Decentralized applications (Dapps) have taken off. Dappradar.com, the trusted authority on all things Dapps, has over 1800 listed dapps. And the activity is not restricted to the developer side; users and transactions are also steadily growing. Another player, State of Dapps reports the following:
ETH, EOS, and TRON are the major platforms for dapps, which now include apps for gaming, gambling, exchanges, and more. If we analyze the top 50 dapps, three are on ETH and the rest are on EOS and TRON.
Blockchain is now mainstream, but there are multiple niches that are growing and finding traction in the real world on a standalone basis. Decentralized Applications (DApps) have existed since the advent of P2P networks, but have only gained popularity with blockchain technology.
So, what are these decentralized apps, and why are they important?
Tezos brings multiple technical innovations: On-chain Protocol Governance, Liquid Proof of Stake, and their own smart contract language called Michelson. As the Tezos network has now been live for a few months and in order to understand the potential of the network we interviewed Samuel Harrison from Tezos Commons Foundation.
As Samuel explains, it is best to think of Tezos Commons as one “marketing” arm, among others, of the Tezos ecosystem. And, in particular, Tezos Commons is the arm that is based in Silicon Valley.
Understanding Tezos
We are, of course, interested in understanding Tezos. Especially it comparison to Ethereum, EOS, Cardano and other smart contract blockchain platforms.
The purpose of this analysis is to execute an objective and quantitative evaluation of the Ethereum network. Why? Ethereum’s token ETH price has been in a spectacular free fall for the past few months. From a high of over $1400 in January 2018 to the May push to almost $800, ETH has now reached lows around $240. This surprising price movement made me want to reconsider my thoughts on Ethereum again from scratch and without emotions.
In addition groups are targeting the Ethereum network with a negative campaign using the same strategy they used against IOTA in the past as you can read here. Therefore I would like to make my own opinion.
It is just the beginning of the coin offering market. In this article we, Block X Bank, an investment bank focused on blockchain, will be exploring using the best data available the past, present and future of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market.
Total potential market size
Private Equity Assets under management are valued in total to about $2.5 trillion USD. A Private Equity investor is typically locked in for 7 to 10 years. In general, the investment is difficult to value during that time. And the investor receives back their payment at the time that is solely at the discretion of the fund manager.
Imagine a world where most crypto-coins are regulated securities trading on regulated securities exchanges. And shares in companies, cash flows, dividends, interests, notes, and other existing proven financial products back these coins.
I believe in 10–20 years 1 BTC=$300,000 and 1ETH=$22,000. Let me explain why using a comparison of Internet age vs the Blockchain age.
Early ‘90s
I look at the blockchain space as being in the same state as the internet was in early ‘90s.
Why is that? Because only a few of my friends have heard of Bitcoin and none of Ethereum. Because none of them have used anything in the crypto/blockchain space. And when I ask taxi drivers, or random people I meet I also get the same answers: yes, I vaguely heard of Bitcoin but they know nothing about smart contracts, ICOs, and they are not using anything in the crypto space, yet.
I believe history repeats itself. We can learn from the early years of the internet and internet/tech companies what is likely to happen to the blockchain space.
Blockchain is great at decentralizing control and data. It creates communities, as people must contribute to the ecosystem in some form to give the data value. This value can derive from maintaining the ledger, providing a resource, or contributing data. New industries are being tested with this technology, but it is the computer vision and machine learning industry that needs to embrace blockchain.
For instance, when creating augmented reality applications, a massive amount of data is needed to make it accurate and efficient. However, this takes a lot of time and can slow the project down.
Lampix is Introducing Blockchain Image Mining to the Computer Vision and Machine Learning World
Lampix plans on using the power of blockchain to create one of the largest image database with the help of machine learning. Developers will be able to tap into this database for their own product, such as Google Glass, Holo Lens, or our Lampix product, and create applications. This is exciting, as for any application, a lot of data is necessary to make it accurate and work properly. The database will consist of over a billion datasets contributed by image miners, who are compensated with PIX tokens for submitting datasets.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is the next big thing in the world of fundraising. It combines the features of an IPO and crowdfunding allowing backers to support a startup via donations while generating massive returns on their investment. ICO is basically crowdfunding of a new cryptocurrency venture where a percentage of the cryptocurrency (and not the venture itself) is sold. This new cryptocurrency is usually sold for a fiat currency or other mainstream cryptocurrency like bitcoin.
For many decades, any startup looking for funding would have to go to a VC firm, the self-appointed gatekeepers to capital. Crowdfunding in general, and sites like Kickstarter in particular, democratized the funding process. It allowed young companies to get themselves directly in front of prospective consumers and raise funds from backers.
A world where any eBay shop can within 5 minutes receive $800 in their bank account as a loan from 30 random people on the internet. No transfer fees and instantaneous funds transfer. A world where if the shop does not pay back the loan their warehouse locks stop opening for them and their cell phone stops working. This can be achieved with Bitcoin lending using Ethereum smart contracts combined with the internet of things. This may be reality within 2 years.
Bitbond is a Peer-to-Peer lender for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs). They have originated to date $360,000 in 1100 loans at 20–23% per annum interest. By average 30 people from the US or Western Europe finance each loan . The borrowers are SMBs from all over the world, from Philippines to Brazil, via India and including US and Western Europe. Nearly all their loans are denominated in USD. Bitbond does the underwriting and fixes the loan interest. As a result, the yields end up in the 6–8% range. Subsequently, they are improving fast as Bitbond gathers more data and their systems improve.