Welcome to The Wild West

It's been a couple months since I've provided a general overview of the crypto market, so it's about time I shine some light on where we're at and where I think we're headed. Although my optimism towards blockchain technology continues to be strengthened, the general market attitude has continued to decline, and it's only going to get worse. We are still very much in a bear market as prices continue to slide. Most of the top coins were teetering on the edge of the resistance/support cliff for a few weeks, which many hoped was a sign of stability. We've now broken through that support level and are doomed for an unavoidable price plummet.

Emotions continue to play a major role in the market and industry battles continue to cause major market instability.  Although the market craves stability to prove to the world crypto is a viable 'store of value', it is evident that the cryptocurrency market is still very much a Wild Wild West setting. 

Things became even more hostile last week as as the battle revolving around the Bitcoin Cash fork, boiled out of control.  Both parties vying for control are industry heavyweights and have vowed to fight to the death, willing to sell all their Bitcoin in order to fund their efforts.  According to my calculations, this could amount to as much as 1 million bitcoin that have already begun to be flooded into the open market, not to mentioned the fear and chaos this instills in other investors. The negative effect this will have on the industry as a whole will be catastrophic, and will lead to many altoins going to zero (which was bound to happy anyway).  As the chaos continues to unfold in the days and weeks ahead, I caution everyone to hold on to your hats, as we're in for a wild and volatile ride.   

The long term potential for this industry remains unchanged, but the road to getting there is an unpredictable one.  There's a lot of positives and tech advancements coming from many projects, but unfortunately for the short term, I believe those will be overshadowed by the negative market sentiment. 

As always, input/comments/feedback is welcome. 

My Outlook on the Crypto Market

It's not hard to support a case for or against the cryptocurrency industry in it's current state.  The evolution of this new market has an interesting story. In the beginning, Bitcoin had a tainted start as it gained a lot of it's initial popularity on the 'dark web' because of it's security and anonymity features.  There was a lot of negative connotations around Bitcoin, but it continued to gain media attention and the value of the underlying technology started to gain some traction.  Other projects joined the party such as Ethereum and Litecoin, bringing new features and opportunities.  As the media continued to report on both the positive and negative stories (for which there was no shortage) we saw the prices skyrocket in November/December of 2017.  Whether they understood it or not, people were intrigued by this new technology bandwaggoning into the market which caused these insane price moves.  

Because of this 'crypto craze' the market has been flooded with new 'opportunities' including companies, projects, coin offerings etc.  Some of these projects are legitimate, while others are smoke and mirror projects intended to deceive potential investors. Because cryptocurrrency is a new and very complicated technology (especially for the non-techy), this has created more fear amongst the general public, and rightfully so. To quantify the craziness, although we typically hear about Bitcoin, there are currently over 1600 different cryptocurrencies on the market.  Of them all, I believe that maybe 5% of these will continue on as viable industry leaders.

It's also challenging to explain the industry to newcomers, as they often are looking at the price chart for Bitcoin for the past 6 months, which has plunged from $20,000 in December to it's current price of around $6,500.  The misconception being that this encapsulates the Bitcoin story, however Bitcoin was created in 2009 (valued at less than $1) and has seen continued exponential growth over that time, leading to the boiling point at the end of 2017.  So, over the past 9 years, the price of Bitcoin has gone from pennies, to over $6,500! But regardless of price, the point I'm trying to make is for the future growth of the technology itself, not the obvious vulnerability of the price.

The industry has often been compared to the .com bubble, which I think is a great analogy.  There's no arguing that the crypto market was and is in a bubble, and that we are in the midst of a volatile ride.  Although there will be a lot of carnage, just like the .com scenario, the underlying technology is going to emerge along with the industry leading companies to change the way the world processes information.  

So... What is the technology and where is it heading? At an elementary level, Blockchain technology is the idea of a decentralized network of computers that collectively encrypts and processes transactions.  Each transaction is encrypted and broken up into 'blocks' which are sent out to the network, they are then re-assembled and validated on the other end which creates the 'blockchain'. As these transactions are processed by computers worldwide, participants are rewarded for their involvement with the associated network currency, such as Bitcoin.  As such, this solution provides a very large scale, decentralized, secure means for processing any kind of transaction on a global scale.  That being said, because this is a developing technology, it is still constrained by the number of transactions that can be processed at any given time. This is currently the main point of contention for all crytpo networks, most of which have detailed road-maps for larger scale operations.

There is a lot of expectations for the continued development of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, but keep in mind, they are all still in their infancy stages. With all the hype and excitement, it's easy to loose track of where we are in the life-cycle of the crypto timeline.  Fear, greed, excitement and every other emotion are largely what governs the movement of prices.  The perception of both enthusiasts and nay-sayers will continue to cause volatility.  People get excited about the potential, but then realize we're still at least a year away (in my opinion) from the technology to be properly implemented into real world applications.  New developments and headway continues to be made week after week, which the media portrays as 'groundbreaking' which they are in a sense, but most of these advancements are all mapped out for any given cryptocurrency on their publicly accessible road-map (whitepapers).  

This scenario also leads to a lop-sided scale in terms of the production and demand of any given crypto coin.  As coins like Bitcoin are produced through a process called 'mining', large companies as well as individuals are producing large quantities of coins.  In order to realize their profits, they need to sell those coins in the open market, which is a constant flow of coins being sold.  In order for the price to rise, this has to be met by an industry demand of people wanting to purchase said coins.  As the real-world adoption is still taking place, the scale is tilted which is contributing to the recent price decline.  As the story continues to unfold, the technology develops and more real-world applications are revealed, we will start to see the demand for the coins match and surpass the production.  

To be clear, I'm not suggesting to anyone that they should invest in  cryptocurrency, but instead I'm  looking to have a discussion and convey my belief that this technology is very interesting and will be around for many many years.

  

If you're still uncertain about the legitimacy of the technology, here's a few companies that are actively committed to supporting it's development:

• Walmart: The largest company in the world has committed to implementing blockchain technology throughout it's global delivery system.  They believe blockchain provides a secure and efficient way for processing transactions and managing the back end data solution.  Walmart has been submitting patent applications on a regular basis to secure these new ideas and initiatives.
• IBM: A leader in the technology space, IBM
• OMERS: The Ontario Municipal Workers pension fund, the largest in pension fund in Canada, and has committed MILLIONS of dollars to supporting the development of the Ethereum project.
• Amazon: The largest online retailer in the world, has shared plans for supporting the cryptocurrency space in various ways including accepting them as a form of payment on their platform. They've already registered several crypto-related domain names to protect their place in this space.  
• Starbucks/Microsoft: In a recent announcement (last week) Starbucks and Microsoft have teamed up on the development of a crypto payment solution which will allow patrons to use crytocurrency (converted within the app) to pay for in-store products.

Cryptocurrency Outlook: 4 Key Indicators it’s Here to Stay

4 reasons cryptocurrency is likely to be ‘the future of money’

Tuesday’s SEC decision to postpone a ruling on whether to approve the SolidX Bitcoin Shares ETF for trading on The Chicago Board Options Exchange is a good sign. Given previous SEC statements, the postponement appears to suggest that the U.S. regulatory agency wants to issue a well-thought-out approval ruling that protects cryptocurrency investors and nurtures innovators. I agree with the CBOE that "investors are better served by products traded on a regulated securities market and protected by robust securities laws.” And I would rather see the SEC make a methodical decision to approve a cryptocurrency ETF, with thoughtful guidelines than a rash decision to reject one. 

Bitcoin’s Challenges and Promise

Since 2010, when it emerged as the first legitimate cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has been declared “dead” by pundits over 300 times. Critics have cited the cryptocurrency’s hair-raising price volatility; it’s scalability challenges, to handle a large volume of transactions as a payment method, or the improbability of a central bank ceding monetary control to a piece of pre-set software code. T he adoption of Bitcoin as an alternative to transacting by credit card or other payment methods is rising. After its release as open-source software in 2009, Bitcoin alone has facilitated over 300 million digital transactions, while hundreds of other cryptocurrencies have emerged, promising to disrupt a host of industries.

Granted, no more than 3.5% of households worldwide have adopted cryptocurrency as a payment method. But as developers and regulators resolve the following key issues, global cryptocurrency adoption will likely grow -- both as a consumer payment method, and through business-to-business integration, streamlining a variety of operations in the private and public sectors. The prospect of more widespread adoption explains why I think cryptocurrencies may continue to outperform other investment assets in the long term and improve how the world does business.

Four Key Reasons Why Cryptocurrency is Here to Stay:

1. An SEC-Approved Bitcoin ETF Can Boost Liquidity, Protect Consumers, and Nurture Innovators

Though the SEC may not reach a final decision until next year on the proposed listing of SolidX Bitcoin Shares ETF, I think the agency will eventually approve what many experts say represents the best proposal for a cryptocurrency ETF. The proposal -- which requires a minimum investment of 25 Bitcoins, or USD 165,000 assuming a Bitcoin price of $6,500 --  seems to meet the SEC's criteria on valuation, liquidity, fraud protection/custody, and potential manipulation.

By boosting institutional investment, SEC approval would represent another milestone in the validation of cryptocurrencies. To reiterate, rising adoption could benefit the U.S. financial system and other financial systems worldwide, because cryptocurrency promises to create significant financial savings and societal benefits -- by streamlining how the world transacts for goods and services, updates mutual ledgers, executes contracts, and accesses records.

2. Comprehensive U.S. Regulation Can Improve Protection, Innovation, and Investment

Beyond a potential Bitcoin ETF, demand is mounting for a comprehensive regulatory framework that protects consumers while nurturing innovation. Because the dollar remains the leading global fiat currency, institutional investors across the globe are especially watching for what framework of rules and policing U.S. regulators develop. Although many institutional investors are assessing the risk/reward proposition of cryptocurrency investments, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to invest. Many such endowments, pension funds, and corporate investors are awaiting U.S. regulatory guidance and protections to honor their fiduciary duties. How, if at all, for example, will exchanges be required to implement systems and procedures to prevent hacks and otherwise protect or compensate investors from cyber attacks?

Though there’s mounting pressure on regulators to act, cryptocurrency regulation that both protects consumers and nurtures innovation requires a nuanced set of rules, a sophisticated arsenal of policing tools, sound protocols, and well-trained professionals. Developing such a unique strategy takes time, and may involve some stumbles. But I think U.S. regulators will eventually succeed in developing a comprehensive and balanced regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. If institutions become more confident that regulations can help them meet their fiduciary duties, even small allocations from reputable endowments, pensions, and corporations could unleash a new wave of investment in cryptocurrencies.

3. Bringing the Technology to Scale

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are still developing the capacity to function at a mass scale, which will require processing tens of thousands of transactions per second. But technology such as Plasma, built on Ethereum, and the Lightning Network, a second layer payment protocol compatible with Bitcoin, are being tested, which could enable cryptocurrencies to execute faster, cheaper payments and settlements than any other payment method. Though developing applications that bring cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to scale may not happen overnight, I think sooner or later; developers will get it right.

Making cryptocurrency scalable would probably unleash an explosion of new applications. That would boost adoption by allowing consumers and businesses to more easily take advantage of cryptocurrency by seamlessly integrating it with debit and credit payment systems – again, to execute transactions, update mutual ledgers, execute contracts, and access records. Such financial activities would likely happen more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than ever because there would be no banking intermediary needed to validate the transaction and take a cut of the fees. This could improve the cost and efficiency of commerce – between businesses, between businesses and consumers, between governments and consumers, between nonprofits and consumers, and in every combination thereof. The seeds for this transformation of commerce have been planted, and like the internet before it, can innovate in ways we can’t fully anticipate.

4. Meeting Developing World Needs

At its current technological stage, use of cryptocurrency adoption as a payment method could grow fastest in emerging markets, especially those without a secure, reliable banking infrastructure. Many consumers in such regions have a strong incentive to transact in cryptocurrency -- either because their country’s current banking payment system is inefficient and unreliable, and they lack a bank account altogether. Globally, 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked. Two-Thirds of them own a mobile phone that could help them use cryptocurrency to transact and access other blockchain-based financial services.[2]

Data underscores the receptiveness of Developing World consumers to cryptocurrency as a transaction medium. The Asia Pacific region has the highest proportion of global users of cryptocurrency as a transaction medium (38%), followed by Europe (27%), North America (17%), Latin America (14%), and Africa/The Middle East (4%), according to a University of Cambridge estimate.[3] Although the study’s authors caution that their figures may underestimate North American’s proportion of global cryptocurrency usage, they cite additional data from LocalBitcoin, a P2P exchange platform, suggesting that cryptocurrency transaction volume is particularly growing in developing regions, especially in:

• Asia (China, India, Malaysia, Thailand)
• Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela),
• Africa/The Middle East (Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Turkey)
• Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine).[4]

As more applications launch in the developing world to facilitate the use of cryptocurrencies to buy and sell goods and services at lower cost and in expanded markets -- and more young people receptive to such new technologies come of age -- cryptocurrency adoption could well rise exponentially.

Remember The Internet - Investment Bubbles and Bursts Will Identify The Winners

High volatility is inherent in the investment value of this nascent technology, due to factors including technological setbacks and breakthroughs, the impact of pundits, the uneven pace of adoption, and regulatory uncertainty. Bitcoin, for example, generated a four-year annualized return as of January 31st, 2018 up 393.8%, a one-year 2017 performance up 1,318% -- and year-to-date, down 52.1%. Bitcoin has experienced even larger percentage drops in the past, before resuming an upward trajectory.

I believe roughly thirty percent of Bitcoin investors over the past half year are speculators since the cryptocurrency has dropped on the negative news by as much as a third. In my view, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will experience many more bubbles and bursts, in part, fueled by speculators, who buy on greed and sell on fear.

But as the dot-com era underscores, the bursting of an investment bubble may signal both a crash and the dawn of a new era. While irrational investments in internet technology in the 1990’s fueled the dotcom bust, some well-run companies survived and led the next phase of the internet revolution. Similarly, despite periodic price crashes, I believe a small group of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain applications, including Bitcoin, will become integrated into our daily lives, both behind the scenes and in daily commerce.

Although “irrational exuberance” will continue to impact the price of cryptocurrencies, this disruptive technology represents the future not only of money but of how the world will do business.

~~~

Brian G. Sewell is the founder of Rockwell Capital; a family office committed to educating investors about cryptocurrency, and Rockwell Trades, an institutional cryptocurrency trading platform. He may be reached at http://rockwelltrades.com.

A Closer Look at JSEcoin

The Good: JSECoin has developed a unique and creative way for mining cryptocurrency, which focuses on the web.  Using the power of a web browser, JSECoin can be mined by individuals through their browser; it can also be implemented into websites, making it a great source of revenue for website owners/operators. This approach should see viral growth with regards to the coin being mined.

The Bad: Although JSECoin has nailed the production side of the equation, my concern lies with the usability and the demand for the coin.  The team at JSECoin needs to focus on creating demand and usability for coin, otherwise we will have a bunch of people who love to mine the coins, but no-one interested in buying those coins. 

The Bottom Line:  We are very early in the JSECoin story, after all they're still in the midst of their ICO.  They are off to a running start, having created a very marketable solution for mining, but as mentioned above, they will need to start focusing their efforts on the flip side of the equation, otherwise the fate of this coin will be sealed. I believe this project has great potential and I will continue to follow and support their efforts via the mining solution, social sharing etc.

Learn more about JSECoin on their website: www.jsecoin.com

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As I've mentioned, I'm intrigued with the JSECoin project especially with their browser focused mining and the ability to be integrated into websites.  I believe this approach can easily go viral among website owners and bloggers who are looking for a creative way to increase website revenue.  This is great news for JSECoin, right? Well... Yes, but it's only half the equation.  In order for JSECoin to grow into a healthy solution able to thrive in the crypto space, there needs to be demand for the coin.  This will be achieved though marketplace solutions, partnerships etc.  To this point, I think the JSECoin team has focused their efforts on the mining solution and on the ICO.  I hope in the near future we start to see their efforts going more into partnership opportunities. Without a clear vision/direction for creating demand for the coin, the success of this project will be one sided.  I think this is further evidenced when looking at the current ICO numbers.  It's nearly a third of the way through their ICO completion, and they haven't even sold 1% of the available coins (5 Billion coins available during the ICO, with current sales of 23 Million coins). 

Because it's still very early in the JSECoin story, there's still time for the team to address the above concern, create partnerships, additional solutions, marketplaces etc. Because the clever mining solution, focused heavily on website owners/operators, I think this opens up a great opportunity to partner with businesses in that same realm such as domain name registrars, web servers/hosts, online storage etc.  This would create a sustainable ecosystem, where website owners can mine the coin, with the ability to use them within their industry.

The other point of interest, post-ICO, will be exchange listing(s).  This is essential for the growth of the project, and I'm intrigued to see which exchange(s) they're able to work with.

With my curiosity peaked, and my roller-coaster ride of emotions relating to the JSECoin project, I wanted to connect with the folks behind the scenes to learn more.  I reached out, and Mr.Matthew Vallis, Chief Strategy Officer, was very quick to respond and answer any and all questions that I had about the JSECoin project.  Here's a look at the Q&A interaction...


What prompted the JSE Coin project? How did it get started? 

James Bachini (CEO and co-founder) previously had some successful adtech companies which he scaled up from start-ups. He was interested in all things blockchain and tech, believed that the adtech industry was ripe for disruption and that blockchain tech was a great way to target the sector. With old school friends Dave Mallett, John Sim and ex-colleague Tracey Howard they formed a team and the company you see today is the result of just over a years work. The platform was originally launched as a proof of concept in August 2017. Primarily this was focused on publishers/webmasters but they included a browser-mining demo tool which picked up a lot of organic traction and went on to become the self-mining tool. 

Where does the name come from, JSEcoin? 

It stands for JavaScript Embedded Coin which is the technology that enables us to run code within a web browser.

You're currently in the midst of an ICO, can you provide an update as to what that process has been like and where you currently stand? 

The ICO is ongoing, very happy with getting a flawless audit on the smart contract. Investment has been a little slower than we would like, but due to our small budget, advertising is just ramping up and the funds raised so far have been primarily from the community we have grown over the last year. We have surpassed the soft cap we have set internally and we are all committed to the project. We have been in discussions with large investors and funds, it would be great to get as many people on board as possible. The ICO is not just an exercise in fundraising, it’s also a great opportunity to spread our brand, grow our reach and built our user base of publishers, personal miners, merchants and community members.

It seems that a big part of crypto success is dependent on being listed on exchanges. Have you already began discussions with exchanges? What is process like in terms of number of exchanges, timeframes etc? 

We have engaged with exchanges already and been open with our community regarding our plans with this. What we target will be dependant upon the level of funds that we raise, however the most likely outcome at this point is that we will target a single mid-level exchange initially with more to come online once we can grow our trading volumes. A key issue most projects face is that the crypto markets move quickly and exchanges move the goalposts often in listing requirements and the fees they require. Fees can range from free all the way up to ~$2million USD - as with all the decisions we make we will try to ensure that we are using investor funds where we think we can drive the most value.

Your solution provides an alternative source of revenue for website owners, obviously its traffic dependent, but can you quantify how much websites can earn through the JSE Coin solution? Can it potentially replace display advertising on websites? 

At current levels one of our largest publishers earns ~80k JSE per month. This is equivalent of around $500usd at the ICO price. If the value goes up then it will of course make this more profitable. Some webmasters will choose to supplement their ad revenues with JSE. Some will perhaps trial running only JSE and realise they get much more traffic as annoying ads have been removed. We believe that this is something that needs to be disrupted, ads can ruin the user experience and cause people to resultantly use other sites. User experience is key in today’s world, with the best companies in the world absolutely driven by it. We also offer a solution that allows a website visitor to choose to turn off their ad blocker or choose to run the jse code. Up to 50% of people use adblockers - this shows how annoyed people are by ads, plus how little webmasters value the user experience. We can help both sides, webmasters can monetise their content and users can get an ad free experience! But of course the remuneration needs to be at a level where this is suitably incentivised. One advantage the project has over Monero miners is once listed on exchange we can adjust mining distributions to balance demand and pricing on exchange. Companies like Coinhive have no influence over the underlying blockchain technology and this will give us a long-term advantage to dominate the publisher mining market. 

The web-based mining is very intriguing; what does the other side of the business look like... Where do you envision people will be able to spend JSE Coin? Are you already working on those partnerships/relationships?

We believe that JSEcoin is a perfect fit for e-commerce. We already have a small number of merchants up and running. At the moment as we are not listed in exchange it is more difficult to onboard merchants. We will push for more adoption post ICO as people will be able to exchange their coins for fiat. As transfers and payments are fee free this is great for micropayments in the short term, as banking and PayPal fees currently make this uneconomical. Jsecoin payments will only ever take up to 30 seconds to clear, often they are almost instant so this is also a major advantage. We will be launching our branded apparel shop shortly, the items sold here will only ever be available to buy with JSE and this will be a great example to merchants how they too can integrate JSE payments and in the future only accept JSE - as it’s so simple that anyone can use it (a major flaw of most cryptos) and the user experience is great. It is important we create additional value in addition to browser mining to establish long term demand on exchanges.

It seems to me there are a ton of potential partnership opportunities, such as browsers (browser plugin), WYSIWYG website builders/platforms, and more. What other partnerships/relationships have you already established or are you working on? 

Currently the ICO is taking up the majority of our time. However we do have plans to develop a number of partnerships within the commerce sector. Browser plugins and payments within the gaming sector and apps are also an area that we would like to develop. We also have plans to grow our enterprise solutions side of the business also. As we are powered by a browsers excess resources, we offer the greenest blockchain in the sector. This also means that costs are a fraction of our peers. We believe that this means we can not only be friendly to the environment, but also allows us to work with the SME sector to build blockchain solutions (helping the little guy get access to the latest tech - exactly what we are doing with our lottery based system of personal mining which means there is no advantage to server farms and everyone has an equal chance of earning JSE) - currently the cost of large peers renders this impossible. 

Once exchange listed each partnership and development we announce will boost stakeholder confidence, demand on exchange and ultimately token price. This will become a core focus of the project over the next few years.

Scaleability is a major point of contention throughout the crypto industry. How does scaleability apply to JSE Coin, and what are you doing to make your network effective and efficient. 

There are constant updates ongoing to the backend of the system. We pushed out a major update the week prior to the ICO in anticipation of more traffic. This included sharding of datastores to make private and public data more manageable, improvements to client/node communications and real-time mining updates via webscokets. We believe that the current setup would work efficiently with a significant increase in traffic. We do expect significant increases as the ICO progresses and once listed on exchanges / merchants come online. We will continue to build further infrastructure and improve the code. In the future we will have more manpower and this will be constantly monitored and plans will be updated as the project evolves. 

How does the 'Team Remuneration work? How/when is the team's compensation issued? The JSEcoin whitepaper suggests the team is compensated 5%, but it's based on the total 'hard cap' of coins (10 billion). As such, that's 500M coins... if these coins were issued at the conclusion of the ICO... that would mean the team would actually hold over 60% of the coins in circulation (200M in circulation + 100M in ICO & 500M to the team). 

5% of total cap is the lowest that I have seen from any project. There are 5 billion coins available in the ICO with the remainder to primarily reward miners over a 10 year period. 4% is allocated to the founders and you can see this via our blockchain explorer. The additional 1% is to remunerate advisors who are helping the project in a number of areas. When the project launched we started the blockchain with 20m JSE in each of the cofounders accounts. This was because it looked strange having zero circulation for the first few months but in hindsight this wasn't the smartest move because the funds have never been used but has opened us up to criticism because the founders currently hold a high percentage of the current distribution. Post-ICO we will remunerate the shareholders with up to 4% of the hard cap (this will include the funds already in the co-founders accounts). We don't believe there is any benefit to the founders having a large holding of the token distribution and if the ICO doesn't reach our goals then we may adjust the shareholder remuneration down but not up. If our long-term plans are to succeed then any more than 1% per individual would create more personal and project risk with little real usable reward. 

After the ICO concludes, what is the process for the remainder of the coins being issued? And once all the coins are in circulation, how does JSECoin and it's team members turn a profit? 

The coins not issued are to remunerate miners / webmasters over a 10 year period. In this timeframe we will have built a profitable company through our merchant tools and enterprise solutions offerings. We will have to reward miners in a different way when this cap is reached. At this point there is potential for some sort of transaction fees or alike. However it is our preference to keep transactions free if possible, so we will potentially pay miners in JSE that the company has bought from exchanges. This is a long way off at the moment but we will have detailed plans and options that we will discuss with our community before any decision is made (potentially voting by consensus which is a system we have on our work stack) 

What role has social media played in the development of the JSECoin community and what platforms are proving most successful? 

The primary channels for interaction with our community are telegram and discord, we have ~4K members in each and our community is quite active. Often the community come up with good suggestions, help find bugs with the system and promote the project via their own accounts on other social media platforms. We also have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Steem.it and Medium. We’d like to grow our presence and grow our active community - social media has been a great way to grow our brand with minimal cost involved. We are very grateful to the support we have had from the JSE community who have been instrumental in getting the project to where we are now.

Where do you see JSECoin in 5-10 years? 

A household brand that has achieved mainstream adoption using ethical means, having made a significant difference to blockchains environmental footprint. Powers payments across the e-commerce world and known for being the company that made blockchain technology accessible to everyone through ease of use and great user experience. 

Any other points or developments you'd like to highlight? 

I think it’s important to highlight that the world is changing very quickly, the project has moved onto a much larger scale than was originally planned. This has happened because the team are able to foresee market changes, interpret likely outcomes and plan accordingly. 

This will continue to happen - it’s the teams belief that the power usage of most major cryptocurrncies is unsustainable, there has to be a better way - we believe that in time our method of securing the blockchain will be the favoured method. 

We therefore will have first mover advantage, however we are not complacent and realise that user experience is what is going to drive cryptos move to the mainstream. Everything we build is built around the user, making it easy, secure and intuitive. Making our users feel safe and confident with cryptocurrency is what drives us and will continue to differentiate us from the competition.

Electroneum Vs JSEcoin

I was introduced to both these projects a couple months ago as I researched various crypto currencies that provided user-friendly methods for mining their coins.  Over the past few weeks, I've continued to learn about these two projects, their goals, technology and the teams behind them.  I've also been testing out both platforms and will continue to do so for the next several weeks in an effort to compare the various results and potential.  

I'll do my best to test and evaluate the related platforms (mobile mining, desktop mining, browser mining etc) and review the results in terms of ease of use, production details, etc.  I'll also look to engage with both communities via social media, forums, and support channels (if needed).  As these are both web-based community projects, I have high hopes and expectations for their levels of engagement.  I'll be sure to post my findings and results as more information becomes available. If you've had experience using either of these two solutions, I'd love to hear about it. 

If you're not familiar with these two coins, here's a quick overview of each of them...

Electroneum

I was initially intrigued by the Electroneum project as they market themselves as 'The Mobile Cryptocurrency'.  They offer an app, currently only available on Android smartphones, which allows users to 'mine' their token.  An interesting approach, which seems to be quite user friendly and easy to use, which is great to see, especially in a crypto industry which is often confusing and overwhelming to many newcomers.  That being said, how much process power could possibly come from a mobile mining app?    

After doing a little more digging, I determined that the mobile app is more of a marketing play, than it is an actual mining solution.  As it turns out, the app is not actually mining anything, but instead giving the illusion of mining, providing fictitious statistics (such as hash-rate), and then issuing coins in an air-drop. All that being said, this app may still serve as a good way to introduce people to cryptocurrency and the mining process.   

The backend technology for Electroneum was initially created by a Monero fork, a sound technology focused on security and privacy.  That being said, the Electroneum team striped away several of these features in order to convert it to a more simplistic solution focused on instant, micro-payments.  

Here's a few numbers as they relate to Electroneum

Max coin supply: 21 Billion

Current price: $0.012 USD

JSE Coin

Promoting themselves as web based solution, through browser mining, I was eager to learn more about the actual application, the mining process, ease of use, etc.  JSE Coin offers a couple interesting opportunities... Browser based mining is available to anyone who sets up an account, and runs the JSE Coin platform through their browser. At first glance, it's quite user friendly and uses a very minimal amount of computer resources.  Thumbs up.  The second opportunity is for webmasters, where the JSE Coin platform can be easily integrated into websites, allowing visitors the option to 'opt-in' while they browse, using a small portion of their computing power to mine JSE Coin.  This is an intriguing opportunity which could generate an additional source of revenue for website owners, and potentially reduce the amount of on-site advertising that is needed.  Again, I'm intrigued to continue testing both these opportunities to gain better insight into their overall value and future potential.

I've reviewed the JSEcoin Whitepaper, and came across one point of confusion... At first, I assumed the JSEcoin solution would be a way for website to generate income without using on-screen 'display-ads'.  However, in the JSEcoin Whitepaper they state the following:

To create demand on exchanges we plan to offer an advertising service where JSEcoin is the

currency used to trade digital ad space. This was our original idea for the platform before we

realized how much mainstream demand there was for a cryptocurrency platform.

We currently have a large publisher base that has already opted-in to display advertising if it

were to become available. The code snippet is in place on sites so nothing further would be

required from the webmasters.

I may be misinterpreting the information so I'll be reaching out to the JSEcoin team for clarification. A display-ad based model, in my opinion seems to contradict the primary basis of the JSEcoin solution, which is to replace/reduce the need for on screen ads. I'll be sure to update this post once I've received clarification.

Some of the states for JSEcoin are as follows:

Max coin supply: 10 Billion

Current price: $0.006

Self-miner daily distribution: 144,000/day

Publisher daily distribution: 288,000/day

My Top 10 Crytpocurrencies

There's no dispute that Bitcoin spearheaded the cryptocurrency craze, but in recent months many many more have surfaced as legitimate alternatives.  For those still learning the in's and out's of the crypto market, please keep in mind that not all crypto currencies are competing against each other. Each coin offers a different set of benefits and setbacks, each with varying industry applications.  That being said, as I continue to review the industry and the various coin offerings, there are three primary elements I tend to review:

1. The technology - How sound is the technology, the transaction processing, mining process etc.
2. Industry application - What is the primary use for the coin/platform within a real world context.  What industry are they focused on, and what is the future potential of their solution? 
3. Development Team - Who created the coin, what is their background, and who else is involved with the development (partners, developers, investors, etc).

With that as the basis for my ratings system, I've started to embark on reviewing various cryptos in order to identify my list of top 10 favorites. There are so many cryptocurrencies on the market that it's impossible to review them all, but based on the dozens I've reviewed, here's a look at my favorites:

Foundational Coins

Foundational coins are ones that I believe to be setting the standards within the cryptocurrency industry.  These coins are dedicated the the overall growth of the blockchain technology and it's global implementation.  It's no surprise to see who I've listed here, as they are already recognized as the two largest players in this space.

Ethereum - I'm a huge fan of what Ethereum has done with their platform, and I consider it to be a building block for the future of the crypto market.  They've created a solution that can be used by a diverse number of industries, within the crypto space and real world applications.  This is primarily with their 'smart contracts' allowing for all kinds of transactions to utilize their back-end blockchain solution.  I strongly believe in the direction they are headed, as well as the leadership team.  The founder is a smart guy, and the supporting cast is second to none.  Get a glimpse of those invested in the development of Ethereum by checking out the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Bitcoin - Bitcoin needs no introduction, as it's been leading the way in terms of media attention; to the point where many mistakenly believe that Bitcoin IS cryptocurrency.  I like Bitcoin from several perspectives, including core technology as well as the various 'hard forks' which allow for variations in the platform making it more applicable to specific industries.  The technology is sound, and the upcoming implementation of the Lightening network will be a big advancement.  I also like the fact that Bitcoin has a limited supply available, which will help the price continue to appreciate.  Although the found of Bitcoin is unknown, the team working on it's future development includes many of the brightest minds in the world.

International Bank/Transactions

The banking and high volume financial industries offer a huge market potential for cryptocurrencies that can stand up to the challenge of processing huge numbers of transactions.  As all crypto's continue to battle the challenge of scale-ability, there are two specific coins who have focused their efforts on the financial markets...

Ripple - A website I use frequently, Cryptocompare, explains ripple as follows: "Ripple positions itself as a complement to, rather than a competitor with, Bitcoin. Ripple is a distributed network which means transactions occur immediately across the network - and as it is peer to peer - the network is resilient to systemic risk. Ripples aren't mined - unlike bitcoin and its peers - but each transaction destroys a small amount of XRP which adds a deflationary measure into the system. There are 100 billion XRP at present."

Although some crypto enthusiasts don't consider Ripple to be a true cryptocurrency, I think there is definitely some potential and industry application.  The founders of Ripple, have strong backgrounds and track records, although one has since left (Jed McCaleb) has left to start Stellar.  Ripple has created a ton of great industry partners, many of which are currently engaged in test projects to prove the usability of the Ripple platform.  You can see many of these partners on their website.

Stellar - As mentioned above, Stellar was created by one of the founders of Ripple, and as such offers a somewhat similar solution.  Cryptocompare describes it as follows: "Supported by a nonprofit, Stellar brings the world together by increasing interoperability between diverse financial systems and currencies.

Stellar is a technology that enables money to move directly between people, companies and financial institutions as easily as email. This means more access for individuals, lower costs for banks, and more revenue for businesses. Help better the world’s financial infrastructure by participating in our community or by building on Stellar."

I like the technology, the folks involved as well as the market potential.  IBM has been one of the big-names who've also jumped on board with supporting and developing Stellar.

Future of Fast Transactions

IOTA and Cardano an in a unique category as they process transactions differently than the bulk of crypto currencies.  By eliminating the mining process, transactions are validated by the senders and receivers of the currency. This is an intriguing solution, that could make it more scale-able than other means.  Although it remains to be seen, I like what both these two coins are working on.

IOTA - IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger protocol that goes 'beyond blockchain' through its core invention of the blockless ‘Tangle’. The IOTA Tangle is a quantum-proof Directed Acyclic Graph, with no fees on transactions & no fixed limit on how many transactions can be confirmed per second in the network. Instead, throughput grows in conjunction with activity in the network; the more activity, the faster the network. Unlike blockchain architecture, IOTA has no separation between users and validators; rather, validation is an intrinsic property of using the ledger, thus avoiding centralization. IOTA is initially focused on serving as the backbone of the emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT).

Cardano - Designed and developed by IOHK in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, the University of Athens and the University of Connecticut, Cardano SL (or Cardano Settlement Layer) is a Proof of Stake cryptocurrency based on the Haskell implementation of the white paper “Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof of Stake Blockchain Protocol” by Aggelos Kiayias, Alexander Russell, Bernardo David and Roman Oliynykov.

Other Interesting Coins

The following are various other coins that have caught my attention, that I believe has value for varying reasons...

Steem - I first discovered Steem while I was searching for coins placing an emphasis on social media in some fashion.  Of the onces I reviewed, Steem is leading the way in how they've approached things.  They've launched their own social platform, Steemit, as a proof of concept, which rewards contributors for sharing content on the website.  Simply from a social media platform perspective, Steemit is lacking in a lot of ways, but once you incorporate the payment structure, it starts to show some real potential.  What I'm most curious to find out is what the end goal is for Steem... Is to to develop Steemit into a leading social platform or is it to implement their payment/reward system into other leading social platforms (wikipedia would be a great one!).

"Steem.it is a blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards by posting relevant content, curating quality content by upvoting and by holding Steem based currencies in a vest fund, which generates interest.

There are three main currencies in Steemit: Steem, Steem Power (SP) and Steem Backed Dollars (SBD).

Steem is liquid and can be bought in an exchange and converted into steem dollars or steem power.

Steem Power is basically Steem that is locked in a vesting fund for 3 months. Users can use steem power to upvote content and get curating rewards.

When a user upvotes content his steem power gets depleted and then slowly regenerated. Steem Power holders recieve interest from their holdings. The more Steem Power a voter has the more revenue he'll generate for himself (in form of SP) and for the content creator (In SBD).

There is also an incentive to upvote content early, as the rewards are distributed according to time. The earliest votes gets the biggest share of the reward.

Steem Backed Dollars are there to protect content creators from volatitlity and can be traded for roughly 1 usd worth of steem, in order to cash out from steem. Converting Steem backed dollars into STEEM takes 5 days. Users also recieve interest from holding SBD. T

Steem is a proof of work currency with a scheduled blocktime of 3 seconds. Steem PoW mining is done in rounds of 63 seconds by 21 miners (witnesses). 19 of the miners are pre voted, one is the other with the most computational power, and the last one is selected from a queue of witnesses that did not get on the top 19 voted witnesses.

90% of the block reward is allocated to a vest fund to reward curators and PoW miners, the other 10% are made liquid in the form of steem and are used to reward content creators. Steem gets converted to Steem Backed Dollars and sent to the content creator."

EOS - EOS was created by Dan Larimer who is also the founder/developer of Steem.  He knows his stuff, and is in the process of launching the EOS platform as what appears to be a rival to Ethereum, using 'smart contracts". I'm intrigued to follow their progress.

"EOS tokens are ERC-20 compatible tokens distributed on the Ethereum blockchain pursuant to a related ERC-20 smart contract (the “EOS Tokens”).

The founders tokens represent 10% of the aggregate EOS Token and are currently held in Smart Contracts.

The ICO is divided into two phases, period 1 offers 20% of total supply and period 2 offers 70% to investors, Phase 2 is split into 350 consecutive 23 hours periods, selling 2 mln EOS tokens each period.. 10% is held by the team in smart contracts."

Monero - I like Monero for it's focus on security and anonymity, which is very similar to the initial focus of Bitcoin.  Although this tends to attract some shady applications, anonymity is a big part of the crypto space, and Monero is at the forefront of that journey.  They have some interested developments on the horizon to further enhance their solution.

"Monero (XMR) is a cryptonight algorithm based alternative crypto currency. The coin is based on Proof of Work and has a block reward that varies smoothly. The difficulty retargets every block with a sixty second block target.

Monero uses a Ring Signature system to protect your privacy, allowing users to make untraceable transactions."

NEO - "NEO is a platform in which users can issue and trade assets. NEO has been rebranded from the original 'Antshares'. NEO tokenizes proofs of ownership of an asset and not the asset itself, thus taking into account all of the legal complications and obligations that may come with the transfer of shares, equity and assets.

NEO represent an ownership of the NEO platform and allows users to buy NEO (ANC) and to vote on protocol changes on the NEO blockchain. ANS are 100% premined and issued on the NEO's genesis block."

Concluding Thoughts

This, in a nutshell, encapsulates my 10 favorite cryptocurrencies.  I think the year ahead will be an exciting one as many of these coins will further establish their technology as well as the proof of concept with industry trials.  I look forward to continuing to  review new and exciting coins as I'm introduced to them and would love to hear about your favorite coins.

Thanks for stopping by.

Weiss Ratings Cryptocurrency Report

Weiss Ratings, an independent rating agency of financial institutions, today released grades for many of the top cryptocurrencies on the market.  They claim their ratings are based on several factors including price risk/reward, blockchain technology, security and real world applications and potential.

This was a highly anticipated report as it's the first of it's kind for the crypto industry.  After some alleged website hacks, and confusion Weiss eventually released the report and at first glance, I have to question the legitimacy of their analysis. It seems to me they've misjudged several of these currencies.  An example of this is Dogecoin... They gave Dogecoin a 'C' rating which suggests a 'hold' position. Doge was created as a joke coin, and is a platform that hasn't been worked on in 2 years. The founder of Doge was interviewed recently and expressed his shock at the raise of the Doge coin; so for it to get a 'C' grade, makes me question their ability to review the market properly.  My concerns continued as I read through the report.  Here's a look at their ratings, with the top two coins getting 'B' grades (Ethereum and EOS).

'B' Grades
Ethereum (ETH)
EOS (EOS)

'B-' Grades
Cardano (ADA)
NEO (NEO)
Steem (STEEM)

'C+' Grades
Ark (ARK)
Bitcoin (BTC)
Byteball Bytes (GBYTE)
Dash (DASH)
Decred (DCR)
I/O Coin (IOC)
Litecoin (LTC)
NEM (XEM)

'C' Grades
Aeon (AEON)
Asch (XAS)
Blackcoin (BLK)
Blocknet (BLOCK)
Burst (BURST)
Bytecoin (BCN)
Counterparty (XCP)
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Kommodo (KMD)
Lisk (LSK)
Monero (XMR)
NAV Coin (NAV)
Nebilo (NEBL)
Nexus (NXS)
Peercoin (PPC)
PIVX (PIVX)
Qtum (QTUM)
RaiBlocks (XRB)
Ripple (XRP)
Shift (SHIFT)
SmartCash (SMART)
Stellar (XLM)
Stratis (STRAT)
Verge (XVG)
Vertcoin (VIA)
Waves (WAVES)
XTRABYTES (XBY)
ZCoin (XZC)

Although I do believe in the potential of their top two coins, I wouldn't put a lot of weight on their rating system.  Regardless, it was interesting to see this type of review, and I expect more reports will surface throughout the year ahead.

I threw up a quick poll on Twitter to get a general impression of what the twitterverse thought about the Weiss Report - Valuable or Garbage. After only a few minutes and 200+ votes, the results seem overwhelmingly one sided 72% Garbage, 28% Valuable.  Let me know your thoughts and opions in the comment section below!