What Will It Take for a Blockchain Company to Succeed in 2019?
2018 taught us much about building on a blockchain.
First, an idea alone isn’t enough. The execution is key. Moreover, a flurry of poorly conceived ideas can undermine an entire ecosystem: a lesson the markets were only too keen to deliver as one year on from unprecedented highs, even the poster-child of cryptocurrency is licking its wounds.
In November last year, Bitcoin suffered its worst month in seven years losing over one-third of its value in just thirty days.
Second, when embarking into the unknown, it pays to leverage the expertise of those with experience: a fact ignored by the many teams that chose to pursue quick riches at the expense of shared gains.
Now, the landscape is littered with an ever-growing list of failed projects — leaving the survivors to do their best to restore collapsing confidence.
A Turning Point?
Even in a year of undeniable struggle, there were significant gains.
- The White House hired a prominent Bitcoin evangelist, signaling a potential source of support at the highest level.
- Bitcoin hodlers coordinated a ‘bank run’ in a first effort to recapture control of their assets, putting exchanges on alert of impending obsolescence.
- Even financial institutions placed bets on the growing likelihood of a blockchain revolution — are riches on the horizon?
And in the highest-profile application of distributed ledger technology to date, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — two nations with the second-largest combined sovereign wealth funds — officially launched a Saudi-Emirati virtual currency to enable seamless cross-border transfers between central and local banks.
But one question remains…
What will it take for decentralized platforms to succeed in 2019?
First, Consolidation
The final demise of value-less crypto-projects must precede success.
Speculators must admit defeat to allow emerging dApps to grow. In turn, they will help protocols to showcase their capabilities and to enhance the stability of — and confidence in — the ecosystem as a whole.
Close-knit collaboration must become the norm: projects should work together towards success, leveraging each others’ strengths to capitalize on existing capabilities.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that only a select few protocols can support the scale required to realize the value of blockchain technology.
So, let’s double-down on the best-in-class.
EOS Holds Potential
EOS is the self-proclaimed “blockchain architecture that has the potential to scale to millions of transactions per second, eliminate user fees and allow for quick and easy deployment of decentralized applications.”
As such, EOSIO could emerge as 2019’s dApp store of choice.
It promises speed, scalability, and flexibility. And the platform’s relative maturity reinforces its prospects as a preferred architecture: with a coin safely positioned in the top 10, it is as stable and sustainable virtual currencies come.
Moreover, the experience of Dan Larimer — co-founder of successful blockchain platforms Steemit and Bitshares, now leading EOS — leaves little doubt as to the credentials of the platform’s team.
Early Success
EOSIO has already powered notable success.
Ride-sharing app EVA recently launched on the EOS blockchain with co-founder Raphaël Gaudreault citing “scalability” and “sustainability” as crucial factors in opting for the protocol.
Transparent gaming platform EOSBET has soared in popularity since migrating to EOS from Ethereum, with the scalability of the EOS architecture enabling its decentralized casino to process millions of transactions every week.
These two projects offer a taste of what it takes to succeed.
Their progress stems from a robust team of experienced technologists, marketers, and builders capable of relying on their own expertise in place of the guidance of so-called advisers.
Their propositions reflect more than just a white paper: these are real-world problems solved with value-adding solutions that harness blockchain technology to resolve a need.
They are not appending ‘blockchain’ merely to raise capital.
However, there’s still an unknown entity. And it arrives in the form of regulation. It’s a factor that Elitium — our luxury lifestyle offering soon to launch on EOSIO — has already factored in.
We made compliance a core early-stage focus, and we are now perfectly positioned to succeed in 2019.
Elitium: A Poster Child for 2019?
Building a blockchain business is more complicated than registering a tech company: It takes the team, the solution — and adequate consideration of regulatory uncertainty.
To overcome the challenge, Elitium registered as a utility token under Gibraltar law — one of the few jurisdictions with clarity.
Moreover, Elitium has a banking set-up that allows it to accept cryptocurrencies; process fiat-to-crypto exchange; as well as pay our team in Fiat currency.
Better still, Elitium is focusing on a visible problem in the luxury industry — one of an outdated process and unnecessary paperwork — to build a solution for a waiting customer base: consumers with interest in the luxury lifestyle.
Finally, with a global network of partnerships, Elitium has a proven business model.
All the team needs is a robust technology to satisfy the ambition to scale; to manage the security requirements of the network’s clientele, and to process the volume of transactions the Elitium ecosystem will ultimately generate.
In EOS, Elitium has found its viable solution.
What’s Next?
Elitium is a rarity in the blockchain space: the project has a clear idea of its target market as well as a well-defined roadmap of how to realize its vision:
- An online ATM for near-instant crypto-fiat exchange
- EUMI — a pioneering tokenized insurance coin that protects users from malicious activity
- EUMX — a third coin to power a unique rewards program
- Custom smart contracts to remove the inefficiencies across an array of luxury segments
Moreover, Elitium founder Raoul Milhado recognized early on that, to succeed with his ambitious blockchain-based ecosystem, he needed an underlying dynamic protocol.
Milhado noted how his team could “see the blockchain landscape was rapidly evolving, so we created a plan with enough flexibility to, if required, shift our approach to build on a platform that could support our rate of innovation.”
To maintain momentum, Milhado developed what he calls a variable launch strategy: an approach that will allow the project to now launch on the stable EOS platform if required, moving away from original intentions to build on the as-yet-unproven Rootstock (RSK) in favor of a battle-tested host, ensuring the project proceeds smoothly, in any scenario.
Similarly — and owing to the market conditions of 2018 — Elitium opted to forego an ICO, instead concentrating on traditional capital raising, and using its private sale to get the coin in investor’s wallets.
The primary focus has always been; less on raising funds, more on developing the technology to transform the luxury lifestyle.
A New Paradigm
Elitium’s strategy represents a laser-focus on creating a solution for a sector in need of a technological overhaul. Interestingly, migration from ERC to EOS is becoming a common move: one that could underline what’s in store throughout 2019.
But it’s not just the protocol that will dictate positive outcomes.
To succeed in 2019, it will take a new level of accountability, compliance, and customer focus: three characteristics the majority of projects have lacked — until Elitium.
READ MORE ABOUT ELITIUM IN OUR WHITE PAPER. OR PREPARE TO PURCHASE YOUR FIRST EUM FOLLOWING OUR FEBRUARY LAUNCH ON BITMART! 👏👏👏
