By: Sakura
Mars Blockchain Summit NYC 2018 was successfully held in New York at night on October 18, Beijing time or morning Eastern Standard Time. Joint by well-known financial institutions and industry leaders from both China and Wall Street, guests engaged in deep dialogues to explore what’s next in blockchain.
On the summit theme “Next Step”, six panel topics were tackled, including the Trend of Global Regulations, the Future and Implementation of STO, Stablecoin, Secondary Market and Trading Platforms, Public Blockchain and Application, and Investment Strategy against Market Cycle. Remarkable speeches on topics such as public chain, stablecoin, regional market and the future of blockchain were given by six industry leaders as keynote speakers.
Fred Wang, the Founder of Mars Finance: three trending directions in blockchain look promising
Wang shared with the audience and the guests of the summit on the current business progress and future directions of Mars Finance.
News: there are two ways news is generated at Mars Finance. The first is to collect first-hand original content by Mars journalists and content teams. The second is to obtain information on blockchain through big data acquisition technology. As of now, Mars Finance has published more than 12,000 news and more than 26,000 briefs.
Data: Mars Finance is partnering with multiple partners to launch a database offering data services covering more than 200 global digital currency exchanges and more than 2,000 currencies.
Coin Market: digital currencies profit and loss chart, 24 hour trading volume, 24 hour turnover rates, self-select library, coin encyclopedia, asset flow along with professional graphs and charts are all provided to users.
Asset Management：Mars Finance has joined with a digital portfolio manager software development team to launch a one-stop portfolio management application, BitUniverse.
Integration: Mars Finance will be launching Mars Column in the near future, which is similar to “Toutiao News” in China. As an integration platform for blockchain media and “self-media”, partnered projects and news will be pushed to targeting readers on the platform. Now, there are over 62 institutions and 715 medias on Mars Finance.
Voices: “10 Questions with Fred” is one of the most popular high end blockchain interview programs in China. Mars Public Class invites top tier entrepreneurs, investment institutions, well-known scholars and leading blockchain professionals to share in Mars communities. Over 200 sharing sessions have been completed as of now.
Promotion: advertisement and products information are pushed to users from blockchain projects Mars Finance support and work with. A dozen offline technology and information sharing events in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen were organized to help projects and investors to meet one another.
Summits: Mars blockchain summits have been held in Beijing, Silicon Valley and New York to bring the right people together for the right motives. Mars Finance is continuing the effort to report on these events and the residual discussions.
Education: Through education, Mars Finance will help more people who are curious about and willing to seek more knowledge on blockchain. The first session of the Mars College attracted attention from many elite entrepreneurs and professionals in Beijing.
Community: Mars Learning Communities have become one of the largest and most influential blockchain knowledge sharing communities in China’s blockchain space. There are more than 200 communities with the name Mars Finance installed.
Globalization: Mars Finance has worked hard on the English version. The current Mars Finance App could be instantly switched to English by just one-click away without downloading any language package.
Ecosystem: At the end of May, digital currency fund Consensus Lab was founded by Fred Wang and other partners. More than 50 top projects have been invested since.
To summarize Mars Finance’s future direction, Wang says, “there are three industry buzzwords that we take very seriously, and they also represent three important directions. First, the information service of blockchain, with a broader scope, is far more than the media information provided by Mars finance. Second, blockchain financial services, which we will get involved quite heavily through acquiring shares, incubation and other means. This will include the digital currency portfolio manager BitUniverse and the cryptocurrency bank CoinBank we partnered with. Third, industry blockchain transformation is another focus for Mars Finance, through promoting the transformation and upgrading traditional industries with blockchain technology.”
Chuanwei Zou, Chief Economist of Bitmain: only stablecoin projects with transparency and regulatory compliance are likely to succeed
We need to pay attention to two things. The first is portfolio restructuring, in which investors sell shoddy stable currencies in exchange for mainstream ones to hedge against risk. Monday’s plunge in USDT prices was a case in point. The second problem is the liquidity shortage. If the quality of the stabilizer shrinks, the holders of the stabilizer will adjust their investment positions and get the dollars they have there from the issuers, which will have a huge impact on the whole cryptocurrency market.
Compared with PoW, PoS algorithm can bring more stability, which is like putting a ship into a bottle. It doesn’t have to endure the ravages of those big waves any more.
I don’t think a stable currency without reserve asset support will succeed. In the event of an emergency, central Banks need reserve assets to defend their currencies. And if the reserves run out, there could be a mass stampede. So the competition for a stable currency is intense, and in the long run, only those companies that do the regulatory compliance and transparency work well are more likely to succeed.
David d.Namdar, Partner at GalaxyDigital: there is great hope for innovative projects in Asia
In Asia, we are very hopeful to see innovative projects, the entrepreneurs in the region are working hard every day, and I think the Asian market is very vibrant and very driving.
In cryptocurrency markets, optimism always trumps pessimism. The last 10 months have really shown that, and we continue to overcome the difficulties and push the market forward. Both entrepreneurs and investors are growing, and people are willing to learn about new types of investments and create more positive investment opportunities.
About bear market investment, it is investment relation on certain level, investor. This reminds me of when I first started in the industry from 2012 to 2014, I met many people who I trusted the most. We wanted to interact with each other and conduct business. I later joined the Galaxy Digital with some people. They evolve, continue to start second and third companies in the industry, and do more interesting things. Then, you have to keep interacting with them, because if you want to make sure that the project you’re investing in is successful, you have to be very connected to them.
Objectively speaking, I want to choose companies that we think will achieve something and optimize our process, which is the most important thing.
Dong Li, Founder of GoWithMi: we are the world’s first “map public chain”
GoWithMi’s goal is to create a decentralized and shared global economic infrastructure map. In my opinion, if blockchain becomes the next generation of Internet after a few years, it must has a decentralized map as its basic component. ETH is a smart contract that supports value exchange programs that can speed up the conversion of value. Therefore, it is not enough to only study blockchain technology at present. So we tried to add spatial dimensions to the blockchain.
The direction chosen by GoWithMi is to support the sharing economy with decentralized maps, which has great social value. GoWithMi is a vertical public chain, not a general public chain with pure competitive performance. GoWithMi is the supporting capacity of specific business scenarios.
Keith Azzopardi, Embassador of Malta to the United States: Malta will rapidly grow into a blockchain country
Currently there are three innovations in regulation in Malta, and we have established corresponding technology bills, bill of rights and regulation bills that can ensure the free development of blockchain enterprises.
Malta is not the first country to develop blockchain technology, but we have perfect supporting infrastructure. In addition to this, we have established a good regulatory system and will provide corresponding technical cooperation. Over the past few years, we have been hoping that economic services in Malta can become more diversified, so Malta has begun to vigorously develop blockchain technology.
In the field of layout blockchain, Malta has two advantages. On the one hand, Malta has good political stability. A stable political environment and active regulatory policies can promote the rapid development of the industry and attract a large number of high-quality talents. On the other hand, Malta has perfect supporting infrastructure and good regulation system, and we will provide corresponding technical cooperation for practitioners.
Global regulatory trend panel: We should take a fresh look at stablecoin, procedural regulation, Fintech and etc
Angela Angelovska-Wilson (Co-Founder of DLx Law): in my personal experience, the rules and regulations are for technology, and it depends on why this technology is created, how it can be applied to people, and what it’s going to do to you, to look at everything in a new way. The regulation of blockchain technology in the United States is relatively mature, requiring project parties to not only protect themselves, but also protect their investors, because if done badly, it will affect the entire cryptocurrency industry.
The future regulation will be computerized, and if the company breaks the rules, the computer will immediately start the program to enforce regulations to limit and punish those actions.
At present, some regulators do not understand the blockchain technology at all, so that they cannot carry out relevant legislation, which makes them very worried that they do not have the proper means and tools to control the development of blockchain. I think blockchain technology can help us build more robust regulatory mechanisms, and it’s not our enemy.
Victor T. Samuel (Founder and CEO of NV Global)：Many people say that Fintech is mouse technology, which means that Fintech is efficient, fast and intelligent on the one hand. But on the other hand, it also has negative meanings.
So we need mousetraps to catch some of the companies that are doing bad things with blockchain. Regulators cannot simply say this is not good, that is not good. Regulators must learn about blockchain and enter the blockchain industry to help users, which is very important.
Future of STO Panel: to embrace STO, you must embrace regulation
Yifeng Mao (Founder of Usechain) : Before 1933, there was no securities law, so 100 years ago, the securities market was still very chaotic. STO was more regulatory friendly and in line with the regulatory requirements compared with ICO, and STO increased the KYC and AML processes, which can alleviate the situation of currency manipulation and enhance the securities liquidity and investment and financing efficiency.
Security token is a completely different thing from traditional asset securitization. I have been thinking about what is the difference between STO and ICO. If security token can be equal to security, why is there security token? Like the global fintech industry, security token can be a true source of value for technological innovation, and in the world of blockchain, STO is a combination of regulated security token and utility token.
I have talked to a lot of investors about the work related to STO’s legislation. There has been legislation on the development of STO technology, not only involving Wall Street investors, but also investors from all over the world, including retail investors. To achieve high efficiency, STO is a very efficient investment.
In the traditional PE and VC equity markets, when the investors want to sell the unlisted equity assets, almost all the shareholders need to sign the agreement, which makes the equity transaction in the primary market very difficult. However, STO may generate a new equity standard: true co-ownership, STO may bring liquidity efficiency to the primary market and connect the primary and secondary markets. But hugging STO must embrace regulation.
Shayne Coplan（Founder of Token Union）：The STO does not cause too much fluctuation in the cryptocurrency market. The main reason is that the cryptocurrency market does not know how to confirm the feasibility of STO and the value of security token. At present, no one can confirm. This is just the personal opinion of many people. However, in the early days, many companies could not use STO raise funds, we need to see how STO determine its value? Volatility, for example, is not going to be big. The impact of STO on the cryptocurrency market is relatively smooth.
Lingxiao Yang（Partner and COO of Trade Terminal Inc.）：If you can token your ownership to the company, what is the difference between using STO to token your ownership to the company compared to traditional securitization? It’s a very interesting question, and starting in 2014, we had 10,000 bitcoins, and it was a very proud thing to have in the company, and some people came up with the idea of securitizing it. We’ve talked to a lot of founders about how ICO is different from STO.
We usually consider the cost first. The ICO only has the cost of token issuance, because if token is sold, there will be a lot of capital inflow, and the money can be used well. The second is legislation, such as when the SEC approves STO and why do you need STO? When I talk to a lot of lawyers, I find that STO is very popular right now, but when it gets approval from the SEC is still a question.
Second, STO is not the solution to everything, so when looking at investors investing more than 1,000 bitcoins, the first three questions are not about returns, but about infrastructure issues, namely the aforementioned obstruction. So maybe the whole industry’s focus is on infrastructure, although it’s driven by technology, and maybe when we look at the longer term, building infrastructure first, we should give them a little bit of time, and they need to understand what the market’s need.
Igor Denisov ( Supervisor of Polymath Strategy and Business Development) : Bitcoin is very safe, and its value keeps increasing. Now there is a lot of competition between public and private chains. Therefore, increasing transparency can increase the value of STO tokens now. whether sale tokens, or securitised tokens, any way, the tokens, transparency, elevate regulation, accept the SEC’s review. Wall Street is willing to participate, and the visibility of the whole mechanism is high. So in the cryptocurrency market, the prices of tokens are actually driven up by opacity.
Jeffrey Wernick (Early investor in Bitcoin, Uber and Airbnb) : the emergence of stablecoin has held back the growth of cryptocurrency
Fred Wang: since last September, many people think that there will be no more room for bitcoin to appreciate. In your opinion, is there room for bitcoin to appreciate? Can investors still make money from bitcoin?
Jeffrey: I don’t think that the currency is an asset class, two years ago, the price of the currency is $600, at that time I am asked about the price of the currency movements, then I think the expectations of $2500 to $3000 is already very aggressive, I don’t think the currency will rise to $19000 in 2017, although currency prices fell back, but the current $6300 compared to $600 was incredible.
Market is crazy, but I will not go to care about the currency for a month or a year, I am more concerned about is the future of its development space, the world demand for encryption currency will only be more and more, I think that by far the most dominant encryption currency or COINS, I believe that the practicability of the currency will be getting better and better, I am a very patient person, I am willing to wait for that day to come. As a long-time holder of bitcoin, I think price predictions are purely noise, and for noise, I usually filter it out.
Fred Wang: At present, there is a steady currency supported by the government in the market. The Chinese government and the central bank are also paying attention to cryptocurrencies. Some people think that the next currency war will be caused by the stablecoin.
Jeffrey: I think the emergence of stablecoin has hampered the development of bitcoin and cryptocurrency. First of all, I don’t like the word “stable”. The concept of stability is artificial and relative. Therefore, I don’t think “stablecoin” is a rational concept, and I don’t believe in stablecoin at all.
Secondly, the use of the stablecoin is to measure other cryptocurrencies. An important feature of the cryptocurrency is its anonymity, but stablecoin exposes information, so the government can indirectly manage other cryptocurrencies through the management of the stablecoin. If you don’t think freedom is valuable, what do you think is valuable? I would rather accept the freedom of fluctuation than the restraint of stability.
Adam Cai, Head of CoinBank North America: Five years later, CoinBank will play an important role in the field of finance
After entering into the 21st century, more and more traditional Banks begin to shift in the direction of the development of coin bank. We’re seeing more and more capital flowing into coin bank. It’s not hard to imagine that five years from now, digital banking will play a bigger role in finance.
By surveying the market, we find that the main customer base in the field of digital financial services is young people. It is understood that there are many similar fulcrum between the behavior and lifestyle of these young people, who manage their lives through digitalization.
The storm of stablecoin panel: the significance of stablecoin is mainly reflected in the payment field, and transparency is crucial
Sarah Olsen (Head of Business Development at Gemini): there is a real possibility of winner-take-all for some of the legal tender assets, and access to large-scale applications is critical. The market doesn’t need as many dollar-linked stable currencies, certainly not just one, stable currency is likely in the future. What’s the difference between a stable currency and a bitcoin? Bitcoin and stable currencies are different products. For the first time, bitcoin integrates economics and technology, so it is more like an investment product. GUSD and bitcoin are two very different products.
Dominic Ward (Advisor of Iconiq Lab) : if the anchor is legal tender, your product should be transparent. You have to trust the custodian, or it will feel unreal. A lot of stability notes don’t choose to rely on legal tender, but if you claim to be using legal tender, you have to have a reliable custodian, and you have to prove that you actually own the assets.
Secondary Market Brainstorming Panel: decentralized trading mechanisms play a limited role
Jiyue Lou (Founder of Tokenmania) : in a bear market and in a bull market, the approach is the same, but the investment demand is different, in a bull market, the profit is relatively thin, and the liquidity is very large, in a bull market, investors are willing to accept risky investment. I previously bought a coin at $0.50, then sold it at $20, and I like investing in bull markets.
STO can not represent the future development direction of digital currency, for the token of physical assets in the traditional financial market, STO provides a huge, explorable future market. The regulation and competition of traditional financial market also promote the progress and development of the market. Regulation from the legislature, as in the United States, sets a high bar for credit investors, which could limit global liquidity in the digital currency market.
Peng Hu (CEO of Exshe11): Whether it’s bull or bear market, we should move forward and provide investors with the best possible service, considering risk management and how to protect your retail investors. Most of the retail investors were losing money in the market, and they had a way to avoid loss in their own way, and they provided these methods to institutional investors.
In a bear market, how to get new investors, how to get more funding? First, communicate more with the exchanges; second, adopt better execution methods; third, make sure that the methods used are correct and guaranteed.
Top Application: probably need to speed up DApp by a million times
Chris Wang （CEO of Thunder Token）：One of the biggest problems blockchain currently faces is scalability, which needs to be fast enough for everyone to use in order for blockchain to achieve large-scale applications.
The proposal is to use blockchain to convince people that a currency does not belong to any government and to ensure that it can be effectively used for payments.
Theodore Gray（Advisor of Newton and Co-founder of Wolfram Research）：We have no idea what killer apps are, and just as we saw the Internet in the 1990s, we can’t imagine what the future holds. The reason why we can’t imagine killer apps is that we have an infrastructure problem, a solution that’s 100 times faster is not enough. It might take a million times.
Steven Haft (Head of Global Partners Relations of Consensys): Killer app will change the flow of capital across the globe, benefit the billions of people who cannot benefit on the Internet.
Investment Strategies to counter Market Cycle: the market is moving, but economic data needs to be studied before making any decisions
Aurora (Founding Partner of Crypto Capital): In order to find quality blockchain projects to invest in, we need to look at its community, risks of project development, and also analyze the measures for project implementation. As in the team’s aspect, it is important to know the background of the founding team, whether the founders are true entrepreneurs, whether the products solve practical issues, and whether they create value for users and so on.
Chris Koerner（Owner/Founder of No BS Crypto）：The evaluation of blockchain project is actually the same as that of traditional investment. Value is the core element, not only the valuation of the project itself, but many other dimensions of the assessment. For example, how the project is done, what are its specific values, what problems are solved, who are the competitors and so on. The market entry timing of the project is also very important.
