Tag: Ethereum

Crypto is the people’s currency

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, BlockchainLeave a comment

There are a lot of people out there who are convinced that cryptocurrencies can never replace fiat money. However, I beg to differ and I see that serial entrepreneur Jeffrey Wernick is also more positive about crypto challenging fiat and has a few theories about why the world’s legacy finance system is faulty.

Wernick, who has invested in Airbnb and Uber, was talking to Business Insiderabout why he started investing in Bitcoin in 2009 and is somebody who can be considered as a leading investor in the crypto market. He believes that the fact that cryptocurrency is “people-oriented” and its decentralised nature, which “affords people equal access to operate under unanimously consented guidelines,” gives it a major advantage over the way fiat money is structured in the world.

He said:”So it’s a people’s currency, it’s defined by the people, and it’s defined by rules and a protocol that people trust. So it’s not like somebody says, if I need to have economic growth, I’m going to give this institution money, and they’re going to transmit it to a certain universe of people.”

It is vital to remember that when we look at ‘legacy finance’ and then to the developing economies where so many people are ‘unbanked’ that in the majority of cases politicians control the central bank of that country. What is the problem with this situation? Well, those politicians use the central bank as their personal bank account and have been known to embezzle huge amounts of money from their own nation, and nobody dares to stop them. There are countries that are vastly rich in natural resources, like Nigeria, yet the majority of its people live in unnecessary poverty. That’s one big problem with legacy finance and central banks.

The cryptocurrency ecosystem has the potential to reverse that situation. In the crypto sphere it is almost impossible for any one entity to control more than 50 percent of the network. Wernick explained his view of it: “Everybody has the same access to it at any point in time, just different units of it according to whatever their own personal budget constraints are. But nobody has privileged access to it, except, you could say, maybe the miners who pay to produce it and they take a business risk associated with it and anybody could choose to get into the mining business.”

Wernick has for some time supported the idea that the central banks should be accountable to the people, not to politicians, and it is easy to see why — the old ways do not benefit the many, they favour the few.

Who will win the Smart Contracts race?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Blockchain, EthereumLeave a comment

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Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum is widely known as the ‘go to’ blockchain technology for smart contracts. But, this week, Ripple’s former CTO Stefan Thomas has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge the leader with a new smart contracts platform.

Thomas left Ripple in May and now he is launching Codius, an open- source project designed by Ripple and released in a beta version back in 2014. So, it isn’t exactly new, but Thomas is positioning it as the core product of his new company Coil.

Coil’s ambition is to change the way websites monetise their content.

Monetising web content is clumsy

According to Thomas, the current way in which web content is monetised is a clumsy workaround that uses adverts, paywalls and data harvesting. His concept uses an interledger. This is an open-source protocol that allows payments to be sent across different ledgers. Basically, it allows users’ browsers to make micropayments to the websites they visit.

How Codius works

How will that work, and how will it affect consumers? Codius allows the use of a “revenue disbursement contract” that will collect revenues when consumers watch a movie, for example. The collected revenue will be paid to all the parties involved in putting that movie online, but it won’t be made in “batch payments’, it will be paid out in a stream of smaller amounts. And, those people who read newspapers with a paywall will make payments via a smart contract that manages payment authorisations and the subscriptions.

Codius has already released an instruction manual for uploading Codius in an effort to get developers to start using the platform immediately, and it seems that the call has been heard.

Who is using Codius?

Telindus, the IT solutions subsidiary of the Belgian telecoms group Proximus has said it will be using Codius to “push forward novel direct e-commerce models.”

Game platforms, Unity, Zynga and Kabam also plan to use it for new gaming platforms. Josh Williams, who invested in Unity et al, and is now creating his own gaming platforms said: “Teams in games and elsewhere are building on Ethereum and running into the cost and scalability issues we’re all familiar with. Codius has great potential in addressing these concerns, and we are eager to work with it.”

Codius offers better scalability

And there is the dreaded word that Ethereum’s team will fear most: scalability. We all know that Ethereum is still working on resolving its scaling issues. It looks like Codius is offering a solution that neatly bypasses that problem. Thomas said: “The people that are reaching out to us are saying, ‘Hey, we’re experimenting on Ethereum. We’re running into scalability issues. It’s too expensive, too slow. It’s not flexible enough. We don’t like writing in this awkward language.’”

It isn’t the only challenger to take on Ethereum, but it looks like it might be one of the strongest contenders to win the race to bring smart contracts into mainstream use.

Crypto tribes threaten power of unity

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum, FintechLeave a comment

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The crypto sphere is becoming a little like a football league table. Owners decide to give their allegiance to a particular ‘team’: let’s say Bitcoin is Real Madrid, and that’s your main team, and your friend likes ETH, let’s call it Arsenal. However, is being part of the Bitcoin fan club, and therefore competing with ETH supporters a healthy way to develop the potential of cryptocurrency?

People have a tendency to take a ‘tribal’ approach to pretty much everything, from dietary choices, to coffee brands, to football teams. But, it isn’t very helpful for crypto. Here’s why.

The cypherpunks had a beautiful idea

Privacy, free speech, and the ability to act as an autonomous individual are increasingly under attack, but decentralisation can protect these. Let us not forget that blockchain technology arose out of a community of cypherpunks who wanted more freedoms. Yet, it looks as though the crypto community now is just going to bow its head to the centralised institutions and retreat into the same old narrow-minded worldview.

As Kent Barton describes it in Medium: “The prevailing question has insidiously morphed from “how can we make the world a better place?” to “how can we defeat other blockchain platforms?”

He also argues that tribalism in the crypto sphere, “distracts the community from the crucial work of building scalable technologies that people will want to use.” And he adds, “Personal attacks and outright trolling make the environment uncomfortable or even untenable for newcomers.”

Social media channels have developed an “Us vs Them” discourse and influencers, like rocks stars, with their adoring fans fight it out with other influencers for the Top Dog spot.

Let’s show some respect

Measured and respectful discussion about the merits of various cryptocurrencies have been replaced with increasingly emotions attacks form the ‘opposition.’

Bartons says: “To an outsider, it must seem ludicrous to watch countless smart minds working on blockchain technology — developers, entrepreneurs, and other enthusiasts gifted with an ability to think outside the box and see a vision for a better future — descend into internecine bickering.”

And all the while the team battles are at the forefront of activity, the less time is being devoted to advancing the blockchain, and it is probably fair to say that this boils down to it being all about the money; not about cryptocurrency itself, but making millions and billions of fiat currency out of cryptocurrency. And that takes everyone back to the status quo before the blockchain emerged as tool for a real revolution that could make the world a better place and take power away from those who have had control of it for too long.

Say goodbye to the zero-sum game

Tribalism in crypto, particularly the desire to see one platform emerge as the winner at the expense of another will mean that we continue to be the slaves of power-holders, rather than channelling the power of the blockchain so that the people can reclaim power for themselves – at least some of it.

We will miss this opportunity by only supporting one team – it’s time to be an O.G. crypto fan and support the whole blockchain ecosystem rather than continue this zero-sum game.

 

 

 

What decision will the SEC make about Ethereum?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Ethereum, Fintech, Governments, ICO, Initial Coin OfferingsLeave a comment

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This week, Monday May 7th to be exact, the Security & Exchange Commission (SEC) started a series of meetings to decide whether Ethereum 9ETH) is a security. At the moment we’re not sure how the decision will turn out, but let’s think about what the SEC will be considering and how it might affect ETH owners.

If you’re an ETH owner, you might expect to see two extremes as a result of any decision: an unexpected high, or a devastating low. For example, if ETH is considered a security by the U.S. government, then there may be a negative, short-term price reaction. However, because Ethereum’s underlying technology, is borderless and does not depend on the opinion one country’s regulatory committee, its long-term prospects should be unaffected. And, if it is decided that it is not a security, then it is very likely that the long-term prospects of the technology and its financial standing within the community will prosper.

If no decision is made about the status of ETH we might see a major upsurge in the market, especially as Buterin and his developers have been talking up new solutions for scaling in recent days and while this might be a short-term uplift in the market, there is also reason to think it might become a long-term trend.

What is Ethereum saying?

For it’s part, ETH founders are sure that it is not a security. Joseph Lubin, one of the co-founders said prior to the SEC meeting this week: “We spent a tremendous amount of time with lawyers in the US and in other countries, and are extremely comfortable that it is not a security; it never was a security… many regulators that matter understand what Ethereum is.”

Will the SEC agree with Lubin’s assessment, and with the way other regulators claim to see it – that I what we’re waiting to find out.