For this week’s feature, we will be talking briefly about the Noah Project, an initiative for the implementation of state-of-the-art payment methods in the Philippines, allowing the 10 licensed cryptocurrency platforms and exchanges to operate within the Cagayan Special Economic Zone.
The main objective is to create a crypto hub within the CSEZ, giving incentives and benefits to projects willing to base themselves in the Philippines, in addition of creating learning centers to prepare professionals who want to enter the fields of blockchain and finance technologies.
Building a Name
The team at Noah realized quite early that, in the world of crypto, it’s extremely important to build a reputation with your potential userbase, and they have done it by partnering with renowned exchanges like HitBTC, YoBit, Changelly, Mercatox and many others, giving the token (the Noah Coin) a bit of popularity ahead of its release.
Along with these partnerships, the offered benefits for companies include tax- and duty-free importation of machinery and equipment, four to six-year income tax holiday, tax credits and a special 5% tax rate of gross income. In order to benefit from these measures, interested companies must invest at least $1 million (USD) in a maximum period of 2 years, plus a licensing fee of $100,000.
This methodology made Noah catch the eye of major economic publications like Forbes, The Economist and BizNews Asia, while both governments of Philippines and Japan seem extremely eager for the project to prosper, given the economic benefits it would bring by increasing tourism, encouraging foreign investments and bridge international gaps between them.
The Plan
Working together with Nippon Pay (a Japanese digital payment platform that has already been tested in local restaurant chain Watami) and SCI (a Philippines-based blockchain technology company that has developed solutions for remittances, payments and mobile money), the Noah Project aims to create a hub for businesses and companies to allow virtual payments, making it easier for both locals and foreigners to acquire products and services within said hub.
On the long run, this is meant to evolve into a massive building project off the coast of Manila Bay where international companies and investment funds will cooperate to create a metropolis that revolves around easy, cheap and safe payments, including shopping malls, hotels, casinos, restaurants and many other establishments, a project dubbed “Noah City”.
The Noah Project is currently in its token listing stage, with the future objectives of the Noah Coin to be usable in the Noah Resorts by 2022, and in Noah City 2023, meaning that the building efforts should be advanced by that year. Given the positive feelings towards the project and its vision, it certainly looks like a promising initiative, and one that every crypto enthusiast should be following closely.
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