Bitcoin has been facing price drops for the past year since its all time high (ATH) and many have left the market in fear of losing their investment. However, while this is all happening projects are being built that were funded by Initial Coin Offerings in 2016 and 2017. Some of these projects turned out to be duds, empty shells producing nothing of value and others that have yet to prove their worth. ChromaWay is one of these projects that considers itself to be a Blockchain pioneer and sustainable, but only time will tell. One of the advantages ChromaWay has is its partnerships with the public and private sector, specifically in real estate and finance.

Some of these projects include “Sofitto” a Swedish project aiming to build an e-currency. The project is currently under evaluation by the bank of Sweden. UIH – Universal Identity Hub is a solution for the United Nations Women Blockchain Live Test and Simulation and the goal is to connect women and families in “fragile contexts” they work with Abt Associates another social impact organization and Cadasta, a technology platform focusing on land and resource rights in developing countries such as Indonesia.

ChromaWay has strategic partnerships with well known non profits and social impact organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Seed Change, Uttaran, Landesa, Jei, Namati, and more. Some of these organizations have outlets throughout the world and have considerable influence on these various communities.

Dapps for Social Impact

The idea of Blockchain and what it enables organizations and people to do is vast. One of the best use cases is the supply chain. ChromaWay is focused on Social Impact and organizations that improve humanity and I see this as a real need in the world today. One of ChromaWay’s undertakings is called the “Green Asset Wallet” and this will be used to validate investments in the green sector. Trusted verification is needed and this will be a major contributor to the development of these goals. ChromaWay is partnering with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, GIZ and Emerging Markets Dialogue on Finance.

Postchain – another project being built by ChromaWay will be the worlds first consortium database. It is a more mature blockchain with advanced and powerful features for managing validation and integrity and other features that make databases ubiquitous. It will be SQL and make it easier for developers to become Blockchain developers, security that is BFT enabled (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) and will allow developers to build on top of it.

Real Estate Transactions

In 2016 ChromaWay investigated how Blockchain and Smart Contracts could be used for real estate transactions along with Mortgage Deed Transfers. This project gained attention globally and pursued further development of this niche. What is cool about ChromaWay is that they actually have working test results and a demo of this project available for anyone to try. ChromaWay is clearly focused on Swedish markets and some parts of Europe and if they can manage to gain a user base and a successful working product it could become useful for verifying transactions.

Chromapolis – “Where Dapps Thrive”

ChromaWay developed a second platform called Chromapolis focusing on decentralized apps. It will use ChromaWay’s Blockchain tech to bring Dapps mainstream. It is whats called a “Relational Blockchain” meaning it will allow developers to understand how to build on it universally in large and small formats (enterprise, games etc) Some of the features are:

• Mainstream Scale – horizontal scaling with side chain sharding, flexible governance
• Programming – Ad hoc queries and complex constructs
• Virtual Worlds – Interchain asset and data transfer, processing power

Some of use cases are games, such as game assets and business applications using their own “Esplix” business contracts allowing businesses to implement Smart Contract workflows without running their own private Blockchain. The team behind ChromaWay is quite accomplished and includes one of the first Bitcoin Devs pioneering Bitcoin 2.0. The team has several accomplished scholars in the field and some other well known figures such as Vinny Langham and Litecoin’s Charlie Lee. The market has looked quite bad in terms of price of the past year but this is definitely one of the projects to keep an eye on.

 

On October 2nd I attended “Economist Disrupt” in New York City. The event was focused on the future of finance and held panels from a wide range of industry leaders. Although the Crypto markets in particular have been in a bear market for most of 2018 because of a wide range of factors such as BitMex shorting, lack of adoption, and regulatory uncertainty, the Blockchain space continues to develop and events surrounding Blockchain keep happening every month all over the world. New York City has not been a very hospitable place for Cryptocurrency but it is still one of the leading centers of finance. The panels took place from 9am until around 6pm and focused on Data, AI and Blockchain, with a few comments on Bitcoin and Ethereum. What drew me in the most were the discussions on Blockchain technology.

“This fall marks ten years since the Lehman Brothers collapse – the straw that broke the global financial system into shambles. Now, ten years later, regulatory and technological changes have transformed finance. New laws designed to rebuild confidence in the system inadvertently gave rise to the ecosystem of fintechs that, among other changes, challenge the fundamentals of a highly regulated financial system. Financial technology has empowered customers and led to greater financial inclusion around the world.”

-Economist Disrupt

Panelist from Banking, Blockchain and AI.

Lawrence Summers the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus of Harvard University believes we are moving in the direction of deduction of regulation. He believes the biggest risks are generalized complacency, long lag and over adjusting, and geopolitical uncertainty. He believes we should have a more systemic flow of capital. I like to hear from these sort of people regarding economic development but we did not hear much about Blockchain. What he said could be applied to Bitcoin as it has helped people in countries like Venezuela, but he did not bring this up.

Kai Fu Lee, the author of “AI Superpowers” gave his stance on data. He said China is the Saudi Arabia of Data and that China is moving in the direction of a cashless economy. WeChat and TenCent rule Chinese payments. Kai believes that China is taking the lead on the implementation of AI and will exceed the US in revenue and market value. He believes mobile payments are more important than artificial intelligence. On a side note, when I was in China I did not have a problem paying with cash, whether it was a cab ride or convenience store. Kai believes that being a late mover for China has had its advantages. It was also very interesting to hear his perspective on the future regarding education, loans and AI replacing doctors and how the only role human doctors will play is an empathetic guide. I laughed at that statement. Lastly, he says convenience now outweighs privacy in China and Chinese gladly accept this.

Oliver Hughes of Tinkoff Bank says they are focused on AI, Fraud, Risk, Biometric Data, Facial Recognition and Voice. On this panel was also Elizabeth Kelly of United Income, Avid Motjatabi of Wells Fargo and Kathryn Petralia of Kabbage. Filtered, my general impression of this panel was that they seemed most concerned about Biometric data, AI and the collection of data. They didn’t comment much on Blockchain.

The Blockchain Advocates

Several leaders from the Blockchain space spoke such as Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital, a fund that invests in Blockchain assets, Perianne Boring who is the founder of the Digital Chamber of Commerce, Sandra Ro CEO Global Blockchain Business Council, Amber Baldet founder of Clovyr. What was most interesting to me were the people not interested in Blockchain at this conference. The moderator asked the audience to vote what was most important – AI, Blockchain or Quantum Computing. Most people raised their hands for AI, very few for Blockchain and maybe 1 for Quantum Computing. What they fail to realize is that AI/Data can be integrated with Blockchain. The representatives from several major banks had very little interest in Blockchain and were most interested in the collection of data and biometric data. Overall it was a great insight into what the leaders of finance think about the future of finance and worth the time spent there.

 

On September 13th I traveled to Boston to attend Token Fest. Attendees consisted of Venture Capital firms, Crypto funds, Startups in the Blockchain space, lawyers, developers, data scientists, marketers, local students, brokers, and people interested in this exciting emerging new field. The conference was held at the newly developed and bustling seaport area and was a pleasant experience. The conference attracted companies like Google, Nike, Deloitte, Facebook, Indiegogo, AT&T, Alphapoint, Ledger, Steemit, Coinbase, Consensys, and many others involved in the Blockchain space. Usually at these conferences the talks comprise of speculative global regulations, new emerging companies in the space that aim to solve specific problems that others have not yet, and other emerging tech.

One of the more promising projects presented at Token Fest was Kadena. They are more of an enterprise Blockchain solution focused on solving problems for businesses, both scalability and Smart Contracts using their own “Pact” technology. They offer both a public Blockchain and enterprise Bockchain. This will allow humans to read and write logic directly onto a Blockchain. They currently claim 10,000 transactions per second with their current capability. I am interested to watch the development of this company in the years to come.

Steemit was also present at the conference as a major sponsor and they have been working on collectables, specifically characters that can be traded, sort of like the Beanie Baby craze of the 90’s Collectables are becoming a hot topic in the Blockchain world as there is an audience for people who collect these. Some of you may also remember the Crypto Kitties craze that took place earlier this year and garnered prices in the 6 figures per “Kitty”. Are they the future or just a fad, hard to tell but I don’t see them going away anytime soon.

I also enjoyed talking with companies like 0x Protocol, and learning more about what they are doing these days. ZRX is powering decentralized exchanges as a base layer and governance project and they are based in California. It’s one of my favorite projects and I think they have a bright future ahead. I was able to talk with one of their team members about current developments and gained some great insights.

NEO Global Capital Event

After the conference the next day, I attended a private event for NEO Global Capital. They incubate and launch projects and are behind some incredible companies such as Ontology, Bluzelle, Zilliqa, Trinity, IoTex, MainFrame, Certik, Oasis Labs, nOs, NKN, MultiVAC, and Celer Network. All of these projects have been applauded by the Blockchain research community as having great potential for the future. Whether they succeed or not only time will tell, but the teams behind these projects are top tier.

We heard from well known VC’s in the space who have been researching and investing in new projects and gave some commentary on the current environment. Some of them feel we may be in a 1-2 year bear market, as volume is low and adoption needs to be gained in order for things to pick up again. We also have seen so many companies pop up in a craze like atmosphere that many investors are sitting on the bleachers waiting to see some plays happen. I will say that regardless of the impatience from investors, I know that many of these companies are behind the scenes working on the tech, building, networking and going on roadshows to build partnerships and spread the awareness of the project. Many people saw 2017 as a bubble, but in order for new ideas to come to fruition, they need to be pioneered in the first place. It takes time, many people will fail and very few will succeed like anything in life.

Impressions on the Future

In January 2017, I attended “Bitcoin Miami” and the atmosphere was in full FOMO (fear of missing out) and a stampede arrived. Prices crashed at the beginning of 2018 and many investors felt burned and left the space forever. It was an exciting time but now we are gearing up for new arrivals. We are also anticipating regulatory measures especially for the ETF. Nobody knows if it will be passed, who knows. If it does get passed we may expect to see a major bull run on both Bitcoin and Alt Coins. As an investor in the space, patience is a must. Choose your Tokens carefully and be sure to do a lot of research before jumping in with both feet!

 

 

I decided to fly to Las Vegas to attend Blockshow, a 2 day conference focused on the future of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. It was a smaller show but had a good lineup of speakers like YouTube influencer and trader Tone Vays, Alex Mashinsky of Celsius Network, Jeremy Gardner who lead the first Ethereum ICO, Bobby Lee of BTCC, Nouriel Roubini who is an outspoken critic of Cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin and Initial Coin Offerings, and several Twitter influencers.

2 Days of Blockchain Discussion

I enjoyed some of the debates, particularly between Nouriel Roubini and Tone Vays regarding Bitcoin. Several months ago I attended “Fluidity” a small summit that took place at the historic Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn, New York and Nouriel was on stage debating Joseph Lubin of Consensys. He is very passionate about his beliefs and does not seems to believe in Bitcoin or Initial Coin Offerings. Tone Vays agreed with him regarding “Alt Coins” and ICO’s, because he is more of what they call a “Bitcoin Maximalist”. I have to say this debate was the highlight and I enjoy watching naysayers go up against the bulls.

Impressions of the Conference

Las Vegas is a good venue for conferences although in the summer its excruciatingly hot outside. Since we have been in a bear market for most of 2018, many conferences have suffered a downtick of attendees. This wasn’t the case for Blockchain week in South Korea, which had very high volume. Consensus which was held earlier this year in New York City was rife with FOMO (fear of missing out) and had an explosive number of attendees regardless of the high ticket price. I think we will continue to see a huge growth in the Cryptocurrency arena regardless of negative press about prices. I think Blockshow was very well put together, I liked the venue (Palazzo Hotel) the food was excellent, they had brought in a good line up of speakers and the attendees were interesting. I also enjoyed exploring Las Vegas a bit. As far as new projects included in the show, I can’t say anything really caught my attention this go around.

 

Since I began writing this Blog in August 2017, I’ve experienced an incredible journey in the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain world. I created this as a platform for me to write about and understand the projects I’ve invested in, and help other people I meet in the space understand in a simple format what these projects are trying to do. In 2013, I purchased my first Bitcoin. I didn’t do this as an investment, it was more of a collectable item to have for fun, a novelty item.

Oddly, we are now seeing this same principle with ERC-721 Tokens. It was cool to own a Bitcoin, but at the time it had a bad reputation. Little did the world know that Bitcoin would become an extremely controversial subject globally, challenging currencies in various countries and making front page headlines in highly respected publications like the Wall Street Journal. It became so important that countries in Latin America actually needed, and still need Bitcoin to access food supplies because of their own failed currency.

2013: Fast Forward a Few Years

The subject of Blockchain became red hot in 2017, and many enthusiast like myself emerged publicly at Meetups and at conferences. YouTube channels began sprouting up like wildfire, talking about ICO’s (Initial Coin Offerings) which essentially are crowd funded technology startups fueled by Cryptocurrencies. The first driver to these ICO’s was Bitcoin and later followed by Ethereum which at one point nearly challenged Bitcoin’s domination in Market Cap. I really see 2017 as the ICO frenzy year, because so many of these projects were popping up every week.

I enjoyed researching these new projects and pulling apart white papers to understand what these projects were aiming to do. Unfortunately, along with all of the exciting visions came many scams, with the intention of just taking peoples Ethereum and building nothing at all. I attended many conferences in China, Japan, Europe, Canada, US, etc and it seemed like every other person was launching an ICO or launching a Crypto fund.

When we hit November and December FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) became commonplace. People began throwing their money into Bitcoin and Ethereum, it was a lottery mentality. For those new people who entered the space hoping for massive gains, they ended up getting burned pretty bad. They left with a negative attitude towards Bitcoin while fewer left extremely wealthy because they had cashed out into Fiat currency. January 2018, the space had shifted gears. Social Media Influencers who gained a reputation during Cryptocurrency’s rise became extremely wealthy and built brands ushering new users into Crypto. Shortly after January, we entered a bear market and prices never seemed to go up again. Large numbers of enthusiast left and new ones began replacing them.

ICO’s still continued to raise large sums of Cryptocurrency for their visions and conferences kept expanding and expanding. CoinDesk’s Consensus global conference was packed to the gills! It seemed like more and more people were leaving their jobs in finance and law to enter the Blockchain space. The same people who gave me a Goldman Sachs business card were now handing me a Consensys card. For those who do not know what Consensys is, it’s one of the largest companies, if not the largest supporting projects being built on the Ethereum network and headed by Joseph Lubin, an early investor in Ethereum.

My Personal Take On The Space

I decided to quit my internet marketing career in 2017 and focus full time on crypto trading and building my network in the space. I have found this space to be thrilling and the diversity and variety of people I have met globally. I remember attending a Bitcoin Meetup in 2015, and it had a very small number of people there. The same one had over 1,000 attendees in December 2017, you could really feel the FOMO. At one point, I was even interviewed for New York Magazine to discuss my take on Crypto trading. Regardless of the ups and downs I have held on, staying heavily involved 7 days per week whether it’s attending conferences or meetups or discussing the markets in my chat groups. I still believe that Bitcoin is quite revolutionary, and I know that word is tossed around often. It can truly change the world and has incredible value. It’s also survived the test of time and has yet to fail. Could it someday? Who knows. I do believe in it and think it will continue to exist for a very long time. I am not the only one.

Regarding ICO’s, I have come across hundreds and hundreds of founders and with all due respect to them, I have to say that it only makes sense that a few of these projects will survive and actually build something meaningful. The biggest buzzword thrown around is “Decentralize” and given that, everyone should have the right to crowd fund their project. I think it’s the nature of a free market and everyone entering the Blockchain space should be aware of what they decide to invest in, or sell to the public. I have grown very skeptical of some of these projects but believe that some of these will be really exciting in a few years. I am looking towards a positive future for Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. Let’s build together!