block mined. This will reduce thedaily supply of Bitcoin coming intothe market from $9mm today to $4.5million. That is a massive drop com-ing soon. Bitcoin is the most important cryptoasset at the moment, and its successcreates a vast halo for the rest of thelandscape. This favorable supply anddemand dynamic is unequivocallypositive for crypto.

MY CONCLUSION? YES, CRYPTO SPRING HAS BEGUN…Bottom line, the evidence is strongthat crypto winter is over. What does

this mean for price action? We thinkprices have bottomed, and within thenext 12-18 months we should be see-ing new highs for Bitcoin and otheruseful tokens. We view Bitcoin and crypto as anemerging asset class and recommendinvestors allocated 1%-2% of their in-vestable capital to this. Whether onechooses to be more aggressive in gain-ing exposure rests entirely on a per-son’s risk tolerance and financialposition.

Thomas Lee, Co-Founder of FundStratGlobal in conversation with JamesBowater. Please visit FundStrat.com forfurther information or follow Thomas onTwitter @fundstrat

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.

If you follow cryptocurrencies, you haveprobably noticed that the price of oneBitcon has gone up from £4000 to more

than £5000 in a matter of days - themarket is alive again! But if you had toname the one greatest problem in thisspace right now, what would it be? Hacks,lack of regulation, price volatility, scams?For CoinSchedule it’s always beendisinformation and bad actors, or to put itanother way, the lack of trustworthinessof the different projects and marketplayers. The inability for even advancedand experienced investors to determinethe quality, legitimacy and potential ofexisting and emerging projects causesextreme inefficiencies in the allocation ofcapital and time in this market andconsequently, the industry as a wholesuffers. CoinSchedule has been rating

blockchain projects since 2016, and as theindustry has become more mature andcompetitive, the company has learned to

adapt and improve its methods. Whatstarted a side project, looking at a handfulof token sales to rate every month, soonhad to deal with hundreds of projects asthe industry entered a hype phase in2017. It was during that time that thecompany developed a unique approachto rating blockchain projects. Instead oftaking the manual route, where eachproject is rated by an in-house analyst,CoinSchedule uses algorithms and thepower of the crowd. “We realised early onthat the only way to ensure consistency,scalability and fairness when rating thedifferent blockchain projects, is to do soprogrammatically - code never lies.”proclaims Alex Buelau, CEO ofCoinSchedule. The company partnered with scientists

from the University of Oxford and releasedits first AI-powered rating algorithm called‘CoinSchedule TrustScore’ early in 2018.TrustScore rates blockchain projectsbased on their credibility. It assigns a risk

00 TUESDAY 14 MAY 2019FEATURE CITYAM.COM 00TUESDAY 14 MAY 2019 FEATURECITYAM.COM

any market is the price relative to the200D moving average. I have followedmarkets for 25 years, so this simplerule of thumb works on any stock,asset, bond, etc. Anytime an instru-ment is above its 200D, it is consid-ered to be in “positive trend.” Bitcoincrossed above its 200-day on April 1,2019, the first such positive closesince March 2018 (13 months). A re-port Fundstrat (my firm) publishedlast year shows that Bitcoin has an av-erage 6-month gain of 193% when it’sabove its 200D and a mere 13% whenit is below. Therefore, crossing the200D is a big §deal. On April 23, Bit-

There is a definite change in the air when itcomes to the world of crypto withpositivity abound despite the $41m

hack of the world’s biggest crypto exchangeBinance (see CryptoCompare Market Viewright). Thomas Lee, in his Guest Main Featuretoday, explains why he feels that crypto spring hasbegun. Bitcoin (BTC) has had a breakout week and since last week’s

Crypto AM and at the time of writing BTC is trading at up 33.3%US$7,771.02; Ethereum (ETH) is up 19.3% at US$203.16; Ripple(XRP) up 5% at US$0.3259; Binance (BNB) pretty flat at US$23.16and Cardano (ADA) up 8.9% at US$0.07636. Overall Market Cap is up23.2% at US$228.64bn (data source: www.CryptoCompare.comScalability remains one of cryptocurrencies' biggest barriers to

mass adoption by both companies and individuals. Scalability isvery important, as the higher the scalability the faster transactionscan be processed and the lower the cost of processing. The amountof work being carried out in this area is very encouraging: from newcompanies such as Cardano and EOS building their initialblockchain infrastructure for high scalability to existing successfulproducts like Ethereum developing their second generation withmassive scalability a major feature the goal of a secure and scalableblockchain is coming ever closer. Joe Lubin, a co-founder ofEthereum and founder of ConsenSys was interviewed on Saturdayby Cointelegraph saying that the Ethereum blockchain will becomeabout 1,000 more scalable within 18 to 24 months. CasperLabshave also entered the fray with the aim of deploying a “fullydecentralised, sharded and scalable next-generation blockchain”.There is, however, no need to look for a single winner in this race;

high transaction blockchains have applications in the internet ofthings (IOT), financial markets, the legal system, personal identityand information, voting...; the list goes on and on, and eachapplication will find its natural home on the blockchain that mostsuits it.Finally last week in London, I caught up with old friend Vinay

Gupta, Founder & CEO of Mattereum who had some good news toshare: Mattereum will be partnering with sci fi legend WilliamShatner to document the authenticity of memorabilia andcollectibles, on the Ethereum blockchain. This will be achieved withMattereum’s new Asset Passport technology, which uses legally-binding “smart contracts” to ensure the accuracy of records. Thenew initiative will create digital twins for science fiction and othercollectible memorabilia. The first digital twin is for a one of a kindnumbered action figure of William Shatner himself as “Capt. JamesKirk in Casual Attire”, autographed by Mr Shatner. It will be stored onan immutable ledger and assure collectors that the item came fromMr Shatner’s personal collection, in fact Vinay is demonstrating thislive this afternoon at Consensus in New York.

coin saw a “golden cross” which oc-curs when the 50D moving averagecrosses above the 200D moving aver-age. This is also another highly prom-ising signal. Conclusion? Technicalsare positive.

EQUILIBRIUM? LESS SCAMS? BETTER SUPPLY AND DEMAND?ICO funding has dwindled to effec-tively zero, so the “get rich quickscams” are largely gone. In 2020 thenext Bitcoin halvening will take place,which will half Bitcoin block rewardsfrom 12.5 Bitcoins to 6.25 Bitcoins per

In The crypto bear market of 2018was more painful than any otherprior crypto downturn becausemany of those hurt were retail in-vestors “new to crypto.” The crush-

ing 85% decline not only wiped outinvestor capital, but lead many of those“new to crypto” to believe that Bitcoinand crypto were broadly declining intooblivion.In spite of how bad 2018 was, 2019has so far seen a surprising resurgencein crypto markets, both in prices anddynamism, which naturally begs thequestion—is the Crypto winter over? Before I weigh in with my opinion atthe end of this article, there are fourareas we should analyze to inform ourconclusion:£ Fundamentals. Has Bitcoin andcrypto become more useful?£ Sentiment. Is Crypto rising on goodnews and shrugging off bad news?£ Price technicals. Are crypto techni-cal indicators positive or negative?£ Equilibrium. Is the market reachinga balance between supply and de-mand?

HAS CRYPTO BECOME MORE USEFUL?This is best answered looking beyondthe blockchain, but it is worth notingthat Bitcoin’s onchain volumes are ac-tually up YTD; the first increase since2017. Several notable developmentsare positive for crypto this year. Face-book is developing its own decentral-ized platform including a nativecryptocurrency, several banks have de-veloped their own “stablecoins” whichare digital versions of cash, and FidelityInvestments, a global financial institu-tion, is soon to offer cryptocurrencytrading. Equally important, we have seen asurge in Bitcoin usage and volumes incountries where financial stability hasworsened. Witness the spike in vol-umes reported by Localbitcoin in coun-tries like Venezuela and Turkey. Andmost recently, the surge in Bitcointrading as Wechat began to restrictcrypto communications on its plat-form. Short answer—yes, Bitcoin andcrypto have become a lot more usefulin 2019.

IS CRYPTO RISING ON GOOD NEWS AND SHRUGGING OFF BAD NEWS?There have been several notable nega-tive developments in 2019. Amongthem, Bitfinex disclosed that it receivedunorthodox funding from Tether to re-place cash that was purportedly seizedby governments. This $850 milliontransfer represents a sizable capitalshortfall for the stable token platformTether. On May 7, Binance revealed thata sophisticated and coordinated hackon its hot wallets resulted in the theftof 7,000 bitcoin (~$42 million USD). Bit-coin and the crypto market’s price has

largely absorbed this bad news and con-tinued to rise. This is a major shift inmarket dynamics compared to 2018. Last year, headlines like “Goldman isnot going to launch crypto trading” re-sulted in 10%-15% declines in a singleday. This is a reversal of sentiment. Inour view, this tells us that sentiment isso negative and holders are so skeptical,that bad news is not bringing sellingpressure. This is a great sign.

PRICE TECHNICALS. IS CRYPTO IN POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE TREND?The simplest arbiter of price trend in

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

When the elusive SatoshiNakamoto invented the Bitcoinduring the crash of 2008, Bitcoin

exploded into the techno-geek market“mind” because the idea to challenge at-the-time dubious central-bank behav-iours with a distributed, transparentand digitally-automated monetary sys-tem was just too cool. Very real people have been ornery fordecades at their constantly eroding sav-ings, so the idea of an independent fis-cal world operating from a mobilephone also attracted the establish-ment’s excitement. Now nearly every-one knows what a Bitcoin is, and whatit may portend. Bitcoin took advantage of the perfectstorm of advancing computing power,cryptographic technology and peer-to-peer computing—without which a vi-able digital currency could not exist.But the implicitly embedded idea ofovercoming inflation has been lost inthe hype. Now days, a “stablecoin” isjust a digital currency pegged to a fiatcurrency—tied to a government cur-rency. In other words, the great opportunityfor innovative advancement is beingwasted on the idea of duplicating thefiat money’s intrinsic worthlessnesswith a new, digital copy of that samebaselessness. It is time for a more scientific ap-proach to money. Consider that muchof the world worryingly anticipates theimplications for their employer’s or in-vestments’ bottom line when each newpolitical scandal hits the press. “Willour margins disappear for the XYZ prod-uct line shipped overseas?” Have Trumpor May said the wrong thing again—have our exports died until anotherday?When an Argentine must endure 20%or so inflation every year, or half therest of the world for that matter, itmeans that next year for the same stuff,20% more of their currency must bepaid. We are all so used to money losingvalue that it is considered an unavoid-

able part of existence. We recoil at theVenezuelan monetary nightmare, astheir inflation exceeds 10 million per-cent, per the IMF’s expectations for2019.Science and technology need to worktheir magic again to connect our cur-rency to the world. Government monop-oly, however progressive to advocate,really means ‘No Innovation Allowed’, orat least in the near future. Let’s be honest,governments are never going to restoreintrinsic value to currency—it simplywould cost too much for the existing,very large money supplies. Digital currencies, such as theFreeMark, can provide a consenting al-ternative. In a world of tomorrow, in-trinsically-valued money tied to thebasis of goods, for instance baskets ofcommodities, can offer a respite to con-stant inflation and the erosion of ourwealth that is a consequence. Con-sumers should fight for the freedom ofchoice—for the economic liberty to se-lect the most attractive money they saveor spend, just as they choose whichrestaurant they go to or where theyshop for groceries. This freedom of choice ultimately pro-duces incredible diversity of fulfilmentof needs. Sure, your favourite localrestaurant may close if not managed ca-pably, or if it does not appeal to enoughclients to ensure its survival. But weneed better money—we need to have theopportunity to save, or to lose, to risk, ornot to, so that we can let the newest of-fers bloom, see them to their fruition,and discover possibilities yet unborn.Some will fail to achieve their vision,but some will justify their risk. Ultimately, risk is and must be propor-tional to reward. The risk of trying newdigital currencies that may better pre-serve our wealth may deliver the rewardof preservation of spending power, sothat a Venezuela-type of outcome doesnot result in our financial world.

Kevin Alexander Paul Kirchman, CEOWorldfree Corporation, Ltd

Last week saw one of the most significantcryptocurrency thefts in recent memoryas leading exchange Binance suffered a

major hack, resulting in the loss of over 7,000bitcoin - worth $40mn at the time. Accordingto the exchange, hackers used varioustechniques including “phishing, viruses andother attacks” to access one of Binance’sonline crypto wallets which held 2% of theBinance’s entire bitcoin holdings. Although Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao

briefly toyed with the idea of attempting acontroversial "rollback" of the bitcoinblockchain to undo the hackers’ transactions,the exchange instead confirmed that it woulduse its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) toensure that users suffered no financial loss.While the news caused a brief drop of

around 2% in the bitcoin price, it failed tostop bitcoin’s surge past the key $6,000resistance level on Thursday. Bitcoin seemedunstoppable as it shot up to touch the $7,500level on Sunday - a high not seen sinceSeptember 2018. Altcoins too sawsubstantial gains, with ether briefly crossingthe $200 mark for the first time since

November last year.In less dramatic news, last week saw

Facebook announce that it is softening itsstance on Cryptocurrency and blockchainads. After an outright ban in January 2018,the platform revised its policy in June 2018 toallow “pre-approved partners.” While thelatest policy upholds the ban on ICOs, it nolonger requires pre-approval for ads for“technology, industry news, education orevents.”Finally, a new application for a

cryptocurrency ETF has been filed with theUS SEC. Created by Crescent Crypto IndexServices, the ETF seeks to track theperformance of market capitalization-weighted portfolio of bitcoin (BTC) and ether(ETH), and joins a growing list - including thehotly-anticipated VanEck SolidX application.The CryptoCompare Digital Asset Summit

will take place in London on June 12th. Withkeynote speaker Andreas M. Antonopoulos,the summit will feature presentations fromsome of the key companies in the spaceincluding Coinbase, Binance, Nasdaq, andUBS.

CRYPTOCOMPARE MARKET VIEW

Inflation is the Enemy

Major Exchange Hack Can’t Stop Bitcoin’s Surge

In a sense, we arebecoming the Open

Source Moody’s of Blockchain Today’s supply chains have multiple

stakeholders where there aremultiple interests and priorities. To

no one’s surprise, these interests andpriorities are not always aligned. Discretesystems lead to both a lack oftransparency in goods and a lack ofliquidity for remittances.At one end of the supply chain are the

enterprise clients. They want fullvisibility into their supply chain to ensurequality and traceability of the productsas well as to reduce costs associatedwith insuring their supply chain. Bytransforming an entire supply chain tobe digital and recording much of theinformation into a blockchain basedledger, this can add real value to theenterprise.

At the other end of the supply chain arethe various sources of raw materials,logistics and transportation services,manufacturing and industry companiesworking to bring transform rawmaterials into the final goods andservices required by the enterpriseclients. These businesses are often verycapital intensive. The challenge for thesecompanies is that many up-streamcompanies in the supply chain hold ontopayments for 60, 90 or even 180 days.Slow payments terms make for a cheapoperating capital loan.By putting the entire supply-chain,

including both transfer andtransformation of goods as well aspayments onto the blockchain, allowsstakeholders to use smart contracts to

ensure that both quality of goods isassured and that payments are madenearly instantly upon successful receiptof products to the next point in thesupply chain. Establishing a blockchain for an

industry where there are multipleparticipants can provide a uniqueenvironment where quality of productsgoes up in return for improved liquidityacross the supply chain. All stakeholdershave to give-a-little in order to get-a-little. The net result is an improvementacross the supply chain for everyone –even the end consumer.

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

CRYPTO A.M. INDUSTRY VOICESCRYPTO SPRING HAS BEGUN

regulators and major media publications,so it has to stay credible. Thus far,TrustScore has proven to be a greatsuccess with over 250 projects rated and2000 team member IDs verified. As the blockchain industry enters a new

cycle of growth, with more institutionalinterest and demanding customers,CoinSchedule is getting ready to followsuit. “We are finishing a fundraise and willdevelop new algorithms to rateeverything, from token sales toexchanges, from existing coins to wallets”says Alex. As part of this effort, and toensure that the process is as transparentand trustworthy as possible,CoinSchedule has vowed to open sourceall of its current and future ratingalgorithms. “In a sense, we are becomingthe Open Source Moody’s of Blockchain”suggests Alex.

For more information visit:info@coinschedule.com

Crypto spring has begun, even in

the face of massskepticism

Troy Norcross, Co-Founder Blockchain Rookies

BLOCKCHAIN: BALANCINGSTAKEHOLDER INTERESTS

Alex Buelau, CEO of CoinSchedule

score to each project based on factual andverifiable information such as verifiedidentities of team members, companypaperwork, country of operation and thequality of publicly available data about the

project. The algorithm works exactly thesame for every project, ensuring astandardized and fair system for allstakeholders, which is very importantsince CoinSchedule works closely with