Topic: [ANN][NOTE]DNotes - Celebrating DNotes 3rd Birthday - Forum Now Open - page 137. (Read 814539 times)

In my opinion, the State of Bitcoin is okay. No major surprises. It certainly has not been doing as well as we all would have wished. Again, nothing new to me, but it is a sad fact that VC funding for pure currency play has been drying up.

The typical “me too” phenomena continues. The key word is now “Blockchain technology.”  No doubt, the emerging Blockchain/FinTech industries will be massive and a few will do very well. DNotes will be a major player but we are taking our time to ensure that developing a viable business model with the right strategy is as vital as the technology itself. 


5 Facts from the Q3 2015 State of Bitcoin Report

Grace Caffyn (@GCaffyn) | Published on October 20, 2015 at 16:56 BST

Last week saw the release of CoinDesk's latest State of Bitcoin report, which gives a quarterly snapshot of the digital currency ecosystem.

Q3 was marked by a shift towards bitcoin technology's use in non-financial applications, for example settlement. Both startups – with products like itBit's bankchain – and large financial institutions – who are now investing in blockchain companies – drove this rhetoric.

Here, we've collected a few interesting tidbits you might have missed from the report – which weighs in at 87 slides.

You can view the report in full or check out CoinDesk's previous State of Bitcoin reports.

1. Trading and volatility are back up
Last quarter, bitcoin experienced an uncharacteristic period of calm, with a peak-to-trough percentage of 20%. This zen didn't last, however, as Q3 saw this figure rise by 13% (Side 12).

While it's still on the lower end of the volatility spectrum (Q2 2014 recorded a peak-to-trough percentage of 84%), the quarter did see a boost in trading (Slide 13).

In the latter part of Q2, monthly trading volume had been between 5 and 6 million bitcoins. In August, it exceeded 10 million bitcoins – the first time since April.

2. But investment is down

While traders were putting more cash on the line in Q3, investor interest actually fell.
VC investment in bitcoin companies dropped 41% from $145m to $85m – the lowest total of the last four quarters (Slide 30).

Despite large rounds from Chain ($30m) and BitFury ($20m), the average deal size also fell from $10m in Q2 to $6m in Q3.

This could be a seasonal slump, following a larger VC trend that slowed 5% in Q3.
However, the 2015 year to date total ($462m) is more than double that for 2014 (Slide 26), while the total invested in bitcoin startups ($921m) nears the billion dollar mark (Slide 27).

3. Despite the hype, no $ for emerging markets

Though emerging markets have been touted as the most likely places bitcoin could succeed, they have been the biggest losers VC-wise.

The Bitcoin Market Potential Index (BMPI), which tracks factors such as technology penetration and financial repression (Slide 54), ranks Argentina, Venezuela and Zimbabwe in the top spots.

In fact, 40% of markets in the BMPI's top 10 are in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 20% are in Latin America.
However, the State of Bitcoin shows there was no VC investment in African, Latin American or Middle Eastern startups in Q3 or Q2 (Slide 32).

It's no surprise that the US and Canada come top for VC investment, receiving 75% of all money in Q3 – nearly triple the rest of the world combined.

In addition, North America and Europe (which comes second in Q3's VC funding) are the destinations with the most bitcoin-accepting businesses (Slide 53).

4. Merchant interest slumps, again

While transactions (Slide 44) and wallet numbers (Slide 45) continue to rise, they don't paint the whole picture.

The two biggest merchant processors, BitPay and Coinbase, saw growth among new merchants halve in Q2 (Slide 48).

It appears last quarter's boost of 12,000 merchants may have been an anomaly, with numbers now plateauing at 6,000 per quarter – the same for Q1 and Q2.

BitPay announced it would cut staff in an effort to "reduce costs" and "better align with the pace of growth" in the industry (Slide 47). It is no longer offering its free tiered product.

Revenues are slowing too, at $190bn they are only up $2bn from June 2015, Q2. Companies, such as Expedia (Slide 49), say purchases taper off after time.

Those who appear to be holding fast during the slump are best geared to bitcoin's Millenial demographic.

5. New York's Bitlicense divided opinion

Q3 also saw the official deadline for bitcoin companies applying for New York's Bitlicense, in order to serve customers in the state.

The regulations, which had been on the boil since 2013, proved divisive for the community.
By today's count, some 22 companies applied for the license – with Circle the first to get it – while 15 others ceased operations in the state.

Many who left cited the large legal costs involved, $100,000 by Bitstamp's estimates, while others framed their withdrawal as a political statement, a backlash against what they termed 'overly invasive' guidelines.


Source:  http://www.coindesk.com/5-facts-from-the-q3-2015-state-of-bitcoin-report/

Good ideas, I will create an outline this weekend and see if one of our writers can work on it for next week's publishing.

For the miners out there, you can get a rough idea of exactly how quickly the technology will be moving by looking at the attached chart from ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors). I found this doing some research on today's DCEBrief article.

The latest semiconductor technologies seem to be a couple years ahead (2-3 years roughly) of actual release of new mining equipment.

At this predicted rate of progress, it will continue to be a struggle for small scale miners to keep up. The ROI potential will rely heavily on appreciation.

DNotes focus on steady and reliable appreciation would make it the ideal target for small scale mining operations.

However, this is just my assessment of the history, data, and predictions presented.

http://www.itrs.net/ITRS%201999-2014%20Mtgs,%20Presentations%20&%20Links/2013ITRS/2013TableSummaries/2013ORTC_SummaryTable.pdf

PS You can find a little more information by following Intel's roadmap and predicted silicone alternatives, which I decided not to go too far down that path today.
http://wccftech.com/intel-abandoning-silicon-7nm/

All it takes is one leader to blaze the way forward and then all will follow.

Yes, Chase, sometimes Canada leads the way and USA follows once they realize their mistake. Hopefully the winning party will come around and reap the benefits of cryptocurrency. Someone has to lead the way and once that dam is broken, all will follow. Guaranteed. We live in a sheepish world no less.

Same here, many politicians may not understand the impact of crypto's in a meaningful way. My recommendation would be to treat it sort of like an executive summary about crypto specifically for politicians.

That is a great idea for a story, made even better with the additional links.  There seems to be a lot of government officials that have not even heard of digital currency or the blockchain.  It will be so much easier to educate correctly right from the start if the person has no previous misconceptions that need to be 'undone' before the real learning can begin.

Good, looks like China is heading in the right direction. They are an important market for digital currency.

This is good news for digital currency.

With China accounting for 80% of the global bitcoin trading volume, it was only a matter of time before the country’s own authorities paid heed to the cryptocurrency.China flag

In a recent publication on October 13, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has, in no uncertain terms, claimed that we have entered the “post-Bitcoin era,” and “Can no longer ignore its revolutionary changes” despite people thinking bitcoin and block chain technology is or was not stable.

The publication began with the CAC taking note of the deeming of bitcoin as a commodity by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It also added that although the recommendation of third-party bitcoin transfers be included in banking regulations remains a proposal at this stage, such an endeavor “will promote economic regulation of electronic money.”

The CAC also believes in the promise and potential of bitcoin’s underlying technology – block chain. The translated text reads:

“Block chain provides a decentralized [technology] for various industries [such as] finance, including [a way] to establish information verification.”

The authority points to Europe which is currently seeing an increased investment and interest from banks and financial institutions towards block chain and cryptocurrency.

“Recently more and more attention to the technology of traditional financial sector,” the publication adds. “For example, according to the European Banking Association (EBA) in the latest report, the block chain technology with lower costs, improve product supply and improve the speed potential.”

I haven't been able to find anything on what their views are on cryptocurrency, so they may be good candidates for an accurate education on it. 
Sounds like a great idea.
What do you think of having an article on DCEBrief that specifically highlight's why government officials should be interested in digital currency. Then having links to some of our more important topics.

Chase, I have long ago decided to just reserve my rights to complain, as opposed to using any of it, whether I voted or not. I am happy to be a part of DNotes, where I believe that we can truly be heard with the ability to make a difference. That is why I am so passionate about DNotes. May be together we can help fill the "void" of unintended consequences our political leaders have created, in Canada, US, and the rest of the world.

I'm not sure at what point in time voting became synonymous with the right to complain??    Perhaps we no longer passionately believe in what a certain party is doing, and only vote for them because they will do the least amount of damage compared to the alternatives.

The Liberal party won yesterday with an unexpected majority government, so the people of Canada obviously were wanting a change.  I haven't been able to find anything on what their views are on cryptocurrency, so they may be good candidates for an accurate education on it. 

Good morning! To save some time, I thought it might be interesting for me to share with you one of my emails with my reply. On average, I am still getting about 50 emails a day. I respond to majority of them, though most of them just get a canned response.

**********************************************

Dear Harry,

Thank you very much for your kind words. It is rewarding to know that more and more people around the world are beginning to take notice that DNotes is being built as the trusted global digital currency for the citizens of the world. This is a huge undertaking, started with limited personal resources but blessed with very strong community support. It is quite amazing what we have accomplished, in a fairly short period of time.

By strategic choice, we have limited our projects to self-funding up to this point. We wanted to plan and execute under the radar, for the most part, so that we can build a solid foundation based on our vision. We have accomplished that.

Our next phase will determine the scope and speed as to how soon we can expand to include professional help like (-----).  We are planning to raise various rounds of funding beginning sometime next year, including the incorporation of a for profit company to take over our ecosystem.

Harry, you are welcome to keep in touch or suggest any ideas you may have, as to how we can collaborate, given the understanding of our limited resources. We do have a PR firm; low budget and paid mostly in DNotes and some Bitcoin. We have a strong team of DNotes supporters with excellent skill-sets in various areas. I normally contribute over ten hours of my time daily. As you may know, DNotes is not owned by a group of individuals or an entity. It is owned by all of its stakeholders.

Our mission is to build DNotes as the choice and option for anyone worldwide to compliment their national or fiat currency as a medium of exchange or as a store of value. We believe that it is a worthy mission in the mist of constant political turmoil and financial crises worldwide.

Best Regards,

Alan




       Today – 10-20-15

"Hi Alan, it is a pleasure to connect with you. I have been watching your deeply inspiring work and considerable contribution in the cryptocurrency and fintech industry.

Having said this I would be very interested to see if and how we could find some common avenues of collaboration, potentially utilizing mine and my teams' deep financial and marketing expertise.

Yours,

Harry"

Haha, civic duty huh

I always found it interesting that people would say a combination of the following to me (I don't vote personally):

If you don't vote, then you can't complain because you chose not to have a say.
If you vote, and your team loses, then you can't complain because you took part in the process.
If you vote, and your team wins, then you can't complain because you got what you wanted.

Really interesting common theme there I think that removes critique of the process - sometimes it's the process and not the 'team' that is the problem.

Regardless, let's hope for favourable crypto election result!

Great! Maybe something along the lines of "How a nation would benefit from ideal digital currency regulation".

This is very helpful information and it won't go to waste.  One of the benefits of CryptoMoms, is that we can collect similar topic stories, news, and stats, and when we have an argument to make, everything is at our fingertips.  Bonus!

So, what is it going to be?  "Governments Recognizing the Value of Cryptocurrency", "How To Talk Crypto With a Politican",  "Winning Over The Government", or ...suggestions??

Speaking of government, today is election day in Canada.  I have done my civic duty, and now have the right to complain for four more years.   Hopefully the winning party has the good sense to recognize the enormous potential of this industry.

Quite interesting. I wasn't aware banks had the ability to refuse service for whatever reason they like before reading about this.

I can see where crypto is seen as a threat and would prompt them to take such action. That speaks volumes for the credibility of crypto.

Can at least take a minor positive from this - it means the banking groups view cryptocurrency as as legitimate threat. They spent ample amounts of money on future prediction models. If an entity is going to war before it's rival has even truly entered the market in a sequential move game, then I personally find that very telling about what their internal analysis of crypto yielded.

They're concerned, and with good reason. Not too much longer and DNotes will by synonymous to everybody in the crypto community, and even many outside it, with getting things done and leading the charge.

Always good dropping by here to read the discussions. This forum is a great complementary commentary to DCEBrief.com

Just an FYI, next contest payout will be next weekend.