Verdict lists ten of the most popular tweets on payments tech in October 2019, based on data from GlobalData’s Influencer Platform. The top tweets were chosen from influencers as tracked by GlobalData’s Influencer Platform, which is based on a scientific process that works on pre-defined parameters. Influencers are selected after a deep analysis of the influencer’s relevance, network strength, engagement, and leading discussions on new and emerging trends.

Most popular tweets in payments tech in October 2019: the top ten

1. Charlie Lee’s tweet about Litecoin

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, tweeted on the occasion of the eighth birthday of Litecoin, an open source peer-to-peer digital currency. Released under the MIT/X11 license, Litecoin allows for instant payments to be made to individuals across the world. It can be mined using consumer-grade hardware and is not monitored by any central authority.

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Charlie, in his tweet, detailed about how the Litecoin network has been operating for eight years with zero downtime since its launch in 2011. Further, he mentioned that the value of LTC transactions during the eight-year duration exceeded $5 trillion.

Username: Charlie Lee

Twitter handle: @SatoshiLite

Retweets: 939

Likes: 3,667

2. Cameron Winklevoss’ tweet about negative interest bonds

Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini, a Bitcoin exchange, and Principal at Winklevoss Capital Management, an investment firm, tweeted about the growing global stock of negative interest-yielding bonds, which currently stands at $17 trillion.

Negative interest rate policy was adopted to deter banks from keeping large balances with a central bank and instead lend the cash to businesses to boost economic activity. The policy, however, has resulted in $17 trillion-worth of bonds yielding negative interests. Cameron highlighted the importance of holding bitcoin as it cannot be devalued by the central bank and offers predictable daily output.

Username: Cameron Winklevoss

Twitter handle: @winklevoss

Retweets: 688

Likes: 2,816

3. Erik Voorhees compares the US dollar with digital currency

Erik Voorhees, founder and Chief Executive Officer of ShapeShift, a cryptocurrency platform, compared the US dollar to digital cryptocurrencies. He joked that the US dollar is already a digital currency operating on a blockchain with a single node called the Federal Reserve.

Erik shared an article detailing about Patrick Harker’s, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, views on cryptocurrency. Patrick admits that central banks will need to start issuing digital currency in the near future as privately issued cryptocurrencies are growing in popularity.

Username: Erik Voorhees

Twitter handle: @ErikVoorhees

Retweets: 481

Likes: 1,617

4. Roger Ver attacks traditional banking compared with cryptocurrencies

Roger Ver, a bitcoin promoter and investor, highlighted how despite the poor performance of traditional banking institutions and investors, the Congress is not concerned with recognising the value of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies such as Libra.

He tweeted about how Congress members continually highlight the downsides of cryptocurrency despite the multiple fines issued against Goldman Sachs over the years as well as mortgage and securities abuses, trading violations, and accounting fraud. The members feel that cryptocurrency may lead to losses for investors and displace the US dollar as the sole reserve currency in the world.

Username: Roger Ver

Twitter handle: @rogerkver

Retweets: 490

Likes: 1,374

5. Balaji S. Srinivasan tweets a collection of headlines

Balaji S. Srinivasan, an angel investor and co-founder of Earn, Counsyl, Teleport, and Coin Center, shared a series of headlines that portrayed Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as being great leaders in bringing about transformation, while another headline portrayed bitcoin as being evil.

Balaji aimed to highlight the negative portrayal of bitcoin in the media and the resistance towards its acceptance.

Username: Balaji S. Srinivasan

Twitter handle: @balajis

Retweets: 408

Likes: 1,594

6. Jameson Lopp tweets about the performance of bitcoin

Jameson Lopp, Chief Technology Officer at Casa, a cryptocurrency start-up, tweeted about how the bitcoin historically generated the majority of its performance during the first ten days. He added that the average return falls to -25% if the first ten days are missed.

The tweet was in response to another tweet shared by Thomas Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat, a market research company, about bitcoin’s price crossing above its 200-day moving average. Thomas Lee also added that bitcoin’s performance has been down to 25% every year since 2013, apart from the first ten days of launch.

Username: Jameson Lopp

Twitter handle: @lopp

Retweets: 223

Likes: 809

7. Brian Armstrong tweets about China’s launch of stablecoin

Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-founder of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency platform, tweeted about China’s plans to launch its own cryptocurrency named stablecoin and whether the US government would change its stance regarding cryptocurrency in light of the development.

The US government has been opposing cryptocurrency, which was particularly evident through the criticism towards Facebook’s proposal to launch its cryptocurrency, Libra. The backlash was considered to be one of the reasons why PayPal, an e-commerce company that was backing the project, dropped out. Brian added that the US should consider cryptocurrency to continue to be relevant in the digital age.

Username: Brian Armstrong

Twitter handle: @brian_armstrong

Retweets: 211

Likes: 1,232

8. Bruce Fenton shares Morningstar Credit Ratings’ plans to rate crypto assets

Bruce Fenton, CEO at Atlantic Financial Blockchain Labs, shared an article regarding Morninstar Credit Ratings’ decision to rate crypto assets. The credit rating agency is developing an evaluation system for digital currencies to improve their credibility among investors.

The new rating system will enable investments worth billions of dollars to enter the cryptocurrency space. The public rating system is expected to be launched by the end of 2019. Figure, a fintech start-up, Cadence, an alternative investment company, and Polymath, a security token platform, are expected to collaborate with Morninstar to develop the system.

Username: Bruce Fenton

Twitter handle: @brucefenton

Retweets: 191

Likes: 788

9. Nick Szabo compares Bitcoin consensus protocol and social consensus

Nick Szabo, a cryptographer and computer scientist, compared the Bitcoin consensus protocol that involves thousands of computers with the social consensus that is required among the users. He pointed out that the social consensus in bitcoin is unorganised and has not changed over time.

Nick also added that bitcoin works by maximising the role of the consensus protocol, while minimising the need for social consensus.

Username: Nick Szabo

Twitter handle: @NickSzabo

Retweets: 192

Likes: 805

10. Alistair Milne tweets about bank crisis in India

Alistair Milne, CIO at Altana Digital Currency Fund (ADCF), an open-ended multi-asset cryptocurrency fund, shared an article highlighting the crisis related to Punjab Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC) in India. PMC was found to be falsely reporting the non-preforming loans of a real estate developer and committing fraud.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a ban on transactions for six months on the bank, following discovery of the fraud. Hundreds of thousands of depositors have been affected by the development. Alistair added that governments across the world should consider the adoption of bitcoin instead of opposing it, in light of such developments.

Username: Alistair Milne

Twitter handle: @alistairmilne

Retweets: 107

Likes: 362