News

• Blockchain is "definitely an opportunity" in the long term, says UBS Group CEO Sergio Ermotti.
• He says it is a great way to reduce costs.
• "Our industry will continue to be under pressure, in terms of gross margins. It's no doubt," he says.

Michelle Fox 




UBS CEO: Blockchain technology almost a must-have  10 Hours Ago | 01:04


Swiss financial services giant UBS Group may not be a fan of bitcoin but CEO Sergio Ermotti believes blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies, is "definitely an opportunity" in the long term."It's almost a must.

The freeing up of resources to become more efficient will come through technology and blockchain is a great way to allow us to … reduce costs," Ermotti told CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera on Monday.

Blockchain allows data to be stored across a network of computers around the world rather than at one single location.

"Our industry will continue to be under pressure, in terms of gross margins. It's no doubt," he said. "The only way you can stay relevant is not only by being strong in terms of capital, in terms of products, the quality of the people you have, advice you give to clients. You need also to be able to price it correctly."

UBS is currently involved in a blockchain-based global trade finance platform, called Batavia, along with IBM and other banks. Ermotti said the focus is on the future, noting that transforming the cost base of the industry won't happen "tomorrow."

Instead, he's looking five to 10 years out.He's convinced that the technology "will be as crucial and disruptive, and changing as regulation was in the last 10 years."

However, Ermotti still hasn't come around on bitcoin. He's already said he is "not necessarily" a believer in cryptocurrencies. Last October, UBS warned bitcoin was in a "speculative bubble."



UBS CEO: Many assets are expensive  15 Hours Ago | 04:47

Trade war concerns

Ermotti also spoke with CNBC on Monday about the possibility of a trade war between the U.S. and China."I'm really worried that ... these things are going to get out of control. Somebody is going to announce something that then triggers a more serious issue," he said, stressing trade risk "could come from any side, Europe, U.S., China; you name it."

— CNBC's Ryan Browne and Matt Belvedere contributed to this report.




Michelle Fox

Unfortunately for traders the crypto meltdown accelerated over the weekend with further heavy declines being seen across the board.

This has left the entire cryptocurrency market with a value of US$283.5 billion, according to Coin Market Cap. At the start of the year the market was worth over US$800 billion.

Here’s the state of play on Monday morning:The bitcoin (BTC) price has fallen almost 5% over the last 24 hours to US$7,495.40 per coin, reducing its market capitalisation to a lowly US$126.9 billion.

According to Paul Day, a technical analyst and head of futures and options at Market Securities Dubai Ltd, the world’s largest cryptocurrency could have much further to fall. After studying its past movements, the analyst told Bloomberg that he thinks bitcoin could fall to US$2,800 in the near future.

The Ethereum (ETH) price has been the worst performer amongst the majors during the last 24 hours with a 13% decline to US$485.93. This has brought ETH’s market capitalisation down to US$47.75 billion.

The Ripple (XRP) price hasn’t fared that much better and has lost 9% of its value since this time yesterday. The XRP price is now 57.9 U.S. cents, giving the popular altcoin a market capitalisation of $22.65 billion.

Bitcoin spin-off, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), has seen its price fall 8% over the last 24 hours to US$865.33 per token. BCH has been left with a market capitalisation of US$14.7 billion.The Litecoin (LTC) price has continued its poor run and is down a further 7.5% since this time yesterday to US$141.52 per coin.

Litecoin now has a market capitalisation of US$7.9 billion.Outside the top five there were heavy declines for the likes of Cardano (ADA), NEO (NEO), and Stellar Lumens (XLM). These three crypto currencies are each down no less than 10% over the last 24 hours.One bright spot, however, was the IOTA (MIOTA) price. It has climbed 7% during the last 24 hours to US$1.18.

This increased its market capitalisation to US$3.3 billion. There doesn’t appear to be a catalyst for this move higher, though.

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It’s been hailed as a global revolution, and shunned as a piece of technology used by drug dealers and cartels. But in reality, blockchain (the underlying technology that enables crypto currencies like Bitcoin) is a fascinating piece of technology that has the power to change our world.  

Think of blockchain as a ledger that lives on every device on which it is installed. Whenever the ledger is changed, the information is updated on each device. This networked method of tracking information has supported the rise of decentralized currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

But blockchain has a wide variety of uses that have already started to shape consumer expectations, go-to-market strategy, and data collection. Moving forward, the blockchain revolution will mean brands need to start positioning themselves differently in a world where decentralization and transparency are king.

Consumer Expectations Are Changing Consumer expectations are already changing as a result of blockchain thanks to tools like HybridBlock, which provide laypeople with information about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. HybridBlock’s suite of products will educate and provide all of the tool to enter cryptocurrency as a novice and advance through the ranks to become more skilled and educated. 

As consumers and companies learn more about the capabilities of blockchain, they will begin to choose products and services that operate in a decentralized manner.

One Silicon Valley startup, OPEN Platform, provides a turnkey solution for blockchain integration between both on-chain and off-chain applications. What this means is that developers, marketers, and businesses can now build marketing tools and applications with minimal blockchain knowledge.

 OPEN Platform CEO Ken Sangha says they understand the next wave of marketing applications and that CMOs will be focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.

"Much like mobile applications spawned the last generation of technology CMOs that’s why we’ve built OPEN in the most modular way possible, to appeal to the next generation of marketing application developers and the CMOs who will use them.

”But thanks to blockchain, the technology is designed to safely and transparently share data between a large group of people without needing centralized oversight to keep data safe. Thanks to blockchain, customers can monitor how a corporation handles their data, or track the origins of a particular item. Blockchain gives consumers the platform they need to hold centralized institutions accountable. 

Capital Is Becoming More AccessibleThe second most common reason why startups fail is that they “ran out of cash” according to a report by CB Insights. CMOs in need of funds to bring marketing campaigns to life can now propose a new avenue of funding to other members of the c-suite. 

Thanks to blockchain, and cryptocurrencies, startups now have access to capital through avenues that simply did not exist a few years ago. Take TrustToken as an example, a technology that is poised to enable people around the world to buy fractional ownership in commodities like real estate, gold, or small businesses. Each asset or business could get its own token, that is tradable on global cryptocurrency exchanges just like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

TrustToken’s technology will be used to audit the asset ownership and monitor each transaction, bringing the power of blockchains to improve real-world markets.

continue reading page 2 of this article on Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2018/03/12/what-the-blockchain-revolution-means-for-cmos/#...

The main way that Silicon Valley companies keep employees loyal is with stock options.

Stick around for a year or two, and you get a small slice of ownership in the company. It's a good incentive for workers to do their bit to increase the company's value.It doesn't really work that way in most other jobs though, especially if you're not an office worker.

No matter how many burgers you flip or skim-milk lattes you serve up, you won't own any of the company. And when employees aren't sharing in any of the value they create for a company, morale suffers and turnover increases. 

Now, Evan Kuo, the CEO of San Francisco venture-backed pizza-on-demand startup Pythagoras Pizza, thinks he has a clever plan to bridge those two worlds.Kuo wants to create a new digital currency, to be called "fragments," that would give workers a piece of the pie.

The new currency would be sort of like Bitcoin, except that it would be linked to the valuation of Pythagoras Pizza itself.If this plan works, Pythagoras drivers will earn some fragments every time they deliver a pie. Every order that a Pythagoras chef cooks up also generates fragments.

Even Pythagoras customers will be able to get in on the action, with every friend referral resulting in a bounty of fragments. The better Pythagoras' business performs, the more each fragment will be worth. It means that whether you work for Pythagoras for two weeks or two years, you're earning some kind of stake in the company's future performance, commensurate with your contribution.

In the "gig economy," where independent contractors bounce between organizations on a job-by-job basis, Kuo's plan could create a framework to align workers' interests with those of the platforms they serve.  Kuo goes so far as to liken it to the American Dream. Or at least, he says it could prove to the world that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have more to offer the world than just a never-ending debate on whether or not there's a bubble.

Pizza miners

Like Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, or any of the other digital currencies inspired by the rise of Bitcoin, Kuo's "fragments" would be created and distributed using blockchain technology. Anyone can create their own digital currency based on blockchain; the blockchain provides a decentralized database that keeps track of the currency.  

The trick is creating a currency that has a value.Kuo plans to give the fragments a base value by pre-selling tokens to select, US-based investors. Those tokens' value will then be tied to the pizza business' monthly revenue. The better the business does, the higher the value of each fragment. You can read Kuo's in-depth proposal for fragments here.

Technically, what Kuo is proposing is a novel way to "mine" cryptocurrency — the term for adding more currency to the total pool of currency available.  In Bitcoin,  mining is accomplished by having supercomputers solve ever-more-complex math problems .

With Pythagoras Pizza, you're mining a new fragment every time you put a pizza in the oven.



Pythagoras PizzaThis isn't  quite  the same as equity: Fragments won't equate to any kind of ownership in the company, and wouldn't give you any voice in corporate matters. But Kuo sees it as a way for workers, even part-time workers and seasonal employees, to profit from the value they create for Pythagoras. Right now, this is all theoretical.

And there are a lot of big ifs.For one thing, digital currency is currently under the regulatory microscope. This year has seen a glut of "initial coin offerings," or "ICOs," where companies will issue a new digital currency, sell it to credulous strangers to finance what they promise is a game-changing new product, and then often vanish with the money.

Kuo says that he's working with lawyers and other experts to make sure that Pythagoras is on the up-and-up from the jump."The expectation is that with the right up-front work, we can get to a top level of compliance," says Kuo.

Fresh from the oven

Kuo, who graduated from Berkeley with a robotics degree in 2006, founded Pythagoras in 2015 after a stint working at Yahoo and experience launching various startups. He says that Pythagoras is enjoying 48% margins on an average order size of $35 and steadily expanding its operations across San Francisco. 

Pythagoras already has funding from prominent Silicon Valley firms like Social Capital and Slow Ventures.However, Kuo says, the company's growth curve looks more like a pizza franchise or a local San Franciscan restaurant, not a "sexy, hot, on-demand startup," says Kuo."It's become a normal business," says Kuo. 

With fragments as an incentive, he foresees Pythagoras attracting (and keeping) more employees, improving service and attracting more customers, accelerating the business.

Then, says Kuo, the goal is to "get the city of San Francisco mining fragments."

Discover more stories on Business Insider here:
 http://www.businessinsider.com/pythagoras-pizza-ceo-evan-kuo-create-new-cryptocurrency-workers-2017-...

‘My memory is failing, was it bitcoin or was it J.P. Morgan that was bailed out by the government?’

Hell hath no fury like a bitcoin enthusiast scorned.

If J.P.  Morgan’s JPM, -0.20%  Jamie Dimon spent any time bouncing around the internet the past couple of days, he’d know all about that.The whole thing started on Tuesday when he skewered bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.33%  as a fraud and a bubble: “It’s worse than tulip bulbs and won’t end well.

”Read: Everything you need to know about digital currencies in one massive graphic.

Dimon then proceeded to fuel the fire at a Barclays conference when he went into the types of people who might actually find bitcoin useful.

“The only good argument I’ve ever heard… is that if you were in Venezuela or Ecuador or North Korea... or if you were a drug dealer, a murderer, stuff like that, you are better off dealing in bitcoin than in U.S. dollars, you are better off bypassing the system of your country even if what I just said is true,” he said at a Barclays conference.


“There may be a market for that, but it’s a limited market.”Oh, it’s on.First came the crypto execs...

Erik Voorhees ✔@ErikVoorhees

My memory is failing, was it Bitcoin or was it JP Morgan that was bailed out by the government? 

https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/907663994613354496 …7:55 PM - Sep 12, 2017

And the alt media...View image on Twitter

Max Keiser @maxkeiser

The chart that will drive Jamie Dimon off the ledge, on the road to #Bitcoin $100,000.

4:25 AM - Sep 14, 2017

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Even a former Citi employee chimed in...

Alex Gurevich ✔@agurevich23

Jamie, you're a great boss and the GOAT bank CEO. You're not a trader or tech entrepreneur. Please, STFU about trading $BTC.8:50 PM - Sep 12, 2017 · San Francisco, CA

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Then the op-eds started popping up...“Dimon’s comments encapsulate an outdated mentality whose very existence explains why there’s a demand and need for cryptocurrency in the first place,” wrote venture capitalist Bradley Tusk.

And the TV appearances...“I’m a bitcoin miner. We create bitcoins. It costs over $1,000 per coin to create a bitcoin,” John McAfee, the guy who bet his manhood bitcoin would top $500,000, told CNBC. “What does it cost to create a U.S. dollar? Which one is the fraud?”And the memes. Don’t forget the memes...



Finally, the charts...This one from Quartz’s story, “When Jamie Dimon warns against bitcoin, it’s usually a good time to consider buying some”:



Will Dimon’s latest take prove to be another contrarian signal? Too early to tell, of course, but it’s hard to argue with him considering recent price action.

Read more like this on Marketwatch here: 
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-faithful-rage-against-jamie-dimon-2017-09-14