VeChainThor is truly a global endeavor. However, recently I’ve seen many questions about VeChain and the United States specifically on various social media platforms. Obviously can’t predict the future or definitively say what will happen, but can speak from current experience while looking ahead to possible outcomes, and relaying information as things currently stand for one to digest, consider what’s in the works, and share concrete options that already exist et cetera.

VeChainThor is being built to last. Adaptability will serve this enterprise-grade public blockchain very well long-term. There are many use cases already burning VTHO on VeChainThor and more to come that will be on-boarded while others expand upon what they are already doing on the VeChainThor blockchain. Here’s a quick visual indicator of the mainnet activity level increasing recently (update: at the time of this originally being published) from community made VeChain Stats just to give an idea about the recent increase in clauses and clauses per transaction (keep in mind that these are valuable transactions):

Activity has certainly been ramping up on VeChainThor blockchain with a lot of VTHO being burned and many daily clauses from valuable transactions. This is a joy to witness in this first year of the mainnet.

By the way y’all - VTHO is not a “dividend”. This is all still relatively new and people think in comparative terms, but VTHO is generated by VET in real-time on the blockchain. Though I am in no way shape or form a lawyer whatsoever, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked a “dividend” has never been able to settle smart-contracts on a functioning network - ever. VTHO’s primary utility on the VeChainThor blockchain is to settle smart-contracts, as all transactions require VTHO regardless of whether or not the VTHO is paid via MPP or the new complimentary VIP-191.

VIP-191 is a complimentary but key subset and contribution to MPP. Combined with MPP it allows for even more use cases and is an elegant implementation of fee delegation where non-contract owners can essentially delegate fees or payers. It allows for the delegator to pay transaction fees in VTHO while charging the user in whichever token they hold as an additional clause. See: Generic Delegators and Application Sponsors for examples.

While there are United States government hearings going on, am including language from SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce’s speech found on their dot gov website that bodes well for VeChain. Nothing says functioning network like VeChainThor.

Tokens sold for use in a functioning network, rather than as investment contracts, fall outside the definition of securities.

Anyone who is worried about the United States of America and blockchain can check this out: the US is hiring.

Have utilized OceanEx as a non-KYC customer, and hope KYC for OceanEx becomes available in the US. They upped the daily limit for non-KYC users for a second time after forming their strategic partnership with San Francisco based Koi Compliance , which now sits at 2 BTC per day. This weekend OceanEx announced that fiat gateways will be ready to roll soon at a meetup. We don’t know exactly which fiat gateways yet, but regardless of which fiat on-ramps are offered, this is certainly good news for both OceanEx and the VeChain ecosystem.

Credit to OceanEx community contest winner Priyank Gupta (audio of original sounds great btw)

While the CEO of Binance pointed out that the alleged list of offerings for their upcoming US variant of the now Malta-based exchange is not accurate and fud, we simply don’t know what will be an option.

Update turns out US Binance is listing VET

https://support.binance.us/hc/en-us/articles/360035965871-Binance-US-Will-List-VeChain-VET-

*Update: Now there’s a USD/VET on US Binance recurring buy, and BuyNow option as well.

*Update: Binance US annouces the support of VET staking and VTHO distribution to customers.

Educational piece from Binance US

VeChain CEO Sunny Lu and Binance US CEO Catherine Coley #VeMA

Update* USD/VTHO pairing on Binance US !

Have gotta say am loving the leadership and vibes from Binance US. They deserve VeChain community love for listing VET early, actively listening , adding VTHO support, now fiat on-ramps to both VET and VTHO, and are growing in volume via great leadership from Binance US (BAM Trading Services) CEO Catherine Coley, who has a good eye for talent surrounding herself with other positive and dedicated volunteers/co-workers while maintaining a balanced sense of humility as her marketplace continues to grow in volume with more state licenses to be obtained.

Catherine Coley is a very smart/positive force, much like Sunny Lu, forming a healthy symbiotic relationship between Binance US and the VeChain community. Her mantra “EducateDontIntimidate” is admirable, approachable, inclusive, and will go a long way as more Americans and people around the world become accustomed to learning about, owning, and utilizing digital assets. As someone who has researched and read through a lot of information about this space and VeChain, can safely say there’s a lot to digest to understand even for folks who have been aware of this space for years.

That’s a good thing though. Another good thing is VeChain’s Fee Delegation which includes MPP and VIP-191 which means people can interact with the blockchain without knowing what’s happening on the backend (they can learn this stuff too, it’s a public blockchain, anyone is free to build upon it). This means that blockchain adoption is not beholden to everyone who interacts with it needing to understand decentralized transactions on the protocol level or how to safely perform a token transfer. The transaction and clauses can occur on VeChainThor regardless of the person having a balance. VeChain ToolChain is meant to accelerate the process of building.

Stoked there’s finally a crypto marketplace in Binance US with a fiat on-ramp serving the vibrant VeChain community in much of the United States, and as they accrue even more state licenses, their burgeoning volume will surely continue !

Sure, it would be good if Coinbase lists VET. Saw a tweet recently where one of their head of listing is hiring senior blockchain engineers to handle building support in order to handle new listings. We obviously can’t buy VET on Coinbase at this point in time. Maybe we’ll never be able to buy VET on Coinbase. Rumors of NDA indicate that they will add VET to their offerings. Not sweating it either way though. Nature abhors a vacuum as strong players enter the space.

If anyone is concerned about OceanEx having a US fiat on-ramp in order to obtain VET we have options. To be clear, I do hope that OceanEx is able to implement US FIAT on-ramps as well, and appreciate their VET pairings, while at the same time realizing that VET being available on multiple exchanges all over the world (including US-based KYC exchanges) is a very good thing.

Have to admit though am very much looking forward to Binance US adding our state to their list. They offer low fees, positive vibes, and are navigating the regulatory hurdles like a champ. Binance US is A (ha’s) top marketplace (US folks please utilize the regulatory-friendly word “marketplace” vs “exchange”, just roll with it) for security according to crypto cybersecurity-focused guardians Hacken’s CER list.

Beaxy is a new digital assets exchange led by CEO Artak Hamazaspyan. Beaxy allows for crypto-assets trading KYC in 42 states + multiple countries and counting, and has recently launched. Incoming Round 2 listings will include VET. Here is Beaxy’s Discord and a list their of comprehensive benefits.

Voyager is currently listed on two stock exchanges, the TSX.V (symbol VYGR.V), Frankfurt Stock Exchange (UCD2) and also available via most US brokers under the symbol (VYGVF), and is another new option for US KYC VET folks.

Voyager has been co-launched by former Uber co-founder and CTO Oscar Salazar and Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich who is the former CEO and founder of retail brokerage Lightspeed Financial. Lightspeed Financial previously ran the professional trading arm of the online stock broker E*Trade.

Obviously the Voyager CEO knows has a wealth of experience and the US KYC brokerage firm aims to be crypto-centric by making the user experience for trading quick and easy while providing the most crypto-assets for trade currently in the US. They don’t charge commission fees, but instead are connected to roughly 12 high liquidity exchanges and market makers around the world. They aggregate all of their prices and liquidity then look at the level 2 depth of liquidity to make sure they see where the volume is in order to offer a fair price to the customer while simultaneously buying on behalf of the customer in order to execute the trade. They make money off of the spread. By using that method Voyager hopes to increase their volume tremendously, and may or may not be a contributing factor towards making significant regulatory progress.

The Voyager Apple app has already been released and crypto withdrawals/deposits have been enabled with KYC in 49 states recently being approved (they’ve satisfied the requirements of NY up to the letter while working on their BitLicense, and are waiting to hear back) with goals of expansion in Canada, Europe, and potentially Asia by Q4. They already have the most options for a US based entity, and will pick up traction moving forward (customer-base has increased by 4x in June alone).

The following audio clip interview from the Voyager CEO is well worth a listen:

Here’s a US-focused article about blockchain and the regulation from Voyager.

With the recent upgrade to VeChain’s mobile wallet that enables direct swaps to exchange generated VTHO for VET via the community made dApp Vexchange, new KYC options to purchase VET with fiat in the US from the likes of Voyager (Beaxy soon), and the ability to utilize OceanEx as a non-KYC customer with increased withdrawal limits (plus their upcoming FIAT on-ramps which hopefully will include USD), am feeling confident moving forward about US users being able to purchase VET on exchanges while also being able to swap that sweet VTHO for VET from directly inside of the VeChain mobile apps as well.

The inclusion of the VEX for direct VTHO conversion in the VeChain mobile wallet is awesome. Here are the Apple version of VeChainThor wallet and the Android version of the VeChainThor mobile wallet versions.

There are no guarantees in life and this is no way shape or form financial advice whatsoever. Just wanted to share good information/news that has me sleeping well at night as a proud X-node holder in the United States. Here are a few more options for VET:

Zeux basically allows for payment using crypto wherever Google and Apple Pay are accepted. Zeux also recently have integrated VET.

MetalPay also listed VeChain recently and it is available for trade in their marketplace.

VeChain is available to all Metal Pay users, allowing people in the United States to purchase VET token from an FDIC-insured U.S. Dollar account. Those interested in owning a piece of this emerging technology can now buy, store, and sell VeChain with ease.

Here’s that ICE data feed that’s been floating around for awhile. For context, the exchange is backed by Microsoft, Starbucks, and ICE (who owns a very large percentage of exchanges globally). People have naturally speculated that perhaps the ones listed in the ICE data feed will be the ones listed on Bakkt. Just because VeChain is listed doesn’t necessarily mean VET will be listed on Bakkt, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. In my mind, any exchange worth one’s salt who offers crypto-assets will list VET.

Update: Bitrue is another place where both VET and VTHO can be obtained by US customers.

As one can see, there are multiple options for folks in the US who are interested in VeChain. Quotes like this from Sunny’s recent 8 hour long marathon AMA (much respect to Sunny for answering all of these questions over on vechainworld.io right after the passing of his father) in response to questions about USA expansion, regulation & exchanges -

VeChain Foundation is still a relatively young organization, and it is true we have been spending more of our attention and more resources in Asia and Europe, which we are proud of our achievements so far in these regions. We do have a smaller presence in the USA or North America in general and we are trying to improve on our position in the market and industry. We have now hired Jason Rockwood to spearhead our business development efforts, and we do have plans in place to pivot more resources into North America, both on the business development front and also partnerships within the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency industries. VeChain acknowledges that the regulations in the United States are indeed stricter than most other jurisdictions and we will move forward under the guidance of our legal counsel in the USA, Scott Brisbin, and our Steering Committee member Daniel Kelman, both of whom are extremely experienced veterans in their respective areas of expertise. To us, being sustainable long term is the number one priority, and that means first and foremost to focus and be compliant to the current and future set of regulations. Rest assured that VeChain believes in and is very committed to the USA market.

Also learned anecdotally that OceanEx announced a cooperation with Cornell University during their meetup this weekend at the Frankfurt School of Finance. OceanEx (who recently added their mobile apps) is sponsoring research at Cornell in order to further enhance the security of the exchange. With VeResearch partners like MIT, Dartmouth, Stanford, and Michigan State University (plus Oxford and other great institutions worldwide) am feeling very good about the longevity and adaptability of VeChainThor !

North America/South America VeChain Country Manager Jason Rockwood speaks at Dartmouth

Cheers y’all !