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ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca Adds Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai To Advisory Board $SX.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 8:28 AM on Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

Threed capital

  • Announced today the addition of Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai to its Advisory Board
  • Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai received his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at Cambridge, MA in 1979, M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley in 1982 and 1985
  • Company also wishes to advise the addition of George Tsiolis to the Advisory Board

TORONTO, Jan. 09, 2018 — ThreeD Capital Inc. (the “Company”) (CSE:IDK), a Canadian-based venture capital firm focused on investments in promising, early stage companies with disruptive capabilities, is pleased to announce today the addition of Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai to its Advisory Board.

Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai received his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at Cambridge, MA in 1979, M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley in 1982 and 1985. He worked for the University of Minnesota from 1985-2000, serving as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Dr. Tsai left University of Minnesota and joined Arizona State University in 2000 as a professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering. He became an Emeritus Professor in December 2014.  In China, he initiated the first academic laboratory dedicated to blockchain research and education in China at Beihang University’s School of Computer Science and Engineering.  He has authored more than 500 papers in software engineering, service-oriented computing, cloud computing and blockchains.

Sheldon Inwentash, Chairman and CEO of ThreeD Capital, stated, “Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai is a world-renowned Blockchain expert who, amongst his many great accomplishments, has developed high-speed super large ledger technology that could represent the most disruptive protocol of the already disruptive blockchain industry. His experience and knowledge will be invaluable to our Blockchain initiatives.

Dr. Tsai stated, “I am pleased to join the Advisory Board of ThreeD Capital, whom has recognized the value of our blockchains in numerous domains, including financial and other applications.  Our blockchains can process enormous volumes of data in high speed and has been proven in the field.  I look forward to working with Sheldon and his team.”

The Company also wishes to advise the addition of George Tsiolis to the Advisory Board. George is the Founder of AGORACOM, the largest online investor relations and marketing community dedicated solely to the small cap stock industry. Over the last 10 years, AGORACOM has served over 300 public companies, generating over 500 million page views and 51 million visits from investors.  He is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and a recipient of the Dean’s Honour Roll Award during his undergraduate studies in Economics.  He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1995. Mr. Tsiolis has been a keynote speaker at major small cap and technology conferences and produced Season Two of the nationally televised small cap show, The Next Biggest Winner.

About ThreeD Capital Inc.

ThreeD is a publicly-traded Canadian-based venture capital firm focused on opportunistic investments in companies in the Junior Resources, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain sectors. ThreeD seeks to invest in early stage, promising companies and ICOs where it may be the lead investor and can additionally provide investees with advisory services, mentoring and access to the Company’s ecosystem.

For further information:
Gerry Feldman, CPA, CA
Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary
[email protected]
Phone: 416-606-7655

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca Adds Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai To Advisory Board $SX.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

St-Georges $SX.ca $SXOOF Announces #Blockchain & Smart Contract Technology & Transfer & License Agreement with Qingdao Tiande Technologies #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 6:00 PM on Thursday, January 4th, 2018

Sx large

  • Announced the signing of a significant, non-arm’s length blockchain and smart contract technology license agreement, with Qingdao Tiande Technologies Inc
  • Tiande is led by world-renowned blockchain expert, Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai
  • Tiande has granted St-Georges an exclusive license to use Tiande’s proprietary technologies, patents and know-how to develop and commercialize novel mineral commodity production chain control, tracking and trading exchanges

Montreal / January 4, 2018 – St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp. (CSE: SX) (OTC: SXOOF) (FSE: 85G1) is pleased to announce the signing of a significant, non-arm’s length blockchain and smart contract technology license agreement (the “License”), with Qingdao Tiande Technologies Inc., (“Tiande”). Tiande is led by world-renowned blockchain expert, Dr. Wei-Tek Tsai, who initiated the first academic laboratory dedicated to blockchain research and education in China at Beihang University’s School of Computer Science and Engineering.

Under the terms of the License, Tiande has granted St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp. (“SX”) an exclusive license to use Tiande’s proprietary technologies, patents and know-how to develop and commercialize novel mineral commodity production chain control, tracking and trading exchanges. In consideration for the rights granted under the License, SX shall pay to Tiande a royalty of 8% of the gross revenues derived from the Licensee.

“This technology license agreement builds upon our long standing collaboration with Dr. Tsai and the early vision we shared about the potential of blockchain technologies both in general and specifically within the mineral commodity space. Over the last few months, St-Georges has been strengthening the scope of its mineral projects and technologies and this agreement now provides us with access to blockchain technology that can significantly impact our industry, then reach beyond” said Frank Dumas, St-Georges’ President and CEO.

In order to accelerate development and better accommodate future financings, SX will assign the License to its newly formed wholly owned subsidiary, ZeU Crypto Networks Inc. (“ZeU”) in consideration of 20,000,000 common shares of ZeU.

Related Party Transaction

The entering into of the License may be considered a “related party transaction” as set out in Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Shareholders in Special Transactions (“MI 61-101”) as Dr. Wei Tek Tsai is a beneficial holder of securities carrying more than 10% of the voting right attached to all of SX’s voting securities. Accordingly, the License constituted to that extent a “related party transaction” under MI 61-101. The transaction is exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements under MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of the License or of the consideration exceeds 25% of SX’s market capitalization. SX did not file a material change report more than 21 days before the entering into of the License as it wished to close on an expedited basis for sound business reasons and did not know when the transaction would be completed.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

“Frank Dumas”

FRANK DUMAS, PRESIDENT & CEO

About St-Georges

St-Georges is developing new technologies to solve the some of the most common environmental problems in the mining industry.

The Company controls directly or indirectly, through rights of first refusal, all of the active mineral tenures in Iceland. It also explores for nickel on the Julie Nickel Project & for industrial minerals on Quebec’s North Shore and for lithium and rare metals in Northern Quebec and in the Abitibi region. Headquartered in Montreal, St-Georges’ stock is listed on the CSE under the symbol SX, on the US OTC under the Symbol SXOOF and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 85G1.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this release.

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, St Georges Eco-Mining Technologies | Comments Off on St-Georges $SX.ca $SXOOF Announces #Blockchain & Smart Contract Technology & Transfer & License Agreement with Qingdao Tiande Technologies #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

RBC $RY.ca Report: #Crypto and #Blockchain Could Unlock $10 Trillion Market $IDK.ca #Blockstation #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:27 AM on Thursday, January 4th, 2018
Jan 3, 2018 at 19:15 UTC
  • Research analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) sees cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and decentralization as a potential $10 trillion ecosystem
  • Mitch Steves, an equities analyst with RBC’s Capital Markets subsidiary, laid out his bull case for why the future of transactional services will ultimately be decentralized
  • “While the cryptocurrency space has many risks, the opportunity appears vast with constant technology updates,” he wrote

In a new report released Wednesday, Mitch Steves, an equities analyst with RBC’s Capital Markets subsidiary, laid out his bull case for why the future of transactional services will ultimately be decentralized. “While the cryptocurrency space has many risks, the opportunity appears vast with constant technology updates,” he wrote.

Though startups that enable cryptocurrency protocols to serve as decentralized alternatives to proprietary services or as a means of transmitting remittances have garnered the most interest throughout the ecosystem’s formative years, Steves argues that the protocol layer (on which these services will be built) is where most of the value will be realized.

“We see that the protocol layer will capture more value than the applications,” he wrote, adding:

“As the application becomes successful, the protocol layer captures more value, which then creates more interest in additional decentralized application development.”

As such, the comments echo the fat protocol theory put forward by Union Square Ventures, which states value creation on decentralized cryptocurrencies will occur at the lower infrastructure layers.

The report also asserts that the market for cryptocurrency mining is here to stay, arguing that there currently exists an at least $4.2 billion market for bitcoin mining equipment with an additional $350-$450 million for other ASIC-mined cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash and another $1.9 billion market for GPU-mined coins like ethereum and monero.

Notably, the report argues that decentralized technology in its current state is misunderstood and underrated, claiming that cryptocurrencies are becoming better able to handle an increasing number of transactions. In particular, Steves sees the Lightning Network as a tool to enable more than a million transactions per second on bitcoin.

Still, scalability, along with government intervention and the creation of more sophisticated wallet hacking techniques, was identified as one of the key risks facing the ecosystem.

Continued progress on these fronts, however, will be a boon for the development and mainstream adoption of a global supercomputer, whether it be ethereum-based or on an alternative, provided that blockchain’s impeccable security record remains spotless, Steves said.

“As scaling and protocols mature, the value of a decentralized world computer could potentially become a multi-trillion dollar industry,” Steves wrote, concluding: “If there’s one positive technology item we can agree on, it’s that the blockchain has never been hacked. What happens if we build on top of this secure layer?”

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-blockchain-create-10-trillion-market-rbc-analyst-says/

Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Blockstation, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Fintech, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on RBC $RY.ca Report: #Crypto and #Blockchain Could Unlock $10 Trillion Market $IDK.ca #Blockstation #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

#Bitcoin or #Blockchain ? Bet That Both Will Thrive in 2018 $IDK.ca #Entherium #Blockstation $HIVE.ca $CODE.ca $BLOC.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:24 AM on Friday, December 29th, 2017
  • Bitcoin and blockchain are often pitted against each other, but I come from both worlds and believe that both are game-changers in their own right
  • Cryptocurrencies will continue to attract users as more folks learn about distortions in mainstream financial markets that just don’t make sense

Caitlin Long is the chairman and president of Symbiont, an enterprise blockchain platform. 

The following article, an exclusive contribution to CoinDesk’s 2017 in Review, outlines Long’s personal views and is not intended to provide investment advice.

Bitcoin and blockchain are often pitted against each other, but I come from both worlds and believe that both are game-changers in their own right.

I first learned about bitcoin in 2012 through liberty-oriented channels, which I’d discovered during a search for answers about the financial crisis in 2008. But I also took a deep dive into enterprise blockchain in 2014 while at Morgan Stanley, as a side interest to my day job of running its pension solutions business. In August 2016, I joined Symbiont full-time.

When I look ahead, I see 2018 as a year of maturity for both the bitcoin and enterprise blockchain parts of the space. Bitcoin will yet again prove its anti-fragility, more corporates will embrace it for payments, and the community will successfully resist its financialization. Enterprise blockchain will gain wider acceptance in production applications.

Bitcoin goes corporate

Bitcoin will increasingly be used for B2B foreign-exchange payments by multinational companies in 2018, as bid-offer spreads continue to tighten, daily liquidity consistently exceeds $5 billion and corporate new entrants gain comfort with liquidity providers (which enable corporates to use bitcoin for “cross-currency” transactions without touching the bitcoin itself–in other words, as an intermediary currency for foreign exchange in illiquid currencies).

Corporate bitcoin use will remain predominantly for payments in markets where banking systems are not well-developed. A tell-tale sign that corporate demand is sustainable would be this: when foreign exchange (FX) trading desks start making markets in bitcoin non-deliverable forwards (NDFs).

When that starts – possibly within the next 2 years – Jamie Dimon will admit his mistake and encourage corporate clients to route payments through JPMorgan’s foreign exchange desk, which will become one of the most active market-makers for cross-currency FX involving bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies will continue to attract users as more folks learn about distortions in mainstream financial markets that just don’t make sense, such as this:  household net worth in the U.S. was $96.9 trillion, up $7.2 trillion in the year ending September 30, 2017 (according to the Fed’s latest Z.1 report).

This means the U.S. economy supposedly generated wealth at a rate equal to roughly 40% of its annual income (GDP), despite Americans consuming virtually all of their income and saving very little. Wow, that’s a miracle!

Remember this: all prices are fractions. Prices can go up either because numerators go up or because denominators go down (such as when central banks dilute fiat currencies). So…are financial markets climbing because we’re truly getting richer, or because of central bank-induced asset price inflation? Are quantity-constrained cryptocurrencies a safe-haven alternative? Time will tell, but I predict cryptocurrencies will broadly benefit as more folks come to understand what’s driving distortions in financial markets.

One of the “big 3” cross-currency central banks will announce in 2018 that it is preparing to issue its currency on a blockchain. The “big 3” are the “super-regional” central banks through which most “cross-currency” foreign exchange transactions settle, including the Fed, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. The Fed is behind the curve, but in 2018 either the BoE or the BoJ will step forward to allow tokenization of its currency to be executed by institutions in regulatory sandboxes. Corporate treasurers around the world will cheer at the prospect of same-day FX settlement through one (or two) of these “big-3” currencies because it will free up hundreds of billions of capital currently trapped on corporate balance sheets, due to payment system latency.

Yet for all bitcoin’s strengths, I believe advances in the enterprise blockchain will outpace those of bitcoin in 2018.

Let’s face it – enterprises are slower to move than the cryptoasset sector, which moves-fast-and-sometimes-breaks-things.

I believe 2018 will be the year in which a watershed event happens: an enterprise blockchain platform passes a CISO (chief information security officer) audit and is deployed inside the firewall of major financial institutions.

Enterprise goes live

Consensus 2018 will be “back to the suits.” Let’s face it: attire at industry’s biggest conference has been a pretty good barometer of what’s hot in the space. At the inaugural Consensus conference in 2015, bitcoin t-shirts dominated the audience. In 2016, business suits dominated as bankers discovered the space. In 2017, the dominant attire swung back to t-shirts, but this time for ethereum and ICOs. In 2018, I predict it will be “back to the suits” as enterprise blockchain accomplishments will again dominate the sector’s headlines, late-followers will scramble to catch up, and corporate treasurers will attend en masse.

The first institutional bond offering will be issued on a blockchain in the U.S. in 2018. Bond markets, not stock markets, will see the first U.S. institutional-level securities issued on a blockchain. Because the regulatory requirement to issue securities in “depository-eligible” (indirect) form does not apply to bond markets, the first institutional securities issued on a blockchain will be bonds – something I’ve predicted for years. In 2018, I believe it will finally happen. Yet, the coming clash between the federal securities laws that govern equities (which contemplate indirect ownership via the DTCC’s Cede & Co.) and state corporate laws (which contemplate that shares are owned directly by shareholders) will not happen yet in 2018.

No new blockchain consortiums will be formed in 2018. If 2017 were the year of forming new consortiums, 2018 will be the year of bilateral projects. Blockchains are networks and therefore suffer from the proverbial chicken and egg problem – consortium first and then project, or project first and then consortium? Consortiums now exist across a wide variety of industries, but – at least for now – more action is happening outside of consortiums than inside them.

Enterprise blockchain adoption will advance beyond incremental-type uses in production, such as sharing of data, to include transformational uses, such as custody of institutional financial assets that only ever exist on a blockchain. This will shine light on quality differences between platforms — and separate those that are decentralized and offer transformational benefits from those that don’t quite. A big gap will open in 2018 between the “haves” and “have-nots” in enterprise blockchain.

2018 will be a consolidation year as the sector matures. The sector came of age in 2017, as adoption broadened in both bitcoin and blockchain. In 2018, both will strengthen and deepen further. And property owners the world round will rejoice.

Disclosure: Caitlin owns cryptocurrency (bitcoin, almost exclusively) and has equity investments in Symbiont, Overstock.com and Payward, the parent company of Kraken.

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-blockchain-bet-will-thrive-2018/

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Blockstation, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on #Bitcoin or #Blockchain ? Bet That Both Will Thrive in 2018 $IDK.ca #Entherium #Blockstation $HIVE.ca $CODE.ca $BLOC.ca

betterU $BTRU to Launch an Education #Blockchain Ecosystem Project as Part of the Corporation’s 2018 Growth Strategies $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:27 AM on Wednesday, December 27th, 2017

Betteru large

  • Developed a strategy that will pioneer the advancement of an education blockchain ecosystem starting early 2018, linking to the Corporation’s global education marketplace for emerging markets
  • betterU’s vision has been to equalize education for emerging markets such as India by providing access to the top global educators and institutions, supporting opportunities from education to employment

OTTAWA, Ontario, Dec. 27, 2017- betterU Education Corp. (TSX-V:BTRU) (FRANKFURT:5OGA), (the “Corporation” or “betterU”), is pleased to announce that it has developed a strategy that will pioneer the advancement of an education blockchain ecosystem starting early 2018, linking to the Corporation’s global education marketplace for emerging markets.

The development of the strategy comes after months of research and the further understanding of the advancement that blockchain technology can provide to the education industry. betterU’s vision has been to equalize education for emerging markets such as India by providing access to the top global educators and institutions, supporting opportunities from education to employment. The following article, written by the CEO of betterU provides insights into the potential that blockchain can provide for the advancement of global opportunities. These insights form the thinking around betterU’s strategies for the advancements of their education blockchain ecosystem.

Article: Thinking Through an Education Blockchain Ecosystem
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thinking-through-education-blockchain-ecosystem-brad-loiselle/

The equalization of education isn’t just about being able to provide access to the same education to everyone everywhere, it’s also about being able to rationalize that everyone should have the same opportunities despite where they received their education or where they reside. The acceptance and validation of their credentials on a global scale is a requirement for equalization. “Blockchain enables transparency and with the involvement of globally trusted partners, we will be able to help advance the credibility and validation for all individuals, taking us that much closer to achieving our vision,” said Brad Loiselle, President and CEO of betterU.

About betterU

betterU, a global education marketplace, aims to provide access to quality education from around the world to foster growth and opportunity to those who want to better their lives. The company’s vision is to help foster the equalization of education for all by bridging the prevailing gap in the education and job industry and enhance the lives of its learners by developing an integrated education-to-employment ecosystem. betterU’s offerings can be categorized into several broad functions: to compliment school programs with flexible KG-12 programs preparing children for next stage of education, to provide access to global educational opportunities from leading educators, to foster an exceptional educational environment by providing befitting skills that lead to a better career, to bridge the gap between one’s existing education and prospective job requirement by training them and lastly, to connect the end user to various job opportunities.

www.betterU.ca and www.betterU.in

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which include completion of the proposed Investment, the anticipated use of the proceeds of the Investment, the development and expansion of betterU’s operations, and other matters. There can be no assurance that the Investment will be completed as proposed or at all. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as “may”, “expect”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “believe” and “continue” or the negative thereof or similar variations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, which contribute to the possibility that the predictions, estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the state of the economy in general and capital markets in particular, the development of competitive technologies, the marketplace acceptance of betterU’s products, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of betterU. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, betterU disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, betterU undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. Further information on betterU’s public filings, including their most recent audited consolidated financial statements, are available at www.sedar.com.

For further information, please visit  http://www.betteru.ca/investor-overview/

Brad Loiselle
President and CEO
1-613-695-4100 Ext. 233
Email: [email protected]

Investor contact:

Gurinder Sandhu
Investor Relations
1-613-695-4100 Ext. 233
Email: [email protected]

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Posted in All Recent Posts, betterU Education Corp, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on betterU $BTRU to Launch an Education #Blockchain Ecosystem Project as Part of the Corporation’s 2018 Growth Strategies $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Sony $SNE Details #Blockchain Use for Education Data #Blockstation $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $CODE.ca $BLOC.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:22 AM on Monday, December 4th, 2017
Dec 4, 2017 at 07:30 UTC
  • New patent filing from Sony highlights how the Japanese tech conglomerate may be using blockchain as part of an education platform.
  • In August, Sony announced that it was working with IBM to build a suite of educational services, which would use the tech in part to secure student records and form part of a system for sharing that data between agreed-upon parties.

The application from Sony, published last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), points to how that might work in practice.

For example, “nodes” on the education network could be run by teachers, students or other parties that might need access to those records. It refers to how “educational experiences” would be cemented on the chain after being signed by the relevant users.

As the application explains:

“In this example, the [blockchain], which is a trust chain, may be used to store information such as education experiences, certificates and so on of a user. The information contains, for example, studying which courses and possessing which certificates. In addition, based on concepts of a smart contract and a smart property, knowledge may also be exchanged, transacted and transferred via the block chain as a property.”

The filing, entitled “Electronic Apparatus, Method for Electronic Apparatus and Information Processing System,” hints at other possible uses for the tech as well, including for connecting vehicles across a common network.

That “Internet of Vehicle” network would, as envisioned, enable cars to report road conditions to one another, according to the application’s authors.

“By applying the electronic apparatus of the present disclosure to a vehicle (i.e., a node), trust can be transferred between uncorrelated entities using the [blockchain] technology, and real and valid real-time road conditions information is obtained in real-time according to the consensus,” they wrote. “In this way, decentralized real-time road conditions observation and further a navigation system may be realized.”

Sony image via Vytautas Kielaitis / Shutterstock

Source: https://www.coindesk.com/sony-patent-filing-details-blockchain-use-managing-education-data/

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In Israel, a #blockchain and #crypto #hyper-cluster is just getting started $IDK.ca #Blockstation

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 1:30 PM on Friday, November 24th, 2017

  • Moshe Hogeg announced he would invest in every Israeli blockchain that approached him. That investor group, called Alignment,
  • Consisted of the Singulariteam Technology Group, together with CoinTree Capital, and BlockchainIL

In recent times, it’s Eastern Europe and Russia which have become a hot-bed of crytpocurrency development. But on a recent trip to Tel Aviv, Israel, I took part in what might well turn out to be a historic lunch.

The lunch took place just after well-known tech investor Moshe Hogeg announced he would invest in every Israeli blockchain that approached him. That investor group, called Alignment, consisted of the Singulariteam Technology Group, together with CoinTree Capital, and BlockchainIL.

Held at Alignment’s new blockchain Hub in Tel Aviv, we got to hear from an array of new companies.

Dubbed by many as “Startup Nation”, Tel Aviv has begun to produce a new breed of tech giants, but it’s now turning its hand to blockchain and crypto companies. In recent months, my mailbox has become inundated with pitches from companies claiming to be the next blockchain phenomenon, with plans to revolutionize the finance world, healthcare landscape, travel industry, you name it. The problem is, which one, if any, can deliver? However, after getting deep into the subject with the companies I met, I realized many were at least ‘on to something’. Whether they would survive or not…

Here’s a run-down of who I met with:

Erachain

The idea of a blockchain network that works for the average person still seems far off. But Erachain wants to address that. Russian programmer Dmitrii Ermolaev, co-founder and CEO has grown it from a small operation to a distributed organization. Erachain is a decentralized blockchain platform that has incorporated European and World-Wide AML laws, potentially eliminating the need for traditional banks. It ties all coins with physical assets, reduces the cost of normal crypto transactions, and claims to eliminate anonymous transactions by verifying all users upon registration.

It’s been 4 years in development and is all about creating a Proof of Stake system where verified accounts are used as nodes. The use cases are enterprise and government, where using these technologies is often a huge barrier to entry. Right now it’s about document management and digital signatures.

In the future, most applications of large-scale are going to require some kind of verification platform.

Zen Protocol

This team has been involved in the Bitcoin space since 2011. After the DAO hack, founder Adam Perlow wanted to focus on making Bitcoin better, more usable and useful. He has spent the last year creating Zen Protocol, leveraging the blockchain technology and the popularity of Bitcoin to try to decentralize the financial system by building a new protocol purpose-built for finance. Zen’s pitch is that it allows anyone to create financial transactions, at any time, anywhere in the world using Bitcoin. Zen is designed to be open, frictionless, transparent, and completely decentralized across a Proof-of-Work Blockchain. Zen Core is implemented in the .Net stack and uses the F* functional programming language, built by Microsoft Research, to power contracts.

Perlow says: “Today it’s very hard to enforce agreements. You put funds with the exchange and enter an agreement with a broker. But on the blockchain you don’t need a trusted 3rd party. Banks have huge control and too much control over our lives.”

Zen wants to bring the entire financial world onto the blockchain, connecting digital and crypto assets with fiat stocks and commodities. “If we had a mechanism by which to enforce contractual obligations you wouldn’t need this trusted third-party,” he says.

COTI

Its global world and commerce is global but it doesn’t tap into the full potential because of trust. Trust is centralized and held by banks, Visa etc. These are centralized, high on fees and the approval rate is not good for rest of the world outside of the G10. Meanwhile, Ethereurm and ripple not designed for payments. So the solution is a system built from the ground up to be payment mechanism which is instant, zero fees, reversible, and has anti-fraud mechanisms.

Founder Nir Gazit says: “Bitcoin is not good for stuff, it’s not reversible, there’s no mediation.” So they are building a full stack, an exchange, a wallet, a credit card.

COTI aims to make the global economy truly global by providing instant, scalable, and secure transactions using the COTIcoin. COTI, which appropriately stands for Currency of the Internet, is aimed at incentivizing honest conduct between sellers and buyers by creating a ‘unique behavior scoring’ feature on the Bitcoin sidechain. Users who achieve an “honest” score, meaning those vendors who ship products on time, or buyers who pay when they’re supposed to, are rewarded. The system lets both buyers and sellers see the score of another user before he or she chooses to interact with them. COTI aims to reduce high checkout abandonment rates and eliminate uncertainty while shopping online.

There are currently over 1,000 digital currencies operating on a decentralized basis, however, none can provide the services leading centralized payment providers can. By combining a centralized mediation process and a decentralized payment process, COTI says it has created a technological solution for the consumer payments sector.

Jelurida

Jelurida is the development company behind Nxt and Ardor blockchain platforms. It creates customized commercial versions of these platforms while continuously supporting and maintaining the decentralized public Nxt blockchain. With the upcoming Ardor platform, Jelurida will be creating custom child chains for its clients and partners as well.

Whereas many blockchain companies are still in the fundraising stage, Nxt is fully operational and trading with a market cap of over a hundred million dollars. The company, which has in the past offered functions specifically designed for crypto developers, is turning its focus to use cases which have to do with everyday life, from introducing new voting mechanisms to offering transparent international bank transfers that consumers can enjoy. Ardor is the newest blockchain platform Jelurida has been working on, and functions as sort of a Nxt 2.0. Ardor features a unique parent-child chain structure, which helps combat blockchain bloat.

  • Investor Moshe Hogeg has created the Alignment investment vehicle to invested purely in Israeli blockchain and crypto startups.

CrowdWiz

CrowdWiz, which is a fully decentralized crypto investment platform that lets users ditch third-party fund managers, recently began its ICO on November 20th. The company has already raised over $5 million in a public pre-sale, and plans to use the money to develop their investment platform. CrowdWiz relies on the so-called ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to make funding decisions. The CEO Slavena Savcheva claims that a collective entity makes a better decision as a whole than the most intelligent person in the group alone.

CrowdWiz allows the crowd, not fund managers, banks or middlemen, to decide on how the general fund is spent. Users of CrowdWiz will use the company’s cryptocurrency, the OPX token, to vote on which asset they want funds to go to. The platform then distributes based on the majority opinion of the crowd. CrowdWiz solves some of the issues associated with traditional funds today, such as high entrance costs and large fees. Savcheva wants to make the trading process fun, easy, and completely transparent using the wisdom of the crowd to decide where the money goes.

Prior to founding CrowdWiz, Savcheva was the Business Development Manager for TRADOLOGIC, one of the world’s leading FinTech software providers, where she operated and steered the firm’s business in Asian markets.

Orbs

Orbs sits under Cointree and is based on the “Spector” paper written by Hebrew university researchers. It takes the blockchain and turns it into a DAG, another database structure, so it can then process many more blocks in a second. The idea is that it puts the bottleneck at the communication layer not the not the consensus layer. Since the more forks in a blockchain the less secure and slower it become, Orbs claims to be able to process a transaction at whatever speed the network is.

Alignment

Alignment came about because the VC firm Singulariteam partnered with two local Israeli firms, Blockchain IL and CoinTree Capital, to form a sort of blockchain and ICO consultancy which they dubbed “Alignment.” The company aims to groom and support the next blockchain unicorn coming out of Israel. The company consults, develops and funds Blockchain early-stage projects and existing companies, from inception through ICO, and later.

Startups will need to pay for the privilege, of course. Its listed clients to date include Bancor, messaging app Kik, and Stox. Of those, Bancor conducted a $153 million ICO, while Kik raised $98 million in its token sale earlier this year.

Since many people are skeptical of ICOs at the moment (especially in light of the Tezos controversy), Alignment supports blockchain companies, in a climate that’s at best lukewarm towards ICOs. Moshe Hogeg, VC, Founder & Chairman of the Singulariteam, pledged Alignment would “invest, without exception, in every Israeli blockchain company in 2017.”

Bancor

If you’ve been following the blockchain revolution, you’ve probably heard about Bancor. This company made history when it held one of the most successful ICO’s (at the time it was a world record), raising over $153 million from over 10,000 participants in less than three hours. Bancor has created a market maker application that aims to facilitate trading with other digital coins. The Bancor protocol enables built-in price-discovery and a liquidity mechanism for tokens on smart contract blockchains. Bancor’s claims it allows anyone to create their own cryptocurrency and operate it independent of a third-party exchange. The Bancor Protocol allows for the creation of thousands of cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain, creating a interconnected asset exchange ecosystem which unlocks the long tail of user-generated tokens. Smart tokens are designed with additional functionality such as “delegated account recovery” and “vaults” to address security issues. The aim of these features is to make cryptocurrencies more accessible and to encourage mass adoption.

Stox

You may have heard the news about Stox’s ethereum based prediction market platform when Floyd Mayweather boasted he would “make a $hit t$n of money … on the Stox.com ICO.”

Following Mayweather’s bullish words, Stox raised $33 million in an ICO last August. Stox claims users can predict and trade the outcome of events in almost any imaginable category: Finance, sports, politics and even the weather, as they might in a traditional stock market.

Unlike a lot of crypto companies which tailor their services to blockchain experts, the Stox platform is designed to accommodate, and be intuitive for mainstream audiences.

As you can see, Israel, and specifically Tel Aviv, is creating a huge force in this new world. If they play their cards right, they could well start to rival the co-called ‘Crypto Valley’ in Switzerland.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/23/in-israel-a-blockchain-and-crypto-hyper-cluster-is-just-getting-started/

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Blockstation, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on In Israel, a #blockchain and #crypto #hyper-cluster is just getting started $IDK.ca #Blockstation

ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca Appoints #Cryptocurrency Evangelist and Trader to Advisory Board #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:27 AM on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017

Threed capital

  • Mr. David Schirmer is a cryptocurrency enthusiast who spends most of his free time researching various topics in the blockchain/cryptocurrency space
  • Sheldon Inwentash, CEO of ThreeD comments, “David brings a vast knowledge of the blockchain/cryptocurrrency space through his research and enthusiasm for the sector.”

TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2017 — ThreeD Capital Inc. (“ThreeD” or the “Company”) (CSE:IDK) is pleased to announce the appointment of David Schirmer to its Advisory Board.

Mr. David Schirmer is a cryptocurrency enthusiast who spends most of his free time researching various topics in the blockchain/cryptocurrency space. He started his career in Tax Consulting at Deloitte before moving into the manufacturing industry with Saint Gobain (SGC) as a financial analyst and financial services manager. While at Saint Gobain, Mr. Schirmer was introduced to lean methodology. These principles help to methodically determine the value of various processes and outputs.

After a decade at SGC and lean manufacturing, Mr. Schirmer founded Nabu Consulting to apply those principles to startups using the lean methodology.  He began working with a blockchain-related project, which led him to analyzing every cryptocurrency that launched over the past two years. When it comes to analyzing the various cryptocurrency options available, Mr. Schirmer focuses on the fundamentals of the currency, rather than putting greater weight in the technical analysis. As such, Mr. Schirmer brings a detailed and analytical mindset to ThreeD’s blockchain/cryptocurrency advisory board.

Sheldon Inwentash, CEO of ThreeD comments, “David brings a vast knowledge of the blockchain/cryptocurrrency space through his research and enthusiasm for the sector.”

“It is a pleasure to join ThreeD Capital as an Advisor. I look forward in working with Sheldon and his Advisory Board in the amazing projects we can accomplish together,” stated David Schirmer.

About ThreeD Capital Inc.

ThreeD is a publicly-traded Canadian-based venture capital firm focused on opportunistic investments in companies in the junior resources, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain sectors.

ThreeD seeks to invest in early stage, promising companies where it may be the lead investor and can additionally provide investees with advisory services, mentoring and access to the Company’s network in order to earn increases to the Company’s equity stake.

For further information:
Gerry Feldman, CPA, CA
Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary
[email protected]
Phone: 416-606-7655

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca Appoints #Cryptocurrency Evangelist and Trader to Advisory Board #Bitcoin #Ethereum $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

The #Esports Industry Is Booming — Can #Blockchain Supercharge It? #Blockstation $GMBL

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:11 AM on Wednesday, October 25th, 2017
  • Multi-player gaming is the king of esports and there is a belief that the blockchain can be a big benefit to its continued growth
  • video gaming industry is currently undergoing some major developments as big players are posting massive growth, with the likes of Activision BlizzardATVI +2.16%, Take-Two Interactive, and Electronic ArtsEA -0.15% (EA)

Darren Heitner , Contributor

I cover the intersection of sports and money. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Multi-player gaming is the king of esports and there is a belief that the blockchain can be a big benefit to its continued growth. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

The video gaming industry is currently undergoing some major developments as big players are posting massive growth, with the likes of Activision BlizzardATVI +2.16%, Take-Two Interactive, and Electronic ArtsEA -0.15% (EA) posting year-to-date gains as of Oct. 13 of 70%, 112% and 51% respectively. The growth has been partly driven by the recent and upcoming releases of AAA game franchises.

Aside from big budget titles, the esports scene can be credited for much of the traction driving the industry forward. The idea of creating professional leagues out of popular multiplayer titles is catching on. Just this month, the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors announced their entry into esports. They join the New York Yankees among the North American sports franchises that are buying into the growing esports scene.

Established professional sports franchises, especially soccer franchises in Europe, have been involved and invested in esports for a while now thanks to the popularity of EA Sports’ massive FIFA franchise. The emergence of other esports leagues catering to multiplayer games such as Valve’s Dota 2, Riot’s League of Legends and Blizzards’s Overwatch are also encouraging more franchises to participate.

 

This fusion of traditional sports and esports creates huge potential to usher in a new level of events, sponsorship, merchandise sales and betting into video games.

What makes all of this even more exciting is the introduction of blockchain into gaming. The technology that drives cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is now finding applications in the esports ecosystem.

There are several ways new blockchain ventures like Esports.com (a decentralized, blockchain-based esports community) or Network Units (a blockchain-controlled multiplayer infrastructure and integration that can turn any game into an esport) are bringing blockchain and esports together.

Ending Gamer Community Toxicity

The growth of a multiplayer game and its viability for esports depends heavily on the community. A key problem for most gaming communities is toxicity. Toxic communities are filled with members who behave negatively often characterized by abusing other members, exploiting the system and cheating. For instance, the Overwatch development team announced that it is working on measures to come down hard on toxicity after receiving complaints from its community.

Managing a multiplayer game community has its challenges. For developers, sustaining a game requires a stable infrastructure that has enough capacity to handle all transactions. It also needs transparent and fair ways to handle player conduct and reputation. As a decentralized and transparent technology, blockchain offers plenty of potential for such use.

“Gamers expect a fair match and a good challenge,” says Network Units CEO Dan Shirazi. “Sadly, most of them aren’t getting it. Cheating or broken matchmaking mechanics ruin entire gaming communities. Gamers become demotivated, stop spending on content and the full economic potential of the game is missed.”

Network Units is an online gaming platform with a built-in player reputation management. It provides decentralized and scalable computing resources to augment developers’ infrastructure and mechanisms to mitigate cheating, downtime, and costly maintenance that developers often face when using traditional means.

Network Units is also creating its own NU token cryptocurrency that will drive the economy of its decentralized multiplayer infrastructure. Using the platform, game developers can avail of resources to host their multiplayer games. Other users may contribute to the platform as service providers by renting out spare hardware and bandwidth. Players may also serve as active clients who can participate in the verification process and, by doing so, earn tokens which they then are able to use for in-game purchases.

Community Involvement and Professional Development

Gaming communities also rely on continued buzz to sustain player interest. This mainly comes from community generated content. YouTube has since been filled with gaming footage and commentaries revolving around popular multiplayer games. Streaming platform Twitch continues to experience monumental growth. In order to develop its user base, Twitch recently announced that the company is working on new tools for gamers to monetize their streams.

Esports.com is also working on its own blockchain-based platform to meet the various needs of esports enthusiasts. The platform aims to offer merchandise, licensed betting and esports education to its users. Its education arm, dubbed Esports University, seeks to encourage gamers to become esports professionals. Users are encouraged to create guides and video tutorials to help other gamers improve their skills.

To manage the platform, Esports.com will be using blockchain to power its Esports Reward Token (ERT). Contributors of high quality content will be rewarded with ERTs which may then be used to avail of the other services within the platform. Token holders will also be able to exchange their ERTs to fiat currencies of their choice.

“Blockchain and cryptocurrency allow the decentralization of the esports world. From content creation to participation we see many solutions emerging. One major factor behind this is that users can follow and see every transaction on the blockchain, which makes everything trustworthy and openly visible for anyone. This helps not only us, but the whole industry to become more professional and grow,” said Esports.com co-founder Benjamin Föckersperger.

Indeed, blockchain’s transparency could also help in restricting access to the betting functionality to prevent underage users and those with gambling problems from accessing these services.

Evolving the Ecosystem

This growing draw of esports is prompting developers to give focus to multiplayer gaming. There is much potential in games that eventually become the focus of esports leagues. The substantial market of gamers worldwide offers lucrative opportunities for established sports franchises and brands, and encourages their increased participation in esports.

For esports to succeed; however, the state of gaming communities must improve. Issues such as toxicity and low community involvement must be addressed. Fortunately, developments in technologies such as blockchain could be offering the necessary solutions to improve game services, curb toxicity and encourage participation through rewards. These new mechanisms should help the continued growth of esports.

Darren Heitner is the Founder of South Florida-based HEITNER LEGAL, P.L.L.C. and Sports Agent Blog. He authored the book, How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know.

Follow @DarrenHeitner

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2017/10/24/the-esports-industry-is-booming-can-blockchain-supercharge-it/#1b710b917868

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Is it loonie to collect your salary in Bitcoin?

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:58 AM on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

A small but growing – and surprising – number of workers are rejecting Canadian dollar salaries for Bitcoin, according to a Waterloo, Ont., payroll firm.

Wagepoint CEO Shrad Rao said his firm came up with the cryptocurrency payment option in November last year as a side project and did not expect any take-up.

Video: Wrapping your head around bitcoin

But as the online currency gained popularity this year, he said, employees from 10 firms have signed up for the Bitcoin option, and many more are asking about it.

“When we started off, we didn’t even think we’ll get one,” he said over the phone from New York, where Wagepoint has another office.

“What’s interesting is that we’ve actually had customers come to us because of the (Bitcoin) integration, which we were not expecting at all.”

Rao said the firms are overwhelmingly technology companies, whose workers have higher interest in new innovations and tend to dabble more.

In addition to Canadian interest, he said gets about five inquiries for Bitcoin payment per month from the United States, where Wagepoint also operates, although it has not yet launched such an option in that country.

Bitcoin, a decentralized currency, was launched in 2009 by an as-yet unknown person or group. It gained mainstream attention in 2013, and subsequent adoption caused one bitcoin to rise to a high of $1,000.

But most brick-and-mortar shops still do not recognize Bitcoin as currency, and neither does the Canadian government, which in June ruled Bitcoin is property.

Canada Revenue Agency spokesman Noel Carisse said paying employees in Bitcoin means paying them in goods – “a barter transaction.”

“The goods – the Bitcoin, in the case of digital currency – must be valued and reported in Canadian dollars,” he said in an e-mail.

“The employee would then include the appropriate amount on their tax return for the year as employment income. Any tax payable would have to be paid in Canadian dollars.”

For Wagepoint, however, it works differently. Rao said for tax purposes, employees are still being paid with Canadian dollars on paper.

He said workers can have all or part of their wages in bitcoins, and taxes are taken from the Canadian dollar salary before the remainder is converted.

“Really, it’s (about) what you do with your personal income at that point,” he said. “If you bought a boat with it or invest in Bitcoin – I’m not sure that’s very different from each other.”

But the payment system will not likely have mass adoption until there is regulation and widespread acceptance for Bitcoin, according to an expert.

Cissy Pau of the Vancouver-based Clear HR Consulting, which deals with small businesses, predicts being paid in virtual currency will not expand beyond the tech world because there are currently too few places to spend it.

“Tech companies, I can see that,” she said. “But I just can’t see that in, say, Canada Post, a more traditional-type company with more traditional-type workers. I would suspect that people will be highly skeptical.”

Currently, even those who earn exclusively in bitcoins cannot escape traditional currency.

Michael Perklin of Bitcoinsultants does business in the virtual currency and has not earned Canadian dollars since February, but does not use Bitcoin directly in most day-to-day transactions.

Perklin said he uses third-party services that allow him to make regular purchases and bill payments in Bitcoin, and also sells bitcoins for cash.

For instance, Perklin’s mortgage is paid for through a Canadian dollar chequing account where he deposits funds after selling bitcoins on online exchanges.

Perklin said living completely without traditional currency may be possible in the future, but it is difficult to do right now.

“I have to interact with Canadian currency,” he said. “That’s a fact of live in the country I live in.”

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/is-it-loonie-to-collect-your-salary-in-bitcoin/article20296919/?cmpid=rss1&click=sf_globe

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