One of Bitcoin’s biggest promises is to be a reliable store of value. A hedge against everything that is traditional finance protecting your purchasing power. A defense against monetary policy. Satoshi Nakomoto made that abundantly clear when it included a reference to bank bailouts in the genesis block.

A decade later and we have seen the longest bull market in history, a 12-year streak, with Bitcoin’s biggest promise untested. Now, this may finally change. The stock market’s six-day correction sparked by the fears for the Coronavirus may be the prelude to a bear market.

What are we looking for?

To fulfill the premise of a hedge, one would expect to see asymmetrical price action. That’s the answer fortifying the gold analogy that our industry has tried to sell as a key narrative. This argument, however, is secondary to the price action correlating to the underlying protocol. In particular, the halving of supply. The next one will take place in approximately 71 days, when newly minted bitcoins rewarded to miners will drop from 12.5 bitcoins per block to 6.25 bitcoins per block.

The last time this happened in 2016, we saw a steady increase in price until an inflection point was reached in 2017, and Bitcoin set a new record price. Having witnessed three bull markets and subsequent bear markets, this is likely not yet priced in. After the 2016 halving, there was pessimism as the price seemingly didn’t respond to the reduced supply, only to explode the next year. This time around, we may see a very similar pattern emerge. The halving itself will be relatively uneventful, but over the course of 2020/2021, we could see a steady rise in the price until new highs are set. As can be seen in the logarithmic chart below (there are many variations of this chart, so I picked one I found on Tradingview), Bitcoin has been consistently following this trend.

A break from this trend would have one question whether Metcalfe’s law applies and whether Bitcoin is resistant to Mr. Market. On the other hand, if we were to see a recession hit the stock market while Bitcoin continues to trade within its long term trend, it would signal that Bitcoin is indeed the digital store of value it set out to be.

Alternative scenarios

While Bitcoin is the first and largest cryptocurrency, there are many following its footsteps. Its runner-up Ethereum is planning to release a protocol change around summer. After failed promises of the past, developers are confident with 95% certainty that they will deliver. Ethereum 2.0 is developed to see throughput on its blockchain compete with the largest financial networks in the world. It can then serve as a catalyst for the DeFi movement that could push the price of Ethereum’s currency Ether (ETH) up and challenge Bitcoin’s (BTC) dominance.

The last time Bitcoin’s position was challenged in 2017, the highly anticipated flippening was close. As can be seen above, it never happened. The overall cryptocurrency market, therefore, continues to follow Bitcoin’s upward or downward price movement. This is at the core of the above-described trend. In case Ethereum would take over the baton of Bitcoin as the leading cryptocurrency by market cap, it may dictate the overall cryptocurrency momentum from there on out. Once it does, the trend would be harder to predict with Ethereum’s planned move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake that introduces different economics.

Conclusion

When we finally see a recession in the stock market, it will be thrilling to see if and how the cryptocurrency market holds up. A stern warning for those who anticipate to trade on the long term trend. With such a crucial test ahead of us, price manipulation could make it seem like fundamental levels are broken. Your HODL or not to HODL decision should probably be made before the fireworks set off.

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Is the big test for Bitcoin finally here? was originally published in The Capital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Bitcoin, invented as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, may be struggling to fend off its opportunists. Where Bitcoin’s decentralized model promised a world of free information, opinion and finance, centralization achieves the exact opposite. By now its clear how the Internet has suffered tremendously from censorship and censorship complaisant behavior. With the efforts of both China to dominate blockchain development and its intent to introduce the world’s first sovereign digital currency and Facebook’s stablecoin initiative Libra, we — citizens — are at risk of letting an opportunity for good go to waste before it’s even gotten off the ground.

Sure, having Facebook enter the market will bring greater awareness to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Even the app with the teachings for China to become a powerful nation now has a chapter on blockchain where Ethereum and Bitcoin is part of the curriculum.

cnLedger on Twitter

2/ China's most popular app, Xuexi Qiangguo (study for becoming powerful nation) now has a recommended course focusing entirely on blockchain, which contains Bitcoin & Ethereum lessons. The app released by CPC to help ppl learn about its political doctrines like Xi's thoughts.

But, as protestors on the streets of Hong Kong are defending their liberties, the next stage of totalitarianism is in the making. And while we’re distracted, they are building. One day we may wake up to find no way back other than to hit the streets. Before that happens, it’s time to take decentralization serious and explore it as the new model for democracy to empower us to defend our rights.

By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you now.

Yes, that’s Oasis. Sorry dudes, you probably wouldn’t want to place your song in any of the context I’m putting it in now. The lyrics of the song (especially if you imagine the first line being directed to Mark and the second line being sung by Mark), the name of the song “wonderwall” and the name of the band all ironically apply to the utopia that wasn’t. Connecting the world turned out to be a dangerously lucrative idea. And putting that connectivity in the hands of one entity and really one man was perhaps, a mistake.

We, the people, demand options. The Zuck might be the best at protecting us from the treacherous waters that are social media. He may have the cure to all of our privacy intrusions and concerns. He may ensure fair elections in it ability to battle the trolls. It doesn’t matter. It’s too little too late.

Facebook has breached people’s trust, repeatedly. By now you should’ve somehow realized that Facebook is a giant spy machine possibly funded by the venture capital firm owned by the intelligence agencies. By now you should’ve somehow realized that Facebook fully understands the power it has. Data breaches aside, it willingly ran psychological experiments on its platform to see how it could change behavior. It ran algorithms to predict behavior.

Facebook has always known what it was and so did Mark. Not to rub it in, but him referring to us all as “dumb fucks” was a hint. You are the guinea pig. Get over it. Or…get even.

If you are a founder of a social media company that is rapidly outpacing Facebooks growth, don’t sell. Whatsapp and Instagram fell for it, no happy campers there.

If you are a social media user, opt out of everything and opt in for anything that is decentralized or at least abides by personal data control and ownership.

If you are a citizen, vote. Because in the end even Mark agrees that his power exceeds the reasonable — although he’s still in love and doesn’t want to break up.

These lyrics are for you:

And all the roads we have to walk are winding. And all the lights that lead us there are blinding. There are many things that I would like to say to you but I don’t know how. Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me. And after all, you’re my wonderwall.

Veni, vidi, fix it, fix it, fix it.

Our brokerage solution is now integrated into the Opera browser for Android. Users in Sweden, Norway and Denmark can now easily top up their wallets to buy ether on their mobile phones with our secure solution.

This partnership is an important step in our strategy to drive wider adoption of cryptocurrencies. We make crypto ownership easier and more accessible by integrating our brokerage across a range of platforms, from browsers like Opera, to wallet providers, apps and other sites that serve crypto enthusiasts. Opera, with its first blockchain-enabled browser for Android, is the ideal partner with whom we share the same vision.

From zero to crypto in less than a minute

Our solution will secure all transactions on the Opera browser through the same rigorous regulatory requirements that built trust with our customers. Users’ identities will be verified securely and seamlessly with BankID and NemID in the Nordics.

This integration puts the functionality to purchase crypto right at users’ fingertips. Safello will power transactions on the Opera mobile browser for Android in the fastest way possible — in less than 60 seconds. With the convenience of credit and debit card payments, and transfers over trusted payment networks, such as Swish in Sweden, we are bringing down barriers to ownership.

To purchase crypto in Opera for Android, download the “Opera browser beta” from Google Play store in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

See below a video of the integration:

Safello enables crypto purchases on the Opera mobile browser was originally published in Safello on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Frank Schuil on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

This week I was fortunate enough to spend time with some of the leaders in the cryptocurrency space at Digital Currency Group’s private Founder retreat at Lake Tahoe. It was a great time to reflect on how far the industry has come and what is on people’s mind for the period ahead.

Last year the event was held in the middle of the ICO craze and for many of us it was something we didn’t really see coming at this scale, even though some of us participated in the first ICOs ever — like I did. We spent considerable time talking through token economics and legal pitfalls while enjoying the gold rush that as expected lasted briefly.

This year everyone is building for what’s to come while we ponder what will drive the next bull market and when it will happen. At this event there is one community of openminded people trying to learn from each other and teach each other to the benefit of all. There was a time when this was the norm.

Before 2014 there was one community with a single objective to make cryptocurrencies succeed. Now there are fractions that pursue their interests to make their blockchain or cryptocurrency project succeed, often at the detriment of other people or projects. This zero-sum game mentality has cluttered the conversation and makes it harder to predict the future — or at least for me.

Here is a list of questions that I find hard to answer

1. Will the next bull run again coincide with the Bitcoin halving?

Clarification: Bitcoin has always been the leading cryptocurrency that set the tone for the wider market momentum. When the supply of cryptocurrency is halved while the demand stays the same or increases, it pushes the price up. In 2016 we had the last halving with a bull market following in 2017. If the patterns repeats we would see a 2020 halving followed by a 2021 bull run. While this has historically been the case, we see some cryptocurrencies disconnect from Bitcoin’s volatility and if we would get a new leader they may set the tone and in a different timeframe.

2. Has Bitcoin secured the store of value use case?

Clarification: In 2013 we thought we’d soon be spending bitcoins to buy our coffee. This has not happened and is likely not going to happen soon. Meanwhile Bitcoin has proven itself to be a store of value in unstable economies with hyperinflation. People argue that the difficulty to force protocol changes indicates stability of the protocol —remember the segwit battle. Meanwhile we are seeing institutional interest gravitate to Bitcoin. Counter-arguments are made that if Bitcoin isn’t adopted more widely as money it will not be a store of value. Bitcoin Cash and projects like OmiseGo and Request Network aim to take advantage of this (perceived) gap.

3. Will Ethereum be able to scale in time to keep others at bay?

Clarification: With the arrival of Dapps and projects launching on top of Ethereum, we saw the protocol experience some hiccups. Meanwhile timelines for scaling shifted while new blockchain projects promise scalability. Some of these are extremely well funded with growing communities. If Ethereum manages to scale in time and in the right way it may solidify its position and as some believe even take a shot at the store of value use case, i.e. Bitcoin.

4. Will we see a wave of ICOs on top of Bitcoin with the launch of RSK or is Ethereum the unbeatable standard?

Clarification: The ICO market was entirely dominated by Ethereum as RSK was not ready when things took off. This left no other option than to launch a token on top of Ethereum for most. Companies like Coinbase have made no secret of their support of Ethereum, taking their time to implement things like Segwit while launching a token browser. Meanwhile RSKs development has come a long way while other cryptocurrencies like BCH are planning their own ICO capabilities and dedicated platforms for STOs emerge.

5. What does adoption mean and which metric is the most important one to follow?

Clarification: The question of how to measure success contested. Whatever metric you pick there is always someone arguing that it’s comparing apples to oranges. For instance, a transaction on one protocol means something different than on the other and transactions can take place off-chain that slip through the measuring cracks. User adoption could be measured by wallet addresses, user sign ups or active users and companies disclosing figures often limit themselves to one while some count double. Development activity can be measured by amount of developers or code commits — but how do you measure quality? For trading volume the question is which exchange to include or not — how much of it is manipulated / what part of it is flowing through decentralised exchanges or OTC? More websites are coming online focusing on one of these metrics, whether it’s development activity, sentiment or volume. The overall picture can still remain unclear.

6. Have we won the fight or are we just at beginning to see real resistance?

Clarification: On the one hand we are seeing trading desks and custodian solutions from companies like Goldman Sachs and Fidelity and large corporate blockchain partnerships making headlines. On the other hand we hear stories of cryptocurrency businesses losing their bank accounts and Central Banks intervening or controlling the cryptocurrency market. In many ways our market has come much further than any of us ever dared to dream. Meanwhile conditions seems to improve and digress simultaneously in different areas.

7. Is there room to unite the wider cryptocurrency community or is it a lost cause?

Clarification: The infighting in the cryptocurrency market took extreme forms. The Bitcoin block size “debate” was arguably one of the most vicious battles we have seen where some involved even received death threats. The different groups of stakeholders (miners, developers, companies and users) with individual preferences and economic incentives created a toxic environment. Now that forking a protocol is an acceptable practise — or so it seems, it has allowed fractions to co-exist independently. As such, there might be room to start bringing communities back together again to the benefit of the overall market. There are already some cross-blockchain projects and collaborations between parties that are promising. Without these efforts it will be difficult to decide on which protocol to build on and what features to prioritise. This causes delay in overall adoption.

Words of encouragement

After spending most of 2015 explaining to bankers why decentralised blockchains and cryptocurrencies are more important than their private blockchain initiatives, I’m very happy to see that I rarely am today. People are building some really cool stuff and incumbents are listening and paying attention — even participating. The steps to mass adoptions are fewer and smaller than a year ago and there is clarity of what cryptocurrencies and blockchains can do for us as a society. There are more apps, tools and protocols being developed today than ever before. I can’t wait to see how far we have come next year.

And for the comment-hungry out there, feel free to answer my questions above.

Before moving on, make sure to press follow, leave a clap or 46, share today’s highlight and if you missed the last article, click here.

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The purpose of ALTCOIN MAGAZINE is to educate the world on crypto and to bring it to the hands and the minds of the masses. This article was written and composed by Frank Schui on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE.

In Search For Crypto clarity was originally published in The Capital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Advantages in the market are informational, analytical or behavioural. I’ve come to appreciate the latter more than anything else. It’s like the Tyson saying: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Most people’s plan is to cut their losses and lick their wounds. Even those who repeat the mantra HODL will sell.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

— Mike Tyson

Having followed the market from 2013-2018, I conclude nothing has changed. The pattern seems eerily repetitive. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you’d expect something else this time around, while it ends up with the same predictable outcome. It’s like none of the regulatory remarks, the media spins or the progress with Bitcoin getting listed on CME matters.

There seems to be no evidence that we are deviating from Metcalfe’s law nor the classical hype cycle pattern (see above). With US regulators saying sensible things in the latest cryptocurrency hearing there is no apparent looming doom. To echo one of the comments during the hearing: the genie is out of the bottle.

Long term crypto holders tend to look at their holdings in fiat denomination and crypto denomination. The first to see whether we are in the boom or bust cycle and the second to value our position compared to other cryptocurrencies. The latter tends to be much more important than the first as we are dealing with emerging technologies. You may believe in the streaming video market and want to invest in it. Your conviction is that video streaming is the future, but investing in Hulu or Netflix makes a difference while investing in Kazaa leaves you empty-handed.

For me this means that I look at my crypto holding today as per the second measure and conclude that it is higher than it has ever been. Comparably I have done better than just holding onto my initial Bitcoins. And if my conviction is that the hype cycle soon ends to build up for another run in the coming four years, which it is, the best course of action is to hold my position or increase it at the bottom or close to the bottom of the cycle.

As a final encouragement to those who are getting nervous, the old Warren Buffet saying holds true:

“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.” — Warren Buffet

In crypto this is no different, be it more volatile and scary.

We set out to fill the gap of credit card purchases for Bitcoin in Europe after Circle’s departure. Today we announce European-wide credit card support for Mastercard and Visa with 3D Secure.

In the past months we have quietly tested credit card support for GBP. Now we are adding EUR, NOK, DKK, CZK, CHF and HUF while opening up GBP for everyone.

Purchasing limits are automatically calculated as you use Safello’s service. Limits are calculated per currency as seen in the screenshot below.

In your order history you can track the status of your order. When your order is placed you should see a popup in the interface confirming so. A similar popup appears when placing a sell order.

When your order is listed as pending, it is flagged for manual review by our staff or there could be an issue with your order. Due to the high risk nature of credit card payments, this can be for numerous reasons. Our support staff will contact you if input is needed, otherwise the order will be executed after manual review.

Re-entering Norway

Safello supported the VAT case that went to the European Court of Justice. In October 2015 the court ruled that VAT will not be applicable to Bitcoin transactions. This year Norway followed the ruling. This opened up the route for Safello to re-enter the Norwegian market. Since we had done all the work for the first market entry, we were able to activate Norwegian purchases relatively quickly for SEPA and local bank transfers with added support for Visa and Mastercard.

To further help Norwegian customers to conveniently buy their bitcoins, we partnered up with Norwegian Bank ID, so customers can identify themselves with a single-click verification procedure. Safello is the first to re-enter the Norwegian market and we look forward to welcoming more Norwegians to our platform as we aim to continue to improve the experience.

About Safello

Founded in July 2013 Safello set out to bring greater compliance and security to the cryptocurrency industry. Its user-friendly approach has since attracted tens of thousands of customers throughout Europe with an easy way to get into the cryptocurrency market. Today Safello supports direct payments in 32 countries and payment methods like Swish, bankgiro, SEPA, credit card and international wire. With tens of millions of SEK, DKK, NOK, Euro, HUF, CHZ, CHF and GBP in and out of cryptocurrency processed, Safello is leading the charge in Europe. In 2016 Safello acquired the assets of BT Technology (originally ICBIT) to prepare for its next phase of growth.

Our backers include the largest blockchain fund in the world, Digital Currency Group, Erik Voorhees, Roger Ver, Nicolas Cary and Safello closed a crowdfunding round in 2015 that was oversubscribed within a week. Safello is a Techstars alumni, nominated “best crypto currency company” by Techcrunch’ The Europas twice, winner of the Websummit Angel Awards, Finalist of the BBVA Challenge 2015 and the first company to close a Bitcoin proof-of-concept with a tier I bank, Barclays.

Sign up today on safello.com.

Safello launches European-wide credit card support and re-enters Norway was originally published in Safello on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2009 when the genesis block was mined, no one aside from a select few crypto fanatics knew about bitcoin. It was non-existent in the minds of the average person. At this point the price of Bitcoin was zero Dollar. Soon someone paid 10,000 bitcoins for a pizza and this worthless thing suddenly had economic value. As a side note, this point where non-economic things get economic value is fascinating. It happens in all types of digital economies and it questions how one thinks about value creation. For instance, in game environments inflation and economic incentives automatically emerge whether you plan for it or not — nature of the beast I suppose.

Soon someone paid 10,000 bitcoins for a pizza and this worthless thing suddenly had economic value.

The following years Bitcoin existed in the vacuum of a small corner of the Internet until it took centre stage when it surged to ~$266 in 2013. The sudden shift in awareness required a counter-narrative to temper expectations, the hacks and scams plaguing the market helped. Soon the press got more than they what bargained for with the Mt Gox debacle where the Bitcoin bad narrative manifested itself over the initial get-rich-quick enthusiasm. With the bankruptcy of Mt Gox in 2014 we entered the Bitcoin ice age.

Keywords of what an average person on the street would associate Bitcoin with during this ice age is seen in the image above. The ripple effect of this perception hindered startups in their ambition to connect to the existing financial infrastructure and vice versa. To overcome this obstacle Bitcoin was reframed to focus on its underlying blockchain technology. The blockchain good narrative enabled cooperation between parties and sparked the second wave of investments into the industry. As insiders it often made us giggle when we saw another Bitcoin startup reframe themselves as a blockchain startup to rake in their next round. At the same time it opened up people’s eyes and minds to the myriad of problems blockchain could solve in virtually every industry. It was the catalyst of the Altcoin market that as of writing is valued at $23B capturing 43% of the $53B cryptocurrency market.

The blockchain mindset is centred around applying the technology to improve what is already there. In other words, evolutionary steps to increase margins and stay competitive. It’s the safe way to go. It is precisely why most of the banks during this period joined consortiums to soon discover that there is more to the puzzle. While some blockchain companies and financial institutions expanded the definition to an abstraction away from Bitcoin by reframing blockchain as distributed ledger technology — with some abandoning blockchain altogether in the process — , others circled back to where bottom-up adoption is taking place, going full circle.

Banks joined consortiums to soon discover that there is more to the puzzle.

By the end of 2016 it became clear that many proof-of-concepts would fail to move forward to the next stage. Like with other emerging technologies the timeline to go from concept to company-wide implementation was underestimated. And much like the Internet, blockchain is a networking technology. Quick wins to internally improve processes are therefore hard to find and realise, while the permissionless blockchains— when you hear someone say this, think Bitcoin — are from the ground up built collaboratively. To no surprise of any of the cryptocurrency enthusiasts, it is here where we find the most exciting innovations take place and shape.

And as the Bitcoin price is going for the race to the $2000 mark, the question remains how to bridge the cryptocurrency infrastructure and the legacy financial system. The good news is that slowly but surely we are moving in the right direction. Public perception is changing. Average joe is jumping onto the bandwagon with this latest price rise. Financial institutions meanwhile are coming to the realisation that at the very least they have to hedge their blockchain-only strategy with a cryptocurrency plan.

To accelerate this difficult love affair between the startups, the public opinion and the finance industry, I propose that 2017 and onwards becomes the period of the narrative. The narrative that encourages collaboration and cooperation.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology hold great promise for our future. They have the potential to fundamentally change the very fabric of our global society. Giving billions of people access to a global financial system can do that, let alone the non-financial use cases that are just seeing the light of day. They can bring about greater transparency to industries that today operate without accountability. They can start communicating with things (Internet of Things or IoT) to let the machines do work for us.

Giving billions of people access to a global financial system can change the very fabric of our global society

We are only at the early beginnings of what promises to be an incredible ride. Fuelled by advances in other technology fields, the sky is the limit. It is therefore worth shaping the narrative that the technology deserves. One that drives our efforts forward to a larger scale — the holy grail of mass adoption.

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If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our latest tech stories and trending tech stories. Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted!

The Evolution Of The Bitcoin/Blockchain Narrative was originally published in HackerNoon.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I first started drafting an article about the deliberate demise of the US Dollar, it seemed too farfetched a scenario to become a reality and I shelved it. Then Trump’s first week in office happened. As stranger than fiction goes, reality ran its course and here I am picking up the pieces of what could be.

The writing on the wall

No, not the literal wall between the US/Mexican border we thought was a joke. I mean the figurative wall of protectionism of the Divided States of America. There are a couple of longterm themes at play here that made the rise and rise and election of Donald J. Trump possible. They can best be categorized as (a) they took our jobs and (b) they took our money.

a. They took our jobs. Who did?

1. Globalization — the rise of information technology and trade-friendly attitudes spun an economic web of counter-dependency leveling the global playing field.

2. Urbanization — relatively speaking, urban got a lot more urban and rural a lot more rural. Economic centers of gravity are further concentrating to cities, the political and social-economic divide is amplified.

3. Automation — here come the robots. What started with the automation of manual labour driven by globalization’s need to optimize costs, evolved into the wider threat of AI. *Whispers* Ignore the real threat of AI for now.

b. They took our money. Who did?

1. The rich did — destruction of the middle class. This video depicts the devastating wealth inequality in the US perfectly:

2. The government did. In 2008 George Bush had to address the nation directly on live television to calm down the markets and US citizens and announce a bail out plan. The term too big too fail was coined.

3. The Federal Reserve did. As a direct result of the financial crisis in 2008, quantitive easing reached unprecedented levels. The too-big-to-fail institutions were saved while the population carried the burden of diminishing purchasing power. It cultivated the global Occupy movement and sparked an anonymous genius to work on a big idea to replace Central Banks, banks and really the entire financial system altogether by distributing the power of money creation and control to the people.

Currency wars

With all these moving pieces on the global chessboard of geopolitics, a recurring theme surfaced: currency manipulation.

What is currency manipulation?

Simply put, currency manipulation means that country A artificially makes its currency less valuable compared to that of country B, so that companies of country A can sell more products to country B as consumers flock to the products with the lowest price. Similarly, capital flows to areas where the biggest profits are made, so foreign companies establish factories abroad to produce their products at the lowest possible cost to increase their margins and sell more products. This is where Trump raves on about China, even though technically they aren’t and capital flight numbers may be an indication that the Chinese themselves don’t see it that way either.

How is Trump dealing with currency related imbalances?

Trump’s proposed border tax to discourage manufacturers in the US to not move their operations to Mexico is a good example of a protective measure. Here the correction to this imbalance — wages being cheaper in Mexico — seemingly turned plans around when Ford axed their Mexico plant plan. The deeper motivation for Ford may actually be that the manufacturing cost in the US would be cheaper by taking labour and transportation out of the equation through automation and its geographically superior proximity to the customer. And thus the complexity of globalization reveals itself.

In search of normalization

We can see how corporations naturally move between jurisdictions and technology advancements to meet the market as in the case above. While executive ordering as many protective measures against natural imbalances, the imbalances that could derive from currency manipulation put fuel to Trump’s fire. And while the macroeconomic factors at play here may have little to do with the currency, it wasn’t unexpected to see Trump making a case for reinstating the Gold standard. Or did he? Here comes the caveat! He said it would be tough to bring it back because “we don’t have the gold. Other places have the gold.” If gold, then war. If not gold, then what? Look no further than who he surrounds himself with to see what may lie ahead.

A contrarian victory

While Silicon Valley was united in their disgust of Trump, there was one man who made a bold contrarian bet. On October 15th 2016 the New York Times reported Peter Thiel contributing $1.25 million to Tump’s super PAC.

The rise of Peter Thiel

Fast-forward to Wednesday the 14th of December. Trump is elected and the Silicon Valley titans are summoned to Trump Tower to discuss technology and jobs. Everyone shows up.

And lo and behold, Thiel’s return-on-contribution (ROC)— not to be mistaken with return-on-investment (ROI) — materialized.

Rooted in monetary disruption

Peter Thiel is a longtime libertarian turned Republican (in 2016 for obvious reasons) who co-founded Coinfinity, a cryptography and payments company that turned into Paypal, the multi-billion juggernaut that set out to make online money simple and easy. Sounds familiar? In 2013, through his investment firm Founders Fund, he invested in Bitpay, the globally leading Bitcoin payment processing company that also received investments from the likes of Richard Branson. Not coincidentally, both are big fans of Bitcoin as it represents the type of global citizenship and monetary freedom they strive for. Peter took this freethinking spirit one step further by donating $500,000 in initial seed capital to start The Seasteading Institute and hedging his US citizenship by becoming a citizen of New Zealand.

Thiel recently put Balaij Srinivasan, co-founder of Bitcoin company 21, up for consideration of the FDA, but it is hard to measure the influence of Peter Thiel to the administration. These are just small hints of something bigger that might be brewing, the plot thickens.

Speculative outcomes

A this point in time there are bits and pieces of information that we can go by that hint at a possible move:

• Trump has made repeated statements about Chinese currency manipulation, showing his interest in solving this.
• Trump appoints Thiel as an advisor to the administration who has very strong ties to Bitcoin.
• Trump made a public statement that the gold standard should return, but that we can’t get the physical gold. This hints at a gold standard that is not gold and likely not physical.
• Trump has made moves to counter globalization, dismantling the US Dollar as global reserve currency is an extension of that strategy.

So will Trump kill the US Dollar? Will he introduce a cryptocurrency version of the US Dollar? Only one will allow him to move his own assets first before everyone else, making him even wealthier. Only one would allow him to hyper inflate the US Dollar to effectively eliminate foreign debt, over $1T owned by the Chinese. The consequences of such a move are hard to oversee and probably ridiculous. But since this is Trump, who knows.

Life imitates art

As the reality star takes office, his fixation and fascination of television stands tall. In fact, it stands taller than anything else. Media are driving Trump’s policy positions. Therefore, what better way to predict the future then to watch a clip of a television show that did exactly that?

The TV show in question, Mr Robot. In this show hackers simultaneously destroy all tape backups of the bank’s ledgers, effectively clearing everyone’s debt and credit. Imagine a world that is triggered by a financial crisis to see its citizens adopt Bitcoin while banks struggle to retain power. Chaos ensues while the Bitcoin price rises. Below’s video is a discussion between the CEO of the E Corp bank that requests the government to let it issue its own currency. How far are we from this becoming a reality? Or better yet, a version of this as reality is stranger than fiction. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, enjoy!

What makes Ethereum better than Bitcoin? Pragmatism. Let me explain.

The recent success of DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) caught everyone’s attention when it raised an incredible amount of money for its decentralised investment fund. On the surface this marked the next phase of Ethereum: let a global community decide where to invest money to the benefit of Ethereum’s development. On consider.it you can see how this sparked a lively discussion of proposals. Even now in the face of adversity different proposals are being discussed on how to deal with this fiasco. What fiasco you say? Well, someone spoiled the fun when he/she/they found and exploited a bug to ‘steal’ more than $60m worth of Ether.

A lesson from the past

Those who remember the Mt Gox days of Bitcoin can attest to the fact that it had a backlash to Bitcoin’s already tainted brand and slowed adoption. It justified banks saying no to companies that dealt with Bitcoin and it gave room to the blockchain narrative that became the talk of the town in 2015. Only now in 2016 we are seeing a resurgence of the cryptocurrency where financial institutions are finally turning around to flirt with the idea of public blockchains, including Bitcoin.

Sceptics may point that it follows a classic hype cycle pattern or that recent events are directly related to the halvening. Be that as it may, the Mt Gox collapse did have the knock-on effects and it begs the question; if we could’ve reversed the theft, would we have done so?

To fork or not to fork

In order to reverse the theft a fork of the protocol is needed. In Bitcoinland forking the protocol is a highly contested event leading to debates of biblical proportions as can be seen here, here, here and in a blog post of mine. Overall Bitcoin’s community seems to be more divided than Ethereum’s and leans towards crypto purist implementations where Ethereum favours pragmatism. Just compare the endless block size debate with the swift response of Ethereum’s brain child Vitalik Buterin in his critical DAO update post and in his follow-up smart contract security post where he digests the feedback from the community to look ahead. To quote Vitalek:

Progress in smart contract safety is necessarily going to be layered, incremental, and necessarily dependent on defense-in-depth. There will be further bugs, and we will learn further lessons; there will not be a single magic technology that solves everything.

Of course none of Vitalik’s words would matter if it weren’t for the fact that he is listened to and that miners are willing to adopt the changes he proposes. Unlike Bitcoin with its absent anonymous inventor, Ethereum has a leader that in this phase of the development has the voice to stir the protocol in the right direction while incorporating wider community feedback. This DAO fork will be Vitalik’s biggest challenge to get mining support, but if Homestead’s successful hard fork is any indication, Vitalik will likely succeed in convincing miners to reverse the DAO ‘theft’. And why not? It’s just common sense. The intent of the contract was obviously breached and while the hacker should be rewarded for discovering the exploit as is currently being proposed, reversing the ‘theft’ would avoid this — at the time of writing — black hat from holding a large percentage of Ethers. And who doesn’t see a problem with that has not read up on Ethereum’s ambition to implement a proof-of-stake system. And as for DAO, we will see a new attempt soon enough. Forking? Big deal!