2018 Predictions by Industry Leaders for Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

The year 2017 has been a wild time for blockchain and cryptocurrency – more than $3 billion was raised via initial coin offerings and traditional investments, countless new companies were started, and cryptocurrency prices soared.

Now 2018 beckons, offering further innovations, government actions, traditional players getting more heavily involved, and (hopefully) continuing price increases for cryptocurrency

Block Tribune asked industry leaders for their predictions on what might happen in the coming year. We will run several each day through the New Year, offering insight from the people on the front lines of creating this bold new world.

Dan Novaes, CEO, Current: Consumers are getting more and more comfortable with the notion of bitcoin and, more importantly, cryptocurrency as a whole. Adoption has skyrocketed in the recent months, and I think we will see it continue to grow as people embrace the technology. The next phase of blockchain will be mainstream consumers seeing it in their everyday lives with products or platforms they interact with daily. We will begin to see media and entertainment companies embrace blockchain technology by rewarding their users for their data and attention. Today, companies are taking their user’s data for their own benefit. As we transition to Web 3.0, I think we will see a shift in the business model of how many of these companies operate, and they will use tokens in order to incentivize their users to do things that would benefit the host platform, but also align incentives between all stakeholders (The users and the larger ecosystem.) This will lead to enormous network effects. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the next “Facebook” or “Netflix” will operate under this model.These incentives will lead us to see the beginning bits of global decentralized media distribution that actually makes sense, rights attribution that doesn’t involve a variety of middlemen, and a whole host of groundbreaking advancements in the media space.

Jason Goldberg, CEO, Simple Token: 2017 has been this year where the world woke up to cryptocurrency. A large part of that was fueled by the tremendous gains that crypto speculators have achieved and the mainstreaming of crypto investment markets. What I think will happen in 2018 is more consumers getting in. My mom knows about the coin. It’s going mainstream from a speculation and investment standpoint. But the biggest thing we will see in 2018 is a very important next step from the value chain to the utility chain. To me, bitcoin is still on the value chain – the utility chain is when you get some of the applications that are being built on Ethereum, where the value is based on the work that people are doing, the staking that is taking place, enabling a whole new class of decentralized apps. That will unleash a whole new Internet and basis for the economy. It won’t be fully in 2018;  it will be a continued chaotic year and then you will have the emergence of some useful applications of cryptocurrency,  and I think we roll into 2019, which will be the breakout year for blockchain as an application.

John-Paul Thorbjornsen, CEO, CanYa.io: 2017 was the year that crypto went mainstream, but 2018 will be the year that crypto grows up. There will be increased regulation in some countries, but others will embrace it and will launch their own cryptocurrencies. More countries will follow Gibraltar’s lead on the DLT framework. Crypto exchanges will get audited and regulated, which will push everyone to decentralized exchanges. Some of them will even be taken down, which may cause widespread FUD and market corrections. ICOs will be cleaner and tighter, and investors will look for governance as part of their due diligence. Scammers will become smarter and more victims will be hit. Venture capital will die quietly, along with banks and insurance providers (but they will make a lot of noise first). If your job is an intermediary forwarding emails around, then expect you’ll lose your job to a smart contract.

We’ll see a wave of non-fungible token ICOs (perfect for assets), and in the back half of 2018, regulated security tokens will hit the market. Incorporating a company with shares will no longer make sense, and IPOs will stop.

Ethereum will start scaling, as will bitcoin – but not before transaction fees exceed $100. There’ll be a lot more bitcoin forks, as everyone realizes how easy it is to do.  As we are still so far from widespread adoption, the growth potential is still huge. The market will break $1 trillion early 2018, and bitcoin will surpass $50k before mid-2018.

Paul Puey, CEO of Edge: 2017 is going out with a bang for bitcoin. The rapid spike in media coverage surrounding the announcement of futures trading and the corresponding value escalation has brought bitcoin into the public eye like never before. The spotlight on bitcoin has led to a broader awareness of the wider cryptocurrency world as well, and of the broad market of related blockchain technologies, such as smart contracts and tokenization. In 2018, I expect that bitcoin will serve as a gateway through which many people will begin to engage with the wider world of cryptocurrency and decentralized blockchain technologies.

Because of bitcoin’s rapid ascent in value, I’ve heard some people characterize it as a bubble and predict an impending crash. But bitcoin isn’t a buble. It’s the pin that will pop the bubble of government money. While bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole will continue to experience volatility through 2018 and may even experience a significant correction, I don’t foresee a long-term crash like we saw in 2014 through 2016. Remember that bitcoin doesn’t behave like other tradeable assets.

2018 may also see the rise of other cryptocurrencies – particularly if bitcoin scaling solutions like the Lighting Network don’t prove immediately viable. Bitcoin’s scalability issues could open the door to Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Dash, or Litecoin potentially displacing it as the dominant cryptocurrency. Each has scalability issues of its own, but are actively looking for solutions.

Article taken from:

http://blocktribune.com/blockchain-cryptocurrency-2018-predictions/

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Blockchain Technology in a Nutshell

In 2008, a cryptographer who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto created a crypto-currency called bitcoin. Bitcoin is digital currency that allows you to perform peer-to-peer transactions without the help of a third party such as banks.

Although the enthusiasm around Bitcoin waned after several governments refused to recognise the crypto-currency, but the underlying technology of blockchain has been hailed by the banking sector.

What is blockchain technology?

A blockchain is an anonymous online ledger that uses data structure to simplify the way we transact. Blockchain allows users to manipulate the ledger in a secure way without the help of a third party.

A bank's ledger is connected to a centralised network. However, a blockchain is anonymous, protecting the identities of the users. This makes blockchain a more secure way to carry out transactions.

The algorithm used in blockchain reduces the dependence on people to verify the transactions. This technology used for recording various transactions has the potential to disrupt the financial system.

How it works?

According to Sunny Ray, Co-founder and President of India's leading bitcoin blockchain company, Uncoin, "blockchain enables two entities that do not know each other to agree that something is true without the need of a third party. As opposed to writing entries into a single sheet of paper, a blockchain is a distributed database that takes a number of inputs and places them into a block. Each block is then 'chained' to the next block using a cryptographic signature. This allows blockchains to be used as a ledger which is accessible by anyone with permission to do so.  If everyone in the process is pre-selected, the ledger is termed 'permissioned'. If the process is open to the whole world, the ledger is called unpermissioned."

Why are banks interested?

Last year, ICICI Bank announced that it successfully executed transactions in international trade finance and remittances using blockchain technology in partnership with a Dubai based bank Emirates NBD.

All major banks are experimenting with blockchain as they can use it for money transfers, record keeping and other back-end functions.

The blockchain application replicates the paper-intensive international trade finance process as an electronic decentralised ledger, that gives all the participating entities, including banks, the ability to access a single source of information.

It also enables them to track documentation and authenticate ownership of assets digitally, as an un-alterable ledger in real time.

Indian IT service providers like Infosys and TCS have been throwing their weight around blockchain technology. Both these companies are using blockchain mechanism to create core banking platforms for banks.

Where can it be used?

Use of blockchain technology is not limited to the financial sector. It is being used in many other areas. For example, Honduras government has put all land records on a public ledger - the blockchain. The minute there is a change in ownership, it gets recorded publicly.

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) announced this year that it would move Australia's equities clearing and settlement system on to blockchain.

In October 2015, Nasdaq unveiled Linq, a solution enabling private companies to digitally represent share ownership using blockchain-based technology.

Is it safe?

The USP of blockchain is that it allows two parties to execute a transaction without any intermediary. Blockchain allows financial institutions to execute and verify transactions discretely without any human intervention.

The electronic ledger of transactions is continuously maintained and verified in 'blocks' of records. With the help of cryptography, the tamper-proof ledger is shared between parties on computer servers.

Experts believe that blockchain architecture can significantly bring down the costs and reduce inefficiencies in the financial sector.

Lakshmi - India's own Cryptocurrency

What's India planning with Lakshmi? 
With regulatory uncertainy comes a new push for countries around the globe to look into issues related to their own national digital currencies. India could be a world leader in this.

The  Reserve Bank of India is considering a proposal to introduce India’s own cryptocurrency that will be similar to Bitcoin, first reported by Business Standard.

Indian officials see Blockchain as having merit for financial use and appear to be actively discussing the proposal.

To be named 'Lakshmi', currency to fall in the domain of Reserve Bank

Discomfort with Bitcoin is fueling speculation that cryptocurrencies hitting mainstream central banks may be near. If the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does release its own cryptocurrency, “Bharatcoin” or the name Lakshmi could make a lot of sense.

While in terms of implementation China may end up beating India to a national blockchain with their own cryptocurrency; it might end up being more transformative for India.

According to the undisclosed sources, since both RBI and government officials have stated that they are not comfortable with Bitcoin, a valid alternative seems likely as trust of Bitcoin remains shaky also in the wake of recent crackdowns in China.

Right now, we have a group of people who are looking at fiat cryptocurrencies. As regards to non-fiat crypto currencies like Bitcoins, I think we are not comfortable with them.” - RBI Executive Director Sudarshan Sen
Presumably while Indian officials appears to be open to the idea, the implementation of such a grand project could take years to run to completion.

Lakshmi cryptocurrency could benefit the Indian economy and the banking industry, as it remains to be seen if Bitcoin can thrive itself in India.

India a Leader in Blockchain?

• The idea to set up a blockchain for financial use was found useful by a committee of government officials.
• Increased global regulatory scrutiny over Bitcoin in the summer of 2017, is driving National banks all over the world to consider blockchain alternatives.
• RBI may be working on their own national digital currency.
• India could be a leader in blockchain implementation in the future.
• While many countries get older in demographics in the decades ahead, Indian Millennials are well placed to drive innovation forwards.