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Janeffer Wacheke, co-owner of a fresh-vegetable stall, checks her mobile phone for a purchase order of vegetables and fruits made to Twiga Foods Ltd., while on her stall in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 11, 2018.

Wacheke's fresh-vegetable stall in Nairobi uses technology that's helping crack a problem Kenyan banks have so far failed to solve -- measuring the creditworthiness of traders in the country's $20 billion informal economy.

One needs to look back at why, and when, Bitcoin and blockchain came into being. It was 2008, post the latest global financial crisis, and there was a feeling that a better system would be needed. One where banks are not fully in control.

Satoshi Nakamoto wrote an eight page white paper that introduced the world to blockchain and digital cash, but he also spawned a massive libertarian movement.

If Bitcoin and blockchain were catalysed by a financial crisis, and seen as a solution, it should follow that where there is ongoing financial crisis, the digital cash system, with its underlying technology, could be extremely beneficial.

It is to this end that many believe that the true worth of this revolutionary technology will be felt in places across the African continent, not necessarily in the modern first world.There are plenty of problems that need solving in Africa.

 These problems potentially can also be solved with a few key principles that are inherent to blockchain, such as transparency, and decentralization. From elections, to international remittance, as well as energy services and alternatives to banking; Africa has many broken systems that could be fixed by a new technology.

It is not even about using blockchain to do a patch-job on the continent, there is a real chance for many African countries to fully embrace blockchain technology even more so than their first world counterparts to become world leaders in this new space.

Africa has, through colonisation, been dictated to in terms of its infrastructure, and this has mostly been a failure. But there now exists an opportunity for the continent to build its own technological infrastructure that could leapfrog it forward.However, this ideal is more philosophical than tangible at present.

 There are a number of limitation to blockchain implementation that the entire globe is feeling, but Africa also brings in its own application issues. So, while the potential abounds, there needs to be a real effort to implement it successfully to make it work.

An African historyAfrica was until the 1950s and 60s a predominantly colonised space. In her decolonisation, countries were left to rebuild off a foundation that was mostly used to exploit the land and the people. From city plans to banking infrastructure, Africa was modeled after European structures rather than ones that suited the people and the landscape.

As such, banking for example, has been problematic for a big portion of the African population as these financial structures are limited to cities whereas the majority of the population is rural. However, to survive in the globalised world, these banks are needed, especially for people who work outside of their borders and have to send money to family.

More so, a lot of the corruption and mismanagement in leadership and government in Africa comes down to a system that is easily corruptible and monopolised. African dictators are common occurrence as there is much room for centralised control and dictatorship, as well as ways and means of distorting democracy.

As such, the African continent has been put on the back foot, trying to sustain a system built to exploit its people, and without her own particular needs in mind.

Enter blockchainOn a philosophical level, blockchain technology has at its core principles of decentralisation, as well as transparency, and anonymity. It is the two former mentioned principles that really have a lot of application in Africa.

Firstly, looking away from the financial side of things, blockchain technology is aimed at taking away intermediaries - and in Africa - there are a number of spaces where intermediaries are corrupt, and inefficient. So, with blockchain, the processes that they can replace can also be made more efficient, and less prone to corruption.

It is things like elections that often come up in this instance. Still done with paper, pen and an election box, the system is not only inefficient, it is also highly susceptible to corruption.But there are a number of other instances where blockchain technology can improve matters - such as energy and the power infrastructure across the continent.

Andy Li, CEO and Founder of Eloncity, a company that is looking to both greener electricity in Africa, but also decentralised electricity which is controlled by communities, explains how this solution works better than the current set up on the continent“ I am perhaps a bit biased, but I would say energy would be a good start for trying out blockchain in Africa.

The infrastructure is missing and there is not much modernised productivity. Many cities in certain countries in Africa have limited energy, preventing them to innovate and grow. Therefore, energy as a shared economy seems to be a good start.

”Li touches on this idea of community - a strong African value which is also prevalent in the blockchain model.

Blockchain infrastructure, with its decentralised nature, relies heavily on the community to effect its advancement and how it progresses, and in this case, energy and electricity which is community run rather than by inefficient centralised governmental agencies would be beneficial to the population.

Another view point on Africa’s best use case for blockchain comes from Lorien Gamaroff, CEO of Bankymoon, a blockchain and cryptocurrency consultancy firm in South Africa, as well as Centbee, a cryptocurrency payments and remittance company.

Unsurprisingly, he believes the financial benefits of cross-border payments and remittance in cryptocurrency are prime for Africa. “The best use for blockchain in Africa is as a currency for international remittance,” Gamaroff argues. “There is a lot of friction when it comes to cross-border remittances and cryptocurrencies allow for cheap and efficient transfer mechanisms.

There is still the issue of regulatory uncertainty and access and so it will depend on companies developing products and ensuring regulators that local KYC and AML obligations are fulfilled.

”Again, Gamaroff also alludes to the issues that are being faced in implementing these blockchain solutions, and a big one will always be regulators regardless of where in the world you are.

The problem of implementation

Both Li and Gamaroff are trying to implement blockchain solutions where they believe they are desperately needed in Africa, but they both attest to a number of difficulties in doing so; some of an African context, and some of a more general blockchain context.

Li touches on third-world issues that Africa has when it comes to blockchain application, from something as simple as internet access, which is now mostly taken for granted in the first world.

“I believe the most challenging development issue would be the lack of the Internet infrastructure,” Li said. “Most of the connection goes through satellites and the throughput is very limited.

This means nodes might have trouble stay synced with the blockchain, and that it would be probably more expensive to mine or run a node independently, rather than in developed countries.

”“Another challenge would be the development itself. Programming a blockchain requires knowledge in cryptography and databases, and there is a huge demand for blockchain developers worldwide. Why should they go to Africa?

The ecosystem must be worth their while, and that creates an issue for the future.”For Gamaroff, he sees more traditional blockchain implementation issues within an African context.

“Blockchain technology exists largely in a regulatory grey zone. Companies and businesses are reluctant to invest time and resources into research and development because they feel that regulators might retroactively punish them. What is needed is assurance and frameworks provided by regulators before sufficient effort can be invested.

"“Additionally, most blockchains are not suited for the use cases for which they are being applied. This is largely due to the issue of scale. Scaling blockchain technology to many users has been difficult. This must be addressed before blockchains can gain wide-scale usefulness.

”Where does Africa stand today?It is clear the potential is there, but with that comes a host of issues in implementation, so where does Africa stand in terms of its blockchain ecosystem currently? It is clearly - not yet - taking off and leading the continent to a technological revolution, but it is neither being left behind and abandoned.

“There are a number of companies across Africa that are researching blockchain technology. There are still no implementations that are in full scale production apart from cryptocurrency related initiatives,” Gamaroff explains, going on to point out a potential pitfall in the future.

“Many companies that are offering services that leverage blockchain technology are operating outside of existing securities, currency and commodities laws.

It is only a matter of time before regulators apply pressure and those business models prove to be unsustainable. If any blockchains are to survive it will be first and foremost due to the application and adoption of a cryptocurrency. Once the currency reaches broad adoption other applications be possible.

”To this end, Li believes that it is important to engage and operate with governments and regulators to be a blockchain solution that can survive the African environment.“While I've heard IBM is conducting research about blockchain in Africa and that Binance has launched a cryptocurrency exchange in Uganda, we are trying to get pilot programs going with the help of governments,” Li said.

“We are currently in talks with governments and energy companies in African countries to begin pilots in local communities. We intend, just like in Mexico and California, to build an infrastructure for them to generate their own energy using solar panels or windmills, and sell or to share it across our microgrid, using the blockchain to utilize transactions and have supply meet demand.

”Clearly, the road is a long one for the continent of Africa if it is too embrace blockchain technology. It is all too easy to point to problems and match them with blockchain solutions for the technology is so far reaching, but it is another situation to try and get these solutions to be viable and adopted to any useful scale.

I am an award-winning journalist that has covered a variety of topics from finance to economics, technology, and even sport. With the emergence of Blockchain technology and the rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies I have focused my efforts towards this fascinating and impo... MORE

Who is really buying blockchain, who are the decision makers in businesses, enterprises and organizations?

Charlotte Dunlap, Technology Analyst at leading data and analytics company GlobalData, believes platform services providers are poised to dominate in the emerging blockchain industry, even as large enterprises and organizations continue to explore the practical applications of the decentralized ledger to enhance existing systems, or serve as a foundation for new ones.

“Developers are doing the most innovation, which follows on the Devops movement,” Dunlap said. “They understand the value of platforms, and platforms-as-a-service provided by the same large tech companies they are already working with to build competitive applications.

Using templates or embedded technologies to build smart contacts, for example, they are also leveraging APIs which provide the fastest way to connect and integrate.

”Dunlap, who has authored several notes on blockchain for enterprise, called out Applications Lifecycle Management (ALM) as a key trend, along with open standards being introduced and advanced by organizations like Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project.

“None of us can predict how this will all shake out; the adoption and growth of blockchain will be a gradual process,” Dunlap said. “For the very high value applications, including sharing sensitive data between organizations, including through APIs, everybody has to be on board for federated blockchain communities to grow and eventually – potentially – replace legacy data exchange and management systems.

”In one of the reports published by GlobalData, Dunlap wrote “Businesses will come to realize that blockchain is a technology play and solution providers with expertise in infrastructure and platform technologies are most likely to successfully capitalize on this new market opportunity.

In particular, organizations are looking to application platforms giants such as IBM, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft, with their ability to gain traction through tens of thousands of customers in disparate industries.

”Dunlap also wrote, “These public cloud platform providers are actively building blockchain into their respective PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) offerings, not only as an additional blockchain network service but also as a foundational platform capability; eventually these services will support and interoperate with line of business products.

Further, blockchain will be a future enabler of Internet of Things (IoT) efficiency, scalability, security and cost management and a facilitator of IoT applications such as supply chain track-and-trace. Software and equipment vendors and service providers are likely enterprise suppliers.

”Dunlap has followed and written about disruptive enterprise technologies through her career as a top global analyst and was drawn into covering blockchain as the next movement in improving digital systems, by providing better tools and more automation, with more efficient authentication contributing to securing data integrity, critical to multi-cloud, multi-app, multi-counterparty use cases.

“Initially we will see platform providers offer blockchain tools and frameworks to help application developers create smart contracts in which they can not only capture data but act on that data and attach rules to it so, for example, only appropriate parties may view documents,” Dunlap wrote.

“Consider the possibility of information on products and supply chains being able to reach customers and partners, weeks earlier than previously allowed through traditional business processes. Imagine the effect such efficiencies could have on businesses in terms of visibility, validation and ensuring accuracy.

”Dunlap, like other industry observers, sees supply chains as one of the most obvious opportunities for blockchain applications.

“Many in the industry have concluded that the current methodology for tracking and transporting goods and manually creating and maintaining legal contracts is broken,” she wrote.

“Therefore, computer leaders such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and others have stepped up technology investments in the past 18 months, largely through R&D labs and participation in open source software bodies including the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project, which is a series of OSS blockchain tools and solutions.

This activity alone is critical because, as participating vendors like to say, ‘Blockchain is a team sport’, because distributed ledgers are built out of a collaborative effort by multiple parties, so everyone has to be on board with the same methodology.

”Dunlap sees the buying decisions by enterprises for blockchain solutions coming from business unit owners, CIOs and more visionary IT leaders who are the ones ultimately responsible for systems integration and management.

“We’re moving from a phase of uncertainty and confusion to serious explorations within organizations who now see blockchain as a fundamentally more efficient way to do things,” Dunlap said. “As blockchain as a technology becomes more clearly defined away from applications like cryptocurrencies, which have been volatile, the practical benefits are starting to become more evident.”


Edited by Ken Briodagh




Author InfoCynthia S. ArtinContributing Writer
 Click here to read full bio

After three weeks of bulls, Bitcoin prices are yet to breach the $6,800–$7,200 main resistance zone. With this, bears are in control as Sep 5 bearish pattern overshadow buy attempts. Remember, this is printing at the time when investors, market influencers and traders are “over the top bullish”. This is all thanks to week ending Sep 23 double bar reversal pattern complete with volume expansion.

Latest Bitcoin News

At the United Nation’s 73rd General Debate, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was very clear: Cryptocurrency is the inevitable future of money. This statement is true and ambitious as the Prime Minister himself. In less than one year, he has overseen the small Mediterranean country evolve to a small blockchain island. It is now a home to several exchanges like Binance and Huobi. 

These new blockchain start-ups are thriving under Malta’s warm regulations supportive of cryptos. Muscat is at the forefront advocating for proper regulations that will allow for innovation in the blockchain space. He strongly believes that there is many more user case application of blockchain aside from being the future of money and as an effective filter between good and bad businesses.

Fortunately, Malta is not the only country in the world that’s a crypto safe haven. Japan has and continues to embrace innovation and not a threat to their economies as Mark Carney stated early this year. Funds as Fidelity, for example, believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain are at a “proof of concept” stage with limited user cases and they plan to explore.

While the space can self regulate, the involvement of government regulators who board the crypto bus for the “sake of ordinary investors” isn’t well received by crypto maximalist. All the same, currently cryptos are still in the development stage.  Once they grow large enough they can function without oversight of the SEC or CFTC or courts and governments as Satoshi intended it to be.

Bitcoin Price Analysis

Weekly Chart

There are two opposing views as far as price action is concerned. There are optimistic traders forecasting gains above $7,200 and 8,000 because of a single bull bar printing at $5,800–$6,000 support. On the other end, there are sentiment-free realists taking contrarian positions. Bitcoin, despite all the euphoria, is bearish and trending inside a descending wedge.

When we take a top down approach, buyers are literally struggling to add to week ending Sep 23 longs. By doing so, it means week ending Sep 9 overshadow are literally clipping gains giving bears a upper hand in an effort versus result scenario: Two back to back bullish gains didn’t reverse losses of a single bear bar of week ending Sep 9.

This is why, like in our previous Bitcoin price analysis, as long as prices are trading between $7,200 and $5,800 supports, we recommend staying off. Once there is a definitive break out in either direction, that’s when traders can begin ramping up trades. Depending on break out direction, first targets can be at $4,500 or July 2018 highs at $8,500.Daily Chart




In the daily chart, prices are in consolidation moving inside Sep 27 high low with caps at $6,800–$7,200. Regardless of prevailing sentiment, we retain a slight bullish to neutral stand in this time frame. From our early reiteration, we shall only suggest trades once there are moves above $6,800 and $7,200 on the upside. 

This is when after BTC prices are trending above the wedge and the main resistance trend line in the weekly chart. At the moment, we remain neutral.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are those of the author and aren’t investment advice. Trading of any form involves risk and so do your due diligence before making a trading decision.

With the recent birth of the millionth Kitty, what’s next for the Dapp?Vulcat was born on September 12, and it was fire. This birth-by-flame marks 1,000,000 CryptoKitties pouncing on Ethereum – and only 288 days, or around nine months, after the Dapp launched.

Despite the game's initial effect on the speed of the network, or the various slumps experienced by the larger cryptocurrency market, the popularity of these cute digital cats is unwavering. In fact, CryptoKitties consistently hovers within the top five most trafficked games on Ethereum, according to DappRadar.

The game has emerged as a cultural phenomenon. The concept of "CryptoKitties as art," for instance, has been made abundantly clear through various museum exhibitions that feature the pixelated cats. It could be said that a telltale sign that a product or service has "made it" is when it becomes (or is treated as) art – just take a look at Andy Warhol's famous canvases of Campbell's soup.

Plus, fans have gotten CryptoKitties tattoos, another clear demonstration of the cats' successful integration into blockchain culture.The Dapp also boasts a KittyVerse, which is the team's term for all the developers building on top of CryptoKitties' application programming interface. One third-party developer, Kitty.

Kred, recently unveiled a Dapp that transforms the Kitties into collectible coins. With examples like this, the greater Ethereum community has undoubtedly shown an interest in the fuzzy, and sometimes weird, cat-faced non-fungible tokens.With all this success though – and in a relatively short amount of time – what comes next for CryptoKitties? 

ETHNews spoke with Bryce Bladon, one of the team's founding members and the "cool cat" responsible for the Dapp's brand and communications, to find out.One short-term project the crew is working on is a new gene for the Kitties called a prestige trait. Bladon said this gene is "time-limited" and "has a lot of attributes similar to how Fancy Cats are created.

" For CryptoKitties newcomers, a Fancy Cat is a rare type of Kitty with custom art, generated when players create a cat with a certain combination of cattributes (the game's name for a cat's characteristics).

The prestige gene differs from Fancy Cats in that it is one specific trait that, when unlocked, can "change the shape of the art in a very unique way.

"Regarding the longer term, however, Bladon spoke more generally about CryptoKitties' progress. He noted that there are 50 teams currently building projects in the KittyVerse, 12 of which were established within a month of the Dapp's launch. "We have seen developer adoption only go up since launching," he elaborated.

Bladon also emphasized the Dapp's shift from product to platform, which he believes "has been unbelievably interesting and very promising," especially when it comes to the broader blockchain industry and mainstream adoption of the technology.

He noted that it is "very important that other creators can actually be building things, especially on top of established concepts like CryptoKitties.

"Moreover, Bladon expressed his enthusiasm for the intersection of Kitties and art. He believes that art, like games in general, can "expedite understanding of something" – in this case, that something is the blockchain technology underpinning the CryptoKitties game.

The way that art can be used to express a concept "in a new and interesting way," he maintains, goes "hand in hand with emerging technologies" like blockchain.

Although he was not able to provide more specifics about projects and developments in the Kitty pipeline, Bladon said there would be two or three key announcements in the coming weeks. Regarding this forthcoming news, he noted, "Our goal is to allow everyday people to actually experience the value of blockchain so that they can be a part of its future.

" The CryptoKitties crew, as such, has "some pretty big ambitions with the next thing" it is developing.CryptoKitties might be misunderstood. The game might receive dismissive scoffs or headshakes. It also might frustrate an individual trying to understand why anybody would pay $140,000 for a digital cat based on some lines of code.

Despite all these reactions, though, the collectibles-driven game has won over the hearts of many, and the team continues to think nine lives ahead.

DANIEL PUTNEY

Daniel Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor's degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.
ETHNews is committed to its Editorial Policy

BUYING AND SELLING, BUT NOT SPENDING. In 2013, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency company Ripple began releasing its coin, named XRP. Today, XRP is the third most popular cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization (an asset’s share of the total crypto market), lagging only behind only bitcoin and ether.

But Ripple has a problem, according to a report by The New York Times: While people will trade XRP, they won’t use it.I SEE XRP ALL AROUND ME. By use, we mean do anything other than buying or selling as speculative investments.

Since you can’t exactly use crypto at your neighborhood grocery store quite yet, Ripple is primarily focused on getting people to use their XRP to conduct international money transfers.

If I have US$2,000 that I want to send to my friend in London, I would convert my dollars to XRP, send it to my friend in the UK, who would then convert it to Euros (or whatever currency they want). Ripple has already partnered with banks and other financial institutions to make this happen.


One way to get people to use a currency? Make sure they have a lot of it. And Ripple is making sure people have a lot of XRP by giving it away. In March, Ripple donated $29 million worth of XRP to a charity to buy classroom supplies for U.S. schools.

During an appearance on Ellen in May, actor/Ripple investor Ashton Kutcher presented $4 million worth of XRP to The Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund on behalf of Ripple.Ripple isn’t just donating XRP to charities, though. It’s also rewarding people who use XRP.

In October 2017, the company put $300 million in XRP into the RippleNet Accelerator Program, a program designed to reward financial institutions that use XRP.  Then, in May, Ripple created Xpring, an initiative that helps fund the development of XRP-focused start-ups.FLUSH WITH XRP. Ripple can play such a big role in how people use XRP (and how much there is) because of how the coin is generated.

While the number of bitcoin transactions determines the number of bitcoins in the world (more transactions = more mining = more bitcoins), all the XRP in the world was simply created in 2013. At that time, Ripple generated 100 billion XRP, keeping 80 percent for itself.

This has led to allegations that the company can and has artificially influenced the XRP market, but it also means Ripple has plenty of XRP to throw around.Now, no one can say for sure whether Ripple’s many initiatives will actually help XRP move from a speculative investment to a often-used asset.

But given the bad publicity Ripple has recently faced — including criticism in a U.K. court and a class-action lawsuit in the U.S.— giving millions to charity should help the company improve its public image if nothing else.

READ MORE: Here’s Some Cryptocurrency. Now Please Use It. [The New York Times]

The founder of cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital said on Thursday that he believes the cryptocurrency market cap could one day be worth $40 trillion.Dan Morehead, who is also the firm’s CEO, said in an interview with Bloomberg that he believes the fair market value of the cryptocurrency market cap is an order of magnitude or two above where it currently sits.

“Obviously, we’re very bullish on the space. We think we’re way below, maybe an order of magnitude — or two — below the real fundamental fair value of blockchain,” he said, stating later that “the industry as a whole is $400 billion. It easily could go to $4 trillion, and $40 trillion is definitely possible.”

“Anything that’s a $400 billion asset will not be ignored for long,” he added.For the cryptocurrency market cap to reach $40 trillion, it would need to increase approximately 10,000 percent from its current level. If current market share distribution held constant — which of course is unlikely — the Bitcoin price would trade at a nearly $1 million valuation.

Bloomberg Crypto✔@crypto.@PanteraCapital CEO Dan Pantera says the crypto market could

reach $4 trillion https://bloom.bg/2JtpeSt 



7:23 PM - Apr 26, 2018

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As CCN reported, Pantera recently issued just its fourth trading recommendation on Bitcoin in its seven-year history, arguing that BTC had flashed a buy signal after dipping below its 200-day moving average. Since then, the Bitcoin price has climbed by approximately $2,000, netting investors who followed the firm’s advice a 29 percent profit.

Morehead doubled down on that recommendation during Thursday’s interview, stating that Bitcoin remained a “screaming buy” even after its moderate recovery.

Previously, Morehead said in mid-December that the Bitcoin price could decline by 50 percent or more heading into the new year, after which the flagship cryptocurrency entered a prolonged bear market out of which it has only recently begun to recover.

Notably, the publication reports that Pantera — which was founded in 2011 — currently has approximately $1 billion in assets under management. Of that, about 10 percent is in Bitcoin, though its largest stake in Icon, which ranks outside the top 20 on the market cap charts.

Featured image from Flickr/Techcrunch.

https://www.ccn.com/40-trillion-cryptocurrency-market-cap-definitely-possible-pantera-capital-ceo/