When Moon? A momentous last week
When Moon? A phrase often used in the crypto space to describe when a coin price will blast off in value. This week we have seen Bitcoin finally rebreach the US$10,000 and notably my friends at Cardano saw their market cap increase 52% catapulting it back into the top 10 cryptocurrency chart by value for reasons I will cover later.
However, this week, it also has a special wider meaning. We all watched in awe as the historic Space X / NASA mission successfully launched and from a personal perspective three key events happened firstly the return of CityAM in its printed form has been announced for the 7th September 2020, secondly my campaign with BABB has come to an end successfully raising £4,000 and finally my puppy Luna has the all clear to explore the outside world post vaccine!
Price Watch
Bitcoin (BTC) has finally rebroken the US$10,000 and at the time of writing, is trading at US$10,118.30 / GB£8,075.56; Ethereum (ETH) is at US$249.23 / GB£198.84; Ripple (XRP) is at US$0.2126 / GB£0.1575; Binance (BNB) is at US$18.03 / GB£14.38 and Cardano (ADA) is up 52% at US$0.05325 / GB£0.06456. Overall Market Cap is up circa US$36bn from last week at US$284.46bn / GB£203.62bn (data source: www.CryptoCompare.com)
CityAM’s Crypto Insider
Whilst my headline is a cause to celebrate the good things that happened last week, it would be tone deaf not to mention developments over the past week in the United States in response to the death of George Floyd in custody. What we now face is a perfect storm of crises: the terror of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, combined with the civil rights tension of the US in 1968, all tied up in the context of a global climate crisis. This feels like a defining moment for the planet and yet the voices that would usually be guiding us through such watershed moments are scattered.
This is all a bit of a change from my usual tone, but there is relevance; because in a very timely manner, perhaps the first opportunity since the start of the pandemic for leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, policy makers, artists, academics and activists to convene on all of these issues and more, begins next week at the annual CogX Festival. Formerly known as a global festival of AI and breakthrough technologies, CogX has evolved; its usual stages on tech topics such as cryptocurrency, fintech, AI, cybersecurity and more will go ahead alongside a Global Leadership Summit on far wider-reaching, urgent topics like those we are living through today.
Plans for the leadership summit were put in place long before the pandemic, but while many similar large-scale events have been put on hold until the autumn at least or cancelled altogether – when I spoke to my friend of twenty years and CogX co-founder Charlie Muirhead, it was clear that this wasn’t an option: “We really understand why so many have postponed, but for us the urgency of the moment made it even more important that CogX went ahead in some form,” he told me. “While there’s deep divisiveness across society at the moment, communities have come together in ways that we never thought possible,” he adds, and in that spirit, CogX is taking advantage of its historic expertise in breakthrough technologies to deliver a virtual festival on an unprecedented scale.
The event is set to host more than 600 speakers, including John Kerry, Dame Jane Goodall and Samantha Power, with an expected 30,000 participants from around the world tuning in to live-streamed sessions on 16 topics, a Global Leadership Summit, interactive speaker Q&As, and virtual networking events. There will also be an interactive vExpo, virtual start-up village, and more than 100 side events, such as roundtables and workshops.
“The idea behind the Global Leadership Summit emerged when we first began planning this year’s event and settled on a core theme: ‘How can we get the next 10 years right?’. It seemed important then, but it’s clearly more poignant now than ever,” says Charlie. “The more we thought about it, the more it seemed imperative to open CogX up and ensure that people are able to take part regardless of where they are in the world.”
But what result can a summit like this have? Charlie says he and co-founder Tabitha Goldstaub are motivated to move conversations forward with concrete action, inspire current and future generations of leaders, and to champion innovative solutions to global challenges like COVID-19 and climate change. I for one am extremely excited to see the results of CogX. For four years, CogX has been a place for tech lovers and learners like myself to understand the latest trends in breakthrough technology, and putting these in a wider context of current global challenges will give a much-needed platform to these ideas.
In my introductory paragraph I mentioned Cardano is once again in the top ten chart by market cap taking the tenth position at US$2.1bn (Source: CoinMarketCap) IOHK, the leading blockchain research and development company developing Cardano has announced that following the success of its incentivized testnet and the current Pioneer Testnet, it will be starting the roll-out of the Cardano blockchain’s Shelley-era functionality between 30th June and 7th July. Shelley-era functionality will deliver true decentralization through its advanced Ouroboros consensus algorithm and scientifically researched incentives scheme.
Shelley, one of five eras on the Cardano product development roadmap, will deliver decentralized block production through a combination of mechanisms including delegation of stake, where any individual who holds ada can delegate their ada – the native cryptocurrency of the cardano blockchain, to a stakepool to earn rewards, and thus be financially incentivized to keep the network running accurately. It will also include stakepool operation where Ada holders with the required knowledge can operate a stakepool and receive a monetary award for doing so.
My friend Charles Hoskinson, Founder & CEO of IOHK, had this to say “The rollout of the Shelley codebase represents a critical step towards our ultimate goal of empowering individuals – irrespective of their background or circumstances, to have access to financial services. Looking ahead, the implications of this transition are enormous. Shelley will set the stage for a fully distributed network, and an entirely new application ecosystem with even greater things to come in the Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire eras.”
The start of the roll-out of Shelley era functionality has been delivered following a hugely successful collaborative process via testnets and ongoing feedback and discussion with the Cardano community. A Shelley testnet was launched in June 2019 with a Shelley Incentivized Testnet (ITN) launched in December 2019, allowed users to establish stakepools and ada holders to delegate funds to various stake pools, with all parties earning real cryptocurrency rewards.. Although Shelley mainnet is yet to launch, the ITN is currently approaching it’s predicted optimum number of stakepools, with close to 1,000 active pools and 12.9 billion ADA being staked, representing over 40% of the circulating supply.
The entire Cardano network runs at a fraction of the power cost of equivalent proof-of-work blockchains, using the electricity equivalent of a single house, rather than an entire country – as is the case with the Bitcoin blockchain.
And Finally Special Thanks
As we know the most restrictive twelve weeks of lockdown officially came to an end yesterday during which time the elderly and vulnerable were virtually unable to visit shops for vital supplies. Inspired by the efforts of local volunteers from the Docklands FC led by Sunu Miah and Sister Christine Frost of Neighbours In Poplar, I teamed up with BABB to launch CryptoAM’s ‘Isle of Dogs & Poplar Food and Care’ campaign to help them. Thanks to Crypto AM readers and BABB customers we raised a total of £4,000 providing an assortment of hot meals, food parcels and essential household care packages.
Founder & CEO of BABB, Rushd Averroës, wanted to comment: “It has been a pleasure to work with James. His clear goal to deliver assistance to those who needed it the most during lockdown has been inspiring to the team and BABB’s community. Together we managed to support a wide range of individuals in the Isle of Dogs & Poplar area during the Covid19 lockdown by raising funds from around the world. As well as current campaigns on our app, we hope to support many more outreach campaigns in the future, as this is one part of BABB’s ultimate goal to create financial inclusion for all. It was natural for BABB and CryptoAM to team up together to help the local community during the uncertain Covid19 lockdown. Our app is a unique platform that allows users to achieve social inclusion through financial inclusion. Achieving 100% funding for this campaign is the perfect example of how fundraising through crypto can raise funds faster and without borders.”
I’d also like to thank Waitrose & Partners of Canary Wharf who donated separately £300 of groceries to Neighbours in Poplar and also to George Haq of the Samuda Nisa local store for his introductions and food donations.
James Bowater, CityAM’s Crypto Insider