Part #21

Photo Source: ICORA

This week’s topic is related to Bitcoin & Blockchain Technology: Will they be more disruptive than the internet? by Mr. Topp, Jirayut Srupsrisopa. He is among the very first group in Thailand who has known ICO with experience in ICO for 5 years. He was the previous co-founder and CEO of coins.co.th, Thailand’s leading bitcoin exchange. He is now CEO of Blockchain Capital Group Holdings Co., Ltd.

Fear of the New Unknown

He cited many samples of new things such as cars and electricity which were unknown before becoming popular. The unknown factors caused insecure feelings, thus people tend to feedback adversely at the beginning but later gradually accept them. For example: Cars –When cars were firstly introduced, everyone heard only about bad news and high risk from those vehicles. UK Government issued Red Flag Act with the attempt to alert the cars with red flags, carried by people to precede the car on foot and warn the car to stop when approaching anything, e.g. a horse within the range 60yards. In his view this type of fear of new things could cause a country to grow slower than others who adapt quickly as an early adopter.

Likewise for Bitcoin

Most people concentrate on negative stories such as ponzi schemes, junk bonds, money laundering and black market activities, etc. The coin always has two sides and only some people are able to realize opportunities from the positive side. He believes that technology can be good or bad depending on how we use it. In cases when it can increase productivity, it should be considered as an alternative.

ICO Potential

He stated that the value of ICO (Initial Coin Offerings) during 1year is more than VC (Venture Capital) around the world. In the next 5-10 years, every industry is anticipated to apply ICO as an alternative for fund raising.

Decentralized digital currency

Bitcoin is decentralized digital currency and it is the first currency in the world to become popular without the backing of a governing body.

Public blockchain

Satoshi Nakamoto authored the bitcoin white paper and was the first to solve the double-spending problem for digital currency using a peer-to-peer network. Bitcoin is disruptive because of resulting in substantial change in consumption, lifestyle, and how to communicate.

Bitcoin can unlock potential

  • His experience 4 years ago
    He used to transfer money to his sister’s account abroad using bitcoin. The transaction could be executed within 30 minutes & the transferred amount was more than the original. It was the first time he recognized the benefit of bitcoin when comparing with bank-transfer, which surely has charging fee & takes longer time.
  • Remittance
    Only having mobile & internet access, ordinary working people can now can remit money to their family at less cost. It is much better than subject to 10%-15% when conducting remittance via traditional financial institution
  • Micro payment
    It is impossible to transfer very small amounts of money abroad via traditional channels however via bitcoin, a fraction of a bitcoin is allowable for micropayment, e.g. only 0.00001bitcoin.
  • Unbanked
    There are many people around the world who don’t have banking accounts. Thus in some countries like Kenya, the company like M-Pesa can address this pain point by performing a money transfer, financing and micro financing services via mobile phone without opening a bank account.
  • Payment without middleman
    No fraud as the payment cannot be reversed and no need for filling in the personal data.

More Sample of Bitcoin Usage

The big tech companies like Dell, Microsoft have already accepted bitcoin payments for many years
Japan has legalized bitcoin since April 2017

Thailand’s Major Cineplex started to accept cryptocurrency payments for their products & services
Bitcoin enables micro payments and makes it possible to pay for smaller units, e.g. instead of monthly subscription, we may now use bitcoin to pay for an article.

Mr. Jirayut elaborated very clearly about the steps of technologies disruption.

Disruptive Technologies

  • 1970-80 : Mainframe/ Personal Computers
    Microsoft Software used by PC
  • 1990 : Internet TCP/IP
    Every company, including Facebook & Social Media, uses the internet. is a subset of the Internet. The first layer of the internet allows for instant information transfer. It is the Internet of information, which can copy & digitize information (pdf,photo,voice)
  • 2000 : Blockchain
    Blockchain is infrastructure & Bitcoin is the 1st application. Bitcoin is subset of Blockchain. Blockchain is the second layer of the internet, which allows instant value transfer. It’s the Internet of value, which solves the double spending problem and digitizes banknotes.

Mr. Jirayut gave good explanations about

  • The 4 phases of blockchain development & use cases

Phase 1 -Internet of money: solves pain points in remittance and finance by using bitcoin, Zcash, Litecoin, Monero,etc.
(In Thailand: SCB already invested in Ripple.)
Phase 2 -Internet of Assets :value registry (register anything of value e.g. land, condo, goods, painting, diamond, food traceability(Alibaba, Walmart), E-KYC, health care record, bond/ stock registry, insurance, trade finance etc. to be the permanent record and efficiently storing & sharing data)
Phase 3 -Internet of Entities: value ecosystem – blockchain infrastructure is an easy platform for setting up our own blockchain. While facebook is a platform where we can set up our own group and interact with others on the same platform, Ethereum is a platform that allows us to build our own blockchain.
Phase 4 -Value Web: Interoperable blockchains =Phase1+2+3

  • The Web & Blockchain

The Web: www (internet): build on top of shared protocol like TCO/IP, http, with majority of the value captured on application layer

Blockchain: keep the majority of its value in the base, protocol layers, with only a fraction of value distributed along at application layer. Protocal e.g. bitcoin, ethereum, etc.

  • Type of Blockchain

Pubic Blockchain

Bitcoin (= public blockchain)
Miner can be anyone
Permissionless (no need to ask permission from anyone)
All must have token (incentive mechanism –to protect system)
Satoshi invented the mechanism for miners (to maximize profit) and this can be the protector of system which no-one owns.

Private Blockchain

This concept favors Banks preferring group effort.
Intranet of value
Must ask permission to use
Not a must to have token
Faster validation because of only preselected trust group

Central bank

Bahtnet : requires middleman to approve and does not operate 24 hours (closed during the weekend)
Intanon (Central bank blockchain): aims for digital currency to replace paper notes

Consortium blockchain

Linked among points of different organization.

  • Digital Econ

TCCIP: Google / FB/ LINE

BLOCKCHAIN: More degree of Digital Economy : exchange of value (same language / open sys/ open 24hr/ token /fractional ownership of property – condo share to e.g. 1,000 people/ -no middleman-same language-towards 100% Digital Economy)

  • How to keep wallet safe

Public key (similar to – bank account number )

Private key (similar to – bank online password)

Private key cannot be given to anyone. It should be kept by the individual (For long-term) or kept at the exchange (only for short-term)

Keep by our own
can be in form of 1) cold wallet, which is off line, which can be paper wallet (written document) or in hardware wallet e.g. tracer.io then keep in safe (offline)

Keep at exchange
Day trader may keep at exchange and to avoid risk, the exchange must be reliable (notice from history; if any insurance company). There is no regulation in Thailand to audit wallets as yet.

Pros: convenient/ can reset password if losing
Cons: risky if the exchange is unreliable.

  • Ethereum (ETH)

Demand – will increase in the future according to Mr. Jirayut

Supply – In Short term, the supply is unlimited (like the Ocean) but long-term can viewed as limited (just like a drop of water into ocean)

Majority (90%) of networks use Ethereum, uses the proof of stake and only scalability problem resulting in Fork to new solution, which copy from Ethereum & develop for the better. However, the new one is still less value than existing Ethereum.

Photo Source: ICORA

Part #22

According to Zcoin website (http://zcoin.io), Mr. Neung Poramin Insom earned a master’s degree in Information Security from Johns Hopkins University where he wrote a paper on a proposed practical implementation of the Zerocoin protocol. Mr. Poramin is the Founder and Core Developer at Zcoin, the Founder & Chief Executive of TDAX (a privately owned Thai exchange for digital assets) and Co-founder of Satang (Bitcoin Social Wallet service provider in Thailand)

His topic in our CryptoAssets Revolution class today is about “How to select suitable Exchange for local, international and ICO listing”.

About Z Coin

Zcoin(XZC) was launched in September 2016 and employ Zerocoin protocol to enable private transaction. There was no ICO or pre-mine.

ZCoin Market

In order to be able exchange with fiat and transfer among countries, he has to deal with each country where Zcoin can be traded. Refer to www.coinmarketcap.com, ZCoin is listed in many exchanges like Binance, TDAX, QBTC and etc.

Photo Source: www.coinmarketcap.com

CoinMarketCap.com

This site is useful in term of the monitoring the movement of cryptocurrency and the volume listing in Exchanges both local & international arena. (Exchange is like a middleman to facilitate the buying & selling of bitcoin – ensure receiving money when matching orders). Bitcoin (BTC) is primary in the exchange.

Photo Source: www.coinmarketcap.com

Local Exchange

According to Mr. Poramin, two private crypto exchanges in Thailand are TDAX and BX. TDAX is the 2nd in terms of a daily trade volume. Once the regulatory framework is in place, more cryptocurrency exchanges are expected to open within the Kingdom of Thailand. In case of trading volume exceeding the sizing of exchanges in Thailand, use of international exchanges is the solution

KYC

The advantage of KYC is to identify the owner. In Thailand: in all cases -those who apply, even without Bitcoin-still need to do KYC. It may be a disadvantage due to very strict rules, and possible could cause adversely impact for International Exchange, they can apply without KYC until reaching a certain level.

Photo Source: www.coinmarketcap.com

Definition of related terms

USDT

USDT is a cryptocurrency asset issued on the Bitcoin blockchain via the Omni Layer Protocol. Each USDT unit is backed by a U.S Dollar held in the reserves of the Tether Limited and can be redeemed through the Tether Platform. Just like bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency, USDT can be transferred, stored and spent. The benefit of USDT and other Tether currencies is to facilitate the transfer of national currencies, to provide users with a stable alternative to Bitcoin and to provide an alternative for exchange and wallet audits which are currently unreliable. (Source: cryptocompare.com) In Mr. Poramin’s point of view, although USDT may not be the best stable coin, people use it the most.

Pair

In cryptocurrency, the term “trading pairs” describes a trade between one type of cryptocurrency and another. For example, the “trading pair” ETH/BTC. With ETH/BTC you can buy Ethereum with Bitcoin, or Sell Ethereum for Bitcoin. (Source: Cryptocurrencyfact.com)

Photo Source: www.coinmarketcap.com

International Exchange

Binance – today’s largest exchange surpassing Bittrex which used to be dominant but later lost some customers due to stricter regulation. Recently there is news about Binance announcing higher profits than the Deutsche Bank.

OkEx – Don’t have USD but have USDT

Bitstamp – Differentiation is in this market, it can pair w/ USD

HitBTC – This exchange is suitable for listing ICO while the above exchanges are not suitable. This one must pay a listing fee.

CoinBene (SG) – Strange name of coin but originated from ICO

HADAX (Huobi Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange ) – Automatic listing syncing on either platforms HADAX and Huobi Pro. If tokens listed on HADAX meet the listing standards of Huobi Pro, they will also be automatically listed in the “New Zone” of Huobi Pro. If tokens listed on Huobi Pro no longer meet the listing standards of Huobi Pro but are qualified to be listed on HADAX, they will be moved to HADAX.

*Note: In the cryptocurrency industry, both centralized and decentralized exchanges have their problems. Centralized exchanges do not have enough variety of tokens to trade. Decentralized exchanges cannot solve the problem of low liquidity and slow trading speed. With the new kind of autonomous exchange like HADAX, the lack of token variety, and low liquidity is solved. Source:altcointoday.com/

Stellar Decentralized Exchange – Alternatively listing in decentralized Exchange e.g. Stella Free! if no volume. Cons: not simplify when forget private key

Kyber network – Decentralized Exchange/ Base pair =Ethereum

In sum
We need to study whether Exchange has listing requirement or not. Each Exchange has framework / criteria for listing. For example:
Huobi-we can pay to list while Binance –it can be voted from community

Photo Source: www.coinmarketcap.com

Part #23

Last but not least for tonight is the Ryver Protocol Presentation by Mr. Yeng Fook Hoo, CEO from Oojibo, Malaysia. The company plan to launch ICO and issue RVR Token.

RyverProtocol

The world’s financial layer that unifies disparate local entities to operate seamlessly at global level.

Vision

They aim to build a single system that allows individuals to hold their money on their person, without the bank as custodian,ble to access a global marketplace of 3rd party services. To spend, save, borrow and transfer in fiat and crypto as they wish without being restricted by banks, and with full KYC/ AML compliance.

Pain points

  • Banks are local but people are global
  • Banks are checklist oriented but people are not
  • 200 years of legacy, people pay the price.

The Opportunity of Blockchain

  • Identity inclusion is now possible
    Thanks to the immutability of blockchain, individuals can hold a single verified identity that is accepted outside their country
  • People can be their own custodian
    Their identity can be tied to their funds, allowing funds to travel with them
  • Settlements will be irrelevant
    Interbank transfers and remittances will no longer apply, as each transfer is effectively an intrabank transfer (with individuals as banks) between accounts, not between banks.

Benefit for both users and financial services

  • For users –able to purchase financial services from around the world through marketplace.
  • For financial services – able to tap on banking-grade infrastructure, and access to global &verified audience. More detail about the Ryver Protocol can be found in www.ryverprotocol.io

We had no speaker that night but we had a cross-groups activity dinner. It was a good opportunity to meet with our new friends in other group i.e. OMG. With the arrangement of small group dining, we all had opportunity to talk and listen through the guideline which was provided by ICORA’s team. We heard about the student’s point of view towards many ideas such as their plan to issue the token for their business e.g. software, lending, tech infrastructure etc, and our fun experience part including discussing our preferences in life going forward.

Author: Waleeporn Sayasit, Corporate Communications Director, TCC Technology
Advisor: Dr. Karndee Leopairote, CEO, ICORA
Editor: John Bickel, Senior Consultant, TCC Technology
Source: ICORA ‘s class, CryptoAsset Revolution (CAR) #1