Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 5:16 PM on Wednesday, October 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.
IDK: CSE
Ripple’s Xpring Launches Crypto, Fiat Payments That Integrate Into Any App
Ripple’s Xpring is launching a platform it says makes it possible for developers to integrate fiat and cryptocurrency payments into any application
Xpring is targeting crypto and non-crypto developers alike with the platform
Ripple’s Xpring is launching a platform it says makes it possible for
developers to integrate fiat and cryptocurrency payments into any
application.
The suite of services includes an Xpring software development kit
(SDK) that allows programmers to integrate XRP apps in multiple
programming languages. It also includes a variety of new tools for
working on both XRP and Ripple’s Interledger Protocol (ILP).
Xpring is targeting crypto and non-crypto developers alike with the
platform, Xpring senior vice president Ethan Beard told CoinDesk.
“Xpring SDK allows you the developer to use the XRP ledger simply and in any programming language you want,†Beard said, adding:
“What takes a developer today a 100 lines of code to do a transaction
on XRP ledger, using Xpring SDK cuts that down by 80 percent.â€
Xpring has already been built on open-source protocols, but this
platform would function like Amazon Web Services, Beard said. Developers
could download the code and run it themselves, or now they can go to
Xpring and plug into the service.
Beard envisions the platform being used to enable micropayments in industries like media and gaming.
“Ideally, we think the Xpring platform can work for any type of payment,†Beard said.
The platform is a new vertical for Xpring, which has been an
investment arm for Ripple – building a network of companies and
use-cases around XRP for little over a year. This initiative is aimed at
investing in and growing a developer base around the cryptocurrency.
“While blockchain and cryptocurrency can be transformative for how
payments work, what we’ve learned in the last year is that working with
these new technologies is quite difficult as well,†Beard said. “That
creates a barrier for developers to adopt these technologies.â€
As a part of the announcement, Xpring is also announcing that
payments processor BitPay, mobile wallet BRD and digital custody
provider Anchorage are all adding XRP to their offerings. With BitPay on
board, the company anticipates users being able to use XRP for everyday
purchases at thousands of merchants, including Microsoft and AT&T.
Furthermore, Chainalysis is adding the XRP ledger to its blockchain analytics product.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:42 AM on Tuesday, October 1st, 2019
IDK: CSE
Completed its commitment of USD$500,000 to acquire 248,201 Preferred Series A-1 Stock in TODAQ Holdings Inc.
The Subject Shares represent approximately 1.3% fully diluted of all issued and outstanding preferred and common shares of TODAQ as of September 30, 2019.
TORONTO, Oct. 01, 2019 — ThreeD Capital Inc. (the “Companyâ€) (CSE:IDK), a Canadian-based venture capital firm focused on investments in promising, early stage companies and ICOs with disruptive capabilities is pleased to announce that it has completed its commitment of USD$500,000 to acquire 248,201 Preferred Series A-1 Stock (the “Subject Sharesâ€) in TODAQ Holdings Inc. (“TODAQâ€). The Subject Shares represent approximately 1.3% fully diluted of all issued and outstanding preferred and common shares of TODAQ as of September 30, 2019. The Subject Shares have been acquired in a series of private placements and not through the facilities of any stock exchange. The Company, through the preferred stock acquisition, also receive Toda Notes (“TDNâ€) royalty rights of approximately 175 million TDN out of a total supply of 237 TDN, representing approximately 0.13% of the total TDN supply.
“I’m pleased to announce the close of this important investment.
We’ve followed our thesis of investing in secure, efficient,
confidential, scalable and interoperable decentralized technology and
focusing on fundamentals rather than the hype cycle of a still nascent
industry. I’m looking forward to bringing the TODAQ enablement factor to
bear across our other investment verticals,†said ThreeD’s Founder,
Chairman and CEO Sheldon Inwentash.
TODAQ is a founder of the Sovereignty Tech movement and aims to
restore ownership and control of identity, assets and data for all as a
human right. The company serves businesses, financial institutions and
governments and offers the open API TaaS (TODA-as-a-service’) platform
which provides ownership management and settlement for all digital
assets. It is powered by TODA, a decentralized protocol for ownership
management. It enables the secure and efficient creation, ownership and
transfer of meaningful digital assets and can be hosted fully on just
mobile devices. TODA’s proof of provenance data structure can wrap any
type of data, providing a transferrable, self-contained, immutable proof
of its history and integrity. The uniqueness enforced by the proof of
provenance also allows the creation and distribution of assets that
carry real value, without a central management system like a ledger or
database. TODA enables digital things to behave like tangible assets.
“Over the course of this last year working with ThreeD Capital as our
investor, we’ve brought academic institutions in to collaborate on TODA
Protocol decentralization and R&D, built the first version of the
TODA Protocol into an enterprise grade open API platform called TaaS,
partnered with global corporations in preparation to scale out to the
first hundreds of thousands of people, and readied ourselves to launch
and exchange list the TODA Note, the first decentralized digital asset
on TODA designed to support real economy utility. We’re looking forward
to integrating ThreeD Capital as our Canadian investor partner, and its
portfolio, into our main partners markets in Asia, Middle East and
Europe,†said Hassan Khan, the Co-Founder and CEO of TODAQ.
The TODA Note is a reserve backstopped digital note designed to
accelerate commerce and industry as well as complement existing fiat
currencies (which can also be put directly on the TODA). Due to the TODA
Protocol’s efficiency, TDN is not needed to settle or reach consensus
on transactions of TODA based digital assets. There will be a total of
237 cryptographically generated TDN, with a distribution period of about
ten years to place the entire supply into the global market. Any node
or low power device taking part in distributed consensus or settlement
work can also have a very small probability of generating a net new TDN
so that there is a slow but capped inflation of the overall TDN supply
over time.
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.
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-enabling:
These are the building blocks of blockchain, including encryption and
consensus algorithm, distributed computing infrastructures, tokens and
others.
Blockchain-inspired: Technologies in this stage combine some elements of blockchain, but lack two core elements: decentralization and tokenization.
Blockchain-complete: These solutions have all five elements of blockchain. They are decentralized, immutable, encrypted, tokenized and distributed.
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.
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 ————————
Facebook’s Crypto Launching in H2 2020, Says Libra Association Chief
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 BlackRockâ€
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.â€
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.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:55 AM on Monday, September 9th, 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
Bitcoin Price Hovers Around $10,000, Analysts Urge Buyers to Accumulate, Bodes Well For ThreeD Capital
As the Bitcoin price consolidate around $10,000 level, analysts tell investors that now is the time to remain bullish and accumulate more BTC tokens in their wallets.
After making a recovery above $10,000 last week, the Bitcoin
price is hovering above $10,000 levels now. Last week, Bitcoin was
riding on an upward momentum until Thursday, where it hit its weekly
high of $10,850. However, post that the momentum has again turned south
for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
In the last three days, Bitcoin lost nearly $700 of its price. At the
press time, Bitcoin is trading at $10,151 with a market cap of $181
billion. But there’s a good amount of trading activity in Bitcoin with
24-hour trading volumes crossing $14 billion. Bitcoin still dominates a
massive 69.8% share in the overall cryptocurrency market cap.
However, some analysts feel that this is the right time to buy more
Bitcoins. They are urging investors to make the most of this moment and
stash as many BTC tokens as per their appetite.
Bitcoin Bull Market Is Now On
Bitcoin investor and partner at Adamant Capital, Tuur Demeester compares
this time with the “post-ICO-bubble bull marketâ€. Demeester calls for
“a screaming buy†on Bitcoin. Besides, he also predicts that Bitcoin
price will just sky-rocket as the Amazon stock did over the last two
decades.
He says that just like Bitcoin, Amazon
stock showed massive volatility in its first decade of listing. Thus,
he believes that weathering this roller-coaster ride, Bitcoin will
ultimately emerge victoriously.
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.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:35 AM on Tuesday, September 3rd, 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.
The crypto market cap and bitcoin (BTC) are currently surging above key resistances. Ethereum (ETH), litecoin, ripple, BCH, TRX, XLM, BNB and EOS are also correcting higher.
Bitcoin Cash Price Analysis
BCH price formed a decent support base near the $280 level against
the US Dollar. The BCH/USD pair started a solid upward move and broke
the $290 resistance level. The price is currently up more than 5%, with
an immediate resistance near the $300 level.
If the price surges above the $300 and $305 resistance levels, there
could be more gains in the coming sessions. On the downside, the $290
level may now act as a support in the short term.
Binance Coin (BNB), Litecoin (LTC) and Tron (TRX) Price Analysis
Binance coin (BNB) price is also showing a lot of positive signs and
it recently climbed above the $22.00 resistance area. BNB price is up
around 6% and it is trading above the $22.50 resistance level. The next
key resistances are near the $23.00 and $23.20 levels.
Litecoin price is still facing a lot of hurdles on the upside near
the $68.00 and $70.00 level. LTC price must settle above the $70.00
level to start a decent upward move. On the downside, the main supports
are near the $65.00 and $62.00 levels.
Tron price is slowly moving higher and is trading above the $0.0155
level. An immediate resistance is near the $0.0160 level, above which
TRX price could climb further above the $0.0162 resistance level. The
main supports on the downside are near $0.0152 and $0.0150.
Looking at the total cryptocurrency market cap 4-hours chart,
there solid recovery initiated from the $235.0B support area. The
market cap broke the $240.0B and $250.0B resistance levels to move into a
positive zone. Moreover, there was a break above this week’s followed
bearish trend lines near $248.0B and $252.0B. The market cap is now
placed nicely above $250.0B and the 100 SMA on the same chart.
Therefore, there could be more gains in bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS,
litecoin, ripple, binance coin, BCH, TRX, XMR, XLM and other altcoins in
the near term.
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 feesâ€.
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.
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
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.
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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.
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
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.
