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The next 12 to 18 months could be the "make or break" period for blockchain technology and the financial services industry according to analyst Gabriel Wang with Aite Group. Wang has been working closing with blockchain industry experts since 2016 to provide comprehensive research on how blockchain can best serve the financial services industry. Aite Group is an independent research advisory firm that focuses on the global capital market as well as evolving market structures and how to comply with domestic and global regulation. According to Wang, blockchain technology can be applied to traditional centralized operating systems to improve daily operations and increase safety, efficiency and profits. Wang predicts the tremendous amount of research and experiments with emerging technologies will soon result in a shift toward blockchain technology in the financial services industry particularly with the shift towards digitalization on organizations and the vital role that blockchain can play in that transition.
Amidst the unregulated ICO craze that began about a year ago, the now CEO and Chief Token Officer of TokenFunder, Alan Wunsche, was working closely with regulators to develop a fully compliant ICO that would allow retail and accredited investors to fund the creation of the TokenFunder platform. Having received Canada-wide approval, TokenFunder is now accepting investors from all around the world. The TokenFunder ICO is offering investors something that many others don't: rights to the future profits of the platform, voting rights to prioritize which companies come onto the platform, and voting rights to direct the future developments of the platform. "We want to do something that really benefits our token holders and gives them real rights," says Wunsche. The platform is also designed to help companies launch their own regulatory-approved ICOs. Wunsche discusses the importance of assisting startups not only with the technological and security aspects of their ICOs, but also with lifelong governance and guidance of those ICOs. Among other topics, Wunsche discusses the future of TokenFunder and the future of the blockchain industry in general. Check out the details at tokenfunder.com.
Augmented reality and virtual reality are two of the hottest areas in today's marketing world. Companies are scrambling to catch up to find ways to implement these technologies to make their businesses and their products cutting edge and sexy, while at the same time creating an easy and beneficial user experience. Entrepreneur Reekita Shah Alias Gala, is the Founder VRARE, a company offering Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality solutions to businesses looking to add these technologies into their marketing platform. VRARE works with small businesses and start-up companies who are eager to join the altered reality space. VRARE understands that as consumers, whether it is a home, a dress or a piece of furniture, they want to see and touch a product as much as possible, before buying. They are partnering with a variety of companies from real estate agencies, department stores, travel agents, restaurants, you name it – there is no business who is off limits to the benefits reaped from implementing AR/VR technologies into their marketing strategies. For more information, tune in to this podcast. (website not yet available).
YouNow, a live broadcasting service allowing users to their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time, was the first live video mobile app to gain traction in the US with over 40 million users. Yonatan Sela, Chief Business Officer at YouNow, said it was their goal to combine video and blockchain – two of his greatest passions. The founders at YouNow noticed a high level of engagement with users from the start, most spending 45 mins a day or more on the platform. This amount of user action naturally turned into a vast stage for a developing digital economy thus prompting them to launch the first two-sided virtual goods economy. Here users purchase digital goods, using digital non-crypto currency and content creators can earn on the other side. This became the first place where video, gaming and micro transactions for creators enabled massive audience participation. Once blockchain came around, the key point people at YouNow saw the opportunity to take it to the next level. They were already running a large community of content creators and users who were doing business in a digital economy with a digital currency that they had created. With blockchain technology, they were able to create PROPS – a decentralized ecosystem for digital video, with the goal to open up the network for developers to enjoy a shared video library and to have shared data. Additionally, they wanted to replace the game place token with a crypto token, which meant it could be taken across a variety of apps and be controlled by the PROPS network; more of a public utility network for digital media rather than a propriety, tax collecting models, which is the way most digital medias are run today. To learn more, visit: https://www.younow.com/
Shane Brett, CEO of Gecko Governance is quoted as saying "They say 2018 is the year of subpoenas and 2019, well that will be the year of trials." Unfortunately, this could be a reality in the investment crypto space, if companies don't adjust their compliance practices. Perhaps its time we all start paying attention to companies like Gecko Governance. Founded in 2015, Gecko Governance is a self-proclaimed collection of products allowing fund managers, regulators and investors to meet compliance and regulatory tasks on a single blockchain platform. The company also, more recently, has been working on a tool to provides managers and banks with a verifiable, independent audit trail that meets the requirements of global financial regulators. Brett believes 2018 is going to be a year where we will see huge leaps and bounds of regulation in this space and his company wanted to build a solution for management fund regulation and compliance that can be used and interpreted globally. He has noted that particularly in the crypto world, regulators are waking up and cracking down on the compliance framework. Every year millions of dollars are lost to scammers. In July of this year, at the G20 Summit Meeting, it is expected that key country official will be reporting and recommending some sort of global framework for managing the crypto investing space. Gecko Governance, with their arsenal of compliance tools, hopes to fill the gap and aid investors, regulators and fund managers in tightening up their crypto space protocols and reporting. For more information, visit: www.geckogovernance.com
It's difficult to imagine the rise of Bitcoin without Nick Spanos, one of the earliest supports of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Join Spanos as he discusses the past, present, and future of an industry that he helped create and which he refers to as a "monetary revolution." In some ways, cryptocurrency is not about money; but is about individual freedom. In building the world's first trust network, Spanos maintains that his goal was always more about activism than business. Frustrated with the negative media coverage of Bitcoin, Spanos opened Bitcoin Centre NYC on Wall Street next to the New York Stock Exchange which soon became the center of the Bitcoin universe. Today, Spanos admits that the cryptocurrency explosion happened much faster than he ever imagined. He continues to believe in Bitcoin, not only as a way to be financially independent from banks, but also as a way to help make the world better. Spanos is also the CEO and founder of the Zap, which allows real-world data to trigger financial events using blockchain technology.
Qredo is creating a secure payment space for the telecom industry and has developed Qredocoin, a quantum resistant cryptocurrency based on smartphone utilization and hardware. Qredo is creating a multi-sided platform designed to link telecoms around the world. Join Brian Spector, CEO of Qredo, as he discusses Qredocoin and explains the need for architecture to enable cross-border and cross telecom payment flows analogous to the SS7 network that connects all telecoms to deliver SMS messages around the world. Qredo may revolutionize mobile commerce by facilitating safe customer-to-customer payments among telecoms. Qredo also protects user identity attributes and data with rigorous security and regulatory compliant features that include strongly authenticated user identification, private ledgers, and identity-based cryptocurrency protected from quantum attacks.
Longblink is a strategy studio that can help businesses maximize innovation and productivity by encouraging purposeful pauses. In a tech-heavy world, a purposeful pause can provide just the perfect moment for a great idea to come to mind instead of being lost in the media storm of information that people face each day. Join John Militello, a principal and founder of Longblink, as he reminds us that each day is only 24 hours long and no matter how much work you try to accomplish in one day, every one still must eat, sleep and exercise. Taking time to reflect, unplug and unwind is necessary to reach epiphanies. In addition to workshops on how to incorporate purposeful pauses into a business, Longblink creates human centered strategies to help with branding, creative advertising platforms and identifying customers based on observational research to create marketing that promotes loyalty.
Swarm City provides the tools necessary for anyone to create decentralized marketplaces where users can find each other, communicate and exchange value safely. By avoiding third party trust administrators, Swarm City uses blockchain technology to lower administrative fees and build trust with every successful transaction. According to Matthew Carano, Swarm City provides a platform to facilitate the basic human need to collaborate and obtain the best possible outcomes. Blockchain technology eliminates the need for third parties because Swarm City uses a blockchain reputation component that issues non-tangible reputation tokens to users after each successful transaction. The marketplaces are created and owned by users. Users benefit from blockchain transparency that allows users to transact safely with the use of smart contracts. Each smart contract is marketplace specific and helps build communities of like-minded users to benefit economies of scale.
In 2000, innovative payment processing systems were designed to facilitate open-ended subscriptions by allowing for recurring payments to ensure continuous goods or services. Since then, the industry has grown considerably with very little change. As a result, businesses are treated with a "one-size-fits-all" model that has lead to increased problems such as declined credit cards and declined transactions. FinTech provides payment consultation to identify strategies to upgrade payment processing systems. Join Michele Tivey, CEO and co-founder of FinTech as she offers unique insight into the past, present and future of recurring payment processing systems. FinTech focuses on merchants to create customized payment strategies that consider each business's unique operations to increase profits by reducing chargebacks and incomplete transactions. FinTech is also a leader in "payometry" which uses 400 data points to customize transaction logic to ensure the uninterrupted flow of goods and services that is critical to successful subscription products and services.
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