Friday, December 28, 2018

Building for Bulls, Bears and the Crypto Revolution

It seems fitting to start my review this year with the same statement and observe how its meaning kaleidoscopes in the new light of 2018.

For context, in December 2017, the price of bitcoin had just hit its all-time high of $19,783.06. The price of ether was about to hit its all-time high of $1,417.38. CryptoKitties were running rampant all over the ethereum network, thousands of ICOs had launched in 2017 and hundreds of dedicated crypto funds opened their doors.

Today, the environment is a bit different. Those crypto funds are starting to shut down. ICOs that raised capital in crypto in 2017 have seen their runways halved and halved again. The price of bitcoin hovers around $3,500 and the price of ether plummeted below $100. CryptoKitties has a meager 378 daily active users, down from over 15,000 daily active users this time last year. Ouch.

What I failed to mention with last year's statement is that the runway isn't always smooth and it isn't going to be at a constant incline.

As Meltem Demirors so gracefully put it, "Tech that changes industries and markets doesn't get built overnight. There are fits, starts, and failures." Obviously, this market is throwing a fit. Furthermore, us builders should talk about it.

But Builders Don't Talk About Price
For as long as I can remember, it's been a significant taboo for builders in the space to talk about price. The market conditions shouldn't affect our attitudes or how we build. We actively avoid getting caught in the hype on the way up and avoid falling into depression on the way down.

We transformed "HODL" into "BUIDL," and there was also short-lived talk of "SHIPL."

However, refusing to engage in "price talk" doesn't mean we can, or should, ignore the swings of the market. This ecosystem is highly speculative and our roadmaps, runways and design choices are affected by larger macroeconomic conditions. Denying that the market conditions affect your work, company, financials, and culture is willful ignorance and is dangerous in the short and long term.

2017: Unprecedented Hype
As we saw in 2017, the bull market garnered previously-unseen hype, which led to new, inexperienced users entering the space en masse. Coinbase was adding hundreds of thousands of new users per day. Companies were hiring support teams by the dozens in an attempt to tread overflowing inboxes.

The things we did in 2017 were reactionary. Building for the short term was prioritized over the long term.

We didn't have refined processes or roadmaps — we had fires that needed to be put out yesterday. We hired those who were willing to wear many hats and didn't require much sleep. We put band-aids on the most glaring user experience issues as they cropped up, and we promised to iterate later. The market's ambitious upswing wasn't tied to the technology and experience being delivered.

2018: The Downward Spiral
2018 was a whole new world. The number of support tickets dropped as fewer new users entered the space. The types of questions we fielded about ICOs plummeted and more technical questions emerged once again.

The members of my team who were solely fueled by the adrenaline of 2017 had to evolve or move on to different projects. Some even left the crypto-space entirely. Our hiring and recruiting practices evolved, and the skills and personality traits we looked for became more refined.

The actions users are taking in 2018 have changed as well.

Whether it was taxes, the SEC, a more bearish market or the realization that the scope of blockchain use cases is still limited, people aren't doing much these days. Even when we look beyond the trading and investment activity via DappRadar and Dapp.com, we can see just how little activity is happening.

The market is questioning how "decentralized" applies to a world beyond us cypherpunks and early adopters. It's a valid question that us builders should ask too.

2019: Blood in the Streets?
To steal from Anthony Pompliano (who likely stole it from someone else), there is no "blood in the streets" yet. The blood is coming, but it isn't only from the individuals who have portfolios that are down more than 100 percent.

It is from anyone and everyone who failed to anticipate just how long this revolution would take. It is from people who didn't believe in the possibility of a market crash or a long winter. It is the ICOs that had all their holdings in crypto. It's from those who measure growth and value in terms of months, not years or decades.

More robust companies can reduce the sizes of their teams and cease throwing extravagant parties to lengthen their runways.

Less seasoned companies will have no choice but to shut down. And the most important companies are likely the ones you haven't yet heard of or are yet to be created.

2019 & Beyond
The coming years have the potential for people to create real, revolutionary value. This will not be the short-term capital creation that ICOs brought in 2017. It will be significantly deeper, take significantly longer and it will spawn from unlikely sources.

Reacting to new users and irrational exuberance is a different ball game than building products that break down the barriers of cryptocurrencies. In order to be relevant and stay relevant, you have to do more.

Those that will have a lasting impact and create the most value will be those who can build for both the bull market, the bear market and beyond the market. They will have the foresight to expect the unexpected, the hindsight to learn from the past and the insight to solve problems in unprecedented ways.

They will use their teams, tools, knowledge and communities to not only build for the next wave of users, but also help bring in the next wave of users. They will not build "on the blockchain" or "for the blockchain." They will build better solutions that happen to utilize the blockchain.

It's easier to build products for your existing environment and existing users, but it is shortsighted and will leave you straggling in the long term. Look outside this space for inspiration. Learn from traditional companies who have been around for decades or even centuries. Take the time to understand the motivations and needs of people around the globe. Don't make product decisions based on the graveyard of activity today. Don't create personas based on a Twitter poll you spun up yesterday.

Look to the future and anticipate. Your job is no longer to react to the current conditions. It's to be a fortune teller of tomorrow's landscape.

Sparking the Revolution
Many point to the dot-com bubble when analyzing the cryptocurrency markets in 2017.

Both saw 1,000 percent returns, rampant day-trading, fraud, capital flowing to any company with ".com" or "blockchain" in its name, and the creation of overnight millionaires even when those millionaires had neither delivered products nor profits. It's an easy comparison. But it's only one slice of history.

The repetition of history won't manifest as a carbon copy of itself, so it's hard to know exactly how this decentralized revolution will play out in totality. The revolution will be simultaneously subtle and profound. What we are building cannot be measured in months or judged by the hype cycles. We are aiming to transform nearly every industry that exists, starting with the financial industry.

The blockchain has come a long way since Satoshi's white paper and it will take at least that long to disrupt life in a meaningful way.

We have to keep zooming out to keep our perspective wide. The dot-com bubble isn't what transformed the internet, nor will the last two years be what transforms the blockchain. We need to look at the entire history of the internet and watch how it evolved over time. We need to examine how the Industrial Revolution managed to touch almost every aspect of daily life. We need to remember The Renaissance's lasting influence on intellectual inquiry.

And, as we do, we should be intimidated by what we have yet to accomplish and inspired by the opportunity to forge the runway ahead. Remember, the real lift off has yet to occur.

WSJ: Over 15% of crypto projects ‘highly questionable’



Some 16% of all cryptocurrency projects are 'highly questionable', presenting obvious red flags for investor security, according to a report published early this week.

In an expose by the Wall Street Journal, at least 15% of all initial coin offerings (ICOs) studied were found wanting, with at least 513 of a sample of 3,300 found to be overpromising, misrepresenting elements of the offering or the personnel involved, or plagiarised from other ICO prospectuses.

In the report, WSJ journalists took a sample of ICO and crypto projects from listings on ICOBench.com, Tokendata.io and ICORating.com. The researchers compared the text of whitepaper documents against the total sample and uncovered as many as 10,000 sentences in ICO whitepapers that had been directly plagiarised, which most knowledgeable investors would consider a clear sign something is amiss.

Reverse image searches were carried out on founder and sponsor profiles, uncovering a number of fake and stock identities being used throughout investor documentation, while others were found to have no information about those involved in the project.

The team then scoured the whitepapers for claims of "high returns", before manually reviewing the promises made in the documents to determine which were making unrealistic claims to entice investors to part with their cash.

Offering the chance to respond to the allegations to the 513 identified as potentially suspect, the Wall Street Journal received little in the way of response—250 project websites were already unavailable, while at least 30 projects were already under active investigation by the authorities.

The findings coincide with increasing efforts from financial regulators worldwide, like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in clamping down on fraudulent activity around ICOs.

While some have criticised the SEC in particular for their hardline stance, the regulator remains committed to cleaning up the sector to protect investors from falling victim to these scams.

One of the most comprehensive investigations of its kind to date, the findings confirm what many in the cryptocurrency sector have long suspected—that a significant portion of ICOs are downright fraudulent.

When combined with those that were offered in good faith, but with flawed business models, this underlines the serious risks faced by those investing in initial coin offerings.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Waves Platform Raises $120 Million for Private Blockchain


Waves Platform, a public blockchain network that has helped digital startups create tokens, said it raised $120 million for itself to roll out a private version of its Vostok system for corporations and governments.

Private investors were tapped in the fundraising round led by London-based financial services group Dolfin, Waves said in a statement Wednesday. The company's own cryptocurrency, known as Waves, jumped almost 50 percent to $3.80 in the past 24 hours, according to CoinmarketCap.com prices at 9:40 a.m. in London.

Founded in Switzerland by Russian engineer Sasha Ivanov, Waves Platform has benefited from a recent boom of initial coin offerings that let firms create and sell tokens via its distributed-ledger technology, which it describes as a fast and easy-to-use blockchain.

The Waves token has a market value of about $383 million, down from as much as $1.7 billion in December 2017, close to the speculative peak for cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketMap.com.

"The cryptocurrency rush is over now, while the idea of using a decentralized network to store data and cut costs is still relevant," Ivanov said in an interview in his Moscow office.

Large firms and state entities often find the speed and security level of public blockchains to be insufficient, he said. So-called private blockchains, which have limited numbers of users, protect data better, according to Ivanov.

Vostok, similar to the International Business Machines Corp.-led Hyperledger in the U.S., will focus on Europe, Asia and the former USSR, expecting its first projects in the beginning of 2019, Ivanov said.

Chatter Report: Schiff Accuses Kelly of Pump and Dump, Lingham Calls for ‘Real Adoption’



In our latest roundup of crypto chatter, tensions run high as Peter Schiff accuses Brian Kelly of dumping bitcoin on retail investors. The accusation surfaced after Kelly recently revealed that he is net short on BTC. Also, Vinny Lingham gives great advice to the crypto community on building for the future.

CNBC Regular Accused of P&D
Longtime gold proponent and bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff has accused Brian Kelly Capital Management founder Brian Kelly of using his position as a CNBC regular to "pump and dump" bitcoin. In a recent video released by CNBC, Kelly casually mentions that he is net short on bitcoin.

Under normal circumstances, Kelly shorting bitcoin would not raise eyebrows in this bear market. However, Kelly's recent comments seem to be entirely incongruent with almost every other clip of him on CNBC.

A Trip Down Memory Lane
Just watch this video of Kelly released by CNBC last August, where he heavily shills bitcoin. While referencing a BTC price that was around $7,400, Kelly boldly proclaims, "If you're looking for an entry point in bitcoin this might just be the place".

There is a huge disconnect between Kelly recommending the "completely under-appreciated" cryptocurrency markets in August and the same man sheepishly mentioning that we are "getting closer to the bottom" in the recent CNBC video.

Even more disturbing are the implications of Kelly's actions, as he may have been shorting and dumping cryptocurrency bags on retail investors who listened to him on CNBC, which would be a massive conflict of interest. Alternatively, Kelly could have only recently taken short positions some time after he was shilling cryptocurrencies throughout most of 2018. That would imply that Kelly is unqualified to talk about cryptocurrency price movements, however, as he has been completely wrong on his predictions thus far.

Vinny Lingham on Building for the Future
In other news, Civic CEO Vinny Lingham has been tweeting advice for the cryptocurrency community to build for the future.

Lingham explains that traders and speculators feed off volatility and do not care about creating value in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He describes this profit-seeking behavior with no value creation as a skill gap for traders. Traders will trade and influence prices in the short term, but in the long run, the market will reveal the value of good cryptocurrency projects.

Quoting Jeff Bezos, Lingham explains that builders are "misunderstood for long periods of time." Their hard work doesn't seem to be reflected in the prices of the cryptocurrency projects that they are a part of. However, by keeping their heads down and focusing on real world adoption, builders will see the value of their work reflected in future prices.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Crypto Price Watch: Waves, Tezos and Maker See Green Despite Dwindling Market Prices



Even as a majority of the top 10 altcoins within today's crypto market continue to see red, there are digital currencies like Waves, Maker, and Tezos that have witnessed an upward surge of 9%, 3%, and 2.5% respectively over the course of the past 24 hours.
Waves Continues Its Strong Performance

As can be seen from the chart below, around a week back the price of a single Waves token jumped by over 50% to touch an impressive price point of $2.32. In terms of what could have sparked this massive uptrend, many experts believe that the recent Waves Mobile app update could have had something to do with the increase.

For those not aware, the Waves dev team recently announced the launch of their much-awaited 'operational protocol upgrade' which allows customers to seamlessly "deposit, store and withdraw their altcoins" in a safe and secure manner. Not only that, but users can now also trade and lease out their assets on the Waves DEX with the touch of a button.
#WavesPlatform has had a great November with the release of our new mobile app and several other developments! We're continuing to build some outstanding tech to bring #blockchain to the mainstream. Here's what we've been up to in the past month: https://t.co/OcrvMyvkwn$WAVES

— Waves Platform (@wavesplatform) December 11, 2018

Additionally, it is also worth noting that the latest iteration of the Waves app will introduce several new exchange listings as well as provide users with full integration support with the Ledger Nano S hardware wallet.
Tezos (XTZ) Surprises Everyone With its Strong Performance

While many had relegated Tezos (XTZ) to the peripheral fringes of the crypto world recently, it now appears as though the project is making a steady comeback (especially since the currency has been showcasing a lot positive financial momentum over the course of the past week or so).

For those who may not remember, Tezos is probably most famous (or infamous) for having raised a whopping $232 million during its ICO phase as well as the scandal that rocked the project straight after.

Lastly, it is also worth pointing out that the XTZ token is currently trading below its original ICO price of $0.51 for around $0.375 (at press time). However, this drop is not as significant as the one witnessed by Ethereum as well as some of the other premier cryptos like BTC, BCH.

In this regard, a market analyst for iBuyTezos.com pointed out that Tezos was not even listed on a single exchange at the start of the year. The reason given for this delay was that the project's native blockchain network had not gone live till like mid-2018.

Tezos wasn't even on an exchange in Jan of 2018.
— Jovan Smith (@JvdollaJovan) December 6, 2018

Final Take
While many of the top crypto coins in the market have struggled to stay afloat throughout the year, there are some lesser-known assets that have continued their strong performance recently. It now remains to be seen how the future of smaller tokens such as Maker, DEX, Revain, Tezos plays out in the coming few weeks.

Bitwala Begins Offering Bank Accounts With Bitcoin Wallet and Debit Card



Cryptocurrency banking provider Bitwala has started offering its banking service to cryptocurrency users in Germany, starting with 40,000 pre-registered customers. A spokesperson for the company has shared details with news.Bitcoin.com about this new service which will soon add support for additional countries and cryptocurrencies.

New Banking Service for Crypto Users
Bitwala announced on Wednesday, Dec. 12, that it has started offering banking service to cryptocurrency users. "New users along with the 40,000 pre-registered customers will be onboarded one after the other based on their waitlist place," the announcement read.

The bank accounts are hosted by Berlin-based Solarisbank. This Bitwala partner has a banking license, so it is supervised by Bafin and Bundesbank, Germany's banking authorities.

Roman Kessler, a spokesperson for Bitwala, told news.Bitcoin.com:

For now, only German residents can go through the KYC [know-your-customer] process. Very soon, hopefully already in January, this will be extended to other jurisdictions inside of the EU.

Account opening takes a few minutes, the company noted, adding that customers need an ID to open an account. They must also complete the KYC process which includes video verification. The company also explained that "As with any bank account in Germany, all euro deposits up to €100,000 [~$113,274] are protected by the German Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DGS)."

Bank Account With Crypto Support
With the new Bitwala bank accounts, users will receive an Iban and a contactless debit card which will allow them to buy and sell BTC and manage expenses. The Bitwala account comes with a bitcoin wallet. Users can manage both their BTC and euro deposits in one place, the announcement describes.

A Bitwala debit card.
"The new bank account offers users SEPA transactions, easy management of recurring payments, and comes with a debit card for on-the-go payments and ATM cash withdrawals," Christoph Iwaniez, the company's chief financial officer, commented. "For instance, customers will be able to use their Bitwala account to receive salary payments and pay their rent. And if you want to trade bitcoin, you can draw liquidity from the same current account."

Kessler further shared with news.Bitcoin.com:

Only bitcoin [is supported] at the moment. You can access them through a multi-sig wallet to which only you have the private key. Other cryptocurrencies to follow shortly.

He also emphasized that "The online bank account and the [debit] card are free," but trading between BTC and EUR costs 1 percent. "According to our market research that is 5 percentage points below market average."

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Waves revamps mobile wallet



The Waves Platform, a decentralized blockchain ecosystem, has announced a comprehensive update of the Waves Wallet mobile app which is now available for download on the App Store and Google Play.

Launched over a year ago, the Waves mobile app was up to the task of enabling users to connect to the network and make transactions. However, as Waves' blockchain developed, the mobile team saw opportunities for improving the app by adding new features.

The result of many months of the mobile development team's effort is a comprehensive, all-in-one app for mobile devices with an absolutely unique feature set, including a crypto wallet, the Waves DEX and fiat gateway.

"We believe our app provides a step forward for crypto and blockchain community, a better experience for iOS and Android users than they can get elsewhere," says Sasha Ivanov, Founder and CEO of Waves Platform. "The new mobile app incorporates the most popular features of the desktop Waves Client going far beyond the functionality of the wallet. At the moment no other platform offers anything like that."

In the new app all traffic is encrypted, which is important for privacy and security. Private keys are encrypted and never leave user's smartphone and are never exposed to the web. A range of further security measures is added, including Face ID, Touch ID and Fingerprint scanning.

Users can trade on DEX, with the great tools and charts they've come to expect, but with the convenience of mobile. There's also access to fiat and crypto gateways, so users can deposit, store, trade and withdraw other assets.

The most popular digital asset management tools from the Waves Platform are also available. Users can send tokens to their address book contacts, lease WAVES, receive warnings about suspicious tokens and burn any spam assets. 

Binance Releases Demo of Planned Decentralized Crypto Exchange



Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by adjusted trading volume, has released a new video demo of its decentralized exchange, dubbed Binance DEX, ahead of its launch in early 2019.

Released Wednesday, the video demonstrates the trading interface of Binance DEX, along with a web crypto wallet and the explorer for Binance's native public blockchain, Binance Chain, which the firm says will be made available on a testnet soon.

Based on the video, Binance DEX will have a very similar interface to its existing centralized exchange, with some additional features. For example, it includes an option to generate a 24-word mnemonic seed phrase for users' private keys, a "balances tab" to inform users of the status of their accounts and a "user icon" in the navigation bar that shows individual wallet addresses.

With the blockchain explorer, users can search for an individual block and view transactions included in a particular block, the demo explains.

"User funds on the DEX will be secured with decentralized wallet applications like Trust Wallet, which has a server-free infrastructure that stores private keys only on the user's device, meaning only users have access to their funds," Binance said in a statement on Wednesday.

Binance DEX is built on its own Binance Chain, which was first unveiled in March of this year and is aimed to offer "low latency, high throughput trading, as well as decentralized custody of funds."

With the DEX, traders will be able to send and receive Binance's own BNB tokens and other coins via trading pairs, Binance said, adding that while BNB is currently an ERC-20 token, it will soon be migrated to Binance Chain upon its mainnet launch.

The first video demo of Binance DEX was released in August, which outlined via a command line interface the basics of issuing, listing and trading crypto assets.

In June, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi also announced a plan to evolve into a standalone decentralized exchange, offering funding for developer assistance in creating an open-sourced blockchain protocol.