Token Report Newsletter: Scalability Updraft
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Ethereum remains the most popular protocol for token issuers, by a wide margin, but for how long? Are we entering a browser wars phase of blockchain development? How much value could a truly scalable network unlock? With all those questions hanging in the atmosphere, here’s a look at the extant Ethereum competitors and the level of momentum they’re building among ICO issuers.
Of these 4 protocols,
NEM has had ICO developer interest for the greatest amount of time, but has not grown as fast as WAVES.
WAVES has had the greatest ICO developer interest, but that interest seems to have stalled for Q2.
NEO had the most growth in ICO developer interest in Q1.
and Stellar had the latest start, but has a pipeline for Q2.
Keep in mind that each of these protocols come with different capabilities and costs to the ICO developers. All 4 of these Ethereum alternatives are growing at a steady pace, and over the course of 2018 we might see one of more of these protocols become of comparable activity and size to Ethereum.
Crypto Climate: ⚡️Scalability updraft🌩️
Weeks into its beta, Lightning Network keeps storming across the landscape. New chains, Hashgraph, Chia and EOS, are gathering momentum. Existing Ethereum competitors, NEM, NEO, WAVES and Stellar, are building clusters of ICO activity. The scalability debate has cashiered Craig Wright and Roger Ver (at least for this week), and put pressure on Vitalik Buterin.
1 Short Read: The need for self-regulation in crypto media
Accurate, unbiased information is the lifeblood of any investment community. Inaccurate information is poison.
One channel that fraudulent ICOs have used to distribute false information to cryptocurrency investors is
paid press releases hosted on crypto publishers’ sites. In response to this issue, we wrote our own release:
Last Week’s FOMO & FUD
You don’t have to believe any of it, but here’s what the Internet was saying about people and projects in crypto last week.
FOMO:
- Bitcoin is still king in 2018 — in fact, $BTC’s dominance of the total crypto market cap has grown so far this year — ETF Trends
- Eclair is the first mobile Lightning Network wallet — Twitter + Update
- Ripple made a windfall donation of $29 million to DonorsChoose.org — New York Times
- Foxconn and Sirin Labs are teaming up to build a blockchain phone, including a built-in cold storage wallet — Bloomberg
- VC firms are asking about ICOs in seed round talks, with some calling for veto power over future token sales — Coin Desk
FUD:
- Coincheck, the Japanese bank that was hit by a hack in late January, has accepted a takeover bid by the Monex Group — Bitcoin Magazine
- Twitter suspended the account for Bitcoin.com, @bitcoin — Coin Telegraph
- Verge Currency (XVG) developers have launched a hard fork to patch an exploit that was used to launch a “51% attack” on their mining network — Mashable
- Poland’s Ministry of Finance “issued an interpretation of tax laws, deeming cryptocurrencies as ‘property’ subject to ‘civil law transactions,’ meaning Polish citizens are subject to 1% tax for every cryptocurrency transaction,
including trading 1 currency for another — Ministry of Finance - Reserve Bank of India decided that no entity they regulate can do any business with virtual currencies,
or with any businesses that do — RBI - Iran is considering blocking Telegram due to concerns that their proposed cryptocurreny platform, the Telegram Open Network, poses a risk to Iran’s national currency — Coin Desk
- Poland seized roughly $370 million in assets as part of a n international drug trafficking and money laundering investigation; some reporters have made claims of ties between the accounts seized and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex — Finance Magnates
Who to Follow:
“On the secondary market, most of the crypto exchanges that trade tokens will be shut down as any exchange trading securities must be registered with the SEC. There are only 20 or so registered exchanges in the US. Competition is steep. Instead, we will see companies become broker-dealers, firms that buy and sell securities to investors as a principal, and then register as an ATS, an alternative trading system, that allows buyers and sellers to trade with each other.
The future will be regulated. Anti-money laundering laws, know-your-customer laws, bad actor checks. There were reasons these were introduced to the financial world, and in the next year we will see these laws and more become requirements for ICOs. The consequences of ignoring them: fines, returning all money to investors in a rescission, and possibly jail time.”
From “Where the $8 Billion ICO Market Goes From Here,” on Medium, by Howard Marks, CEO at StartEngine
It’s spring. We’re coming outside.
Here are the events where you can find us:
- Blockchain Expo, London, April 18–19
- Boston Blockchain Week, April 23–27
- Crypto Invest Summit, Los Angeles, April 30 — May 2
- Consensus 2018, New York, May 14- 16
- Token Summit, New York, May 16–17
Contact us:
✉️ galen@tokenreport.com / kyle@tokenreport.com
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Token Report is an independent financial information service founded by Galen Moore and Peter Vessenes. Galen is a financial journalist with a background in startups, venture capital and launching news sites. Peter is a co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, and launched the first VC-backed Bitcoin company in 2011. He is managing director at New Alchemy, a boutique consulting and investment group based in Seattle, Wash., that is making a pre-seed investment in Token Report.
Nothing contained in Token Report materials or posted at tokenreport.com constitutes an offer or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell a security, financial instrument, or other category of asset, or investment advice or recommendation of a security, financial instrument or other category of asset. Tokens involve risk and are not suitable assets for everyone. Token Report believes its information was obtained from reliable sources but does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness and accepts no liability for losses arising from the publishing of this information. The information provided by Token Report is not a substitute for financial, legal and other professional advice. Each individual should always consult his or her own financial, legal or other professional advisors and discuss the facts and circumstances that apply to the individual.
