Sylo Partners with Indian Exchange Bitbns to Serve the Indian Market

Global software development house Sylo has officially partnered with premiere Indian exchange, Bitbns, to better serve the Indian market’s growing demand for legitimate crypto-projects.

A unique place where the old and new worlds collide, it’s clearer every day to those watching the market that #IndiaWantsCrypto

Bitbns, a bona fide cryptocurrency exchange and one of India’s first, represents a significant partnership for Sylo that is positioned to help extend key functionalities into the experience of Sylo Smart Wallet users. 

The Sylo-Bitbns alliance is one that makes sense across business and product levels - with both partners sharing the belief that “digital currencies are the future of money” and are an area to which users need straightforward access.

Through their partnership, Sylo and Bitbns aim to take cryptocurrency usage to the mainstream in India.

Often deemed complex, Sylo solves one of the biggest hurdles to the normalisation of cryptocurrency through the Sylo Smart Wallet, a highly-usable app designed from conception to “make crypto simple”.

The move for a more dedicated expansion into India will not come as a surprise to anyone keeping an eye on the Sylo success story. Recently, the tech firm revealed that in Q2 2020, they had already seen a 500% growth in sign ups to the Sylo Smart Wallet app from India, with Indian users now making up 30% of the app’s more than 250,000 strong overall user-base.

"India's new-found enthusiasm for digital assets and privacy after the restriction of certain privacy-hogging apps like WeChat and TikTok, has presented a significant opportunity to offer India a ‘WeChat’ of sorts that incorporates all the best elements of new generation communications tech, without the privacy concerns, and with the added benefits of crypto assets,” says Bitbns CEO Gaurav Dahake. 

“This is an area where the Sylo Smart Wallet, being developed on decentralised infrastructure, is primed to address, and a key reason we’re excited about this partnership opportunity.”

Sylo also offers a solution for the unbanked of India. In terms of barriers to get started on Sylo, there are very few - neither a sign up cost nor the mandatory provision of an email address or phone number is required in order to create a Sylo Smart Wallet account.

The result of this forward-thinking is the ability to instantly provide millions of people with access to de-fi services. Using the Sylo Smart Wallet, users can request and receive payments in chat, store and interact with digital assets  such as Bitcoin or any ERC-20 compatible token, such as Ether or BAT, in the non-custodial wallet.

“We realised a long time ago that in order to see widespread adoption, we needed to make interacting with crypto as simple as any other activity you might do on a smartphone,” says Dorian Johannink, Sylo Co-Founder and Business Director. “That’s why sending and receiving cryptocurrency in the Sylo Smart Wallet is as straightforward as sending a message.”

“Our design team have worked hard to create an app that is clean, fast, intuitive, and astonishingly simple to use. The Sylo Smart Wallet user statistics speak for themselves, the app has been available for just ten months and already has over a quarter of a million users. We’re confident that Sylo can meet India’s desire to get in the crypto game.”

Other features of the app include the ability to send messages, make audio and video calls, utilise a Web3 Ethereum dApp browser to spend crypto, and to pay using cryptocurrency in the real world at relevant vending machines.

The Sylo-Bitbns partnership will also see the SYLO token, an ERC20-compatible utility token that fuels the Sylo Network, listed on the Bitbns platform as of July 23, 2020.

Will US face second recession in 2010?

Although the US economy is expected to return to growth later this year, there is a danger of a second recession if monetary easing and Tough times a weak dollar lead to increased inflation expectations, a report said.

Massive stimulus spending and moves by the Federal Reserve to fuel economic activity is expected to jump-start the anemic US economy in the last quarter of this year after it contracted 6.3 percent in fourth quarter of 2008.

But the Fed's moves to boost the economy by slashing interest rates and buying up billions in government debt could have undesired consequences, The Conference Board, a private research group, said in the report.

"If the United States experiences a too-rapid recovery, there may be a risk of another recession in 2010," said Bart van Ark, vice president and chief economist of The Conference Board.

"It may fuel expectations for a return to inflation, adding to the uncertainty concerning the pattern and path of economic recovery," he said.

The U.S. economy has the potential for a "double-dip" recession, Van Ark noted, similar to 1980 and 1982, as commodity prices rise on the back of a falling dollar and monetary easing.

He added, however, that the likelihood of this scenario taking place is small as deflation risks are great, while government stimulus spending should stem further economic decline and ease the flow of job losses.

The U.S. economy could contract by 2.6 percent in 2009, the largest annual decline since 1946, the Conference Board said.

Agencies

Will global tech spending decline in 2009?

Technology companies face a bumpy ride in 2009. Global business and government spending on computer, software and communications products and consulting services is expected to decline 3 percent this year, Forrester Research said in a report due out Tuesday.

This would mark the first decline since 2002, when information-technology spending dropped 6 percent after falling the same amount in 2001.

However, this downturn is not expected to last as long. Forrester projects tech spending to recover next year, rising as much as 9 percent in 2010.

In addition to the recession, the strengthening dollar is also to blame for the drop-off Forrester sees this year. Just as the weak U.S. currency boosted the growth rate of technology purchases made in dollars in 2008, the now-stronger dollar will hurt it in 2009, according to Forrester. Western Europe's technology spending rate is a good illustration of the currency discrepancy: measured in dollars, tech purchases in the region will be down 7 percent in 2009. Tech purchases in euros will be up 1 percent.

To neutralize the effect of currency changes, Forrester also projected the global technology market using a ``basket'' of local currencies, weighed for how big a share of the market each region holds. Using this measure, technology purchases are expected to have grown by 4 percent in 2008 and post growth of 3 percent in 2009, and 6 percent in 2010.

Certain aspects of technology will fare better. For example, Forrester expects software purchases to total $388 billion this year, the same as in 2008. But computer equipment purchases, which includes personal computers, servers and storage devices _ are expected to decline 4 percent, to $434 billion. That's because businesses often see software as a moneysaving tool, while buying new computer equipment is something that can be put off until more prosperous times.

There are other trends at play, too, such as an ongoing decline in the server market, independent of the economy, said Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels. More companies are embracing server virtualization, a technology that allows one server to function as multiple machines, saving companies money and energy. Businesses are also realizing that their employees can use BlackBerrys, iPhones and small laptops known as netbooks for work. So, the analyst said, rather than issuing workers both a PC and a BlackBerry, companies might stick with just a BlackBerry.

A decline in demand for personal computers and other electronics weighed on the semiconductor industry for much of 2008. Intel Corp., the company behind the bulk of microprocessors that serve as the brains of PCs, lowered its fourth quarter revenue guidance for the second time last week amid weaker than expected demand.

While 2009 does not look good when it comes to tech spending, things aren't as dismal for the sector as they were in 2001 and 2002, after the bursting of the 1990s Internet bubble. In each of those two years, Bartels noted, technology spending declined 6 percent _ and that would have been true regardless of currency fluctuations.

Since then, technology has become so interwoven into how a company operates that it's no longer considered discretionary spending.

``It is the muscle of companies,'' Bartels said. ``It allows them to do what they want to do.''

Agencies