Paycoin, many may not have even heard of them but I kept my eye on it ever since the Chinese giant UnionPay partnered with them over two years ago. For those that don't know UnionPay, it is a Chinese payment system who just recently overtook Visa in global debit card transactions. This btw is what prompted me to immediately check in on good old Paycoin because as you undoubtedly heard, China is about to open the institutional investor gates via Hong Kong.

Hmmm big opportunities? Maybe, but not for Paycoin as things stand now because Seoul defacto blacklisted them and is directly responsible for Paycoin's delisting from numerous exchanges. Why? Were there "North Korean hackers" active again? Drug cartels? Terrorist financing with Paycoin? Nah none of that, just because Paycoin did what crypto was supposed to do and allowed people to pay for items using crypto without a bank or credit cards.

"Paycoin’s mechanism is simple. When users purchase goods or services using Paycoin at local stores, Danal will make these transactions possible by paying cash to the stores and attaining users’ digital coins in return....However, the business encountered a setback on Jan. 6 when the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit suspended its operations due to concerns about possible money laundering and other negative effects that could arise during the process of converting digital coins into cash."

Paycoin did not directly throw in the towel and announced to be partnering with banks in hopes of staying active and to also get the government off their back since people's ID would then indirectly be known via their bank account. But using blockchain this way as you are being subdued by banks in order keep functioning as a crypto, is like not filling up the tank and instead have someone push you around in your car. Sure, you are in the drivers' seat and it moves and everything, but come on.🤦‍♂️Many stores are accepting Bitcoin and that is happening without banks as well. People are converting that back an forth to cash or other cryptos all the time so why not go ahead and demand exchanges to delist Bitcoin next? Oh, you're too late to stop Bitcoin and resorted to the mining/energy pollution angle on that one? Right, gotcha!

I particularly like how Korea is acting this way while being ground zero for that whole Luna debacle. Looks like they have their priorities all set.😃 In other FOMO news, Swift actually mentioned my old nemesis CargoX in one of their press releases. "In collaboration with edoxOnline and CargoX, we’re innovating to accelerate digital trade by connecting electronic Bills of Lading (eBL) platforms and improving interoperability."

Anyways that's it for today, gotta take my fomo-meds now💊