Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 5:00 PM on Monday, January 13th, 2020
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Battery markets charge up for 2020
Our main area of focus is what we see as the critical minerals and metals in the battery supply chain – lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel
There are a lot more minerals and metals that are used in the EV supply chain, but we focus on those four because they’re going to experience the most considerable growth from the emergence of EVs over the coming years
by Canadian Mining Journal
Why we’re headed toward a ‘tipping point’ for EVs
According to the International Energy Agency, in 2018, the
global stock of EV passenger cars surpassed 5 million, a rise of 63%
over the previous year. Nearly half of those EVs – 45% – were in China.
The growth over the past decade has encouraged investment in
battery minerals and metals – lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel. But
interest in new projects has waned as prices have fallen – largely in
response to a scale back of subsidies for EV’s in China and an
oversupply of battery minerals.
To understand the disconnect between expected growth in the battery minerals markets and current prices, Canadian Mining Journal
spoke with Andrew Miller, head of price assessments with Benchmark
Mineral Intelligence, a consultancy and advisory firm that provides
independent pricing and market data on battery minerals, in December.
Canadian Mining Journal: Which minerals and metals are considered EV minerals and metals – which ones does Benchmark track?
Andrew Miller: Our main area of
focus is what we see as the critical minerals and metals in the battery
supply chain – lithium, graphite, cobalt and
nickel. There are a lot more minerals and metals that are used in the EV
supply chain, but we focus on those four because they’re going to
experience the most considerable growth from the emergence of EVs over
the coming years. They’re susceptible to volatility because of the huge growth that they’re facing and
the rigid supply structure in each of those markets. As you’ve seen
with lithium and cobalt over the last three to four years, you have an
extremely volatile pricing situation. So those are the four that we see
as really critical in this supply chain and areas that are really going to have to develop to support electrification.
CMJ: Can you give us a sense of how big and fast–growing the EV market is right now?
AM: To date, the market has been
driven by adoption of batteries in heavy duty vehicles, e-buses for
instance have seen considerable growth. But
we’re only in the very early stages of what’s really going to drive the
market over the coming decade, which is the adoption of electric
vehicles for passenger applications. We’re seeing considerable growth,
particularly in the Chinese market.
China’s been very dominant in the supply chain because of some
of the incentives they had in place to promote electrification and we’re
now entering what we think is going to be a tipping point
for that electric vehicle industry outside of China, as Western OEMs are
committing a huge amount of their future fleet to electrified models.
Ultimately, what that’s going to mean is the rampup of these OEMs and
their electrification plans is really going to drive the battery sector
forward outside of China and Asia.
The lithium-ion battery market right now is producing around 200 GWh and we’re forecasting it will grow to around 1,800 GWh by 2028, so that gives you some idea of scale – almost 10X growth in terms of battery output in the coming decade.
CMJ: At The Northern Miner’s Progressive Mine Forum in the fall, you forecast that
we could see a deficit in cobalt in 2020 and lithium and graphite by
2022. That’s obviously not far off. What are the key factors that could
swing those forecasts either way?
AM: With some of the cutbacks in
cobalt production, there’s definitely going to be a tighter cobalt
market going into the new year. (Glencore recently announced
that it’s closing its Mutunda mine, a large cobalt producer, for two
years.) Around that 2021/2022 time horizon, we’re expecting others –
lithium and graphite for instance – will also become tighter markets.
The big factor in terms of demand in the short term, as I
mentioned, is what’s been happening in China. And although you’ll hear a
lot said about what slowing Chinese growth actually means,
in reality, China’s still growing at quite a healthy rate – double
digit growth in terms of its EV production. So it’s not bad, it’s just
not as much as in previous years. And the reason for that is they’re phasing out their subsidies, which is forcing some liquidity issues and some consolidation along the supply chain.
Chinese policy can swing things quite considerably one way or
the other, but as I mentioned, we’re entering a market in the next two
to three years where demand isn’t so China-focused. Although China will
remain an important driver of growth, we’re also going to see significant growth in Europe and North America, and that diversity of demand is going to see this story accelerate in terms of consumption numbers.
You’re also seeing some very pro-electrification policies being
put in place in Europe at the moment, which are expected to have a
positive impact and could see things grow at a faster speed. China is
due to bring their subsidies to an end by next year – I think that’s
already built into a lot of people’s demand models, but if Chinese
growth dries up in the short term that still has a meaningful impact on
global demand.
So I think there’s more on the upside in terms of where that
outlook could go wrong, particularly when you look at the market balance
of these raw materials and you consider that we’re really in a period
where to support the growth of 2022, money needs to be going into those
markets now. And investment has dried up because of the negative price
environment for all of these key materials – investment has actually
dried up at a time when it’s incredibly important that new supply is
brought into the market. So things have a chance of becoming more
fragile rather than less fragile over the coming years.
CMJ: There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between, as you say,
that negative price environment and the actual projected increases in
demand in the relatively near future – what’s causing that disconnect?
AM: It’s a short-term effect. What
we saw around 2015/2016, particularly in the cobalt and lithium markets
with the rapid increase in pricing that occurred, was a wave of
investment that was based on the market at that point and the more
considerable growth that was expected in the future. That led to this
sort of transition period that we’re in in the moment where there’s
still double-digit demand growth across all of these markets from the
battery sector, but because we’ve been able to introduce some new supply
that’s accelerated above the rate of new demand, you have this
imbalance that is driving a correction in pricing. The
spike in pricing and the highs in pricing we saw several years ago
weren’t sustainable, but equally now, pricing we’re seeing in areas like
lithium are unsustainable to allow for new supply in the future.
So unfortunately, the correction that’s happened because of
this new supply is only making the longer-term outlook that much more
fragile.
CMJ: In addition to that difficult market,
many battery minerals are specialty minerals that are finicky to
produce in a quality and specification that battery manufacturers need.
What do new producers have to do to be successful in this market?
AM: I think it’s really an issue
of time. Even the most established producers in the market, to expand
their production of these refined materials takes time, even if you have
the investment and infrastructure in place. So whether you’re an
existing producer or a development stage project, you’re going to need
time because it’s not a commodity game – it’s not just taking it out of
the ground and worrying about the logistics, it really is more an issue
of refining that product, working with the end user to make something
they can use.
On that note, I think any type of partnership with your
customer or any way of working with them in order to understand their
requirements is helpful. That can be quite difficult in itself because
we’re still in this period where people are trying to figure out what is
the most cost-effective type of anode and cathode material to use and
how much energy density can we squeeze out of this material. But the
closer the relationship with their end user the better the chance of
success for new companies, particularly as they introduce new suppliers.
So I think it’s a combination of time, expertise, knowing your
market and your product and then coupling that with a strong
relationship with the people that will ultimately be using your product.
CMJ: What is the dominant type of chemistry or lithium-ion battery in the EV market right now?
AM: On the anode side, it’s a bit
more clean cut – you’re either using natural or synthetic graphite, and
more typically now a combination of the two materials to maximize the
cost/energy performance requirements of the anode.
It’s a little more varied on the cathode side. What was driving
the market around the mid-2000s was the rise of consumer electronics,
which required LCO (lithium cobalt oxide) cathodes, which is a
cobalt-intensive cathode. What you’re seeing for electric vehicles and
what’s really going to drive the market going forward is the use of
either NCM (nickel cobalt manganese) or NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum)
cathode types. Tesla use NCA.
These are more nickel-intensive cathode chemistries that still do use cobalt but in a lower intensity
than LCO. For more heavy duty vehicles, like buses and trucks, you have
LFP – lithium iron phosphate, a cathode that’s really grown to a lot of
people’s surprise this year and continues to grow. It’s a lower-cost
type of cathode – you get less energy density from it, but for some of
the larger vehicle applications, it’s a very stable, reliable chemistry.
CMJ: Are there any advances that are happening in the EV battery space that you’re watching that could affect the market?
AM: There are a lot of exciting
things that are happening in the EV market that you have to keep tabs
on, particularly on the technology side. We’re reaching a point with the
electric vehicle market where it’s really about fine tuning the
existing chemistries – that’s going to be the real development that you
see rather than a major overhaul or anything that could disrupt the
future projection. Because if you look at the time to commercializing
any of these technologies, to overcome the consistency, quality, performance and safety issues – it takes a huge amount of time to tick all of those boxes and to bring something new in.
CMJ: You’ve outlined a big supply challenge that looks like perhaps it can’t be met –
we can’t necessarily speed up permitting to get projects developed
faster, even if prices rise dramatically in the near term. How do you
see that being resolved?
AM: It’s a big concern for the
industry and ultimately you’ll have to see a huge influx of investment
going in in quite a short amount of time. These projects do take time
and it’s not going to be something that resolves itself overnight.
There’s the potential for some of these industries to become major
bottlenecks to the expansion of the electric vehicle market. On that
note, I do think that’s being realized at the moment and even though
investment may not be coming into the sector from public markets, you
are seeing more joint venture partnerships in companies downstream,
getting involved with the raw material supplies to ensure that that
supply availability is there, so I think that will continue.
One area that we still haven’t seen come to maturity is battery
recycling – bringing some of these materials back out of the battery
and being able to use them again. In the longer term, though, these
issues will be resolved because, with the possible exception of cobalt, these aren’t scarce materials geologically, it’s just getting them out of the ground and refining them in the right way.
There are definitely going to be some real teething issues over
the coming years because you need continued and sustained investment to
support this new production and at the moment it’s just not being
forthcoming at the speed that’s required. But the hopeful side of that
is we saw in 2015 and 2016 how quickly the prospect of this major
battery growth can attract investment into the
sector. It didn’t provide everything that was needed, but when prices
start going up again and when there’s a tighter market, parties can turn
their attentions to this very quickly, particularly when you’re moving
into the real growth that we’re expecting come the mid-2020s.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 1:00 PM on Monday, January 13th, 2020
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DOPE! New cannabis compound 30 TIMES more potent than THC found in one marijuana variety
Compound is one of two newfound cannabinoids that have been discovered in the Cannabis plant glands of the sativa L species.
A NEW cannabis compound has been discovered and it may be 30 times more potent than THC.
Scientists aren’t yet sure whether the compound causes a high or has
medical benefits so they’ve been conducting tests to try and figure this
out.
The compound is one of two newfound cannabinoids that have been discovered in the Cannabis plant glands of the sativa L species.
Cannabinoids is the collective term for the group of diverse chemical
compounds that act on the cannabinoid receptors of the brain.
THC is just one of these cannabinoids and it’s currently considered to be the principal psychoactive component of cannabis.
THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, plugs into brain receptors and can
alter our ability to co-ordinate movements, reason, record memories and
perceive things like time and pleasure.
THC in cannabis is what can give smokers a high feelingCredit: Getty – Contributor
It’s thought that cannabis contains over 140 similar chemicals that can interact with receptors all over the body.
However, THC is currently the only one we know can result in a high spaced out feeling.
Of the two new cannabinoids discovered, one looks similar to the compound CBD, which isn’t psychoactive.
The other appears similar to THC but may even produce stronger mind-bending effects.
This THC lookalike is called tetrahydrocannabiphorol (THCP).
Recent research suggests that it interacts with the same brain receptor as THC but has slight differences in its chain of atoms.
The slight difference in shape of THCP means it can technically fit more snugly into its preferred brain receptor than THC.
A test showed that the compound can actually bind 30 times more reliably than THC.
When given to lab mice, the THCP made them behave as if they were on THC with slower movements and decreased reactions to pain.
The mice reached this state with a much lower does than would have been required with THC meaning the new compound is stronger.
However, this lab experiment still doesn’t mean that the same effect would happen in humans.
THCP doesn’t appear to be present in large amounts in cannabis plants
but even if it was, increased psychoactive properties would still not
be guaranteed.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:15 PM on Monday, January 13th, 2020
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Young people buying into ‘fake news’
By: Esther Cepeda
My son, his best friend, Dave, and I were chatting over a pizza last
weekend when Dave dropped some (absolutely incorrect) information: The
elderly are forgoing nursing homes for cruise ships, because the room
and board cost about the same, plus you get entertainment and travel.
Again — this is not a real phenomenon. A few healthy, affluent
retirees have spent a few years this way, but the cruise ship industry
is in no way prepared to offer extended care for masses of frail elderly
adults with complex medical conditions like chronic diseases and memory
problems.
When I prompted our friend for more information, he said it made
sense because cruise ships have onboard medical staff and morgues.
When further pressed — in my son’s spirited retelling, I’m described
as in a rabid state, pouncing on his innocent pal — Dave said he’d
definitely read a news story about it.
Errrrr, actually, he knew he’d definitely seen it somewhere.
Mmmmmm, maybe on Reddit?
My son acts like at this point I had fire blazing from my eyes. I’ll only admit that I was alarmed.
Dave is a bright young man who attended an excellent high school,
just completed his first semester of college at a fancy East Coast
university and is generally thoughtful and curious about the world.
But he passed on information he believed was fact because he saw
“something†on a news aggregation and message board site, or
“somewhere.â€
This gem about retiring to a cruise ship has been around since at
least 2003, according to the fact-checking site Snopes.com. It started
out as a bit of viral e-lore, and there have been a few
examples of real-life extended stays. But today, otherwise legitimate
news-gathering organizations post branded, sponsored-content “articlesâ€
(these are paid advertisements) about how to plan such a retirement
alongside real news that was reported by professional journalists and
vetted by editors.
I’m not picking on a kid I care about — he’s just an example of how
incredibly ill-equipped our young people are to navigate an internet
that’s loaded with fake news, junk science and other “informationâ€
designed to fool them and everyone else.
In a 2018-19 national assessment of U.S. high school students,
researchers at Stanford University found that two-thirds couldn’t tell
the difference between reported news stories and advertisements set off
by the words “sponsored content†on the homepage of a popular news
website.
And more than one-third of middle school students in the U.S. said
that they “rarely†or “never†learned how to judge the reliability of
sources, according to an analysis of 2018 survey data from The Nation’s
Report Card by the Reboot Foundation, a Paris-based nonprofit that
promotes the teaching of evidence-based reasoning skills.
But while it’s clear that students must be taught media-literacy
skills, there are few teachers prepared to do so. Many people, not just
teachers, tend to believe that their maturity and life experience make
them naturally media literate — i.e., not likely to fall for fake news
or bad sources of information.
A small 2011 study of the effectiveness of teacher training on media
literacy found that eight hours of in-person training — quite a lot by
the common standards of professional development — prepared someone to
pass on such skills. And the study also showed that, like anyone else,
teachers need systematic, direct instruction on media literacy, and it
must be practiced over time.
The bright side is that it’s not rocket science. For the average
reader, becoming media literate is generally simple: Find some good
sources, check bold assertions and be aware of any fine print, like the
basis of an author’s expertise or their potential financial interest.
Now, no one can check every fact in every bit of text they read, but a
high level of skepticism is warranted in this time of newsy
advertisements and active disinformation campaigns. If it sounds too
good (or too bad) to be true, it probably is. And since those types of
pieces of “information†are what drive clicks, views and “reader
engagement,†they’ve proliferated.
Do yourself and your loved ones a service, bookmark a few key
fact-checking websites and use them regularly (an extensive list can be
found in the appendix of the Reboot Foundation’s report, at
reboot-foundation.org/fighting-fake-news).
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:00 PM on Monday, January 13th, 2020
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aims to provide access to quality education from around the world.
The company plans to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job
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an integrated ecosystem. Click here for more information.
How Edtech Can Fill Gaps In Quality Education In Tier-3 Cities?
A majority of young Indians, mostly belonging to Tier-3 cities, are deprived of quality education due to a lack of accessible educational infrastructure and resources
Lack of committed educators, unavailability of textbooks, and a dearth of credible coaching centres are among a few of the problems underserved Indian students have to deal with on a daily basis
While there is some merit to heeding to
your relatives’ advice of devoting more time to “self-studyâ€, for a
large number of students across the country it happens to be a singular
necessity and unfortunate compulsion. A majority of young Indians,
mostly belonging to Tier-3 cities, are deprived of quality education due
to a lack of accessible educational infrastructure and resources. Lack
of committed educators, unavailability of textbooks, and a dearth of
credible coaching centres are among a few of the problems underserved
Indian students have to deal with on a daily basis.
The absence of quality coaching centres
in Tier-3 cities in India is a major reason why multiple youths
preparing for competitive examinations like UPSC choose to migrate to
Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities like Delhi, Nagpur, Pune, Jaipur,
Mumbai, etc., in search of better learning prospects. However, in
addition to offering greater learning resources and opportunities, and
an improved lifestyle overall, the expense of living in metro cities
also puts a magnified financial burden on to these students. Besides
paying the fees of the institution they join, the basic outlay of living
(surviving) alone, which includes food and rent of hostels or PGs,
becomes unmanageable for all youths not belonging to the affluent class.
Add to this the expenditure of buying study material and conveyance, at
the minimum. All of these expenses together end up causing the students
to go in debt.
The financial aspect aside, the teaching
institutes and coaching centres accommodate a very large number of
students and the curriculum in these places is designed to cater to
those who are either fast-learners or those who have already had a solid
academic foundation. A lack of individual teaching approach aimed at
educating each and every student based on their individual learning
abilities and sensibilities causes a majority of at-risk students to
struggle with mental health problems. Impersonal teaching methods of the
teachers bent upon drilling information into the students’ heads
further adding to the tribulations of most of these students who find it
difficult to cope with the vast and fast-paced nature of the syllabi.
It is here that EdTech presents itself as an impeccable solution to all of these problems.
By providing a personalised learning
experience to students, EdTech platforms enhance their methods of
self-study and self-assessment. Since most of the EdTech platforms
contain video lectures on the same topic by multiple instructors, a
student can choose to watch the video most agreeable to his or her
style. The most empowering featuring of video lectures when compared
with in-classroom lectures is that a video can be played, re-played, and
paused as many times and as per the convenience of the viewer. Thus, a
student can watch and re-watch a lecture until they get the wholesome
understanding of a concept, something that is not possible in real-time.
This feature comes as a boon for shy
students who find it difficult to engage in discussions during a
lecture. For most youths, the overcrowded classroom atmosphere can feel
overpowering and even suffocating. E-learning tools can solve their
problem by letting them hold one-on-one interactions with senior
students or subject experts over the cyberspace. In this way, online
engagement gives a student a way out of the limiting classroom
environment to get their queries resolved on their own terms as suits
them best without them having to follow rigid classroom schedules that
run on express speed.
In addition to these facilities, most
EdTech platforms also leverage advanced AI-based technologies like data
analytics, machine learning and deep learning to map a student’s
learning journey and produce recommendations accordingly. The e-learning
platforms can then use this data to come up with personalised test
series and assessment plans for individual students. Simultaneously,
students can also utilize this facility to make self-assessments and
accordingly work upon their weaknesses and strengths with respect to
each subject.
EdTech is already disrupting the
education sector the world over on the back of its exceptional
accessibility, efficiency, and unparalleled convenience. For students
belonging to a developing country like India, EdTech comes as both a
welcome extension and a much-needed alternative to the existing
educational infrastructure.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:45 AM on Monday, January 13th, 2020
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This Chart Shows the Crypto Market Is On Verge of Bull Phase
Murad Mahmudov, CIO of Bitcoin fund Adaptive Capital, recently drew attention to a textbook chart that applies to any financial market — including crypto — which shows what trends in an asset’s volume, open interest, and price means for said asset’s future trajectory.
Over the past seven months, analysts have been wondering when the crypto market is going to revert back to a bull phase.
You see, when Bitcoin started rallying from $4,000 higher in
early-2019, analysts and investors thought this was the start of a new
bullish paradigm for the cryptocurrency market. But, they were sorely
mistaken when BTC fell by 50% from its peak and crypto assets like Ethereum and XRP actually posted losses on the year.
Per a simple tried-and-true chart depicting trends in markets, the
crypto market is likely on the verge of entering its next bull phase.
Here’s more on why.
Crypto Market About to Enter Bull Phase
Murad Mahmudov, CIO of Bitcoin fund Adaptive Capital, recently drew attention
to a textbook chart that applies to any financial market — including
crypto — which shows what trends in an asset’s volume, open interest,
and price means for said asset’s future trajectory.
The chart shows that the most optimistic scenario for any market is
if the asset’s price, volume, and open interest for its futures market
rise in tandem, suggesting “strength,†“bullish†price action, and an
overall trend of prices rising.
And what do you know! Bitcoin, over the past few weeks, has seen its
price, volume, and open interest increase all at once, showing
effectively no signs of weakness. This suggests the crypto market is on
the verge of entering into a serious uptrend for the first time in
months.
Related Reading: Key Bitcoin Sell Signal Flashes: Here’s Why Analysts Aren’t Concerned
Notably, there is a bull case for Bitcoin rapidly building. For
instance, the Lucid Stop and Reversal indicator, which “signals a stop
and an entry in the opposite direction†when it reverses, just printed
an extremely bullish signal. The indicator shows that Bitcoin just saw its first buy signal since March 2019, with the trend as defined by the SAR turning bullish.
On the fundamental side of things, Bitcoin is now four or so months out from its next block reward reduction, known as a “halvingâ€
or “halvening.†Prominent investors, including former Goldman Sachs
employees, have suggested that this event will affect BTC’s
supply-demand dynamics in a way that will push prices dramatically
higher.
With Bitcoin leading the rest of the crypto market, any strong
increases in the price of BTC should lead to similar price action for
altcoins. Of course, there is a growing expectation that altcoins will underperform the market leader, but a strong uptrend in BTC shouldn’t do anything but help the rest of the crypto market higher.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:50 PM on Sunday, January 12th, 2020
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group metals deposit in Sudbury, Canada. Updated NI 43-101 Mineral
Resource Estimate 2,867,000 PdEq Measured and Indicated Ounces, with an
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For more than a year the silvery-white metal has been more precious than gold Palladium is used in the production of hybrid cars such as Toyota’s Prius, and high prices for the precious metal have led to a rise in the theft of catalytic converters Palladium is used in the production of hybrid cars such as Toyota’s Prius, and high prices for the precious metal have led to a rise in the theft of catalytic converters
Global efforts to clean up petrol cars are driving a record surge in
the precious metal palladium, which has rallied 8 per cent in the first
week of the year to more than $2,000 a troy ounce. The precious metal,
which is now more valuable than gold, has benefited from continued
demand from the car industry for palladium-based catalytic converters on
exhausts, along with limited supply from mines in South Africa and
Russia. Prices for palladium have surged by about 25 per cent since the
beginning of October. Demand for car catalysts has increased over the
past few years due to stricter emissions regulations in Europe and plans
in China to toughen standards.
Catalytic converters take toxic emissions and produce carbon dioxide,
water and nitrogen. Palladium-based catalysts are also used in hybrid
cars, which are powered by engines as well as batteries. Often hybrid
cars require greater quantities of the metal, since the engine is
required at short notice and does not have time to warm up the catalyst.
The high price of palladium has led to a rise in the theft of catalytic
converters from cars.
Last year Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid car, warned drivers in
the UK to take precautions to prevent theft by buying a “Catlocâ€
device, which is fitted around the converter to stop it being cut out.
Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch expect carmakers to struggle
to source more palladium in the next few years as global supply is set
to remain flat, at about 10.2m ounces. Last year it rose to 10.5m
ounces, from 9.9m.
The price of the silvery-white metal overtook gold in December 2018
for the second time, having been more expensive for a period spanning
2000 and 2001. On Thursday palladium was trading at $2108 a troy ounce,
to gold’s $1546. Palladium’s price rise has boosted the stocks of South
African miners, sending the FTSE/JSE African Platinum Mining index up 4
per cent already this year. Michael Widmer, an analyst at BofA, said big
carmakers had begun to consider substituting palladium for other
materials, such as platinum or rhodium, which are in the same family of
precious metals. Rhodium prices are up by about 15 per cent this year,
outpacing palladium.
“Carmakers are starting to look into substitution. It will probably
take another 12 to 18 months,†Mr Widmer said. “You can get hold of
palladium but you have to pay up for it.†He added: “The quicker they do
the substitution, or re-jig the catalysts, the quicker the rally will
ultimately come to an end.â€
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:30 PM on Sunday, January 12th, 2020
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than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest
small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.
The race to integrate crypto into global banking is real
Public sector projects are driving greater interest to adopt fiat-backed cryptocurrencies by central and regional banks.
Metamorworks / Getty Images
Central banks in Asia and Europe are in the final stages of launching digital currencies for future payment systems and cross-border transactions, according to a new report from accounting firm KPMG.
And governments around the world see the launch of these blockchain-based central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as something that could one day give them a competitive advantage in global trade.
“In 2020, we at KPMG expect to assist regional and central banks in
the development of well-defined technology frameworks that can anchor
private-sector initiatives,†Arun Ghosh, U.S. Blockchain Leader at KPMG,
said in a blog post.
Among other banking entitires, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has shown support
for fiat-backed cryptocurrencies, saying they can reduce the reliance
on government-issued money, “and unlike bank transfers, crypto asset
transactions can be cleared and settled quickly without an
intermediary,†Dong He, deputy director of the IMF’s Monetary and
Capital Markets Department, wrote in a post for the IMF.
“The advantages are especially apparent in cross-border payments,
which are costly, cumbersome, and opaque,” He said. “New services using
distributed ledger technology and crypto assets have slashed the time it
takes for cross-border payments to reach their destination from days to
seconds by bypassing correspondent banking networks.â€
In a blog post, the IMF said today’s fiat currencies are in flux “and innovation will transform the landscape of banking and money.â€
Other countries are already looking to innovate in ways that given them an advantage.
China is reportedly close to releasing a national cryptocurrency
that, because of greater efficiencies, could challenge the U.S. dollar
as the de facto currency for international trade. Other smaller
countries such as Sweden are planning their own state-sponsored
cryptocurrency. (Sweden’s would be called the e-Krona.)
And the Bank of England has been researching cryptocurrency since 2015. Even though theit does not currently plan to issue a cryptocurrency linked to Pound sterling, it has published extensive research on the monetary policy and financial system implications of issuing CDBCs.
“If a central bank issued a digital currency, then everyone
(including businesses, households and financial institutions other than
banks) could store value and make payments in electronic central bank
money,†the Bank of England said in a research paper. “While this may
seem like a small change, it could have wide-ranging implications for
monetary policy and financial stability.â€
Regardless of any movement by central banks, Ghosh said, fiat-based ‘stablecoins’
are already being issued by the private sector to support enhanced
value exchange and settlement within organizations and across banking
networks.
For example, JP Morgan Chase announced last year
it had developed what was seen at the time as the first cryptocurrency
backed by a major bank – a move that could legitimize blockchain as a
vehicle for fiat cryptocurrencies. JPM Coin, as the bank calls its new
digital money, is considered fiat currency because it’s backed by U.S.
dollars in accounts designated at JPMorgan Chase N.A.
Each JPM Coin is equal in value to one U.S. dollar.
Wells Fargo has also announced
it will pilot its own cryptocurrency to enable near real-time money
movement and cut out settlement middlemen, thus reducing fees.
And the Reserve Bank of Australia has conducted pilots
with Ethereum-based cryptocurrency in the hope it could be used by
third parties for cross-border payments. So far, the bank has not found a
significant case for its use in light of Australia’s relatively stable
banking system, according to a Senate inquiry into the matter last month.
“The upside for businesses and consumers will trickle down through
adoption…, Ghosh said, nothing that the new systems could result in
“near instantaneous value settlement” with “enhanced cash flow
realization and/or liquidity of certain positions.”
Blockchain is being piloted by financial services institutions in
five primary areas: for clearance and settlement, trade finance,
cross-border payments, insurance claims processing and anti-money
laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) efforts.
For cross-border transactions, stablecoin could cut settlement times
from days to minutes by eliminating the need for private organizations
such as Depository Trust and Clearance Corp. (DTCC) in the U.S. and Euroclear in the European Union. The DTCC and Euroclear now handle securities settlements.
Blockchain-based systems could also streamline the process of buying
and selling stocks and bonds. Those transactions can take up to three
days, with longer delays of up to 10 days not uncommon, according to Bruce Fenton, founder and managing director of Atlantic Financial and a board member of the Bitcoin Foundation.
“The challenge with securities now is you need a trusted third party
to say what’s true,” Fenton said. “It’s not your broker. It’s not
Merrill Lynch or Fidelity and it’s not the issuer either; Apple has no
clue who their shareholders are, either. The function is performed by
these large centralized groups because the brokers don’t necessarily
trust each other; they’re dealing with their competitors.”
The problem with relying on central settlement organizations is that
transactions can get bottlenecked through the use of a single ledger,
such as VisaNet or SWIFT,
he said. With blockchain, trust becomes moot since digital tokens
representing securities or money are inextricably linked to the funds or
securities – and transfers can be done in hours, Fenton said.
Given those efficiencies, more than a half dozen universities are already working on developing a payment system to rival today’s conventional clearance and settlement networks.
In addition to the scaled adoption of cryptoassets now being driven
by the public sector, Ghosh sees four other crypto trends likely to
emerge over the next year or so as business executives apply “an
unprecedented level of innovation … driving new revenue models by
leveraging blockchain and tokenized assets.â€
Those trends include:
Advances in cryptoasset custody technology, or how digital assets
are owned, stored, secured, transferred and accessed in a decentralized
environment.
A shift from private-permissioned to interoperable blockchain
implementations. With many private blockchain implementations coming to
fruition, the next step is interoperability.
More success when scaling the technology with a converged artificial
intelligence (AI) framework – and better results when initializing
their AI investments.
The convergence of AI, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) to help manage climate change.
About that last prediction, Ghosh said: “Decentralized, transparent
data models enabled by blockchain, which houses data transferred via IoT
that is measurable using advanced analytic techniques, can be visible
to a vast number of countries and regulators that are jointly monitoring
and reporting on carbon emissions, rising sea levels and the
remediation of toxic waste, among other applications.
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at 9:00 PM on Sunday, January 12th, 2020
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2020 could be a defining year for the cannabis industry
“There’s going to be a lot of movement in 2020,” said Chris Walsh, chief executive officer of Marijuana Business Daily, a cannabis industry trade publication. “Whether it leads to actual legalization in some states remains to be seen.”
New York (CNN Business)2019 was a momentous year for the cannabis industry: Hemp-derived CBD had a heyday, Illinois made history, California got sticky, vapes were flung into flux, and North American cannabis companies received some harsh wake-up calls.
2020 is gearing up to be an even more critical year.
There’s a well-worn saying in the cannabis business that the
emerging industry is so fast-moving that it lives in dog years. 2020 is
barely a week old, and cannabis is already making headlines after
Illinois kicked off the new year
with recreational sales. Other states are inching closer to
legalization this year — with several mulling how best to ensure social
equity. Also in 2020, there’s the FDA could chill the CBD craze, and a move from Congress could change the game entirely.
The tumultuous past few months have set 2020 up to be a
make-or-break year for some of the biggest in the business as well as
the scores of lesser-known players priming to make their moves.
“There’s going to be a lot of movement in 2020,” said Chris Walsh,
chief executive officer of Marijuana Business Daily, a cannabis industry
trade publication. “Whether it leads to actual legalization in some
states remains to be seen.”
The next US states to legalize cannabis
Fourteen US states and territories have legalized recreational
cannabis sales for adults (although regulations aren’t fully fleshed out
in places like the District of Columbia and Vermont). A total of 33 states have legalized cannabis for medical purposes. Illinois
will remain in focus, after it made history last year with the first
legislatively-enacted recreational cannabis program. Critical aspects of
its program include social equity and social justice measures created
to help people and communities most harmed by the War on Drugs.
“Underserved groups are holding the industry accountable,” said Gia
Morón, executive vice president for Women Grow, a company founded to
further the presence of women in the cannabis industry. “And our
legislators are recognizing that [social, gender and minority concerns]
are a part of this now.”
New York and New Jersey have been flirting with legalization but
have held off to navigate some logistics related to aspects that include
social equity. The governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and
Pennsylvania convened this past fall for a summit on coordinating cannabis and vaping policies. New Jersey is putting a recreational cannabis measure before voters in November, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed Wednesday that New York would legalize cannabis this year.
Other possibilities for states to legalize recreational cannabis
could be Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico,
North Dakota and South Dakota, Walsh said. Even Alabama, Mississippi and
South Dakota could become new medical cannabis markets and other
states’ medical programs could see expansions, he added.
“If you look at the map right now of the US, we’re getting to the
point where there isn’t that many [states] left that can legalize,” he
said. “You can look at any of those and say there might be a chance in
the next year or two for them to legalize.”
Federal legalization
Whether national legalization is on the horizon remains to be seen, said Walsh.
How federal agencies regulate hemp, a cannabis plant with under
0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and derivatives such as cannabidiol
(CBD) could be extremely telling for how the US government might
approach regulation of other forms of cannabis down the road, he said.
CBD products have been all the rage, but they may be on shaky
ground. CBD oils, creams, foods and beverages have seen an explosion in
availability following the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which
legalized hemp but left plenty of discretion to the US Food and Drug
Administration, which regulates pharmaceutical drugs, most food items,
additives and dietary supplements.
The FDA is reviewing CBD and has yet to issue formal guidance,
although the agency has issued warning letters to CBD makers that make
unsubstantiated health claims. Class action lawsuits have been filed
against several CBD companies, including two of the largest, Charlotte’s
Web and CV Sciences, alleging they engaged in misleading or deceptive
marketing practices, Stat News reported.
Cannabis insiders are closely awaiting the fate of
industry-friendly bills such as the STATES Act, which would recognize
cannabis programs at the state level, and the SAFE Banking Act,
which would allow for banks to more easily serve cannabis companies.
Those and other bills likely won’t pass in full, but it’s possible that
some language makes it into more comprehensive legislation, Walsh said.
“It feels like [legalization] has to happen soon, but it might not
happen how people think. You get a bill passed to allow banks to clearly
serve this industry without a whole bunch of restrictions, and that
could be pseudo-legalization,” Walsh said. “So, the actual move by the
federal government to ‘legalize’ marijuana or let states decide might
not come for years; but that reality might play out anyway with some
other type of legislation.”
New regulation in older markets
In addition to the promise of new markets, the evolution of
established cannabis programs could also play a significant role in the
cannabis business landscape.
In California, the world’s largest cannabis industry has developed in fits and starts.
Regulators are taking aim at an entrenched illicit market as businesses
decry tax increases and local control measures that limit distribution.
“California is going to get worse before it gets better,” Walsh said.
And in Colorado, where the nation’s first legal recreational
cannabis sale took place, a slate of new laws are poised to shift the
cannabis landscape by allowing for social consumption businesses and the
ability for out-of-state and publicly traded companies to own licenses.
New products come to Canada
Canada’s “Cannabis 2.0” roll-out
of derivative products — such as edibles, vapes and beverages — is in
its beginning stages. The Canadian publicly traded licensed producers
that have been beset by missed and slow market development have bet
heavily on these new product forms.
But it takes time for provincial and state cannabis programs to get
off the ground, for businesses to come online and for production and
supply to get in a good balance with demand. So any big returns won’t
happen immediately, said Morgan Paxhia, managing director and co-founder
of cannabis investment firm Poseidon Asset Management.
“It’s not going to look any better in Q1 and really into Q2,” he said of the Canadian cannabis sector.
‘Blockbuster failures’
Overall, 2020 should bring volatility for cannabis companies in
Canada and the United States, he said, noting the industry’s current
business cycle is mirroring that of the dot-com bubble and subsequent
burst.
“There were very good companies that have emerged from that period,
but most of the companies during that time are gone,” he said. Paxhia
expects at least one — if not several — “blockbuster failures.”
The capital constraints are expected to continue into the first leg
of 2020 as some initial bets don’t pan out for some companies, said
Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s former cannabis czar who now runs Freedman
& Koski, a firm that consults with municipalities and states
navigating legalization.
Some companies’ low points could create opportunities for other
firms and investors that waited out the first cycle, Freedman said.
“In 2020, I see that everybody will understand the economics of cannabis a little bit better,” he said.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/09/business/cannabis-2020-legalization/index.html
Tags: CBD, Hemp, Marijuana, stocks, tsx, tsx-v, weed Posted in All Recent Posts | Comments Off on PRIMO Nutraceuticals Inc. $PRMO.ca – 2020 could be a defining year for the #cannabis industry #CBD $CROP.ca $VP.ca NF.ca $MCOA
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at 9:00 PM on Sunday, January 12th, 2020
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Nickel demand set to rise in 2020 along with growth in electric vehicle sales
China is stepping up its efforts to be a leader in autonomous cars and is aiming for a quarter of all cars sold in the country to be new-energy vehicles by 2025
500,000 tonnes of refined nickel will be used annually in lithium-ion batteries for EVs by 2025 Â
Nickel’s demand outlook looks bright, especially from the electric vehicle sector of the automotive industry
Fastmarkets analysts estimate that
500,000 tonnes of refined nickel will be used annually in lithium-ion
batteries for EVs by 2025, up from 100,000 tonnes in 2018.
That growth in nickel consumption comes
even before the wider adoption of the nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM)
8-1-1 battery, which the market expects to become an industry staple.
A recent report drafted by the Ministry
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up its efforts to be a leader in autonomous cars and is aiming for a
quarter of all cars sold in the country to be new-energy vehicles [NEVs]
by 2025.
NEVs include electric cars, hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles.
Ban on nickel exports in Indonesia
In response to the risk of increasing
demand tightening local supply, the Indonesian government announced a
ban on the export of raw nickel ores, bringing the ban forward from 2022
to January 2020.
According to GlobalData director of
analysis David Kurtz, this ban is intended to produce value-added nickel
products, stimulate domestic processing of ore, and make the country a
hub for electric vehicle production.
Indonesia is the largest global producer
of nickel and a major supplier of the metal to China’s stainless steel
industry. In anticipation of the ban, Chinese producers are building up
nickel inventories.
This has increased the price of nickel
significantly, with prices at the end of September 2019 reaching more
than $16,000 per tonne, an increase of more than 60% from January.
When the ban was announced, nickel prices increased by 8.8% to reach a peak of $18,620 per tonne, the highest price since 2014.
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20 Blockchain Predictions for 2020
Blockchain is entering a pivotal year in 2020, a period that will decide not just the future of cryptocurrency, but blockchain and the very idea of decentralization.
As a Managing Partner at Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors
(DARMA Capital), and former Head of Global Business Development at
blockchain software powerhouse ConsenSys, I’ve had an inside look at the
rapid development of blockchain technology, the extreme volatility of
crypto markets, and the emerging ecosystem and culture of
decentralization. And let me tell you: Blockchain is entering a pivotal
year in 2020, a period that will decide not just the future of
cryptocurrency, but blockchain and the very idea of decentralization.
Buckle up, because it’s going to be quite the ride. Here are 20 predictions for blockchain in 2020.
1. Ethereum right now is like dial-up internet in 1996—14.4kbps. Soon it will be the equivalent of broadband.
Remember the days of dial-up internet? Let me take you back to 1996:
although AOL was quickly becoming a household name, getting online for
most required swapping tangled wired connections and clogging up phone
lines to access a limited range of products at a snail’s pace. With a
14.4kpbs connection, intrepid retail consumers could browse the world
wide web while transferring data at 1.8kbs per second. To download a
megabyte of data took over 9 minutes. All of the content was text-based
and bare bones, but it worked! Casual observers could see that this
technology would be useful, but few predicted the wholesale societal and
economic transformation the internet would bring to the world within a
matter of years.
Sound familiar? It’s directly analogous to where we’re currently at
with blockchain. 2020 in blockchain years is the equivalent of 1996 in
the internet era. Much like the internet, blockchain progress will kick
into overdrive with Moore’s Law, and Ethereum 2.0 will be the big red
button that launches us off of dial up and into broadband. (Disclosure:
I’ve owned Ethereum for several years.) The signs are all there. Almost
every sector and leading enterprise is looking into blockchain
implementation, governments are terrified of being left behind and are
scrambling to catch up, while the infrastructural elements are now in
place for developers to build, deploy, and scale products. In 2020 we
will begin to see what a decentralized future actually looks like.
2. Bitcoin and blockchain will finally break up
Bitcoin should be revered as the patriarch of digital assets. Bitcoin
confluenced cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, a virtual machine,
and a consensus formation algorithm to solve “the double spend†and “the
Byzantine general’s problem†elegantly. That said, time moves on. The
Bitcoin maximalists that believe Bitcoin is where this decentralizing
technology might be are in for a rude awakening.
As blockchain reaches a scaling watershed, there’s one key
differentiation that the world will come to acknowledge, one that
enthusiasts are likely already very familiar with—the difference between
Bitcoin, Ethereum and other decentralizing technologies. Bitcoin’s
ascension to digital gold has been astounding, and has signaled the
beginning of a whole new techno-economic era. But digital gold is just
that—a beginning.
The current market capitalization of gold is $8 trillion dollars.
That’s an eye-popping number, sure, but it represents a potential
ceiling market opportunity for Bitcoin’s “digital gold.†Smart
contract-enabled blockchains like Ethereum will digitize the global
economy and unlock value in the whole spectrum of assets and processes.
In turn, decentralized networks will reach into the farthest corners of
every industry on the planet (and beyond). We will be able to digitally
represent fiat, gold, software licenses, equity, debt, derivatives,
loyalty points, reputation ratings, and much much more that we can’t
even conceive of yet. That’s a market opportunity estimated at well over
$80 trillion dollars. Bitcoin is a singular use case. Comparatively,
Ethereum has infinite use cases.
3. The potential for global economic recession looms, fiat currencies be warned!
Economic uncertainty has been looming over the globe for years. It’s not so much a matter of if, but when the
house of cards tumbles with major worldwide implications. Europe will
likely be the first to hit recession. One look at the five biggest
economies in the region and it’s clear. Germany’s Deutschebank is on
life support. The United Kingdom has been eating itself with Brexit for
years. France is in a state of constant protest. The Spanish and Italian
economies are drowning. The European Union is by now only nominally a
union, and growing divisions will leave many nations especially
vulnerable.
With respect to the USA, let me paint two realities for you: In 2020,
China and the U.S. finally reach a real trade deal. The economy gets a
tailwind into 2021 and Donald Trump is re-elected. There’s another leg
to this stock market blow-off phase. The house of cards lives another
day. If there is no trade deal or no re-election and the global economy
is further challenged, the bottom could fall out of Quantitative Easing
Mania, and the value of many national currencies around the world will
be challenged like never before. The value of fiat currencies could
endure a precipitous drop in value via extreme inflation.
Digital assets have exiguous properties similar to gold and oil in
that they are provenly scarce. If and when this crisis lands, the
digital asset class will be the hedge to traditional central banking
systems that resort to printing—and thus depreciating—currencies in
times of crisis.
4. The U.S. will have to play catch-up after China’s big play in crypto and blockchain
In January 2020, a new suite of regulation will come into effect that
represents a sharp about turn by the Chinese government towards a
pro-blockchain and cryptocurrency stance. With new legislation towards
mining, state news channels praising Bitcoin, and Chinese President Xi
Jinping announced governmental support for blockchain technology in
October, it’s clear that China is making its move. China’s central bank
will soon test its own digital currency in the cities of Shenzhen and
Suzhou with four state-owned commercial banks. Countries like the United
States that may have been sluggish to take a leading role in supporting
blockchain development will be left with little choice but to play
catch-up, and the result will be a huge net positive for the industry.
5. We march onwards to Ethereum 2.0
The long-awaited Istanbul hard fork—the final hard fork of Ethereum
1.0—has successfully deployed. The Muir Glacier difficulty bomb delay
update was the cherry on top. Vitalik Buterin has already released a
block explorer for the Proof of Stake Beacon Chain, and the march
towards Ethereum 2.0 is proceeding at a rapid clip. Proof of Stake
Ethereum exists. It’s alive! The roadmap to Serenity
is in full effect. 2020 will see Ethereum move stridently beyond Phase 0
of Ethereum 2.0, onto Phase 1 and the launch of shard chains. Then,
it’s game on.
Ethereum developers have already proven their ability to work
wonders, and that this decentralized team is now in the stride of
hitting ambitious roadmap targets is the best indicator in all of
blockchain for future success. To daily observers, this upgrading
process may seem long and winding, but the extra time it takes to
develop the network properly will benefit the entirety of humanity.
While Web2 was defined by philosophies like ‘Move Fast, Break Things,’
Web3 should be guided by mantras like ‘Do it the Right Way This Time.’
6. Layer two scaling solutions will turbocharge Ethereum
Ogres, like onions—and like blockchain networks—are all about layers.
With the rollout of the Istanbul hard fork, Ethereum is on its way
towards 2.0 levels of scalability at layer one. Joe Lubin stated last
year at SXSW that Ethereum will process millions of
transactions a second. How it achieves this is a combination of steady
upgrades to the layer one network and integration of layer two scaling
implementations.
Poon and Buterik’s solution of Plasma’s “blockchains on blockchainsâ€
was not just brilliant and prescient, it was the inception of a whole
sector of Layer Two development. Sharded chains may occupy much of the
debate at the moment, but state channels being developed by Celer,
Connext, and Counterfactual will be the massive mycelial data network
underground that unleashes the main chain to operate unencumbered by
state weight. Sidechains will transact the bulk of lower-risk
transactions rapidly. Payment channels like Raiden will enable
instantaneous token transfers, while ZK-Snarks will keep all of your
data private amidst all the transactional action. The stack is all
there, and 2020 will see 2.0 come to life.
In the meantime, innovations like Plasma’s Optimistic Virtual Rollup
means that projects don’t have to wait for the transactional throughput
they need to flourish. That’s huge. There was a time when blockchain
scaling was driven by theory and hope. No longer! The incredible,
global, decentralized dev teams working on Ethereum will change the
world with this technology, and we are all eternally grateful.
7. Layers of the Web3.0 stack go live
A decentralized environment is about more than just shards and nodes,
and we’ll see that manifest in in 2020. Web3.0 will be defined by mesh
networks connecting smart contracts, file storage, messaging, payment
channels, side chains, oracles—the list goes on. 2020 will see many
essential infrastructural elements of Web3.0 go live.
What is Web3.0? Here’s a quick breakdown:
The digitization of all assets: Stocks, bonds, fiat
currencies, electrons, loyalty points, software licenses, Beyonce
concert tickets, insurance policies, derivatives and other assets
previously inconceivable, will become natively digital.
The automation of agreements: Microsoft Word legal
documents will turn into digitalIf > Then > Else lines of computer
code that will move the aforementioned digital assets trustlessly,
creating completely new business models like an employment agreement
that gets paid by the minute, a piece of art that can pay a royalty to
an artist every time it is sold from one owner to the next, a piece of
real estate that can pay its investors automatically every time rent
comes in, the ability to divide income amongst band members every time a
song is played, or routing an electron efficiently to various parts of a
micro-grid.
Self-Sovereign Identity: Instead of logging into
Airbnb, Facebook, Uber, et al, you will log into your own self-sovereign
browser, and will have the same ability to rent a hotel room, use
social media or hail a car, but instead of the legacy application
providers the same service will occur peer-to-peer, rather than through a
thin layer of rent-seeking intermediation. You’ll get paid $1 dollar a
day to look at advertising when on social media instead of Zuckerberg
and your ride and home shares will be 2/3rd of the current cost.
Some examples: The Interplanetary File System has already showed the
nature of data file storage on the decentralized web. Protocol Labs’
Filecoin builds on IPFS to rent users’ hard drive space for crypto. The
platform is on schedule to launch in March, with the testnet just launched very recently.
Helium is a mesh network where stakeholders purchase nodes under $500
to provide low bandwidth for Internet of Things devices. Tom
Shaughnessy of Delphi Digital recently noted, “Since going live on
August 1, 2019, over 2,130 nodes are live on the network covering 90% of
U.S. states across 425+ cities. At Verizon’s IoT costs (600KB/year for
$12), Helium is underpricing Verizon by 99.9988% ($0.00001 for 24 bytes
or 0.024 KB). This type of price consolidation we should expect from the
next generation of cell phone service providers, data storers, and
truly any intermediary via a decentralized world wide web.
Kyle Samani, and the team at Multicoin Capital have done a great job
of mapping a potential Web3.0 software stack with examples of companies
attempting to provide solutions. Although it remains the very early days
and we’ll see tremendous competition for a hegemonic position for all
layers of the Web3.0 stack, the Web3.0 stack will likely look a little
something like this:
Credit: Multicoin Capital
8. Expect a radically altered blockchain landscape by 2021
By the turn of 2021, we will have a much clearer picture of whether
newfangled layer one blockchain networks like Near, Polkadot, Dfinity,
and Nervos will be able to contribute substantially to the blockchain
ecosystem. Competition is good and I remind everyone that the goal is
global disintermediation, decentralization, and the commoditization of
trust, rather than a brand of protocol winning. That said, this sprint
to layer one supremacy has only spurred on the development of Ethereum
2.0, and the many competing elements are experimenting with new ways to
develop the best blockchain product. The answer to who will succeed lies
with developers and users.
Ethereum still retains the most robust developer engagement by far.
Some view this race as a winner-takes-all, but with so much to be gained
from developing this new technology, coopetition will raise the tide
for all. There could also be fit-for-purpose blockchains, that satisfy
particular niches. New competitors to the layer 1 space will have to
deal with Matteo Leibovitz’s “distribution quadrilemma,†which states
criteria that new networks must simultaneously satisfy at launch to
engender monetary premium. They are:
wide/equitable distribution
revenue generation
potential for upside
regulatorily compliant
The biggest challenge is requirement #4. If a VC or multiple whales
own a large amount of a network’s tokens—a ubiquitous occurrence with
layer one “Ethereum Killers†— it will be incredibly difficult to sway
the SEC that the token isn’t a security, which means all those big
investments and will disrupt nothing but VC piggy banks.
9. The tribulations of Libra will continue…
Facebook’s Libra will not go live in 2020 in any form of scale. The
“decentralized wolf in sheep’s clothing†has already done much to bring
blockchain to the forefront of global discourse—for better, and at
times, for worse. But the company is learning fast that consensus and
deployment do not always adhere to the best laid plans of even
billionaires. When it does go live, Libra will undoubtedly be a force of
education and adoption for billions of people. Farmville with crypto? I
can’t wait! Before it gets to that point, however, expect Chinese
organizations like WeChat, Alipay, and Alibaba to aggressively pursue
first mover status in the space given the recently relaxed regime in the
country. Trust in Facebook stagnates still as we enter another election
year in the US. If social media has proven so earth-shakingly
problematic, we can only guess what ills Facebook’s version of ‘social
banking’ may hold within.
10. Trillion dollar companies signal the climax and end of the 3rd industrial revolution
Apple. Microsoft. PetroChina. Saudi Aramco. When the next behemoth
rises over a trillion dollar valuation—it will stay there. That same
company probably won’t pay a single dollar in U.S. taxes. This is a
prime example of vast inequality in the value capture of our economic
systems, and it’s only getting worse. Legacy Web2.0 companies are making
billions for the shareholder capital class by using the individual as
the product. They’re spilling personal data into the clutches of
nefarious actors with alarming regularity. As more and more companies
pass the trillion dollar mark, it will signal the blow-off phase of late
capitalism. After the inevitable crash, we’ll be faced with a
once-in-an-epoch opportunity for more equitable, democratized, and
sustainable business models to proliferate. Will you be ready?
11. Self Sovereignty on the web will become a human right
With hacks and breaches in both Web2.0 and Web3.0 environments a
daily occurrence, it’s clear that change is a necessity. Projects like
the Decentralized Identity Foundation have taken major strides in
establishing open source standards that will furnish the whole
blockchain ecosystem with digital identity components that are
trustworthy and decentralized. Blockchain IDs and zero-trust datastores
like those created by uPort and 3box will rapidly replace the creaky
walled databases we rely on now. Establishing this web of trust may be
amongst the most important pieces of the blockchain puzzle in 2020.
Web2.0 stalwarts like IBM and Microsoft are well aware of the urgency
of the issue, and they’ve allocated substantial resources to iterating
digital identity in their own image. But self-sovereignty must be just
that—owned by our selves—before the internet can be truly democratized.
Ownership and privacy of data will soon be seen as a human right, and
self sovereignty is the solution to attaining it.
12. Say it with me…CME Ether futures
After Bitcoin futures options in January, I have a feeling that it’ll
be Ethereum’s turn. CME Ether Futures will be announced in 2020 and
will go live in 2020. The CME has an almost 125 year history of
innovation in financial instruments, birthing both new asset classes and
digitizing the process of exchange along the way. With Bitcoin and
Ethereum, the CME will continue this tradition of innovation, in turn
catalyzing legitimacy for digital assets and opening access doors for
mainstream investors and institutions to kickstart the next round of
market growth for digital assets. Futures & options create forward
demand curves that are a necessary precursor to a regulated ETF market.
Our once child-like asset class is growing up.
13. A billion dollar DeFi ecosystem is a matter of months away
Decentralized Finance will continue to lead the industry in the first
quarter of 2020. Over $600 million dollars are currently locked up in
decentralized finance platforms. That number will cross one billion
before summer. Organizations like a16z have bet big on platforms MKR and
Compound, while projects like Synthetix, Uniswap, dYdX, and InstaDapp
are furnishing a feverishly active sector of the blockchain ecosystem,
one that isn’t immediately contingent upon scaling timelines. That said,
DeFi organizations will probably have to spend some big legal dollars
in compliance and lobbying. Just one example: in all 50 states, a
company needs a specific license to lend to retail clients. When DeFi
inevitably gets too big to ignore, regulators will roll out the red tape
carpet.
14. The sleeping giant of blockchain awakens — supply chain
Counterfeit goods represent a market of over $1.8 billion dollars
annually, with some estimates seeing that number rising over 10% as
production and online distribution methods improve. Household names like
Louis Vuitton and Levi’s have been quietly perfecting proof of concept
trials with leading blockchain companies to ensure provenance and
protect consumers on a global scale. Treum has already shown the value
of blockchain-ensured supply chain processes on items ranging from salsa
to tuna to skincare products. Now, major box retailers like Walmart and
international food corporations Nestle and Dole are diving in head
first. A recent report stated that companies in Western Europe alone are
set to save $450 billion dollars in the next fifteen years with
blockchain based supply chain solutions, with operating costs reduced
almost 1% across the board. That’s a whole lotta tuna!
15. Art and music will take a lead in consumer-interfacing blockchain applications
Blockchain’s impact on art, music, and the creative space will be
profound. In a 2014 report, The Fine Arts Expert Institute (FAEI) in
Geneva stated that over 50% of artworks it had examined were either
forged or not attributed to the correct artist. Blockchain can fix this
now, and I’ve experienced it myself. This year, I purchased a work of
art titled “The Human Way†by Vladimir Kush. The payment, certificate of
authenticity, and ownership history were irrevocably recorded on the
Ethereum blockchain with Treum. By this time next year, this process
will be far more commonplace. And it’s not just provenance that makes
the arts a prime field for blockchain implementation. Tokenized
ownership and the establishment of equitable business models not
beholden to gatekeepers have the attention of the art world already.
Watch this space.
16. Proof of Work is dying while killing Earth. Long live Proof of Stake.
Retro gaming may be in vogue, but by the end of 2020, Proof of Work
will be considered the Atari while we’re all getting used to the
controls on the Proof of Stake Playstation. Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum
were early adopters of the concept of Proof of Stake, and now there’s a
whole industry of projects utilizing stake-based validators to uphold
blockchain networks. The reason why is clear: Not only does it unlock
the scalability trilemma in terms of speed and security, it is far less
taxing on the Earth—y’know, the thing we’re trying to change with this
whole decentralization movement anyway. Proof of Work is inherently
wasteful, and what’s the point of revolutionizing economic systems if it
means contributing to the destruction of the environment? It’s time to
move forward.
17. Regulators gonna regulate
While the expectations of the blockchain and larger tech world may
move fast, regulators and governments were built to move slowly. Digital
assets have now moved out of a phase of distrust by legislative and
regulatory institutions, and policy at both the agency and legislative
level is aligning to unshackle the technology and streamline regulation.
The most recent guidance from the IRS in October suggests that the US
government acknowledges that virtual currencies will play a big part in
the economy to come. Further, it is well known that the CFTC does not
see Ether as a security. Wyoming’s leadership in this regard—with a
total of 13 pro-blockchain laws—is behooving other states to catch up.
And if there’s one thing that will provide an impetus for the federal
government to move forward on the issue, it’s not being left behind by
China. 2020 will see positive guidance on blockchain introduced at the
state, national, and international level.
18. The unbanked remain unbanked — For now
Decentralized Finance is a remarkable phenomenon with major
implications for both blockchain and global economies, but for the time
being it will continue to fall short of the oft-repeated mantra and goal
of ‘banking the unbanked’ via providing access to financial services to
billions of people around the world who need it most. Why? As it
stands, the lending community is insular, and issues around ‘reputation’
mean that those who need it most can’t access it. These will surely be
ironed out over time, but for the duration of 2020, Decentralized
Finance will continue to steadily grow in an enlarging, but closed
circle. And that’s not a bad thing. Look at it this way: The sector is
already approaching the billion dollar mark, and we’re still effectively
in beta mode.
19. User Experience Will Have To Be Better Than Web2.0
Apple’s iPhone is the best selling phone ever because it’s simple and
it works. That’s all the consumer needs to know. While many of us tech
nerds get our jollies tinkering around the various layers of the Web3.0
stack, everything will need to be abstracted away for the
typical Web3.0 user experience to appeal to the general populous. That’s
why masterfully artistic UI/UX designers are as important to this
industry right now as low layer distributed systems computer scientists.
But UX/UI isn’t just about clean lines and minimal design. From
standards to libraries, toolkits, scaling solutions, onboarding, custody
and wallet integration, there’s so much that has to be optimized
beneath the screen to present that level of functional simplicity. Rimble
is an example of an open-source library for creating improved user
experiences for Web3.0 decentralized applications. Expect this to be a
prime sector for development in 2020. While the first wave of
decentralized consumer apps put blockchain front and center, the next
will be led by projects that are more subtle and nuanced in the method
of blockchain integration.
The bubble and burst of cryptocurrency in 2017 was like an excessive
frat house rager that led to a helluva hangover in 2018 and 2019. There
are two types of bubbles, though. Some — like the housing crash of 2008 —
leave behind debt encumbrances and waste, while others — like the
dot.com bubble — establish foundational infrastructure and crystallize
key organizations which go on to become a backbone of the industry. The
crypto bubble is akin to the latter, and will lead to the real
blockchain boom, one driven by utility, not speculation.
In the wake of crypto markets’ irrational exuberance in 2017 and
equally irrational despondency in 2018, the core blockchain community of
developers and technologists got to work, heads down, and focused on
building infrastructure. Their labor is now bearing fruit. We’re at the
crossroads of the next industrial revolution, and it begins in 2020.
This progress towards global decentralization and automation will lead
to the most prosperous society we’ve ever had.
Here’s to the roaring 20’s!
Andrew Keys is a managing partner of Digital Asset Risk Management Advisors (DARMA Capital), a digital asset investment fund. Previously, Andrew was head of global business development of ConsenSys,
the largest software engineering firm in the world solely focused on
creating blockchain solutions to build the future of the Internet. Jemayel Khawaja,
Editorial Director at ConsenSys, aided in the research and writing of
these predictions. This article is not intended as investment advice or
solicitation. These are Andrew’s personal views and not that of DARMA
Capital or ConsenSys.
