Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:19 AM on Monday, May 27th, 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 Growing Use Cases of Blockchain in Cannabis
Blockchain might relieve some of the pain felt by marijuana-related enterprises.
Governments are struggling through growing pains with this emerging industry, and blockchain may hold the answer.
In fact, as American industries go, its 250,000+ employees
far surpassed the 52,300 coal miners in the USA in 2018. That number is
expected to grow to 330,000 by 2022, and cannabis lobbyist group the Marijuana Policy Project reports nearly every state has some sort of pro-marijuana legislation at some stage of approval moving toward the 2020 election.
TruTrace CEO Robert Galarza took some time out from Consensus and Blockchain Week to discuss how his company’s StrainSecure platform is leveraging blockchain to resolve the most pressing issues facing the modern cannabis industry.
The company currently operates in
California and Canada, two of the most advanced cannabis cultures in the
world. California contains Humboldt County, home to the Emerald Triangle, which is known worldwide as the Aalsmeer Flower Auction of pot. Canada joins Uruguay as the only two sovereign states in the world where cannabis is recreationally legal.
Both governments are struggling through growing pains with this emerging industry, and blockchain may hold the answer.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:58 AM on Thursday, May 23rd, 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.
——————-
Despite Crypto Rally Pause, This Billionaire Still Expects Bitcoin at $250,000
Tim Draper, a prominent venture capitalist known for sporting an “offensive†purple Bitcoin tie, recently told The Street that now’s still an optimal time to purchase Bitcoin.
He goes on to state that by 2022, “maybe 2023â€, he expects for each BTC to be valued at $250,000, explaining his prediction as an estimate of the market share that Bitcoin will obtain as a viable currency and digital store of value.
Bitcoin
(BTC) may have dropped by 4% in the past 24 hours, receding to $7,600
in an interday drop, but many analysts and investors are still
optimistic. The thing is, the fact that BTC collapsed to $6,100 and then
skyrocketed to tap $8,000 for a second time was deemed by many to be
wildly positive, as it asserts that the bulls have control of the
cryptocurrency wheel.
One prominent investor claims that this is just the start though. He
recently asserted that Bitcoin’s runway is a lot longer than some expect
and that BTC can easily reach a value in the sextuple-digit range.
Bitcoin Rally Is Just Getting Started
Tim Draper, a prominent venture capitalist known for sporting an “offensive†purple Bitcoin tie, recently told The Street
that now’s still an optimal time to purchase Bitcoin. In a comment
characteristic of his long-term expectations for this space, the
investor quipped that it may be wise to “buy the dip [or] buy the
reboundâ€, hinting at his belief that whether your BTC cost basis is
$5,000 or $10,000 in years from now won’t matter.
He goes on to state that by 2022, “maybe 2023â€, he expects for each
BTC to be valued at $250,000, explaining his prediction as an estimate
of the market share that Bitcoin will obtain as a viable currency and
digital store of value.
This is far from the first time he touted such a lofty prediction.
Speaking to CoinTelegraph, the staunch permabull remarked that 2018’s
sell-off to $3,150 from $20,000 was simply a “fluctuationâ€, musing that
the move was catalyzed by manipulators looking to turn a quick buck.
Explaining why buying cryptocurrency whenever is logical, Draper opines:
“All times are good times to enter the crypto market. If you are
forward-thinking, you’re going to look and say ‘this is just better
currency’, so it’s just a matter of time before the world adopts it.
[This will happen] when everything I can do with fiat, I can do with
Bitcoin.â€
Indeed, many have expressed that the simple adoption of Bitcoin as a
digital currency, potentially the money of the future, is what will
drive such long-run growth. Researcher Filb Filb expressed
four months ago that if Bitcoin’s supply schedule, BTC’s adoption
rates, its share of global financial transactions, and worldwide debt
continues to follow his in-depth model, BTC could hit $250,000 by as
soon as 2022, lining up with Draper’s forecast.
He then added that Bitcoin’s fair value (at that time) was $5,500, meaning that the spot market was then undervaluing the asset.
What’s Crypto’s Endgame?
What comes after Bitcoin hits $250,000? Well, in the extremely long
run, like in the coming decades, Draper expects for the value of all
digital assets to begin to make a move on the $100 trillion hegemony of
fiat, government-issued money. While fiat makes up a vast majority of
global capital flows, Draper argues
that using such “poor†currencies is illogical, citing their
controllability, lack of transparency, and subjectivity to political and
social whims on the day-to-day.
With the brightest developers, engineers, and academics working on digital assets — Blockchain Capital’s Spencer Bogart would agree — Draper notes that there could be a capital flight from fiat to crypto over time. He elaborates:
“My belief is that over some period of time, the cryptocurrencies
will eclipse the fiat currencies. That would be a 1,000 times higher
than what we have now.â€
In a subsequent comment, Draper quipped that in five years’ time,
when consumers walk into Starbucks using fiat, the baristas will “laugh
at you.†He’s effectively implying that Bitcoin and other media of
exchange digital assets will be used in the place of traditional payment
rails, like U.S. dollars, Euros, or Yen on Visa or Mastercard.
What Will Bring BTC Higher?
Although the aforementioned commentators seem to be 100% sure that
fresh highs are in Bitcoin’s cards, what could kick off the adoption of
Bitcoin as a currency. Theses on this matter very, but many are coming
to the conclusion that a reduction in supply (the halving), growing
interest in BTC, and capital flight from traditional assets is what will
cause this embryonic industry to see massive adoption.
Per previous reports
from NewsBTC, quantatative analyst PlanB writes that money from silver,
gold, negative interest rate economies, authoritarian and capital
control-rife states, billionaires looking for a quantitative easing
hedge, and institutional investors will be what pushes Bitcoin to
$55,000 after 2020’s halving. This inflow could potentially kick off
what many call “hyperbitcoinizationâ€, which is when fiat currencies
rapidly lose value as Bitcoin supplants it.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:41 AM on Wednesday, May 22nd, 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.
These and many other insights are from Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Based on interviews with 1,386 senior executives in twelve nations
(Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Luxembourg,
Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the
United States), 53% of whom say blockchain technology has become a
critical priority for their organizations in 2019. Please see page 2 of
the study for a methodology. The study is available for download here (PDF, 52 pp., no opt-in).
Blockchain is gaining trust in the enterprise by succeeding at
pragmatic, well-defined pilots that show the potential to scale into
production. Deloitte found financial services leads blockchain adoption
today with adoption accelerating in technology, life sciences, media,
telecommunications, and government. Key insights from the survey include
the following:
53% of senior executives say blockchain has become a critical
priority for their organization this year, 10% higher than last year.
Deloitte found that senior executives are gaining more experience and
insights into blockchain’s potential contributions and pitfalls as more
use cases are evaluated, piloted, and moved to production. The following
graphic compares blockchain’s relevance between 2018 and 2019.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
86% of senior executives interviewed believe that blockchain
technology is broadly scalable and will eventually achieve mainstream
adoption. The majority of senior executives (83%) believes
there is a compelling business case for blockchain. 81% are planning to
use blockchain to replace their system of record, which reflects a shift
in mindset away from relying entirely on legacy systems. A growing
number of senior executives also believe blockchain is overhyped (43% in
2019, up from 39% in 2018).
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Blockchain’s three greatest organizational barriers include
implementation (which includes replacing or adapting existing legacy
systems), regulatory issues, and potential security threats.
Additional barriers include lack of in-house capabilities, uncertain
Return on Investment (ROI), concerns over the sensitivity of the
information, and the lack of a compelling application of the technology.
The following are the respondents’ responses to the question, What are your organization or project’s barriers, if any, to increase adoption and scale in blockchain technology?
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
73% of enterprise leaders in China are prioritizing blockchain
as one of their top five strategic priorities, the most in the ten
nations surveyed. The Chinese government’s Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology cited blockchain as a key driver of economic
development in a recent economic analysis. The Chinese government sees
product traceability, copyright protection, and smart contracts as
examples of blockchain’s potential to strengthen China’s global
technology direction. “China, more than anywhere else in the world, will use blockchain strategically instead of tactically,†says Paul Sin, consulting partner, Deloitte Advisory (Hong Kong) Ltd., and leader of Deloitte’s Asia-Pacific blockchain lab. “More projects are driven by top management who use blockchain as a strategic weapon rather than a productivity tool.†The following is a comparison of countries’ differing attitudes about blockchain along with several metrics.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
18% of enterprises are planning to spend $10M or more on
blockchain initiatives this year, and 23% will spend between $5M to
$10M. Senior executives based in each of the twelve nations
included in Deloitte’s survey are predicting wide variations in
blockchain investment levels. Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are
the home nations of enterprises planning to invest $10M or more in
blockchain technologies in the next twelve months.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Blockchain use cases are proliferating today, with data
validation (43%), data access/sharing (40%), and identity protection
(39%) being the most popular. Enterprises are piloting
blockchain to improve payments, achieve track and trace accuracy
throughout their supply chains, and evaluating the digital currency
aspects of the technology. It’s important to note that 87% of
enterprises first start evaluating blockchain due to its innate
strengths for enabling completely automated or touchless business
processes. 86% of enterprises are evaluating and piloting blockchain to
achieve the goals enabling new business models and revenue streams.
Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
For the majority of enterprises actively piloting and promoting
blockchain into production, success is defined by greater process
efficiency first. 55% of enterprises define blockchain success
by the process efficiencies they can accomplish first, followed by cost
saving (51%) and risk reduction (50%). Deloitte also found blockchain is
proving to be an effective platform for revenue generation, enabling
new business models and customer acquisition.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Louis Columbus is an enterprise software strategist with expertise in
analytics, cloud computing, CPQ, Customer Relationship Management
(CRM), e-commerce and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:40 AM on Tuesday, May 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.
——————-
Bitcoin and Blockchain: The Tangled History of Two Tech Buzzwords
“I’m interested in blockchain, not bitcoin.â€
Admit it, you’ve heard this hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
(You might have even said it yourself.) And sure, people know what
you’re saying, you’re talking about the “technology underlying bitcoinâ€
and you sound smart enough.
Once it became known – or at least presumed – that you could apply
cryptography in finance, in ways similar to how it’s used in bitcoin,
everyone started making sure that statement fell from their lips. And
that refrain – kicked off by bitcoin itself – remains powerful today.
Sounds plausible? Sure. But, interestingly, the word “blockchainâ€
doesn’t actually appear in the original bitcoin white paper, released
back in 2008. Rather, the white paper uses the words “block†and “chainâ€
separately many times.
It describes the word “block†as the vehicle for a bundle bitcoin
transactions. Then, these blocks of are linked together, forming a
“chain†of “blocks.â€
Turns out, the origins of the word are not quite so revolutionary.
“The word blockchain was never used in the early days,†former
bitcoin developer Mike Hearn told CoinDesk. Although, Hearn did
acknowledge that Satoshi often referred to bitcoin’s “proof-of-work
chain†in discussions on forums.
It seems the first references to the word came about on Bitcoin Talk, a bitcoin-specific forum created by Satoshi, in July 2010 – more than a year after bitcoin’s release.
And at that time, these remarks weren’t about how innovative the
technology was, but instead were complaints about how long it took to
download the bitcoin “blockchain†(the entire history of bitcoin
transactions).
While compared to today, the download would have far faster,
according to one Bitcoin Talk user: “The initial blockchain download is
quite slow.â€
In other words, initially, blockchain was far from the sexy word it is today.
Blockchain mania
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the word really took hold.
But interest in the term seems to have sprung out of professional
organizations and individuals hesitance to align themselves with bitcoin
itself because of its bad reputation as the currency for drugs and gray
economies.
“I think it [became popular] around the time people started going to
Washington [D.C.] and trying to make bitcoin respectable by divorcing
the currency from the underlying algorithms,†Hearn said.
To many, bitcoin the currency could be decoupled from bitcoin the
blockchain protocol, and so a whole new industry of so-called “private
blockchains,†devoid of a cryptocurrency, emerged. Sure enough, around that time in 2015, Google Trends data show the term surged.
“Initially people said ‘block chain’, and then, thanks to a great PR
campaign, we were blessed with the much improved ‘blockchain,’
single-word, probably thanks to a community-wide effort near and around
the Bitcoin Talk forums,†long-time cryptocurrency developer Greg Slepak
said.
Not only did it become one word, but it also came in vogue to
describe any blockchain that wasn’t bitcoin’s blockchain as “a
blockchain.†Bitcoin got to keep the terminology “the blockchain,â€
giving credence to the fact that it was the first.
Yet blockchain has become so divorced from bitcoin that both words
typically see a similar spike when cryptocurrency prices start mooning.
For instance, the word blockchain saw a huge uptick in Google searches
in late 2017.
Still, it’s unclear exactly where the idea itself begins. To some,
blockchains existed even before bitcoin, although that term wasn’t
applied to them back then.
For instance, cryptographer Stuart Haber, whose whitepapers on
timestamping were cited in the bitcoin white paper, claims to have
created the first blockchain called Surety.
According to Haber, that has to be the reason why Satoshi cited his
work – three times out of just nine total citations. Surety was launched
in 1995 for timestamping records, and it’s still running today.
Yet, Haber admits that his version doesn’t have all the same benefits
of bitcoin since it’s centralized – managed by one company.
And that highlights where things get tricky when you’re talking about
a blockchain. See, there isn’t necessarily agreement on a single
definition of a the technology.
The Merriam Webster dictionary
actually presents a much older word for blockchain – “a chain in which
the alternate links are broad blocks connected by thin side links
pivoted to the ends of the blocks, used with sprocket wheels to transmit
power, as in a bicycle.â€
While Google defines blockchain as:
But, for those seasoned veterans of the space, even this definition
is problematic. Many of these new-age private blockchains don’t record
their transactions publicly.
“The term has become so widespread that it’s quickly losing meaning,†as The Verge put it earlier this year.
Blind men
Haber pointed to an Indian parable to help explain the incompatible descriptions.
In the parable, a group of blind men come upon an elephant and start
touching the animal to try and figure it out what it was in front of
them.
Depending on what part of the elephant each man is touching, their
answer changes. For instance, one of the blind men, touching the
elephant’s trunk, thinks it’s a snake, while the other, touching the
elephant’s leg, exclaims it’s a tree trunk.
It’s similar when people define blockchain, Haber said.
He told CoinDesk:
“Some definitions will be completely silly, showing that people don’t
understand what they’re doing, but there will also be a bunch of
accurate descriptions of various parts of the vast body of work.â€
As such, he argues there isn’t just one meaning.
Even though, bitcoiners believe a blockchain can only be the one and
only bitcoin blockchain, like words, definitions are always evolving and
changing.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:35 PM on Wednesday, May 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.
——————-
Ripple Exec: Blockchain, Crypto Will Have a Role in US Tech Independence
“There is a broad discussion in Washington around 5G being dominated by foreign firms and the U.S. being reliant on foreign technology and foreign expertise… With blockchain and crypto, I think there’s a recognition now that these will be part of our future infrastructure… It’s important both for national security and from an economic perspective, that the U.S. is a leader in that.â€
Technology needs to be a national issue for the United States, with digital currencies and blockchain
to be recognized within that goal, according to Ripples’ Director of
Regulatory Relations Ryan Zagone, at the Consensus 2019 conference on
May 14.
Recently, legislators reintroduced the Token Taxonomy Act, that would exclude cryptocurrency
from being classified as a security. The act also pursues the
introduction of regulatory certainty for businesses and regulators in
the U.S. blockchain industry, as well as clarifying conflicting state
initiatives and regulatory rulings that have confused the issue.
Moreover, the announcement calls attention to the growing strength of digital asset markets and the blockchain industry both in Europe and China, and states that the Act is necessary in order to keep the U.S. competitive in the global market.
As reported
in March, the number of lobbies working on blockchain technology issues
in Washington D.C. tripled in 2018, reaching 33 projects in the fourth
quarter of 2018 compared to 12 in the same period of 2017. Jerry Brito,
executive director at the non-profit organization Coin Center, suggested
that the growth is driven by securities regulation.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 3:01 PM on Tuesday, May 14th, 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.
——————-
IBM Establishes 5 Blockchain Principles To Drive Enterprise Adoption And Benefit Society
As an early advocate for blockchain, IBM has been working vigorously to commercialize the technology through its enterprise-grade version of Hyperledger Fabric, known as IBM Blockchain.
Hyperledger Fabric currently empowers 1300 networks in the IBM blockchain cloud, 100 of which are live in production today.
Following years of experimentation and the advancement of established live networks, IBM has now established a set of 5 “blockchain for good principles,†demonstrating how trusted and transparent enterprise blockchains can benefit organizations and society as a whole.
The principles, which are also outlined in an IBM blog post, are:
Open is better
Permissioned doesn’t mean private
Governance is a team sport
Common standards are common sense
Privacy is paramount
When IBM’s CEO, Ginni Rometty, began
commenting on data rights with respect to data analytics, we became
inspired on the blockchain side. Over the past 3 years, we have worked
with many clients and have gained perspectives that have driven these
principles. There are ways to use blockchain technology that are
critical and would lead to good outcomes, but let’s make sure we don’t
leave that to guess work. That is how these 5 principles came about and
it’s our responsibility to abide by them wisely and share them with
others,†Jerry Cuomo, Vice President of IBM Blockchain and IBM Fellow,
told me.
In order to better understand how each principle is being applied, Cuomo went into detail about the standards.
Open Is Better
According to IBM, blockchain networks must foster diverse communities
of open source contributors to promote innovation and ensure the
overall quality of code.
The open is better principle is
carried across many aspects of what we do at IBM. Open is always better
when it comes to the cloud, artificial intelligence or the Internet of
Things, but it has especially interesting implications when looked at
from a blockchain context. We have always been an ‘open by design’
company, but we think carrying that principle to blockchain is
fundamental to our strategy,†explained Cuomo.
For example, IBM points out that The
Hyperledger Project, operated under The Linux Foundation, is a
“greenhouse†for growing enterprise-grade blockchain software with
strong and diverse code contributors.
“Hyperledger is an open technology
co-created by multiple institutions. The users of this technology
benefit since collaborations create diversity,†said Cuomo.
Moreover, Hyperledger Fabric also allows IBM to monetize due to the collaborative nature of the technology.
Institutions like IBM working on
Hyperledger Fabric are able to monetize due to the openness. For
instance, Oracle has the Oracle Blockchain, but they monetize using
Hyperledger Fabric. We are all collaborating to create these blockchain
networks, but we all have competitive offerings. Without breaking the
openness, we can add value to differentiate from our solutions. In turn,
consumers get high quality code offered through multiple institutions.
This is a unique business model built around the idea of open source,â€
noted Cuomo.
Permissioned Doesn’t Mean Private
Although anonymous public blockchains afford a number of powerful
capabilities, IBM believes that these are not suitable for most
enterprises, particularly those in regulated industries. Rather, to
support an enterprise-grade platform aligned with regulatory and
fiduciary responsibilities, enterprise blockchains must be designed
around the principle of permissioned and trusted access. However, it’s
important to understand that permissioned doesn’t mean private.
Blockchain is about trust. For
instance, we trust businesses because of the rules they follow. But
rules also have accountability, meaning you have to know which
businesses are participating in certain systems. There are types of
blockchains that are anonymous like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and there are
types of blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric and several others that are
permissioned. Permissioned is important because it insists that members
of the network are known to the network. Permissions are balanced with
privacy so blockchains that follow these principles have privacy
capabilities that allow members to transact confidentially,†said Cuomo.
Maintaining a balance through a
permissioned network is critical for IBM, as most organizations need to
know whom they’re conducting business with to ensure that no illegal
activity is being transacted over the network.
Governance Is A Team Sport
IBM also believes that enterprise blockchains must embrace
distributed and transparent governance to ensure that networks serve the
needs of all participants and are managed in a manner reflective of
each use case.
“Governance means rules. These rules will define who the elected
officials are, who is responsible for what roles and obligations, etc.
Governance is mandatory in a blockchain network,†said Cuomo.
Moreover, IBM notes that a trusted governance model requires at least
three designated trust anchors and that governance frameworks should
also take into account a network’s funding model.
For example, the Verfied:Me identity network in Canada, convened by
SecureKey Inc, has enlisted major Canadian banks to participate as trust
anchors to host nodes and validate network transactions. SecureKey has
created a governance model that involves ongoing checks and balances
between its constituent working groups.
Common Standards Are Common Sense
Additionally, IBM understands that enterprise blockchains should be
architected around common standards that are interoperable in order to
help future-proof networks, prevent vendor lock-in and foster a robust
ecosystem of innovators. This also involves interoperability of cloud
platforms. And while most blockchain networks presently exist in siloes,
the technology is evolving to support a network of networks.
According to IBM, the first step in promoting this interoperability is to make blockchains visible to one another through a registry, such as Hacera Unbounded. Moreover,
blockchain networks should define and publish their data models and
policies for change according to industry standards.
Privacy Is Paramount
Finally, IBM thinks that an enterprise blockchain should control who
can access data and under what circumstances. Blockchain networks must
also abide by privacy regulations such as GDPR. In most cases, that
means any personal data should be kept off-chain.
For example, IBM Food Trust
is a blockchain network aimed at ensuring food safety, freshness and
sustainability. This network enables brands like Walmart, Albertsons and
Driscoll to leverage shared data to enact various supply-chain
efficiencies, while safeguarding each member’s proprietary information.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:03 AM on Monday, May 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.
——————-
Is This Behind The Latest $25 Billion Bitcoin And Crypto Price Rally?
Now trading at a little over $7,000 per bitcoin, after beginning the year at under $4,000, taking the total value of all bitcoins over $124 billion and making up 58% of the broader cryptocurrency market cap.
The bitcoin price is now trading at a little over $7,000 per bitcoin, after beginning the year at under $4,000, taking the total value of all bitcoins over $124 billion and making up 58% of the broader cryptocurrency market cap.
The latest bitcoin rally has seen the world’s largest cryptocurrency shoot up by almost 40% over the last 30 days.
Bitcoin whales have traded around 100,000 bitcoin over the weekend,
with a total value of some $670 million dollars. Most of the bitcoin
whales have been moving their holdings out of major cryptocurrency
exchanges, with just a few of the biggest transactions over the weekend
involving cryptocurrency wallets moving bitcoin to an exchange.
Large bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions can prop up the market,
with the holders not selling via online exchanges but opting to
continue holding the digital tokens instead, known in the bitcoin and
cryptocurrency sector as “hodling.”
Bitcoin holders are continuing to bet on the asset despite the
bitcoin price almost doubling since the beginning of this year,
suggesting they see it moving still higher as bitcoin sentiment turns
increasingly bullish.
Last week, analysts from investment bank Canaccord Genuity said they
expect bitcoin to rally hard over the next 24 months, potentially
returning to its late 2017 highs due to next year’s halving event, where
the number of bitcoins rewarded to miners will be cut by 50%.
The last week has been a difficult one for the bitcoin and cryptocurrency sector, however, despite the broad price rally.
Bitcoin climbed even
as the market processed the news $40 million of bitcoin (some 7,000 of
the digital tokens) were stolen from the Malta-based Binance exchange,
the world’s largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange by volume, and Binance’s widely-respected chief executive Changpeng Zhao caused controversy by suggesting he could “re-organize” the bitcoin blockchain to recover the funds.
The bitcoin price climbed over the course of last week despite a
serious security breach at major bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange,
Binance.
CoinDesk
Meanwhile, the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry is gearing up for
one of the biggest events in the cryptocurrency calendar starting
today—Blockchain Week NYC and CoinDesk’s Consensus 2019 event, running
all week out of the New York Hilton Midtown.
This year headline speakers include FedEx’s Fred Smith, Fidelity’s
Abigail Johnson, Twitter and Square’s Jack Dorsey, chairman of the U.S.
Securities Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, and U.S. presidential
hopeful, Andrew Yang.
“As crypto’s true believers gather in New York for Consensus this
week, they are counting ever-more household-name companies amongst their
number,” said Simon Peters, an analyst at brokerage eToro. “The
possibility of big crypto-related announcements from some of the world’s
biggest corporates will be part of what is driving bitcoin’s price
upward.
“This buzz follows a recent spate of good news for bitcoin, with
large institutional investors like Fidelity Investments increasing their
exposure to crypto-assets in recent weeks. If we see institutions begin
to pump serious money into the market, we could be at the start of a
very long bull run for crypto-assets.”
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:21 AM on Friday, May 10th, 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 Markets Hit New 2019 Top as Bitcoin Cranks Higher to $6.3k
End of the week has seen crypto markets hit another new high for 2019.
Bitcoin is pushing things higher as it eats away at the altcoins and itself posts new highs for the year.
Total market capitalization just passed $190 billion for the first time since November 2018.
The end of the week has seen crypto markets hit another new high for 2019. Bitcoin is pushing things higher as it eats away at the altcoins and itself posts new highs for the year. Total market capitalization just passed $190 billion for the first time since November 2018.
A new yearly high of just below $6,300 was made by Bitcoin a couple of hours ago. It has not dropped below $6k
since breaching the psychological barrier in early trading yesterday
and has pushed on a further 3 percent today. The big move has taken BTC
volume up to $18 billion and market cap over $110 billion. Its dominance
is now at a 17 month high of 58 percent, a level not seen since the big
surge at the end of 2017.
The big move by BTC has pulled Ethereum up a little as it approaches
$175. On the downside ETH market share has been eaten away to under ten
percent as it remains sluggish.
The top ten is mostly red at the moment with only Litecoin making any
positive momentum as it reaches $77 with 2.5 percent added on the day.
Binance Coin is getting dumped dropping 8 percent back to $19 and XRP
and Stellar continue to get eroded losing another couple of percent
today.
There is greater pain in the top twenty as altcoins get assaulted by
their big brother. Cosmos has been smashed 8 percent to fall below $4
and Tron and Maker have both lost over 4 percent over the past 24 hours.
The rest are losing a couple of percent each as Bitcoin continues to consume them.
FOMO: Arcblock Still Pumping
Yesterday’s fomo driven pump has rolled into another day as ABT
surges a further 40 percent lifting its position to 76th. South Koreans
are all over this one as Bithumb dominates the trade volume in KRW.
Social media tipping based altcoin ReddCoin is also flying at the moment
with a gain of 18 percent on the back of Facebook’s rumored foray into
crypto. Aurora is back again with another pump today of 15 percent which
will dump tomorrow.
Speaking of dumps, WAX is in bad shape as it drops 9 percent as the
top one hundred’s biggest loser. BNB and Cosmos are not far behind
dumping 8 percent each.
Total market capitalization 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com
Total crypto market capitalization has reached a new high for the
year at $192 billion. The $4 billion, or two percent, gain on the day is
largely due to Bitcoin which is a steamroller at the moment. Total
daily volume is at its highest level for the week at $54 billion as
markets slowly grind towards $200 billion.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top
cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the
best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:02 PM on Thursday, May 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.
——————-
Crypto Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dominating as Markets Retest 2019 Highs
Martin Young
Crypto markets have been bolstered back up to their highest levels of the year again today. There was no selloff
in the wake of the Binance hack and Bitcoin has finally broke
resistance and made it over the psychological barrier of $6,000. Total
market capitalization has been increased by $5 billion to just below
$190 billion, its highest level since November 2018.
Bitcoin surged to a new 2019 high of $6,075 a few hours ago during
early Asian trading. Getting above $6k is a huge achievement for BCT,
especially considering recent news and FUD. Most analysts agree that
there is huge resistance here and overcoming it will not be easy.
Bitcoin traded in this range for over three months last year.
Ethereum has been flat
and only managed a percent or so to creep back over $170. There has
been little momentum for ETH since the CTFC nod which has largely been
forgotten now.
The top ten is predominantly green at the moment but gains are
marginal and Bitcoin is leading the pack. Bitcoin Cash has made almost 3
percent to top $290 while Litecoin and EOS have added 1.5 percent each,
the rest have not moved much.
Top twenty gains are the greatest for Bitcoin SV which has surged
almost 10 percent to $58. There does not appear to be a great deal
driving momentum aside from the movements of its big brother. Monero,
Tezos and Maker have all added 2-3 percent but Cosmos and IOTA have
dumped 3-4 percent.
FOMO: Arcblock Enters Top 100
The big move of the moment is Arcblock which has surged into the top
one hundred with a 20 percent pump on the day. The ABT blockchain
ecosystem token has had a few project and wallet updates to boost
momentum. DigixDAO is also on a roll today with 11 percent added taking
DGD to $36. Horizen is also doing well alongside BSV with 9 percent
gains.
Aurora is back dumping once again in its predictable pattern as AOA
drops 14 percent. Following two days of pumps ABBC Coin is now dumping
with 11 percent lost today. These are the only two double digit losers
at the moment.
Total market capitalization 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com
Total crypto market capitalization has surged by $5 billion on the
day to $189 billion, equaling its 2019 high. Bitcoin has been
responsible for most of this as it finally gets to $6,000 with dominance
reaching an eight month high of 57 percent. Volume has dropped back to
$46 billion so further consolidation at this level may be on the cards.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top
cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the
best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:03 AM on Monday, May 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.
——————-
PepsiCo Blockchain Trial Brings 28% Boost in Supply Chain Efficiency
Food and beverage giant PepsiCo has conducted a blockchain trial that brought a 28 percent boost in supply chain efficiency.
Dubbed “Project Proton,†the trial set out to examine if blockchain could address “industry challenges†in programmatic advertising.
Food and beverage giant PepsiCo has conducted a blockchain trial that brought a 28 percent boost in supply chain efficiency.
Dubbed “Project Proton,†the trial set out to examine if blockchain
could address “industry challenges†in programmatic advertising.
PepsiCo’s project partner and media agency Mindshare announced the
news Monday, saying that it assisted in the trial, which carried out
a programmatic end-to-end supply chain reconciliation using Zilliqa’s
blockchain platform. The effort compared a control budget with one for
the test to gauge the effectiveness of the technology.
Zilliqa’s smart contracts were further used to automate the programmatic supply chain, Mindshare said, explaining:
“These smart contracts reconcile impressions that are delivered from
multiple data sources with payments facilitated using an internal Native
Alliance Token (NAT) all in near real time, resulting in major
efficiency gains and complete transparency for the brand owners.â€
The results indicated efficiency increases “in terms of costs for
viewable impressions, in running the campaign through smart contracts,
versus one without,†according to Mindshare.
Other partners in the project included online advertising company
Rubicon, programmatic marketing technology firm MediaMath and media firm
Integral Ad Science.
The trial was conducted in March in the Asia Pacific region. The
partners now plan to run a second phase with the addition of payments to
publishers and more performance metrics.
Farida Shakhshir, PepsiCo’s director of consumer engagement for the Asia, Middle East and North Africa regions, said:
“The results are encouraging, and we plan to run a few more campaigns
under different conditions to verify more hypotheses and measure
overall impact.â€
