Blockchain Industry Review, issue 6, June 2021

Issue 6 June 2021

INDUSTRY

REVIEW

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE YOUR GATEWAY TO BLOCKCHAIN AND DIGITAL CURRENCY USE CASES AND APPLICATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS BLOCKCHAIN INDUSTRY REVIEW BY THE CRYPTO CURRY CLUB

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Unmasking the benefits of blockchain for the future of real estate management

Power and Mobility Ltd. are on a journey toward frictionless urban mobility with Dr Harry Behrens, co-founder and CTO

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Connecting directly with customers: blockchain in ecommerce with allynow.com with Roman Tsarovsky, CEO and founder of Allynow.com

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Does crypto fit into social media? If so, where? with Manny Herandez, CEO of OMNI

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Dot.Finance- DeFi aggregator for the Polkadot Ecosystem with Nir Rozin, founder of Dot.Finance, House of DeFi

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Peering into the depths of DeFi: Know Your Code How dirty is your pool? with Trustology

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Privacy DeFi. Currently, DeFi users lack the privacy they might like, due to the immutable and transparent nature of public blockchains, with Oliver Gale, Founder and CEO of Panther Protocol

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Cross-chain lending for crypto, NFTs and stablecoin with Rikkei Finance

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Whiskey NFTs follow craft beer on blockchain with Ireland Craft Beers by Shane McCarthy

B L O C K C H A I N

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R E V I E W

Blockchain in fashion- creating a live-updating global luxury catalogue for e-commerce and eNFT‘s in digital authenticity cards, with Lindsey Mallon, co founder of Splyt, founder of Nadjarina and CEO of Masion Du

I N D U S T R Y

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FOUNDER´S NOTE

THE

WELCOME TO BLOCKCHAIN INDUSTRY REVIEW

Top: Founder- Erica Stanford Bottom: Editor-in-chief Jilian Godsil Designer: Mauricio Cano.

Welcome to June‘s issue of Blockchain Industry Review.

In a time of highs and lows in crypto, it is heartening to see blockchain being used to help startups and companies bring about increased transparency and savings across a multitude of industries. We are also starting to see DeFi, or decentralised finance, gain some real-world exposure in finance.

This month we are joined by features on how blockchain is being used in fashion, in real estate, aiming at speeding up home sales, in e-commerce and in mobility as a service – i.e. in a model where one only needs one ticket for a whole journey comprising multiple different transport types.

We also bring you features on how crypto- and NFTs are being used in social media, and the role that blockchain, and again NFTs, now play in craft whiskey.

Lastly, a focus on DeFi, looking into regulation and a legal perspective on AML, how increased privacy can be brought to DeFi and lending- of crypto and NFTsand what is next for this space.

Thank you for reading!

Erica Stanford Founder of the Crypto Curry Club

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Blockchain Industry Review

Blockchain in fashion

creating a live-updating global luxury catalogue for e-commerce and eNFT's in digital authenticity cards

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by the Crypto Curry Club

With Lindsey Mallon, co founder of Splyt, founder of Nadjarina and CEO of Masion Du, by Jilian Godsil.

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rowing up Lindsey was not sure what she wanted to do. She initially considered architecture as a career but a stint as an intern in a practising architects office quickly confirmed her opinion that she did not want to work in front of a computer every day.

Her father encouraged her to follow her passion. Shortly after she attended an haute couture fashion exhibition in Boston, and she was hooked.

“Instant love.”

For Lindsey art is not just art, it does something. It empowers people. At the same time, she is cognisant that the actual fashion industry can be toxic in terms of how people treat each other, and the labour standards are very low.

“I would work with these factories initially where people could not afford to go home to see their families or maybe went home once a year and that really struck a chord with me and pushed me to look at sustainable commerce.”

For Lindey this concept went beyond the environment and included labour standards, community, and how people work together. The beautiful industry has a dark underbelly, but she was in love.

“It’s not just me, consumers are starting to demand sustainable practices and

that is making the industry react with stores pushing their sustainable brands to the fore. Customers want ethics, giveback programmes, brands donating to charities and transparency; they really want transparency.

“Every dollar spent is a vote.”

After graduating from art college, in the middle of the global financial crash, Lindsey knew she wanted her own brand. History shows that endeavours begun in hard times reap rewards when good times come around. Either way, Lindsey knew to launch her own brand she would need to know all sides of the business and so she worked in from design to development and all the way in between. She also relocated from New York to LA with her one-year-old child.

It was a year of change and she worked for a range of fashion brands to get experience.

By 2019 she had enough experience to dip her toe into the water and founded Nadjarina, a conscious Luxury apparel brand with a focus on fair-trade, high quality materials old-world craftsmanship.

“Nadjarina is focused on labour standards as well as the bigger picture of what sustainability means to the community. People are interested in clothes that reflect their views.”

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Maison Du use Splyt blockchain technology to create a live-updating global luxury catalogue for e-comm stores, and utilizes eNFT‘s to create digital authenticity cards.

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by the Crypto Curry Club

The Nadjarina brand is based on natural fabrics with a modern female mentality. According to Lindsey it pushes boundaries, gently. The modern female has many facets which can include being a businesswoman, a mother, and a sensual being.

“It’s too easy to be guilted into pigeonholes – why can’t we be more?”

Nadjarina wants to clothe the dynamic female and has had requests to move into male clothing. She probably will, as some of her designs are definitely androgynous. It is also one of the first brands to be onboarded to the Splyt blockchain marketplace – a platform on which she is co founder with Cyrus Taghehchian.

The combination of blockchain and fashion was a random occurrence for Lindsey. Turns out she met her soon-to-be co founder in a bar.

It played out to be a very fast connection. Lindsey was already familiar with supply chains and payment methods. She was also concerned with building a sustainable business. Within 48 hours she had devoured everything to do with blockchain and was hooked.

“The ethos of blockchain really made sense.”

Lindsey uses architectural examples to describe the Splyt ecosystem; in her analogy Splyt is the piping under a city that connects water to all the buildings. It is Web3 and based on NFTs – long before NFTs became dinner table conversation fodder.

Built on blockchain, Splyt is open source. It decentralizes the entire

ecommerce supply chain and is a transparent solution matching product with digital outlets. Any retailer connected to the platform can pull inventory from a shared global catalogue. The stock is then displayed on the affiliate site and once the item is sold, the seller drop-ships it to the purchaser. Smart contacts, within the eNFT attached to each item, release agreed funds to both seller and brand. There are no fees as the site is set up as a not-for-profit.

Blockchain provides the security and removes the need for trust.

Lindsey sees COVID as the accelerant behind increased adoption of cryptocurrencies and going online – both of which positively impacts Splyt.

“It’s a powerful convergence of crypto friendly thinking, massive online sales and also a credit freeze. Many retailers don’t have cash flow and they can’t afford to carry stock so drop-ship solutions really appeal to them.”

Lindsey’s goal is to take this shortterm thinking in response to the pandemic into long term business practice. NFTs are attached to the product to allow for provenance and proof of authenticity.

A retailer, say Net a Porter, lists one of Nadjarina’s pieces of clothing. As there is an eNFT attached to it, the retailer can point to its authenticity. Linsey can set up sales percentages, typically higher for the brand in this workflow, which go into the smart contract. This executes the

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release of funds upon sale – but there is another kicker here. Lindsey can track the life cycle of her clothing through the eNFT attached to it – an important rider when designing sustainable fashion.

In ten years from now the piece of clothing might still be visible online with details of the owners, value at each sale and geographic history showing. That has never been possible before for clothing belonging to the general public (as opposed to celebrity designer wear).

The intervention of blockchain technology facilitates this tracking and when combined with conscious consumers and a healthy resale market for vintage and second-hand clothing, it makes for powerful future reporting.

Having this data implicitly coded onto the eNFT will also be a game changer for big brands that currently do it all themselves through a variety of metadata and apps; it’s hard work without blockchain.

“People don’t want lots of apps for different brands – we universalize it and adopt it for all.”

Lindsey recognises that both the fashion and blockchain industries are dominated by men, but that currently fashion primarily sells to women and crypto less so. Her path is to educate not nag. She sees blockchain as fundamentally progressive despite the current male dominance. It is like her clothing – it can be female, it can be androgynous and soon it may include male items, or non-binary.

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UNMASKING THE BENEFITS OF BLOCKCHAIN FOR THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT

By Lisa Gibbons In the last year house prices in the UK jumped by 9.5% according to mortgage lender Lloyds bank. The divide between the haves and the have nots is becoming greater each day, with potential buyers being squeezed out of the market. Furthermore, Savills estate agency forecasts house prices to increase by 21.1% over the next five years. This leaves us with a dysfunctional real estate industry, focused on supplying only the wealthiest portion of the population.

Exacerbating the situation is the complex buying process, often involving several different parties; the renter, the owner, the management company, the conveyor, the valuer and the solicitor, to name a few. And it isn’t only the buyer who is left wondering what costs go where. Large real estate companies and property management firms are often leaking revenue due to poor oversight or lack of insights into where the money is being spent.

With prices rising and the number of homes available shrinking we need to adopt a new approach. Blockchain technology combined with large-scale state investment in public housing could help to alleviate our over reliance on private developers to deliver the right supply of

properties. Let’s take a look at the market from both sides of the coin.

SUPPLY SIDE In May of this year the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported that the lack of new homes available for buyers was now the biggest concern in the UK property market. So how do we ensure that more homes are being built for the people that want to buy them? When it comes to land registered, land use cases and planning permission blockchain provides an answer. The distributed ledger would allow the public purse to have a broader view of the historic planning permissions and permits associated with land and therefore increase reliability when assessing the potential use cases of the property for the future.

When supplying properties to buy or rent to the public trust plays a major part in the decision of the buyer or tenant.

The HM Land Registry registers land and property ownerships across England and Wales. It has begun adopting blockchain technology to make transactions easier to manage, instill trust in their systems and cut costs. They have established a community of collaborators to discover the possibilities of block-

by the Crypto Curry Club

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chain. Furthermore, real estate companies and rental agencies who accept bitcoin as payment, such as liv. rent, offer flexible payment options to suit individuals with different sets of circumstances who would like to fully embrace bitcoin. By embedding this technology into your operations agents can tap into the potential of new stakeholders. It also allows for the agency to automate payments with smart contracts and efficiently record all agreements with the distributed ledger, eliminating the costs of intermediaries.

In addition, construction companies interested in the land can easily access a full picture of the planning applications in the past or better yet, the lack of applications, so that they can proceed with one. This increased transparency is a consistent benefit with the introduction of blockchain technology. It allows all parties to effectively manage their supply chains without letting costs get out of control. More importantly, when a government approves a tender for a housing project every layer of that approval can be written into the ledger, making it a vital component for monitoring the stages of housing development.

The decentralized exchanges on blockchain also allow for developers to streamline transactions and conveyancing costs. Surveyors, valuers and solicitors are just three of the many professionals hired when you are buying your first home. If they are responsible for verifying and preparing legal contracts associated with home ownership but this information is now digitized and stored on a ledger using blockchain then there is a case to be made that the costs associated with these services will become unnecessary. This isn‘t to say that a full house inspection by an engineer or professional isn‘t required. It is an important part of buying any piece of real estate. However, the preparation of files, contracts and records becomes a much more seamless process with the addition of blockchain technology.

DEMAND SIDE Now let‘s turn our attention to buyers and homeowners. Although house supply is flat at the moment, the demand is soaring with positive sentiment across many major European cities. Whether you are buying a penthouse apartment or commercial land, there will be a prime location designed just for you, according to the real estate agent that is. However, that is no longer the case. The supply is not matching the current demand, therefore real estate agents need to plan ahead and capitalize on the properties that they do have available to sell. Across the UK 32+ participants in the residential market survey noted an increase in buyer enquiries for May 2021.

So why hasn‘t the supply met the demand and how can we do to ensure that the needs of the public are being met? Currently, we can’t, due to the complex process for collecting, evaluating and using information related to both supply and demand across the industry. Another factor on the demand side for consideration is the changing preferences for buyers and renters amongst the younger population. The real estate industry

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needs to adapt to new market demands and this includes all advancements in technology.

“An increasing number of Millennials and Gen-Zers make up the bulk of the rental population. They have grown up around cryptocurrencies and many have adopted them as part of their financial investments, strategies, and lifestyles. What this means is that they are looking for alternatives to the traditional way of renting” (Hazel Wong, Liv.Rent) This is where blockchain has the power to change an industry and make a valuable impact on the future of real estate. With the potential of streamlined payments such as using cryptocurrencies and a robust mechanism for collecting data related to demand we are in a better position to predict market sentiment and plan for an increase in housing supply.

The valuation stage of the buying process is crying out for more transparency. It is well known that buying a house may be the biggest purchase an individual ever makes. This high value comes with high risk, high costs and a heightened awareness of the transactions involved. Covid 19 has brought with it an unprecedented level of economic uncertainty that is having an impact on all real estate valuations. In addition, we have a diverse range of data sources that show varied statistics and

Blockchain Industry Review

predict different patterns of behaviour. For instance, in December London had one of the lowest house price rises but in November official statistics showed London prices rising at an annual rate of 10%.

With blockchain technology we can decrease Mortgage lenders’ reliance on physical valuations, instead taking all historic and related factors into account. Data provided by the blockchain ledger offers the mechanism to simplify the valuation process and store information on previous sales and transactions in a transparent manner. Therefore, allowing for trust to flow from the seller to the buyer and the perception becomes high value, low risk rather than high value, high risk.

PROTECTION FOR BUYERS AND TENANTS Tenants left without security and protection is so common that it is no longer spoken of. In some cases it is expected that once a deposit is paid it is never seen again.

The student housing market is one example of a landlord/tenant arrangement that is packed full of areas for improvement. Blockchain technology gives tenants more security when paying a deposit while also providing the landlord with access to the tenant‘s history in renting other properties. If a dispute arises then both parties know that they have transparency from the beginning of the process. With the increase in proper-

by the Crypto Curry Club

Liv.Rent is just one company taking advantage of the opportunities that Bitcoin offers, “Not only is this a great marketing opportunity for property companies and rental agencies, but this is also a chance to appeal to a wider audience as the adoption of bitcoin becomes commonplace. Providing alternative methods of payment will add options to a very limited process in the rental and real estate industry; thereby, creating flexibility and convenience”.

CONCLUSION There is an argument to be made for mortgage advisors and real estate agents tying the knot here and getting into bed together. The mortgage advisor is where the real value lies for the buyer once the traditional payment model and banking system is taken out of the equation.

Why use a bank when you can pay directly?

Real Estate inventory is highly fluid, constantly changing as one seller exits the market and another comes onto the market. There are also a wide range of different property specifications (2 bed, 3 bed, semi-detached, apartment, villa etc). Blockchain technology allows recording the changes over time to say one property on the market. So you are not only getting the

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deeds to your house when you buy it, you are also getting the history of the market that your house has been through.

Rather than blockchain disruption we need to start speaking about blockchain adoption. With this adoption comes real benefits for both the industry and the buyers. Integration of traditional real estate knowledge with future led blockchain technology could transform the real estate landscape of the future. In summary, there is a widespread need to solve the housing crisis across the globe. Blockchain technology can help to increase transparency and manage some of the functions currently managed by costly intermediaries, making the selling and buying process quicker and more cost effective. In the future we won‘t have to hire consultancy firms to analyze the disastrous crash, as in 2008, it will be stored on the ledger for everyone to see so that greed cannot get in the way of a fully functional real estate industry.

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buyassociation.co.uk economicsonline.co.uk rics.org hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk ft.com

REFERENCES

ty management companies accepting Bitcoin we see more clear protection mechanisms for tenants.

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Power and Mobility. There is a truly elegant vision behind the name of the company. Urban transport and mobility has been steadily moving towards a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. Shared bicycles.

Shared cars. Shared scooters. But, in Harry’s view, this has already become “an ecosystem which is highly fragmented”. All of these services result in many different touch points and payment interfaces.

Blockchain Industry Review

Huge growth in transport has also led to mounting global concern about emissions. “There is the green deal in Europe, China wants to go carbon neutral. Apart from the coronavirus, this is probably the biggest topic that will stay with us over the next 10 years.”

energy away to neighbouring countries like Belgium and France but you pay them to take the energy”.

To alleviate this, you need to balance the network. Harry points out that “there are two sectors in Europe that can really contribute to carbon neutrality - these are the power and mobility sectors”. It is at the intersection of these sectors that the vision and purpose of the company lies.

POW In the energy sector, an oversupply, due to lack of demand, can lead to volatility in market prices and premiums being paid by power companies. Harry explains, “in Germany, on a windy summer’s day..not much consumption..far too much energy is being produced than there is demand for, so you end up giving

with Dr Harry Behrens, co-founder and CTO at bloXmove

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arry Behrens, CTO, cofounded Power and Mobility Ltd. with Sophia Rodiger, the startup’s CEO. The goal of the company is to help create the future of MaaS. Prior to this, he was the Head of Daimler Mobility Blockchain Factory. He worked closely with Sophia, Daimler’s Digital Transformation Lead at the time,

by the Crypto Curry Club

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until the pair cofounded the new venture. Incorporated in Ireland, the company has a strong network of seed investors, partners and advisors.

2021, the journey came to fruition in an official announcement by Daimler Mobility that the new startup had acquired the license for the Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform.

At Daimler, Behrens became immersed in the automotive industry but from around 2013 he also became increasingly enthralled with blockchain. Both from an intellectual perspective and from a business standpoint. “It tickled something in me. I see the power of it but also the wild spirit. Think about it - money, value, benefit, purpose. With no organization. No government. Nobody owns it. Everybody owns it.”

Stop Aggregating, Start Collaborating

Seeing the two worlds ultimately converging, Harry managed to convince the Board of Daimler to embrace the idea. This is how the Daimler Mobility Blockchain Factory came into existence. Then, in May

At the core of the company lies bloXmove, a Mobility Blockchain Platform. It’s a decentralised infrastructure that enables the frictionless mobility of people in and around urban areas. Although, as Harry points out, “it could also be used for logistics or for any fragmented markets, where the end-to-end transaction management of the services involved is required”.

“In cities and urban areas, you have 10, 15, 20 transport companies delivering to the customer, what should just be one pass or one ticket. One set of credentials’’. bloXmove doesn’t handle the customer rela-

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tionships of the different transport service providers in the ecosystem.

The platform services still keep their public touch points.

With bloXmove, end users verify their credentials once and use those credentials with all mobility partners in the ecosystem. One payment is made and money is distributed within the network. “The main customer benefit is frictionless travel and urban transport.”

The benefit for the mobility partners in the ecosystem is that bloXmove is not a centralised host or aggregator that charges a high commission to participate in the network. The bloXmove ecosystem encourages innovation and opens up new lines of communication between partnering entities.

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“Service providers keep their customer relationships. The advantage of decentralisation is that they’re not being swallowed by something and they have a very high degree of

AND MOBILITY LTD

ARE ON A JOURNEY

TOWARD FRICTIONLESS URBAN MOBILITY

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Blockchain Industry Review

flexibility in the offering of services and the ability to structure themselves in an asset lite manner.”

router and the other service’s router.

And, it becomes the internet of value. The internet of commerce”.

Harry mentions, “a key phrase that a friend of mine told me and really changed my way of thinking, is protocol economy. What we’re doing is protocol commerce. It’s a completely new way of thinking. It’s a new business model”.

“Overheads can be reduced.

Everything which used to be in your IT system, which made life very expensive and very slow is not part of your IT system anymore. You do product design and sales. The rest is done by the network.”

Harrys explains, “the network is behind your router. Verified identity records. Billing records. All in a shared ledger. It’s part of the protocol. It’s not in your system anymore.

It’s in the network between your

The vehicle to grid connection Part of the wider vision of Power and Mobility is the vehicle-to-grid aspect, to balance energy networks.

Harry points out that within the next 10 years, the number of elec-

tric vehicles on our roads will have grown exponentially.

A huge volume of electric vehicles will be connected to charging stations, at any point in time. This is where the physical connection of electric vehicles to the power grid happens. “You will always have a large number of electric vehicles connected to the power grid through the charging stations.

That’s where the link is. 20 percent of vehicles during the day, maybe 80 percent at night. Vehicle to grid becomes a reality. This is where you can play the game of ratcheting.”

by the Crypto Curry Club

Electric vehicles can be used to balance out the supply of energy. Energy can be pushed to the car batteries in times of oversupply and drawn from the batteries during times of undersupply. “In this way the vehicles become part of the power network. Like a water tide, flowing in, flowing out. This is truly a long term vision.”

Minimum Viable Ecosystem Pilots will be rolled out over the next 1 or 2 years. The team is aware that it’s not going to be a linear journey.

“It’s going to be one of those typical S-curves and nobody I’ve ever met

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can predict where that flip in the S-curve occurs. Some places like Dubai, some areas are basically primed for it. Singapore. Some of the Dutch or Scandinavian cities. They are almost ready.”

Harry likens the network effect of adoption, which will be necessary for success, to that of the telephone.

How selling a telephone to the first few customers might not be easy due to them not fully appreciating the benefit of it.

“It’s the early adopter scenario. But, at some point a flipping will happen in the S-curve. People will start

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calling you saying, I also want one of those! This is where smart incentives, smart business development and strategic alignment make the difference. There is no way around it. It’s the process you have to go through, fully understanding that the first few telephones make no sense, from a wider perspective. It’s a mindset shift.”

by Jilian Godsil

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Ally now .COM CONNECTING DIRECTLY WITH CUSTOMERS: BLOCKCHAIN IN ECOMMERCE WITH ALLYNOW.COM WITH ROMAN TSAROVSKY, CEO AND FOUNDER OF ALLYNOW.COM, JILIAN GODSIL

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nce upon a time the emergence of online digital platforms, loftily termed the sharing economy, appeared to herald a better way for companies to place their products in front of their customers.

A whole new way of doing business was created where we witnessed the fast growth of group working like Uber, group accommodation sales like AirBnB and even group data sharing like Facebook and other social media.

The speed at which these platforms developed, and the crowds they attracted, propelled a whole new

range of super companies, new tech giants such as the forenamed Uber and AirBnb etc. And yes, it was great to be able to hail any taxi from one app, stream music from many artists in one click, and share our data easily. We were naïve too as the rush to get online cloaked many of the concurrent abuses and issues that we see happening today. We now know that marketplaces that collate people, data, and or products benefit the platform most of all. The link between merchant and customer is broken, and where physical delivery of things is the ultimate goal then here too the individual driver has

sacrificed much in the way of progress.

Roman Tsarovsky, CEO and founder of Allynow.com, possesses a deep-seated desire to eliminate injustice and inequality and he has the software tools to do as much. Right now, he is tackling the breakdown between merchants and customers and between marketplace and delivery drivers, where the latter have been squeezed in their working conditions.

Being self-employed is often termed the ability to work all the hours given without reprieve and

ALLYNOW.COM

by the Crypto Curry Club

platformed drivers have seen their work grow while their remuneration dwindles. Likewise, the merchants offering the product, in this case mostly food and pharma merchants, are disconnected from their customers and are losing them in the last mile to the destination.

Roman is taking out the middlemen and using software, not marketing, to provide a superior solution.

“I come from a technology automation, machine learning background.

I have worked with more than 600 businesses, helping them take back control of their customers, products, delivery systems, and most importantly revenue.”

Roman could see how platforms take huge commissions from both sides. He wanted to use technology that would produce an ecosystem where merchants could again interact with their customers. He started building systems that include marketing tools, smart push notifications, geo-fencing, and loyalty programmes. He also witnessed the higher commissions collected from drivers making it harder for them to make a living. While an inequality in and of itself, it can also result in unhappy customers through often tardy and expensive delivery mechanisms.

“Current systems are unhealthy.”

Building on Allynow.com, Roman sought to reconnect merchants with their customers, right down to processing fully transparent orders.

“There are savings of 30%, the mer-

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chants are reconnected, and the drivers get to keep their fares without having high commissions foisted on them.”

“It’s important for merchants to own their own data, to take back their customers and to interact directly with them.”

Roman doesn’t see current marketplaces as necessarily evil – just used in the wrong way.

In the same way, Roman applies the laws of software to deliveries.

His platform has been built to accommodate the different processes from window deliveries to curbside drop-offs. He has also built in tools to allow drivers to plan their day more effectively, incorporating batch deliveries for example, and forward planning for weeks if desired. The platform uses more than 15 separate conditions when calculating routing organisation, including traffic, time of day and economies of scale.

“Marketplaces tend to be run by marketing companies. They provide value by offering merchants new customers and yes they should be compensated for that. The problem comes when Merchants reply on the marketplace and stop doing the work themselves.

“If they sit back and just rely on orders coming in, they are reducing their margins by between 20 to 30%.”

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oman argues that for example in the restaurant sector, they don’t have margins that high, so they end up working to pay the marketplace rather than the other way around.

“Marketplaces are just one marketing solution not the whole enchilada.”

Allynow.com aims to take back customers, time and revenue. Roman explains how this works.

“Customers are the lifeblood of the merchants. We use technology to connect merchants directly to their customers – not to the marketplace.

We are a software as a service company and that’s what we do.”

Roman’s company charges a small fee for the set of smart technology solutions provided to merchants.

He does not charge per transaction – which ends up costing the merchants far more in the long term.

Allynow.com has been operational since 2019. As a software developer rather than marketeer, Roman has spent the last two years focusing on the solution bringing it to market, testing it and then growing again.

Currently the ecosystem is available in all 50 states of America helping more than 500 brands in more than 2000 locations.

Until now, the company has bootstrapped its operations with all profits reinvested into the project.

Using the decentralised model popularized by blockchain technology, new products are coming onboard at pace. Their protocols are built on Ethereum. Allynow believe in the chain and think they will solve a lot of gas problems. They have a huge user base, and so decided to primarily use Ethereum and build a cross blockchain solution, with level 2 and side chain infrastructure.

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DOES CRYPTO FIT INTO SOCIAL MEDIA? IF SO, WHERE?

Looking at how the OMNI chat app uses crypto for monetisation and NFTs for proof of ownership with Manny Herandez, CEO of OMNI

The genesis for the OMNI app lies in the frustrations we all feel when using social media.

There are too many apps, all doing fairly similar things, run by tech giants and despite all the hard work only the big tech giants are being rewarded. It’s not that the novelty of social media has worn off, it has just become tiresome. And moreover the promise that social media offered in terms of online financial emancipation has just not materialized; we are all rendered busy fools.

Enter the OMNI app, or the mega app as it is affectionately termed by its founder and CEO Manny Hernandez.

He wants to offer something that makes sense and recognises the influence of WeChat on his thinking.

“For some reason no one has thought of doing

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this in the Western world, so we decided to steal from giants. If a feature exists in a major platform and it’s useful, then I say let’s emulate the good stuff and let’s take from the best.”

OMNI has taken existing common features, such as a news feed, and make it more video-orientated and multi-directional. People scrolling down through posted items have the ability to swipe left and right, so that if they like a post rather than trying to find more from that same host, they can go left and right and find more examples from the same person.

“I call it omni-directional or omnishared and that’s where the name came from.”

The feed in Omni is for sharing but when people get into chatting, then the contents are encrypted, making them private end-to-end.

“People can also change the level of privacy attached to their posts which are meant for sharing, but chat will only ever be private.”

Manny doesn’t believe in reinventing the wheel, but in making it better. That’s the beauty of open-source code and he explains how Signal technology has benefited his app.

“Our secret sauce is in taking the

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best from social platforms, adding in AI and re-presenting in a cleaner, more intuitive fashion.”

OMNI also addresses the issue of misplaced monetization and believes in putting the money back into the hands of the content creators using existing revolutionary blockchain technology.

“We are tokenizing the economic bandwidth. On other socials you do not own your own data, even when you cancel your account or even when you die. That is not right; we are using NFT technology to address the change in balance of ownership, and therefore remuneration.”

Using NFT technology the OMNI app grants true, authentic, and immutable ownership of social media posts to the content creators. This allows the platform to pay royalties for usage as the site monetizes the content.

Where compelling content is created and shared, it will drive likes and engagement, with the platform using AI algorithms to calculate returns. As these NFTs are transferable, it also means influencers can break out the royalty streams to share with other co-creators or even to donate to charity if they wished.

Again, using NFTs, ownership re-

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mains with the creator even when others share the post.

When looking at making income from online engagement, Manny stresses the current emphasis is unfair and does not agree with favouring different streams except as based on engagement.

“I am not saying you will make lifechanging income streams on day one, unless you go crazy viral, but if you create engaging content, you will reap the rewards.”

He compares the returns per views based on other platforms and says it is too small; sometimes as little as a cent or two per 1000 views.

“The odds are stacked against you and if you are not a VIP it is very hard to stand out from the crowd.

The game is rigged in traditional social.”

The trick to OMNI’s revenue is that it gets between every transaction – no other social platform does this.

Currently if a brand wants to find influencers to reach people, it is a laborious process with rather questionable results. It is estimated that as much as 50% of engagement is down to bots and other automated responses. OMNI wants to make this fair – after all social sites know exactly how much money they are making from your content; they just

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choose not to share or fairly reward that income.

“Platforms have it down to a science because it’s all down to the numbers, the maths.”

Manny reasons that if the platform can work out what value a creator is adding to the platform, then it is easy to give an equal amount of value back in return.

The site will also act as a matchmaker to link up brands and content creators who can promote the brands.

“Because no one wants ordinary online advertising anymore – no more banners, no more pop ups, no more intrusive online ads please.

“By getting into the middle of the transaction between brand and creator we help build a partnership, help the creator name a price, and in return generate money for the platform that is seamless.”

OMNI rewards users in its native OMNI coin which is a decentralized cryptocurrency which will be available on exchanges. The value of the coin will be market driven without any manipulation from the platform.

“I don’t care about the price, I care about our product.”

Intrinsic to the natural relationship between brand and content creator is the linking of produce sales by viewers. Manny gives the example of a makeup brand linking with a makeup content creator. Every time a product is mentioned, there will be a button on the feed to take the viewer directly to the brand booth or store. Every brand will have their own online mall within the platform.

“Viewers will know they can buy with confidence – the booth or store is verified

Blockchain Industry Review

so if they choose to buy a product, they will know it is genuine. At the point of checkout if they decide to use OMNI coin instead of fiat then they get a greater discount. It’s a win for everyone.”

Right now, Manny is eyeing up the shopping experience, but he is also looking at gaming, again using NFTs. “We all complain a lot about how our social media serves us. And up until OMNI there wasn’t an alternative.

“At the same time, the whole recent thrust of cryptocurrencies has been yield farming and staking – and social media has been downgraded to second place. That has been a big mistake to my mind. There were 3.6 billion people on social media in 2020 and this is expected to grow to 4.416 billion in 2025 – that is the sweet spot for mass adoption without anyone even knowing it is happening.”

Manny is excited with progress so far. The roadmap is holding fast. The beta is planned for release in Q3 this year, first closed and then open.

Initial funding rounds have been oversubscribed, the response from investors is amazing and he is now ready to unleash his marketing to keep pace with the technology.

“The OMNI app has the potential to become the Trojan Horse in crypto. The coin makes sense and is not just something you hold in a wallet. Everyone will be able to see themselves using this coin.

And they will be having fun at the same time.”

And that’s where we’ll leave it – OMNI is planning on taking the frustration out of social and putting the fun back in.

Written by Jillian Godsil Story originally published for Grow Crypto Medium here.

by the Crypto Curry Club

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DOT.FINANCE - DEFI AGGREGATOR FOR THE POLKADOT ECOSYSTEM

N

ir cut his teeth early in crypto. Back in 2013 he was active in this space and went on to found Israel’s leading crypto group in 2017, but it’s his background in DeFi and current implementation in Dot. Finance that is most likely to be his lasting legacy.

Back in 2017 he and his team were working on Bancor, arguably the first decentralized exchange before the ubiquitous Uniswap, but it was in 2020, during the summer of DeFi, that he really became interested in this field.

“Right from the get-go we wanted to build on PolkaDot, but it wasn’t in place as yet so we decided to begin on Binance chain. However, our ambition is to be the PolkaDot DeFi arm – the House of DeFi as we call ourselves.”

Dot.Finance is a suite of applications, a platform for DeFi, with the first being the Yield aggregator. The next two products will be a PolkaDot Index and then a DEX aggregator. The timing for the first launch is June 18th.

“When it comes to launching the PolkaDot Index we intend to have the top five PolkaDot tokens, but we’ll ask the community and let them decide which ones to select.”

Nir is approaching this project, the House of DeFi, to get around a lot of the early and cumbersome issues when using DeFi – for example, the amount of time that can be swallowed up in following the best yields.

He built in an auto compounding mechanism into the smart contracts. “This is not new, but it is needed. For example, other projects such as Pancake Bunny employ auto compounding.”

What is additional in the Dot. Finance world is that this auto compounding feature happens on a two, or even one, hourly reset on a 24 hour basis.

“We compound the profits, adding other aggregators, splitting the percentage between pools and stalking. The net result is a higher return – it is complicated but we automate the process so we can be more competitive.”

Nir points out that most retail traders could not be expected to achieve this level of recalculation in real terms – it would be too intense and exhausting for a human being.

Nir is committed to this project as is his team. They have decided not to take founder tokens but to reinvest these into Dot.Finance

grants.

“We only make money if the project is successful.”

This is a brave move on behalf of the founding team – and very unusual – but it points to their confidence in the project. Nir also hopes this will provide investors with confidence; if the founders are prepared to wait for profits then it gives the project an edge in credibility and trustworthiness; attributes not very present in many DeFi projects.

This is not without cause as Nir has big plans for Dot.Finance which he sees as being the leading DeFi platform for PolkaDot. “We want to be the go-to platform of all things DeFi for PolkaDot – the House of DeFi.” He is setting up guides and explaining videos to help new users with the onboarding process.

“It’s important to note we are not a bank. We don’t make financial promises on returns, but we are in it for the long term.”

Written by Jillian Godsil Story originally published for Grow Crypto Medium here.

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PEERING INTO THE DEPTHS OF DEFI: KNOW YOUR CODE HOW DIRTY IS YOUR POOL? “DeFi” DApps, or decentralised autonomous financial application services, are attracting the attention of institutional investors and service providers alike e.g. funds focused on DeFi yield, brokers sourcing liquidity from decentralised exchanges (DEXs), etc. But such DApps are neither individuals nor organisations, so how can they stay compliant with AML regulations? UK based challenger law firm gunnercooke and crypto custodian Trustology share their perspectives.

Regulation of DeFi: A legal perspective on AML No-one argues with the general principle that criminals should be prevented from seeking to hide illicit gains, or that terrorism should not be financed. The issue, rather, is how to counteract this activity under changing circumstances i.e.

AML rules were originally created in the context of industries where a core part of providing a service involved a face-to-face relationship with the client, something which is no longer true.

With DeFi protocols, such as those underlying Uniswap, one of the largest decentralised crypto exchanges or DEXs in the world, it is now entirely possible to trade cryptoassets on a decentralised basis without there being the traditional business / client relationship i.e. counterparties are anonymous and intermediaries are replaced by autonomous code.

Whilst technological inventions typically disrupt the status quo, regulation, on the other hand, builds on precedent and principles: the first thing a lawyer does is look to see what has happened before, and builds on this to develop the legal and regulatory framework. As such, lawyers do not “invent” law, rather they adapt the existing framework to accommodate changes, and even

then the starting point is generally simply to slot the invention into the existing rules, rather than to create rules for the invention. Indeed, the concept of creating specific law for new technologies has historically met a sceptical response, being likened by Easterbrook to creating a “law for the horse”: “Lots of cases deal with sales of horses; others deal with people kicked by horses; still more deal with the licensing and racing of horses, or with the care veterinarians give to horses, or with prizes at horse shows. Any effort to collect these strands into a course on ‘The Law of the Horse’ is doomed to be shallow and to miss unifying principles.” Easterbrook, Frank H. (1996). “Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse”, University of Chicago Legal Forum.

Using a technology neutral to rule development as a starting point makes sense and ensures a consistent approach rather than new rules proliferating every time there is an “innovation”.

However, there is a balance to be struck. Rules which are too abstract start to look like principles, and principles can be vague. For example, one of the core principles endorsed by the UK Financial Conduct Authority is that “a firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly.” Whilst as a statement this is fairly undisputable, it will not always be clear what is actually meant by having “due regard” to someone’s interest and what, in a particular scenario, is acting “fairly”. Indeed, clarifying what is desirable behaviour is the driving force behind a vast amount of regulation. The issue here, then, becomes how law is clarified – in other words, any level of clarification has to make inherent assumptions regarding the activity being clarified.

by the Crypto Curry Club

And in this case, the activity is the use of DeFi DApps in an AML compliant manner. The following section proposes one such possible clarification.

Institutional compliance with DeFi - AML through a custodial lens

TRUSTOLOGY

Since the introduction of the 5th AML Directive, UK based custodian wallet providers like Trustology must comply with Money Laundering Regulations i.e. conduct customer due diligence (CDD) based on Know Your Customer (KYC) standards, and perform ongoing monitoring of customer transactions and changes in customer circumstances.Additionally, as a custodial wallet platform capable of supporting DeFi DApps via bespoke MetaMask and WalletConnect integrations, they needed to grapple with how this could work in an ecosystem where decentralisation and anonymity are the cornerstones of DeFi.

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transaction. This is because cryptoassets from illegal sources can be easily combined with those from legitimate sources in a pooled DEX to avoid AML/CFT controls i.e. layering. Also, some DApps will only allow cryptoassets to be sent back to the sender’s address, whilst others allow forwarding of cryptoassets to third party addresses such as UniSwap. This introduces new money laundering or terrorist financing vectors.

Higher risk DApps should be subject to enhanced ongoing monitoring to adjust their risk rating based on their usage e.g. DEX’s liquidity pools must be measured for percentage of funds that came from addresses associated with darknet markets.

This way it is possible to treat a DApp’s account as any other, i.e., transactions from or to high risk DApp accounts, either direct or forwarded, that should be investigated and possibly quarantined.

They began with the basics. As crypto-asset transaction counterparties may be anonymous, regulators accepted a risk based approach to compliance. In practical terms, blockchain analysis tools like Chainalysis or Elliptic are used to identify if the counterparty’s account address is known by them to be high risk. If so, the transaction must be investigated and possibly quarantined.

The problem with this approach is that DApps have no way to protect themselves from misuse by criminals or terrorists. A DEX’s liquidity pool can be polluted by anyone sending funds from a darknet address. What was a great source of liquidity becomes tainted and unusable. A possible solution is for DApps to involve whitelisters like custodial wallet providers, who will KYC pool participants.

Traditionally, accounts are controlled by either individuals or organisations. On blockchains like Ethereum, however, accounts can also be controlled by DeFi DApp’s smart contract code. Like any financial service, these DApps can be exploited by criminals and terrorists to avoid AML and CFT controls.

Concluding thoughts

To counter, it is helpful to deal with DApps in much the same way one would deal with individuals and organisations i.e. use a risk based approach. Hence, the custodian needs to KYC the DApp. Clearly there are no individuals or UBOs that can be screened, but there is code to assess for the level of inherent risk associated with code’s activity, in order to risk rate the DApp. For example, a decentralised exchange (DEX) DApp that relies on liquidity pools, is inherently more risky than for example an atomic swap smart contract enforcing an OTC payment-versus-payment settlement

It is not always obvious how existing regulation can be clarified to fit disruptive innovations like DeFi, but the solution is not to ignore them – to do so risks tarnishing the reputation of DeFi technologies as illegitimate.

On the other hand, new innovative solutions that meet the underlying aims of the rules, will cast the DeFi industry in a positive light with lawmakers, thus driving wider adoption of cryptoassets and DeFi. About gunnercooke Experienced practitioners advising blockchain, digital asset and FinTech enterprises.

About Trustology We make it safer, faster and easier for institutions to securely hold crypto assets and handle any financial transaction.

PRIVACY

DEFI.

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CURRENTLY, DEFI USERS LACK THE PRIVACY THEY MIGHT LIKE, DUE TO THE IMMUTABLE AND TRANSPARENT NATURE OF PUBLIC BLOCKCHAINS. OLIVER GALE DISCUSSES

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OLIVER GALE DISCUSSES PANTHER PRO-

TOCOL’S DESIRE TO PROVIDE ‘DEFI USERS WITH INTEROPERABLE, FULLY COLLATE-

RALIZED PRIVACY ENHANCING DIGITAL

ASSETS, LEVERAGING ZKSNARK TECHNOLOGY’

with Oliver Gale, Founder and CEO of Panther Protocol, by Jilian Godsil Oliver is not who you expect. A white Barbadian entrepreneur who sings reggae. In fact, when I quiz him about this, he breaks into song, singing verses of some length. They are about injustice. When I ask about the origins of the lyrics, he points out later that he hung out on street corners in rough areas, not to make trouble but to look at it. He needed to understand injustice in order to write and sing about it. He was a practicing Rastafarian for four years as part of this journey and while his spiritual views encompass all and no religions, his hankering is for Rastafarian ways of living.

Street corners may have shown him injustice, but his folk instilled values about right and wrong. In his family there have been attorneys, publishers, RAF pilots, authors, teachers and nurses. His great grandfather established the Barbados Advocate. He grew up in a Barbados that is open, free and safe. Oliver is white but his step Grandpa was black. He never knew colour as a child, people were people, still are. He acknowledges there is residual racial tension in Barbados, but it is not his bag.

Oliver later attended boarding school in Canada where, at first, he felt uncomfortable living in an overwhelmingly white population.

Music, reggae and latterly hip-hop, dominate not only Oliver’s values but his choices. He opted to study finance in the University of Bristol which boasted a strong Caribbean community and reggae scene. He had just released his first single which was a hit and was contemplating invitations to perform across the world.

His parents suggested he study first and sing later; he compromised by taking a gap year in Patagonia and Chile before moving onto the UK to study.

True to form he continued music through university

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and once he graduated, but rather than tread the ordinary boards, he formed his own label, Authentic Revolution.

“I like the intersection between entrepreneurship and music - creation.”

Right now, the music fits into entrepreneurship in periodic flips where he refreshes his muse. He travels to LA to create music for a few weeks.

This weekend as we speak, he is finishing early to shoot a music video. His time is on business, but his mind is on music; the creativity flows between.

Control is important to Oliver. He founds companies and enterprises.

He does not like to work for other people. He will not waste time arguing or to persuade someone to his world view. He is pragmatic, heading off to create new offshoots if others lag behind. It’s not impatience per se but a kind of realistic allocation of resources, his resources; he’d rather put them to good use.

One of his early triumphs is Bitt. com which recently became the world’s first CBDC to be publicly issued within a formal currency union. Oliver, while previously holding President and CFO of the company, stepped aside once his work was done. It is almost as though once the planks have been put in place, the implementation is then handed over to the executive.

Same with BaseTwo, an investment firm he established in 2017. He saw an opportunity and went for it. He does not hang about. Same with Elemental, a financial entity he formed

Blockchain Industry Review

to provide credit for the underserved.

“I believe that you are going to do something in your life, you can go bigger, why not? If you are going to invest your time into something why not align yourself to a big mission and purpose - because either way, it’s going to take your time.”

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies made an early appearance in his life, but he only dabbled in it. Oliver was initially more interested in the financial systems in the Caribbean which he felt were backward largely for geopolitical reasons. He began to see that cryptocurrencies could solve many of the existing issues. He was so certain he could make a difference, he abandoned his O1 Visa for extraordinary ability to study and work in the US, to build a new financial system for the Caribbean instead.

The intention was to return to music once this was over, but instead he has interwoven the two, and then Panther happened.

Panther Protocol may be the single most important project to be founded by Oliver. Back in 2013 and 2014, he did his research into Bitcoin. Everything was a lot of more intellectual then than now. As an emerging technology and value system, questions were posed about ideology, history, the rise and fall of empires, monetary theories, the cyberpunk movement, and everything in between.

“There was this great education on censorship resistance systems based on a leaderless network. Then on the

flip side there was a great push back from regulators who did not understand it at all, who felt it was not only criminal but also totally anonymous.”

The irony of the lack of privacy and anonymity is not lost on Oliver.

“Privacy is a cornerstone of having a voice: a fair and equal voice. While moving to digital or cryptocurrencies creates a fairer playing field, it also posts every transaction online.

This creates a new tension between keeping data private and having it seen. At the end of the day, the question over privacy should begin with this - it is a fundamental human right, but it is complex.

“And this is not about money, although we are dealing with financial transactions, this is about legalities, justice and honour.”

Oliver sees the future where decentralised systems become custodians of data, where people can voluntarily disclose items for things like a passport.

“I can give the compliance department the right to query my transaction graph without giving them access to my data. Where I spent my money is my right and my right to my privacy.”

As for the argument for back doors, they do not work according to Oliver. “That just makes the system fall over, creates a point of potential abuse.”

Naming rights – the inclusion of the letter ‘z’ in the zAssets component of Panther was a conscious decision.

Z has good zen in the crypto world.

by the Crypto Curry Club

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In terms of pricing, there is a cost but that will be driven my market environments.

blurred the lines between home and work boundaries and people are working harder than ever.

“Adoption, and marketshare, will be dictated by what is happening. Privacy is an extension of who you are. Owning your private data allows you to therefore share or even sell it, but the size of the market will grow or contract in response to external circumstances.”

‘It is even hard to know who is leading or if we are being led.

Oliver likens it to someone entering a pharmacy in their local town. He suggests that you might spend a few pennies on keeping the contents of your prescription private.

“So, it is not just for the hedge funds, it’s for everyone. In fact, it could become ubiquitous so that people opt to ‘panther’ things in much the same way they now ‘google’ things.”

Already provenance of cryptocurrency poses potential issues. An exchange may decide that a digital asset that comes from a mixer may be deemed non grata. By contrast Panther creates assets that are private but also confidential. So even if the asset had previously been red-flagged, the Panther asset itself is clean.

People are only beginning to realise that crypto assets are not fungible in the same way as dollar notes, even with their individual serial numbers. Two identical instruments are not the same thing and are not equally swappable.

“While central banks hold sway today, with the explosion of digital economies and virtual environments the significance of the physical world is rapidly diminishing, and this can make people feel uncomfortable.”

Time is being compressed, COVID has

“It’s like art. New communities are emerging and they are claiming their own form of governance. People are becoming citizens of this digital democracy. If we can create a powerful economy, we can create a powerful good.”

It is important that new rules are brought in to master new worlds. The old ways of doing things have to be upgraded. For example, regulators come after the fact, they are not forward looking but retrofitting; it is the nature of their job to stave up legislation, not create it.

Privacy as an old, new rule is key.

‘If you make people the subject, then you make them also the victim. Division of people and transaction is the last bastion of the developing world.”

The pandemic has mixed up the world in the same way a mixed clothes wash rotates its load with colours and garments all tumbled together into a colourful amalgamated confederation. It has also speeded up this process.

Despite this conflagration of sometimes competing ideas, Oliver keeps his eye on the North Star.

“I have a working model of the world but it’s constantly evolving and I’m learning as I go, just staying ahead enough to know that this is north, and north is where we are going.”

And then Oliver leaves to shoot a music video for the afternoon.

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Blockchain Industry Review

Lending

Cross-chain for crypto, NFTs and stablecoins

In conversation with Rikkei Finance - the cross-chain lending platform that accepts multiple digital assets including tokens, NFTs and stablecoins. The platform only lends – that is its core competency, and it concentrates on that without distraction. It builds in fairness through calculated interest rates, recognising that interest rates do not always go up. This interest rate calculation stops pumps and dumps which has been a problem leaving previous users of other crypto lending platforms penalised. The team have locked in their tokens for six months or longer in a demonstration of commitment to the project.

It’s hard to be revolutionary in DeFia field that in itself defines the word revolution, but some projects do just that. Rikkei Finance is aiming to push the boundaries on DeFi and in a number of ways creates an expectation of change – for the better.

The team hails from Vietnam and is now based in Singapore. CEO Hoa Dang, and CTO Tung Vu both worked together for the past decade in the same company Rikkeisoft, a fast-growing dev hub with almost

1500 developers working around the clock on software projects and now specialising in blockchain and smart contracts. If you wondered where all the blockchain devs have gone, that might be the answer. It is now the biggest dev company in Vietnam and has ambitions to have 10,000 employees by the year 2025 and become one of the top Vietnamese software development companies in Southeast Asia.

Rikkeisoft morphed from software company to investment powerhouse and thence to smart contract and blockchain experts. According to Tung it was a small jump to setting up their own project; everything was in place.

“Basically our project is open for anyone who is on the internet, but it is not limited to one blockchain such as Ethereum. It’s also not restricted to certain tokens, access or community. Anyone can take part – it’s truly open.”

Access to the protocol can be by NFTs, Liquidity provider or LP tokens (tokens that are issued to liquidity providers on decentralised exchanges and held proportionately

by the Crypto Curry Club

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website : www.rikkei.finance

Rikkei Finance

NFTs Stablecoins to their holders’ share of liquidity in the overall pool), stablecoins and regular crypto coins with the big difference that participants can use these coins or digital assets from a range of blockchains.

“We can do this as we only focus on one thing – lending – and we do it right.”

Launching a DeFi protocol in a bear market that may or not return to bullish qualities is a risk, especially when the success of the project relies on attracting investment to provide the lending liquidity.

Tung agrees it’s not easy to persuade people to put their money into a protocol during a bear run. It’s much easier during bull runs.

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Blockchain Industry Review

“Are we in a crypto winter? Hard to know to be honest but it does mean we need to focus a lot on the project and work hard. We are confident that by adding elements like NFTs as collateral and providing insurance we can make the difference.”

Rikkei Finance is not going to be an NFT marketplace, and it is not going to be an instrument protocol.

“Our focus is to be the DeFi that is secure and transparent – that is where we will earn the trust, the investment and our success.”

It’s easy, Tung argues, to attract people by offering high interest rates but that is not sustainable and can be high risk. The last investors into the project typically get stung. Instead, Rikkei Finance has come up with an alternative to the linear interest model where the rate can only go up – until it doesn’t.

“When a lot of people enter for high interest rates and people borrow on the other side, something like a big price correction has the potential to dismantle the entire process and as a result the business goes bankrupt.”

Rikkei Finance uses a double threshold lending interest rate model with the aim to keep the protocol safer for everyone and attract a community looking for long term, sustainable growth.

Rikkei Finance

In order to make this work, they have built a rich management system that caters for new coins to be added and also provides tangible values for those coins when used as collateral.

“Typically, stablecoins don’t fluctuate beyond 80% of their value but Ethereum can drop as much as 40% in a single day, so we need to build in ceilings.

Finally people can panic too and so we need to provide security and transparency so FOMO does not negatively impact the platform.”

Tung is keen that the community has transparency on dealings on the platform – that the management system is transparent – so that they can believe in the protocol. He is also keen to promote the team, a team that is real and focused on one thing only – lending.

“And if you look at the tokenomics you will see that founders and early investors are locked in for a long time, up to six months. Only people who see this as a long-term investment have got involved.”

The team has already attracted more than $5.6 million investment from people seeing this as a longterm play.

Instead of looking for fancy gimmicks to attract a community, the Rikkei Finance team has invested much time into building mathematical models such as double threshold lending interest rates where calculations are made based on where the interest rate is currently. As stress points are neared and reached, the platform can throttle back lending until such time as the borrowing and lending even out.

“You don’t want to reach a point where the interest is too low for anyone to lend or too high for anyone to borrow. Taking the linear interest model out of the equation is more complex but introduces stability which is better for everyone.”

by the Crypto Curry Club

NFT collateralization is unusual. This is conducted on a one-to-one basis, or peer to peer lending, with the owner of the NFT setting the price. If accepted, then both sides accept the risk based on that price and if the loan is not repaid, then the counterparty receives the NFT by default.

“That way the market decides the true value of the digital asset.”

The introduction of NFTs is also to link up with gamers who can use certain NFTs as assets or tokens in games. Sometimes these in game assets can be very expensive and this is a way to loan out NFTs, receive a return, providing access to less well-off players.

Rikkei Finance are not going to build any NFT marketplace or to provide any type of NFTs minting services/tools. They want to focus on lending protocol and lending protocol only. Building a solid, safe and sustainable DeFi system like that requires focus and a lot of work.

They will support NFTs as collateral. Right now, beside selling, buying and holding one can’t do much with NFTs. Rikkei Finance aim to provide NFT holders another way to deal with that- earn money by lending them out.

It sounds good. But we all have to agree that evaluating the value of NFTs is the tricky part, especially where the price of NFTs price fluctuates so hugely and can be easily manipulated by a group of users.

So, to keep the lending protocol as safe as possible, for NFTs they will do Peer-to-Peer lending system.

There are 2 NFTs lending cases that will be suppported on the RiFi platform: 1. You are a NFT holder and want to borrow money: You lock your NFT in the Rikkei Finance system with a price tag. If anyone believe that your NFT is worth that much, they will deposit money in, the platform will then use that money to lend to you. Before the deadline, if you return the money, you get your NFT back; if not the NFT is now owned by the money lender 2. You have the money and want to borrow an

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NFT. There are several scenarios where one might want to have access to an NFT for only a short period of time, such as in a game when facing a quest that requires a specific item. You might not want to purchase that item because it’s expensive or might otherwise not be a good long term investment of your money. With this platform, you can lock your money in the system and borrow the NFT from its owner. If you return the NFT on time, you get your money back, if not, you now are the new owner of that NFT. Rikkei Finance has partnered with a French company to provide insurance which will kick in once the platform is live.

While the platform has already attracted significant funding, Tung and his team are not complacent.

They are running bounty programmes to eliminate bugs and the majority of the funds raised will go into running the ecosystem, to provide liquidity, expand partnerships and marketing initiatives.

“We’ve hired the best PR company in the business and will be featured in all the reputable tier one business publications.”

CEO Hoa’s experience in this field came from personal dealing with DeFi sites such as Aave and Compound. He liked the decentralized nature of DeFi without possible inference from centralized players on interest rates for example.

“Having used these early, front runners I could see the value but also the limitations. However, it is very hard to change a platform that is operational and used by many people.

“I knew we needed a greenfield site to create a truly revolutionary product.”

Back to the revolutionary aspect again and it’s fair to say it’s hard to achieve a revolution without changing the rules. In Rikkei Finance’s case it’s all about the lending.

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Blockchain Industry Review

WHISKEYNFTS FOLLOW CRAFT BEER ON

I

BLOCKCHAIN

reland Craft Beers platform founded by Shane McCarthy was set up to use technology to help promote independent drinks companies. Given his tech background he also wanted to incorporate blockchain.

of everything that happens so we can bring trust to the marketplace, give consumers the data they need, the date they need to make choices, from everything from the mineral makeup of the water to the malt, to the hops and to the yeast used.

According to Shane, blockchain in its simplest form is a secure database.

“We allow consumers to point their camera to the beer can and use the QR code to follow the journey of the beer. Provenance is very important

“It allows us to build an audit trail

by the Crypto Curry Club

in a world where not everything is as it seems.”

“Everyone with a smartphone can verify the beer in front of them and choose to support them as a consequence.”

Reading labels, or using QR codes, is a very much millennial imperative; it replaces the purchase of local beer or spirits from a local shop where the local farmer and distiller or brewer is known to everyone.

“There are other elements that can be tracked on the blockchain such as the carbon footprint of the product.”

Using blockchain technology as a means to secure provenance is a nice-to-have to attract conscious consumers, but it also works as a means to counter fraud. Many bigger brands lose millions through counterfeits and putting their product on the blockchain can reduce that fraud. Or other brands wishing to look at the environment and sustainability can implement blockchain to track and trace their bottles “We’re not a technology company but we use technology to make our products better. Startups need technology and innovation to make them competitive against existing brands.

We use blockchain technology to disrupt industries and bring new products to market faster.”

First comes blockchain, then NFTs. Shane had the idea of donating all

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design work to consumers who have bought our products and become big fans of the whiskey arm of his business.

Two Stacks Whiskey company picked up two world whiskey awards for their bottle design at the world whiskey awards last week, these eye-catching designs have been converted into unique digital tickets on their OpenSea Portfolio collection.

Anyone with an active wallet on the platform can get in touch with Two Stacks via their website email, and they transfer the unique digital tokens for FREE should anyone wish to start their own only NFT whiskey collection.

Shane says, ‘”We have used secure ledger technologies in the past to showcase the full transparency on our beer brands are made (Downstream Beers), from the minerals in the water to the barley and pack-off dates. The NFT market has become a whole new selling platform being built out very quickly, with many trying to profiteer on its hype. Rather than selling our Two Stacks NFTs, we preferred to gift these to any fans of the whiskey that were beginning to build out their own whiskey NFT collections. It is also a nice way of passing on an appreciation for the artistic efforts that our designers and animators go to, before the physical whiskey products are made.”

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BLOCK CHAIN INDUSTRY REVIEW MAGAZINE

Issue 6- June 2021

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