I had the pleasure to attend some sessions from the Mainnet 2020 event last week. Ryan Selkis`s guitar playing as an alternative signal to wrap up the talk or the panel, was one of my favorites.
Efi Pylarinou is the founder of Efi Pylarinou Advisory and a Fintech/Blockchain influencer – No.3 influencer in the finance sector by Refinitiv Global Social Media 2019.
Messari, looks like a data, news, research business in the cryptocurrency, blockchain space. But what is not evident (yet) to everyone is their vision and how they are executing on it. They are very much focused on Transparency and an open-source approach. Ryan said Messari wants to become the Edgar in the new economy.
EDGAR is the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system used at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Messari Disclosures Registry has been launched already. It is an open source disclosure database that aims to become a central repository for project information, freely accessible.
Messari is API centric because the vision is to become an enabler for different players in the new economy to build tools, analyze and educate through the Messari APIs.
My Ten highlights from 4 hours of attending Mainnet2020
1-One of the top objections to cryptocurrencies – volatility – got taken care of from COVID19.
2- On top of that, in this no-yield macro-environment, another objection got taken care of. And the Irony is that staking is on the rise and we are moving towards POS (proof-of-stake) as a preferred consensus mechanisms. Staking grew 1300% in 1.5 years.
3- Stablecoins may seem at first site just an alternative to digital payments. They are actually much more. Their use case is relevant to advertising and to e-commerce.
Also, if we look 5-10yrs into the future, there will be no fees in digital payments. So, what is the business model of the Transferwise`s of the world? Digital payments will no escape the zero-fee spiral.
5- The digital assets space continues to receive endorsements and oppositions; and this will not change soon. The wealth management division of Goldman Sachs put out a presentation that advised clients to avoid Bitcoin in their portfolio holdings. Cryptocurrencies are not an asset class.
At the same time, Rentech (the hedge fund that continues to be able to charge 4/40) is stepping into Bitcoin futures; coupled with the endorsement of billionaire Paul Jones who publicly stated allocating 1% of his wealth.
6- Ark Invest, the first publicly traded ETF that allocated to Bitcoin early on, is launching a private alternative offering dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Their investment thesis is that a few cryptocurrencies will capture the majority of value.
7- Paxos is a regulated financial institution, unlike other issuers of stablecoins. PAX, is their own USD backed stablecoin that is self-regulated. Paxos wants to be enabler for others to issue stablecoins. Binance has chosen them for their own stablecoin.
8 – The smart contract market is very crowded. The current reality is that blockchain projects are competing for developers and users.
9- The Bitcoin blockchain is being continuously improved to make sure that it remains robust. The philosophy is that is should become a very simple base chain, so that it is very robust. So, that means minimizing what is on chain.
10 – And I have to finish with the reason that Market Capitalization of cryptocurrencies is NOT a reliable measure these days. Several speakers agreed on this and called for more transparency in the block creation process. There is a need to audit the ledger because in many blockchain the block creation is an opaque process.
Notes
EDGAR is the primary system for submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file information with the SEC.
Containing millions of company and individual filings, EDGAR benefits investors, corporations, and the U.S. economy overall by increasing the efficiency, transparency, and fairness of the securities markets. The system processes about 3,000 filings per day, serves up 3,000 terabytes of data to the public annually, and accommodates 40,000 new filers per year on average.
EDGAR® and EDGARLink® are registered trademarks of the SEC.
New readers can see 3 free articles before getting the Daily Fintech paywall. After that you will need to become a member for just US$143 a year (= $0.39 per day) and get all our fresh content and our archives and participate in our forum.
Source: https://dailyfintech.com/2020/06/09/ten-highlights-from-mainnet2020-by-messari/
