- The Token Economy: the Rise of Tokens and Protocols (Blockchain)
Join our event “The Token Economy: The Rise of Tokens and Protocols” on Nov. 8 in Berlin to learn more about this new phenomenon, some selected projects, how to navigate it and to network.
The Event was live streamed and recorded with the 360° VEYE cameras from i-mmersive. it can be watched here on YouTube. Streaming is provided by ifbbw. Our friends from the German cryptomagazine BTC-Echo already published a nice article about our event. Russian and Korean translation will follow.
The Crypto market has gained a lot of momentum. The overall crypto capitalization has just reached $170 billion. Gravity-defying price rallies and multi-million dollar token sales are commonplace. Most of this money is not coming from traditional sources like VC. What the heck is going on here?
Blockchain tokens.
These projects are raising money by creating and then selling their own tokens through crowdfunding on a blockchain. At first glance, this just looks like a new way to raise money. At second glance it goes far beyond that.
Tokens are a new digital asset class and are enabling the monetization of decentralized infrastructure, new business models and so-called DApps. Tokens are about projects creating their own economic ecosystems to make the entire thing tick — a Token Economy. More precisely, it is about an entirely new economical model that is being created and tried for the first time: a decentralized business model. In this model there is no centrally controlling company, which has shared contributions and ownership by all involved. This business model is uniquely enabled by the combination of the internet and cryptocurrency. An international selection of innovative blockchain startups from the US, Russia and Singapore will present their innovative projects and their token concepts.
An international panel of lawyers will discuss the legal implications of the Token Economy and a regulatory framework around the world for this new asset class. The Token Economy just like any other commercial activity is framed by various laws. Due to its rapid growth and the rise of tokens, representing diverse asset classes and various in-platform functionalities like memberships, the legal framework for the Token Economy is an important aspect to consider when developing projects or investing in promising projects.
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AGENDA:
17:30 Open doors. Please be at time for the start at 18:00
18:00–18:30 ASTRATUM: The Token Economy
Sven Laepple (ASTRATUM)
— ASTRATUM is a Berlin-based blockchain venture studio, developing blockchain strategies, solutions and ventures. Besides corporate innovation in e.g. mobility, fintech 2.0 and real estate, we develop together with partners our own ventures.
Sven will give an introduction in various categories of tokens, noteworthy development in protocols, their economical role and impact on the economy and society. Further some investment strategies.
18:30–19:00 AIRA (Russia): Robot Economy and Drone Ecosystem
Sergey Lonshakov (AIRA / Distributed Sky)
- AIRA (Autonomous Intelligent Robot Agent) project implements the standard of economic interaction between human-robot and robot-robot via liability smart contract. AIRA makes it possible to connect a variety of different robots to the market of robots’ liabilities existing on Ethereum for the direct sale of data from robot sensors, ordering of logistics services, and organization ordering of personalized products at fully automated enterprises.
DISTRIBUTED SKY is an alliance and non-profit organisation, developing open source system that uses decentralized technologies to solve the challenges of the next stages of air traffic control.
19:00–19:45 Panel talk on the legal aspects of Token Economy
Dr. Nina-Luisa Siedler (DWF, Germany), Dr. Wolfgang Richter (DWF, Germany), Richard Tall (DWF, UK), Anne-Sylvie Vassenaix-Paxton (DWF, France). Moderated by Sven Laepple and Achim Jedelsky.
- Nina specialises in the full range of finance matters, including structured finance and debt capital market. Her special interest lies with FinTech, new technology, e.g. blockchain and other distributed technology.
- Wolfgang is a financial expert specialising on all aspects of banking and finance and international investment.
- Richard is an experienced corporate lawyer with an in-depth expertise in financial services.
- Anne-Sylvie specialises in mergers and acquisitions, company law, contract law, intellectual property, data protection and new technologies.
19:45–20:00 Networking break
20:00–20:30 FOAM (USA): A Spatial Protocol on Ethereum Blockchain
Arthur Roing Baer (FOAM)
FOAM Protocol is an interoperable standard for location on Ethereum. It is an open protocol for decentralized, geospatial data markets. Its mission is to build a consensus-driven map of the world that can be trusted for every application. FOAM will allow people to build applications that are connected to verifiable physical addresses, and allow any coordinate to be turned into a blockchain wallet that can hold a balance and be tagged with crowdsourced data.
20:30–21:00 REIDAO (Singapore): Real Estate on the Blockchain
Alan Kong (REIDAO)
REIDAO is creating digital representation of real estate on the Ethereum blockchain by way of programmable crypto-tokens. Other blockchain-based services will be able to utilize the property token for their applications. REIDAO provides asset diversification, liquidity for real estate and access to a global property market. The asset ownership tokens can be transferred, inherited, or used as collaterals.
21:00–21:30 Networking
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Registration mandatory due to limited seats. No entry without registration.
Drinks and food are provided.
2. ASTRATUM Update — October
What’s up with us? We currently work on two exciting projects. One of the projects is related to a token sale for an innovative media solution and the other one is about assisting another German global top 10 brand with the development of a group-wide blockchain strategy.
We presented at the International Blockchain Real Estate Association (IBREA) meetup in Berlin our research and methodology in blockchain real estate.
ASTRATUM partnered with the Fintech Academy Vienna for the ICO Summit 2017 (Token Regulation Conference) in Vienna. Regulators, researchers, founders, entrepreneurs, investors, analysts, lawyers and CPA’s from various countries discussed intensively during two days the practice and theory of tokensales and the regulation of cryptoassets like tokens. We were participating at a panel and got many interesting insights into international differences and regulatory approaches to tokens, cryptocurrencies and tokensales (ICO’s).
For example, cryptocurrency is considered in Germany as private goods, while it is considered a currency in Austria. Small difference, many implications. Not to forget that in Germany, the profits of private goods are capital gain tax free, if holding untouched for more then 12 months. A paradise for hodlers.
We have visited the Hackers Congress Paralelni Polis 2017 in Prague on 6–10 October. Speakers were libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, hackers and freedom lovers, exchanging forward-thinking thoughts about privacy and freedom in crypto. It was very inspiring and reminded us of things to look after, when building the future. At the end, privacy and freedom is at the core of crypto.
We have conducted together with ADG our regular “Blockchain Dine & Talk” on October 17 in Berlin. The concept tries to close gaps between the nascent blockchain space and executives of leading German financial institutions. Each event, we invite outspoken blockchain experts from the ecosystem to share their insights and experience with the attendees in a relaxed atmosphere.
We were glad to welcome again in our offices some high-profile representatives of the internationally renowned Technical University Berlin, detailing potential for our collaboration around blockchain. We are excited to introduce on Oct. 28 to a class of executive MBA’s basic elements of “blockchain” and innovative blockchain-enabled business models.
The HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich is one of the few Europan Universities, offering a dedicated certificate in Digital Real Estate. We were glad to welcome them in Berlin and talk about blockchain in real estate opportunities. One outcome is the joint development of a real estate paper on ICO as innovative project funding.
What to look forward:
ASTRATUM is going to Seoul, Korea in November. So stay posted for the updates from the Ethereum trading powerhouse. We will explore in Seoul the current sentiment around the ICO regulation hurdles and get in touch with various projects there. With our “troops” on the ground, we will participate at local blockchain meetups (like here with Coinone or here at the Bitcoin Center Korea) and meet Korean friends and investors.
We also get regularly approached regarding crypto investing strategies. Over the last year, we developed an own methodology to select and trade tokens with high potential, while reducing risks. In our opinion, cryptocurrencies and tokens have to be in every investment portfolio, whether risk-averse or -friendly. Currently, we are working on an own project, evaluating various legal structures, domiciliations and frameworks for this to let others benefit from the knowledge and experience we have accumulated in cryptotrading and -investing.
In November, we will participate at a private CEO CXO Roundtable in Munich to discuss the real deal about the cryptoeconomy.
3. Token Bonanza
Last month has seen some noteworthy ICO’s: 1) SALT, a lending platform enabling crypto-backed loans 2) Enigma’s Catalyst, a data-driven crypto investment platform, powered by the Enigma data marketplace 3) Raiden Network, an off-chain scaling solution on top of Ethereum, enabling near-instant, low-fee and scalable payments.
SALT (SALT) lets you leverage your blockchain assets to secure cash loans. Their ICO raised 48.5 mio. USD hard capped, yet failed to fully satisfy the high return expectations of some early contributors. Their project itself can be expected to show healthy growth due to the demand for its core value proposition: traditional lending secured by non-traditional collateral. Additional marketing around the launch of the platform by end of 2017 will in our opinion further increase the visibility of the project. A partnership with the Bank of Mauritius and the launch of own credit and debit cards are additional reasons to keep an eye on this project. The platform is expected to go live until the end of 2017.
Enigma’s Catalyst (ENG) is a data-driven crypto investment platform, powered by the Enigma data marketplace.They raised 45 mio. USD with their ICO. Despite their great pedigree as offspring from the MIT (MIT Prof. Sandy Pentland as advisor), the ICO failed to deliver on the expected returns, having briefly traded above the ICO price and retracing to its ICO level shortly thereafter. The reasons for that are presumably the scam and phishing-riddled slack attacks, an unfortunate date for the ICO (Sept., 11) as well as a shortly announced additional large pre-sale round (50% increase), which was considered by some as “too greedy”.
Raiden Network (RDN) is a much-anticipated scaling solution for Ethereum. It is an infrastructure layer on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Their ICO, using a dutch auction mechanism like Gnosis, has its token sale live at the moment of this writing. The Raiden Network is the first solution to provide fast, cheap and scalable transaction on the Ethereum blockchain, with up to 1 000 000 transactions per seconds. It also encapsulates the transfered data. We are closely monitoring the progress of the token sale, since we believe in this project and its potential to enable specifically large-scale enterprise grade projects. Their ICO has raised some controversial opinions due to the introduction on an own Raiden token (RDN). Nevertheless, we believe that Raiden is very promising.
WaltonChain (WTC), having conducted a $15 million ICO back in July, has in our opinion great growth prospects in coming months. WaltonChain is named after Charles Walton, the inventor of RFID. WTC is based in China and is a business ecosystem combining blockchain and IoT. They are able to incorporate physical assets into the block chain automatically utilizing the RFID technology, for which they hold several patents. According to the WTC roadmap, in coming days they are releasing their genesis blockchain with an own wallet and staking mechanism. Walton has recently published their website in English and plans to broaden its outreach to western investors. So far only tradable on Binance crypto-exchange, one can expect WTC to be added to other major exchanges, once the token migration to their own blockchain is complete.
Disclaimer: This is not an investment advice. Do your own research and due diligence.
Careers
Are you interested in getting involved in blockchain projects? We are currently looking for a part-time Office Admin and communications support as interns and working students. We are also looking for graphic and UI/UX designers, project managers, developers and system architects, senior consultants, who are interested to join blockchain projects on a freelance basis. Contact us at sayhello@astratum.com, if you are intrigued by the exciting blockchain space, and let us know how you imagine to contribute.
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ASTRATUM is a Berlin-based blockchain venture studio, developing blockchain strategies, solutions and ventures. We believe that blockchain is a powerful backend play, and that a blue ocean strategy is the best approach to develop meaningful innovation. Besides corporate innovation in e.g. mobility, fintech 2.0 and real estate, we develop together with partners our own ventures. For our ventures, we are collaborating with investors and team up with exceptional individuals or teams.
We are a founding member of the German Blockchain Association (Blockchain Bundesverband) and of the Distributed Sky Alliance.
Contact us at sayhello@astratum.com to discuss how we can support you on your blockchain projects and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in blockchain.
Hasta la vista in Berlin!
