Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:00 PM on Thursday, April 4th, 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.
——————-
New $50 Million Fund Makes First Investment in Blockchain ID Startup
A new $50 million VC fund has been set up by Nasdaq-listed company Okta to invest in early-stage technology startups, including those working with blockchain
Okta, which provides identity management solutions, announced the Okta Ventures Fund Wednesday, adding that it has made its first investment in blockchain-based identity startup Trusted Key
Trusted Key was founded by former Microsoft, Oracle and Symantec executives and offers decentralized digital identity solutions allowing organizations to “work together as ecosystems to share strongly proofed user identities with user consent.â€
Through its venture fund, Okta said it will invest in startups that
are focused on building innovative solutions around its core businesses
using blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The San Francisco-based firm’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Frederic Kerrest, said:
“In line with Okta’s vision of enabling any organization to use any
technology, Okta Ventures will invest in the growing ecosystem of
startups tackling issues like identity, security, and privacy.â€
Besides providing investment capital, Okta plans to provide its
portfolio companies with additional support, including the use of its
software and co-marketing opportunities.
Founded in 2009, Okta has raised total funding of over $229 million,
according to Crunchbase. The firm is also backed by notable investors,
including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and
others.
Okta went public in
the U.S. in April 2017, raising $187 million via an initial public
offering (IPO) that saw 11 million shares sold at $17 apiece. The share
price of the company has risen sharply since and is currently trading at around $89.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:00 AM on Friday, March 29th, 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.
——————-
Blockchain Spending in 2019 to Grow to $2.9 Billion, 88.7% Growth Since 2018
The amount spent on blockchain technology by businesses seeking to utilise the trust-enhancing features of distributed ledgers is expected to grow to $2.9 million in 2019
This would represent a growth of 88.7% over the $1.5 billion spent on the technology during 2018
By: Rick D.
The amount spent on blockchain technology by businesses seeking to utilise the trust-enhancing features of distributed ledgers
is expected to grow to $2.9 million in 2019. This would represent a
growth of 88.7% over the $1.5 billion spent on the technology during
2018.
The reported figures come from the International Data Corporation
(IDC) who recently updated its “Worldwide Semiannual Blockchain
Spending Guide.†According to a representative for the IDC, the tech has
moved out of the design phase and into actual use and this shift will
drive a lot of the expected spending through the next ten months.
New Industries Finding New Ways to Use Blockchain
The IDC report states that the financial sector will continue to
account for the lion’s share of the spending on blockchain technology
during 2019. The estimated figure here is $1.1 billion. This will come
from a variety of interests, including: banking, securities and
investment services, and insurers.
Another notable sector expected to be a part of the group of biggest blockchain spenders is that of manufacturing and resources.
These industries will reportedly account for $653 million combined.
They are also expected to see the largest growth in spending over the
entire five year period with a CAGR of 77.6%.
Coming close behind manufacturing and resources is the distribution
and services industries. Firms doing business in these industries are
expected to spend $642 billion on exploring and implementing blockchain
technology during 2019.
Blockchain technology is being explored by a range of industries.
According to IDC vice president of the Customer Insights and Analysis
programme, Jessica Goepfert, the technology is still very much in its
infancy and businesses are still at the phase of explosive innovation
when it comes to its implications:
“The use cases that comprise the blockchain opportunity are
developing as swiftly as the technologies enabling it. While spending
for more developed use cases in the financial sector like trade finance
and cross-border payments is still healthy and growing strong, relative
to six months ago we’ve seen an acceleration in spending across a
variety of other areas, such as energy settlements and warranty claims.â€
As part of the report, documenting the five year period between 2018
and 2022, the IDC states that it expects the total spent on blockchain
to reach $12.4 billion by the final year of the sample.
A director of research at Worldwide Blockchain Strategies, James
Webster, commented on the projected growth in spending on blockchain:
“Blockchain is maturing rapidly, and we have reached an inflection
point where implementations are moving quickly beyond the pilot and
proof of concept phase.â€
According to Webster, the figures gathered by the IDC reports will
give crucial insight into over the technology is being adopted by
different industries and where it is having the largest impact.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:19 AM on Thursday, March 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.
——————-
Why Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey Are Warming to Blockchain
Michael J. Casey is the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and
a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency
Initiative.
The following article originally appeared in CoinDesk Weekly, a custom-curated newsletter delivered every Sunday exclusively to our subscribers.
“Left to their own devices, computer scientists would recreate the Soviet Union.â€
That line belongs to Preston McAfee,
an economist whose job history includes senior positions at tech giants
such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. As he explained to an audience at
the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, recently, it refers to software
engineers’ tendency to favor centralization as the most efficient design
principle for any computing system.
The point, he said, is that decentralized networks, such as those
based on blockchain models, can often enable more positive overall
social outcomes despite the relative inefficiency of their
command-and-control architecture. It’s useful to contemplate this idea,
and McAfee’s colorful metaphor, in relation to the current state of play
on the Internet.
For the first time since they emerged as the victors of the
post-dot-com bubble shakeout at the turn of the century, the platforms
that dominate our online lives are running up against the social limits
of their centralized models.
A backlash is emerging against “surveillance capitalism†and against
the broad strategy of mining users’ data to capture audience for
advertisers and to shape consumer behavior. Manifest as both political
pressure and user rebellion, it is forcing a design rethink at these
companies.
Perhaps the Internet is facing its Berlin Wall moment.
This is ultimately why some of the principles underlying blockchains
and cryptocurrency technologies are finding favor in the business
development strategies – or at least in the PR signaling – of social
media companies.
Warming to Decentralized Models
Facebook especially has attracted much attention in this area.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently made a bombshell post outlining a “privacy-focused vision for social networking†that suggested a move to embrace end-to-end encryption of users’ data on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
In a separate post of a video interview
with Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain, Zuckerberg speculated on
the prospect of Facebook using a blockchain model to enable
decentralized logins without its servers acting as authenticators. All
this came around the time The New York Times reported that Facebook is
developing a digital currency that its users can trade among each other
and exchange on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears to have gotten religion
when it comes to cryptocurrencies. He has declared that bitcoin will be
the “native currency of the Internet,†has invested in Lightning Labs, which is developing payment channels for bitcoin based on the lightning network, and recently announced that Square, the separate payments company that he heads, will hire crypto engineers and likely pay them in bitcoin.
It’s fair to say there is a significant degree of skepticism that
social media companies, having made fortunes out of a centralized model
that accumulates user data, will change their stripes.
Facebook, in particular, has come under criticism from pundits who
argue that it won’t be able to shift its business model. Given data
abuse scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica affair, skeptics such as
cryptocurrency pioneer David Chaum argue that Zuckerberg’s
decentralization and privacy mantra is nothing more than a PR message.
But the departure of certain senior executives, including those who
oversaw the development of the centralized data-gathering model and the
algorithms that mine that data to deliver audiences to advertisers, has
led others to conclude that Zuckerberg is indeed serious.
Winds of Change
One thing’s clear: there’s pressure for change, whether it comes in substance or merely in message.
Much like citizens who reach a breaking point and rebel against
political leaders who act in their own interests rather than those of
the public, users of these social media platforms are starting to signal
that they won’t stand for data abuses.
Obviously, without users, these businesses fail. So, these companies
are now contemplating a revised model in which, to paraphrase Bruce
Schneier, users are no longer the product but the customer.
It’s an open question whether such companies can make money on a
model in which the nodes in the network are free from control by the
center. But let’s continue with the McAfee-inspired metaphor and
contemplate how governments in capitalist economies accrue power and
influence when their citizens are empowered to transact with each other.
Similarly, we can imagine how a Facebook or a Twitter that helps its
vast number of users conduct peer-to-peer exchanges can extract great
value from the expansion of such networks.
Either way, the winds of change are coming to the centralized systems
of the Internet. Whether the incumbents survive those changes, or
whether they go the way of, say, MySpace is not clear. More important,
let’s consider what might arise in their place and how smoothly we
transition to the new era.
These are questions for developers of decentralized solutions such as
those enabled by blockchain technology. What kind of governance models
will be in place so that users are truly able to maintain a healthy
degree of autonomy even as new centralizing forces emerge to extract
value within the new paradigm?
Remember, the Soviet Union collapsed, but it was hardly replaced by a utopia.
Image via CoinDesk archives
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.
CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency
Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:45 AM on Monday, March 25th, 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.
——————-
Crypto Trader DataDash Says Bitcoin Is Bottoming – Plus Ripple and XRP, Ethereum, Tron, Litecoin, IOTA, Stellar
From Bitcoin’s price action to the adoption of XRP, Stellar, and Litecoin, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.
YouTube’s biggest crypto analyst Nicholas Merten says he believes Bitcoin is bottoming.
Bitcoin
YouTube’s biggest crypto analyst Nicholas Merten says he believes Bitcoin is bottoming.
In the latest edition of DataDash, Merten compares BTC’s current
price action to the market decline in 2014 and subsequent sideways
trading in 2015, and says three indicators suggest Bitcoin is entering a
period of sideways consolidation before a run to the upside.
Merten says the 50 and 100-week moving averages, stochastic RSI and
true strength indicator all signal BTC is starting to enter a bottoming
phase.
“We’re going to need to see much more
substantial price action for Bitcoin to be considered in a bull market.
So we’re in neither really a bear market as of the last few weeks, and
we’re also not in a bull market. Again, we have to see a justification
of price on either side.â€
According to Merten’s analysis, current market conditions indicate it
will take a few weeks or months for Bitcoin to start gaining momentum.
Ripple and XRP
Days after adding XRP to its platform, the Bahrain-based crypto
exchange Rain says the digital asset has officially been declared
Sharia-compliant in an audit from their partner, the Shariyah Review
Bureau.
Our Shari’a compliance audit was completed by our partner @ShariyahReview.
Ripple has been pushing to expand its presence in the Middle East, announcing an expansion in the region late last year.
Ethereum
Mist, one of the first projects from the Ethereum Foundation, is
shutting down. The Mist browser, also known as the Ethereum DApp
Browser, allowed users to access Ethereum applications and projects. The
Mist wallet, designed to be downloaded and run on a computer, allowed
users to store, send and receive crypto.
In a farewell post, developer Alex Van de Sande outlines a number of
the project’s technical problems, and names Samsung, Opera and Brave as
projects that are better suited to move the tech forward.
“While I’m proud of all the
accomplishments we achieved in this time advancing the usability of
Ethereum and sharing a vision for web3, we feel Mist, the browser has
outlived it’s usefulness: the ecosystem has matured so much that now the
user has tons of great options of wallets and browsers on both mobile
and desktop.â€
This is a bitter post to announce, but we are discontinuing Mist. You
can read the full post here but for your convenience I will try to
summarize in a few tweets: https://t.co/eqw5yWacsa
There are mainly two reasons a good and a bad one: ecosystem and security
Jon Moore aka ‘Johnny Litecoin’, the vice president of Nationwide
Merchant Solutions, is showing off Litecoin’s integration with the
payment system Clover.
Checkout the Clover Flex device!! #Clover devices can easily display a #Litecoin Payment button with QR code printing on receipt for easy payment. Clover also integrates with @ecwid which allows for LTC/BTC Payments to come in from online and the data connects to Clover!! pic.twitter.com/WNVRG3BYKP
The Clover platform offers free open-source code allowing merchants to implement custom third-party payment options.
Stellar
The foreign exchange company Currency Matters says it’s joining IBM’s World Wire remittance platform, which is powered by the Stellar blockchain.
“By connecting to the World Wire
network, Currency Matters now has access to a single unified network for
foreign exchange and cross-border payments clearing and settlement
built on blockchain technology and the Stellar public protocol. This
will allow Currency Matters to offer clients the ability to conduct
transactions across additional currency corridors and provide access to
new digital assets including stable coins using Stellar Lumens (XLM).â€
So far, IBM says six banks have signed letters of intent to issue their own stablecoins on the platform.
Tron
The Tron community site Tron.Live is giving crypto enthusiasts an inside look
at Tron’s headquarters in Beijing. It occupies two floors with modern
flair, lime green accents, wall art, smiling stuffed animals, a circular
resting area, a tatami room and a rainbow-colored entertainment lounge.
Source: Tron.Live
Tron currently has offices in San Francisco, Singapore and Beijing.
IOTA
IOTA just released the latest edition of the Untangled podcast. The
episode explores the platform’s push for smart city adoption, focusing
on the energy sector and what the cities of the near future may look
like.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:00 PM on Sunday, March 24th, 2019
The KABN Network is an integrated suite of financial services that includes:
1. The Pegasus Flyte Visa Card, an approved crypto-linked prepaid Visa card and mobile integrated multi-currency banking wallet;
2. KABN KASH, a robust loyalty and engagement program and
3. KABN ID (The network anchor), a patent pending,
Always On, GDPR complaint, blockchain and biometrically based, identity
verification and validation platform. KABN ID is a free to use service
for consumers that provides continuous monitoring and proof of identity
online and in conventional marketplaces.
THE PROBLEM KABN SOLVES
As cryptocurrencies and other digital currencies grow globally, there
is an ever-increasing need to convert them into traditional currencies
(i.e. USD and Euros) for use in traditional spending.
KABN’s integrated suite of products, which has received approval by
Visa, solves this major challenge by empowering digital currency holders
to spend in-store and online, as well as, access ATMs globally wherever
Visa is accepted.
HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM KABN IS SOLVING?
In the US alone, this type of card volume is expected to grow to over
$396B by 2022. Worldwide volume will follow the same trajectory and
expected growth is exponential.
KABN’s integrated suite of products consists of:
KABN’s Pegasus Flyte Visa card offers an “on/off ramp†for
cryptocurrency conversion to traditional currencies (e.g., USD, Euros
and British Pounds, etc.)
*Pre-production cart art subject to network approval
A mobile banking wallet that manages multiple traditional currencies and digital currencies via links to crypto partners and exchanges as well as offering other financial features and services
A robust loyalty and engagement platform, providing Customers with additional value-added services.
KABN’s anchor product, KABN ID, is a patent-pending, GDPR compliant, Blockchain and biometrically-based, “Always On†ID validation and verification platform.
The KABN ID proprietary process allows for efficient and frictionless onboarding, allowing Customer’s to control the use of their verified identification without having to provide confidential documentation to unknown 3rd parties.
FULL DISCLOSURE: KABN is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:00 PM on Sunday, March 24th, 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.
——————-
Blockchain Adoption Keeps Booming: China’s Alibaba Serious Partnership To Promote Blockchain Development
Chinese internet conglomerate Alibaba has signed a strategic with software development company Aerospace Information Co. to collaborate and leverage their expertise in cloud computing, smart industries, blockchain and more.
The 2 parties will be cooperating in several different ways.
China’s Securities Daily
publication notes how the two will work on such things as taxes and
finances for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and government
integration for innovative solutions for authorities:
In the field of fiscal and taxation,
the two sides will expand the application scenarios and explore and
develop innovative products for SMEs. In the field of government
affairs, we explore the integration and innovation of government
solutions around the “Internet + government servicesâ€. In the field of
blockchain, we will jointly provide cloud solutions to promote the
development of the blockchain industry. In the field of enterprise
market services, we will coordinate the implementation of credit
reporting services and smart mobile office services.
It’s clear that both companies are
focused on the long-term development of blockchain and its applications
in a a variety of industries.
The internet giant has an Alibaba Cloud Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS)
service which lets businesses build their own blockchain-based
platforms and manage deployment, maintenance and operation conveniently.
The service is based on Hyperledger Fabric.
The company has also made several other moves to promote blockchain technology, financing a variety show in which the use cases of blockchain technology were showcased.
China is very keen on digitizing its economy and building the smart cities of the future. The VeChain project has been associated with the Chinese nation to help in achieving this goal. Waltonchain has also partnered with Chinese entities with the intention of using blockchain technology to develop cleaner cities.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:43 AM on Thursday, March 21st, 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.
——————-
Will The Global Blockchain Technology Market Be Worth $20 Billion By 2024?
As per a recent press release by market intelligence and research firm, Transparency Market Research, the global blockchain technology
market could be worth $20 billion by the year 2024. The report also
notes that the global blockchain technology market stood at $315.9
million in 2015.
The idea is, if the blockchain technology market can rise at an
astonishing compound annual growth rate of 58.9% per year, then the
total blockchain technology market will be able to attain a valuation of
US$20 billion by 2024.
The blockchain technology market is very fragmented in nature in the
sense that most of it is still mostly unexploited. This is because of
the presence of what Transparency Market Research explains to be several
new startups as well as well-known heavyweights, in the market.
Companies are pushing time and boundries just to get their hands on as
much share of the market as possible.
Not only has this relatively new and fresh industry, given life to a
multitude of startups, it has also grabbed the attention of global tech
giants like Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and Amazon, just to name a few.
The report further points out that North America will most likely
take the lead in the blockchain market in the coming years. It read,
‘On the basis of geography, North America is expected to lead the
global blockchain technology market in the coming years. This is mainly
because of the presence of several players in the region and rising
adoption of cryptocurrency
in retail and other distribution chain. Based on application, Private
Blockchain technology market is projected to hold maximum share in the
market.’
Recent reports reveal that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Minority
Leader in the United States House of Representatives, believes that
blockchain can make the U.S. Congress a more efficient and transparent
place. He said,
‘Blockchain is changing and revolutionizing the security of the
financial industry. Why would we wait around and why wouldn’t we
institute blockchain on our own, to be able to check the technology but
also the transparency of our own legislative process?’, he said.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, March 20th, 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.
——————-
Follow The Money – Why Investment In Blockchain Has Never Been Higher
Fortune 1000 companies are not the only ones taking advantage of
savvy data deployment. Small businesses are also using databases to
manage inventory and cash flow, market to customers, and carry out
countless other tasks.
With most businesses reliant on databases, staying ahead of the
data-technology curve has become a central issue for executives.
According to the New Vantage study, almost 80% of executives surveyed
expressed concern about disruption or displacement from competitors due
to data-technology advantages. And well over half identified inability
to compete on data, lack of agility, and data-driven competitors as the
primary data-related threats to their organization.
The promise of blockchain
Most people don’t think of data management when they hear the word
“blockchain.†The word tends to evoke cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin’s
attention-grabbing price swings. However, blockchain technology is
currently being adopted at all levels of the business environment.
That’s why investment in the field is still at an all-time high by
private investment funds like the New Global Capital Investor Fund,
founded in 2017 and still one of the largest institutional investors of
blockchain technologies. They have been a key contributor to a number of
leading projects including Zilliqa, Ontology, NKN, Oasis, Mainframe,
Certik, Bluzelle, and Iotex.
Roger Lim, Founding Partner at NGC said, “We’ve been concentrating on
low hanging fruits in blockchain for a while, anyone who can
potentially solve a problem. But now we’re interested to hear from good
projects where the total metrics make sense, the team makes sense and
they have a great strategy.â€
Right now, forty per cent of investment in blockchain by NGC is
heading to Greater China where blockchain is booming, but they are still
open to all with a good idea. Open to lending from as little as
$200,000 to $10million, the company wants to spread the word that there
are still great funding opportunities out there. Lim added, “We go off
to where the talent is, not just because it’s in Silicon Valley, we
don’t portion off our funds. We look globally and we go after the
talent.â€
Profile rising fast, but not enough
Despite the interest of investors, blockchain is still relatively
young in the mainstream market and actual deployment of blockchain
solutions is not yet widespread. This relatively young technology has
come a long way since its inception in 2008, but only about a quarter of
the companies PwC surveyed had up-and-running blockchain projects.
Though blockchain’s profile is rising fast, the technical expertise
needed to create blockchain platforms and smart contracts is still hard
to come by in enterprise business settings. Travis Reeder, CTO of
blockchain firm GoChain, sees this lack of expertise as a significant
obstacle.
He said, “If you’re an IBM or a JP Morgan, you might have the
resources to develop the kind of in-house expertise needed to compete
with the startups going after your industry in Silicon Valley. But
there’s a huge group of companies who can’t just set up a dedicated
blockchain division. These businesses understand what blockchain could
do for them, but don’t have access to the tools and knowledge they need
to build actual solutions. A lot of companies encounter the related
problem that there are many options to choose from, but they don’t know
which to choose or where to start.â€
Now Reeder hopes to remove obstacles to participation in the
blockchain revolution by investing in widespread knowledge. They offer
partner companies blockchain-based training, workshops, platform design,
and other services. Their aim is to provide the human capital that is
as essential to the technology’s success as the technical
infrastructure. These cost-effective consulting services are popular for
companies to develop and maintain tailor-made blockchain business
strategies and tools. With their own public blockchain that anyone can
use to build smart contracts and applications, as well as GoChain
private installation, it allows for all possibilities.
Still, a few common concerns when it comes to blockchain are slow
transactions and vast amounts of energy needed, but with 1300
transactions per second GoChain is certainly holding its own against the
big guns. It’s 100 times faster than Ethereum for example.
A market for loans
And while the money is flowing freely into the blockchain, there are
also possibilities to dole it out from firms such as Forest Park
Advisors. They are creating the first tradeable syndicated loan market
via security token issuances. The firm is the brainchild of Steve Shaw,
investment manager at Clear Harbor Asset Management, who was previously a
managing director at Credit Suisse First Boston, co-heading the firm’s
trading and distribution franchise. Steve originated some of the
earliest Credit Default Swaps at Credit Suisse product prior to the
recession. Combined with the rest of the team, Forest Park Advisors has
over 60 years of Wall Street experience and are intent on using their
decades of experience to issue the first generation of real estate
backed structured debt security tokens. With up to $200million for a
single loan, this is a wealthy market.
If the public could be convinced, then there are plenty of opportunities to spread the wealth.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:00 PM on Thursday, March 14th, 2019
SPONSOR: Esports Entertainment
$GMBL Esports audience is 350M, growing to 590M, Esports wagering is
projected at $23 BILLION by 2020. The company has launched VIE.gg
esports betting platform and has accelerated affiliate marketing
agreements with 190 Esports teams. Click here for more information
GMBL: OTCQB
———————–
Ripple (XRP) and Forte Launch $100M Fund to Integrate Blockchain With the Gaming Industry
Ripple has announced that it will launch a $100 million fund in collaboration with Forte,
San Francisco-based startup that is aiming to leverage the economic models of blockchain systems to build better economies and marketplaces in the gaming industry.
Ripple has announced that it will launch a $100 million fund in collaboration with Forte,
a San Francisco-based startup that is aiming to leverage the economic
models of blockchain systems to build better economies and marketplaces
in the gaming industry.
Forte will oversee the fund that will be allocated towards the integration of blockchain technology
with in-game markets that will allow players to make transactions with
each other more conveniently. In the past, users have often moved to
third-party platforms to sell in-game items.
Speaking to Fortune, Ethan Beard, a senior executive at Ripple’s development division Xpring, is hopeful about blockchain making gaming economies more equitable:
Video games have long been quick to
adopt new technology, from console to the PC to mobile. Now, blockchain
will help game designers who’ve had a hard time facilitating an economy
that can serve all types of players.
As the Fortune article notes, this is an expansion for Ripple, which have previously made a lot of progress in the cross-border payments niche. Should game developers get on board, the use of Ripple’s Interledger Protocol and the XRP token would give Ripple an enormous amount of exposure.
Forte was founded by Kevin Chou,
an entrepreneur with experience in the gaming space. Chou was the Chief
Executive Officer of mobile-focused Kabam and esports company Gen.G.
Forte is backed by the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures
and Battery Ventures.
In Chou’s announcement post, he said of the direct interactions between stakeholders in the system:
I envision a future where players can
transact with each other directly instead of only with the developer. A
future where developers don’t need to figure out the maximum value they
can extract from their player base, but instead are creatively and
economically motivated to foster new types of peer-to-peer gameplay.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:00 PM on Wednesday, March 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.
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Kakao’s Blockchain Arm Raises $90 Million in Private Token Sale
Ground X, the blockchain subsidiary of South Korean messaging giant Kakao, has raised $90 million in a private coin offering.
As reported by Bloomberg on Monday, Ground X CEO Jason Han said that IDG Capital, Cresendo Equity Partners and Translink Capital had participated in the round.
The firm is also reportedly planning to raise “a similar sum†in another round starting Tuesday, before launching its blockchain platform in June.
Kakao first revealed its plan to set up a blockchain subsidiary back in March 2018, soon after confirming that it had launched Ground X to develop a blockchain-powered platform as a foundation for application developers. Kakao’s top execs said at the time that the plan was to integrate future blockchain-based services with Kakao’s existing internet offerings, such as the Kakao Talk messaging app.
Ground X launched
a test network (or testnet) for its proprietary blockchain network,
dubbed Klaytn, last autumn. It has already partnered with 26 companies
that aim to run apps on Klaytn, Han told Bloomberg. These include South
Korean video game developer Wemade and video streaming platform Watcha,
as well as a unit of Chinese travel agency Zanadu.
The subsidiary has also said it
will work with the Seoul Digital Foundation, an organization created by
the Seoul Metropolitan Government, to develop blockchain projects
focusing on social and public services.
Ground X could be summed up as “partial or gradual decentralization,†Han told CoinDesk Korea last year, adding that some of Kakao’s services could be decentralized.
He added:
“The token economy is a business model that no one could have
imagined before. Until now, Kakao has only operated in Korea, but
through blockchain we could expand into the global market. That means
taking a portion of the profits we earn as an intermediary and using it
to expand our market by sharing it with users.â€
