2018, an evolutionary year forblockchain technology, has seen thegrowth of next generation
blockchain projects all trying to solve is-sues of mass adoption surrounding us-ability, scalability and security. Projectsfocussed on mass adoption and ease ofuse are high on the agenda of developersand investors alike.Coinweb founded in 2017 is building forblockchain’s mass adoption. Their Layer2 interoperability project boasts a Hyper-layer that sits above route chains(blockchains), seamlessly connectingthem. The Coinweb platform supports de-centralised apps (DApps) and allows de-velopers the opportunity to buildsolutions that pick and choose the func-tionality of the underlying blockchains.Developers can now build across chains ina horizontal capacity, allowing them to se-lect desired functionalities of underlyingnetworks, thereby mitigating the risk ofbeing confined to one chain network thatmay have scaling or capacity issues, aswell as running the more risk of becomingneglected.The team are committed to making theblockchain more personal by building thenamespace for the blockchains to do
what the DNS did for the internet. Thisproject is spearheaded by the inventor ofthe Domain Name System (DNS), PaulMockapetris.In parallel, they will be releasing a multi-currency wallet and DEX, as well as en-abling users to issue their own brandedtokens and smart contracts. The ecosystemmakes use of their native token, the XCO.Coinweb goes a long way to future-proofing solutions built on their platform,Toby Gilbert CEO commented,Other projects in this space are theoret-ically strong and have experienced devel-opers but not everyone has experience inshipping product to mass market. Ourteam is a blend of blockchain developers
participants to build on our platform, inturn their users will make use of our tech-nology. We’ve already signed up six proj-ects with combined balance sheets of over$1B and tens of millions of existing usersthat will make use of blockchain and ourproducts.
The Coinweb private presale has recentlyopened and more info on Coinweb can befound at coinweb.io
26 TUESDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2018FEATURE CITYAM.COM 27TUESDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2018 FEATURECITYAM.COM
the biometric capabilities at our fin-gertips via mobile devices, or can bebuilt into simple-to-use security keysthat prevent phishing and accounttakeover. We’re even seeing supportfor FIDO in wearables, such as the re-cently updated Motiiv ring, All ofthese approaches provide a com-pelling proposition for banks andother financial services firms, due totheir potential to greatly enhance se-
Having already attended Dr Abdalla Kablan’simpressive Delta Summit, I was keen to seehow the Malta Blockchain Summit would
compare and live up to the hype. Staged by EmanPulis of SIGMA fame, it did and I saw most of the UK’sBlockchain and Crypto companies being representedeither as visitors or exhibitors. The 8,500 confirmed attendees,the equivalent of circa 2% of the island nation population,made it a phenomenal endorsement of Prime Minister JosephMuscat’s vision of Malta becoming the Blockchain Island. In factdiscussing the event with Wesley Ellul aka Mister Malta weagreed that Blockchain has found its home in Malta. Notable attendees were Charles Hoskinson of Cardano and
IOHK, John McAfee, the Winklevoss Twins of Gemini and ScottStornetta who along with Stuart Haber co-invented Blockchain,which Satoshi Nakamoto then used as the basis for technologyunpinning Bitcoin. The presence of Dr Ben Goertzel, CEO atSingularityNET who brought with him Sophia, the AI robot,coincided with Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Schembrilaunching Malta.ai, the Maltese Government’s vision onArtificial Intelligence. “After successfully positioning Malta asThe Blockchain Island by being the first in the world to regulateDLT products and services, we now would like to position Maltaamongst the top 10 countries in the world with an ArtificialIntelligence Policy”, said Schembri. I have invited Dr Goertzel towrite a thought leader piece and hope to share that in thecoming weeks.Edan Yago, founder of CementDAO -a clearing house and
rating agency for fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies through asystem of decentralized governance - has been tracking theexplosion of the [stablecoion] ecosystem, identifying over 120projects to date. Tether, the stablecoin behemoth with a marketcap of 1.8B, has been losing market share to new competitiorsdue to rumors about their lack of collateral.Competition between stablecoins will be healthy for the
cryptocurrency market if standards for customer protection areestablished. In that spirit, CementDAO sponsored an event thispast October 25th at The Reform Club, gathering 25 stablecoinorganizations from 16 countries to form a collective network ofissuers, investors, exchanges, service providers and legalexperts to work together and accelerate their mainstreamadoption going forward.With the number of asset backed stablecoins and DLT solutions
being examined, it is worth mentioning that Team Blockchainare hosting their November Meetup at Grant Thornton’s FinsburySquare offices on the 14th November. Peter Walker, an AssetManager from Link Asset Services will be speaking about bondsand equity linked notes issued using the Nivaura platform.
curity while also improving the user’sauthentication experience - which insum will only boost brand affinity.When using a FIDO-enabled device,in practice, a user swipes a finger,speaks a phrase, looks at a camera ona device, or touches the button on ahardware authenticator to login, payfor an item, or use another onlineservice. The device-based verificationis used as an initial factor to then un-
lock a second, more secure factor: aprivate cryptographic key that works“behind the scenes” to authenticate auser to the service. Since biometricsand cryptographic keys are stored onlocal devices and never sent across thenetwork – eliminating shared secrets– user credentials are secure even ifservice providers get hacked, therebypreventing scalable data breaches.We’re already seeing traction at agovernment level – the UK Govern-ment is incorporating emerging in-dustry standards such as FIDO in itsfuture plans to replace passwords ascited in its National CybersecurityStrategy. Likewise, we’ve seen growinggovernment embrace of the FIDO ap-proach in other countries around theglobe - including strong endorse-ments and/or supporting regulationsin the Netherlands, the United State,Korea, Hong Kong and more.We’re also making an impact in thefinancial services industry. For exam-ple, the FIDO approach meets the Eu-ropean Banking Authority’s PSD2requirements while also meeting or-ganisational and consumer demandfor transaction convenience by provid-ing two-factor authentication in a sin-gle biometric device (providing bothpossession and inherence authentica-tion factors). Indeed, around the world,regulations are emerging in line withthe growing trend towards open bank-ing. PSD2 is being closely watched byother markets as open banking gainsmomentum, and while it attracts con-cerns regarding the implications foruser privacy and security.Still, there is much to be done.Here’s to hoping that the Internet’s50th birthday will see meaningfuladoption of modern strong authenti-cation just now becoming ratifiedweb standards, leading to strongermethods of protection in today’s con-nected world.
By Andrew Shikiar, Chief MarketingOfficer of the FIDO Alliance, a not-for-profit industry consortium driving openspecifications and an interoperableecosystem for simpler, strongerauthentication
Monday 29th October markedthe 49-year anniversary ofthe first ever internet trans-mission. As we head intothe Internet’s 50th year, the
problem of authentication has risento the forefront of discussions aboutthe state of the internet. With ubiqui-tous internet-based services like socialmedia, mobile commerce, and in-creasingly, smart homes and con-nected cars, many are realising thecurrent methods available for protect-ing the world’s data and the online in-frastructure powering our daily livesare long past being adequate to de-fend against today’s sophisticated ad-versaries. Breaches can often be tracedback to a single compromised creden-tial; most commonly, a password.Passwords have become synony-mous with “login.” Each day, humansspend 1,300 years collectively enteringpasswords. Yet they have also become
a key weakness of the connectedworld, with over 2.3 billion passwordsstolen this past year. The expansion ofinternet-enabled services has arguablyrun ahead of our ability to adequatelysecure them, and recent security inci-dents prove that our infrastructure foris lagging behind.There is good news, however - we arecurrently seeing major organisationsacross the globe coming together inthe FIDO Alliance to drive standardsthat enable the replacement of weak
password-based authentication withstronger approaches that leverage on-device biometrics and/or external se-curity keys where authenticationcredentials are stored securely andthat have added measures to preventphishing and account takeovers. TheFIDO Alliance is a global public-privateconsortium of leading technology,payments and consumer serviceproviders that are collaborating to
solve the world's password problemthrough open technical standards forinteroperable cryptographic authenti-cation; these standards are being rap-idly adopted acrossinternet-connected devices, websitesand applications.New and improved methods of au-thentication based on FIDO Alliancestandards are coming to market everyday. FIDO authentication can leverage
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Crypto A.M. shines itsspotlight on Coinweb
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Letmetake you back 20 years to 1998and the days when modems sang tous. In most of the boardrooms around
the land those even considering thematter where trying to figure out whatuse this web thing might be to them, asanother smart tech salesperson packedaway their gear hopeful of a deal. Otherswere looking for the 'killer app'.Understandable back then.We know better now - and that all thismissed the point. Which is why most ofthose firms no longer exist. We knowthat the business environment wasabout to change radically and the choicewas not, in fact, to buy- in or not, but toadapt and survive, or not.The UK Cryptoassets Taskforce Reportjust published says "Government has setout an ambition for the UK to be theworld’s most innovative economy, and tomaintain its position as one of theleading financial centres globally.Great - but pretty much downhill fromthere. With the feeling that we’re back inone of those late 90’s boardrooms withthe coming tidal wave just visible in thedistance through the panoramicwindows.Back then few could see howcompletely our environment wouldchange. Fewer still how fast and howcompletely it would happen.Now we know how that goes – or at
least we should. That what is changing isnot incremental but revolutionary. Nottools or toys, but our entire environment.This time it’s faster. Much much faster.Which is why it matters so much thatthe UK’s flagship report which, as onecommentator says has “the hallmarks ofan early stage analysis” strikes such adefensive tone.This “relies on, the UK maintaining itsinternational reputation as a safe andtransparent place to do business infinancial services; ensuring highregulatory standards” (and ‘allowing’selected innovations).Of course it does but is this a vision for anation set to lead the world? No – it’s‘business as usual’. Led by regulation notinnovation.Worse still with the FCA closing in oninnovators and their ventures, pre-emptively freezing and closing their bankaccounts the earlier revolution ininnovation – of which the governmentare rightly proud, saying: “the InnovationHub and Regulatory Sandbox ...both ofwhich are held up as global examples ofbest practice” is in danger.It seems if we are to survive, let alonethrive, we may need to lead another kindof taskforce. Perhaps more like this one:www.World1stTaskforce.org?
Email [email protected] ques-tions or listen to the latest at ICOrad.io
TOKEN INTELLIGENCEThe Cryptoassets Taskforce Reports - Missing the Point
Toby Gilbert, CEO Coinweb
The problem ofauthentication has
risen to theforefront of
discussions aboutthe state of the
internet
Modern crypto projects face a series ofobstacles ranging from plainoperational issues to core conceptual
principles by which the currency should bemade. The most obvious and practical wayof creating a digital currency is by getting tothe root of the conventional currencies andconnecting this virtual entity to real andvaluable goods, like precious metal.One option is to adopt a commodity-
based currency whereby the currency incirculation is the commodity itself, take goldfor example. The key benefit being thecredibility of the currency backed by theintrinsic value of the commodity, there is noneed to trust the governing body that goldor silver will hold their value. The recent example of the Turkish lira
highlights just this. After a quarrel over tariffswith the US, the lira plunged more than25%, entering a downward spiral whenindividuals possessing the currency begangetting rid of their holdings.The main message to take away from this:
governments can’t stop printing money,because they spend more than they earn bycollecting taxes. To raise money, they issuegovernment bonds, and pay a fixed interestto all debt holders. To pay off the interest,they print more money, thereby increasinginflation. Ultimately what this means is themonetary system of today is entirely debt-based.The question then arises of how can we
create a healthy economy that pays ahealthy interest back to its holders based on
the velocity of money rather than theperformance of debt. When a system sharesits wealth in a fair and honest way, we cannow start to drive positive growth andevolve beyond a central control.This is the potential for cryptocurrency.Everyone who wants to secure
themselves against the debt bubble seeksassets that are backed by something real, orat least not dependent on someone else’sdebt. It’s very unpleasant for anyone to lose25% of his/her savings over 10 years, evenwith a small 2% yearly inflation rate. So, the real question becomes: how do we
break free of this vicious cycle?Perhaps the solutions are already here
with the evolution of the stable coin, backedby precious metals.
Jai Bifulco, CMO of Kinesis, blockchainand cryptocurrency expert
CURRENCY VS MONEY - THE CHOICEYOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD
While outsiders’ interest incryptocurrencies is often limitedto their volatile prices, industry
leaders will be debating a much wideragenda, including everyday uses ofcrypto, at a three-day conference inLondon at the end of November. Ticketscan be bought with discount code“cityam20” on Eventbrite The CoinGeek Week Conference will
feature entrepreneurs who already acceptBitcoin Cash (BCH) in retailing. Among thespeakers is Elizabeth White, whose NewYork business sells everything from artand jewellery to Lamborghinis -legendary symbols of success in thecrypto world – all for crypto, includingBitcoin Cash.If you can’t afford the luxuries offered by
The White Company, you can try crypto ata more modest level by buying a beer.Martin Dempster of Brewdog will beexplaining why the brewery and pubchain business now accepts Bitcoin Cashat its new Canary Wharf bar.
Alongside retailers, the conference daydevoted to developers looks set to provethat there’s an idealistic side to the cryptovision. Michael Hudson of Bitstocksdescribes his London business as an“ethical investment brand”, which “seeksto give disadvantaged people and smallenterprises better access to the financialsystem” - whilst also making money for itsclients. Leading speakers from the world of
crypto will include Dr Craig Wright, chiefscientist of the London-based blockchainresearch business, nChain, Roger Ver, CEOof Bitcoin.com and Ryan X. Charles, co-founder of Yours.org, a social networkthat pays Bitcoin Cash to the creators ofpopular content. The final day of the conference looks to
the future, and to the formation of thenew bComm (for ‘Bitcoin commerce’)Association, which will allow theconversation to continue betweenmerchants, developers, crypto minersand crypto exchanges.
CoinGeek brings the world of crypto together in London
and experienced consumer technologists.Our CTO, Mike Conte was responsible forExcel, Shopping, Windows and Entertain-ment at Microsoft, our Chief Tech Archi-tect, Alexander Kjeldaas led Google+ andGoogle Hangout dev teams and con-tributed to patching the Bitcoin core,whilst Strategy Director Paul Davis wroteWord for Mac and was Microsoft’s firstWindows evangelist. Our team has builtproducts used by hundreds of millions of
people everyday. Our distribution strategy is a deliberatemix of strategic partnerships, communityand industry support, layered with an in-house 360Accelerator overseen by TomYoritake, founder and MD of Cisco Sys-tems Incubator. The 360Accelerator fo-cuses on helping established businessesand projects with an existing user-basethat are looking to integrate blockchaintechnology. By helping 360Accelerator
Revolutionising micropaymentssatoshipay.io/cityam
COINGEEK.COM LONDON 2018AS THE INTERNETAPPROACHES 50YEARS OF LIFEAUTHENTICATIONNEEDS TO EVOLVE
