CWC Newsletter #10 (January 15, 2020)
By Taylor Ryker, Analyst
Top Weekly Updates:
1. Chinese internet giant Alibaba Will Launch its Own Blockchain. Chinese payment Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba and AliPay, will launch its enterprise blockchain network, Ant Blockchain Open Alliance, in February 2020. The network is reported to support 1 billion daily transactions and can sustain up to 100,000 transactions per second. In addition, the network will not be fully decentralized and will require permission to run its security nodes. This news follows in the heels of other Chinese internet giants announcing their blockchain launches or upcoming releases, such as Tencent, JD, and Baidu.
All of these blockchains are geared to provide "blockchain-as-a-service" to institutions, companies, governments, and users. In laymen terms, these blockchains are attempting to become an Amazon Web Services where companies use their services to host their websites. Rather than hosting websites, a "blockchain-as-a-service" offers customers with ready-made blockchain applications.
2. An EOS sisterchain Lynxchain is publicly launched. On Monday Jan. 7th, Fred Krueger, the leader of Lynxchain, announced the release of the Lynxchain blockchain, a fork of the EOS mainnet. Lynxchain comes at a time when the EOS mainnet has experienced transaction congestion, user difficulties, and decentralized applications migrating to other eosio-based sisterchains. According to Krueger, after two and a half days the Lynxchain saw the creation of 10,000 Lynx user accounts. This may signal that the user experience during the onboarding process of Lynxchain may be something that other eosio blockchains should emulate. However, it was reported that the new accounts may have been created out of fraud and that the large amount of new users may not be genuine.
3. Leasing Capabilities and Social Media Developments on EOS. This past week saw some large announcements in the EOS ecosystem. Chintai, a leasing platform, finally completed their 2.0 upgrade and released their first leasing market for EOS-based tokens. The first half of 2020 will see Chintai roll out additional leasing markets to include popular EOS tokens such as DAPP and WAX. This is an important development in finding use-cases for cryptocurrencies. Chintai demonstrates the possibilities of leasing digital goods, products, and rights.
On Thursday Jan. 9th, Block.one named Salah Zalatimo as CEO of their social media application, Voice. Voice will be a social media platform on the blockchain where users will be paid for their content creation and curation while creating authentic digital identities. Zalatimo, the former Forbes' global Chief Digital Officer, brings years of experience in digital media where he transformed Forbes' digital presence by making it a global top 100 website by traffic. Hopefully Zalatimo is able to provide Voice with the needed leadership and guidance to allow for mass adoption around the world.
4. Illinois Recognizes Blockchain Contracts as Legal Instruments.
5. Block.one releases EOS 2.0 upgrade.
6. Wall Street Risk. "The proportion of U.S.-listed companies losing money for three years reached its highest last year in data stretching back to the late 1990s."
7. Exchange-traded Options on Bitcoin Futures launches on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
8. NBA player’s contract and tokenization.
9. Decentralized Finance Finding the 'Holy Grail.' The DAPP Network released on the EOS mainnet may be poised to usurp Ethereum's dominance in the decentralized finance space. Beni Hakak, the CEO of DAPP, mentioned that the DAPP Network could be the "holy grail" for decentralized finance.
Disclaimer: KJ Kingsley is not a financial advisor and holds the digital tokens or cryptocurrencies represented in the content above. This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by myself to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the author’s employers.