Drop in Crypto Drives Investment & Support
Wyoming's 2 new bills, NASA's blockchain, NYC's 4,000 sq/ft blockchain center
With our investment thesis being focused on the infrastructure and foundation, we see blockchain technologies as a whole being a part of building process this year. It is still such a new technology and there are probably several frameworks and protocols that we still have to go through to get past the issues of scaling and real applications that can’t already be done with AWS.
Society as a whole is still not ready for this and the use case hasn’t been validated. You probably remember my last post which mentioned that it took over 20 years to finally adopt email. With this in mind, what is exciting to notice is that even with the drop of the prices, there are continued developments and investments to further grow blockchain technologies to make them more mainstream.
Wyoming’s new Bill
Wyoming has always been one of the states on the forefront of supporting blockchain technology. As a result, they have been very welcoming of forming the right foundational and regulatory support systems for the ecosystem. Their state legislature has passed 2 new bills to now enable more governance and best practices to the asset class.
Coin telegraph refers and outlines these two bills well:
“Entitled “Wyoming Utility Token Act-property amendments,” Bill 62 is significant in establishing a new asset class, defining “open blockchain tokens with specified consumptive characteristics [as] intangible personal property.” The definition notably means that said tokens do not require an exemption from federal securities laws. The bill clarifies that:”
“Bill 57 is entitled “Financial technology sandbox,” and pertains to the creation of a fintech regulatory “sandbox” — a supervised and flexible testing environment that provides waivers for certain statutes and rules that would otherwise hamper innovation. Its establishment reportedly aims to foster a welcoming business environment for the developers of new financial products and services, and thereby attract fintech talent to the state.”
They are working on a 3rd to eventually allow digital currencies to be exempt from Wyoming money transmitter laws, but that is still in the works.
NASA is going on the blockchain
In 2020, NASA will require an Automatic Dependent Surveillance System (ADS-B) for communication within their air traffic control. There are vulnerabilities where spoofing can occur where postions can be manipulated. Having a blockchain that sits on top of a hyperledger which is the selected blockchain of choice will support this
Institutional Wallet with On- Chain Custody
Cointelegraph has reported:
A new on-chain wallet for investors as quoted “Crypto exchange Seed CX — a Chicago-based licensed platform targeting institutional clients — has launched a digital asset wallet solution with on-chain settlement, according to a press release published Jan. 10.
Seed CX has reportedly developed the new wallet solution together with its settlement subsidiary, Zero Hash — a crypto and fiat currency custodian providing on-chain settlement services. Zero Hash reportedly has FinCEN’sregulatory approval to operate as a money transmitter across 25 American states, and is also under review for a prospective BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).”
NYC Economic Development Comm. Blockchain Center
As noted here , the NYC economic development commission has opened a 4,000 square foot center in the center of Manhattan. They will be focusing the center on building programs for awareness and education. Here’s a quote from the president of the commission “[Blockchain is] a nascent technology, so there’s bound to be uncertainty around this evolution from year to year. While we don’t know what the future holds, we want to make sure we have a seat at the table shaping it.”