It does say in point 4 that the foundation will fund NEM Labs, unless I misunderstood. 

Quote:
4. That funding the NEM Labs team will accelerate the launch of the catapult public chain. (Nearly all of the NEM Labs resources allocated to launching the catapult public chain can and will be funded by the NEM Foundation. Although certain biz-dev activities will likely be delayed, we don’t view them as critical pre-launch.)

Too many people out there looking to make short term profits rather than looking at the longer term picture, there's a lot of vaporware and marketing hype, but not many working products. 

The patient investors will be rewarded. 

Venezuela is set to begin using its "Petro" Cryptocurrency on the NEM Blockchain as an official accounting unit, according to the country's president. Venezuela will peg Pension and Salary Systems to Petro Cryptocurrency

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro also announced that the state oil company PDVSA will use the government cryptocurrency "Petro" as an accounting unit starting next Monday - August 20th.

https://www.coindesk.com/venezuela-to-peg-pension-salary-systems-to-petro-cryptocurrency/

https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-maduro-anuncia-petrolera-pdvsa-usara-criptomoneda-petro-como-unidad-contable-201808140459_noticia.html

Thomas Lee, Managing Partner and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, has accurately predicted the price of bitcoin for several years. His latest prediction is a year-end target price of $25,000 and a price of $91,000 by March 2020. Lee’s analysis incorporates Metcalfe's Law, which states that the value of a network is the square of the number of its users, and bitcoin’s potential to become a substitute asset for gold, among other factors.

“I think this next generation of young people view bitcoin as their store of value. And if it captures 5 percent of the gold market, it's worth at least $25,000 per unit,” Lee told Business Insider in an interview in October.

Ronnie Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, predicts that the price of bitcoin will hit $28,000 in 2018 and believes that its value will eventually rise to $300,000 - $400,000. Moas bases his price prediction on the limited supply of bitcoin facing potentially unlimited demand, which could push the price of bitcoin to never-before-seen highs, among other factors.

"I don't know how much gold there is in the ground, but I know how much bitcoin there is, and in two years there will be 300 million people in the world trying to get their hands on a few million bitcoin. This mind-boggling supply and demand imbalance is what is going to drive the price higher," Moas said.

Of course one may argue that Fundstrat Global Partners benefits from Lee’s high profile and his outspoken views on cryptocurrency valuations. However, the success or failure of his company nor his career does not depend on the future performance of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The same goes for Ronnie Moas and his company, Standpoint Research.

source: https://bravenewcoin.com/news/when-it-comes-to-bitcoin-price-predictions-who-should-you-believe/

According the the chronobank site, 60 XMIN is equal to 1 TIME.  - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/chronobank/

1 TIME is trading at around $14.42 (as of this post).

Therefore, 1 XMIN is worth around $0.24.

So for every 20 XEM you deposit in their mint wallet, you are airdropped 1 XMIN. i.e. $7.60 of XEM to receive free $0.24.

They are asking you to put XEM into their wallet, but some questions arise:

- How secure is the mint wallet, what is the likelihood that your XEM could be taken, and it could be a scam.
- How can these XMIN tokens be traded, they're not listed on CMC or any exchanges?
- Can the XEM be removed from the mint wallet once the airdrop has been done

This sounds a bit fishy to me, I personally would be hesitant to do this until I know more information.  Free money sounds too good to be true, what's in it for them?

NEM is way ahead of its competition in terms of development and adoption of its technology.

Looking at the comparisons done by Reddit user, Metasaurus_Rex:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nem/comments/8aaueg/cardanos_road_map_vs_nem/

Cardano is yet to deliver on any of its objectives but it has a greater market cap to that of NEM in the markets. NEM has completed the following features 100%:

1) Multi-signature Transactions (Catapult adds Nested And IOT Compatibility)
2) Functional Nodes and Rewards (Decentralization)
3) Functional Light Client (Nanowallet)
4) Human Friendly Addresses (Namespaces)
5) Functional High Speed Network
7) Voting Center Built Into Nanowallet
8 ) Paper Wallet Functionality
9) Co-Working/Research Spaces in Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Lithuania
10) Trezor Wallet Compatibility
11) Debit Card Compatibility (Pundi X)
12) Smart Contract Tools and Testnet
13) Partnerships and Research Prograns (40+, Global and Ongoing)
14) Community Events and Meetups (100+, Global and Ongoing)

Interesting open letter to banks:

https://hackernoon.com/an-open-letter-to-banks-about-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrencies-b0c7ef9b7c62

Yes, as a hybrid blockchain.

https://nem.io/enterprise/mijin/

Who knows how this will pan out, it may be a farce, or it may turn out to be a success.

... this article give you a taste of why Venezuela is considering using its own cryptocurrency token:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-regime-change-in-venezuela-the-truth-is-easy-if-you-follow-the-money-trail-the-opposition-is-pro-washington-not-pro-democracy/5601933

Looks like you may have been seeing things from a biased Western mainstream corporate media angle which demonizes Maduro.  Read the other side of the story and make your own judgement:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-regime-change-in-venezuela-the-truth-is-easy-if-you-follow-the-money-trail-the-opposition-is-pro-washington-not-pro-democracy/5601933

There is a possibility that XEM will be listed on Binance according to the CEO of Binance - https://cryptovest.com/news/nem-xem-listed-on-binance-changpeng-zhao-reveals-plans/5 the Coincheck hack has delayed the listing.

nem.io/downloads

Update. XEM wallet is now back online at Bittrex.

Assuming you own this altcoin, then add your account address to the end off this http://explorer.ournem.com/#/s_account?account=

e.g. http://explorer.ournem.com/#/s_account?account=NABCD-12345-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX

The mosaic will be displayed if you own it.

Quote: "You can't send Bitcoins to Revolut and withdraw cash from ATM.And you can't send cash and withdraw to Bitcoins."  

 -- Yes, I think what most people do is sell their BTC on gdax, then SEPA transfer euros to the Revolut, then either spend or withdraw to their normal bank account.  It's supposed to provide the interbank exchange rate for EUR to GBP for example.


Are there any debit cards that allow you to send your own BTC and load it to the card, then spend in stores, or withdraw cash at ATMs?  I think Spectrocoin (Bankera) may do this - How do their fees compare to other cards?  - https://spectrocoin.com/en/bitcoin-debit-card.html

I think an ideal card shouldn't charge for ATM withdrawals or POS transactions, and ideally there should be no limits on withdrawals or transactions.

That's the way I see it as well, they're holding 500 million XEM and cannot exchange/sell them.  I would suggest that person approaches coincheck and makes a deal with them to return the funds for a monetary sum.  It would be in the interests of both parties.

This Hack has nothing to do with Nem being hacked.  Only the exchange was hacked.  Coincheck had their private keys stolen.  CoinCheck did not use the multi-signature features that the Nem Blockchain offers them.  CoinCheck Claims they were short-staffed engineers.  They had all of their nem stored in a hot wallet.  They claim they were in a process of moving it to a cold wallet.  They were unable to confirm the hacking of any other currencies at this time.  They are considering compensating all the customers that had nem on the exchange.

http://cryptonewsflash.com/coincheck-hacked-for-523-million-nem/

Translation of press conference by Coincheck.

The hack was due to poor security controls in place at the exchange.

The NEM technology is not at fault.  Coincheck has asked for a hard fork, and this was refused.

Full text:

https://twitter.com/bitpinas

Bittrex is still allowing trading for XEM already within the exchange, but the wallet is on automatic maintenance along with 5 other coins.

I guess this is a precautionary measure.

Of course, this is pure speculation until we hear the facts.