Top 10 Blockchain Companies Beyond Disruption

TOP 10 BLOCKCHAIN COMPANIES BEYOND DISRUPTION

TECHNOLOGY

Issue 21 Winter 2018

Jeffrey A. Rinde Managing Partner CKR Law

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Making a Mark – Globally Introducing WorkChain.io: The Blockchain Solu on for the Future of Payroll — Make Everyday Payday

The Fastest Way to Bitcoin P.50

Blockchain Pla orms: One Chain to rule them all?

P.54

P.20

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EDITOR’S CORNER

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istorically, industries across a wide-range of genres have always had a persistent reluctance of adopting and implementing any new form of technology and innovation. However, once in a while the technological genie comes out of the magic bottle with an innovation that boasts the potential to revolutionize any and every industry. Blockchain is the best example of the same.

The innate versatility of blockchain technology has opened the doors of possibilities and opportunities for a wide-variety of industries.

This disruptive technological force holds the capability to usher a new era of transparency and trust in the insurance and the banking industry; it can eliminate any and every instance of fraudulent activities; and could also debunk the inefficiencies of data entries. All these and much more has led to the rapid emergence of new blockchain solution providers, which are consistently waving their magic wand of innovation to bring-forward efficiency and productivity. This has made the task difficult for different industries to choose amongst the wide-pool of blockchain solution providers.

Taking this into consideration, Beyond Exclamation has shortlisted a list of leading and emerging blockchain solution providers in its annual issue titled “Top 10 Blockchain Companies Beyond Disruption.”

Featuring as the Cover Story of this issue we have CKR Law, a global law firm operating through various separate and distinct legal entities. The company had founded its Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency practice group way before most other law firms recognized the future growth of the sector. CKR Law is a global firm of experienced lawyers with diverse international practices.

Aside from this, we have companies like Bitinka, Blockchain Foundry, CoinPayments, Everex, Qiibee, Safello, and TrustaBit, which are ushering in a new era with their innovative blockchain solutions. In addition to these, we have some of the most thoughtprovoking articles from various leading industry experts.

Dive into the magazine and start scrolling through the journeys of these inspiring companies!

Editor in Chief CHRISTINE [editor@beyondexclamation.com]

Managing Editor JOHN [john@beyondexclamation.com]

Art Director VIJAYKUMAR [design@beyondexclamation.com]

Graphic Artist NICK [nick@beyondexclamation.com]

Project Manager JENNIFER [jennifer@beyondexclamation.com]

Development Manager JUSTIN [info@beyondexclamation.com]

CONNECT!

John London www.beyondexclamation.com BeyondExclamation @BeyondEx Beyond Exclamation beyondexclamation

In addition to our print magazine, we also provide relevant industry news and updates, as well as some thoughtprovoking articles and blogs on our website. Make sure to follow the same as we at Beyond Exclamation are looking forward to interact with our readers. Let’s connect on the web!

What’s Inside...

Business Boulevard

B E O N 10

Making a Mark - Globally

Omniscient Voyage

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A Pioneer in the Blockchain Industry

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Setting the Global Standard for Loyalty on the Blockchain

Excellence Causeway

20 Introducing WorkChain.io: The Blockchain Solution for the Future of Payroll — Make Everyday Payday

24 Connecting the Crypto World with Latin America

Newsmakers Locale

50 The Fastest Way to Bitcoin

54 Mobilizing the Traveling Consumer

Younick Corner

Y D

30 Making Blockchain Technology Work for You

34 Scaling up the Ladder of Growth and Innovation

Definitive Destination

60 One Chain to rule them all?

68 Every company will use blockchain by 2027

Cover Story

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ecognizing the disruptive potential of a new technology and adapting quickly can make or break an organization’s success. Blockchain is one such disruptive technology. While some individuals and organizations recognized early on its massive potential across different industries, many were reluctant to jump into the fray because of skepticism and perceived risk.

But not CKR Law LLP, a full-service global law firm.

CKR founded its Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency practice group long before most other law firms recognized the future growth of the sector. Just as Blockchain is disrupting industries across the globe, CKR is seeking to disrupt the legal profession, recognizing the massive changes that the legal and other professional services industries are currently experiencing. Today, CKR has almost 60 attorneys globally working within its Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency practice group, providing U.S. and foreign clients including startups, cryptofunds, investors, token sale platforms, and advisors with

sophisticated and knowledgeable legal advice in areas such as securities, real estate, intellectual property, banking, tax, finance, corporate, investment funds, employment, and litigation.

The Company and its Services CKR Law LLP is a dynamic and rapidly growing law firm. The firm represents a global clientele that includes U.S. and foreign publicly-listed and privately-held corporations, emerging companies in a wide variety of industries, entrepreneurs, institutional investors, and individuals.

Since its inception in 2014, CKR Law has grown exponentially, from a handful of attorneys in 2014 to a firm today that boasts more than 150 attorneys in the U.S. and more than 350 affiliated attorneys around the world. The firm today operates, through various legal and affiliated entities, in more than 50 locations worldwide, including North America, South America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

Jeffrey A. Rinde Managing Partner CKR Law LLP

At the same time CKR’s global footprint has expanded, the depth of its attorneys’ expertise has grown. The firm’s distinctive strengths, both domestically and globally, are in the areas of blockchain technology, corporate, securities, finance, capital markets, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, government advocacy, litigation and international arbitration, tax, and intellectual property.

The Edge “What sets us apart is providing our clients consistently high quality legal services, personalized attention by seasoned lawyers, and customized solutions, all at affordable rates,” explains CKR Managing Partner Jeffrey A. Rinde.

“We achieve this through a more flexible and lower cost business environment and our intimate local knowledge and relationships, cultural and political sensitivity, and practical goal-oriented solutions,” Mr. Rinde adds.

“We are also able to leverage our strong relationships within the investment, business and professional communities, as well as with local, state, national, and foreign governments to help our clients effectively and efficiently meet their business goals.” CKR partners have an average of more than 20 years of legal experience, with deep connections to their local communities.

“We are continuing to grow globally with recently opened

“This is how legal services should be delivered. Putting clients first.

Producing results. This is CKR.”

“With our highly collaborative culture, we seamlessly deliver consistent services and personal attention across our global platform on all client matters we undertake.�

“More than just a law firm, CKR is a catalyst for the growth and success of our clients' businesses on many levels.”

“With our highly collaborative culture, we seamlessly deliver consistent services and personal attention across our global platform on all client matters we undertake.” locations in China, Europe, and the U.S. We have been listening to our clients and what they need, and have or soon will be expanding our areas of practice to data privacy and cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, health care, and elder law,” Mr. Rinde explains.

The Blockchain World CKR reports that the Blockchain industry continues to mature and focus on legitimate enterprise and retail solutions to many existing challenges in traditional industries.

Additionally, participants in the token sale market have recognized the need to comply with U.S. law for offerings in the U.S., reflected in the emergence of “Security Token Offerings” in late 2018, to replace the crazed ICO (Initial Coin Offering) markets of 2016 and 2017. CKR continues to grow its relationships with government regulators in the United States and outside the U.S. to help its Blockchain clients understand how to comply with the laws that affect their businesses. CKR is also supporting legislation at the local and national levels in the U.S. that will provide greater clarity to the industry about what those legal obligations are and how Blockchain companies can work within the legal and regulatory frameworks.

CKR doesn’t just provide legal services to companies in the Blockchain space. It has also invested in the industry through pro bono work supporting emerging industry groups, including the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and the Foundation for International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise. In addition, through the CKR Charitable Foundation, CKR is an active supporter of diversity in the Blockchain industry, including presenting “Women on the Block,” a diversity blockchain conference that took place on Mother’s Day in 2018 as part of the New York’s Blockchain Week. CKR publishes a “Blockchain Blog” to update the industry on legal issues (legislation, litigation, regulations, etc.) globally as they arise. CKR also hosts a monthly Blockchain Breakfast in New York and events in other cities focusing on particular legal issues facing the Blockchain community.

Past events have focused on tax, estate and financial planning issues for cryptocurrency owners, regulation and the future of Blockchain, Blockchain in the State of Delaware, and the ICO Ban in China.

A Pioneering Leader Mr. Rinde, CKR’s Managing Partner, founded CKR to create a law firm that is able to nimbly

respond to clients’ needs across the globe. He structured the firm to be responsive to industry changes and encourages attorneys to identify and act on new opportunities, such as Blockchain. Mr. Rinde is an inspirational, pioneering, and dedicated leader who works nonstop to maintain CKR’s excellence and dedication to clients. His ultimate vision is for CKR to be not just a law firm but a true global solutions provider. In the near term, CKR, through its affiliates, expects to also offer accounting, investment banking, wealth management, corporate advisory, risk and crisis management, market entry strategies, global mobility, and other services.

“The legal industry is under siege by accounting firms, alternative services providers, and others.

There is no longer a clear delineation within the professional service industry among the various providers. As these lines become murkier, law firms must respond by expanding their ‘supply’ chains and delivering the more robust range of services their client consumers are seeking. Otherwise law firms will continue to lose market share.

CKR is responding to this challenge by differentiating itself from the traditional law firm models and reshaping how its viewed by its client consumers,” explains Mr. Rinde.

Mr. Rinde specializes in corporate, securities, and other regulatory aspects of global business ventures

across a diverse array of industries.

He has over twenty-five years of global legal, corporate, and investment banking experience.

His broad experience includes public and private equity and debt security financings, blockchain technology and digital currency, international mergers and acquisitions, angel, venture capital, and private equity financings, project finance, banking and structured financial transactions, secured debt transactions, going private transactions, foreign direct investment, and corporate law and governance. Mr. Rinde provides expert advice to his clients to help them overcome challenging government and regulatory issues in global emerging markets, including developing and implementing creative strategies to maximize opportunities, minimize risks, and accomplish their strategic goals.

Mr. Rinde has a particular and distinctive skill in representing Chinese and other Asian-based companies in complex transactions to help expand their overseas business, access capital, and list overseas, including in the United States, Hong Kong, and London, and representing foreign companies in all facets of business activities in mainland China.

“We specialize in complex, international, and cross-border transactions, disputes, and legal challenges.�

The Blockchain Solution for the Future of Payroll

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orkChain.io has a singular aim: to make earning cryptocurrency possible for anyone who receives a paycheck.

We give workers instant access to their paycheck the moment they clock out. It’s their earnings on their terms — true financial control that everyone deserves. And by automating the entire work to paycheck flow on the blockchain, we free employers from payroll processing time and costs.

And, as you’re about to find out, we’re not just a whitepaper or a concept. We’re a fully functioning platform.

What Are the Problems with Today’s Payroll that WorkChain.io Solves?

Workers Anyone who’s ever received a paycheck knows the frustration of waiting two-to-four weeks for it to arrive. You do the work but don’t see a dime for your efforts for weeks.

All the while bills, rent, car payments and an assortment of other life expenses pile up.

This outdated payroll cycle is a relic of the Industrial Age. Ÿ

Not only is getting paid bi-weekly or monthly completely out of touch with the ondemand, real-time way we work, it places major financial pressure on people. It strips them of financial control, leaving them unable to truly manage their finances, often leading to a cycle of debt.

In fact, 78 percent of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheckand 28% of workers are distracted at work due to financial stress.

Employers On the other side of the payroll process, employers deal with labor-intensive, inefficient and costly payroll processing. Standard payroll comes with a heavy reliance on banks and third-party processors, leading to constant fees, administration and delays. Ÿ

Payroll is also extremely expensive too. In-house payroll costs on average between $722 and $1165 per employee per year. And outsourcing payroll to processors only cuts payrolls costs down by27%.

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Ivan Petrovic COO WorkChain.io

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The Solution: How WorkChain.io Brings Payroll into Real-time WorkChain.io uses blockchain technology to create a seamless system for automating payroll and delivering paychecks on-demand and in real-time with cryptocurrency payouts using a stable coin such as TrueUSD. It does this by connecting with established HR systems to verify an individual’s work, shift or hours on the blockchain — then instantly releasing earnings connected with the work.

WorkChain.io takes the manual work out of payroll by building verified work records on the blockchain, eliminating much of the administration and cost associated with processing payroll.

How It Works 1. An employee’s hours, shift or attendance is verified through the WorkChain.io app.

blockchain’s immutable data and consensus model to build validated work records, smart contractconnected auto-payments, and use stablecoin cryptocurrency for instant paychecks.

What Makes Us Unique?

Most blockchain projects focus on using cryptocurrency to spend.

WorkChain.io is the first blockchain solution that allows anyone to earn in cryptocurrency.

The platform will play a significant role in bridging the gap to make cryptocurrency mainstream. And, unlike other payroll benefit companies, employers don’t have to be signed up for employees to access their pay instantly — it can be advanced through WorkChain.io’s low-cost lending ecosystem. Here are just some of WorkChain.io’s features: ·

2. Each time they finish work, the earned funds become available for instant withdrawal.

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3. WorkChain.io pays workers what they’ve earned in cryptocurrency.

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The WorkChain.io Protocol Our proprietary protocol is what builds validated data and makes instant, real-time payroll possible.

It takes the processes typically involved with slow, traditional payroll and condenses them into one automated flow by using the

· · ·

Instant, secure cryptocurrency paychecks using a stablecoins (e.g.

TrueUSD).

True decentralization — no banks or third-party processors.

Reduced payroll transaction and processing fees.

Verified work records for hands-off payroll.

Easily cash out crypto payments in any currency.

Pay advances based on forecast work.

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Integrations — The Key to Rapid, Sustainable Growth WorkChain.io will launch to a network of more than one million users through our upcoming integrations with Humanity.com and WorkPuls.com. Integrations like this will create a path to rapid, sustainable growth.

We know that the key to success comes with strategic integrations that onboard large numbers of users, giving them and their employers the freedom of automated, real-time payroll. And we’ll use our years of experience in the HR and workforce management industry to forge many more of these integration partnerships.

WATT Utility Tokens Power the Whole Platform The transactions made through the WorkChain.io ecosystem and the interoperability of its applications will be powered by the platform’s native utility token, WorkChain.io App Tokens (’WATT’, ‘WATT Token’).

Our Motivation My co-founder Ryan Fyfe and I have spent the past 10 years working hands-on in the global workforce management sector. The payroll problems WorkChain.io solves are the ones we’ve faced first-hand through our previous companies Humanity.com and WorkPuls.

In 2015, I founded WorkPuls, a company that focuses on driving productivity and tracking time.

Since then, with the backing of two prominent European VC funds, WorkPuls has grown to become a market leader trusted by enterprises globally.

Ryan is the Founder and former CEO of Humanity.com, a company that’s scaled to over 150 staff globally with the help of $13 million in VC funding and today powers the scheduling, time and attendance, in over 40,000 workplaces globally, including Nike, Lyft and CNN. The WorkChain.io team is rapidly growing. We’re a skillful team of

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20, made-up of executives, technologists, developers and marketers with decades of experience in the HR and technology worlds. Between us, our team has launched seven companies.

We’re passionate about changing the way the world works. About making it easier for companies to manage and pay their employees, and giving individuals financial freedom from outdated, long payroll cycles. Real control of how they work and get paid.

Roger G. Benites Founder & Advisor Bitinka

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Connecting the Crypto World with Latin America

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hile the 21st century has witnessed novel and world changing technologies and many of which are under development today, only a few have the potential of blockchain. Blockchain technology is a revolutionary storage method that makes outside tampering literally impossible and enables a varied range of activities that were either impractical or impossible before. Blockchain technology, in simple words, is a digital storage method in which individual parts of information are connected to one another. The result of the collection of the data is a long chain that is nearly impossible to be stolen or altered without being caught. This is the major feature of the blockchain technology that allows anyone using the technology to be confident that their data is secure.

And one of the widely successful application of the blockchain technology is cryptocurrency or digital currency. Cryptocurrency can only succeed if it is issued in

anticipated quantities and as per consistent schedules. And to make sure this happens, the blockchain is the most reliable way.

A Pioneering Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform Offering users to be a part of this world changing technology is Bitinka. With a presence in more than 11 countries in America, Bitinka is an exchange platform for buying and selling Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies that allows you to enter into the crypto market in your local currency. Bitinka was founded at Lima-Peru in 2013. Within five years since its foundation, Bitinka has become the most important cryptocurrency exchange platform in Latin America, with presence in over 10 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia, allowing users to buy and sell cryptos in their local currency.

Bitinka works with more than 20 cryptos, 9 fiat currencies and more than 90 pairs.

Roger G. Benites and his cofounders saw the opportunity of creating Bitinka 5 years ago

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because he realized that, in Latin America, there wasn’t a basic crypto ecosystem which benefited users from working/dealing with cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology. “It is a fact that in the region, neither the bitcoins nor the altcoins are not of public knowledge, and that is why users ignore the benefits that these crypto actives can bring to their day-to-day lives. In the region the bitcoin and the altcoin are not public knowledge, and that is why people ignore all the facilities that these active crypto can bring to their lives in the day to day,” Roger shared.

The journey without obstacles is the wrong one!

The first goal was to deal with Blockchain technology as a local exchange. The project had started, but due to lack of initial funds, the founders had to put it on hold for almost half a year. After sitting for half a year with the initial project and traveling around Latin America, the founders observed that all the countries didn’t have a solution for the use of different fiat

currencies. Moreover, there was a big problem with currency exchange restrictions in several countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. Bitcoin was the currency they chose and since Bitcoin and Incas relate naturally to gold it was named Bitinka.

However, the journey had just started and the destination was far away. The most important obstacle that the company tackled (and still does) was the introduction of cryptocurrencies in the Latin American region. Educating users in Latin America about the advantages of crypto assets and Blockchain technology has made the journey a difficult one. But

the founders knew what they were doing and believed in their idea. The result being South America’s most important cryptocurrency exchange platform.

Leading the Industry Across 3 Continents Through Bitinka Exchange and Bitinka Broker, Bitinka leads the industry in three continents. The company offers Bitinka Exchange platform for its users to sell and buy different cryptocurrencies in the market that the company works with. Both the selling and buying price are set by the users and the market itself. On the other hand, the company offers this

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platform (for free) as an additional service for its users. In the broker trading platform, Bitinka sets the selling and buying price of the cryptocurrencies that the company works with.

A passionate and self-made entrepreneur Roger G. Benites is a Latin American entrepreneur who has lived and worked across South

America, in countries like Argentina, Peru, etc. Roger has always been in love with the technology. He is passionate about ecommerce, trending financial technologies and crypto-currencies.

Roger has experience working on major international company like IBM, GM. He is an experienced and self-made business man who has worked from scratch to bring his new passion Bitinka into emerging markets.

Roger believes that although the blockchain technology is strongly linked to cryptocurrencies, the latter is just some of its use cases.

This technology can be used without the need of cryptocurrency or mining in between. “We can say that at the moment the trend is towards the development of solutions with smart contracts.

There are different projects with a view to launching their mainnet that allow developing intelligent contracts, which have their own token. On the other hand, companies like Microsoft and IBM also focus on the development of intelligent contracts, but based on HyperLedger Fabric, which does not necessarily depend on the use of a token or mining,” Roger said when asked about where the industry is heading.

The vision ahead Going into next year, one can expect new cryptocurrencies and fiat money from Bitinka along with the expansion to new markets (Europe, Asia and United States).

Moreover, the company is looking at the development of new services for its customers. Bitinka aims to be the exchange with the biggest number of pairs in the world and penetrate into new markets (form Europe, Asia, America). Finally, Bitinka wants to be the reference point for cryptocurrency in Latin America.

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Dan Wasyluk Co-founder & CEO Blockchain Foundry

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Making Blockchain Technology Work for You

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lockchain technology is progressing at an exponential pace with tens of thousands of the world’s smartest minds using the technology to decentralize industries from banking to agriculture. These industries have been suffering from the inefficiencies of a centralized architecture, which results in less efficiency, lower security and higher fees. But since the genesis of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008, blockchain has proved itself as a viable technology to decentralize every industry, resulting in lightning efficiency, state-of-the-art security and micro fees.

Blockchain technology is changing the world at a rapid pace and has been met with enormous demands both for development and commercialization. Over the course of the next decade, industries across agriculture, banking, supply chain management and data companies will be able to leverage the blockchain to improve efficiency. Simply putting, blockchain technology is here to stay and revolutionize!

A Company that Breathes Blockchain One company that has already created working blockchains offerings is Blockchain Foundry.

Founded in 2016 by the development team that was responsible for creating the Syscoin protocol in 2014. Blockchain Foundry offers Blockchain development and consultancy services for Businesses and Governments. The founders recognized the opportunity to productize the benefits blockchain technology presented for use by both businesses and everyday consumers.

The Syscoin protocol provides several advantages over competing protocols, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which uniquely position it for rapid productization with minimal overhead. Moreover, Blockchain Foundry Inc. is a founding member of Microsoft’s Decentralized Identity Foundation.

Microsoft and Blockchain Foundry Inc. are partners in the mission to decentralize identities using blockchain technology. The founders believed that the name “Blockchain Foundry” embodied the goals and achievements they have built and

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continued to improve the foundation for this vast and constantly changing industry.

Why Blockchain Foundry?

Blockchain Foundry is a softwaredevelopment company focusing on Secure DLT technology. The company develops Blockchain products such as Blockmarket Desktop, a free-to-use portal to Syscoin’s decentralized marketplace and an easy-to-use token creation tool. Furthermore, it has a few upcoming products in the pipeline that are sure to excite many in the industry.

Built On Experience: Blockchain Foundry is changing how ecommerce is done. The company’s products are built on Syscoin’s established Blockchain, and are designed to fundamentally improve security, functionality, and user experience.

Designed For You: Blockchain Foundry realizes that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology can be a bit confusing. That is why it has designed its Blockmarket products.

With ease of use and customer

experience being its primary concern, the company aims to make its products easily accessible to all, with or without blockchain experience.

is still new and recently became publicly trade-able on Canadian, American and German exchanges.”, Dan said.

Offering Products that Simplifies Bockchain-use Dan and the team works closely with their clients. The initial phase of the work they do is to determine a solution design that is tailored to each client’s requirements via an exploration call. “After an agreement is concluded with regards to the solution, we implement the design according to these specifications.

We ensure our clients are kept up-to-date throughout the process and actively work with them to validate the implementation is aligned with their vision,” Dan added.

Facing Challenges to Overcome them Dan Wasyluk, the Co-founder and CEO of Blockchain Foundry, believes that Blockchain is an extremely exciting technology and looks-forward to face the evolving challenges that the sector will have to overcome to achieve mainstream adoption. “We believe that Blockchain technology will dramatically change the way our world does business and to be at the forefront of that innovation makes us all very excited. Our company

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Dan also believes that blockchain technology, at its base, has the foundation to change the way software is developed and data is served with almost any industry. At its state of infancy, however, the foundation is complex for most and it is difficult to develop new solutions or even integrate current Blockchain technology into the existing infrastructures of businesses.

Blockchain Foundry steps in and facilitates the process by offering

products that simplify blockchain-use and helps corporations develop their blockchain-centric projects.

is publicly traded and actually maintains a public blockchain and developed working products for it.

Continuing to Lead in Blockchain Development Trust and experience are the most important requirements clients have in this industry and Blockchain Foundry fits the bill perfectly.

Blockchain Foundry is a leading Canadian software blockchain development corporation and one of the few companies in their niche that

“As the industry is still at its infancy and the technology is constantly evolving. We will continue to be leaders in blockchain development and are constantly watching market trends in the industry. We have more product offerings in the pipeline and we believe they help surface the value of leveraging a blockchain solution while hiding the complexities of this technology from end users. They shouldn’t even know they are using a blockchain.” Dan concluded.

An Innovative Entrepreneur Leading from the Front Dan is an innovative leader and his contributions in the Blockchain Sector reverberates that thought further. He always thinks out-of-thebox and boast great leadership skill to lead his team towards success.

Dan has over 15 years of enterprise software development experience and was first involved with Blockchain technology in 2013. He is the co-founder of the Syscoin blockchain (launched in 2014) and has spoken at several blockchain events. Dan is an entrepreneur with a rich technical background, and holds a Bachelor of Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology and has helped fund multiple technology-based companies. His career is focused on User Interface Development and User Experience.

He also has experience managing teams both in a professional and in a startup capacity. Dan has brought several products to the market both on his own and with a team.

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Alex Alexandrov Chairman & Founder CoinPayments

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Scaling up the Ladder of Growth and Innovation

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ack in 2013, during the infancy stages of the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, there was a developing global ecosystem centered around Bitcoin. At the time, all innovation and infrastructure around the cryptocurrency economy was focused solely on the King of Crypto.

Seeing the need for supporting the niche market of altcoins and new and disruptive technologies branching off of the Bitcoin phenomenon, CoinPayments was born.

CoinPayments is a diverse multicurrency digital web wallet and payment processor, built to facilitate transactions in this new age of financial technology. “We were the first altcoin payment solution for merchants, and today are the largest company of our kind,” mentions the Chairman and CEO of the company, Alex Alexandrov.

Today, CoinPayments boasts support for over 1,100 different cryptocurrencies and provides access to over 2.5 million users in 182 countries.

Allowing Anyone to Transact, Anywhere CoinPayments was created as a support system for the entire cryptocurrency world in order to simplify transactions for businesses and users alike. Over the years, the company has innovated many technologies centered around bringing crypto transactions into the mainstream e-commerce environment.

“Our developer team works diligently to create solutions for existing e-commerce platforms, allowing merchants all over the world to participate in the cryptoeconomy regardless of their knowledge in the space. We have built over 30 different shopping cart plugins for most of the major existing online global retail platforms including Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and

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many more. Along with our payment processing solutions through dozens of shopping cart plugins, we provide access to our payment systems through Application Programming Interface (API) for custom implementations. Our mission is to allow anyone, anywhere to transact with the freedom of choice,” asserts Alex.

Moving Past the Challenges Scaling any company into international diversification will always have its growing pains, especially when operating in hundreds of different jurisdictions governed by completely different regulatory bodies while providing a service in a brand-new financial industry that is heavily scrutinized.

According to Alex, “We have been lucky to realize an organic and exponential explosion of growth over our first 6 years of operation. On average, we have grown in both number of accounts and total transaction volume by

over 1000% every calendar year. This type of rapid acceleration causes a need for a strong and trustworthy core team that are willing to work long hours and sacrifice for the greater good. We are grateful to have assembled a group that is willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to fuel the CoinPayments machine.”

A Leader with a Vision Alex Alexandrov is the true pioneer of the cryptocurrency payment gateway movement.

Having a visionary leader is of utmost importance when paving the pathway towards a completely new form of transacting globally, and Alex is the perfect example of the same.

With 2019 fast-approaching, the company is finally starting to see crypto-friendly jurisdictions all around the world and is cooperating with many regulatory authorities to put the systems in place to ensure the long-term success of the blockchain based payment systems.

Alex has always been able to see beyond the foresight of the industry and come up with creative solutions to support this technology and adapt to the emerging environment. As a penetration testing specialist in his youth, he always knew his way around computer hardware and software and

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possessed a unique ability to solve problems.

Alex started his career in cryptocurrency as a Litecoin miner and blossomed into his role today as one of the industry’s strongest public figures. He has a strong background in ForEx trading, one which has given him the experience to manage crypto funds effectively and profitably.

There lies a stigma around the blockchain industry these days,

with market manipulation and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) scams along with many nefarious companies taking advantage of the lesser educated.

CoinPayments have always believed that, as leaders in this space, we have the responsibility to educate and pass our knowledge onto the newcomers in the industry.

At CoinPayments, you have longtime trusted payment gateway that can provide that additional layer of security in an unknown world.

Speaking about the competition, Alex exclaims “Not many cryptocurrency companies can say that they have been around and been successful for over 5 years of operation; this gives us a huge advantage over many of our competitors. Throughout our existence, we have strived to offer the most diverse selection of cryptocurrencies out of any company in crypto and maintain the lowest fees in the payments industry at only 0.5% per transaction.”

A Peek into an Exciting and Promising Future The period between 2017 to 2018 was a time of unprecedented growth for the company and it heavily focused on scaling up its business solutions to support the incoming traffic. For

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CoinPayments, its mission has always included a drive to bank the unbanked and create a full services digital currency solution for the world. However, 2019 is going to be a year of constant rollouts from its Dev team, aimed to maximize the efficiency and simplicity of its platform.

“First up, will be our fully redesigned mobile app for iOS and Android as the future shifts away from web applications and into the palms of our hands. We are weeks away from releasing what we believe is the most functional cryptocurrency app in the world today. Immediately following this, we are launching what we call CoinPayments 3.0, the upgraded and refined User Interface. This will be the first time in 4 years that we have redesigned the webpage and are really looking forward to improving the overall User Experience. Additonally, we are on the verge of releasing segregated multi-sig wallets and we will be providing new fiat onramp and off-ramp solutions along with crypto conversion options. All of these updates combined truly make CoinPayments the one-stop solution for everything cryptocurrency,” concludes an excited Alex Alexandrov.

Alexi Lane CEO & Co-founder Everex

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A Pioneer in the Blockchain Industry

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round five years ago, Alexi Lane, the Cofounder and CEO of Everex, and Alexander Kakunov, the Co-founder and CTO, came across the terms ‘cryptocurrencies’ and ‘blockchain’. The technology, in particular, intrigued them beyond any measure, making them believe in the real potential of it. Over the period of time, their curiosity saw the light of the day as they implemented the blockchain technology to provide real-world solutions for financial transactions and financial inclusion.

Today, they strongly believe that this technology is more real, already transforming industries and impacting lives in innumerable ways.

This strong belief in the blockchain technology, and further on, the implementation of it, led to the foundation of Everex in the year 2016.

Featured as the “Top 10 Blockchain Companies Beyond Disruption,” Beyond Exclamation proudly looks at the story, the journey, and the vision of Everex that has propelled them to achieve unmatched success in the Blockchain industry.

Delivering Services and Solutions that Matters Everex is a financial technology

company that deploys blockchainpowered digital remittance solutions, thus accelerating financial inclusion and providing access to capital in developing markets. The company offers cross-border money transfers and currency exchange solutions on the blockchain technology to help billions of underbanked and unbanked population to send money back home to their families – making it faster and cheaper compared to traditional money transfers.

In other words, Everex brings individuals and SMEs, with or without bank accounts, into the new global economy. Everex enables realtime fiat payments powered by the distributed ledger technology, hence eliminating huge amounts of transaction fees.

With the aim of banking the underbanked, the Everex team has developed a number of products. The most notable among these products is the Everex e-wallet that allows users to store, buy, sell, or undertake money transfer in different fiat currencies. As a seamless multicurrency wallet, Everex’s e-wallet can be managed by institutions, governments, and corporates with an all-time availability of financing for small and medium enterprises around the world.

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“Everything Exchangeable” The inception of the company name came from its promise “Everything Exchangeable.” The company strongly believes that the future of FinTech is going to be all about tokenizing assets on the blockchain.

Today, fiat currency is being replaced by blockchain for trades and business transactions. This is just the beginning; the next step will be to tokenize gold, equity, other financial assets or even non-financial assets including real estate. This will benefit local communities in an unfathomable fashion, thus making blockchain more accessible than ever.

At present, Everex is growing its Everex Payment Network globally, opening new markets for banks, financial institutions, SMEs and individuals to facilitate cross-border money transfers on the blockchain.

Banks that decide to join the Everex Payment Network get the opportunity to capitalize on lucrative new market opportunities. For SMEs and individuals, Everex payment network helps smoothen the transitional process, cutting-down high transfer costs, improving the speed of money transfer, adding additional visibility, and tracking

facility to all their transactions for further peace of mind.

Edging Past the Challenges Everex was one of the most successfully-executed ICO back in 2017. “We raised $26 million in the initial coin offering (ICO). The token sale ended on 31st August 2017,” mentions Alexi.

Everex’s mission is to accelerate financial inclusion and provide access to unbanked/underbanked individuals and SMEs worldwide. As such, Everex is oriented towards a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model. The company deploys its solution on the public Ethereum blockchain, coding smart contracts, which makes it possible to transact via a stable coin feature, eliminating inherent volatilities.

The major challenge that the company had to overcome while it launched its ICO was to create the brand’s awareness globally. Everex had a great functional product for which it had executed a successful pilot, allowing Myanmar migrant workers living in Thailand to

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send money back home. “Our main objective was to tell the world how we are impacting lives, and build a solid supporter base that would support, join and follow us in our journey,” recalls Alexi.

One of the other major challenges for Everex was to make sure the security system was at the top of its game, capable of desisting any hack

attempts. During our ICO phase, Everex faced multiple hack attempts.

“Hackers can get very creative when it comes to moving supporters’ investments to alternative addresses, as complicated as copying our website. It was our topmost priority to build a robust hack-proof system.”

Finally, the biggest challenge on the business development side was to work with the right banking partners with Everex’s payment ecosystem.

Parallelly, this challenge was interlinked to the educational standpoint of third parties since the understanding and benefits of the blockchain technology still need empowerment and widespread awareness. However, Alexi adds “We are very proud to say that we are already successfully working with banking partners in order to make blockchain payments possible, and without a strong collaboration on that end, this would not be possible.

For now, as an emerging technology disruptor, the company embraces the challenges to educate, inform, and comply with the global regulators.

Building a strong foundation is the key to a stronger continuation of the business. Needless to say, Everex is building its foundation for long-term sustainability and the company is here to stay.

The Brain Behind Everex According to the company, Alexi Lane is the brains behind Everex - a FintTech company which saw the light in 2015. Being a FinTech entrepreneur, investor, and executive with over fifteen years of experience within the capital markets, financial services, and payments industries, he

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understands the nitpicks of the industry and, together with Alexander Kakunov. Alexi has shouldered the company towards success.

Currently, he is involved in the blockchain development for more than 3 years, and is a former Morgan Stanley banker, having graduated from the University of Tennessee.

Today, he is one of the pioneers of financial payments in the blockchain industry. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning, that Alexi has been featured as one of the Top Blockchain Influencers within the FinTech industry.

The Vision Going Forward The vision of Everex is to enable different mobile wallets to offer customers multi-currency and person-to-person (P2P) transactions, building a bridge between fiat and cryptocurrencies over the blockchain technology.

Everex’s goal is to create a financial ecosystem in which most digital wallets are powered by Everex technology, providing blockchainpowered interoperability between thousands of global digital wallets that currently do not communicate with each other.

“Our solution will empower both domestic and cross-border payments for individuals and SMEs, bringing economic growth to regions underserved by banks,” concludes Alexi.

Gabriele Giancola CEO qiibee

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Setting the Global Standard for Loyalty on the Blockchain

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ith the aim of solving the various problems of a highly fragmented, operationally inefficient loyalty market, by consolidating the loyalty market to give brands and customers more value, qiibee was established back in 2015.

Apart from providing a robust blockchain-agnostic protocol, qiibee streamlines the integration experience for brands by offering their API and dashboard, which have a direct impact on brands’ time and resources. In this sense, consolidating the loyalty market means creating an infrastructure that is based on the same foundation and enabling different loyalty program owners to either move their existing loyalty programs from off- to on-chain or create their own loyalty tokens and reward their loyal customers.

The Journey Thus Far After pondering over various potential names, the team had decided to go with the name qiibee which was the combination of the Chinese word "qi" meaning life force, and the animal "bee", both of which are important contributors for humanity. Following this, the company started its journey in the loyalty market with a multibranded, multi-activity loyalty program

which brands could use to reward their customers for activities such as shopping, or creating and engaging with content.

Gabriele Giancola, CEO of qiibee, said: “Not only did we build a strong track record, an impressive customer base and establish valuable relationships with companies, but learned how to solve the problem of a highly fragmented and operationally inefficient loyalty market.”

Founded in 2015 by Gabriele and Gianluca Giancola, the qiibee prototype was launched in late-2016 with 100,000 active customers in Switzerland, making up approximately 1% of all internet users in the Alpine nation.

The Rise of qiibee “We adapted our service from a successful and simple off-chain application to a decentralized loyalty ecosystem, which benefits from the experience we have made with partnerships including Burger King and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB),” he adds.

“We believe that loyalty program owners, companies or developers should have the freedom to build a bespoke application that meets their

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needs. By using blockchain to create a distributed ledger to store all loyalty points, qiibee also increases security and eliminates a single point of failure,” he continued saying.

Moreover, qiibee, the company behind the Crypto Valley’s first loyalty token and proof-of-concept: in April, rolled out its partnership with Lattesso — one of Switzerland’s leading cold coffee producers. This partnership was a huge success, with more than 10,000 new digital wallets created within the first month-and-a-half alone, and a total of two million redesigned cups distributed. On top of this, during a 24hour campaign where people could earn double the amounts of crypto, Lattesso registered an increase in sales of 62% — clearly demonstrating that people value crypto rewards and that what qiibee is doing is generating resonance in the modern world.

Standing apart from the Competitors Loyalty startups focus mainly on issuing a single loyalty “rewardcurrency”, to be used by all brands and to be part of a new eco-system. There also a few other projects, which also offer blockchain infrastructure for companies. The main difference between qiibee and the other projects is their execution. With a running

product, ďŹ rst roll-outs completed and a sales pipeline full of companies, they are ready to scale their infrastructure and set the global standard for loyalty on the blockchain.

of and transparency about all their loyalty tokens. What is more, they have a larger set of options to choose from and a more convenient way of managing their loyalty points.

Also, they are free to exit the ecosystem anytime and can participate in the crypto market without buying crypto with their own FIAT money.

With the qiibee app, customers will always have full control

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Gabriele sums it up by mentioning “We want to offer brands and customers the possibility to easily engage with blockchain technology, directly and indirectly, without the

need for cost intensive integration for brands or an upfront investment for customers. By making the loyalty landscape more efficient for brands and user-friendly for customers, we are bringing blockchain to the mainstream.

qiibee will set the global standard for loyalty on the blockchain and will be enabling companies all around the world to run its loyalty applications on the blockchain by offering cutting-edge solutions that are easy to use.

Two Pioneering Leaders Gabriele is one of the Co-founders and the Chief Executive Officer at the blockchain-powered loyalty ecosystem named qiibee. The serial entrepreneur has co-founded multiple companies including gratis-auto.ch, a start-up focused on mobile outdoor advertising, and a mining farm with around 60 miners.

Gabriele holds a Master’s in Business Management from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, and is ranked as one of the top five business schools in Europe. He along with Gianluca have shouldered the responsibilities of the company to lead it towards success and establish a name within the blockchain industry.

The company’s other Co-founder, Gianluca Giancola is the CDO ( Chief Design Officer) at blockchain-powered loyalty ecosystem qiibee. Responsible for creating a seamless user experience for both brands and customers, Gianluca holds a Masters in Graphic Design and Management from Istituto Europeo de Design (IED) Milan, regarded as the best design school in Italy. He co-founded his first business gratis-auto.ch in 2012, a start-up focused on mobile outdoor advertising, and has previously designed for Snips and the University of Basel. Gianluca currently serves as a Board Member of Triplo Sol, an investment and management company.

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Frank Schuil Co-founder & CEO Safello

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The Fastest Way to Bitcoin

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he idea of cryptocurrencies (cryptographically encrypted digital currencies) has been moving around in the academic circles since the 1970s. However, the idea took on form and shape with the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009. Over the last nine years, Bitcoin has grown on to be disruptive in the fields of monetary policy, finance, economics, and ecommerce – and it has spawned an industry of more than 2,000 coins, tokens, and altcoins in what is being commonly referred to as the cryptocurrency market. Meet Safello that enables the users to buy and sell Bitcoins through an online marketplace, powered by blockchain technology. Once users have signed onto Safello platform, they are able to access all the related Bitcoin services they need.

There are quite a few services to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

Typically they require you to go through lengthy onboarding processes to create accounts before placing an order. But Safello’s

widget and API integration takes away this burden to the user experience while actually holding AML requirements to the highest standard. With other services, it is either convenience without compliance or compliance without convenience. With Safello it’s both and that is where the company is breaking new ground.

The foundation of something big Safello was founded in 2013, a time when hacks and scams were prevalent in what was at the time, a budding industry. This was before MT Gox that held ~80% of the total trading volume, which ultimately went bust in spectacular fashion.

There was a need for a secure and compliant entry point into the cryptocurrency economy. With its name originating from your safe fellow, Safello was created. The company registered with the Swedish FSA and landed a banking relationship with a top 4 Swedish bank. Its non-custodial approach to cryptocurrency delivery and the proactive compliance with European AML regulation cemented this standing. Over time,

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Safello has solidified its position by being the consistent and reliable partner which has now helped tens of thousands across Europe, engage with this now booming economy.

The journey that made all of it worthwhile In the past five years, Safello has hit some major milestones. Safello was the first business ever to close a deal with a tier I bank (Barclays) around Bitcoin. Safello co-financed the prominent VAT case which went to the European Court of Justice, to rule that cryptocurrency businesses should be exempt from VAT. Its product meanwhile has evolved from not only being a B2C brokerage, but also into a B2B one.

And this year, Safello launched our Brokerage-as-a-Service model to help anyone monetize their cryptocurrency audience. The product Safello Business is a widget and/or API where app and website owners, with only a couple of lines of code, can become a brokerage themselves. In a Stripelike dashboard, partners can keep track of how much revenue they are generating. “The underlying

breakthrough in the product is that we have reduced the onboarding experience which in many cases can take hours to even days with other platforms, to less than a minute with ours. It’s been very well received by the industry and within a short period of time we have quickly seen it become a major part of our business,” said Frank Schuil, Co-founder and CEO of Safello.

cryptocurrency space for years. Safello has the operational foundation of the company that deals with compliance, support and the commercial aspects of the organization. Around the team are the amazing stakeholders which includes the Digital Currency Group, White Star Capital and Northzone and of course Safello’s users and partners. “Instead of simply being a cryptocurrency business we strive to be a modern fintech company, we recently rebranded Safello to underline that cryptocurrency businesses no longer have to be boring bank blue,” Frank added.

Team that stands resiliently behind the company Safello’s core team consists of some highly technical individuals, most of which have worked in the

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A visionary leader The past decade, Frank has dedicated himself to building companies in different industries. It has helped him to recognize some of the more uniform truths about what is needed to make any company work. With each company, there were always new challenges, and with Safello these challenges also saw new dimensions in the form of

regulatory complexity and dependency on incumbent’s infrastructure to achieve his goals.

Having encountered many of the regular problems that are traditionally associated with running a startup, Frank feels he has the ability to differentiate between those that are common problems and those that are specific to this industry. In doing so, he believes the Safello team have been able to focus their attention on those issues that matter the most to increase the chances of success.

Now that the ICO market has cooled down and with that volatility reaching more reasonable levels, everyone has gone back to focusing on evolving their products and rolling out new ones in preparation for the next wave of adoption. Frank believes we have seen this pattern before and with each wave we reach ever increasing levels of maturity, this will set the stage for the next phase of adoption. “There is so much innovation going on that it’s hard to cherry pick any one project from the hundreds if not thousands that are out there. However, we are seeing great use cases emerge for non-fungible tokens, security token offerings, stablecoins and new scalability solutions that could be the precursor for what’s next to come,” he said on where industry is headed.

Dreaming big Safello is offering a brokerage-as-a-

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service model to anyone who has a cryptocurrency audience to monetize. Safello is doing this with an innovative onboarding model that is faster and more convenient than anything in the market today.

Safello believes it has created a strong benchmark for other relatable solutions to measure themselves against. “Last year we had a watershed moment for any of us who have been following the market since the last “bubble” of 2013. The sheer amount of household name companies getting involved and exciting projects being launched as well as the trading volume that we saw was amazing. For us as a company this meant that we had our most successful year ever and that doors really have started to open that were previously shut,” Frank asserted.

Safello’s test market launch for Safello Business in Sweden has also been very successful. The company is now preparing for the expansion of this model to other countries, starting with the Nordics and then the wider Europe.

Safello’s ambition is to be the most frictionless entry and exit point for the cryptocurrency economy, which through its API and widget is widely distributed geographically and to different kinds of apps and websites.

Saritta Hines Founder & CEO TrustaBit

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Mobilizing the Traveling Consumer

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urrently, when a passenger’s flight is canceled or delayed, there is no consistent route for them to get a voucher. The passenger needs to contact the airline call center or fill out a form giving an intensive clarification of what occurred.

Now, in many cases the passenger is disappointed sitting tight for a customer service representative to decide if there is a feasible reason to dispense a voucher and at what sum. Moreover, the voucher must be mailed or emailed to the displeased traveler. When the voucher achieves its goal, the passenger’s loyalty has officially diminished, they have made a post about their experience via social media and are planning their next business trip with another organization.

Enters TrustaBit with its innovative flight disruption management

software, designed to help airlines restore the traveler’s emotional connection to their brand. When an airline implements TrustaBit into their environment, passengers affected by flight disruptions can be compensated immediately based on set business criteria. Notice of compensation will be automatically sent to the passenger via email or SMS when flights are delayed or canceled; eliminating the requirement to contact the airline call centers or complete a claim form. This gives airlines the opportunity to make things right with their customers, increase brand loyalty and secure future trips.

The summer that paved the foundation It was a summer when Saritta Hines, the company’s Founder and CEO, built an Ethereum mining rig with her daughter, who was 7-

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years old at the time. That project piqued Saritta’s interest in the underlying technology of Ethereum, which is blockchain and smart contracts. Therefore, Saritta began looking for an industry that needed an upgrade and the airline industry came to mind. “Travel is a trillion $ industry, yet it is also one of the most antiquated, so when the idea of using blockchain and smart contracts to automate the flight delay compensation process came about – I knew I was on to something!” Saritta shares.

The journey of dreaming big The foundation of the company was laid, but the task was far from done. Saritta faced obstacles in securing VC funding. “The feedback has constantly been that we are “too early” for funding as we have not yet signed a pilot client. As a company that is currently bootstrapped, we are not

Utilizing automation at its fullest potential

afraid to roll up our sleeves and get dirty,” Saritta remarks. “We dusted ourselves off and shifted our focus to finding strong partnerships that will help propel the company forward. We are now working to finalize a collaboration agreement with software giant, TIBCO®. This deal will enable us to leverage TIBCO’s already established list of airline industry partners as we build out our solution. We are in talks with a few other major brands and are excited for what lies ahead!” Saritta further adds.

Using smart contracts, TrustaBit helps airlines to automate compensation to passengers when flight disruptions occur, notify passengers of disruptions prior to arriving to the airport and provide options for how passengers wish to receive compensation. This keeps passengers moving in a cost-effective manner and improves the traveler experience.

The one thing that makes TrustaBit stand out from the competition is automation! TrustaBit’s competing

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solutions facilitate a back and forth conversation with the airline and contact is initiated by the traveler.

TrustaBit is different, because its customer is the airline, not the traveler. TrustaBit offers a whitelabeled solution, which will be integrated within the airline’s systems to automate and streamline their processes. The passenger does not need to initiate contact or download a new mobile app to

receive compensation. Another benefit is that TrustaBit provides options as passengers can elect to receive compensation in the form of a voucher, frequent flyer miles, or fiat (ex: USD).

A seasoned technologist leading the way Saritta is a seasoned technologist with more than 13 years of experience in data analytics and business intelligence environment implementation for fortune 500 companies. She is adept at pulling together teams of committed people who have the expertise, willingness and aptitude required to support a growing startup. With a keen eye toward innovation, Saritta is committed to improving operational efficiency and testing new use cases for blockchain technology. As the head of TrustaBit, Saritta has established a key utility for airline companies to streamline the delivery of products and services to customers through smart contracts.

Blockchain is here to stay Talking about the rise of the blockchain industry, Saritta says “I have seen the perception of blockchain grow tremendously. A few years ago, most people only associated blockchain with the “dark web” and criminal activity.

Now, enterprises are curious about blockchain use cases and are looking for ways to incorporate the

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technology into their systems. I have even seen companies implement low code methods to develop smart contracts that can be used on multiple blockchain platforms. I believe the future of blockchain will bring some of the more antiquated industries into the digital age. The technology will lead to wealth distribution amongst those who have traditionally been left behind.”

Going further, one can expect to see TrustaBit expanding beyond airline industry. “We have plans to use our solution to benefit the insurance industry as well and have identified viable blockchain use cases for parametric insurance and crop insurance for farmers in developing countries,” concludes Saritta.

Saritta’s note “We are looking to secure finding from an Angel Investor or Venture Capital firm that supports untapped founders. Our ask is $500k to assist with customer acquisition efforts, marketing and development. We are also speaking with airline decision makers and thought leaders to source a select group of pilot airlines for beta testing.”

Blockchain Platforms: One Chain to rule them all?

Lior M. Messika Entrepreneur

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was Steve Jobs in his basement, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, the caveman harnessing fire. It was the first digitally scarce asset. It solved issues that had plagued developers for years. It is the foundation of this entirely new class of assets. However, just like most new, revolutionary developments, its tech is limited and focused solely on transactions. It’s like trying to develop a modern day application on Windows’ 98. Not going to happen. Bitcoin currently is ONLY good as a store of value. And unless drastic scaling measures are taken, that won’t change.

017 was the year that blockchain made its way into the mainstream’s consciousness. To the outside world, today’s hot topics are “is Bitcoin a bubble”, and “where can I get Ripple?” But people are missing the point.

They’re missing the fundamental question that we should all be asking. I don’t believe that today’s focus should revolve around whether or not Bitcoin will still be around a few years from now. A more intriguing question is: “how will blockchain really change the world?” And even that question fails to consider whether the blockchains we have today can actually support these world changing applications. 2018 is set to be a defining year for Blockchain, with many projects set to release a working product or application, and a likely flood of newly converted institutional money. However, this exponentially growing market will continue to strongly highlight whether Blockchains can or could support a decentralised world.

In this piece, we’ll cover a handful of concepts and ideas and go into some technical aspects. I’ll try not to delve too deep into individual concepts, so feel free to research further any of the topics we cover.

If Bitcoin laid down the blueprints, Ethereum built the house. That house is the smart contract. Smart contracts (digital contracts) have opened up blockchain to a whole new world of possibility and development.

Implementing smart contracts has given us the chance to revolutionise our world, cutting out middlemen, and allowing for trust in our digital world. Ethereum is the platform upon which dApps are developed, and the inception of dApps (and in turn ERC20 tokens) has birthed a new economy. Today, Ethereum hosts nearly 85% of all worthwhile projects, and uses its customisable blockchain as their foundation.

The evolution of blockchain & blockchain 2.0 Bitcoin was the first. It was exciting. Revolutionary. It

The Blueprint Ethereum has been very successful at assembling the

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rooted in society’s (mis)understanding of a rather technical and conceptually difficult idea. For this question, everyone and their mother has a different opinion. But the real question we should be asking is: “is blockchain ready for us.”

industry’s most talented players. Vitalik and the Ethereum community pioneered the future of blockchain application. But with its first-mover advantage comes a few serious challenges. Take the “game-changing” technology of 2002’s Sidekickcellular phone. At the time, no teenager would’ve been caught dead without one of these in their pockets. Who would’ve thought that the first touchscreen would turn the Sidekick into a museum artifact. Not to say that Ethereum already belongs in the museum, but remember, a pack of digital cats repeatedly brought Ethereum to its knees.

I understand that this question might be a little broad. I have broken it down into three other questions, which I think will help us answer the main one.

1. Will Ethereum work?

Ethereum clearly has some issues that many of the third generation platforms are trying to address — this is going to get a little technical, so bear with me. Ethereum’s main deficiency is its protocol. At the moment, Ethereum’s currency, ether, is mined using Proof of Work (PoW) — the same protocol used by Bitcoin.

Cryptokitties’ popularity exploded in early December and had the Ethereum network gasping for air. With a 465% increase in average transaction price between November 28 and December 12, this specific stretch of time was a definitive moment for the world of Blockchain. A limping and congested Ethereum network started to look a lot like an impossible dream in the eyes of some. Could the hype have been misplaced? Could Ethereum not be the ultimate solution for a truly decentralised world, for an “Internet 3.0”? The discussion shifted away from speculative fantasy towards whether or not Ethereum could really be a herald for the new world. At around the same time, not unsurprisingly, 3rd Gen blockchains started gaining traction. The remarkable run-ups of projects like EOS and Cardano is significant. They should definitely not go unnoticed. But we’ll explore that topic in length later on.

Noam: With Proof of Work, computers on the network compete to solve mathematical formulas and win the right to confirm transactions into the blockchain, and thus, secure the network. The two major drawbacks to the PoW protocol is the danger of a 51% attack and the massive energy consumption required for network security. For these reasons, I think that PoW will soon be an outdated system, as blockchain transitions to a new protocol called Proof of Stake (PoS).

Proof of Stake works similarly to PoW except that instead of computers validating the network and receiving rewards equivalent to their relative computing power, PoS uses token holders. Those who hold tokens can “stake” their tokens (staking means to temporarily place the tokens in a locked smart contract — until staking is over) and in exchange, confirm transactions and receive rewards based on the relative number of tokens held. In PoW, if you operate 5% of the total computing power of the network, you can expect to get 5% of the block rewards. In PoS, if you own 5% of tokens, you can also expect to receive 5% of block rewards.

The Real Ethereum killers 2017 was Year 1 on the mainstream blockchain calendar.

2017 saw a massive increase in the market. Incredible development amongst dApps. Innovative ideas solving some of our world’s biggest problems. The rising number of truly remarkable projects and platforms demonstrates an equal rise in the confidence and power of the smart contract. However, the community has also been struggling to implement a handful of these projects and actually put them to use. The most salient example of all is Ethereum. We saw quite clearly that the platform with the most proposed theoretical application (# of DApps) had no real way of implementing any of it on a large scale.

PoS offers a solution to the issues plaguing PoW — mainly it takes virtually no energy to run PoS — without compromising the security. I would argue that it actually improves security. With Ethereum, and all other PoW protocols, the difficulty algorithm (how hard it is to solve the mathematical formula) must constantly be updated to account for better computer hardware and

Now that we have some background, let’s zoom out for a moment: The question on everyone’s mind is whether or not our society is “ready” to adopt blockchain. Concerns are

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more powerful mining groups. With PoS there is no need to do this. With Ethereum, you could conceivably purchase enough computing hardware to achieve a 51% attack; even after comprising the network, you would still have all of that hardware and could potentially use it to attack other PoW platforms. With PoS, because you must stake your coins, any malicious behavior results in the loss of all staked coins. So if you bought 51% of all tokens, you would immediately lose your substantial investment. In addition, the costs of purchasing 51% of the network tokens are equal for everyone. The costs of obtaining 51% of computer power — due to discounts for mass computer purchases and countries with extremely cheap electricity — are not.

Back to Lior: The architects of Ethereum are currently trying to transition its network to a PoS protocol. I believe this to be Ethereum’s only refuge if it is to stay relevant. Its current model just doesn’t offer the necessary foundations for an applicable ecosystem. For Ethereum to serve as the foundation for whole industries, a serious upgrade is needed. If the goal is Visa’s capacity for over 440,000 transactions per second, then the Ethereum Network’s meager 15 won’t cut it. Vitalik Buterin, the genius mind behind the first smart contract, is after a solution that would enable the network to be more than just a theoretical utopia.

To ensure Ethereum’s longevity in such a continuously evolving space, developers have offered a few answers: The Raiden Network

The Raiden Network is an open source project that aims to serve as an off-chain network that facilitates transfers of Ethereum ERC 20 tokens. The Raiden Network utilises state channel technology, enabling off-chain transfers of on-chain tokens. Those transfers are performed by relaying a signed and stamped message directly from the two parties (of a transaction) while the main blockchain itself is not involved. Since only the two parties have access to the smart contract itself, the transfer itself is immune to double spending, making it as safe as an on-chain transaction. It enables the network to scale along with the number of users. This basically means that the more users there are in the network, the higher the throughput will be. The throughput is how fast the nodes can replicate a transaction, not the number of TPS. I believe that Raiden could potentially become a powerful layer for the Internet of Things (IoT) and a machine-to-machine ecosystem. Its creators compare the Raiden Network to a bank that would ensure that “once you receive a Raiden check from someone, you can be absolutely certain that this check is real and that you are now richer than you were moments ago.” So Raiden looks great on paper, but how far along are they? As of today, they are still in development with a working preview soon to be released. Thus, they are still far from implementing a final working solution. A stronger iteration of Raiden (which we’ll not get into on this piece), Raidos, is in planning, but is still not in development.

Sharding Sharding is another possible answer aimed at making Ethereum more than

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just a dream. Solutions such as Plasma (soon), and the Raiden Network are second-layer protocols, meaning they run off the main Ethereum chain. Sharding is tackling base-layer blockchain protocol architecture, meaning it applies directly to Ethereum’s main chain.

This ultimately helps maintain a more decentralised network as sharding will require a smaller percentage of nodes to oversee and authorise every transaction, allowing for the network to potentially

authorise thousands of transactions simultaneously. The architects of Ethereum are certain that Sharding, along with Layer 2 protocols such as the Raiden Network, will work in conjunction in order to make Ethereum more supportive of a smart economy. The real issue with Ethereum’s consensus is that every node needs to verify each transaction, slowing the network considerably. The aim for Ethereum is to scale to thousands of transactions per second in the near future, on-chain, without master nodes or any other conditions that would hinder its decentralisation. Vitalik Buterin believes that is a part of the solution for Ethereum’s improved scalability. He says the concept of sharding is similar to having hundreds of similar, yet unique

universes. These are separate blockchains that connect to share consensus. Interfering with one of those “worlds” would mean interfering with all of the “world” sharing consensus and authorisation power. Sharding is essentially creating a new “world,” and many more, without it affecting the main-chain.

An example that helped me understand the concept of Sharding without getting into too much technical detail: Imagine that three nodes A, B, C, have to verify data T. Instead of each node verifying all of the data, data T is broken into 3 shards: T1, T2, T3. Instead of individually authorising the entire data T, nodes A,B,C verify each shard simultaneously in order to facilitate the verification

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in order to successfully take an active role in this emerging ecosystem. If you’re still hazy about the meaning of interoperability in blockchain, an interesting parallel could be made with Facebook: today, virtually everything on the internet is accessible through your Facebook account. Remember when you used to have separate accounts for everything? Facebook definitely controls your life, but it also makes it a lot easier. Seamless integration was Facebook’s goal from day one, a key component to its 2 billion user base.

What does this all mean?

Many projects are transitioning from simple smart-contract interoperability, towards seamless sharing of information across blockchains. These agnostic protocols are able to inherently work freely and seamlessly with each other, rather than setting up additional layers of communicativity between different networks. Imagine being fluent in every language, rather than sitting on Google Translate all day. AION, ICON, and WanChain notably are projects that recently established the “blockchain interoperability alliance,” dedicating research and resources towards setting a standard of interoperability for emerging blockchain networks.

My conclusion is that the blockchain projects with interoperability at their core will survive the test of time and adaptability, ultimately making them truly adoptable tech.

Usability With scalability and interoperability out of the way, what else does a platform serving as a foundation for a real economy need? Usability.

Usability is a culmination of a few

different levels of centralisation, with specific use-cases for each. At the early stages of adoption, we will need strong-enough tech to make our crypto-dreams a reality, and we’ll need efficiency before we achieve ideal, complete decentralisation. My conclusion is that a blockchain’s most important undertaking is to reach a level of scalability that can enable the first large-scale, realworld adoption of blockchain tech.

Interoperability With an ever growing number of different protocols, and no signs of slowing down, interoperability is becoming vital.

Interoperability is a protocol’s capacity to interact and cooperate with different blockchains, and to facilitate smart contracts between one protocol and another.

Interoperability is regarded by many as the “holy grail” of blockchain tech, since it will be the main factor that will help bring blockchain tech into the real world. The very essence of interoperability is to eliminate the need for centralised intermediaries, improve capacities of performance and scalability, and to connect between private and public chains. Once businesses and other institutions start adopting blockchain, it is safe to assume that most of them won’t be adopting the same protocols and systems, since those platforms and systems will each address different use-cases with varying levels of decentralisation and integrations. So the integration of blockchain technology through ERP and CRM software will most likely be through a number of different blockchains and not just one. All of these foundational protocols will need to cooperate with each other

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to generate a set amount of transactions on the blockchain.

Because transactions need to be on the blockchain to be considered valid, block time determines how fast and how many transactions can be processed in a set time.

Noam: Bitcoin has 1MB block sizes and 10 minute confirmation times. A 1MB block size means that about 2,000 transactions can be included in each block. Miners have to solve a mathematical formula to place the block. 10 minute confirmation times means that the math formula is custom created to take 10 minutes.

1MB (2000 transactions) every 10 minutes is achingly slow. It’s the line at Costco the day before Superbowl Sunday slow. It’s download speed at grandma’s slow. 1MB/10min translates to .00167mbps (MB/second). Try watching Netflix on that speed. Singapore, with the fastest internet speeds in the world, averages 154mbps — that’s 92,000 times faster than bitcoin’s speed. Visa is 7,200 times faster at processing transactions than bitcoin. Ouch.

That’s sloth from Zootopia slow…okay, I’m done.

Back to Lior: A blockchain with an extremely low throughput and TPS rate gravely limits its overall capacity and adoptability. Today, newer structures are being designed with scalability at their very core. Many projects are starting to adopt innovative consensus protocols, sometimes sacrificing decentralisation in favour of scalability. My opinion is that this is the right direction. As I will continue mentioning, I believe that businesses and institutions will be the first to adopt this technology on a massive scale, and all of those will require

of the data — reducing latency.

Ethereum’s scalability solutions like much-needed renovations to an old house. Ethereum is renovating a house with a weak foundation, while 3rd generation platforms study the blueprint (Ethereum’s) carefully, choose a new plot of land, and redesign the parts they didn’t like.

Plasma To best understand Plasma, think of a Raiden network that, instead of facilitating payments, facilitates smart contracts. Ethereum, like a handful of other platforms, is exploring methods to reduce the amount of traffic recorded and authorised directly on the main chain.

Plasma serves two purposes: the first, is to reframe all the network’s computations into simpler formats. The second, is to enable a method to utilise PoS token bonding on top of existing blockchains since PoW’s incentive model could potentially encourage block withholding. Block withholding is when a miner solves a block, but doesn’t “publish” the results — thus withholding it from the network. Plasma pairs smart contracts on the main blockchain by using fraud proofs, a technique that gives full nodes the ability to de-validate a faulty chain. This protects the integrity of the main chain. These fraud proofs enforce state transitions on a parent blockchain. Plasma basically creates “child chains” on top of a main chain, each capable of relaying information to the main chain. Much like the Raiden Network, Plasma is a second layer built on top of Ethereum’s core. Vitalik strongly believes that this, along with the many other upcoming changes, should revitalise the Ethereum network and boost its longevity.

2. What are 3rd Generation Platforms? What do they offer that Ethereum doesn’t at the moment?

So we’ve mentioned 3rd Gen platforms quite a few times already; let’s take the dive. Since the birth of the first smart contract, a large stream of the associated gold-rush migrated towards not DApps, but protocols that could bring us closer to real-world implementation and adoption. These projects aim to become a better, faster, stronger baseline for real-world use, and are all trying to sculpt the magical trap-door that will transport us into a novel, futuristic world. How do these projects differ from Ethereum, and what is the hype all about?

New blockchain projects such a s EOS or Cardano are busy developing answers and solutions to Ethereum’s current issues. While many of these projects approach those issues from different angles, a few key components are usually addressed. All blockchain systems and protocols are hard at work to build a foundation that enables real world use and adoption. For a blockchain, adoption equals success. I like to break up a blockchain’s adoptability into three key components: scalability, interoperability, and overall usability.

Conclusion Will Ethereum be able to effectively scale? Another pressing question is: will it hold its own before a 3rd generation platform becomes the new standard for a decentralised, blockchain infrastructure? With secondlayer additions such as the Raiden Network and Plasma, and changes to base-layer architecture (sharding), it looks like Ethereum has a plan — a potential solution.

Scalability Scalability has always been at the heart of the blockchain debate — even before it was cool. This is probably the term you’ve heard or read about the most here, so I won’t go too deep. But I’ll add my perspective — especially in regards to emerging blockchains.

However, simply having a proposal doesn’t solve Ethereum’s problems. My biggest concern is that it will be difficult for Ethereum to actually implement this solution via a decentralised governance system, and thus, an inherently inefficient model. Without centralised decision making, changes happen slowly. Top Apple executives decide when to put out the next iPhone.

Ethereum doesn’t have that luxury. Changes need to be validated, accepted by the network, and only then can they be implemented. We have yet to see any of these scaling solutions deliver on their creators’ promises.

Ethereum’s foundation is inarguably weaker; think of

Since the inception of the very first blockchain, we’ve been busy formulating solutions to increase scalability. If you’re a blockchain beginner: Scalability is a blockchain’s ability to accommodate as many users as possible on the chain while still retaining low transaction fees and fast consensus. Ethereum and Bitcoin’s scalability issues stem from their nowinefficient consensus protocols. This inefficiency percolates down to a few major drawbacks. One of those is the longer block time. Block time is the time it takes

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key attributes, but to make things easier for everyone, this definition first: the foundation needs to be easily usable by end-users as well as by developers. By developers I mean the guys decorating an empty house (creating DApps), and by end-users I mean You, the person who decides to sit in that house because it’s nice and comfortable. If you think you are lazy, those techies you call developers will crush the stigma you’ve made for yourself. None of them like to work on a platform that doesn’t give them everything they need in order to build everything you want. New platforms make developer’s lives easier with functional programming languages, smart contract audits, and easy-todeploy, customisable blockchains.

But this is just one consideration for usability. Ease of use is enormously important. Why does iPhone rule the world? Not because it has a better processor, more powerful camera, or wireless charging — other phones annihilate iPhones in all those areas. iPhones are king because they’re easy to use; they’re sleek, well designed, intuitive, compatible with all your devices. So blockchains need to build the iPhone equivalent. The end goal in my opinion is for the end user to not even know they’re using a blockchain. Today, third generation platforms accomplish this in a variety of ways. They translate those long Ethereum addresses into name based addresses (so you can finally use that 69BoomHeadShot420 Call of Duty callsign as an address).

In addition, just like how you don’t pay to interact with a website (the host does), with projects such as EOS, the user doesn’t pay the fees, the host of the smart contract pays.

Projects such as Elastos make blockchains accessible from smart

phones and from any operating system. To conclude, blockchain that is easy for developers and user friendly will be adoptable.

MVPs Here are some projects I’ve been following closely, that all approach the challenges that blockchains are facing from different angles. There are MANY more, but I will focus on just a few.

Noam, that’s your queue: NEO — NEO e xemplifies interoperability, scalability, and usability, but at the cost of true decentralisation. NEO connects with a host of blockchains within the ecosystem, such as Ontology and Elastos, connecting private enterprise blockchains with public blockchain solutions. Their scalability is massive, with significant transaction speeds and developing off-chain solutions. NEO and the NEO community focus on developing projects that allow for simple development for businesses and users alike.

EOS — EOS exe mplifies usability for both users and developers. As aforementioned, because smart contract hosts pay the network fees, users interact with EOS for free.

With horizontal scaling and an efficient dPoS consensus mechanism, EOS can support hundreds of thousands of transactions per second and seriously intensive applications.

Name based addresses bring ease of use and its foundational Graphine technology is already handling massive throughput on Steemit and BitShares.

MatrixChain — MatrixChain in tegrates AI with blockchain.

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MatrixChain uses AI in some unique ways that ultimately, simplify the user experience. AI can audit smart contracts and code to ensure that loopholes and bugs aren’t present.

Users can just input the specifications for the smart contract in simple scripting language; the AI then converts the specifications into smart contracts. But this is not a simple task; the AI needs to infer from the specifications what the purpose of the smart contract is, and then enable it.

AI will also optimise the blockchain protocol according to environmental and usage inputs. Essentially, the blockchain will be continuously optimising to account for actual usage, without hard forks.

MatrixChain uses a hybrid PoW and delegated PoS protocol. The blockchain is broken into different pieces where mining and consensus happen separately to increase scalability (think sharding). But unlike other PoW models, The computing nodes aren’t just solving pointless algorithms. Miners perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) computation — if your brain went dead reading that, hold on. MCMC computation is really important for solving certain algorithms. Even a simple explanation is above the scope of this article, but recognise that MCMC is critical for real world, big data applications. As such, Matrix mining is actually useful for solving real world problems.

Back to Lior: Zilliqa is all about RESULTS Zilliqa — Zilliqa is a blockc hain platform that is designed to scale in an open, permission-less, and distributed network securely. The

addressed throughout this piece (scalability, usability, and more) which I will try to reiterate, I foresee serious difficulties in getting one single, decentralised system approved and supported by all governments and authorities. Do I think that China and Switzerland will have the same standards for a blockchain that they both support and approve? Unlikely. Trade laws, borders, language barriers, and taxes all serve as obstacles for multinational blockchains. And back to the initial adopters of blockchain; I don’t see a good enough reason for all businesses, institutions, or even governments and authorities to use the same foundational structure for their largely varying needs of centralisation and use cases.

core feature that makes Zilliqa scalable is sharding — dividing the network into several smaller component networks capable of processing transactions in parallel. At Ethereum’s present network size of 30,000 miners, Zilliqa would expect to process about a thousand times the transaction rates of Ethereum. Zilliqa leverages PoW, as well as PoS. It does not use PoW for consensus.

However, the platform uses PoW only to prevent Sybil attacks and generate node identities. This is in contrast to many existing blockchain platforms (in particular Bitcoin and Ethereum), where PoW is used to reach distributed consensus. Zilliqa employs Ethash, the PoW algorithm used in Ethereum 1.0. The consensus protocol comprises of the overarching layer of directory committee, and a refinement of the PBFT protocol in each shard. Zilliqa employs Elliptic Curve Based Schnorr Signature Algorithm (definitely not getting into it in this article) with multi-signing or signature aggregation. This means that the size of the signature stays small even when a lot of miners sign a block.

Moreover, by leveraging efficient network topology, Zilliqa’s consensus scheme reduces the communication complexity linear to the size of the network. Zilliqa proposes an innovative special-purpose smart contract language and execution environment that leverages the underlying architecture to provide a large scale and highly efficient computation platform.

To conclude, I absolutely do NOT believe that a single blockchain could achieve global integration any time soon. More importantly, as I see the future of blockchain and its impacts on our world, I really don’t think there is a real reason for there to be just one. With chains growing more interoperable and usable, we will see a lot of compartmentalisation and chains that will specialise in various use cases. This ecosystem will continue growing and specialising, and I don’t think we’ll see this process slow down any time soon.

Conclusion Our world is complex, our economies immense, our requirements diverse. This network cannot be serviced by one platform, but instead, will be supported by an interconnected web of usable, interoperable, and scalable blockchains. These blockchains will be the iPhones of our decentralised world— simple to use, inexpensive, and secure. And we are only at the beginning. Every month brings more advanced features, more powerful developments, more streamlined services. For now, whether or not the world is ready for blockchain, it’s clear that our platforms certainly aren’t. But with third generation blockchains in development, and the inevitable fourth, fifth, sixth generations on the horizon, that won’t remain true for long.

Some more interesting projects: Qtum, ICON, Nebulas, Elastos, Ontology, and many more.

3. Could a specific blockchain achieve GLOBAL integration?

Imagine an entire economy based on a decentralised blockchain. All data is maintained and protected. Supply chain integration allows for rapid and improved commerce; even voting is done via your private key and the blockchain. All stamped by Ethereum or EOS. It’s a libertarian’s wet dream and all that anyone is talking about today. But we believe there are some serious hurdles for blockchains (let alone a single one) to overcome on their way to global adoption. Everyone is talking about how blockchain is going to change our entire world, and today (similar to the rise of Internet) we’re using it to stretch our limits and see how far it can get us.

I believe that we are still far away from “one blockchain to rule them all” (Gollum is on the lookout), due to a variety of reasons. Beyond the clear issues that we’ve

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Every company will use blockchain by 2027

A

Nakamoto didn’t just explain how we can regain control over our money — he offered a new way for strangers to safely collaborate with each other.

lmost a decade ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, silently disrupted trust-providing organizations, like banks, with an eight-page long research paper describing how money can be decentralized (through Bitcoin). At the time, not many people understood the potential that those eight pages concealed within themselves.

You might have come across people who deny the potential of blockchains and tell you not to buy into the hype. My advice: do not pay too much attention to them.

The businesses who don’t adapt to the decentralized world of the future will soon become businesses of the past.

No, I am not talking about decentralizing money. I am referring to the decentralization itself. In those eight pages,

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Mohit Mamoria CEO Authorito Capita

In this article, we discuss five different ways blockchain will fit into your company in less than ten years from now.

So let’s start with the basics: what is blockchain exactly?

2.

Put simply, a blockchain is a database. It’s an ever-growing database of different kinds of data and it has quite remarkable properties: 1.

is permanent for eternity.

No single individual or organization maintains the database; several thousand individuals do, and everyone has a copy of the database themselves.

To understand how several people are able to keep their copies of the database in sync with everyone else’s, imagine this:

Once data is stored in the database, it can never be modified or deleted. Every record on a blockchain

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There are ten individuals in a network. Everyone is sitting with an empty folder and a blank page in front of them.

Whenever anyone does something important in the network, like transferring money, they announce it to everyone in the network.

be converted into Smart Contracts. Unlike conventional contracts, smart contracts consist of software code and are executed by the blockchain network. The beauty of these smart contracts is that they cannot be modified after they are deployed, which ensures neither party in a deal can walk away without doing their part.

Everyone makes a note of each announcement on their page until their pages are full. When they’re full, everyone has to seal the contents of their page by solving a mathematical puzzle. Solving a mathematical puzzle verifies that everyone’s page has the same contents and ensures they can never be modified. Whoever seals their page first, gets rewarded with some amount of cryptocurrency.

Smart contracts, written in code on the blockchain, are contracts that are completely inalterable once they have been triggered.

Imagine you’re in a band and you want to sell your music to someone, meaning you’ll have to transfer an audio file.

How can you be sure the buyer will pay for it after receiving it? At the same time, the buyer might be skeptical too, thinking you won’t send the audio file if they make the payment first. A smart contract ensures that once the buyer has transferred the money, the audio file will immediately be sent to the buyer. Once deployed, no one can stop the contract from being executed. So both parties can trust the code.

Once the page is sealed, it is added to the folder. A new page is brought out and the process continues forever.

As time passes, these pages (blocks) that contain important records (transactions) are added to the folder (chain), thus forming the database (blockchain).

For the detailed version, here’s the ultimate guide to understand blockchain.

2) Payments “If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.”

— Steven Wright

Because of its unique properties, blockchain technology can be used in many different industries, ranging from banking and accounting to the entertainment industry.

Below, we discuss five different ways blockchain will affect your company.

If your business requires payment transactions between countries, blockchains will come in handy as well . One of the biggest promises of blockchain is that it will replace money someday. This, of course, would entail such a radical shift that it would take years, if not decades, to happen. But right now, we can already use blockchains to transfer money across the globe within minutes, instead of days.

One of the benefits of decentralized money is that payments can be transferred directly between peers, without any intermediaries, like banks, slowing down the process. Given this, cross-border remittances will no doubt be another area of your business that will adopt blockchain.

1) Contracts “Until the contract is signed, nothing is real.”

— Glenn Danzig What would you call a business that isn’t “doing business?” Blockchain will have a large impact on the way organizations engage with one another. Doing business means transacting with other parties to facilitate something that wouldn’t be possible alone. In such an arrangement, the two organizations need to be sure they can trust each other.

In 2017, this trust is provided by a set of pages, or contract, that lists all the terms and conditions of engagement. When a party doesn’t adhere to the promises mentioned in the contract it can be enforced by law — but this can result in an expensive and timely process. So in many cases, going to court over a breach of contract simply isn’t worth the trouble.

3) Recruiting “We’re going to become caretakers for the robots. That’s what the next generation of work is going to be.”

— Gray Scott Experts predict that robots will someday take over our jobs. But until that day arrives, CEO’s everywhere will still need humans running their companies.

Using blockchain technology, many of these contracts can

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Unlike robots, however, people do not come with trademarks or reputation badges. Which is why finding the right employees for your company can be a daunting task.

Your data will be even more secure in a decentralized storage than the cloud storage. While the centralized cloud storage stores your file on several backups, the decentralized storage will keep your data on an even bigger number of devices, therefore, increasing dependability.

But what if such information about possible new hires became publicly available? As explored in this article, blockchains can pave the way for faster, cheaper and trustless (where you don’t have to trust another human being for authenticity) reference checks. Each person would have a trail of feedback which would be accumulated over the course of their career by past employers. This would enable new employers to quickly review this trail and decide whether this person would be the right match for the job.

Convenient enough for the new employer, but what happens if this trail contains false information? Suppose your previous boss was a hateful, horrible person — will you then be forever haunted by their negative feedback?

Also, in centralized systems, the strength of the system depends on how secure one company’s servers are. Using decentralized networks, there isn’t just one device that contains the complete file, which makes it practically impossible for hackers to obtain the data.

4) Less hierarchy, better governance Companies will thrive in an environment where power is not limited to the hands of a few, yet this is the way organizations are often structured.

To make sure this doesn’t happen, the reference system should be a two-way street. This way employees can also rate their employers, and if needed, each other. A bad rating from an employer with a bad reputation in the system will have less weight than someone who’s proven trustworthy.

These current authority structures are the result of inefficiencies in coordinating a large crowd. Blockchain itself is not a new technology — it is just a combination of technologies that we’ve had for several decades: peer-topeer networks and cryptography. Similarly, the solutions on top of blockchains are made up of several moving parts that work together beautifully.

3) Cloud storage “Behind every cloud is another cloud.”

— Judy Garland

Using a combinat ion of smart contracts on top of the blockchain, communities can have a governance without a hierarchy. It’s very likely that your business will soon have next to zero bureaucracy, and all the major decisions that affect the organization as a whole might be taken through a transparent voting process that gets carried out on a blockchain.

If you’re running a business, chances are you have company data stored in the cloud. According to a recent report by cloud services provider BCSG, a growing number of small and medium-sized companies are turning to cloud computing. Currently, 64% of small business owners have an average of three cloud solutions in place, which is expected to increase to 72% in the next three years.

Every proposal gets submitted in the form of a Smart Contract on which everyone can vote. If the threshold defined in the company’s constitution is met, the proposal is approved and further steps can be taken.

Blockchains are playing a huge role in decentralizing cloud storage because they allow strangers to collaborate with each other. Instead of storing files on a single centralized server, you’ll be able to save your files on thousands of devices across the globe.

Blockchain is coming…

These are the few areas that your business might adopt blockchains sooner than you expect, but the possibilities are endless. There are several mental models that you can use to think of blockchains. When it comes to identifying the potential of blockchains in business, I like to think of blockchain as a method to make strangers work together. Be it your employees, or your partners, or the supply chain, or anybody else, blockchains will soon penetrate your organization in more ways than one.

Here’s how that works: Every file you upload will be divided into several tiny chunks, and each of these chunks will be stored on several devices in the network. Which particular chunk is stored on which particular device is recorded on the blockchain. If you need to retrieve that file, the system will assemble it for you based on this information.

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