USPS and Blockchain Tech; Paypal and Crypto; A Decentralized Twitter; BCH Fork Likely

This week, USPS is getting into blockchain technology, PayPal is reportedly getting ready to embrace cryptocurrency, more details emerge about Twitter’s decentralized platform, and the Bitcoin Cash fork looks increasingly likely. More @ Talk.Bitcoin.Tax Full Show Notes: (00:33) First up, USPS. The United States Postal Service has been in the news for a number of months, given all of the controversy surrounding mail-in voting during the pandemic. COVID-19 has certainly been a royal pain for us all, but it has also made many realize the need for improved systems in our country. One of those systems is voting, and the United States Postal Service is hoping that blockchain technology can help to evolve the voting process. According to Forbes, “USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) published a patent application filed by the USPS. The patent claims that a combination of the security of the blockchain and the mail service provides a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a QR code by mail. A separation of voter identification and votes to ensure voter anonymity is the principal feature of the solution. The votes are stored on a blockchain attested by election officials.” There has been news of the USPS embracing blockchain technology in the past few months, but this is the first official look into how the technology would integrate with voting. Of course, the integration needs to be tested and perfected, and certainly won’t be available for the upcoming election – but this election, paired with COVID, most definitely lit a fire under USPS to get this moving. (01:43) PayPal, a company synonymous with online payments, has been a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to cryptocurrencies. However, this week saw reports that indicate PayPal is close to getting with the times, so to speak, when it comes to cryptocurrency. The Daily Hodl quotes Sandi Bragar, a managing director at the investment management firm Aspiriant: “We also like that PayPal is working with merchants to bring crypto into the fold, and we think that’s going to be really important as more of the cryptocurrencies become more mainstream in the years ahead.” In addition, The Motley Fool states that “During its second-quarter earnings call in late July, PayPal CFO John Rainey shared plans to invest an additional $300 million in new products and improvements in the second half of the year…PayPal is also working on several other online payment services, including more ways for consumers to use PayPal online at more merchants [and] the ability to pay in different ways (e.g., credit card rewards, digital currency)…” At this point, it seems like it is only a matter of time before we see some sort of interesting new cryptocurrency integration in the PayPal ecosystem – the success of similar payment services’ cryptocurrency integration, like CashApp, have more than likely made it pretty clear to PayPal that it’s foolish to ignore the behemoth that is cryptocurrency. (02:58) Social media platform giants like Facebook and Twitter understand the importance of blockchain technology. Facebook has it’s Libra Project – which, admittedly, hasn’t has a ton of positive press since it’s announcement – and, Twitter has the mysterious Blue Sky. Decrypt reports that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey released some new information about Blue Sky this week – at of all places, a Human Right’s Foundation Forum. Here are some select quotes about the project from Dorsey: “This is a completely separate nonprofit from [Twitter]…this group will be tasked with building a protocol that we can use, but everyone else can use. And then we’ll really focus on becoming a client of it, so that we can build a compelling service and business on top of a much larger corpus of conversation that anyone can access and anyone can contribute to.” “Blockchain and Bitcoin point to a future, point to a world where content exists forever—where it’s permanent, where it doe