Blockchain Fundamentals, 2018 Ecosystem in Numbers and Crypto Regulation Update
Announcing Click Ventures’ Inaugural Blockchain Ecosystem Report!
True to style, the Blockchain ecosystem has gone through another crazy year of ups and downs, filled with FUD, FOMO and excitements with the prospect of stablecoins and STOs-
Many were left ashdraked and left the scene, some are still HODLing and standing by the belief that blockchain is fundamentally a groundbreaking technology that will automate many of the world’s current inefficient processes and create new business models (the stance we choose to take at Click Ventures).
While time will tell who is right, one thing for sure is that there are many lessons to learnt from the rollercoaster year in blockchain.
Through it all, we at Click Ventures made lots of learnings about the blockchain ecosystem that we would like to open source to everyone. Along with our partners at @Tech.eu, @Oddup and @Funderbeam, we have compiled our Inaugural Blockchain Ecosystem Report 2018 to include:
- Blockchain fundamental concepts
- Practical blockchain use cases across sectors and corporates
- Interview excerpts with blockchain heavyweights
- Summary of ecosystem development in numbers
- Ecosystem player list, covering miners, market makers, exchanges etc
- An aggregator of crypto regulations across major blockchain hubs
Some high level takeaways:
1. Our on the ground observation is that most practical and up-and-running use cases in 2018 involve using one of the following core features of blockchain:
1) Disintermediation;
2) Indexing and storage of data under one immutable, shared ledger;
3) Process automation using immutable smart contracts and;
4) Attempts to build autonomous agents to trade blockchain recorded data
A good example is the use of blockchain in the e-commerce space. During the Double-11 Sales (or the Singles Day sales in November 2018), Ant Financial used blockchain to track the origin of up to US$150M worth of products sold during the 24-hour sales worldwide.
As it turns out, corporates are indexing information on an immutable blockchain to promote trust in retail.
2. The magic number is 25
2018 started off with the ICO rush going strong and everyone talking about how much money has been poured into the ecosystem- so amidst all the headlines and chatter about blockchain fundraising, how much would a blockchain project raise on average if they go the ICO route?
Across 298 recorded, successfully completed ICOs, we find that on average a project can raise US$25M, discounting the mega blockchain projects Telegram and Block.one. Also noteworthy is that most of these fundraising happened in the first half of the year- a telling sign of bust of ICO market that we witnessed in 2H 2018.
3. Clear regulations are key to attracting blockchain projects
In the past few years, many blockchain projects have gone down the utility token route because it allowed them to fundraise at a legal gray area without touching the securities law.
As things stood in 2018, many blockchain friendly jurisdictions, such as Israel and Lithuania, came out with clear rulings on what counted as security tokens and not, with guidelines on tax implications on crypto projects. As it turned out, blockchain projects favored this clarity and moved their projects to countries that have clear guidelines such as Lithuania and Estonia.
In order to help founders get a clearer picture on the evolving crypto landscape, our team has scrapped the internet on the most updated regulatory guidelines across popular blockchain hubs. The link to the Google Doc that will be constantly updated by our team can be found in the report.
The report was officially launched at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on 14 January 2019.
Click here to read the report!
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