms that applied for banking charters in 2020.
“The tide is turning,” said Birla. “It’s possible that we could even see a fintech or cryptocurrency company acquire a traditional financial institution this coming year.”
Dawning of DeFi
This past year was DeFi’s coming out party. DeFi generated a lot of buzz and some interesting applications over the course of 2020. This was largely confined to the crypto space, but it amounted to an important preview of DeFi’s potential.
Looking ahead, Ripple’s Head of DeFi Michael Zochowski says that 2021 will see DeFi gain even more traction as it matures. “I anticipate many of the early DeFi projects will fizzle out, consolidate, or get acquired in the months ahead,” said Zochowski. “But the truly useful ones – most likely the simpler applications replicating financial services like wrapped assets or decentralized exchanges – should continue to gain momentum with users.”
Zochowski also predicts that new DeFi platforms will solidify their footing as demands for performance and cost accelerates. In particular, he expects more sidechain projects, bridges between networks and smart contract applications to emerge as interoperability and efficiency increase in importance.
With Eth2 still far from reality, he also cautions that Ethereum will continue to lose ground and could fall even further by 2020 if development timelines slow: “I believe at least 25% of the value deployed in DeFi by the end of 2021 will be on networks other than Ethereum.”
Zochowski also believes the XRPL ecosystem is poised to build on significant 2020 achievements with several new major initiatives that will extend its leadership role in DeFi. These include a variety of projects – such as Flare and XRPL Transaction Hooks – enabling expanded smart contract functionality for XRP users and developers. He also says the XRP community is returning to its roots by exploring fungible tokens and a decentralized exchange on XRPL.
“We’re expecting the asset tokenization trend to accelerate on XRPL, particularly stablecoin issuance, with multiple production deployments in corporate products built on new and improved tooling,” said Zochowski.
Regulatory Clarity
A new administration is expected to bring a renewed focus on regulation and enforcement from the White House. As cryptocurrencies move further into the mainstream, G20 countries have no choice but to consider these technologies on a short list of financial regulatory priorities. As we’ve seen, a lack of a clear regulatory framework over the last four years in the U.S. especially has left fintech and blockchain players in a state of limbo. Other countries like the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan are miles ahead.
Ripple’s General Counsel Stu Alderoty predicts that crypto regulation will be a top priority for a Biden team that understands its implications for public and private sector innovation. This could lead to a unified framework and a streamlined application process for fintechs seeking crypto licenses.
“Intelligent, well thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.,” said Alderoty.
The Year of CBDCs
That relationship between government regulation and innovation is also at play in the white-hot arena of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
Driven by pandemic realities, such as a move away from cash and a need for improved ways to distribute government aid, as well as China having pushed ahead with its own CBDC, many countries have accelerated their nascent projects. Notably, a number of European countries are actively exploring the feasibility of a digital euro while the United States Federal Reserve is collaborating on research with MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative.
“The activity and advancement in CBDCs are the clearest indicators yet that digital currencies are the future,” said James Wallis, VP of Central Bank Engagements at Ripple. “Over the course of 2021, I expect to see greater evolution of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and CBDCs with each firm establishing their place in finance and payments through more defined use cases.”
In the coming year, the focus of CBDCs will broaden from solving for domestic solutions to addressing cross-border interoperability. Like with China, some Central Banks will focus on retail CBDCs tied to ecommerce platforms, while others will experiment with replacing cash as in Sweden or the Bahamas. These new projects will require collaboration between Central Bank networks and private blockchains, and may be able to utilize neutral bridge currencies that can provide liquidity and instant settlement for cross-border payments.
Beyond Proof-of-Work
The launch of Ethereum’s Beacon Chain was an important turning point in 2020 for Ripple CTO David Schwartz. He sees it as a clear move away from proof-of-work (PoW) and towards more scalable, sustainable systems in 2021.
“The fact of the matter is that PoW systems consume a lot of resources and energy,” said Schwartz. “They also feature an inevitable bend towards centralization over time as the miners with the cheapest power become key stakeholders. 2021 will see technical innovations continue to improve blockchains like XRPL that use newer technologies.”
To mitigate this consolidation of power and to improve energy usage, he expects more blockchains to mirror Ethereum’s migration and pursue the building of carbon neutral blockchains like XRPL.
For those that attain carbon neutral status, the positive environmental impact is enormous. This comparison of energy consumption by XRP transactions relative to bitcoin, credit cards, and even cash highlights the potential for the industry.
As part of this growing emphasis on sustainability, Ripple also set an important 2020 benchmark when it became the first blockchain company to commit to being carbon neutral. Ripple unveiled a number of initiatives that will help it achieve this milestone by 2030.
Focusing on Impact
RippleX General Manager Monica Long anticipates this commitment to impact to play out in other ways over the coming year.
“In 2021 we’ll see crypto make good on its original promise to remake finance as more accessible and equitable for the world’s underserved,” offered Long.
To help achieve that vision, crypto will first help level the competitive playing field, opening the door to fintechs that emphasize consumer empowerment. Companies that offer easy to use and understand services; are safe, secure, and private; boast interoperability globally; and help people build wealth and achieve socioeconomic mobility will be the eventual winners.
Long expects to see the greatest change come at the expense of established financial providers and in developing nations across the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa that have already embraced a digital path. For countries that have leapfrogged traditional banking and credit card networks in favor of mobile services, crypto is a logical next step.
Ultimately, the year ahead will be one of growth across the board for blockchain and digital assets. While the pandemic slowed progress globally, it also shone a bright light on the functional utility and opportunity for digital currencies. This will translate into continued innovation for the sector in 2021.
This content was originally published here.
It’s a universal truth, kids do the craziest things—all of the time. Not only that but when you ask them why they thought that putting cheese between their toes was a good idea, they’ll just shrug and say, “I don’t know.”
It takes a while before children get old enough to not try everything that crosses their mind. And before that happens, parents make sure they take pictures of their shenanigans. Otherwise, why would people believe they used to trim their nails so that they would look like finger crowns?
Luckily for us, some moms and dads share these “kids make no sense” photos on the Internet too. So sit back, relax (you won’t have to clean up the mess), and enjoy this exclusive compilation of malfunctioning kids by Bored Panda!
#1 My Mom Said This Was One Of My Favorite Things To Do As A Child
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#2 Asked My Sister If My Nephew Was Enjoying The Wedding. This Is The Picture She Sent Back
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#3 Walked In On My Son Watching TV Like This. Freaked Me Out For A Second
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#4 “He’s Upset His Gloves Match His Jacket”
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#5 My 4-Year-Old Daughter Was Watching Something On Her Tablet That Scared Her. So She Came Back With Protective Headgear
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#6 Hmm, That’s A Worry
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#8 Pants
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#9 This Is How My Son Was Sleeping. He May Be Immortal
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#10 My 2-Year-Old Cousin Is Genuinely In Love With Her Skeleton
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#11 We Have 6 Beds And My Kids Still Sleep Like The Grandparents From Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Every Night
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#12 My Two Kids Sitting Next To The Brand-New Couch My Wife Ordered Them
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#13 Why Go To Playground, When You Can Have Your Own Personal Customized Brother-Swing
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#14 Imagination Level 100. My 2-Year-Old Daughter Drew A Pillow With Chalk, Then Laid Down For A Nap
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#15 Wife And I Went Out One Night And Came Home To My Son Sleeping Like This
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#16 My Brother Has Discovered That His Swim Shirt Holds Air
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#17 Instead Of Just Letting Us Know Verbally She Woke Up From Her Nap, Or Opening Up The Cracked Door, She Thought She Needed To Wave At Us From Under The Door Until She Got Our Attention
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#18 This Is How My 2.5-Year-Old Niece Insists On Holding Her New Baby Brother
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#19 He Looks Comfortable
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#20 Tablet Computer Yoga
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#21 Not Sure If I Should Be Proud Or Concerned. My Daughter Said “He’s Got The Rona!” And Started Making Him A Coffin
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#22 Lost My Kid In Target. Found Him Here
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#23 Little Cousin’s Prompt Was, “What Place Do You Want To Go And Visit? It Can Be Anywhere In The World”
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#24 Was Looking Through My Fourth Grade Yearbook And Found This
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#25 Honest Card
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#26 Pool vs. Paint Bucket
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#27 Took My Daughter Out For A Nice Dinner
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#28 Introducing My Middle Child (Please Note The 3 Other Children Playing Normally In The Distance). She Found A Dead Squirrel And Was Super Excited
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#29 Daughter Wanted A Barbie Centaur. Introducing Barbitaur
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#30 Turn Your Back For 30 Seconds
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#31 Kid At Walmart Dragging His Head On The Ground While Mom Was Shopping
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#32 My Daughter Always Steals Printer Paper To Draw On So For Christmas I Wrapped A Pack Of 500 Pages Of Paper. She Started Running Around Screaming With Excitement
Easiest present ever.
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#33 Went To Check On My Daughter
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#34 I Was An Interesting Child
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#35 My Daughters Wanted To Play With Chalk Outside. I Came Out To Them Setting Up A Fake Crime Scene
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#36 We Caught My Girlfriend’s Niece Doing This At The Mall
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#37 My Little Brother Eats A Burger Layer By Layer
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#38 My Friend Is Potty Training Her Kid. This Is How She Poops When She’s Cold
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#39 My 3.5-Year-Old Niece Thinks She’s A Ninja
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#40 My Daughter Thinks The Closet Looks Less Creepy At Night Like This. That Makes One Of Us
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#41 My Niece. My Spirit Animal
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#42 Trying On Clothes With A Toddler In A Nutshell
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#43 My Kid Sleeps Like He Fell Down In Family Guy
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#44 Spider-Men Sleepover
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#45 Ah, Siblings
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#46 My Son Watching TV This Morning
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#47 My Son Found A Piece Of Brick Outside And Put It In A Ziplock Bag For Safe Keeping And Brought It Inside
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#48 My Daughter Now Has A Special Book, Carries It Around Everywhere And Uses It For Everything. It Is The Official Mr. Boston Guide To Bartending And Drink Mixing
The other day she snuck it into the car and tried to take it to daycare. She asks to sleep with it, as if it’s a stuffy.
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#49 Checked On My Daughter To See How School Was Going. Now Waiting For The Teachers Email. What’s With The Bat?
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#50 This Kid Eats Onions Like They’re Apples
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#51 My Son Didn’t Want To Be A Tiger Or A Superhero, He Wanted To Be A Traffic Light
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#52 By Special Request. I’ve Also Packed Her The Apple Peel
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#53 Keeping His Back Stretched. What A Healthy TV Watcher
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#54 He’s Only 1
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#55 My 2-Year-Old Daughter Was Pretty Hungry
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#56 “Necessities” For International Travel According To A Five-Year-Old
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#57 The Way My Brother Likes To Watch Youtube
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#58 It Was Too Quiet Upstairs. This Is How We Found Her
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#59 If Only I Could Sleep Like This Kid
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#60 To Avoid Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes, I Gave My Daughter A Mix Of Dolls And Toy Cars To Play With. This Is What Happened
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#61 Heard My Son Making Weird Cat Noises. Found Him This Way
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#62 I Was Going Through An Old Family Photo Album, I Found A Picture Of Me When I Was 9
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#63 Found This While Looking Through Old Pics. I Was A Weird Kid
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#64 My Brother “Laying On The Bed”
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#65 No, You’re Not Dead, Mickey Is
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#66 Yes, She Put Cheese In Her Toes
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#67 My Son Is Starting His Summer Off Right
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#68 My Sister And I Used To Rip The Heads Off Of Monster High Dolls And Attach The Head To Their Calves
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#69 Came Outside To Check On My Son Who Said He Was Going To Take A Nap. I Think He’s Living His Best Life
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#70 I’m Helping My Mom Clean Out My Little Sister’s Room And We Found This Ball With Toys Glued To It
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#71 My Little Sister Was Complaining About Wanting To Swim But Having No Pool. I Found Her In The Backyard Like This
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#72 My Daughter Is Mad Because I Won’t Open The Ranch Cup For Her. She Doesn’t Like Ranch Whatsoever
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#73 When The Uncrustable Has Too Much “Crust” Still
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#74 Took My Daughter For A Hike. She Wanted To Pack Her Own Gear. This Is What She Packed
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#75 Starbursts
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#76 My Daughter Fell Asleep With Teddy Ruxpin Still On
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#77 Luckily He Doesn’t Have A Credit Card
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#78 Younger Son Was Trimming His Fingernails Today And Decided To Give One Of Them A Crown
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#79 My Daughter Is Weird. Here Is A Picture Of Her Laying Under The Coffee Table While Blowing Raspberries Into A Paper Plate
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#80 I See That Other Guys Brother And Raise My Son
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#81 Y’all. I Have No Words. My Child Is Something. Spinach And Fruit Loops. Thankfully, She Has The Best Vitamins
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#82 How Do You Get Your Toddler To Eat? We Have To Draw Creepy Renditions Of Paul Stanley On Everything Possible
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#83 Maybe He Just Isn’t Into TV
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#84 This Is A Real Phenomenon I See
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#85 Now He Will Surely Meet Santa
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#86 My Grandson. Gotta Luv Them
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#87 This Looks Comfortable
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#88 Not Sure How I Should Feel About My Daughters Drawing Chalk Outlines Of Each Other
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#89 I Found This Collection Of Heads In My Kids’ Playroom
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#90 This Child Normally Eats A Cheese Only Taco, But Tonight Opted For A Carrot Only Taco And She Ate Every Bite
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#91 My Christmas Card From Preschool
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#92 What My Daughter Drew On The Back Of Her School Work. At School. Sweet Baby Jesus
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#93 I Raise You My Apple Torturer
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#94 Coming Back From The Narnia
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#95 That Should Hurt
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This content was originally published here.
If you have a friend or family member who experiences panic attacks, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed and helpless if it happens in your presence. Like any other mental health condition, it’s impossible to truly understand what a panic attack feels like unless you’ve experienced one yourself — but that doesn’t mean you can’t help your loved one through it.
By definition, a panic attack is a “sudden episode” in which a person experiences intense fear despite not being in any sort of danger. The fear manifests itself physically, and people who experience panic attacks often feel as though they’re having a heart attack or even dying. Here are some strategies to help a loved one through it.
1. Do a Grounding Exercise Together
Doreen Marshall, PhD, licensed psychologist and vice president of mission engagement at the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention, told POPSUGAR that the first step is to help the person “ground” themself and connect to the present moment. “Since panic attacks have a beginning, middle, and end, when someone is in the moment of an attack, encourage them to use mindfulness techniques or deep breathing exercises to help reset their nervous system,” Dr. Marshall said.
You can help ground someone by getting them to focus their attention on their immediate physical surroundings. For example, Dr. Marshall recommends having the person focus on a nearby object for 10 seconds or name five objects they notice around them. “It can also help to have the person make physical contact with a nearby object, such as putting their hands on a table or a chair or running their hands under cold water to help ground them,” she said.
2. Help Them Regulate Their Breathing
A panic attack makes it difficult to breathe, which is why the person may feel like they’re having a heart attack or dying. David Rakofsky, PsyD, licensed clinical psychologist and president of Wellington Counseling Group in Chicago, told POPSUGAR the best way to help a person regulate their breathing is to breathe with them. “By the time a person is in full panic mode, their blood gasses have likely shifted from an over-abundance of oxygen, which can fuel the accelerating state of the panic,” Dr. Rakofsky explained. “By regulating breath, you start to reverse this cycle.”
Dr. Rakofsky recommends the “times two” rule, which means that for every second you breathe air in, you double it on the way out. “Always keep in mind [that] a person in panic or in a heightened state of anxiety will not be able to take in a lot of air since there is a feeling of constriction in the chest,” he said. For this reason, Dr. Rakofsky says to start small and then work your way up to taking longer, deeper breaths together.
3. Know What Not to Say
“Avoid phrases that could provoke more panic and come off as dismissive, shaming, or blaming,” Dr. Marshall said. For example, you shouldn’t tell someone who’s experiencing a panic attack to calm down. Instead, use phrasing that shows you’re focused on listening to the person and helping them get through the panic attack, like “I’m here with you,” “Concentrate on your breathing,” or “Stay in the present.”
Dr. Rakofsky also emphasized the importance of never telling a person that the panic attack is all in their head. “The feeling of invalidation and psychological invisibility that comes with being told this is absolutely crushing and likely to bring about a greater state of panic and distress,” Dr. Rakofsky told POPSUGAR, noting that it also increases distrust and a lack of hope that they’ll find real, helpful treatment for their panic attacks.
“Once the panic attack is over, then you can help them address what may have contributed to the panic attack and seek professional help,” Dr. Marshall said.
4. Encourage Them to Seek Professional Help
If a person has panic attacks and isn’t receiving mental health treatment from a therapist and psychiatrist, encourage them to seek help from a professional who has experience treating panic and anxiety disorders. “Connecting with a mental health professional can help someone who experiences a panic attack or attacks have access to a resource who can help determine what’s happening in the moment as well as manage episodes over time,” Dr. Marshall said.
This content was originally published here.
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Regular exercise offers stronger mental health benefits than cardiorespiratory fitness, study finds
A Swedish study published in Mental Health and Physical Activity has shed light on the well-known link between exercise and mental health. The researchers found that, when accounting for sedentary behavior, cardiorespiratory fitness does not appear to improve anxiety and depressive symptoms, while frequency of exercise does.
The link between exercise and mental health has been well-documented, and yet findings are limited when it comes to the type of physical activity that is most beneficial. The literature has yet to establish the relative importance of the frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise. As study authors Mats Hallgren and his team say, it is also unclear how cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) relates to mental health.
CRF refers to the strength of the body’s circulatory and respiratory response to physical activity, and it tends to improve with regular exercise. In their study, Hallgren and his team set out to disentangle the relative importance of CRF and exercise frequency in the prevention of mental health symptoms. As the researchers say, filling in these gaps in research can help improve the design of exercise-based prevention strategies for mental health.
The researchers analyzed data from a general health assessment that was administered to a large number of Swedish employees. The sample was made up of 36,595 middle-aged men and women with an average age of 41. The questionnaires asked respondents how many times a week they had exercised in the past 30 days and how often they had experienced “worry, depressed mood or anxiety.” They also completed a test of cardiorespiratory fitness on a stationary bicycle and were then classified as either low, medium or high CRF.
First, the researchers found evidence that more frequent exercise was linked to improved mental health. Respondents who reported exercising at least 1-2 times a week were less likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety, even after accounting for sedentary behavior — which was measured as the amount of leisure time participants reported spending sitting still.
As the researchers explain, sedentary behavior appears to play an important role in the link between exercise and mental health. Another study led by Hallgren found evidence that passive sedentary behaviors, such as TV-watching, increase depressive symptoms while mentally-active sedentary behaviors may actually prevent them.
Interestingly, cardiorespiratory fitness appeared to be less important when it came to the prevention of mental health symptoms. While respondents in the medium and high CRF groups reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety, this effect disappeared when sedentary behavior was taken into account.
“Taken together,” Hallgren and colleagues report, “this suggests that high CRF may not be necessary to prevent common mental health symptoms. Instead, regular participation in a preferred form of structured exercise may be of greater relative importance.”
The researchers discuss the possibility that the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness may only be relevant when comparing people with very low CRF levels to those with higher levels. Previous research suggests that CRF appears to be most beneficial to somatic health when looking at improvements among those with low fitness levels. It could be that the current study’s sample, which was made up exclusively of employed persons, did not include enough people with low fitness levels to capture such an effect.
A substantial limitation was that symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured using a single item, and the researchers stress that this measure does not reflect a diagnosis of depression or anxiety. Moreover, symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression are distinct and would be better assessed separately in future studies.
The researchers conclude that regular exercise may be enough to lower anxiety and depressive symptoms among most people, while it may be useful to encourage exercises that boost CRF among people with particularly low levels of fitness.
The study, “Associations of exercise frequency and cardiorespiratory fitness with symptoms of depression and anxiety – a cross-sectional study of 36,595 adults”, was authored by Mats Hallgren, Aaron Kandola, Brendon Stubbs, Thi-Thuy-Dung Nguyen, Peter Wallin, Gunnar Andersson, and Elin Ekblom-Bak.
(Image by from Pixabay)
This content was originally published here.
The Power Of “Yet”: How to Teach Kids To Aspire For More
Feel Like Your Job is a Waste of Time? Here’s How Others Found Meaning
