BLOCKCHAIN UK FLYING THE FLAG IN MALTA · explained that a VFA Agent is defined as an entity or...

dertakings for the roots of their misgiv-ings. However, it is easily forgotten thatthere are blockchain projects that sim-ply exist to make the world a betterplace.

DustAid is one such project. The UK-based not-for-profit is focused on bring-ing transparency to the charity sector.By partnering with crypto exchangesthey aim to "sweep up" the dust (smalluntradeable quantities of assets) whichaccumulates and donate it to charity.Whilst at the Summit, DustAid Manag-ing Director Duncan Murray an-nounced a partnership with cryptoexchange getFIFO.

Banking, Finance and Asset Manage-ment Consultant Peter Longworth also

told Crypto A.M. that GBL.World, a fullservice 16 week incubator - providing of-fice space, tech resource and mentoringfor early stage projects, launched insoft-mode at the Summit, acceptingnew applications for its service.

Walking the halls of the Summit,there was an almost palpable collectivesense of pride, seasoned with quiet dis-belief at how far the industry has pro-gressed since the blockchain circus lastsailed up to these shores. Whatever theprevailing sentiment next time around,it’s clear on the evidence of this pastweek that the UK will have a sizeableimpact in shaping blockchain’s future.

Carl Gunaratnam, Red Quokka Crypto, inconversation with James Bowater.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: THE VIEWSAND OPINIONS PROVIDED BY CITY A.M.'SCRYPTO INSIDER AND IN THE CRYPTO A.M.SECTION SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN ASINVESTMENT OR FINANCIAL ADVICE.ALWAYS CONSULT WITH YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR.

During the past 12 months in the lifeof our fledgling firm Pynk, we’vebeen on a rollercoaster ride of

emotional highs and crushing lows. Whilstthis is not uncommon in the life of start-up founders, at Pynk, any trough in ourfortunes are an intense learningexperience that we use to propel thecompany to greater heights.Last week we won our first award; out of

350 start-ups we took the prize at theMalta AI and Blockchain Summit’s AIPitch Battle. It’s the first of many we hope,as the invites are starting to fill ourinboxes. Whilst it feels wonderful to winawards like this, it is in fact testament tothe team and our burgeoning communitythat’s been nurtured since our inception.It is this that has helped us become agrowing player in the fintech arena.

SO WHAT SETS PYNK APART?The problem with digital asset or stockmarket investment is that it is very easy tolose money. It also consumes a hugeamount of time, especially for beginners.So the obvious solution would be to

invest in a high returning fund, but sadlythis is not an option for most people asthey are deemed too poor or notsophisticated enough to be eligible. Thisis Financial discrimination and we don’tbelieve this is right.We are open to all. We are unique in

combining the Wisdom of the Crowd (ourcommunity’s predictions & research) withproprietary AI tech known as ‘Rose’ andin-house expert analysis. So, it’s irrelevantwhether our investors are rich or poor, orwhere they come from or even theirbeliefs we have way to provide access. Either by providing their time to help us

predict market movements and beingpart of the crowd or through directinvestment to benefit from the crowdswisdom in picking assets to invest in.There are hundreds of investment funds

and a handful of crowd wisdomprediction systems out there, Pynkhowever is the only one that combinesthese technologies and provides access ina compliant regulated manner.Over the past 8 months our crowd has

been correctly predicting market moves

24 TUESDAY 28 MAY 2019FEATURE CITYAM.COM 25TUESDAY 28 MAY 2019 FEATURECITYAM.COM

Indeed three crypto-friendly bills werelaunched during the last Summit in No-vember 2018. This year the Maltese gov-ernment is set to enact a fourth bill –the first of its kind in the world – thatwill give Decentralised Autonomous Or-ganisations (DAOs) their own legal per-sonality.

Regular readers of Crypto A.M. will nodoubt be familiar with Pigzbe. The UKstart-up is creating the piggy bank forthe digital age using their familyfriendly cryptocurrency Wollo, and de-veloping a fun and interactive learningenvironment where children can learngood financial habits.

Simon Martin, Pigzbe’s Head of Com-

With the Bank Holiday interruptingprinting schedules, today’s columnwas written on Thursday, 24th May

as Theresa May announced her resignationand departure date. Consequently publishedmarket prices are as at the time of writing andmight well have changed considerably. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at US$8,032.18; Ethereum (ETH) at

US$252.86; Ripple (XRP) at US$0.3933; Binance (BNB) at US$34.09and Cardano (ADA) at US$0.08291. Overall Market Cap is atUS$250.18bn (data source: www.CryptoCompare.comGreetings from Malta where I am attending the Malta AI +

Blockchain Spring Summit 2019 organised by my friend Eman Puliswho explained what a success it has been with around 5,500delegates attending. Certainly the UK was very well representedflying the flag in Malta and, new to the Crypto AM Writers Pool, CarlGunaratnam has documented this in today’s Main Feature (see right).Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, as has become customary,

delivered his 10am first day keynote speech and significantlyannounced that the first ten VFA Agent (“Virtual Financial AssetsAgent”) licences had been granted.I had the chance to sit with Anton Dalli, Director of Blockchain

Advisory (www.bca.com.mt) who were granted the first licence. Heexplained that a VFA Agent is defined as an entity or individualpossessing the adequate skills to act as a gatekeeper, responsiblefor the protection of the public interest. To ensure that a high level oflegal certainty is attained, and fundamental concepts such asconsumer protection and market integrity are upheld, the VFA Agentis the Malta Financial Services Authority (‘MFSA’)’s main point ofliaison, and is expected to have its client’s due diligencedocumentation in place, whilst keeping abreast with the relevantanti-money laundering law and regulations. For those wanting tolocate their businesses in Malta this a very welcome step towardsstreamlining the process of regulatory compliance.Looking across the pond to the US, two major announcements

were made that will accelerate the mass retail adoption process. On23rd May AT&T revealed that it will now accept online bill paymentsthrough BitPay (https://bitpay.com), a respected cryptocurrencypayment processor. This means AT&T is the first major US mobilecarrier to provide a cryptocurrency payment option to customers.Hot on its heels Facebook, as reported by the BBC News, has

confirmed that it is finalising plans to launch its own cryptocurrency,internally referred to as GlobalCoin, next year with testing tocommence Q4 this year. Having already spoken to Bank of Englandgovernor Mark Carney and seeking advice on operational andregulatory issues from officials at the US Treasury it is clear thatFacebook wants to operate under and comply with, the relevantregulatory frameworks in the dozen or so countries it is initiallyplanning to operate its digital payments system in.

mercial Strategy & Partnerships, founda veritable goldmine of “potential in-vestors and partners, great feedbackabout our product and token, and theseeds of some great business relation-ships and friendships” at the Summit.

Adam Funnell, Business DevelopmentDirector at UK-based blockchain busi-ness booster BlockHouse also had afruitful visit, including meeting a po-tential new Board member. RobertCooke of development house Chain En-able had a similarly successful event,finding a host of new collaborators.

Many critics of cryptocurrency can,quite rightly, point to a murky historyof scams, hacks and other criminal un-

With its sun-drenched baysand stunning historicallandmarks, the island ofMalta pulls out everytrick in the book to lull

you into holiday mode.But, wherever you look in the coastal

town of Saint Julian’s, people are build-ing. Cranes and scaffolding tangle withthe view of the ancient city of Vallettajust across the sea. Meanwhile, at theMalta A.I. & Blockchain Summit, the ar-chitects of the digital revolution arehard at work building a decentralisedfuture.

Whilst some 500 Turkish constructionworkers flock to Malta every week to se-cure jobs developing the physical land-scape, there is a real British flavour tothe engine room driving blockchaintechnology development. This is espe-cially clear to see when walking amongthe 5,000+ attendees at the Summit.

It’s not just our Spotlight-featuredproject, Pynk, enhancing the reputa-tion of British blockchain development– though of course, winning the event’sA.I. Start-up Pitch contest drew plenty ofwell-deserved attention.

YellowBag.io, a UK start up that offersfree documentation reviews before pre-senting polished crypto projects to itsnetwork of investors, also drew in thecrowds. Brian McClafferty, YellowBag’sfounder and CEO hailed the event as asuccess: “We made new connectionswith several great start-ups who wereexcited about our service, and gained in-terest for existing projects we repre-sent”.

Florian Krueger, CEO of the Craft CoinCompany, revealed that the home of hisCraft Beer Coin - the German KraftBrewery in London – is vastly exceedingrevenue forecasts. Despite this, he feltcomfortable enough leaving thathotbed of cryptocurrency activity tocome to Malta to “get a feeling aboutthe progress and the bullishness in ourspace”.

He didn’t leave disappointed. Kruegeralso exclusively revealed to Summit at-tendees that Craft Beer Coin ($CBC) willbe launching on two cryptocurrency ex-changes on 29th May – a milestone thatLondon’s beer lovers have been eagerlyawaiting for some time. Conference din-

ner tables were also awash with talk ofthe upcoming de-days.com events thisautumn, at which Florian’s partnerbrewery, German Kraft, will be provid-ing the beer.

Own, is another UK project makingwaves in the Security Token Offeringmarket. They’ve developed a digitalasset platform on a bespoke blockchain,to make fundraising quicker, simplerand cheaper for companies of all sizes.Their technology lowers the entry bar-rier, fractionalising previously un-breakable assets like bonds, funds andhigh value shares to democratise invest-ment.

Iain Robertson – Head of Business De-

velopment at Own said; “We work withthe regulators to influence digital in-vestment legislation, and we’ve alsobuilt a strong network of institutionalpartners, so this Summit is a great op-portunity to solidify and expand thatpartner network.”

Jason Tucker-Feltham, founder andCEO of London Crypto Services - a smartcontract security audit firm - suggestedMalta’s reputation for passing crypto-friendly legislation is one of the mainreasons for the influx of British interesthere. “Malta’s blockchain strategy ispaving the way for the jurisdiction to be-come known as the “Blockchain Island”.He said.

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JAMES BOWATER

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Our series on AI, Blockchain, Cryptoassets, DLT and Tokenisation

For all of the incredible achievementswe’ve made through technology,we’re still playing catch-up in financial

services. Whilst we can stream video froma space station and access the world’s li-braries in an instant, the fastest way tosend money to someone in Thailand orCanada, for example, is to jump on a planeand take it with you.

So why are cross border payments so farbehind?

The problem is that international pay-ments are reliant upon a system of mes-sages sent between correspondent banksthat slows down processing of paymentsand adds more complexity to the alreadyfragmented payments ecosystem. This,coupled with the plethora of other playersin the marketplace, creates multiple ‘pock-ets of value’ which operate independentlyfrom one another and cannot talk to eachother. Isn’t it crazy that PayPal owns themobile payments provider Venmo and yetthey are not interoperable? Due to thislack of interoperability, money networkscannot scale beyond their reach.

The good news is that we no longer needto put up with such an inefficient model.In today’s digital age, there is no reasonwhy we can’t move money as quickly as weexchange information. To achieve this, wemust create an inclusive, global financialservices ecosystem. This may sound like adistant financial utopia, but in fact, it’swithin our reach. We simply need to inter-connect all these private chains, e-walletsand bank ledgers to create what we callthe ‘Internet of Value’, a universal gridthat connects all financial services net-works and allows them to derive morevalue on a larger scale.

We already have the technology to sup-port this model. Blockchain innovationand the Interledger open protocol suitethat underpins it can address the frag-mentation of the financial services ecosys-tem by connecting all participants. Just

like routers on the Internet, Interledgerroutes money across independent pay-ment networks, including blockchain,banks, digital wallets, clearing houses,stock exchanges and more. It connects themany ‘pockets of value’ and allows all in-dustry participants derive more valuefrom them by becoming part of a univer-sal network.

But even an Internet of Value built on In-terledger and Blockchain cannot fully lib-erate the flow of money around the worldso that it is truly 24x7 and highly liquid.This requires the addition of a digital asset.In the past couple of months we’ve seen anumber of major industry players launch-ing their own digital assets and cryptocur-rencies. However, one bank’s coin isn’tgoing to work for another bank - it wouldonly create another ‘pocket of value’within the already fragmented financialservices ecosystem.

What’s needed instead is an independentdigital asset, which allows different marketplayers to exchange monetary value easily.What makes independent digital assetsunique is that they’re universal currencies,meaning anyone can use them as units ofvalue anywhere in the world. This is themost effective way to enable truly efficientuniversal payment settlement.

Blockchain, combined with Interledgerand digital assets, offer a unique opportu-nity to create a new financial servicesecosystem that is much more transparent,fairer and significantly more efficientthan anything we’ve seen before. Just likeApple completely re-invented the mobilephone, blockchain has the potential toreinvent financial services. This technol-ogy can bring about innovations thathaven’t been thought of today and canhelp create a much more inclusive finan-cial services ecosystem.

By Marcus Treacher, SVP Customer Success,Ripple

Last week the Chicago MercantileExchange (CME) revealed that thetrading volume of bitcoin futures

contracts on the exchange hit new recordsearlier this month. May 13th saw over 33,000contracts traded - equating to $1.3bn - withthe exchange adding that “May is shapingup to be the strongest month ever for CMEBitcoin Futures.”The price of bitcoin faced resistance last

week at the $8,000 mark on severaloccasions, dipping each time towards the$7,500 mark, and at the time of writing ispushing back up towards the $8,000 markonce more.The US SEC (Securities and Exchange

Commission) postponed its decisionregarding the highly-anticipated VanEckSolidX bitcoin ETF proposal, while theregulator seeks comments from the public.The SEC must announce a final decision byAugust 19th of this year.In more regulatory news, Sigal Mandelker,

the U.S. Treasury Undersecretary forTerrorism and Financial Intelligence,revealed that the Financial Action Task Force

(FATF) is set to finalize internationalstandards for regulating cryptocurrencyfirms next month. These are expected tosubject crypto exchanges, wallets, andothers to rules requiring financialinstitutions to pass certain information on toother institutions so authorities caninvestigate potential financial misconduct.Last week also saw self-proclaimed

Bitcoin creator Craig Wright file a copyrightclaim to prove his authorship of the Bitcoinwhitepaper. The move prompted the U.S.Copyright Office to clarify that it doesn’tinvestigate claims received uponapplication, and where claims are registeredunder a pseudonym, the body “does notinvestigate whether there is a provableconnection between the claimant and thepseudonymous author.”The CryptoCompare Digital Asset Summit

will take place in London on June 12th. Withan afternoon keynote from Wall Streetveteran Thomas Lee, the summit willfeature presentations from some of the keyfigures in the space including Coinbase,Binance, UBS, and Nasdaq.

CRYPTOCOMPARE MARKET VIEW

(Move Money) Around theworld in less than 80 days

All Eyes on Bitcoin as CMEFutures Hit New Records

Predicting marketmoves over 8 months

with an averageaccuracy of 87% In the 1979 Steve Martin movie The

Jerk, there is a great scene whereour hero proclaims “the new

phonebooks are here, the newphonebooks are here!” with hugeexcitement. To him, it felt like he hadmade it as his name was in print, andhis existence was validated. The challenge with us

demonstrating that we are who weare is still based on paper validationsof aspects of our lives, whether it bepassports, utility bills, driving licensesor university degrees - or indeedphonebooks. Even though it is now2019, identity has barely beendigitised!Consider how our identity could be

created in a wallet that we own,

control, and manage who has accessto it and for how long. This is possiblevia the concept of self-sovereignidentity or SSI. With SSI anindividual’s identity is based on acollection of verified claims. Thesecan include things such as theirname, their address, their universitydegree, their average bank balanceand even their skill at managingteams. Each claim has differentproperties including: verified,revoked, expired, or other. It is thecollection of these verified claimswhich makes up the total of theidentity. And it is the storage, accessand management of these claimswhich makes up an SSI system.Using an SSI based on blockchain

technology fleeing refugees couldhave digital identities to demonstratethey are experienced surgeons,accountants or maths teachers toquickly get work they can significantlybenefit their new host country. Itwould also allow for people to easilyapply for mortgages where ratherthan having to fill in the same type ofapplication with multiple banks.Something further to ponder;

Identity data today is more of aliability than an asset for mostenterprises and an SSI solution willmitigate that risk.

Get in touch with usinfo@blockchainrookies.com / Twitter @igetblockchain

CRYPTO A.M. INDUSTRY VOICES

with an average accuracy of 87% we haveused this to trade our test investmentsand provided staggering returns to ourearly investors. We have been pleased with the initial

results, but we believe there is far moregrowth to come with the development ofour product.After all the challenges the team have

faced, the validation of our model fromothers and our bottom line has injected usall at Pynk with a renewed sense of beliefand purpose.Today we reach another milestone with

the launch of our Beta product which youcan sign up and become part of the crowdat www.pynk.io.We believe our future is bright. We

believe the futureis Pynk.

£RupertBarksfield is theCEO of Pynk

Many critics ofcryptocurrency can,quite rightly, point to

a murky history

Jon Walsh, Associate Partner Blockchain Rookies

HOW BLOCKCHAIN CAN TRANSFORMTHE CONCEPT OF IDENTITY

Rupert Barksfield,CEO of Pynk

BLOCKCHAINUK FLYING THE FLAG IN MALTA