A new crypto winter for cryptocurrencies?

In the last year, negative news has been accumulating in the cryptoasset market. After the bankruptcy of crypto-asset platform FTX and the loss of almost three quarters of the value of bitcoin in a year, the future of cryptocurrencies seems more in doubt than ever.

The Super Bowl is the world’s most expensive advertising showcase. In its last edition, held in February, nearly 7 million dollars were paid for a 30-second advert, something within the reach of very few companies. One of them was FTX, the world’s third-largest crypto asset platform at the time. Its ad compared cryptocurrencies to some of mankind’s greatest inventions, presented the company as “a safe and easy way” to access this market and ridiculed the sceptics.

Just a few months later, FTX filed for bankruptcy and threatens to leave more than a million people around the world without their money. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire collapsed in just one week.

Following the sudden drop in the price of the FTX token in early November, Bankman-Fried requested a bailout from Binance, the world’s largest digital asset exchange platform. Although Binance initially agreed to help him, a few hours later it backed out, citing mismanagement of funds and other irregularities. On 11 November, FTX had no choice but to announce in a tweet the filing for bankruptcy proceedings and the resignation of Sam Bankman-Fried as CEO.

Possible contagion

As with many cryptocurrency companies, FTX’s house of cards was built on expectations of revaluation. When investor confidence crumbles, nothing can stop a catastrophic spiral that eventually takes down the company, which in FTX’s case had reached a valuation of $32 billion at the beginning of the year.

Given its size, the aftershocks of FTX’s collapse are expected to be prolonged and devastating. The first victim could be the Crypto.com platform, which in recent months had already made massive layoffs due to the turbulent situation in the crypto-asset market. Its token Cronos has lost more than half of its value in less than a week.

Sources indicate that the platform deposited more than $1 billion in FTX, of which it was only able to recover about $100 million. However, Crypto.com’s CEO has denied this on Twitter, claiming that its exposure to FTX is less than $10 million. The truth is that his message has failed to calm the markets, which continue to fear the collapse of this platform.

The risk of a new “crypto-winter”.

The collapse of FTX and the crisis at Crypto.com come against a backdrop of doubts about the future of cryptocurrencies. After reaching a valuation of 58,358 euros in November 2021, the successive falls of what became known as the “crypto-winter” and the uncertainty of the last few days have pushed bitcoin below 16,000 euros, which means it has lost almost three-quarters of its value in a year.

As we explained in the article “Cryptocurrencies, a highly volatile asset”, bitcoin is no exception. Volatility has also affected other cryptocurrencies in recent months. For example, Ether lost two-thirds of its value between April and June, falling from more than €3,000 to less than €1,000, before rising back above €1,900 in mid-August and dropping below €1,200 in recent days.

Terra Luna, the most talked-about case until the FTX debacle, went from being worth more than 80 euros at the beginning of May to being practically worthless in little more than a week. And yet it was a ‘stablecoin’, i.e. a cryptocurrency whose value is linked to that of another currency, commodity or financial instrument, which should provide more stability.

Although crypto-assets continue to have many enthusiasts, more and more portfolio managers assume that the structure of this market is too risky and the losses are too great. The notion of bitcoin as the new digital gold, a safe haven in turbulent times, has faded. As a result, many institutional investors are turning their backs on crypto-assets to increase their participation in theoretically safer markets, such as precious metals.

In any case, the current crisis in the cryptocurrency market reminds us of the importance of having a diversified portfolio to protect us from sharp falls in the valuation of any of our assets.

Session on cryptoeconomics

If you want to learn more about the crypto-assets market, on 22 November at La Plaça we will be hosting Susana Rodríguez Urgel, founder of The Digital Advisory Board, who will be speaking live about cryptoeconomics in the second chapter of “Que no faltin!” series.

This expert in cryptography and one of those responsible for “the commercial and digital transformation of Telefónica” more than a decade ago, as James Sène, president of 11Onze, pointed out, promises a provocative session open to debate. If you are interested in participating live to raise your doubts and questions, you can write to [email protected].

If you want to discover the best option to protect your savings, enter Preciosos 11Onze. We will help you buy at the best price the safe-haven asset par excellence: physical gold.

Central banks’ digital currencies and our ‘virtual’ identity in the metaverse will play a pivotal role in the proposal to rebuild the global economic model that was put forward from the Davos economic forum. What consequences will this paradigm shift have for our lives? In a new Fintech Talks, James Sène, chairman and founder of 11Onze, explains the changes to come and gives us food for thought on how to deal with them.

Two lions crown the pillars at the foot of the stone-railed staircase leading to the main entrance of Villa Urània. The house is a tower surrounded by a garden in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district, which was bequeathed to Barcelona City Council by will by the astronomer Josep Comas y Solà. A neoclassical style space that has been reinvented combining tradition with modernity, and reconverted into a Japanese coffee shop, the Oyatsu Lab, is the ideal setting for a Fintech Talks that analyses what the restart of the current economic model will be like.

It was well into the evening when the audience began to fill the café. Unlike other events previously organised by 11Onze, this talk is thought of to be more relaxed, in small groups, to allow the conversation to flow between the audience and the speaker. Gemma Vallet, director of 11Onze District, is in charge of asking preliminary questions and moderating the debate.

Faced with the imminent economic recession, the first question is obvious: how did we get to this point? To begin with, Sène points out that 11Onze has been explaining and warning for a couple of years that the sovereign debt crisis of the states will lead us to a global crisis with major socio-economic consequences, “when private banks create money out of nothing, constantly, inflation is inevitable”.

Unlimited growth on a resource-constrained planet

The interaction with the audience does not take long to get started, and the conversation drifts towards neoclassical economic theory, which is necessary to understand the current economic model. The management of scarcity as a fundamental concept of the capitalist system has set a path focused on unlimited growth, which is totally unsustainable precisely because of the limited resources of our planet.

A new, community-based, mutualistic model, based on social networks, where most things are shared, is being imposed as a counterpart to the status quo that existed until a few years ago. We are facing a “transition from the old model, totally dominated by a few, to a new model that reaches more people and is decentralised,” says Sène.

He concludes that this change of model is inevitable, but that, at the same time, the actors who now dominate and direct the economy will do their best to perpetuate a system where people’s access to goods is restricted, thus ensuring the relevance of scarcity in the economic model.

A virtual and virtualised world

These are issues that are difficult to explain and hard to assimilate, but the president of 11Onze does not shrug his shoulders and proposes two ‘tips’ to understand what is happening: how the ecosystem works and the rules of the game. But first, he points out that we have to understand that we do not live in a virtual world, but in a virtualised world, i.e. “what happens in the digital world has a real impact on our lives, we are living in a totally virtualised world”.

The creation of central bank-controlled digital currencies (CBDCs) will be the basis on which the centralised financial system will survive, while the metaverse will play a key role in digitising our identities. Public interpellations point out that we may be too late to avoid a fait accompli, while Sène argues that financial information and education are essential resources for people to defend their freedoms.

The debate is wide open and goes on well past dinner time, the conversation was not only flowing, but transformed into a whole series of ideas that increase the collective intelligence of our community, and above all, encourages the learning that is so necessary for our financial sovereignty. Soon, we will publish this Fintech Talks on 11Onze TV from La Plaça.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

In the first episode, we talk to James Sène about money as the conversion of our time into capital. Do you have questions? Write them in the comments of this article.

We premiere our financial education video podcast at 19:00 on 8 November, which you can follow live here!

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

Games, didactic guides, virtual or face-to-face classes… 11Onze offers a new free educational service to the people of La Plaça and to the entire educational community of the country.

11Onze is extending its commitment to financial education and is launching 11Onze Escola, a project for schools throughout the country to train their students in economic and financial matters. Everything is available with open access at 11Onze Escola. Work has been carried out over the last few months with the aim of providing teachers and students with tools to complement the educational curriculum, broadening their view of the new economy.

During the last academic year, a teacher member of La Plaça asked if a representative of 11Onze could give a class for his students. “A high-school teacher impressed by the information shared at La Plaça“, explains 11Onze President James Sène, “asked us if we could offer a financial education session to his students. We decided to go one step further and offer financial education sessions and make them available to everyone.

Since then, pilot tests have been carried out at the Cendrassos Secondary School in Figueres and the Arraona Secondary School in Sabadell. The result is an ambitious project. “We estimate that we can offer 52 face-to-face or virtual classes,” explains Content Director Toni Mata, “but the platform is designed so that teachers can use our material directly.

That’s right. Using content from 11Onze’s La Plaça, such as El Diner series, we have developed teaching guides that allow you to run a class and test students with gamified quizzes.

What classes do you offer?

If you request a class with 11Onze, you can choose whether you want it to be virtual or face-to-face. In both cases, an 11Onze representative will offer you a 1-hour class. We currently offer three types of classes: Introduction to Financial Education, Open Banking, and Digital Currencies.

In these classes, we can touch on some important topics of the new economy, which do not figure prominently in the current educational curriculum, but which are crucial for the immediate future, given the digitalisation of the economy. Classes on integrated finance, CBDC, tokenisation, mining, open banking … “We believe that students need to be prepared to manage their money in an environment that will be radically different from the one we have now,” Mata explains.

According to a Greenlight study, nearly three-quarters of teenagers (74%) said they do not feel confident in personal finance knowledge. About the same percentage of teens (73%) said they want to learn more. “Our mission is to engage and educate young students to improve their financial literacy by teaching them how money works and the technology behind it“, explained 11Onze CEO James Sène, adding that “we understand that without basic financial education, children and young adults will face immense difficulties in managing their finances effectively. This could lead to bad credit, bankruptcy and no savings”.

How to book a class

Please fill in a form available at 11Onze Escola to book a class. The initiative is aimed at everyone, but at 11Onze we have planned to be able to give a maximum of 52 face-to-face/virtual classes this academic year. “This means that many requests will obviously not be able to be met this year. That is why it is important to book as early as possible and why we have also made sure the 11Onze Escola platform is full of content that secondary school teachers can use directly,” says Mata.

As James Sène explains: “We cover topics such as credit cards, cryptocurrencies and money management. For young people, digital banking is no longer a mystery, even if they don’t know much about all the processes behind it. As almost all of them have financial apps on their mobile phones, they are interested in financial education.”

The 11Onze Escola project is key for the Catalan institution, which has always had financial education and transparency as one of its pillars. “With the right knowledge, citizens make the right decisions and keep a better eye on their rulers and companies. It is a question of financial education, but at the end of the day it is a question of democracy“, says Mata.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

If you’ve heard of the blockchain, you surely know something about the infrastructure that underpins the world of cryptocurrencies. “Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies,” 11Onze’s CTO Raul Arribas sums up in a new episode of L’Estat de la Nació.

“It is money that exists in the digital world, and not in the real world, understanding real as that which we carry in our wallet and can touch with our fingers. But it is not much different from the money we usually use,” Arribas explains. In fact, you have to think that nowadays we pay for almost everything with our cards or mobile phones, we make transfers, we collect our paychecks, and we never see the banknotes.

So what is the difference with conventional money? The first, in fact, is the technology that supports it, the blockchain. “It is a much more secure technology than the current one. Cryptocurrencies are a type of money that is more protected in the digital environment,” 11Onze’s CTO summarises. And he adds that “the other big difference is that the money is yours.”

“Conventional electronic money is not entirely ours. If I want to make a transfer, the bank has to authorise it, if I want to pay in a restaurant, I won’t be able to pay if Visa or Mastercard doesn’t validate that card…,” Arribas explains. “With cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, there is no one to stop me from sending money to someone else,” he says. This is because cryptocurrencies do not have a central institution that decides what can be done and what can’t. “This is a very important paradigm shift,” 11Onze’s CTO says.

Securing everyone’s interests

“For decades, central banks have not been issuing banknotes and coins according to the gold reserves they have, but they can issue any currency they want, and they do it to alter the economy according to the interests, supposedly of everyone. But in the end we always end up paying the same people. As is happening nowadays, when central banks start printing money, inflation rises and then people’s savings lose value and we can buy less things with the same money,” Raul Arribas explains.

On the contrary, what makes cryptocurrencies valuable is how they manage to create new currencies in circulation. This is thanks to the people who secure the whole technological environment, and who, in fact, work precisely for that, to get rewards for their work, something key to sustaining the whole system. “It’s set up in a decentralised way that prevents the people working on it from having a vested interest in owning the system,” 11Onze’s CTO sums up.

11Onze is the fintech community of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut on Android and Apple and join the revolution!

11Onze’s new Fintech Talks in November rubs activism and brings ideas to discuss how to “reset” the economy. You can’t miss it! It’s a big challenge ahead of us and the more of us who bring ideas the better, let’s increase the collective intelligence!

In 2021, in the Davos agenda, the World Economic Forum incorporated The Great Reset initiative with the aim of reflecting on the great economic reset to be carried out at a global level, after the impact of Covid-19.

Today, there is an urgent need to think again in order to take action and revive the economy. We will do so with James Sène, Chairman and founder of 11Onze, on 10 November. This Fintech Talks is very special, it will take place in a place that inspires us, the Vila Urània, in the Gracia district of Barcelona, which was the home of Josep Comas, astronomer and promoter of modern astronomy in Catalonia, and today it has been converted into a wonderful Japanese Oyatsu Lab, a wonderful Japanese café with a renewed and balanced menu of sweet and savoury dishes. An accessible yet very elegant place, the ideal setting for a conversation with James Sène about the new economy.

When: 10 November at 7pm

Where: Vila Urània, Oyatsu Lab cafeteria, Carrer de Zaragoza, 29, 08006 Barcelona

How much: FREE

RSVP here

11Onze’s Fintech Talks are a way to accelerate learning and understanding of the new economy, of complex and essential topics in today’s world. The talk will be moderated by Gemma Vallet, Director of 11Onze District.

James Sène is a born entrepreneur and businessman, with a background in the world of digital business and large corporations, such as his time as head of content and digital business at FC Barcelona and his time as head of brand relations and sponsorship in the interactive area of IMG, an American multinational and world leader in sports marketing.

A tireless worker, he was responsible for one of the Culture and Leisure areas of the Barcelona 92 Olympic Village when he was just 21 years old. He is also the owner of such endearing businesses as the now emblematic and now defunct jazz club “JazzMatazz”, which brought bands such as Traditional Tourists to the Barcelona scene. He is a lover of art, of his family, of good living, passionate about Catalonia and about businesses that are born to leave no one indifferent, such as the fintech 11Onze.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

11Onze’s financial application, which celebrated its first anniversary this month, overcame all obstacles to win a new international award. More than 1,000 applications were received from 20 countries.

As we explained in the documentary ‘In a few days‘, setting up El Canut was an obstacle course that had a bit of everything. Attempts at sabotage, infiltrators and constant pressure aimed at derailing the birth of 11Onze as a Catalan community fintech. The project, however, dodged the problems, moved forward and now users have in their hands an application capable of winning a Centauri Award in the “Apps and Software – Finance / Banking” category of the prestigious Vega Awards.

The award highlights 11Onze’s pioneering vision in an ever-changing banking and financial services landscape. Out of more than 1,000 entries, El Canut won the award for its disruptive application, created with WONDR, an expert in the development of effective digital products, involved in the design of 11Onze. But El Canut not only stands out for its usability and design, but also for its ability to anticipate the needs of its customers. From day one, 11Onze offers an insured account, guaranteeing 100% of the money regardless of the amount, for a cost of €2.95 per month. Less than €36 per year, a far cry from the €140 average cost of an account in Spain.

Pioneering functions

El Canut has also made progress in other functions that traditional banking will gradually add. For example, a 24/7 customer service, or 11Onze at Home, allows face-to-face customer service via video call. In addition, all the services offered by 11Onze can be accessed from the application. From the collective purchase of gold with Preciosos 11Onze, to the insurance offered by 11Onze Segurs, to the Guaranteed Funds or the essential savings products offered by 11Onze Recommends. Everything 11Onze is at your fingertips.

James Sène, President of 11Onze, is delighted with the win and the international recognition: “Our mission is to promote financial health and wealth creation for our community in Catalonia and abroad. To achieve this, we have developed an expansive banking and resources app, El Canut”.

Community is at the heart of 11Onze and Sène explains that “we not only educate our community about money management and wealth creation, but we also help to achieve it. For a small fintech, this can only be achieved by investing in the development of disruptive technology solutions”.

El Canut offers customers the ability to manage all bank accounts in one place, regardless of the country where they reside. In addition, customers can manage all payments, transfers, savings and loans from this one-stop banking application.

In the past, El Canut was the purse used by Catalan peasants. However, unlike the old wallet, the products and services of 11Onze and El Canut are radically new to the Spanish and European markets. This was the main design challenge for the WONDR team: to design a disruptive banking application.

Dermot O’Shea, founder of WONDR, says: “We are very proud of the collaboration with 11Onze, as we believe this platform is delivering on the promise of being a Catalan community fintech in soul and purpose. Judges from around the world have been able to see it, hear it and feel it for themselves. El Canut is a very genuine and compelling proposition.”

About the Vega Awards

The Vega Digital Awards is an international body that recognises and honours the performance, talent, effort and excellence of the best digital professionals and agencies from around the world. Independently judged by experienced senior digital professionals from around the world, the categories include website, video, mobile, social, animation, marketing and podcast. 11Onze has won one of the top honours for the second year in a row.

If you want to see everything that happened while we were setting up El Canut, don’t miss the documentary ‘In a few days‘.

On 8 November, we premiere ‘Que no faltin!’, the financial education video podcast where the public can talk to experts. We talk about money, ask anything you want!

Financial education has been at the heart of 11Onze since its inception. It is the only way for citizens, ordinary people, to take control of their money. If you don’t understand how the economic system you live in works, there is a good chance you’re not going to do too well. How many people have signed loans or mortgages without understanding what they were doing? How many people don’t know the basic mechanisms that would make their lives so much better?

“People are focused on making money. If they spent a little bit of their time thinking about how to manage it, they’d be surprised how much they can save,” explained 11Onze CEO James Sène in the micro-spending podcast. But we have not been financially educated, which as citizens makes us dependent. Dependent on someone telling us what to do with our money.

Since it has been repeatedly proven that delegating our financial decisions to someone else is not a good idea, it is increasingly important to roll up our sleeves and become financially educated. At 11Onze, we try to give as many tools as possible to our community. That’s why we are launching a live and open video podcast: ‘Que no faltin!

Do you want to participate?

Que no faltin!’ will be mono-thematic programmes. In each episode, an expert will present a topic for 15 minutes and will spend 30 minutes answering questions from the audience. Because yes, there can be an audience. If you want to participate, you can write an email to [email protected].

There will be a maximum capacity of eleven people and, to participate, you must be registered in La Plaça. Over the next few episodes, we will be talking to leading personalities about cryptocurrencies, public debt, hyperinflation, the security of money and other key issues in the current economic landscape.

The first episode features 11Onze President James Sène. He will talk about money as the conversion of your time into capital and will be broadcast live at La Plaça de 11Onze on 8 November at 7 pm.

We’ll talk about money, ask anything you want!

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!

We have tried to make 11Onze Business the most attractive proposition for businesses in the Catalan Countries. Have we succeeded? We compare business accounts from various entities so that you can choose the one that best suits your business situation.

Everyone knows that time is money, especially for people who run businesses. That is why it is important to have a business account that lets you manage your business cash flow quickly and easily, avoiding errors and limiting costs. It is an essential tool for the good financial health of any business. And, today, it is even more so for those businesses operating abroad, with a complex economic situation.

Therefore, the first thing to ask of a business account is that it should be agile. For this reason, many business accounts have been digitised. Even so, there are significant differences between the different offers on the market. We analyse some of the best proposals in the following table.

Monthly quote and minimum conditions

The number of financial institutions offering this service is extensive and varied, but community banking tends to offer a closer and more personalised service than traditional banks. It is important that we concentrate on choosing the services that can be most useful for our needs. But what should we look for?

For example, if we only look for the cheapest monthly fee, we may be asked to maintain a very high minimum balance if we do not want to incur penalties or be compelled to take out other services and products, such as insurance, recurring direct debit payments, etc.

Another important factor to bear in mind when weighing up the price of the monthly fee is which management tools we have access to without having to pay a premium service: real-time control of the operations executed in the account, subaccounts or the possibility of granting various levels of permissions between users of the same account are not always available in the most basic business accounts.

Transfers and multi-currency accounts

Flexibility in payments and collections is essential in the day-to-day running of a business. A platform that allows us to make bulk payments and recurring payroll and dividend payments is important, but we cannot forget about the cost of transfers.

Although any business account will allow us to make SEPA and SWIFT transfers, the costs and fees can vary significantly between the different options. Even so, not all financial institutions will offer the option of the SWIFT gpi service, through which you can track money transactions in real-time.

Likewise, not all corporate accounts let you open multi-currency accounts or access the Forex market. These options can be particularly interesting for companies that have international customers or suppliers and would therefore be able to protect their capital against the depreciation of the euro or other currencies.

How does 11Onze Business compare?

As you can see in the comparison table, 11Onze Business is one of the cheapest business accounts in the sector, even though it offers premium features that others do not offer or charge extra for. Also, right now, the first two months with 11Onze Business are free because it is still in the development phase. This means that it will continue to expand its functions. What else will it offer? Product manager Isaac Sène explained this a few days ago in this conversation.

If you want your business to make a giant leap, use 11Onze Business. Our business and freelancer account is now available. Find out more!

11Onze’s application, designed in collaboration with Wondr, has been shortlisted for the Irish Design Institute (IDI) awards. The winners will be announced on 17 November.

11Onze continues to win international recognition, this time for the design of the El Canut application. With an attractive and functional design, it lets users create a universal current account and control their finances, which is why it has been selected to compete in the Best App category at the IDI Awards 2022.

“The IDI Awards,” explains Wondr CEO and founder Dermot O’Shea, “are the Irish equivalent of the ADG Laus. In other words, they are the premier design awards for Irish businesses. “They showcase the best of Irish design in all areas. The jury is made up of experts from all over the world who know what it is to create something unique in this sector, and that’s why we are proud that 11Onze has been shortlisted,” adds O’Shea. The IDI Award will be announced on 17 November to add to the accolades won by 11Onze and Wondr. So far, the collaboration has been awarded a Bronze Laus, a Vega Awards Centauri Award, a UX Design Awards nomination and an honourable mention from the Webby Awards.

But what makes El Canut stand out internationally? According to Dermot O’Shea, the human touch. “It stands out how the agents have been humanised so that you feel like you almost know them and can have a direct conversation through the app or La Plaça. This personal touch and sense of community are key for me,” says the founder of Wondr. All of these serve to consolidate the pillars of the Catalan community financial institution. “El Canut embodies the values of 11Onze, putting the community at the centre of everything it does. One of the things that make 11Onze unique is that I can see that the organisation is open and transparent”.

Last October, El Canut celebrated its first anniversary. Since its launch, both Wondr and 11Onze have continued to work hard. The result is an increasing recognition, which until now has been concentrated in La Plaça.

11Onze is the community fintech of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut for Android or iOS and join the revolution!