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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – CIOs can’t ignore these 5 realities of #blockchain $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 3:18 PM on Thursday, September 19th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

CIOs can’t ignore these 5 realities of blockchain

By Rajesh Kandaswamy
Gartner, Inc.
  • What would happen if a car automatically negotiated its own insurance rate, or if centralized banks were no longer necessary to verify payments?
  • What if neighbors could buy energy directly from each other’s solar panels? What if a contract enforced its own clauses?

These scenarios might seem overly futuristic, but the reality is that blockchain could make all of them possible. The more important question is how might these changes affect the enterprise, and how can the organization take advantage of this technology? 

Few enterprises have deployed blockchain, yet it can significantly impact broad swaths of the business. The low adoption of blockchain technologies lulls many CIOs into thinking they don’t yet have to take action, yet the opportunities for blockchain technology are massive. 

Only 4 per cent of enterprises expect that blockchain will be a game-changer for them, according to the 2019 Gartner CIO Survey. Furthermore, only 11 per cent of enterprises have deployed — or will deploy over the next year — even minimal, blockchain-inspired technologies. CIOs need to start thinking about what value blockchain can add to their organization and how to tackle its challenges over the next five years.

Reality #1: Blockchain provides a spectrum of opportunities that evolve over time

Blockchain is not a monolithic technology. The term blockchain actually encompasses a wide range of technologies, from smart contracts to tokens to consensus models that will continuously mature and become available. In turn, CIOs should plan for incremental evolution of their own blockchain strategies. 

Blockchain technologies fall into four phases on the Gartner Blockchain Spectrum:

  1. Blockchain-enabling: These are the building blocks of blockchain, including encryption and consensus algorithm, distributed computing infrastructures, tokens and others. 
  2. Blockchain-inspired: Technologies in this stage combine some elements of blockchain, but lack two core elements: decentralization and tokenization. 
  3. Blockchain-complete: These solutions have all five elements of blockchain. They are decentralized, immutable, encrypted, tokenized and distributed.
  4. Blockchain-enhanced: Alongside the five elements of blockchain, blockchain-enhanced is combined with technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) for more intelligent solutions. 

Reality #2: Blockchain can change your operating model, not necessarily your business model, in the next 5 years

While blockchain will eventually change the core of a business, in the next five years it will mostly affect how an organization executes its business. Focusing solely on how blockchain is being used today (i.e. efficiency and record keeping) is limiting. CIOs should look for opportunities to leverage blockchain technology for deeper business changes that can drive real value. 

Begin by looking for areas where blockchain could strengthen the organization’s value proposition, and propose projects that could truly differentiate the organization. Put real thought into how this technology could benefit the business, versus just purchasing a cool “disruptor” venue. 

Reality #3: Blockchain offers the ability to create a multi-asset digital economy

It’s time to think creatively about tokenization and digitally representing assets in the marketplace. For some organizations this will increase efficiency, and for others, it will enable entirely new markets. Consider how tokenization would be helpful in current business operations and in the future, and talk to ecosystem partners about tokenization’s potential and challenges. 

Reality #4: Blockchain enables a new society, but doesn’t solve trust problems at all levels

One of the main elements of blockchain is decentralization. It removes central authorities from the process and enables a level of trust between two parties who have never done business together. This means that the definition of participant will expand beyond individuals and businesses to include smart contracts, distributed ledgers, connected things and DAOs. 

Blockchain will facilitate the interactions between all of these participants and enable a new society, but it cannot solve all trust problems. For example, any goods that are physical or not completely digital, would gain limited (if any) trust value. Create a map that highlights potential gaps and weak spots, and don’t oversell blockchain technologies to executives as a solution to every problem. 

Reality #5: The programmable economy will set the terms of competition in the future

The reality is that blockchain and its core elements will radically alter not only the business world, but the world in which businesses exist. Blockchain will allow autonomous ecommerce and eventually a programmable economy. 

A programmable economy results from applying distributed computational resources, such as blockchain at scale, in a decentralized manner to support exchanges of monetary and nonmonetary value between people, organizations and artificial agents that have a legal standing equivalent to today’s corporations and individuals. This will eventually evolve into a digital society, as consumers change behaviors and adopt new practices. Organizations will need to develop the technology, but also the ethics and practices to exist in the digital society. 

Rajesh Kandaswamy is a Research Vice President and a Gartner Fellow in Gartner’s Technology and Service Provider research practice. His responsibilities include helping establish the direction of research for emerging technologies and industries, as well as co-leading blockchain research enterprisewide at Gartner. His Gartner Fellows research is on how technology will radically transform the concept of an organization.

Source: https://www.itworldcanada.com/blog/cios-cant-ignore-these-5-realities-of-blockchain/421985

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Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – CIOs can’t ignore these 5 realities of #blockchain $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Facebook’s $FB #Crypto Launching in H2 2020, Says #Libra Association Chief – SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:44 AM on Friday, September 13th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE
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Facebook’s Crypto Launching in H2 2020, Says Libra Association Chief

By William Suberg

The head of the nonprofit organization behind Facebook’s Libra digital currency has said the company is committed to launching it and clearing regulatory hurdles.

Perez: “We don’t want to be like BlackRock”

In an interview with French news magazine Les Echos on Sept. 12, Bertrand Perez, director general of the Libra Association, said the token should appear in the second half of 2020. 

The comments came the day France’s economy and finance minister said the country would refuse to allow Libra to operate within its borders. 

As Cointelegraph reported, concerns over financial stability fuelled the resentment, with Bruno Le Maire appearing to wish to shape a hostile European Union policy towards Libra. 

According to Perez, however, Facebook does not wish to create new supplies of money via the token. He drew comparisons to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, saying the social media giant did not want to compete in that market.

“We don’t want to become a new BlackRock,” he told Les Echos, continuing:

“That’s why these concerns about the destabilizing effect our reserve currency could have on central banks’ fiat currencies — which figure in our basket — seem unfounded to us.”

Facebook will resolve gov’t worries 

Perez likewise confirmed Libra, upon launch, would be tied to a selection of major world currencies, but notably not the Chinese yuan. 

As Cointelegraph previously noted, Beijing is putting the finishing touches to its own digital currency, with central bank officials already voicing direct worries of their own about Libra’s backing. 

Nonetheless, Perez is confident that all the regulatory difficulties could be solved by the launch. 

“The year we’ve taken prior to release will allow us to iron out all the problems,” he added. 

France meanwhile has pledged not to tax crypto-to-crypto transactions, highlighting its potentially permissive stance towards the phenomenon.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/facebooks-crypto-launching-in-h2-2020-says-libra-association-chief

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Posted in All Recent Posts, Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on Facebook’s $FB #Crypto Launching in H2 2020, Says #Libra Association Chief – SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

A Top #Apple Executive Reveals the Company Thinks #Crypto Has ‘interesting long-term potential’ – Bodes Well For ThreeD’s $IDK.ca Vast Crypto Holdings

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:15 AM on Friday, September 6th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

A Top Apple Executive Reveals the Company Thinks Crypto Has ‘interesting long-term potential’ – Bodes Well For ThreeD’s Vast Crypto Holdings

  • Vice president of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey told CNN Business during a private event in San Francisco that Apple is “watching cryptocurrency,” adding the company thinks “it has interesting long-term potential.”
  • The comments follow Apple’s latest push into consumer finance products, with its Apple Card credit card releasing in August in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard.
  • Apple’s potential move into digital coins would serve as “a major shot in the arm for crypto,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Business.

By: Ben Winck

An Apple executive said the tech giant is keeping an eye on cryptocurrencies during a private event in San Francisco, saying digital coins have “interesting long-term potential.”

“We’re watching cryptocurrency. We think it’s interesting,” vice president of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey told CNN at the event. “We think it has interesting long-term potential.”

She addressed the new asset class as part of a talk on the future of digital payments and the company’s push into the sector.

Bailey’s comments follow the August release of the Apple Card, a credit card made in collaboration with Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. The card served as the first major expansion of Apple’s consumer finance products since Apple Pay launched in October 2014.

Apple’s potential move into digital coins would serve as “a major shot in the arm for crypto,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNN Business. He added that the interest in crypto “could make sense given its sights on further monetizing its consumers.”

The introduction of finance products would fall in line with Apple’s continued push into service revenue growth. Its Services business now contribute to more than one-fifth of the company’s quarterly income, and upcoming offerings like Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade could further boost its earnings.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/top-apple-executive-reveals-company-is-watching-cryptocurrency-2019-9-1028503107

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Posted in Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on A Top #Apple Executive Reveals the Company Thinks #Crypto Has ‘interesting long-term potential’ – Bodes Well For ThreeD’s $IDK.ca Vast Crypto Holdings

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why Some Executives See #Crypto As A New Business Tool $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 5:18 PM on Wednesday, August 28th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

Why Some Executives See Crypto As A New Business Tool

  • Executives are leveraging blockchain-driven currency to axe business process friction or fuel innovative products and services.
  • Signals are building that more organizations recognize its alluring features as fuel for innovative products and services, or useful for axing friction in the business process behind a transaction.

By: Jason Abdilla, Unsplash

Many executives see blockchain-driven digital currency as a terribly clunky payment vehicle or speculative investment. But signals are building that more organizations recognize its alluring features as fuel for innovative products and services, or useful for axing friction in the business process behind a transaction.

Unlikely Bedfellows Align Around Feature-Rich Token Projects

For example, a group of 14 financial firms led by UBS Group AG and including Barclays PLC, Nasdaq Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG , Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and State Street Bank & Trust Co have created a new company, Fnality International, to control development of a bitcoin-like token that the firms plan to use to settle cross-border trades. The token, called utility settlement coin (USC), is designed so banks can settle transactions directly with each other without having to involve a third-party intermediary, removing layers of costs and inefficiency. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is taking a similar approach, creating a network of more than 250 members that is working on a token called JPM Coin. Twenty eight brands, led by Facebook and including Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Spotify, PayPal, and eBay have created the Libra Association to develop a token, which is named Libra. In so doing, unlikely bedfellows are coming together to take on the extremely difficult work of forging a new financial infrastructure, pioneering challenging territory in joint governance, and navigating regulatory uncertainty.

What Is So Compelling?

Blockchain-driven digital tokens have very attractive attributes that make it possible to do something totally new: merge business and operational activity with the movement of money. All of a sudden, money can be programmable—terms and conditions could be directly embedded into how money moves from one party to another. While this is certainly possible in today’s financial world, the potential to reduce the cost of doing so to writing a few lines of code is tantalizing.

For example, the USC token serves as a messenger that includes the data needed to complete a trade along with payment, which could cut transaction cost and time. A key feature of Facebook’s Libra is a programming language called Move that can be used to customize transaction logic and create “smart contracts” that dictate the conditions under which value is moved—an element which could fuel a range of financial innovations. Imagine a world in which a few lines of code ensure a transaction doesn’t take place until certain other conditions are met—an asset couldn’t be spent until a certain time in the future, or until a certain number of parties have registered their approval. While moving this logic to code comes with a new set of challenges (including the possibility of bugs and the open question of legal enforceability), pioneers imagine digital tokens flexibly embedded into existing products, used to create innovative bundling, or develop completely new financial products.

Digital tokens carry other attractive attributes as well. They are designed to be interoperable (they are more useful the more widely accepted they are, and so token development is a race to get the flywheel turning on network effects). They are typically traceable, so they provide clear auditability, and hold the potential to settle on a near-immediate basis.

By cutting out intermediaries, they also offer the prospect of a low-transaction cost global currency. According to Bloomberg, retailers are paying $90 billion in swipe fees on credit and debit cards every year. On August 14, supermarket giant Kroger stopped accepting Visa at 21 supermarkets and five gas stations because of what the company called “excessive fees”.

Digital tokens could eventually also serve as an efficient way to shape and align consumer or partner behavior, functioning as a high value rewards system, like a supercharged loyalty point. This has the potential to exert influence across a wide range of organizations and business objectives.

Regulators Are Taking These Signals Seriously

UNITED STATES – JULY 16: David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet service, prepares to testify during the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Momentum has been met with a heightened response from regulators and lawmakers. Facebook’s announcement of Libra led to heated U.S. Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee held hearings. At the hearings, Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo of Idaho painted the complexity ahead, “Libra is based on a relatively new and continually evolving technology in which it is not entirely clear how existing laws and regulations apply.” The Financial Stability Oversight Council, an umbrella group of regulators that includes the Fed, has formed a working group to discuss oversight of digital assets. The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations have elevated cryptocurrencies to a priority issue, with finance ministers debating how global cryptocurrency could impact financial markets. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney even suggested central banks should consider joining forces to create a virtual currency (based on a network of digital central-bank currencies) that could ease the global economy’s reliance on the dollar and be used to facilitate cross-border trade and international payments.

Suddenly, the prospect of whether this new form of money could undermine the role of central banks or become a viable alternate to national currencies had become serious debate. This acknowledges the power and influence of the players exploring these new currencies as well as the complexity of projecting how they would operate in the wild.   

Canary In The Coal Mine?

Will these initial projects succeed or fail? It is too early to project the outcome of such early work in the space, much less how it could evolve as momentum builds. However, we are seeing clear signals that there is hunger for the features and functionality blockchain-driven digital tokens and currency make possible. And many in the space are taking the position that it’s inevitable that something like these early projects will ultimately come to market, even if the initial attempts fail to make it through the regulatory gauntlet. It is likely we will see a race for innovation in this space, one that could blur the lines between the financial services industry and other sectors, and even the role of nation-states versus corporations.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonmccauley/2019/08/28/why-some-executives-see-crypto-as-a-new-business-tool/#676b926c37ae

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – How #Blockchain can further the cause of electric vehicles #EV $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:37 AM on Thursday, August 15th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

How Blockchain can further the cause of electric vehicles

 Leslie D’Monte

  • According to researchers, EV charging infrastructure could get a further boost if blockchain is integrated into energy systems
  • Countries such as India and those in the European Union are pulling out all the steps to strengthen the EV ecosystem

Bengaluru: Charged up with the idea that electric vehicles (EVs) hold the future of energy and transportation, many countries such as India and those in the European Union are pulling out all the steps to strengthen the EV ecosystem with battery storage manufacturing plants, besides offering a host of financial and tax incentives.

While all these initiatives are steps in the right direction, many researchers believe the EV charging infrastructure could get a further boost if blockchain is integrated into energy systems.

A new study by researchers at the University of Waterloo, for instance, reveals that there is a lack of trust among charging service providers, property owners and owners of EVs. With an open blockchain platform, all parties will have access to the data and can see if it has been tampered with, researchers insist. Their reasoning is that using a blockchain-oriented charging system will allow EV owners to see if they are being overcharged while property owners will know if they are being underpaid.

Blockchain, primarily known for powering cryptocurrencies like bitcoins, is a form of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that promises to reduce costs and establish trust, but faces challenges like the speed of processing transactions. Its popularity lies in the fact that participants have a copy of the ledger’s data that contains the most recent transactions or changes, thus reducing the need to establish trust using traditional methods.

“Energy services are increasingly being provided by entities that do not have well-established trust relationships with their customers and partners,” said Christian Gorenflo, a PhD candidate in Waterloo’s David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, in a 14 August press statement. “In this context, blockchains are a promising approach for replacing a central trusted party, for example, making it possible to implement direct peer-to-peer energy trading,” he added.

In undertaking the study (recently published in the ‘Proceedings of the Tenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems’), Gorenflo, his supervisor, professor Srinivasan Keshav of the Cheriton School of Computer Science, and Lukasz Golab, professor of Management Science, collaborated with an unnamed EV-charging service provider who works with property owners to install EV supply equipment that is used by EV owners for a fee.

The revenue stream from these charging stations is then shared between the charging service provider and each property owner. The EV supply equipment is operated by the charging service provider, so the property owners must trust the provider to compensate them fairly for the electricity used.

From the case study, the researchers deduced that to incorporate blockchain technology into an energy system, the involved parties must first establish trust between themselves. Second, the parties concerned should design a minimal blockchain system including smart contracts that resolves the trust issues identified in the first step. Finally, with the trust-mitigating blockchain in place, the rest of the system can be migrated iteratively over time. This allows the business model to eventually grow from a legacy/blockchain hybrid into a truly decentralized solution, the researchers said.

According to Gorenflo, “In the end, we could even have a system where there is machine-to-machine communication rather than people-to-machine. If an autonomous vehicle needs power, it could detect that and drive to the nearest charging station and communicate on a platform with that charging station for the power.”

While blockchain implementations in India especially have centred mostly around the banking, financial and insurance services sector (BFSI), Jio recently announced it will install one of the largest global blockchain networks in India, comprising “tens of thousands of nodes operational on day one”, over the next 12 months.

That said, integration of blockchain technology into energy trading is now being touted as a promising area of research, and many studies have made efforts in this regard.

Switzerland-based The Share&Charge Foundation, for instance, is building a decentralized blockchain system for EV charging, to support payment and contracts. It uses the Open Charge Point Interface protocol (OCPI) protocol for the peer-to-peer (P2P) connections between service providers and charge point operators. According to Share&Charge, the combination of OCPI with blockchain technology can result in secured contract and connections between parties and improved payment and settlement.

During the ‘Global Blockchain Congress–Consensus 2018’, organised by the Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of West Bengal in December 2018, researchers from New-Delhi based The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) made a presentation on the ‘Application of Blockchain in Modern Day Power Systems: Trendsetting a New Paradigm’. Teri’s proposal, made by Alekhya Datta, Fellow, and Shashank Vyas, Associate Fellow, covered use cases for EVs, distributed battery storage, grid-connected microgrids, and rooftop solar PV project financing using blockchain.

As an example, the Teri researchers pointed out that privately-owned EV charging stations could be used to charge some vehicles passing near the station and the transaction of bids of charging station owners, power/energy flow, billing and real-time settlement of payments could be managed over a blockchain.

Similarly, IIT-Kanpur researchers have proposed that since current billing systems lack transparency, enabling the service provider to overcharge the customer, blockchain could be used to develop a “verifiable billing” system.

Source: https://www.livemint.com/

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Blockchain Investment Soars In H1 2019: A Look At Trends #Bitcoin #Cryto $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:11 PM on Tuesday, August 13th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

Blockchain Investment Soars In H1 2019: A Look At Trends

  • Blockchain Investment Trends Research by TeqAtlas includes analysis of 2.5k active blockchain companies that were funded by 1.8k blockchain investors in 2.5k funding rounds through both – conventional and alternative instruments.

by Jacob Wolinsky

While VC activity surpasses Dot-Com era in the U.S., Chinese tech companies valuations are higher than any time in recent memory, and SoftBank raised another multi-billion dollar fund, the state of the blockchain investment market shows indications of maturity and saturation. Although most blockchain companies are newbies into the market, they still present an attractive investment potential.

The Blockchain Investment Trends Research by TeqAtlas includes analysis of 2.5k active blockchain companies that were funded by 1.8k blockchain investors in 2.5k funding rounds through both – conventional and alternative instruments. TeqAtlads takes a comprehensive view of the unique trends that define blockchain investment market to understand the investor expectations

Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc

Investors Continue To View Blockchain A High Return Investment

In the first half of 2019, total capital investment into blockchain companies has been the opposite of what we saw in the previous year, which saw a dramatic rise in the amount of capital investment. The previous year saw a record-breaking $15.2 billion investment in TGEs (token generation events) and $5.1 billion in conventional equity funding. In contrast, approx. $2 billion in TGE capital were raised in the first half of this year. The upward trend is losing steam in the first half of 2019, after four years of positive growth.

The research still reports a positive, upward trend in terms of venture capital (VC) injected into blockchain companies. Conventional equity rounds have accumulated $1.2 billion in the first 6 months of 2019, as compared to $1.3 billion for all of 2017.

How Did Blockchain Companies Fare In Deal Activity?

Throughout the research, 2018 continued to remain the benchmark for blockchain companies. The height set during the blockchain boom is hard to replicate as the effects of the dramatic fall in value still affect the industry.

In terms of deals, the grand total of investment rounds in the blockchain industry in the first half of 2019 was 268.

For comparison, blockchain companies attracted 910 deals in 2018 and 478 deals in 2017. At the same pace, 2019 might just oust 2017 in terms of blockchain deal activity.

Surprisingly enough, if you add private equity into the equation, the total number of conventional funding rounds almost equal the growth numbers in 2018.

A breakdown of all the blockchain investment funds also reveals that TGEs were more successful in raising money than Venture Capital rounds – with the former amassing 26% more on average.

There Is Increasing Interest In Alternative Funding Techniques

Research into completed deals in 2019 shows an emerging trend; investors are increasingly experimenting with alternative funding methods. In fact, a majority (56%) of all closed deals in these six months were secured through TGEs.

Venture capital deals of early-stage funding ensure that traditional investment comes in second with a 34% share. Early-stage VC rounds form the major part of conventional funding rounds in terms of the total capital invested in active Blockchain companies with a 34% share in 1H 2019. If you add in angel seed rounds, this share increases by another 7%.

Equity Funding Has Decreased as compared to 2018

If you analyze the investment pattern from 2014 to the first half of 2019, you are likely to notice that Early-stage VC rounds come out on top for most blockchain investment by stages, with blockchain investments in this stage exceeding $2 billion.

Later Stage Venture Capital Investment Is On The Rise

Later stage venture capital rounds have become increasingly popular, which means that major players, such as institutional investors, became interested in this market. The total amount raised by later-stage blockchain companies backed by venture capital was $289 million in 2018 only. To compare, the median round amount of the later-stage IT companies amounted to $11.5 million in 2018, according to Statista.

The TGE Hype Is Fading Away

TeqAtlas analyzed TGE investment data for 18 months ending in June 2019 to consider how many investors participate through TGE.

The findings state that – despite minor spikes – the overall trend and interest in token generation events remain on an all-time low. Blockchain investors tread carefully when it comes to investing in TGEs, with only 153 deals to show for the six months of 2019.

Blockchain regulations surrounding TGEs, coupled with the dismal investment numbers, has led us to predict that they are nowhere near becoming the principal funding method in the blockchain industry.

64% Of Startups Don’t Meet Their Hard Cap

Another challenge identified in the research was that startups, due to being new and relatively inexperienced, often fail to predict their hard cap amounts accurately.

A mere 36% of startups manage to meet their hard caps during the token generation event, with the rest failing to do so. Nevertheless, 2019 has been a slightly better year for startups; the percentage of startups that didn’t meet their hard cap dropped 13 points as compared to the previous year.

What Are The Biggest Deals since the Blockchain inception?

When comparing the different types of fundraising, the general trend is that TGE usually outperforms conventional VC funding by the capital raised. The biggest TGE was held by EOS.IO and led to an enormous fundraising amount of $4.2 billion. When compared to the biggest VC deal, EOS.IO’s amount is approximately 220% higher.

The biggest VC-backed company by funding value is Bitmain that has raised $400 million being valued at $12 billion in a Series B round. Another blockchain company Bakkt, owned by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), secured $182.5 million for their project which will enable them to build the global digital assets platform and bitcoin futures product.

Which TGE Type Extracts The Greatest ROI?

The research analyzed the return on several different TGE investments, and the results showed a clear winner – blockchain infrastructure developers.

Amongst investors who enjoyed the best returns, many had funded blockchain platforms, IoT Infrastructure providers and interoperability blockchain developers such as Ethereum, IOTA and Cosmos Network, respectively.

DCG Dominates The Number Of Deals

The research outlined that more than 800 venture capital firms are already capitalizing on blockchain adoption.

Still, no one comes close to the Digital Currency Group, which is comfortably placed at #1 with 131 deals to date. In fact, the second and third-placed competitors combined have 109 completed deals.

Unsurprisingly, 80% of the top 10 active blockchain investors reside in the USA.

Most Active Investors industry focus is FinTech

Considering the security and encryption prowess of the technology, it comes as no surprise that a majority of blockchain technology investment is concentrated in the financial sector. In fact, FinTech has 114 more deals completed than the second-best sector, blockchain infrastructure.

Not only does FinTech boast the highest number of completed deals (150), but investors have poured in huge amounts in such blockchain startups. This proves that investors truly believe in the potential of blockchain, especially in the field of FinTech.

Angel/Seed Rounds Are The Investors Favorite

While reviewing the biggest active blockchain investors, an interesting trend was identified; most of them fill their portfolios in the first round of funding – the Angel round. While alternate funding methods might be gaining hype, conventional funding instruments prevail in the portfolios of the most active investors.

IEO – The ICO Replacement?

ICOs were riddled with problems by the end of 2018, partially due to fraud that hindered investor trust in blockchain as a whole.

Now, there is a new way to offer coins and this method involves crypto exchanges in the offering process. This involves the exchange becoming a core member – essentially, the exchange offers the coins to their existing consumer base rather than the company offering it to the public.

This allows exchanges to run background checks and verify developer legitimacy, substantially decreasing the risk of fraud. In the research, TeqAtlas came across all launchpads that have already conducted IEOs in the current year – or are planning to.

Source: https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/08/active-blockchain-companies-analysis-h1-2019/

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Goldman Sachs $GS Analysts Say that It’s Time to Buy #Bitcoin #Cryto $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:23 PM on Monday, August 12th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Goldman Sachs Analysts Say that It’s Time to Buy Bitcoin

  • In short – the experts are quite bullish for Bitcoin to go up.
  • Basically, they have set up a short-term price target of $13,971 – yes, specifically this one.

by Janis Rijnieks

Recently, Three Arrows Capital CEO Su Zhu has shared the Goldman Sachs note which was sent out to investors. In the note, Goldman Sachs analysts suggest that buying this Bitcoin dip is a prime opportunity. The note itself consisted of a Bitcoin CMI futures chart and a comment from the analysts.

First of all, the fact that Goldman Sachs is sending out crypto, in this particular case, Bitcoin advice to their investors is mind-blowing. Also, the fact that they are seeing it as a bullish pattern and they are using the Elliot Wave Theory indicators on their Bitcoin chart is also a big surprise.

Experts point out that the fact that the Bitcoin CMI futures chart is used means that this note is being sent out only to institutional investors. You can see this by the little gaps in the chart which are weekends. That is the time when CMI Bitcoin Futures markets are closed.

What does the Note Say?

In short – the experts are quite bullish for Bitcoin to go up. Basically, they have set up a short-term price target of $13,971 – yes, specifically this one.

In detail – they believe that Bitcoin will find a support level near $11,094 and $10,791. Once it does that, the analysts say that the chart has plenty of room to break out at least to $12,916, and possibly to a new 2019 ATH – $13,971.

“Reaching these levels could mean completing a v wave count from July. Bottom line, watch for a short-term top/consolidation once satisfied,” says the note.

But this is a short-term prediction. What about long-term? Well, according to Goldman Sachs analysts, anything below $13,000 is an indication to accumulate. They believe that we are in for a similar run-up like we saw recently this year when Bitcoin went from $7,600 to around $11,900 in a matter of a couple of weeks.

“In the bigger scheme of things, this might still be the first leg of another 5-wave count similar to the trend that lasted from Dec ‘18 through Jun ’19,” reads the note.

Also, another thing which recently was highlighted – Bitcoin loves 30% pullbacks. Some experts and analysts have noticed that after a healthy 30% pullback, Bitcoin always have recovered and this is even considered as a normal investment strategy. Hence, it is 100% sure that Bitcoin will have a run-up if it has fallen by approx. 30%.

So in short – Goldman Sachs says that we all need to buy Bitcoin. But, as usual, only the time will show whether this advice was definitely the one that investors should have followed.

Source: https://www.coinspeaker.com/goldman-sachs-buy-bitcoin/

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Facebook $FB #Libra: It’s not the #crypto that’s the issue, it’s the organisation behind it $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:56 AM on Wednesday, August 7th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Facebook’s Libra: It’s not the ‘crypto’ that’s the issue, it’s the organisation behind it

by Bill Maurer And Daniel Tischer, The Conversation

The founding partners of the Libra Association. Credit: Ascannio / Shutterstock.com

  • Libra is not a cryptocurrency—at least, not as they have been put into practice so far, where a distributed, decentralised community participates in transaction verification via a competitive process.
  • Libra is essentially a prepaid digital token, backed one-to-one with a basket of reserve currencies. It is “minted” when people put up state-issued currencies to buy it.

In all the hype that has surrounded its Libra currency, Facebook has been able to distract attention away from an important issue. Libra is being hyped as Facebook’s bitcoin but it’s really a proposal for a global payments system. And that system will be controlled by a small and exclusive club of private firms.

Since it was announced in June, politicians and regulators have attacked Libra, citing concerns about its being a cryptocurrency. Libra is not a cryptocurrency—at least, not as they have been put into practice so far, where a distributed, decentralised community participates in transaction verification via a competitive process.

Libra is essentially a prepaid digital token, backed one-to-one with a basket of reserve currencies. It is “minted” when people put up state-issued currencies to buy it.

What’s important here is not the technological innovation. Facebook is proposing, in Libra, a new form of organisation. We already have payment systems controlled by private companies—Visa, MasterCard, Venmo or PayPal, which provide the infrastructure or “rails” for transferring value—and Libra might turn into another such rail. But its promoters have greater ambitions for it.

Based on our research on the history and technology of payment infrastructures, we see similarities between Libra and Visa. But it’s the differences with the Visa network that raise the biggest warning flags.

Learning from Visa

Libra will be controlled and maintained by the Libra Association, a membership-based group. Libra’s developers have voiced a commitment to letting anyone become a member of the association, including users like you and me. The Libra white paper trumpets the importance of decentralisation. But it also admits that, “as of today we do not believe that there is a proven solution that can deliver the scale, stability, and security needed to support billions of people and transactions across the globe” through a truly open, decentralised system.

We believe Libra’s founders got the idea from the work of Visa’s founder, Dee Hock. Hock was heralded as a visionary in his day, like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg today. He realised that the problem facing payments between banks was not technological, but organisational.

When setting up Visa, it was important for Hock that Visa would not be owned by self-interested shareholders. Instead, it was the users, banks and credit unions, who “owned” Visa as a cooperative membership organisation. Ownership here did not entail the right to sell shares, but an irrevocable right of participation—to jointly decide on the rules of the game and Visa’s future.

The incentive was to create a malleable but durable payment infrastructure from which all members would benefit in the long term. To work, everyone had to give something up—including their own branding on credit cards, subordinating their marks to Visa. This was a really big deal. But Hock convinced the network’s initial members that the payoff would come from the new market in payment services they would create. He was right.

For most of its existence, until it went public in 2016, Visa was an anomalous creature: a for-profit, non-stock corporation based on the principle of self-organisation, embodying both chaos and order. Hock even coined a term for it: “chaordic”.

Libra envisions a similar collaborative organisation among the founding members of its Libra Association. But it turns Hock’s principles upside down. The Libra Association is all about ownership and control by its members as a club.

Big barriers to entry

And the Libra Association is a club with very high barriers to entry. An entity has to invest at least US$10m in Libra or have more than US$1 billion in market value, among other criteria. The initial list of founding members tilts toward groups that have shown strong opposition to government interference and oversight. Tellingly, there are no regulated financial entities—like banks and fund managers—in the mix. The membership represents a self-selecting crème de la crème of global tech and vulture capitalism.

Association membership guarantees a share of future profits proportionate to a member’s stake in the system. Unlike Visa, members do not compete with one another for market share. Instead, they will passively collect rent from interest made on investing in the Libra reserve basket. Plus, profits are not shared with users, and no interest is paid on the balance held by individuals.

Being a club member also affords the right to vote—again, a lot like Visa. But, unlike Visa, Libra gives voting right power based on investment level, not participation. This is not democratic; it is a plutocracy, where the wealthiest rule. And, as profits are linked solely to interest on the association’s reserve funds, those managing it may well become riskier and more speculative over time.

Libra’s white paper outlines an organisation that could become a decentralised, participatory system like Hock envisioned Visa would become. But Libra, if it is successful, will likely become an undemocratic behemoth. Alarm bells ring about a global currency’s de facto governance by a private, exclusive club serving the purposes of its investor-owners, not the public good.

Governments have long been suspicious of private currencies for good reasons, and Libra is no exception. We must not be distracted by its proposed technical complexity, and instead, focus on how this technology is organised, put to work, and how its rewards are distributed. The good news is that Facebook’s play for money may at last prompt politicians to regulate tech giants to curb their impact on and influence over society.

Source: https://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-facebook-libra-crypto-issue-organisation.html

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Bitcoin Suddenly Back Above $10,000 As #Crypto Markets Gain Billions $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:45 AM on Friday, August 2nd, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Bitcoin Suddenly Back Above $10,000 As Crypto Markets Gain Billions

By:Billy Bambrough Contributor

The bitcoin price is up 10% over the last three days, with traders and investors pointing to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first rate cut in bitcoin’s ten-year history as one of the prime catalysts for the sudden recovery.

Bitcoin had been trading under the psychological $10,000 mark since the end of last week but the bitcoin price has now bounced back. Getty Images

On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in more than a decade and signaled its readiness to provide more support as growth slows in the world’s largest economy.

The bitcoin price climbed to highs of $10,500 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange last night, while the wider bitcoin and cryptocurrency market has added around $10 billion to its overall value over the last few days.

“Given the connection that crypto influencers have been making between economic stimulus and crypto lately, we will probably see a much swifter reaction in bitcoin’s price than we usually do,” Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at brokerage eToro, wrote in a note clients.

“We can see that bitcoin did have a nice run-up the entire morning ahead of the [Fed’s decision]. At the exact time of the cut, there was a notable step down, which was quite in line with what happened in the stock market.”

Just after the Fed revealed it was to reduce the cost of borrowing, bitcoin investors learned supplies of the digital token are almost exhausted, despite new coins still due to come into the market for the next 120 years.

Bitcoin now has 85% of its supply in circulation as of August 1, leaving just 3.15 million to be mined, according to data from monitoring resource Blockchain.

The bitcoin price fell sharply at the end of last week, sparking fears the latest bitcoin bull run could be over. CoinDesk

Meanwhile, the markets were further emboldened by news Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square revealed it made $125 million in bitcoin sales through its Cash App, nearly doubling a record first quarter.

“During the quarter, bitcoin revenue benefited from increased volume as a result of the increase in the price of bitcoin, and generated $2 million of gross profit,” the company wrote in its second quarter earnings report.

Elsewhere, the chief executive of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the closely-watched bitcoin futures platform Bakkt, yesterday said the bitcoin and cryptocurrency platform will be launching soon, without fixing a firm date.

“Subject to final regulatory approvals, we plan to launch our physically settled bitcoin futures in the very near future,” ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said during a quarterly earnings call.

Follow me on Twitter.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2019/08/02/bitcoin-suddenly-back-above-10000-as-crypto-markets-gain-billions/#57591573bafa

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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #NBA is going #crypto, launching #blockchain souvenirs from the maker of #CryptoKitties $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:40 PM on Thursday, August 1st, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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NBA is going crypto, launching blockchain souvenirs from the maker of CryptoKitties

  • To put this product in context: The whole value proposition of blockchain, the decentralized peer-to-peer technology that came about with bitcoin in 2009, is as a place to record transactions on a public, immutable, tamper-proof ledger.
  • Bitcoin runs on its own blockchain; ether, a rival cryptocurrency, runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
  • NBA Top Shot will run on a blockchain.
  • Dapper Labs and the NBA aren’t saying yet exactly which blockchain, but it’s likely to be Ethereum, the home of CryptoKitties.

By: Daniel Roberts, Senior Writer

The NBA is putting its biggest dunks on a blockchain.

The league, along with the NBA Players Association, announced on Wednesday the coming launch of NBA Top Shot, a home for blockchain-based digital collectibles.

The idea is for fans to buy and trade unique digital video clips that commemorate “in-game moments from the NBA season, such as a Kevin Durant 3-point shot or Joel Embiid dunk,” the NBA says in a press release.

To put this product in context: The whole value proposition of blockchain, the decentralized peer-to-peer technology that came about with bitcoin in 2009, is as a place to record transactions on a public, immutable, tamper-proof ledger. Bitcoin runs on its own blockchain; ether, a rival cryptocurrency, runs on the Ethereum blockchain. NBA Top Shot will run on a blockchain. Dapper Labs and the NBA aren’t saying yet exactly which blockchain, but it’s likely to be Ethereum, the home of CryptoKitties.

Each video clip will be labeled with a number to mark it as distinct, much like when you purchase a print or signed piece of art and it is labeled with how many there are in supply.

Top Shot also promises a gamification element, where fans can compete head-to-head by building a roster and pitting their digital collections against each other, fantasy-style.

Much has been made about the uses of blockchain for sports memorabilia, since souvenirs or autographed items must be authenticated. As CoinDesk research director Nolan Bauerle put it at Yahoo Finance’s crypto summit last year, blockchain-based collectibles are “the extension of that anti-counterfeit quality of all of these coins. So this is really the beginning of what we’re going to see—I think, anyway—for sports memorabilia, for the authentication of game-worn jerseys, and cards, and all kinds of other stuff.”

But success here is hardly guaranteed—participation isn’t even guaranteed.

Major League Baseball launched a blockchain collectibles game last year with game developer Lucid Sight called MLB Crypto Baseball. It has not, so far, been an obvious hit. If you search Twitter for mentions of the product, most are complaints. It is also far from easy to use, since participants have to first buy the cryptocurrency ether.

The NBA’s product comes from Dapper Labs, maker of the mega-popular Ethereum game CryptoKitties. At its peak, the digital kittens in CryptoKitties were so popular they were selling for tens of thousands of dollars, and trading activity was clogging the entire Ethereum network.

Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou acknowledges the possible pitfalls. “We want to give basketball fans something that they’ve never seen before, but also something that is immediately familiar and they want to actually play with… You might want that play because you love LeBron, you might love the team he’s currently on, or you might need that moment to play in the Top Shot game.”

Gharegozlou also points to the NBA’s huge social media following as something that can boost awareness of the game. “They’re going to be very engaged with us in helping make sure that this experience is authentic to the fan, and not just a crypto experience.”

Although this is the NBA’s first league-wide foray into blockchain, the Sacramento Kings last year launched an Ethereum mining operation to donate crypto to a local community charity. “We know blockchain is going to revolutionize the world,” Kings CTO Ryan Montoya told Yahoo Finance last June.

Now, one year later, the league office appears to agree. Adrienne O’Keeffe, NBA’s head of consumer products and gaming, says, “We are always exploring new ways to engage with fans around the world. We saw this partnership with Dapper Labs as an opportunity to expand our gaming presence while also creating a new and innovative platform that will allow fans to collect and own specific in-game moments.”

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nba-is-going-crypto-launching-blockchain-souvenirs-from-the-maker-of-crypto-kitties-185727384.html

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