Blocktrak

 

On a recent trip to Tokyo, Japan I attended the Startup Token tour featuring some up and coming players in the Crypto and Blockchain space. I will not be covering each speaker at the event, just a few who caught my attention and seem to be gaining a lot of traction. These are Pesabase, Energimine, and Dether.

 

Pesabase

The first person I met at the event was Nhial Majok, CEO of Pesabase. Pesabase aims to bring low cost remittance, payments and banking for Africa. One of the first things that caught my attention was that they are teamed up with OmiseGo. If you have not heard of OmiseGo, please read this short article I wrote about it here. Given the fact that Vansa Chatikavanij, managing director of OmiseGo is on board is huge. Nhial is a former tech leader at IBM which gives him additional leverage as CEO. As far as Pesabase goes, it describes itself as a remittance, payment, and banking e-wallet solution that uses OmiseGO and Ethereum blockchain to provide financial simplification and inclusion in Africa. Some of the key benefits are that no bank account is needed, simple token based reserves across the platform, cheap customer payments for small to large businesses across Africa, instant settlement pickup and deposit cash at all agent locations, loyalty programs for consistent users.

Pesabase offers Three products: “Coinremit” remittance, which is a stable source of income for most Africans. “Bithela” Bitcoin exchange, which simply aims to be a major exchange for trading Cryptocurrencies in Africa. “Pesabase” the multi-currency ewallet. I liked the presentation about Pesabase and believe it has the ability to gain traction in African markets. Given that OmiseGO is aligned with their project is major.

 

 Energimine

Sitting next to me at the event was CEO of Energimine Omar Rahim. His company aims to decentralize global energy markets by rewarding energy efficient behavior. Energimine has a strong team and powerhouse advisors such as Lord Rupert Redesdale, who has an extensive history in the energy sector as spokesman for energy in the House of Lords. Eddy Travia, who I also spoke to at the event, a pioneer investor in blockchain startups and CEO of Coinsilium, a London based venture builder, Yacine Terai, founder of Startup Token.

Some facts about Energimine: It is a fully functional commercial entity based in Manchester, UK. Customers include one of the largest law firms in the world, one of Europe’s largest fuel retailers, and the UK’s biggest independent construction materials group. The company also actively manages $140m worth of energy on behalf of it’s large industrial commercial customers. They also use AI & Deep Learning which lead to more enhanced insights. This will be the key feature in Energimine’s launch.

Energimine is aligned with some powerful names and is already established in the UK. I see this as a very promising project in the energy sector.

 Dether

Lastly, Dether. Dether aims to solve a simple problem, trading Ethereum. Currently, most people are limited to Coinbase as an entrypoint. What I like about Dether is that it currently has a platform that has been built unlike a lot of projects in Crypto which are just Whitepapers and ideas. The company was founded by Abdelhamid Benyahi and Mehdi Amari who both have experience in the Blockchain space. They are also advised by Eddy Travia, Blockchain pioneer investor, Yacine Terai, founder of StartupToken and William Mougayar, Toronto based investor and author of “The Business Blockchain”.

The goal of Dether is “Ethereum mass adoption in the world”. Given the fact that Dether already exist and has a user base is huge. I agree with the co-founder regarding the purchase of Ethereum and some of the difficulties obtaining it for new and less tech savvy people in the space. It allows another avenue for people to purchase Crypto in a less centralized way. I think Dether will continue to grow and we should be seeing a larger user base in the years to come if it can continue it’s progress forward.

 

 

OmiseGo (OMG) is a Cryptocurrency founded in 2013 and built on the Ethereum platform and it’s based in Thailand, Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia. It’s CEO Jun Hasegawa is an entrepreneur from Japan with an expertise in e-commerce and mobile payments. The company had initially raised $50 Million through private investors and an Initial Coin offering in 2017. Astonishingly, they now have a valuation of nearly $1 Billion. The project was advised and backed by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin which gave the company a massive boost forward. OmiseGO is described as the answer to a fundamental coordination problem amongst payment processors, gateways and financial institutions.

McDonald’s Thailand Partnership

It was announced in September 2017 that OMG would be partnering with several McDonald’s in Thailand for the purpose of online orders. It was also announced that they will be integrating with McDelivery Thailand mobile app. According to Jun Hasegawa CEO of Omise:

“The consumer’s experience begins right when they place the order online, and payments are a critical component of that experience. Offering highly secure, seamless payment options across all platforms and devices is key to delivering a seamless experience for McDonald’s customers.” 

Strong Future for OmiseGo?

As a Cryptocurrency it is encouraging to see a real world use case such as McDonald’s online orders. Investors should expect to see OMG rise much further in the coming 6 months. They plan to expand into neighboring asian countries and this could mean OMG will be one of the most widely used Cryptocurrencies in the continent.

 

Power Ledger, based in Australia and currently an active ICO is aiming to put Solar power on the Blockchain. Spearheaded by Dr. Jemma Green, and supported by Sir Richard Branson, this company believes in empowering individuals and communities to co-create their energy future. They want to address Three major challenges facing the energy system globally:

1. Finding a way to include individual in high-density housing in the booming distributed energy economy.
2. Re-inventing electricity networks to provide an incentive for the connection of DER
3. Mitigating the risk of stranding multiple billions of dollar in valuable network assets.

As stated:

“Power Ledger developed and trialled Australia’s first P2P energy trading network in Busselton, Western Australia in August 2016. At the time, that was the biggest and most advanced trial in the world. This was quickly followed up with the word’s first P2P blockchain-enabled energy trading platform across as regulated distribution network in Auckland, New Zealand working with New Zealand’s largest energy network business, Vector Ltd. “

Use Cases

Blockchain is going through an incredible revolution of ideas at this time. Considering this is the early phase of these new technologies, many companies are scrambling to solve problems such as Solar power and alternative energy use. It may take many years before these sort of ideas are adopted in countries like the United States, however I do see a future in Australia and definitely Africa. Many of the poor townships in South Africa currently rely on Solar panels as I have personally seen.

Conclusion

The team behind Power Ledger is AAA. They are an already existing company with a real product. They have achieved many feats such as the Australian Blockchain trial which was a pilot project at National Lifestyle Village, it was the first of it’s kind in Australia and successfully connected 15 homes via the Blockchain. Power Ledger then deployed to New Zealand for a partnership with Vector. As of Q2 2017, they began commercial operations in the White Gum Valley of Western Australia. As of late, they have formed yet another alliance with Indra to develop network management solutions. Given that companies like TESLA pioneer new technologies in the automobile world, you would imagine their would be energy companies to compliment this growth. Power Ledger has been working on that with Synergy, they have developed Australia’s first Blockchain trading environment for EV charging. I see only a bright and strong future ahead for Power Ledger.

 

The price of Bitcoin has been on a rollercoaster ride for years, but let’s face it, it’s a currency that is here to stay, as long as there is Blockchain. (Blockchain is a core component of Bitcoin).

James Dimon CEO of JP Morgan was recently interviewed. His comments (along with other market factors such as China’s un-determined regulations) caused a big dive in Bitcoin and other currency/token prices, almost overnight. Dimon’s thinking seems to take traditional state central banking theory and tries to apply it to Blockchain and they don’t go together. In a sweeping point, he said to separate Blockchain technology from the currencies that trade within the technology. Theoretically, separating Bitcoin from Blockchain is impossible. Blockchain is a core component of Bitcoin. Any of the Blockchain currencies ARE apart of the Blockchain technologies and have value. James Dimon’s perspective about Crypto-Currency is therefore flawed. Global currencies are tied to state banks and are driven by the health of each respective government. Blockchain is driven by the health of its technology not by governments.

If you embrace Blockchain technology and you see the viability of a future in a world of Blockchain for eating drinking, exchanging of goods and services, you must have a currency that works within that world. That world (so far) is not linked to central banks (IE Governments). We should not compare central banking systems and global currencies to Blockchain and its currencies. When governments try to control Blockchain initiatives, it flies in the face of Blockchain philosophy. So something like Bitcoin is driven by the health of Blockchain, not the health of state central banking systems, and the 185 or so currencies that are tied to those state central banks. Individuals that are trading within the Blockchain and Crypto-Currency world are not tethered by central bank rules. Bottom line, you can’t separate Bitcoin or any other viable Crypto-Currency from Blockchain; they are Blockchain technology.