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How to Leverage FinTech Opportunities in Africa

Over 50 financial and blockchain professionals gathered at “Financial Inclusion and FinTech Adoption in Emerging Markets” for the latest fintech development of Africa held in Eaton Club, Central.

The event commenced with the sharing of Elliott Hoffman, Growth Specialist of Paxful on the adoption of M-Pesa in Kenya and Paxful’s educational efforts to students in Africa. This is followed by the opening keynote of Madoda Ntshinga of the South African Consulate-General in Hong Kong. Madoda mentioned that unbanked people account for around 60% of total African population, which has enormous potential in mobile money adoption. He pointed out that South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are the 3 countries driving fintech adoption in Africa.

Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful explained how Paxful reached the African market with challenges involved. While Africa is Paxful’s largest market which account for 45% of the customer base, strict control of monetary system by the governor and education to the Africans are some of the key challenges driving BTC adoption. For example, the monetary system of countries like Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso are under strict control by France. The educational effort for Africans is challenging too as people initially believed Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining are full of scams. To overcome the educational challenges, Paxful set up campus tour in 2019 and explained the benefits of peer-to-peer finance to the Africans.

7 Use cases highlighted by Ray

Ray also highlighted that wealth preservation is one of the most important use cases especially in high inflationary African countries.

Ray’s keynote is followed by the panel discussion “Financial Inclusion and New Technologies in Africa”.

Moderator and panelist (From left to right): Musheer Ahmed of FinTech Association of Hong Kong, Duke Malan of Africa Works Ventures, Ray Youssef of Paxful, Karena Belin of Whub, Rajkumar Kanagasingam of Fintech Association of Sri Lanka

Moderator: Musheer Ahmed, General Manager of FinTech Association of Hong Kong

Panelists:

1) Duke Malan, Partner of Africa Works Ventures

2) Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful

3) Karena Belin, CEO & Co-Founder of WHub

4) Rajkumar Kanagasingam, President of Fintech Association of Sri Lanka

In relation to tech adoption rate, Karena pointed out that China has a high rate of 60% while South Africa is only 16%. This presents huge room for growth across African countries. Duke believed that technological inclusion takes time due to structural problem, which tech literacy can be improved by hosting coding camps.

In terms of challenges in financial inclusion, Ray pointed out that there are around 40-50 mn unbanked population in the U.S., which some of them prefer using gift cards instead of bank accounts for payments. He also mentioned that localized process is needed to facilitate financial inclusion for each country. For example, eKYC would not work for Kenya as most Kenyans do not have address proof.

In terms of opportunities in Africa, Duke believed that education, credit rating infrastructure and agriculture markets have huge growth potential going forward. Ray highlighted that Africa presents huge arbitrage opportunities with huge presence of asymmetric information across countries. Karena believed asset tokenization in artwork and payment presents huge fintech opportunities in Africa.

The panel discussion is followed by the keynote by Douglas Arner, Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at University of Hong Kong. Douglas first shared with us some insightful stats in Africa: while 75% of Africans have sim card, only 45% of total pay mobile subscription. The smartphone penetration in Africa is about 35% and it is estimated that there will be 300 mn mobile ownership growth by 2025. In telecom market, the revenue stream is switching from mobile subscription to data and apps.

Douglas then highlighted 17 use cases for financial inclusion. Talking about insurance, he pointed out that modelling risk and climate change risk are the key risks for reinsurers.

The event ended with engaging networking sessions and fine South African wines. More importantly, we have conducted an exclusive interview with Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful on his personal story and latest development of Paxful.

The full interview is coming up soon, stay tuned!

Exclusive: Arbitrage – the Key Business Opportunity Brought by Blockchain

Following the latest update of Paxful, Ray took a step back and shared to us his inspiration to set up Paxful and what he learnt from 11 failed startups! He then identified arbitrage as the key business opportunities by blockchain and instead of decentralization, peer to peer should be the core value preposition of Bitcoin!

We noticed that prior to the establishment of Paxful, you have set up 11 startups and failed. Can you share with us the lessons learned and how do these failures inspire you to set up Paxful?

My first startup was successful and after that, I had 11 failures in a row, but every single one of them taught me something. Now We’re trying to build a peer to peer Bitcoin marketplace and there are tremendous challenges in doing that. When I look at PayPal, PayPal is literally three times more complex to build nowadays. Western Union has cash as the only payment method and it took 30 years to become successful.

We’re trying to provide over 400 different payment methods around the world to facilitate peer to peer transactions in every payment method. It is immensely difficult and mentally challenging. When I look back on my startups, they all have their unique challenges.

Billing was always a challenge for my previous 11 startups. Payment giants like Visa and MasterCard may not want to work with you if your products are targeting young teenagers or the unbanked. For example, I sold ringtones in my first startup. I was selling credits and users can buy ringtones with credits. You’d never heard of that 15 years ago and the payment giants want to work with me. To sum up, it was very difficult to launch a billing system from my previous experience of 11 startups.

How I tapped into the blockchain world?

When I first heard about Bitcoin, I read the whitepaper but I can’t figure that out initially. Then I started meeting people in the Bitcoin community, they won me over and that’s how I tapped into the Bitcoin space. It got me into libertarianism and the most important thing I got in Bitcoin by far was it taught me what money actually was and where it came from.

What are the key business opportunities brought by blockchain?

The key business opportunities are always arbitrage! There are 400 different major payment methods representing different networks. With Paxful, you can have full access to them and the markets around them. This is an amazing opportunity and humanity never has this before.

Imagine we have some magical friends in every single country that they have every financial account like banks, Paypal and Alipay. Whenever we need payment, he’ll make the payment for us. We have to pay transaction fees in return but the fact that you can now access every single financial network in the world which powers up peer to peer finance.

Do you think in the future, Bitcoin will remain the poster Coin for cryptocurrencies? Or other altcoins will overtake Bitcoin?

I can’t predict the future and I don’t think any other coins are doing better than Bitcoin. All the issues like transactions per second (TPS), privacy is trivial in comparison to the main use case of blockchain: payment network. Bitcoin is a very good payment network and that’s what the world needs! Bitcoin doesn’t need an immense throughput of billions of TPS and other altcoins can do that.

I don’t think another cryptocurrency will pop up that will replace Bitcoin unless something catastrophic happens to Bitcoin. I don’t see Libra as a huge threat as well, I think the reason people are freaking out over Libra is that we’re fighting with each other and coming out with our own coins, going to war with each other and it is just disgraceful. At the end of the day, Libra is just another satellite revolving around. Bitcoin is currently the clearing layer of all currencies worldwide and I hope it stays that way.

Do you think the lack of scalability for Bitcoin will hinder the mass adoption in the payment network? People view Bitcoin as more like a digital gold as a storage of value. What is the core value of Bitcoin?

I think it’s either of those things, like the people of Blockstream want you to think of Bitcoin is just gold and not scalable so we need to build a lightning network on top of it.

Then there’s people like Roger Ver creating Bitcoin cash and say Bitcoin cash should replace Bitcoin in the future. Then there is a guy like me, who is right in the middle and say “There is an entire world of money trapped in retail economies like Amazon, Apple, bank accounts in cash and all kinds of online wallets. There needs to be something that can circulate that money value around. Gold can’t do that because it’s not something that can move around like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is really the clearing and that’s what peer to peer finance is.”

When people talk about Bitcoin, they always say decentralization is the holy grail.

However, decentralization is just the technical feature but the most important point is two humans are exchanging value.

The core value proposition is we are connecting two humans together and how they actually interact with each other. We missed this fact which is honestly the biggest thing holding us back.

Do you think the emergence of Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and Facebook Libra Coin will facilitate a world of decentralized finance and why?

Libra is not decentralized. Those validator nodes are controlled by a certain party of people. Central bankers are not going to lose control of this. They’re going to keep fighting and gain back the control eventually.

The only thing that can stop them is educating people. For example, number one: what money actually is and where it comes from. This is the key. Before Bitcoin, I had no idea about these concepts. Once I figured it out that money is not necessarily gold, silver, and fancy paper that central banks are giving us, money is a representation of our work that freed up my mind. All we need is a medium of exchange and that’s what cryptocurrency is. When we focus on that peer to peer aspect instead of decentralization, that’s when we can start to understand what we’re working with here and we can build real applications that will stay ahead of the central bankers.

What are the 7 Key Takeaways from Facebook's Libra Hearings?

The debate on Facebook’s Libra continues with the hearing with the Senate Banking Committee (“Senate hearing”) on 16 July and the United States House Committee of Financial Services (“House hearing”) on 17 July. Here are the 7 key takeaways from the two hearings.

Libra is centralized

Regulators believed that the composition of the Libra Association has made Libra “highly centralized”. In the House hearing, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) questioned if the members of the Libra Association is democratically elected. David Marcus, the Head of Calibra said that the members are not elected but was governed by membership standards. When AOC realized the investment of $10 million as the criteria of founding members, she concluded Libra as “a currency controlled by an undemocratically-selected coalition of largely massive corporations.”

With regards to the eligibility of using Calibra and Libra, Marcus responded to Representative Sean Duffy’s question that anyone can use Calibra and Libra in jurisdictions where Facebook operates after they performed KYC procedures. However, when Marcus was asked by North Carolina Representative Alma Adams on whether any user can become a node on Libra blockchain, he denied and said that only large corporations with blockchain technology or finance backgrounds can become a member of the Libra association and a node on the Libra blockchain.

With the lack of decentralization, Representative Warren Davidson slammed Libra in the House hearing suggesting Libra falls in the same category as a run of the million sh*tcoins.

Can Facebook protect data privacy with its notorious track record?

In the Senate hearing, Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown commenced with the poor history of Facebook in privacy protection, saying “Facebook has demonstrated scandal after scandal that it doesn’t deserve our trust.” Such skepticism continued in the House hearing, where committee chair Rep. Maxine Waters condemned Facebook with a “demonstrated pattern of failing to keep consumer data private on a scale similar to Equifax.” For example, Facebook purportedly influenced the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections by allowing malicious Russian state actors to purchase and target ads.

The discussion switched to data portability. Sen. Warner questioned if Facebook allows data portability in wallets.

“If a Facebook user wishes to use a wallet other than Calibra, will you make it easy to allow the export of other data?”

Marcus answered that Facebook will facilitate data export for wallets other than Calibra, and he hedged the same commitment for Whatsapp and Messenger. He added that the Calibra network will separate social and financial data and they will impose the highest privacy standard to earn people’s trust Sen. Warren expressed her concern on Facebook’s ability to monetize personal data among platforms. Senator McSally followed up on this and stressed that there are no grounds for committees to trust Facebook with “the track record of failing and violating and deceiving in the past”.

In the Senate hearing, Senator Robert Menendez asked if Facebook will inform users in 48 hours in cases of the data breach. Marcus replaced “48 hours” with “a reasonable length of time”.

Why Switzerland?

Both hearings questioned the registration venue for Libra Corporation. In the Senate hearing, committee chair Mike Crapo wondered why Libra Corporation is registered in Switzerland but not the U.S. Marcus replied that Libra Corporation will also register with U.S regulators in the future.

The committees are clearly not satisfied with what Marcus said in the Senate hearing. Representative Patrick McHenry raised similar concerns and Marcus explained that Switzerland is an “international place” to conduct businesses. He further addressed Representative Josh Gottheimer’s concern that the choice of Switzerland has nothing to do with evading U.S. regulations.

Several lawmakers also worried about the threat of Facebook’s Libra towards the dominance of USD. Marcus stated that the reserve is 50% backed by USD, with the Euro, the British Pound, and the Japanese Yen included as the collateral.

How about KYC and AML?

In the Senate hearing, Senator Cortez Mastro, former District Attorney of Nevada seek Marcus’s commitment to the compliance of AML and sanction laws. Marcus highlighted that they are working to comply with FinCEN regulation.

In the House hearing, Rep. David Scott explicitly expressed his concern on how Facebook Libra complies with KYC, AML and ensures the safety of the existing financial system. Marcus replied that they will launch AML guidelines to satisfy the needs of AML, KYC, and counter-terrorist financing. With regards to potential illegal activities on Libra blockchain, Marcus believed that this can be improved by system design and proper KYC controls to ensure on and off-ramps are properly regulated.

Can Facebook protect consumer’s funds on Libra?

Senator Tester questioned Libra’s ability to protect consumers against loss of funds or fraudulent purchases, along the line of credit cards or the FDIC.

While Marcus claimed they will try their best to resolve those issues as soon as possible, Tester stressed that proper solutions must be in place before Libra goes live.

Representative Carolyn Maloney asked Marcus if he would at least promise to conduct a pilot test before the full launch of Libra. She assumed the pilot test would involve less than 1 million users and overseen by the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Marcus did not provide a clear response and merely stated that they will work closely with regulators.

Is Libra public good?

AOC asked Marcus if Libra is a public good. Marcus claimed that “sovereign currency should remain sovereign” and said he is not in the position to decide whether Libra is a public good.

Praise for Bitcoin?

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy told CNBC that unlike Trump, he likes Bitcoin and the security of blockchain technology. He believed that lawmakers are skeptical about Facebook’s Libra because Libra is centralized, which can threaten the safety of the financial system. Lawmakers are not hostile towards cryptocurrency, he added.

Final words..

We believe there are some questions not properly answered in both the Senate and House hearings, such as the main reason for Facebook launching Libra. Going forward, the centralization of the Libra Association and the notorious history of privacy breach will be the main obstacles for Facebook Libra to go public.

Ethereum Express Establishes Two Pilot Projects Encompassing Over 48,000 Users

Ethereum Express (EEX), a community-driven decentralized ecosystem, has revealed the launching of two pilot projects that will comprise of more than 48,000 users. These initiatives are utilizing the Proof-of-Authority-based Ethereum Express blockchain to boost the productivity of their business procedures.

This follows EEX’s intensive testing and development as it seeks to offer blockchain-based solutions to its first clients.

The first project entails Mining Express, a mining company that required feasible and technologically advanced solutions in facilitating commendable interactions with end-users. Conversely, the second involves a gambling company with the objective of making online entertainment processes more understandable and transparent to its users. This is founded on the high volume of gambling-linked transactions on blockchains.

Preliminary analysis shows that over 48,000 users from Brazil, Ukraine, Japan, and the US, among other nations, will be involved in both pilot projects, and the total cost is expected to surpass $500 million.

EEX’s founders have stipulated that through the two pilot projects, the system has been able to undertake 1,000 transactions per block, as well as a network capacity of 200 transactions per second (TPS) that is significantly higher than the Ethereum’s network capability of 15 TPS.

The CEO of Ethereum Express, Vlad Miller, noted: “The launch of these two pilot projects with our first clients is an important step for the development of not only the EEX project and its coin, but also the blockchain environment as a whole. The introduction of improvements to the Ethereum blockchain’s network is a vital undertaking that has to be crowned with success if this promising market is to grow and scale in accordance with the demands of real businesses, not just separate users.”

EEX also seeks to establish a real-life application scenario of its internal ecosystem coin.

Image via Shutterstock

Ethereum, EOS, & TRON: Which Blockchain Will Continue to Dominate the Dapp Ecosystem in 2020?

By measuring the success of how individual blockchains: Ethereum, EOS, and TRON have been performing in the first month of the new year, the data from January 2020 gives an insight into the year ahead.

Although Bitcoin kicked off the entire ecosystem of blockchain, it was Ethereum that first unlocked aspects of its true potential by allowing developers all over the world to create decentralized applications (Dapps) on their blockchain platform. Through Ethereum, developers could code smart contracts that serve as the blueprint for Dapps. Other blockchain protocols joined in, the two most major Dapp enabler alternatives to Ethereum are TRON and EOS and there are currently over 3000 Dapps running on blockchain protocols.

Ethereum

Ethereum has served as the main network for Dapps to be built upon, but since its creation, it has run on a proof-of-work consensus algorithm.

Ethereum has set a new record of daily active unique wallet count user base, with an increase of 82% this year, compared to January 2019. Currently reaching a daily average of 16,840 users, the daily active unique wallets were just 9,264 at the end of January 2019.

Daily active unique wallets have three times more users in the Games and Marketplaces category in January 2020 compared to the end of January 2019, an uptick of 163%.

In terms of the number of active decentralized applications (Dapps) deployed, the depth of its development community has seen consistent growth in users and value during 2019.

The daily value seen so far in early 2020 in dollars across the Ethereum Dapp ecosystem has increased by 39% compared to December 2019. Daily active unique wallets were also up by 4%.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been making waves over the last several months following the surge in platforms and products offering DeFi services and applications. Skirmantas Januskas, CEO of DappRadar is particularly pleased with this development, he said, “Yes, the explosion in DeFi Dapps on Ethereum is proof Dapps can offer great utility and do so in a manner that is very hard to copy in the centralized software space. The major driver of this is MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin, which enables developers to build increasingly complex products on top of a trusted layer. This level of composability is at the heart of DeFi and allows developers to come up with ever more sophisticated solutions to niche problems.”

DappRadar’s report also suggested that the decentralized applications that had the highest impact on the rising DeFi number are MakerDAO, with an average of more than 350 daily active users, Compound with over 240, and PoolTogether with over 100.

TRON

TRON has seen a rise in 2020, along with Ethereum, with a user base that has grown 33% so far, comparing to January 2019. TRON’s user base also rose by 8%, ending a month with over 22,000 users, hinting at the point that TRON may take lead in daily active users.

The most popular category by daily active unique wallet split has been the Gambling and High-Risk sector, as the top three Dapps on TRON belong to this category as well.

EOS

EOS started 2019 in a positive trend, but the second half of 2019 has been a slow downhill ride for EOS. The EIDOS airdrop sparked network congestion, which impacted the general Dapp usage, following a continuous decrease in daily active unique wallets by 8% in early 2020.

In contrary to TRON, the EOS user base in the Gambling and High-Risk sector has decreased by 29%. The more popular categories on EOS are Exchanges and Games.

Vitalik Buterin: Time will Tell Whether the Hive Blockchain will Surpass Steem

Justin Sun’s entry into Steemit is not going down well with the community. They have created a hard fork of the blockchain and named it Hive. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Founder, tweeted that Hive stands a test of time in demonstrating whether self-independence will be achieved. He trusts that the Steemit community seeks to have full autonomy and decentralization through the hard fork.

Vitalik Weighs in on the Hive vs. Steem issue

As per Vitalik’s tweet, blockchain governance ought to be enshrined in autonomy, and this will be achieved if Hive surpasses Steem. This will be a perfect indicator of the community being at the helm as decentralization is not for sale.

The general sentiment of the community towards Vitalik’s tweet was that an 80% drift towards Hive could be witnessed.

The conception of the Hive blockchain

After Justin Sun acquired Steemit, the community members were not impressed, and this is the reason why they created the Hive blockchain as a hard fork of the prevailing Steem code, and the upgrade is scheduled for March 20.

The Hive blockchain is to be entirely decentralized and function out of the confines of the Steem network.

By taking this approach, the message being relayed by Hive entails blockchain-based products being more community affiliated as compared to centralized controllers and investors.

It is also expected that all legit accounts found on the Steem blockchain will attain an airdrop on the Hive network. Nevertheless, members will have to create a new Hive account that will be independent of the Steem one.

The Steemit community has shown its commitment to ensuring that the new chain materializes. For instance, a group of 36 experienced developers is working on Hive.

Justin Sun, the Tron founder, has been making notable steps in the crypto space. As reported by Blockchain.news on Feb 7, he ultimately got his much anticipated $4.57 million USD dinner with Warren Buffet. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether Sun’s acquisition of Steemit is a case of biting off more than you can chew.

Image via Shutterstock

Bitcoin's Future Looks Bright as Kanye West Decides to Run for President 2020

Kanye West dropped a bomb on social media on July 4—American Independence Day—and indicated his intentions to run for President in the 2020 US Elections. This is exciting news for Bitcoin (BTC), as Kanye has publicly expressed his support for the cryptocurrency.

On July 4, Kanye tweeted:

“We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020 vision.”

Kanye, one of the world’s most influential musicians has been very vocal on his support for Bitcoin and the crypto industry. He told TMZ that he would like to see the blockchain industry evolve. Kanye tweeted the word “decentralize” on his social media platform, advocating for Bitcoin usage and expressing his desire to see the BTC cryptocurrency replace traditional American dollar bills.

Elon Musk and Cryptocurrency

Backing Kanye West’s announced run for president is the eccentric billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted out in support of Kanye’s post.

Elon Musk, one of the biggest names in the technology industry and the 31st richest in the world by Forbes (2020), is a friend of Kanye’s. Musk is quite influential in the crypto community and has on several occasions expressed his stance on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Elon Musk’s Views on Bitcoin

Musk has also expressed a distaste for the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve. He recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast and said that the way the US planned on handling the inflation caused by the coronavirus pandemic was inefficient, as their stimulus packages were not the best solution.

The SpaceX creator recognizes Bitcoin (BTC)’s advantages and thinks that BTC founder Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper was “pretty clever.” Musk also states that though crypto supporters may not want to hear this, Bitcoin may be a bridge between the black market and the legal economy. In his opinion, as cash is becoming increasingly hard to use, Bitcoin might take over in replacing it and in furthering the economy.

Cardano Releases New Daedalus Wallet for the Shelley Testnet Ahead of Shelley Hard Fork

Input Output (IOHK), the blockchain engineering company behind Cardano has released the new Daedalus wallet for the Shelley testnet, less than a week after the Cardano Virtual Summit.

The new version 1.2.0-STN1, enables users to try out the new functions brought by the new Shelley update in a sandboxed environment using test-ADA. New features, including delegation, stake pools, and rewards distribution will also be available in the sandboxed environment to simplify the staking process.

IOHK announced in a tweet:

“The new Daedalus wallet (1.2.0-STN1) is now available from the Cardano testnets site; remember, for your own security, only download Daedalus from official IOHK or Cardano sites.”

With new delegation features added to the Daedalus test wallet, users on the Shelley testnet can create a Shelley wallet, and leverage testnet Faucet to delegate ADA from their wallet to a stake pool.

As for the weeks ahead, the new Daedalus testnet functionality will be added during the Shelley roll out, according to IOHK. These features include the expansion of stake pool functionality with the ability to display stake pool ranking based on the amount an ADA user plans to delegate.

The addition of support will also be made for the transfer of funds from the old generation—Byron wallets to the new Shelley generation wallets, as well as claiming incentivized testnet rewards.

Users will be able to earn testnet ADA with the new wallet, to see how the real rewards will work in the mainnet later this year.

The Shelley update and code was implemented to the Cardano mainnet just a week ago, however, the Shelley hard fork is expected on July 29. The incentivized testnet (ITN) rewards are to launch on August 3, and the staking functions on August 18, as Cardano’s upcoming milestones.

IOHK mentioned that later this week, a full video would be available as an in-depth tutorial introducing the new features.

The future of Cardano: Full decentralization and the “Voltaire era”

The Shelley hard fork marks the remaining step towards full decentralization on the Cardano blockchain. IOHK recently announced that it is launching a technology ecosystem fund—cFund, with Wave Financial Group, with investments made globally with a typical size of $250,000-$500,000.

In partnership with the crypto asset management fund Wave, the fund will total in $20 million which will provide money for companies and projects in the Cardano ecosystem. IOHK will be committing to half of the fund, $10 million, while Wave will be raising the other half.

Cardano’s Stake Pools Reached 700 Just Five Days after Successful Shelley Hard Fork

Cardano’s Shelley hard fork was successfully launched on July 29, and within 8 hours, 267 stake pools have already registered. The Shelley hard fork took Cardano’s network into its second phase of development, succeeding the Byron era. The Shelley update enables Cardano to become more decentralized and autonomous.

Users can start to delegate their ADA cryptocurrency to independent stake pool operators to earn staking rewards. Previously on Cardano’s testnet, there were 1061 registered pools, 986 active pools and 12.9 billion ADA at stake as of June 22. At press time, there are 701 stake pools, and it seems likely that the 400 other pools might migrate to the current network soon to participate in staking.

With every block made and signed by stake pool operators, Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson said that it is a testimony to the network. He described Cardano as the world’s eventual financial operating system, which will be around forever.

Comparing to other blockchains, Shelley allows Cardano to become 50 to 100 times more decentralized, where the Cardano community and Cardano’s native token ADA holders would be able to decide how the system will evolve.

According to IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson, there are still a number of performance updates to follow up on in August. Updates for Ledger and Trezor wallets are also scheduled for this week while staking function with cold wallets will also be implemented for hardware wallet users to participate in staking.

Cardano is one step closer to full decentralization and more capabilities added, including smart contracts, and decentralized applications (Dapps). Developers, businesses, governments, and corporations will be able to deploy solutions using Cardano.

The Goguen era is Cardano’s next development phase, which is expected to start in the third quarter of 2020 with the release of its testnet. When Goguen launches, Cardano will become a multi-asset ledger that allows users to define, forge, and transfer their custom tokens on the network. The Goguen update will also bring applications including Plutus and Marlowe contracts.

Aimed for developers, the Goguen platform caters to the cohort with the foundation and tools they need to build applications on Cardano. According to Vojvodic, mobile, web, desktop application developers, blockchain protocol developers, embedded developers, fintech developers, and smart contract developers will be able to use Goguen and this will help with the exploration of building alternative environments on the Network and grow the developer community.

Hoskinson mentioned that he would leave Cardano at some point to allow the ecosystem to function in a completely decentralized manner. IOHK’s contract was set to be over in December 2020, but Hoskinson stated that he will not be leaving until “what’s done is done.”

Shelley has a few milestones yet to reach, while the next phase, Goguen is still yet to roll out. He added that he would leave Cardano at some point to allow the ecosystem to function in a completely decentralized manner. The following phase after Goguen is Basho, and Cardano’s last phase is Voltaire.

Solid Bull Run: Why Ethereum Is Up 50% in 10 Days

Ethereum faced a flash crash on August 1, where it plummeted by approximately $90 from $415 in 5 minutes.

‘Everything is Happening on Ethereum’

Eventually, it climbed back to $385 after 10 minutes, but the fluctuation in price value led to a mass liquidation of futures contracts.

What this translates to on the crypto market is that despite undergoing such a huge crash, Ethereum is still up by 50% within the last past 10 days, a phenomenon that has caused quite a stir among market experts and traders. Former Messari executive and cryptocurrency trader Qiao Wang took to his Twitter platform and addressed Ethereum’s recent bullish behavior to get to the bottom of Ethereum’s strength in pricing.

The majority of his followers seemed to feel that the reasoning behind Ethereum’s solid price performance despite its recent plummeting simply lay in the fact that “Everything is happening on Ethereum.”

Crypto Investors Are Positive About Ethereum

2020 has been a bullish year for Ethereum, up to now. Ethereum is ranked #2 by market capitalization, trailing behind the biggest cryptocurrency on the market, Bitcoin. Ethereum’s market cap translates to $42.44 billion at the time of writing, with a 24-hour volume of $18.63 billion.

Also, Ethereum appears to be the first and the largest blockchain optimized for digital contracts. It dominates the scene for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications run on a public blockchain. It appears that across the board, the underlying market sentiment regarding Ethereum has been very positive.

Bitcoin Rallies

With the ongoing pandemic and the global economic downfall, the silver lining seems to be that traditional market advocates are more willing to turn to cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) as side investments. As the US is printing stimulus money by the bulk and the dollar is dropping, BTC and ETH have been surging.

Over the weekend, Bitcoin, Ethereum’s counter rival, also dove from $12,200, before rising back to a steadier $11,200. BTC has recently emerged from its slump, undergoing a surge last week and rallying with gold.