It’s time to say hello again.
January and February have been quite busy for us so far. Apart from working on our projects, we were invited to speak at multiple events in Germany, France and Switzerland. We gave several keynotes about blockchain technology, smart contracts and cryptoeconomics, attended interesting meetups and organized another “Blockchain Dine & Talk” with one of our clients. Read more details and our upcoming plans and engagements below.
January 2018
The year started with a very nice invitation to a blockchain diner in the well-known SOHO House, Berlin. We were invited by the guys from Decrypt, a San-Francisco based investor group and the team around Zooko (Founder, Zcash) to discuss the important topic of privacy. Thank you for the great opportunity to discuss challenges and solutions to privacy in the age of cryptocurrencies.
ZCash is a cryptocurrency with a decentralized blockchain that provides anonymity for its users and their transactions. As a digital currency, ZCash is similar to Bitcoin in a lot of ways including the open-source feature, but their major differences lie in the level of privacy and fungibility that each provides. What most don’t know, is that it is not only interesting for the individual, but also for enterprises. A company wants to protect information regarding its supply chain from competitors. More on Zcash and its benefits here.
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On Jan,19 , ASTRATUM was invited by the WorldWebForum in Zurich, Switzerland to present in front of a large audience its vision, how blockchain technology, tokens and smart contracts will impact the real estate industry. Three major impact zones can be distinguished: (1) The ledger enables land and property registries as immutable truth (2) Smart contracts enable process automation, in conjunction with payments, leading to faster processes at lower costs (3) Tokens enable a new way of project financing and the fragmentation of real estate ownership.
Switzerland is one of the leading crypto-nations, and is dedicated to stay one. It was exciting to exchange thoughts and ideas with other blockchain real estate experts like Prof. Truebestein, University Luzern and IBREA Switzerland, Lutz Thelen from Reamis and elea Labs and experts from the law office MME, which are a DLT law pioneer and behind many ICO’s. Currently, Switzerland is pursuing the creation of so-called “C-Shares”, or tokenized crypto-shares.
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Next, the Humboldt University, Berlin organized the two-day event “Blockchain and Law”.
Our founder, Sven Laepple, was invited to speak at the “Blockchain & Society” panel.
The “Blockchain & Society” panel was opened by Prof. Paulus (Humboldt University, Berlin). Florian Glatz (Blockchain Association Germany) made a great intro into the topic. The panel was moderated by Ela Kagel (Supermarkt) and consisted of Dr. Friederike Ernst (Gnosis), Dr. Nina Siedler (DWF), Dr. Shermin Voshmgir (BlockchainHub) and Sven Laepple (ASTRATUM).
Focus was the impact of distributed ledger technology on society and its legal ramifications. Blockchain is a foundational technology and enables a wide spectrum of applications. Being a powerful tool however, we have also the responsibility to ensure that it is not misused. Thus, we as individuals and as society have the responsibility to pro-actively support the ecosystem and make sure it is headed in the right direction. Challenges and progress around legal recognition of smart contracts were also highlighted. Find the recorded presentations and talks from the two-day event here.
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Then we headed to the OECD in Paris, France to join the OECD Forum on due diligence in the garment and footwear sector:
It was an awesome experience to present at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) together with one of our clients, HUGO BOSS AG, the proof of concept we developed together.
The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD was established in 1961 in Paris and has 35 member countries.
Representatives of large fashion groups, NGO’s, countries or industry associations participated at the event to learn and discuss how distributed ledger technology can improve on the one hand global business processes, while at the same time improving the situation of many people involved in this global business on a level of an individual.
Using blockchain, smart contracts and tokens can support sustainability in the garment and footwear sector and fight bad actors in the sector. It was fantastic to see such an interest for it! Kudos to our client’s team, which really understood the use-cases behind the technology and how it can be applied properly.
Having Sustainability in the focus, blockchain technology is not only able to decrease frictions along the supply chain, and also ensuring the provenance and authenticity of goods. It also provides a new way of financing, potentially turning a cost center into a profit center. We will soon write a separate post, how this can be achieved in our opinion.
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On January, 31, we held again one of our regular private “Blockchain Dine & Talk” in Berlin, which we organize since 2016 in collaboration with the innovation unit of one of Germany’s leading financial groups. The concept aims to close the gap between the nascent blockchain space and executives from banking, insurance, real estate, investment and more. This is achieved by creating a framework, which enables an open dialogue between incumbents and the blockchain start-up ecosystem.
This time, we invited Julian Leitloff (Fractals) and Arthur Roaing Baer (FOAM) to join our discussion. Thanks again to these two gentlemen for the excellent and open discussions about the state of our industry. Our client and guests were delighted, like ourselves, by the discussions, we all had this evening.
There is clearly an increased awareness for blockchain among the executives of large financial institutions. This is a positive sign for the blockchain ecosystem as a whole.
Contact us, if you’re interested to discuss with us, how this format could be adopted to the needs of your organization.
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Berlin is just an exciting place for all, who are interested in the Distributed Technology space. We attended the exciting “Deep Dive into Decentralized Exchanges” in Berlin, organized by the WEB3 Foundation. The event gave an excellent overview of relevant developments in the space of crypto exchanges and its future. This is the kind of events, which make Berlin such an outstanding and exciting place for blockchain. #BerlinBlockchainCapital
The projects, which were present, belong without question to the most advanced of the crypto space: Airswap, Gnosis, Kyber Network, Melonport, OmiseGo and Radar Relay.
Make sure to read our quick report about the event, the interesting DEX projects and why decentralized exchanges are so important.
February 2018
Beginning February, BTC-Echo organized in collaboration with Neue Energiewelt in Berlin a conference, dedicated to Cryptoinvesting: the “Investorentag Kryptowährungen 2018”:
Sven presented investment strategies for crypto-assets and how to apply existing securities knowledge to crypto.
One of the key takeaways from Sven’s talk was that token investments are indeed seed investment we are used to in traditional VC and angel investing context. However there is one important distinction, with token sales: seed investing is now democratized, something which was until now the privilege of accredited and somehow privileged investors with access to risk capital and deal flow. Now, seed investment is accessible to the regular guy. This ways, the returns of risk investments in crypto-assets have to be put in perspective and compared to seed funding — and suddenly, the returns do not any longer look as extraordinary as they seemed to be.
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On February, 06 the Chamber of Commerce (IHK) Stuttgart organized for the second time their annual blockchain conference “Blockchain Camp.” Ramon Rank and Thomas Eller (IHK), and Jochen Kassberger (blockLAB) did a great job. Blockchain companies, a.o. like ASTRATUM, IBM, Iconiqlab, KI Decentralized, Parity, were present.
Stuttgart is the capital of Baden-Wurttemberg, an economical powerhouse, home of global players like a.e. Daimler, Porsche, Bosch and leading regularly the national and international charts of patent registrations and inventions.
Sven held a keynote titled “The Path to the Token Economy” (Auf dem Weg zur Token Economy), emphasizing the importance of cryptoeconomics and tokens, which enable new business models.
After the keynote, ASTRATUM hosted a workshop session titled “Token, Opportunities for the Industry”, where we discussed the opportunities for enterprises, embracing this innovation. Several corporations have already invested in tokens, from Wanxiang, Lufthansa, Bosch Venture Capital to Jaguar Land Rover.
These companies made the first step to embrace the novel type of investing and we are looking forward to seeing more companies join the ranks.
The Blockchain Camp III is scheduled for September this year.
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DeepTech Dinner & Drinks #3 in Berlin invited us to attend their monthly event. We discussed with representatives of other industries and VCs the current stage of the crypto-space, and how blockchain cancontribute to industries such as healthcare and gaming.
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We also attended “Money Talk #2: Token Economy — The Future of Currencies?”, dedicated to the applied science of Cryptoeconomics. Money Talk is organized by Ela Kagel, (Supermarkt). Speaker was Shermin Voshmgir (BlockchainHub), and she held a great talk about functions of money, the emergence of cryptoeconomics and token design.
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The 20th of February, we were invited by another friend from the blockchain community in Berlin, Max Kordek, to join the relaunch of Lisk. He presented a new roadmap, website, logo and initiatives. An easy-to-use SDK to launch own childchains was also presented. This is an important adoption driver for any blockchain. It was great to see Lisk making a lot of progress in the last year and we are looking forward to see how Lisk will continue to support blockchain adoption at large.
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One of Germany’s largest insurer invited us to discuss with them for an entire day, how blockchain and smart contracts may impact their business. We discussed the capabilities of a distributed ledger, smart contracts, tokens and ICOs — and the concept of distributed business and invisible competitors within the insurance industry.
Our customer from financial services organized a hackathon. The winning team received feedback for their concept from us. Gleb Dudka (ASTRATUM) shared insights about the crypto-asset classification, listed the various exchange types and the state of crypto regulation within the EU and Asia. This helped the team to narrow down its target market niche for its product and identify the correct approach to crypto-asset valuation.
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On the 26–27 February, Prof. Sandner from the Blockchain Center at the Frankfurt School of Management invited, together with our friends from Ki Decentralized, the Crypto-Assets Conference in Frankfurt invited the Blockchain and Banking community to Frankfurt/Main.
The impressive 2 day agenda was about developing and investing in the blockchain ecosystem. There were interesting speakers a.e. from Dash, Distributed Labs, Kraken, Ripple and from the Deutsche Bundesbank, the European Central Bank, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), Boerse Stuttgart, Commerzbank, Deutsche Boerse, LBBW and Robert Bosch Ventures.
In his talk “HODL & To the Moon with Lambocoins”, Sven addressed the cultural aspect of crypto-space. He introduced various investing strategies and asset classes such as non-fungible digital art, like the already infamous Cryptokitties, and showcased the complexity and risks of the crypto investment space. Watch Sven’s talk here.
After that, Sven was on a panel with Martin Diehl (Bundesbank), Dr. Friederike Ernst (Blockchain Association, Gnosis), Alexander Lange (Equilibre, formerly Earlybird) and Achim Illner, moderated by Daniel Grassinger (Nexussquared).
The panel discussed the current state and the future of crypto space, including a notion of crypto-fiat and the question of token intrinsic value. Discussions were heated and we greatly enjoyed those!
Watch all video recordings here.
Upcoming March 2018:
Berlin hosted an exceptional event in an awesome building at the Brandenburger Tor: the Blockstack Berlin: Signature Fund. Thought leaders from the crypto and private equity space came together.
Prominent speakers included Edward Snowden and Nick Szabo, the inventor of smart contracts and one of the more likely candidates to be Satoshi Nakamoto. We are currently writing an event report, to be published soon. So stay tuned!
We will speak about Blockchain and Real Estate at the Digital Real Estate Summit 2018 in Zurich, Switzerland. An event, organized by pom+ at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).
It was a great experience to introduce pom+ in blockchain for real estate and the token economy over the last months. Very helpful was our knowledge about blockchain real estate and tokens as well as ICO’s and regulation in combination with their expertise in real estate.
ASTRATUM started in 2016 to conduct extensive research in blockchain real estate, covering many blockchain real estate projects. Our methodology to evaluate them help us to identify the potential of each of those projects.
We look forward presenting innovative international projects in April in a workshop on Apr, 17th at the b100 innovationlab, Zurich.
We are proud to have our founder, Sven, being invited by True Global Ventures as member of the jury for the Global Blockchain Competition in Singapore . The finals are on 12th Mar at SGInnovate, Singapore. We have nominated some great startups from the space:
MADANA — MADANA is a platform for data analysis that uses Blockchain technology allowing participants to get in on the data market with their own data and simultaneously preserving their privacy by design. MADANA is going to be first ICO on the Lisk platform.
Windingtree — Winding Tree is a blockchain-based decentralized open-source travel distribution platform. They make travel cheaper for the end user, while making it more profitable for suppliers. Windingtree was one of the first companies to strike a token deal with a major enterprise, in their case Lufthansa.
FOAM.space — The FOAM proof of location protocol empowers a permissionless and autonomous network of radio beacons that can offer secure, distributed location services, independent of external centralized sources such as GPS through time synchronization.
CTFMarkets — A tokenized financial protocol, allowing to structure financial instruments through smart contracts.
Resonate.is — Resonate is on a mission to remake streaming as a champion for artists and a muse for passionate fans with a community of 2000+ musicians and almost 300 indie labels.
Let’s see which ones are winning the competition.
Further, we participated on March, 13th at the Annual Summit 2018 for eGovernment in Berlin (Jahreskonferenz Digitale Verwaltung 2018). We were on a panel with Dr. Reger, CTO of Fujitsu, Prof. Parycek from the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS and Manfred Klein, Chief Editor of the magazine “eGovernment Computing.”
The panel discussed the importance of DLT for the public administration and possible scenarios for the future: “Podiumsdiskussion: Kommt ein Paradigmenwechsel? Was die Blockchain für die öffentliche Verwaltung bedeuten kann? Mögliche Zukunftsszenarien.”
On March, 26–29th was the Ethereum Camp in Berlin. Ethereum Camp is a 4-day-hackathon. Blockchain and IoT enthusiasts will be empowered to transform their ideas into real prototypes and new business models by providing a best-in-class expert network and learning environment. Gleb Dudka presented our Urban Air Mobility project Vaagnar and the Distributed Sky Alliance.
Upcoming April 2018:
Berlin will host on April, 5–6th the C3 Cryptoconference, where we have been invited to give a talk about blockchain as well. +30 international speakers are going to be there. Gleb will present the status and outlook of cryptoexchanges, centralized and decentralized ones. Thanks, Dennis. This event will cover many aspects from the cryptospace.
We are exciting to speak on April, 16th at the Crypto42 Token Investment Summit 2018. It is organized by Elfriede Sixt from the Fintech.Academy, Vienna and Shermin Voghsmir from the new Institute of Cryptoeconomics at the University of Vienna.
ASTRATUM is like in 2017 for the second time an event partner. This is a premium networking event, focused on the defining, trading, valuing, accounting, auditing and tax issues around the new asset class of CryptoAssets. Sven will moderate a panel around ICOs and their competition for early stage funding with Venture Capital.
Get 50% DISCOUNT for CRYPTO42SUMMIT 2018 as friend of ASTRATUM here
You find instructions there, how to claim your discount.
Upcoming May 2018:
Cozy May is approaching fast. We are of course excited at participating again at the Token Summit III in New York, NY. May is perfect for a visit in New York. On a sunny day, it is just exciting to eat awesome sandwiches from Dean & Deluca on doorsteps in SOHO and drinking refreshing apple cider rosé..while talking crypto and watching people passing by.
Last year, we visited the first ever Token Summit I in New York together with Alexander Lange from Earlybird and did exactly this. Back in Berlin, we gave together at the Blockchain Expo a joint debrief of the awesome Token Summit I 2017.
ASTRATUM conducted in early 2017 on behalf of Earlybird an audit of Shapeshift’s blockchain and smart contract based products, which opened up the path to their investment in Shapeshift.
Based on this, we developed an efficient audit process for smart contract based services, covering a functional and systemic audit. This audit covers not only the smart contract, but also the organization and processes around it. Doing this, we collaborate with subject matter experts and use existing tools, best practice and procedures, resulting in a documentation and protocol of the results and to do’s.
It was an awesome experience, collaborating on such a level with some of the most advanced blockchain teams worldwide.
Much going on. Stay tuned. Hasta pronto.
ASTRATUM
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ASTRATUM is a blockchain venture studio, developing value in the Distributed Economy.
For example, we developed a next generation mobility solution with blockchain, smart contracts and IoT devices for a global leader in the automotive space, detailed a blockchain strategy for one of the world’s largest business network operators, helped a leading European venture capitalist with his investment in a leading decentralized crypto exchange and introduced with our “blockchain dine&talks” the world and mechanics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to top executives from leading German financial services.
Our team rely on experts with outstanding professional experience and the necessary skillset to address the interdisciplinary challenges, coming with the cryptoeconomy. We believe that decentralized tech like blockchain is a game changer, and that a blue ocean strategy is the best approach to develop meaningful innovation. We also believe that Distributed Business is the future.
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 proud to be founding member of the Blockchain Association Germany (Bundesverband Blockchain) and of the Distributed Sky Alliance. ASTRATUM is also Industry Partner of the Technical University TU Berlin.
