CWC Newsletter #48 (December 16, 2020)

By Taylor Ryker, Analyst

Investigating Block.one's ProFi Product

Welcome back, Team EOS and EOSIO! Today has been crazy with bitcoin hitting over $20,000 for the first time. The blockchain space is teeming with enthusiasm and even though the EOS community has seen recent capitulations, others are sensing the renewed optimism. Yesterday's Everything EOS's virtual Happy Hour was a great forum that discussed many positive developments.

This week's newsletter is two-parts: First, I will highlight some notable achievements in the EOS and EOSIO community from this past week. Secondly, I will shift my focus to the heart of the post, an investigation to better understand Block.one's upcoming ProFi product with the assistance of the astute Joe Louis.

What is ProFi? In short, programmable finance (ProFi) is the next iteration of decentralized finance where users may lend, rent, earn, sell, or buy tokens under a compliant and regulated environment. Better watch out, the regulators are coming!

EOS & EOSIO Highlights from the past Week

Block.one released EOSIO 2.1 Release Candidate this past Monday, and EOSIO Product Manager Amanda Clark provided bite-size highlights of what is in store for developers and administrators. This shows that Block.one is hard at work upgrading the software, have not abandoned the EOS community, and want to make it easier for developers to deploy large-scale dApps onto EOSIO blockchains.

On the subject of Block.one, Brendon Ross pointed out that bitcoin's price appreciation will undoubtedly support Block.one's efforts in making EOSIO the best blockchain software for the next ten years, at least. The EOS public blockchain benefits from these new software updates by incorporating them for better performance, developer experience, and architecture.

The rankings from China's Center for Information and Industry Development came out yesterday December 14, 2020 and EOS is ranked #1.

BSN, EOS Nation, and dfuse partnership announced, which could possibly mean more blockchain developers from China creating dApps on the EOS public blockchain. In the interview, CEO Yves La Rose of EOS Nation also spoke about flash loans coming to the EOS public blockchain.

Chintai's tokenized real estate on the EOS public blockchain:

For more EOS and EOSIO coverage from this past week check-out EOS Nation's Hot Sauce, CryptoWriter's EOSweekly, Crypto Peter's Moran Post, and EOS Go's What Happened This Week on EOSIO.

Block.one, U.S. Blockchain Regulations, and a ProFi Product

EOS community members have speculated what products will be launched by Block.one from what they have been saying over the past 3 years. These products include a wallet, authentic identification, a social media platform, and a financial product like a decentralized exchange. In this section, I investigate this ProFi product by relying on the research by Joe Louis who discovered links between Block.one, U.S. lawmakers, and their ProFi product.

Will we hear something from Block.one about this financial product before year end?

But before we dive into Joe Louis's research, let's discuss what others have said about Block.one's ProFi product.

Zack Gall of Everything EOS spoke about Joe Louis and his research into Block.one's regulatory lobbying and upcoming ProFi product.

Watch the bookmarked part of the video where Gall mentions a spoiler about Block.one's ProFi product, that employees at Block.one have interacted with the new ProFi product and have raved about its superior UX/UI.

Chaney Moore's speculations on the ProFi product in conjunction with Voice:

"Once that private chain is linked to a public chain or a private fully regulated exchange things explode quickly! Dan recently mentioned in the Ivan on Tech interview that an entity, like Bitfinex, could offer decentralized financial products through a company that already takes into account all the tax regulation and requires KYC. In same discussion he casually mentioned that Voice faces a lot of the same tax and regulatory issues. Also reflect upon the fact that Brendan recently told Raoul Paul that B1’s financial product has been under development for 18 months! This is a huge amount of time for a financial product development….unless that product is a fully tax and regulatory compliant product that would mesh perfectly with an exchange, perhaps EOSFinex or even EOSX (see B1 Trademarks). From there we throw fuel on that fire by adding in millions of provably human voice users that may want to trade their tokens in for BTC, EOS, or even cash to pay the bills and will have to do it through the regulated financial product and exchange. So, it is likely that you will be able to use your tokens however you’d like on Voice with just the provably human requirement that exists today, but you may be required to KYC if you ever wish to move your tokens off of the Voice private network. So right now, Voice is the gateway to the private Voice chain, but in the future it will be THE easy to onboard gateway to all other Blockchains!"

What does Joe Louis think about the ProFi product?

What is the lobbying effort by Block.one?

Block.one paid $570,000 over the past year to lobbyists to push for these three bills.

The first bill:

The second bill:

The third bill:

If the prognosis for all three bills' likelihood of enactment stands true, this financial product's launch may be delayed longer. With a new U.S. Presidential administration in 2021, hopefully they are more amenable to favorable blockchain regulations.

Why is this important in terms of U.S. blockchain regulations?

This is the first time that a blockchain security will become a non-security. The issue of a blockchain being labeled a security has been a death sentence for many past blockchains that held unregulated ICOs, such as Telegram (TON). The example of Blockstack shows that U.S. regulators may be more receptive to the laws Block.one is lobbying for in Congress.

So what should we think about Daniel Larimer's announcement on the Everything EOS podcast?

Here is the interview with Daniel Larimer:

Perhaps we need to temper our expectations that Block.one's ProFi product will be launched by the end of 2020.

But, I am excited to see what the team at Block.one's Public Blockchain Engagement has in the pipeline for 2021.

Joe Louis provides another rich insight in regards to the Public Blockchain Engagement, an EOS Foundation, and future funding of the EOS public blockchain community:

If a Caymans-based EOS Foundation is able to re-invest Block.one's ICO money into the EOS public blockchain ecosystem, this funding boost will definitely attract more developers, token holders, and users.

See you all next week for another round of the CoolWave Capital Newsletter.

Go EOS!

Shout-out to CEO Patrick Bernard Schmid of NovaCrypto, and please check out his upcoming workshop.

Disclaimer: Taylor Ryker 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.