2016 was the year of the DAO. In anticipation of our TOA’18 event, we feel like this a great occasion to look back to our first TOA satellite event in July 2016: Our DAO workshop and Blockchain Angels Germany. The interdisciplinary and inspiring Tech Open Air, or TOA, became for us a sort of tradition.
The DAO, properly named “theDAO”, had been one of the largest crowdfunded projects ever. It was a project from Slock.it and showed to the community the potential of Ethereum and token sales, aka ICO’s. Download theDAO whitepaper here.
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. More on the currently underrated DAO’s, DAC’s, DA’s in this post, where Vitalik Buterin introduces and explains these different concepts. TheDAO collected within few weeks 12 mio Ether. Worth back in time around impressive 150 mio. USD, it represents today more than awesome 7 bns. USD. And it was hacked during this process with an exploit of the smart contracts. This led to the hard fork of Ethereum, giving birth to the new Ethereum Classic blockchain. Good thing was that all funds were returned to the contributors. Bad thing was that the community split, and that confidence in smart contracts and ethereum got badly hit.
Looking back, things could have been done differently, but it is easy to draw conclusions in retrospect. The deployments of the events can best be seen at the graphic below. We also recommend to read the lessons learned or listen to the reflections on the DAO, given by Christoph Jentzsch, co-founder of Slock.it.
We believe that you can’t show enough respect to the team around Stephan Tual, Christoph and Simon Jentzsch from Slock.it with their dedication to innovation and vision, by creating the DAO. TheDAO was a great achievement for the crypto community, and paved the way to today’s ICO’s and cryptofunds.
DAO, the distributed autonomous organization, built with smart contracts on Ethereum, accelerated the world of crypto currency to a new level of excitement.
During the TOA 2016, we invited in July 2016 to our DAO workshop and Blockchain Angels Germany in order to bridge the gap between the early blockchain eco-system and the international investment community. Remember, this was before token sales became the favored fund raising method. It was still early days for Ethereum. We were engaged in Ethereum since 2014 and had been playing around with Ethereum since 2015. We wanted to reach out to other founders and developers, but also other stakeholders of the community. And specifically in Berlin, #BerlinBlockchainCapital, where the culture of decentralization, privacy and disruption is hard-coded in the DNA of Berlin Kreuzberg.
1. ASTRATUM@TOA16: The DAO Workshop
Our DAO workshop “Code your Next Investment Proposal” in Berlin was held by David Roon, who gave a hands-on introduction to the world of theDAO, Ethereum and Solidity, the programming language for smart contracts. Sven met David at the MIT in 2015, while being one of 25 innovators and both being the only two Europeans, having being accepted at the program “From Napkin to Prototype.” Aim of this program was to learn hands-on, how to turn an idea for a project with Ethereum and smart contracts into a prototype. The program was assisted and framed by Consensys, Brooklyn and enriched by many outspoken blockchain experts from tech and legal.
The goal was to enable interested persons to experience Ethereum and the blockchain, so they can better understand what this is all about. We have approximately 80 people joining the workshop. You were able to participate as a member of this new DAO and engage in discussions about the technology or you could get your hands dirty and write your first draft for an investment proposal to expose to the community and their new funds. Or simply learn a lot about DAO’s and discuss the current state of the project.
2. ASTRATUM@TOA16: Blockchain Angels, Germany
ASTRATUM organized in collaboration with Outlier Ventures, UK the Blockchain Angels Germany event in Berlin.
Having been in crypto since a while and fascinated by Ethereum since day 1, when Vitalik presented it in Miami in early 2014, we realized early on the game changing potential of it, and were shocked by the difficulties of early blockchain projects to get funded.
Thus, we teamed up with Outlier Ventures to create Blockchain Angels Germany in order to provide fundraising support to founders and allow them to present their projects in front of business angels and investors. We facilitated the dialogue by giving first some insights in the technology and the market.
Jamie Burke gave an introduction into the Blockchain technology and insights in the findings, derived from the largest existing database of blockchain projects. Nowadays, Outlier Ventures is known among else for investing in IOTA and Ocean Protocol and developing a strong vision around the convergence thesis, pioneered by Frank Diana.
After Jamie’s presentation, we had selected international blockchain teams presenting their projects. The format was not an elevator-pitch contest, but rather a short presentation of the offering, followed by a Q&A.
Following start-ups presented their blockchain projects to the diverse crowd of attendees:
Agriledger, Jersey
Genevieve Leveille, co-founder, presented AgriLedger. This philanthropic initiative is dedicated to empower small farmers across the globe. Agriledger uses a distributed ledger or blockchain in combination with a mobile app.
Bitbond, Germany
CEO and founder Radoslav Albrecht presented Bitbond. Bitbond from Berlin provides inclusive microfinance on a global scale. It had in 2016 over 1,200 loans with borrowers from 68 countries and 32% of the loan volume was originated in emerging markets like India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Brazil.
Mamuro, Germany
Rhian Lewis as co-founder presented with her team Mamuro. Mamuro protects what you love. Give your valuables their own digital identity and write immutable proof of your ownership to the Ethereum blockchain. Whether your bike with safebike.io or you boat, handbag, guitar — or even drone — using Mamuro’s app.
Satoshipay, Germany
Meinhard Benn, founder and CEO of Satoshipay presented his project. SatoshiPay processes nanopayment transactions, initially in the form of bitcoins or satoshis, a smaller unit of Bitcoin. The company is currently developing a two-way payment platform that will allow content providers to charge consumers a small fee (as low as one satoshi or a fraction of a cent) to read, watch, or listen to content.
Tramonex, UK
Amine Berraoui, founder and CEO presented his project Tramonex. Tramonex provides its clients with an online platform allowing cross border payments execution. In fast moving and often volatile environment, you need more than the best rates, you need speed and flawless operational execution. The Tramonex platform comes with both built in, with a highly experienced international team to support you. Tramonex also offers tailored solutions to suit the needs of your business, such as recurrent or future payments.
XBT Corp, Switzerland
Gavin Smith, CEO and Marcie Termin presented XBT Corp (First Global Credit). XBT Corp from Geneva, Switzerland allows bitcoin holders to use the value of their cryptocurrency in the same way other traders use fiat currency to create profit potential. Customers use bitcoins as assets to generate returns trading stocks, EFTs, precious metals, commodities and stock market indices. your bitcoins stay yours, as long as your trade activities are profitable.
Zlick.it, Estonia
Erki Koldits, CEO and founder, presented Zlick.it . Zlick.it provides zero-click micropayments to the web. Their solution enables online publishers, for the first time, to sell individual articles for 0.10–1€ in a completely frictionless manner. Customers pay at the end of the month with their mobile bill.
It was exciting to see few of the early blockchain projects at once, and in a more familiar setting then today’s crowds of “blockchain conferences”. The presented projects showed the diversity of the blockchain eco-system. It was a great opportunity to network and exchange findings and experiences amongst this enthusiastic crowd or early innovators. Thanks to all of you for your support!
in 2017, ASTRATUM @ TOA17 had been a blast, welcoming over 350 people, enthusiasts, founders, developers and investors over the course of two days. Read about it here. We even translated it in Russian and Korean for our crypto friends from outside.
Let’s see what ASTRATUM has in store for the TOA18.
Stay cool. Stay real.
See you in Berlin.
ASTRATUM
ASTRATUM is a blockchain venture studio, developing since 2015 strategies, solutions and ventures for the Distributed Economy.
We developed as early as 2016 a distributed mobility solution, combining blockchain, smart contracts and IoT devices for a leading global automotive group. We also developed a blockchain strategy for one of the world’s largest business network operators. Further, we assisted a leading European venture capitalist investing in a leading decentralized crypto exchange. Our regular “blockchain dine&talk” in Berlin introduces the blockchain ecosystem to top executives from a leading German financial services group. Lately, we developed with a well-known German top global brand and a consortium from the fashion industry a POC for a tokenized global supply chain management.
We believe that Distributed Ledger Technology like blockchain is a game changer, and that a blue ocean strategy is the best approach to develop meaningful innovation. We also believe Distributed Business to be the future of business in a global, digital economy with billions of connected people and devices.
Besides corporate innovation, we work on own ventures. We collaborate with exceptional investors and individuals for each of our ventures. Feel free to reach out to get in touch.
ASTRATUM is founding member of the Blockchain Association Germany (Bundesverband Blockchain) and of the Distributed Sky Alliance. Further, we are Industry Partner of the Technical University Berlin for Sustainability and Mobility Management.
