Toyota Reveals Blockchain Lab / Celo Launches 50 Member Alliance / dFuse Goes Open Source, Baseline Protocol Opens To Public And Steemit Moves to Hive
March 19, 2020
This week in the landscape, Toyota revealed its Blockchain Lab that’s been exploring auto-industry blockchain applications since April 2019. Global financial markets this past week have taken a rough course, and digital currencies were right alongside taking DeFi and DApps for a ride as we see how EOS & ETH DeFi made it through market turmoil. dfuse open sources its blockchain development stack. Baseline Protocol the joint initiative from Microsoft, EY and ConsenSys is now available to the public. Celo Foundation has signed up 50 members to its ‘Alliance for Prosperity.’ Zynga co-founder is building the titled “Gala network” focused on decentralized gaming. Figure Technologies has securitized $150M of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), as the first such transaction on Provenance [Figure’s blockchain]. Steemit community forks and move to Hive blockchain. South Africa looking towards blockchain to reduce unemployment. Bakkt raises a massive round of $300 million Series B funding. We’ve got insights on how to build a DApp with one million daily active users, a break down on the real costs of running a DApp on the EOS network, tutorial on Infura, along with updates from Opyn, Handshake, Coda Protocol, Kadena, Polkadot, and much more. Have a great week! Enjoy!
BONUS: I recently released the latest Q1 2020 edition of my Blockchain Landscape Map (included below for download) that provides an overview of the industry highlighting over 900 global companies, venture funds, and working groups. If this is the first version you’ve seen of the landscape, consider it your guiding roadmap to further navigate the industry. Get it here in Hi-Res for free!
📖 Toyota Reveals Blockchain Lab Exploring Auto-Industry Applications
Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) & Toyota Financial Services Corporation revealed a previously launched “cross-group virtual organization” known as Toyota Blockchain Lab on March 16, announcing the group had been operational since April 2019 alongside four other Toyota group subsidiaries. The group is hoping to better understand the applications of blockchain within the auto industry. “Blockchain is expected to be…read more
📈 How EOS and ETH DeFi Made It Through Market Turmoil
The continued market fall [on March 11th] had an obvious impact on the decentralized finance sector, which commonly relies on overcollateralized digital assets to back the value of a new currency. The ensuing barrage of liquidated undercollateralized assets embraced DeFi protocols and even touched its risk-averse investors. These circumstances became a proper stress test for the biggest industry’s projects, revealing their weaknesses as well as their strengths.…read more
📈 Libra rival Celo launches 50-member Alliance For Prosperity
The Celo Foundation has signed up 50 members to its ‘Alliance for Prosperity,’ an effort to use blockchain technology and digital assets to “enable prosperity for everyone.” The move comes in competition with Facebook’s Libra, as the Foundation will offer a way for developers to build decentralized mobile apps (DApps) on Celo’s blockchain platform and USD stablecoin. So far, 130 teams have expressed interest in building on the Celo platform, out of which some of the members are also part of the Libra Association, including Andreessen Horowitz (which funded Celo), Coinbase (Ventures), Bison Trails, Anchorage, and Mercy Corps…read more
🎮 Zynga cofounder builds Gala network for decentralized gaming
Blockchain Game Partners has confirmed that its team is developing a blockchain-based infrastructure, dubbed “Gala” to enable games where players own their content and platforms don’t fleece developers for the games that they create. Schiermeyer teamed up with Mike McCarthy to develop a model of the game which will enable digital ownership of assets in games, so players can own the things they buy or create, even if the game eventually shuts down. Players can move their items from one game to another, then they can sell them in this game and then buy things in another one…read more
📈 Figure Technologies Securitizes $150M of Home Equity Loans on Blockchain
Figure Technologies has securitized $150M of a bundle of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), billed as the first such transaction in which all aspects of the process were managed on Provenance, Figure’s blockchain. In-house developed Provenance uses the consensus mechanism of Hyperledger; if the model catches on, it might improve some of the problems that contributed to the global market meltdown of 2008…read more
🍔 Morningstar Rates First Ethereum Security In $40 Million Fatburger Deal
Financial services giant DBRS Morningstar for the first time rated securities issued on Ethereum’s blockchain thanks to a $40 million capital infusion into Fatburger. The primary factor behind the Morningstar rating is a shorter forecast performance period and higher visibility into the viability of brands. The rating itself is on a traditional paper debt security that closed on Friday. Morningstar mentioned faster access to data about the securities as a result of the increased transparency from using Ethereum in its rating document, paving the way for a more pure class of crypto-assets native to the blockchain…read more
📖 Frances Coppola: Tokenizing Assets As Crypto Is A Delusion
The new world of tokens and blockchains, private asset-backed money will be ubiquitous, and everyone will be their own bank. In a few cases, it can lead to opportunities for fraud due to the trading representations of tokens rather than the objects. Additionally, the cost of reliably linking tokens to real assets inevitably drives the market towards consolidation, oligopoly, and monopoly. Although investing in digital assets so everyone can issue a digital asset of their own is a long way from merely monetizing whatever is lying around in their garage…read more
🇧🇷 Alibaba Files for a Blockchain Transaction System in Brazil
Alibaba has registered a blockchain-based system patent in Brazil under the category of “insurance,” “financial business,” and “monetary business.” As reported in the Industrial Property Magazine (NPI), the name of the mechanism is “Ant Unicorn.” It would also enter the field of credit card issuance and utility bill payment solutions. The patent mentions blockchain technology as the matrix of the system.…read more
More For Your Week:
📈 Now is the time to act by Chris McCann
📈 Wave Financial to Tokenize $20M Worth of Bourbon for New Whiskey Fund
📈 Steemit community set to move to Hive blockchain as Sun’s acquisition flops
📈 Baseline Protocol open to public (John Wolpert) & dfuse going open source!
📈 RIP Moon Times by TwoBitIdiot of Messari
📖 Our Network: Issue #13 by Spencer Noon with others breaking down opyn, Handshake, Coda Protocol, Kadena, and Polkadot
📖 South Africa Looks to Blockchain to Reduce Unemployment
🇨🇳 China Injects $4.7M Into Central Bank’s Blockchain Trade Finance Platform
📖 Blockchain is helping this Argentinean gas company cut costs
📖 Hawaii is establishing a regulatory sandbox for digital currency issuers
👾 How to make money in crypto gaming
📖 Coinbase Launches BTC Transaction Batching, Saving Users 50% on Fees
📖 Bakkt raises $300 million Series B funding round
📖 Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator reveals 17 projects for Spring 2020 cohort
📖 Coinbase Card Users Can Now Make Crypto-Backed Payments With Google Pay
DApps (Decentralized Apps) Watch
📖 How ETH’s 44% day-fall in USD value shocked the Ethereum dapp ecosystem
Covid-19-fueled sell-offs across financial and investment asset classes resulted in the Ethereum (ETH) price fall from $195 to $110 — a 44% drop. This week, DeFi and exchange DApps users tried to reduce their financial risk. A 44% decline in the price of ETH in a day forced many MakerDao users to recapitalize or pay back their loans. On March 12th, MakerDAO activity was an all-time high of 1,458, up 243% compared to the average over the past 30 days. Across the six financial DApps, the accumulated daily active unique wallet total was up 84% compared to the average for the previous 30 days. DApps running on the TRON and EOS blockchains experienced a mild change (4% up/down) in daily activity…read more
📖 How to Build the DApp That Gets One Million Daily Active Users
Whether through organic or paid methods, DApps will need to employ a full arsenal of tools and techniques for getting their DApps into the hands of consumers. That means everything from keyword ad-buys to content marketing to influencer outreach and traditional public relations. Experimenting with new strategies for blog placements or working on a new DApp marketplace based on tokenized voting for the best DApp by actual DApp users. Everything is fair game and there are certainly many rules that can and should be rewritten…read more
📖 What’s The Real Cost of Running a DApp on an EOS Network?
The storage and execution costs on a public blockchain network are higher than in any cloud provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. Before deploying your eosio decentralized application (DApp) to a blockchain network, a developer should study in detail the cost of running their infrastructure on a public shared network with a limited amount of resources to be consumed. The EOS public network does not have pay per use pricing model unlike other blockchains such as Ethereum (gas fees) or Bitcoin (transaction fees)…read more
📖 INFURA Tutorial: Ethereum RPCs, Methods, and Calls
📖 Daily Users of Brave’s Blockchain Web Browser Pass 4 Million
📖 Cris Cyborg becomes first MMA Fighter with Crypto Collectible thanks to BlockChain technology
🎙️ State of the Blockchain Industry Q1 2020:
Available now, download your hi-res copy of the Q1 2020 edition of the Blockchain Landscape Map. This is now the fifth edition of the landscape I’ve released and includes 747 companies (900+ total unique companies including broader key Ecosystem players) and more than $22 bn in funding raised across the landscape from 2010–2020 — over $18 bn invested since 2017! — Noticeable cycles emerging and full breakdown available.
A full 60 min video overview of the landscape is now available here and free for all. In the video, I breakdown the 2020 landscape, provide a summary of 2019, emerging trends for 2020, DeFi, Libra, CDBCs, Stablecoins, DApps, and more!
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