Filecoin, the world’s largest decentralized storage network, has launched its mainnet, enabling people from all over the world to store, request, retrieve and transfer data, independently of privately owned gatekeepers. 

Filecoin is a completely open-source, decentralized network that allows users to store, request, and transfer data via a verifiable marketplace. Following a period of rigorous network testing and development, the novel data storage and distribution network is set to revolutionize the $46 billion cloud storage industry and spearhead a more robust, efficient, decentralized foundation for humanity’s datasets. Exhibiting the vast capacity of the network, in less than 2 months, 557  miners securely stored over 598 PiB of data in the testing phase — that’s enough to store 170M HD movies, 2,500 Wikipedias, or 100 Netflix Movie Archives. 

The datasphere is estimated to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025, yet 93% of data created doesn’t currently get stored. The current architecture makes the web brittle, undermines privacy, allows the price of storage to remain artificially high, and creates bottlenecks that prevent innovative new uses of data. The Filecoin network is an alternative to costly cloud storage for the data-centric economy, where individual storage clients and storage miners compete for transactions based on price, reputation, reliability, retrievability, and latency. This model allows clients to get the best possible price from storage miners as well as creating an efficient marketplace for miners to operate storage bidding. 

Harnessing the world’s underutilized storage assets, Filecoin’s marketplace creates a unique sharing economy, aligning incentives and pragmatically rewarding useful and reliable storage, that has the power to drive an unprecedented economy of scale for pricing storage solutions. Distributing the world’s data storage, and moving it away from the current cloud oligopoly which relies on physical servers kept in a concentrated number of data centers, will also serve to enhance data security and resilience by reducing the threat of damage, loss, theft, firewall or attack. 

Juan Benet, CEO and Founder of Filecoin, said, “It’s been a long road, but paradigm-shifting technology takes time, effort, research, and collaboration. I am extremely proud of the Filecoin community, the many teams of scientists, builders, miners, and users across the globe, persevering in their vision for a better internet. The internet is humanity’s most important technology, it’s our shared nervous system — our shared brain. Most of our lives exist online — it’s where we work, play, and learn together — but the foundations are fragile. Right now the internet is in the middle of a revolution, and, with the launch of Filecoin, it is beginning the transition back to its decentralized roots so we can all work together to safeguard this valuable resource for the world. Here’s to a better web and a brighter future.”

Filecoin has been rapidly gearing up to mainnet launch, revealing several crucial developments and initiatives in recent months; 

• The Filecoin Discover store, an initiative aimed at cataloging a continuously-growing store of important public data, was launched. Filecoin Discover provides miners the opportunity to select datasets spanning literature, science, art, and history to store, and which are all now open and accessible to the public following mainnet launch. The catalog of open-source datasets includes: ENCODE, 1000 Genomes, Project Gutenberg, Berkley’s Self Driving Data.
• Space Race, Filecoin’s testnet incentives initiative, also saw 360 miners across the globe participate in an intensive program to test the capacity of the network in the most realistic conditions ahead of launch. Over 3 weeks, more than 230PiB was sealed on the Filecoin network. 
• Engineering Filecoin’s Economy, the protocol’s cryptoeconomics report, detailed the operations of the network and important characteristics for miners on the network. 

Brad Burnham, founding partner of Union Square Ventures and an early investor in Protocol Labs, said, “The launch of Filecoin is an important milestone in the evolution of the open Internet.  The exuberant, emergent innovation of the early web has been stifled by the market power of a few large data monopolies. We now understand the Internet’s decentralized, open communications infrastructure is not enough to ensure the freedom to innovate. Only with a decentralized, open data storage network like Filecoin will we fulfill the Internet’s original promise. I am proud of the team for getting us to launch, and thrilled by the prospect of a new wave of Internet innovation.”

Filecoin’s ecosystem is composed of hundreds of companies and projects, and thousands of open source contributors who have been responsible for its development. The economic design of the Filecoin network aims to align incentives and pragmatically reward useful and reliable storage. The Filecoin launch aims to decentralize data stores to safeguard their preservation and eliminate the risk of a single point of failure. 

About Filecoin

Filecoin is a decentralized network that allows users to store, request, and transfer data via a verifiable marketplace. Filecoin is completely open-source, enabling people from all over the world to participate — making it the world’s largest decentralized storage network. The Filecoin protocol runs on an advanced and novel proof system — a combination of Proof of Spacetime (PoSt) and Proof of Replication (PoRep), to provide unmatched efficiency and reliability. 

Building the world’s largest decentralized storage network, Filecoin’s advanced technology provides a robust foundation to store the world’s most valuable data sets.  An alternative to costly cloud storage, Filecoin offers reliable storage at competitive prices, minimizing financial barriers, and allowing users to take advantage of its unmatched network capabilities.

The post The Future of the Data Economy is Here: Filecoin is Live appeared first on ChipIn.

Fasset, a UK-headquartered fintech company, has launched the world’s first comprehensive operating system dedicated to the ethical financing of sustainable infrastructure on the Ethereum blockchain. Inspired by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Fasset hopes to expedite the construction of sustainable infrastructure while providing safe, secure, and yielding investments to a broader investor base. This is in response to increasingly pronounced climate degradation and a clear lack of capital entering the sustainable infrastructure sector—estimated by the World Economic Forum to be moving towards a US$15 trillion deficit by 2040.

Founded in early 2019, Fasset has already amassed more than US$4.7 million raised from strategic backers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Singapore. The company aims to bridge the physical, financial, and digital worlds to create and offer a new asset class to all types of investors—“Hard Asset Tokens”, which are digital representations of infrastructure assets, such as solar farms or fiber optic networks. The platform uses blockchain technology to fractionalise these large, previously illiquid assets, representing these “pieces” digitally—similar to traditional stocks in a company representing fractional ownership. As a result, these previously unavailable and unlisted assets become highly liquid, more accessible, and easily tradable—allowing retail and institutional investors seeking to diversify their digital portfolios to invest in a low-risk, highly-resilient, yielding and liquid asset class.

Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Fasset Chief Executive Officer and former Technology Advisor to the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, says: “With climate change expected to cost the world economy US$7.9 trillion by 2050, impacting lives and communities, the need for sustainable infrastructure has never been more urgent. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has placed the global economy at a standstill with massive job losses and markets tumbling around the world. The most direct and effective way to accelerate the production of large-scale sustainable infrastructure projects—and in turn, create sustainable jobs for the global economy—is through hard asset tokenisation and the democratising access to these investments. We believe that there is, today, an unprecedented opportunity to equalise the global economy while creating sustainable jobs and fighting climate change—and the time to seize it is now.”

This need for sustainable infrastructure funding is global—while emerging markets are looking to keep pace with urbanisation, developed markets must upgrade deteriorating infrastructure. Meanwhile, as of the end of 2019, US$11 trillion in negative yielding bonds are being held. This gross mismatch in capital creates a unique opportunity for the private sector in its desperate search of high quality assets. However, private sector investors face a cumbersome and inefficient process in financing infrastructure, with issues such as:
Low Levels of Liquidity: Though private infrastructure funds exist, investors have limited exit options and are unable to construct portfolios with optionality;
Large Ticket Sizes: Only the largest investors can access infrastructure investment opportunities due to the magnitude of the investment;
Lack Of Optionality: The nature of illiquidity inhibits optimal portfolio construction, limiting asset diversification opportunities;
High Costs and Fees: Layers of intermediation and a lack of direct investment opportunities lead to higher costs and fees for investors.

To address these issues, which have ultimately limited capital inflows to sustainable infrastructure projects on a global level, Fasset introduces the first of its two flagship products—the Fasset Enterprise Platform (FEP)—aimed at providing tokenisation services to any hard asset owners looking to tokenise their assets for fundraising purposes. By moving the entire sustainable infrastructure financing process to the blockchain, Fasset enables a wider investor audience to get exposure to assets that were previously illiquid, inaccessible, and had high barriers to entry. At the same time, asset owners can bypass costly middlemen to directly list their assets on an exchange, gain faster access to liquidity and court a wider base of like-minded investors. Fasset will also be launching a regulated exchange for hard assets in the near future.

“It’s a well-known fact that infrastructure projects provide dividends for an economy long after the project is finished,” continues Hossain. “In fact, for each $1 billion of construction work, there are 6,000 man-years of employment. In today’s economic situation and with record job shortages worldwide, this is very powerful. Fasset wants to create an ecosystem for the efficient financing of sustainable infrastructure by providing tokenisation services to any infrastructure asset owners looking to digitise and fractionalise equity of their assets. Fasset is just one small effort among a larger and more coordinated global effort needed, but we hope to work towards meeting one of the most urgent needs of our time.”

Jean-Louis Ekra, Board Member for the Africa Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and African power generation developer Globeleq, former President and Chairman of the African Export-Import Bank, and Fasset Advisor, notes: “With the growing threat of climate change and the unpredictable impact of COVID-19, our global economy is becoming increasingly fragile, threatening livelihoods and impacting the most vulnerable communities across the world. It is up to the next generation of business leaders and innovators, such as Fasset, to create greater equitability amongst markets and economies. By merging traditional assets that are the backbones of any healthy economy with emerging financial technology, Fasset is laying strong foundations for sustainable investments, paving the way for a more ethical and sustainable future for generations to come.”

“Cryptoassets and decentralised finance have shown great potential and have secured their place in the global fintech evolution,” adds Lawrence Wintermeyer, Co-Chair of the digital asset members organisation Global Digital Finance with industry-leading patron and advisory council members such as Coinbase, DLA Piper, Huobi, R3, and Hogan Lovells. “DeFi solutions are evolving at a lightning pace and the innovations being built at Fasset will help develop structural fundamentals and financial stability into a space that is traditionally very volatile. As a GDF member, Fasset is aligned to GDF’s mission to further the advancement of the next generation of financial technologies and we’re excited to welcome Mohammad and his team in the community as they realise the future of sustainable investing.”

According to a McKinsey report, a total of US$2 to 2.5 trillion is invested into sustainable infrastructure annually. By taking into account Fasset’s initial geographic focus on emerging markets and in energy and power based assets, the immediately addressable market totals US$135 billion. While there are many players looking to tokenise hard assets, Fasset will be the only full-service platform offering tokenisation
of hard assets with a fully-functioning exchange.

About Fasset

Fasset is the operating system for financing sustainable infrastructure built on the Ethereum blockchain. Fasset offers a platform for the ethical financing of sustainable infrastructure, creating a new class of assets for investors built on blockchain and rooted in real-world, physical investments. This allows for a never-before-possible level of portfolio diversification that enhances people’s lives.

The post Fasset Launches to Accelerate Investments and Growth in Sustainable Infrastructure Development appeared first on ChipIn.

Unitize, the collaborative online blockchain event organized by San Francisco Blockchain Week and Blockshow, has announced its agenda and a number of new additions to its speaker lineup. Taking place on July 6th – 10th, 2020, Unitize is a one-off online conference designed to bring together the blockchain community to celebrate the continued progress that has been made in the first half of 2020 and to foster further collaboration and engagement.

Building on the success of the well-attended San Francisco Blockchain Week and Blockshow events, Unitize will bring together prominent thought leaders from the blockchain community for an engaging series of live broadcasts, virtual exhibitions, and fireside chats. Featured speakers will discuss a broad range of topics, from the potential impact and benefits that blockchain technology holds for enterprises to how developing regulations will shape the sector. New speakers announced today include Chris Giancarlo, former CFTC Chairman and Commissioner; Daniel Gorfine, Former Director, LabCFTC and Chief Innovation Officer; Dan Morehead, Founder and CEO of Pantera Capital; entrepreneur and angel investor, Balaji S. Srinivasan; Congressman Stephen Lynch, Chair of the Task Force on Financial Technology; and Congressman Ted Budd.

Commenting on the event, Jonathan Allen, Unitize organizer and co-founder of San Francisco Blockchain Week, said, “Organizing Unitize was our way of helping to celebrate the blockchain builders and developers who have kept their heads down in recent months, and continued to work on furthering this incredible technology that we’ve all come to know and love. Events like San Francisco Blockchain Week have always been about the community, content you can learn from, and getting people together to have a dialogue on where the industry is heading. Although industry events have been turned on their head in recent months, we wanted to demonstrate the resilience of the blockchain industry and show that it’s still possible to facilitate great discussions and host a world-class event while doing so.”

The speakers announced today join an already jam-packed schedule, including well-known industry heavyweights such as Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin; Founder and CEO of Binance, Chanpeng Zhao (CZ); Hester Peirce, Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Tim Draper, renowned venture capitalist and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Each day of the five-day conference has a specific theme, with speakers taking to the stage to present their thoughts on a number of pertinent topics, including governance, regulation, security, and more.

Further additions to the list of speakers and the finalized agenda are due to be announced in the coming weeks before the event. ”

Gabriel Yang, Co-organizer of Unitize and Head of Strategy at BlockShow, also added, “These unique times, though challenging for us all, have also brought unique opportunities. Simply being online creates a neutral platform for us to collaborate, and our work in creating innovative virtual events that encourage participation, not just with San Francisco Blockchain Week but also with other co-hosts that have contributed in various ways, is testament to this approach. Being online brings down barriers to entry when it comes to accessing inspirational content or valuable networking connections from around the world, and opens up the possibility of attending to people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to make it to a physical event, due to geographic or time constraints. This is an important time to be having discussions about how technology can improve the society we live in, and we encourage anyone who is curious about the potential of blockchain technology to register for the event and take advantage of the opportunity to hear and learn from some of the most well-respected voices in the industry.”

Those interested in finding out more about Unitize and registering for the event should visit: https://unitize.online/

About Unitize

Co-organized by San Francisco Blockchain Week and Blockshow, Unitize is a unique online conference that brings some of the biggest and brightest names in the blockchain industry together for a week of collaboration, engagement, and once in a lifetime networking opportunities.

Unitize will take place from July 6-10th, 2020 and is free to attend. Supported by leading figures from throughout the blockchain ecosystem, Unitize will unite the decentralized community for a week of immersive content on timely topics including governance, regulation, security, and more.

The post Unitize Conference Announces Agenda and New Additions to Speaker Lineup appeared first on ChipIn.

What does the growing appetite for digital assets among institutional investors mean for traditional markets? And why is digital asset investment growing in Europe at a faster rate than the US? We have gathered commentary from industry experts including AVA Labs, Securrency, and METACO, available below.

John Wu, President at AVA Labs commented:

“This research makes it clear that institutions now have the expertise, tools, and economic incentive to take action and invest in cryptocurrencies and digital assets. First and foremost, institutional investors have made tremendous progress in sorting the facts from fiction across the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and now have a firm understanding of the real-world value and potential of the crypto asset class.

At the same time, core infrastructures like custodians and trading technologies have matured and are now offered by established firms like Fidelity. Add the backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty, extensive fiscal policies, and fears of monetary inflation, and the barrier between crypto being a mainstream, investable asset class isn’t as insurmountable as years past. These factors are helping to legitimize crypto to traditional institutions, and have opened the door for the next wave of investment.”

Seamus Donoghue, VP Sales and Business Development at METACO commented:

“Fidelity’s report confirmed a trend that I’ve observed over the last year: the institutional adoption of digital assets has been growing and broadening. As the report points out, the majority of early adopter institutional investors have so far been sector focused crypto or venture funds, High-Net-Worth-Individuals, or individuals and family offices. Adoption has now shifted from those early adopters to Tier 1 and 2 global financial firms such as investment banks, infrastructure banks, and legacy exchanges—many of which are very well known brands.

The last few months have seen a distrust in financial markets become increasingly pervasive. Recent central bank policy, although a catalyst for broad market recoveries, is again raising questions of longer term fiat sustainability as a store of wealth—just as occurred in the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 when Bitcoin was born. It is clear that investor appetite is near an inflection point that could really accelerate adoption.

The obstacle for large institutional money entering the sector is in the onramps to digital assets: the legacy banks and brokers that service mainstreet, asset managers and pension funds have been slow to add the capacity to service investor needs. The alternative has been for individuals and institutional investors to seek out specialist firms and undergo new onboarding, requiring significant adjustment to get funds into such firms. This also raises the question of the counterpart risk of leaving crypto in such a firm’s custody.

Self-custody would be a game-changer if the main investment banks and brokers offered access, but until that point there remains a significant barrier to entry to the market, when in comparison purchasing equities requires a simple click. Once the incumbent players in financial markets offer access, adoption will significantly increase. If you can trade Bitcoin futures through the same broker and exchange that you trade Eurodollar futures, the ease of access and seamless integration with your existing rails removes the barriers to entry to crypto futures markets.

Gaps in the regulatory environment between the US and other parts of the world, explain figures from Fidelity’s findings that 27% of institutional investors in the U.S. and 45% in Europe are invested in digital assets. In jurisdictions where regulators have a clear taxonomy for crypto and a licensing regime such as Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Singapore, the legacy banks can and will build capabilities. With the acceleration we see in Europe, particularly in markets like Germany, that adoption gap between the US will only widen over the next year.

European banks have the potential to emerge as the global crypto leaders as investors seek trustless safe havens such as Bitcoin. This trend is not going unnoticed by the US banks that currently dominate global markets. Once US regulators align and provide their banking sector with clear guidance, the market will also see explosive growth in the US.”

Manuel Rensink, Strategy Director at Securrency commented:

“It is difficult to pinpoint a precise cause as to the greater adoption of digital assets in Europe by institutional investors, but one can surmise that there are two broad issues that contribute to this phenomenon. First, the depth and breadth of the US market offers more existent variety, resulting in a lower sense of urgency among US investors to seek alternatives. Second, the different regulatory approaches almost certainly contribute to this. The ability of different European national regulators to innovate somewhat independently with respect to digital assets has led to clarity in places like Switzerland, and regulatory clarity is a key contributor to institutional and even retail adoption. By contrast, the fragmentation and overlap among US regulatory authorities tends to yield a more methodical, cautious approach. Innovation is certainly explored by US regulators, but implementation often lags well behind. One might also consider a third factor, one based on cultural differences. Europeans tend to be more mobile and apt to travel from place to place, so perhaps it is not surprising that they are quicker to adopt more agile forms of investment and finance.

Although crypto was originally touted as a global medium of exchange, in reality the “killer app” of crypto appears to be speculation, and futures are a useful tool for leverage and arbitrage. The more cynical may attribute institutional interest in this space to be reflective of the significant information advantage held by large institutions in a market with relatively large spreads. A more charitable view would be that institutions prefer the futures market because it fits within their existing investment mandates and allows them to mitigate against custodial risk and the provenance of potentially “dirty” coins. Whatever the case, crypto futures appear to be well on their way to becoming a de rigueur component of institutional investment.”

The post Expert Takes – Fidelity Report States that a Third of Institutional Investors Own Crypto Assets appeared first on ChipIn.

While having positive implications for blockchain adoption in Chinese enterprises, what does the launch of BSN mean for the global blockchain industry? What are the primary problems with the service? Is this a stepping stone to the Chinese Central Bank Digital Currency, and does this make China a leader in the international race for blockchain innovation?

Please find below a selection of commentary from a number of experts in the space, each of whom has a unique take on the development.

Jason Wu, CEO of DeFiner.org:

“The launch of China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) will increase the blockchain adoption competition between countries. Soon after the advance announcement of the BSN, the Facebook blockchain project Libra settled with the U.S. Congress to move forward and launch a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. This will have a long term educational impact, helping people become more familiar with digital assets and growing the industry. As for the short term, the impact is limited, as the subsequent Chinese blockchain projects on BSN will all be led by a centralized organization and not be wholly supported by the current blockchain consumers-based community.

Looking at this international competition for blockchain adoption — China’s leadership is still in question. In China, Government related R&D, think tanks, and stated owned companies are leaders in the field of blockchain. However, the general public or private sector is not as advanced as the U.S. The fundamental principle of blockchain is about decentralization to achieve standardization and to become a public commodity like oil or coal. This usually fails if the project is led by a big organization, as the fundamental consensus is different. BSN will be like a traditional IT platform — it can’t solve the trust issue as there is still a centralized organization to manage the network. For this reason, it is not a blockchain breakthrough nor will it bring fundamental change to society. Decentralized Finance (DeFi), on the other hand, is a true fundamental change, as it will have a big impact on people’s financial transactions.”

Nick Cowan, CEO of the GSX Group:

“China’s increased appetite for blockchain exploration is a further signal of recognition of the tremendous value this nascent technology can bring to practically every industry. Any entity that can accelerate the growth of breakthrough companies, by producing new and innovative solutions to legacy issues, should be welcomed and encouraged. The creation of the BSN indicates the importance China has put on taking a leading role in the development of blockchain, at a time when swift, decisive action will be key to making a large impact in the future digital global economy.

To be clear, blockchain is still very much in the early stages of development, despite a plethora of exciting solutions that have already come to fruition. Many have predicted that blockchain will become as much an aspect of everyday life as the internet, with vast swathes of citizens owning a wallet for digital assets, or having their documentation and bills handled on the blockchain. At GSX Group we’re using blockchain to transform the capital markets legacy systems, driving efficiencies, removing counterparty risk and lowering costs, from a T+2 model to T Instant. Our work is but one area of blockchain-powered innovation, and if more countries lend their support to bespoke blockchain programmes we could see more innovations like our own across a range of sectors, empowering companies to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.”

Ashish Singhal, CEO of Coinswitch.co and CRUXPay, said:

“The BSN is probably not the first attempt, but may be the largest attempt at blockchain adoption by the government of a powerful nation. This move might set off other governments in similar directions, which is a good thing. Another positive thing coming out of BSN is its acceptance of public blockchain. At first, it was widely believed that BSN would only incorporate permissioned blockchain, but it now seems that they will integrate the Ethereum and EOS blockchain too. This is a considerable move and may act as a catalyst for mass adoption.

China, although opposed to cryptocurrency, can undoubtedly be considered as a leader in blockchain space. They have filed the highest number of blockchain patents in the world. For a while now, they have been trying to launch a blockchain-based national currency and have roped in all major sectors including payments, telecom, internet giants etc. to work on BSN. With the launch of BSN, the Chinese government is taking a huge leap in offering a positive environment for the development of an innovative solution. They have made it extremely easy for anyone to plug into their system and use their infrastructure to build through the multiple permissioned and open blockchain incorporated into it. And all of these at a minimal cost of $300.

Despite this, it must be acknowledged that there are concerns that BSN is highly centralised and maybe an attempt by the Chinese government to control this new industry. There aren’t many details around this concern available right now. We will have more information when it makes its public launch.”

The post China National Blockchain Launch: Opportunities, Concerns, and Expert Opinions appeared first on ChipIn.

Andy Ji, Co-founder of Ontology, the high-performance public blockchain and distributed collaboration platform, said:

“This Bitcoin halving will certainly be different to the last. Bitcoin and the crypto industry now face new challenges as current trends such as de-globalization and Covid-19 impact the world. In the coming months and years, Satoshi Nakamoto’s economic system will have the opportunity to prove its resilience and strength in comparison with traditional Wall Street protocols.

We can be cautiously optimistic about the Bitcoin Halving in relation to price. Given that this time, news that the Bitcoin halving is happening is widely known, it’s less likely that it will drive price upwards as much as it did the last time. As central banks around the world begin to increase supply of fiat money, the possibility of gradual growth towards a more bullish market becomes increasingly likely.”

Nick Cowan, CEO of the GSX Group said:

“The halving of Bitcoin is another important milestone in a journey of development since its inception, a journey that will continue to be defined by gradual institutional involvement, and wider mainstream adoption. The halving also presents a timely reminder that bitcoin is a long term project, of which we are still in the early stages. The impact of a Bitcoin halving can vary widely, but it will have repercussions across the growing token economy. The Bitcoin halving has been a long standing topic among the crypto community, with many feeling that any influences on price have already been ‘baked’ into the current price range we’re seeing today. The price is important for a lot of elements surrounding Bitcoin, especially for the miners. Ultimately, miners will receive less per successful block hashed, which could impact the cost-implications of running mining operations. The ‘break-even price’ model could see miners feel the pinch of a Bitcoin price drop, and may have to re-evaluate their business models. If the price were to rise, then it would equal out the costs for miners receiving lower rewards from mining. The creation of Bitcoin lit the path towards the adoption of cryptocurrency, but more importantly the innovations in blockchain technology. At GSX Group, we’ve made it our mission to transform the legacy systems within traditional capital markets, utilising blockchain technology. We aim to reverse the rising cost of capital, remove counterparty risk and disrupt the existing FMI model from the cumbersome T+2 model, to a T Instant future – saving costs and increasing efficiencies in every aspect of the securities trading life-cycle.”

Ashish Singhal, CEO and Founder of CRUXPay and Coinswitch.co, said::

“It will be interesting to witness the BTC halving, especially considering it will happen amidst the ongoing pandemic issues and a nose-diving economy. The influence on BTC price can be assessed in two phases – before halving and after halving. The weeks leading up to the halving might see a price drop as most miners start selling their crypto earnings to run operations for the months following the halving. This will allow them to keep accumulating bitcoin post-halving, in order to break even when they receive less rewards post-halving. Most retail users anticipating an increase in price post-halving will try to accumulate bitcoin within the same time frame. The price drop due to selling of bitcoin by the miner will be compensated for to some extent by the retail buyers accumulating bitcoins. Then, in theory, after the halving the bitcoin prices should go up because the supply is now cut to half and the scarcity will increase further as miners avoid selling until the break even price is attained, all the while the demand remains the same.

For miners, bitcoin halving means a doubling of operational costs for the same amount of earnings. The only way to sustain would be for the bitcoin prices to reach a breakeven price. It will see small miners leave the system, and the big one with deep pockets will dominate. This may not be a good thing for bitcoin, because it skews towards centralisation.

For the wider blockchain space in the short term, there will be two major impacts – the impact on price and the impact on hash rate. The impact on price is due to the reduced supply over a constant or increased demand. And the impact on the hash rate is due to the smaller or inefficient miners exiting the system. Over the long term, if the stakeholders in the system adapt to the halving and the halvings to come in the future, then it means that bitcoin can eventually become what it was designed for – decentralised sound money.”

Jason Wu, CEO of DeFiner.org, the true peer-to-peer network for digital savings, loans, and payments, said:

“With the upcoming halving, the revenue from mining will be reduced by 50% immediately. The gross margin will be down around 40%, considering there is some buffer from reduced energy cost. Miners will shut down a lot of machines immediately after the halving, due to this lower revenue. This will support the BTC price, due to less energy cost and the fact that miners won’t need to cash out BTC to pay for their energy cost.

Around 2 weeks after the halving, the mining difficulty will be adjusted and profitability of miners will go up from -50% down back to around -30%. At this point, miners will be able to reopen old machines. This influx will keep increasing the mining difficulty, and therefore reduce the BTC rewards yet again. All of this will finally reach a balance and there will be some stability after a while. On top of all of this, as the old mining machines become obsolete, new machines will be more profitable and ramp-up to the market more quickly.

In terms of value, BTC price will likely rise steadily after the halving. Combined with 50% reduction of newly mined BTC supply, we may face a liquidity issue. There is not enough BTC on the market to meet the new buyers attracted from the price appreciation. If this happens, most likely the BTC price will keep going up and push up the mining difficulty to a higher level as well. The mining rewards per block will keep reducing, and when it reaches just 25% of the original level, the price of BTC will go up at least four times, potentially reaching $40,000 easily. Therefore, the halving will help the BTC price trend upward to reach a new level in the foreseeable future.

If all of this coincides with a financial crisis of the current fiat currency world, we cannot even imagine how high BTC can go for the next 1-2 years. The bull market of BTC may return and this will attract new capital and attention from the public into this industry. This will be a big boost for the whole blockchain industry. More talents will be attracted to develop the technology itself. Blockchain technology will be more popular and benefit people’s real life. People will enjoy wealth control and independence.”

Nicholas Pelecanos, Head of Trading at NEM Ventures, said:

“Bitcoin is weeks away from the halving event where the bitcoin block reward will be halved from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block. After this event, the production cost of each bitcoin will double as the supply per block is halved. Happening only twice in bitcoin’s price history, this deflationary event has historically signalled the start of bitcoin’s most tremendous bull runs, but not before a brief sell off. The 2012 halving was followed by an immediate 10% sell off and the 2016 sell off witnessed an extended 38% decline. Both halvings were followed by an approximate 50 day decline in the hashrate.

If history were to repeat itself and bitcoin entered into a decline post halving, high operating cost miners may have to shut down their rigs until bitcoin reaches a sustainable price. In this event, those with low cost operations would control more of the hashrate and therefore win the majority of the block rewards. Between the halved supply and the economic fallout of COVID-19, bitcoin’s fundamentals are only growing stronger. In the face of this, would low cost miners not be incentivised to keep the Bitcoin price as low as sustainably possible for as long as possible, in a bid to accumulate as much Bitcoin as possible before the bulls are truly out of the gate.”

The post Clock Ticking on Bitcoin Halving | Expert Commentary appeared first on ChipIn.

Ontology, the high-performance enterprise blockchain, has officially joined the Celo Foundation Alliance for Prosperity, a mission-aligned network of organizations fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology.

As an Alliance Member, Ontology will join other leading technology providers, nonprofits, mobile wallets, payment processors, and global investment firms in building mobile-friendly financial tools on the Celo open blockchain platform. Launched in March 2020 by the Celo Foundation, existing members include Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, and B12, with an additional 23 new members also announced today. They include; Ankr, Althea, Bitfy, Blockchain Education Network, Centrifuge, Dove Wallet, Dunia Pay, Grin, Hex Trust, LatAmTech, Mobike, MyCash Online, Netki, Ontology, Paxful, Peixe, Positive Blockchain, Ribon, Transak, and United Africa Blockchain Association.

Commenting, Andy Ji, Co-founder of Ontology said, “The purpose of Celo to empower anyone with a smartphone to access digital currencies and ultimately foster a fairer financial system resonates strongly with our values at Ontology and we are thrilled to be joining the Alliance. We look forward to collaborating with other like-minded industry leaders to offer our ONT ID solution, with a view to jointly exploring identity-based DeFi applications built on Celo such as decentralized universal basic income or decentralized credit scores.”

Celo is an open blockchain platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. It can be leveraged to build an ecosystem of powerful mobile applications, ranging from easier cash transfer programs to peer-to-peer lending, international remittances to digital assets and wallets. Celo’s digital currency — the Celo Dollar stablecoin — provides people all over the world with a stable, secure, inexpensive, and easy way to move money and engage in financial activities that were previously inaccessible to them. Ontology will also be adding Celo to the ONTO wallet app for users to easily store and send Celo.

Chuck Kimble, Partner at cLabs and Head of the Alliance for Prosperity, said, “We are excited to see the Alliance grow by nearly 50% since our initial announcement in March, with organizations committed to creating prosperity, especially in Africa and Latin America.”

With a primary focus on delivering a fast, user-friendly platform with a unique infrastructure that supports robust cross-chain collaboration, Ontology provides businesses with the tools to design their own blockchain solutions securely. Powered by the Ontology Token (ONT), the distributed collaboration platform allows businesses to enjoy the benefits of smart contracts and tokenization while retaining control of their sensitive data.

“The Celo Alliance for Prosperity is committed to bringing together an ecosystem of diverse organizations, all of whom are aligned in their mission of increasing financial inclusion through blockchain technology. We look forward to seeing the innovative financial solutions members of the Alliance are creating in response to major global challenges,” Ji concluded.

The news comes off the back of Ontology’s recent partnership with Venezuela Blockchain, an organization committed to leveraging emerging technologies as tools for socio-economic development in Latin America.

About Ontology

Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain and distributed collaboration platform. Ontology’s unique infrastructure supports robust cross-chain collaboration and Layer 2 scalability, offering businesses the flexibility to design a blockchain that suits their needs. With a suite of decentralized identity and data sharing protocols to enhance speed, security, and trust, Ontology’s features include ONT ID, a mobile digital ID application and DID used throughout the ecosystem, and DDXF, a decentralized data exchange, and collaboration framework.

About Celo

Celo is an open blockchain platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Its open source technology can be leveraged to build an ecosystem of powerful mobile applications, ranging from easier cash transfer programs to peer-to-peer lending, international remittances to digital assets and wallets. These applications aim to solve real-world problems standing in the way of financial inclusion for the people who need it most. Celo’s digital currency — the Celo Dollar stablecoin — provides people all over the world with a stable, secure, cheap, and easy way to move digital currencies and engage in financial activities that were previously inaccessible to them. Celo aims to make digital currencies accessible and easy to use for everyone, regardless of their technical know-how. Visit celo.org for more information.

About the Alliance for Prosperity

The Alliance for Prosperity is an ecosystem of mission-aligned organizations including nonprofits, merchants, and payment processors fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology. In support of mobile-first open blockchain platform Celo, the Alliance provides infrastructure and education to enable more people to use digital currencies — specifically, the Celo Dollar stablecoin — in the geographies that need it most. Each member’s combined contributions make it easier to move digital currencies around the world and create accessible financial tools on the Celo platform, with diverse use cases including remittances, humanitarian aid, payments, and microlending. Visit celo.com/alliance for more information.

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Organized by and aimed at investors, entrepreneurs, blockchain professionals and enthusiasts the conference is designed as an intimate round between industry leaders. The luxury of financial freedom, as all proceeds are being donated, allows for a sharp and concise schedule, addressing only the truly important issues. Peak through the blinds when the biggest and most exciting names in blockchain unite, live on Youtube, April 28th at 12 pm CET.

Confirmed speakers include TIME’s most influential teen and CEO of Botangle – Erik Finman, Dr. Tobias Reichmuth from Crypto Finance AG, the operator of several institution-oriented crypto businesses, that recently closed a $14.5m series B funding, Changelly’s CEO, Eric Benz and the controversial Richard Heart, who announced that his project HEX has risen in price 50x against BTC in just four months.

In a surprising industry first, Fastblocks.live will donate 100% of all sponsorships to the Red Cross through their BitPay partnerships and admission to the event is free of charge. Attendees can look forward to over 4 hours of discussion on the most pressing issues facing crypto and will be able to pose their questions at a Q&A session to the speakers, directly through YouTube.

Invitations to access the V.I.P. Telegram networking area where speakers, sponsors, projects and investors meet, can be requested directly on the Fastblocks.live website.

The conference is organized by hosts CurioInvest and marketer “@DavidPKR” as an open arena for Blockchain decision-makers to network, learn, and allow projects to use their voice for good.

Speakers announced today, include:

• Alexis Hamel, MD Solaris Digital Assets
• Dr. Tobias Reichmuth, Crypto Finance AG
• Eric Benz, CEO Changelly
• Erik Finman, CEO of Botangle
• Fernando Verboonen, CEO CurioInvest
• Matthieu Gueissaz, Director Blockchain Valley Ventures
• Marjorie Hernández, Founder LUKSO
• Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner, Head of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center
• Richard Heart, Founder of HEX
• Toby Lewis, CEO Novum Insight
• Vladimir Kislinskii, CTO CurioInvest

Fastblocks is live on Youtube April 28 at 12pm CET. To watch and register for exclusive networking opportunities, visit https://www.fastblocks.live join the Fastblocks telegram or email info@fastblocks.live for partnerships and queries.

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The Foundation for Wallet Interoperability (FIO), the crypto industry’s consortia of wallets, exchanges and cryptocurrency payment processors supporting the FIO Protocol, has today announced the launch of the FIO Protocol Mainnet.

The FIO Protocol unites the existing blockchain ecosystem with a decentralized delegated proof of stake usability layer that is integrated into existing crypto products such as wallets, exchanges and crypto payment processors, to make the user experience of interacting with all blockchains easy and worry-free as the best centralized solutions today, but in a secure and decentralized manner. The blockchain-agnostic protocol is already being integrated by multiple crypto wallets including: Edge, Trust, Guarda, Scatter, Atomic, Mycelium and Anchor with a further twenty wallets, exchanges, and crypto payment processors lined up to follow (https://fioprotocol.io/ecosystem).

Users will be able to send any type of cryptocurrency by simply sending to a ‘human-friendly’ FIO Address which is like an email address ie. “fio@edge” rather than the traditional incoherent string of 26-35 alphanumeric characters. Unlike other attempts at eliminating user interaction with public addresses, the FIO Protocol eliminates manual mapping to the public addresses, users are not bothered with an incremental payment every time the address is updated and will soon be able to opt-in for complete privacy on their public address mappings. Users can also register their own FIO Domains on which multiple usernames can be applied. Registration of FIO addresses and domains can be done within the wallets that have launched initial integration such as Trust Wallet.

In addition, the FIO Protocol as a purpose-built usability layer is much more than just human-readable wallet addresses. Out of the box, the FIO Protocol will enable users to send and receive requests-for-payments.

The all-important inclusion of cross-chain encrypted metadata, FIO Data combined with FIO Requests, invoices, order carts, or peer to peer payments to be sent for any token/coin on any blockchain. In all cases, details of transactions between counterparties are private, encrypted and only readable by those two parties. “Friending”, currently in development, will offer functionality that will enable encryption of the mapping of FIO Address to public address expanding the privacy enabled on the FIO Protocol.

“We believe unifying this functionality will greatly simplify everyone’s experience of using cryptocurrency and help drive adoption with a more mainstream audience,” said Managing Director of the Foundation for Wallet Interoperability, Luke Stokes.

The initial version of the FIO Protocol was built through $5.7m in funding led by Binance Labs that was invested into Dapix, Inc. which created the initial version of the protocol software and transferred ownership to the Foundation prior to mainnet launch. David Gold, CEO of Dapix added, “The vision of the FIO Protocol is to be a homogeneous usability layer of workflow, data, and information about the sending of transactions on other chains. The future potential of the protocol includes things like recurring payments, fee-splitting, secure multi-sig request routing and more.” The FIO Protocol has gained the support from 28 FIO Members, excited to integrate the Protocol.

The FIO Protocol aims to provide a consistent usability layer for everyone on every chain in every crypto product.

About FIO Foundation

The Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) is a consortium of leading wallets, exchange, and crypto payment processors supporting the FIO Protocol — a decentralized Service Layer that removes the risk, complexity, and inconvenience of sending and receiving tokens and coins identically across every blockchain. The FIO Protocol is not a wallet and does not compete with other blockchains, rather, it makes the user experience better across every wallet and every blockchain. To learn more visit: https://fioprotocol.io/ or the FIO Protocol Knowledge Base at https://kb.fioprotocol.io

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Ontology, the high-performance enterprise blockchain, has announced a partnership with Venezuela Blockchain, an organization committed to leveraging emerging technologies as tools for socio-economic development in Latin America. The collaboration will see Venezuela Blockchain engage Ontology’s technology to underpin a number of initiatives designed to benefit the wider Latin American community.

Among the initial solutions proposed as part of the collaboration is a planned integration of the Ontology platform into Venezuela Blockchain’s Family Social Program charity to provide a basic income to Venezuelans. Ontology, alongside one of its partners, Microworkers, will also be empowering Latin Americans to find task-based work online and receive payment in crypto.

Erick Pinos, Ontology Americas Ecosystem Lead, said, “Venezuela’s vibrant blockchain community is fueling the country’s ascent as a dynamic hub of DLT activity, and we are excited to open the doors to crossover collaborations between members of both the Venezuelan and Ontology communities. Today’s announcement gives expression to our commitment to broadening our own community horizons, and delivering tailored DLT solutions that will empower citizens globally.”

Alberto Guerrero Montilla from Venezuela Blockchain said, “Our country’s continued growth depends on the development of projects designed to guarantee the business and social expansion of our community, coupled with sustained adoption of new technologies. The reputable and proven performance of the Ontology platform has the potential to be the engine that powers the creation of new systems, enabling our push towards decentralization, and paving the way for practical applications that will empower citizens and increase prosperity among our community.”

With a primary focus on delivering a fast, user-friendly platform with a unique infrastructure that supports robust cross-chain collaboration, Ontology provides businesses with the tools to design their own blockchain solutions securely. Powered by the Ontology Token (ONT), the distributed collaboration platform allows businesses to enjoy the benefits of smart contracts and tokenization while retaining control of their sensitive data.

“Our advanced, innovative, and high-performing public blockchain network is well equipped to broaden opportunities for innovation in Latin America. The spirit of collaboration and a strong appetite for technological exploration within Venezuela’s burgeoning blockchain community will be a source of tremendous inspiration as we continue on this steady arc of growth that has defined our journey thus far, ” concluded Pinos.

About Ontology

Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain and distributed collaboration platform. Ontology’s unique infrastructure supports robust cross-chain collaboration and Layer 2 scalability, offering businesses the flexibility to design a blockchain that suits their needs. With a suite of decentralized identity and data sharing protocols to enhance speed, security, and trust, Ontology’s features include ONT ID, a mobile digital ID application and DID used throughout the ecosystem, and DDXF, a decentralized data exchange, and collaboration framework.

About Venezuela Blockchain

Venezuela Blockchain is an organization focused on Venezuela’s socio-economical shift through the implementation of expansion techniques tailored to fit the needs of a growing country. Their mission is to enable the adoption, development, and expansion of the blockchain universe through strategies that can be applied in their country through the direct promotion of available blockchain services.

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