FTX US ex-president reportedly seeks $6M funding to launch crypto startup

December 3, 2022 Coin Telegraph

FTX US ex-president reportedly seeks M funding to launch crypto startup

The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, is reportedly planning to launch a start-up that would build crypto trading software for big investors.

Just a month after the controversial fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange and 130 affiliated companies, a former high-ranking executive is reportedly seeking out investors to launch a crypto startup.

The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, is on the lookout for $6 million in funding to launch a start-up that would build crypto trading software for big investors, according to The Information. Harrison’s funding round would be against a $60 million valuation.

On Sept. 27, Harrison announced his plans to step down as the president of FTX US as he moved into an advisory role — over a month before the infamous fall of FTX. As a result, the entrepreneur was not immediately accused of having direct involvement in misappropriating users’ funds.

Like most here, I was surprised and saddened by today’s news. I very much hope for an outcome that mitigates the impact on all those affected, and I’m grateful to everyone who is stepping up and continuing to build a stronger industry for us all.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) November 8, 2022

However, after the FTX crash, Harrison, too, claimed to be “surprised and saddened” by what SBF and his accomplices were able to achieve through deception. Following FTX’s crash, a hacker managed to gain access to a part of the the exhange’s funds and has been actively trying to syphon the stolen funds.

Most recently, the FTX hacker was found transfering a portion of stolen funds to OKX after using Bitcoin (BTC) mixer.

FTX Japan, one of 134 companies caught up in FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings but has been drafting a plan to return client funds.

On Dec. 1, FTX Japan confirmed that the user assets were seperate from the exchange’s assets, as mandated by Japanese regulations.

Currently, FTX Japan claims its primary focus is to re-enable withdrawals and is reportedly aiming to do so by the end of 2022.

Founders should consider VC firms their allies as they build in the bear market

November 6, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Venture capital firms offer value to startups beyond simply cash. They also bring business experience, broad networks and critical services to the table.

This year’s bear market trajectory should be looked upon as a favorable opportunity for Web3 founders to raise capital and build cutting-edge products. Some of the most robust businesses today were built during market downturns, and founders now have a real opportunity to ensure they’re building products and services that meet genuine, real-world needs and look beyond oversized checks to find the most suitable business partnership.

Determining the best methods to fund your product and company is of paramount importance and not a decision to be rushed into. It is an action that requires due diligence and an acute understanding of how the partnership will function and, more importantly, flourish in the face of adverse markets. Before a founder embarks on the journey of attracting investment, however, it is important they can communicate the efficacy of their product in current and future markets.

Only 0.05% of startups manage to secure venture capital (VC), and as such, one of the fundamental requirements when attracting investment is that your project is able to demonstrate a product-market fit built for success. While it doesn’t apply to every investment scenario, demonstrating that your product is useful to your target audience is crucial in the process of securing capital. So, what exactly does a strong product-market fit look like?

As decentralized finance (DeFi) solidified its place as one of blockchain’s strongest value propositions, many innovative DeFi solutions moved to the foreground.

Decentralized vs. private investment

Having worked relentlessly to build the best product possible for the market, you may now be ready to explore the different avenues of raising capital at your disposal. Owing to the decentralized nature of Web3, startups can raise capital via the non-traditional means that have emerged in recent years, such as investment decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). The availability of crowdsourced funding in Web3, in turn, has posed the question of traditional venture capital’s value proposition and whether it is still needed in the industry.

The reality is that the vast majority of Web3 startups still look for investment from VCs. We have witnessed more than 16,000 companies receiving capital backing from VC firms globally. This is likely due to the understanding that VCs can offer value far beyond just the provision of capital. It is their business experience, network and additional services that make them such compelling prospective partners.

Unlike non-traditional investment mechanisms, VC investors are also more likely to support startups over the course of their lifetime, helping with the preparation for future fundraising while also harboring the capabilities and discretion to step in should the startup’s operations face hurdles along its roadmap.

VCs also add value to startups through their business acumen, often providing decades of experience in founding and scaling businesses that can be used to develop strategies for success at every stage of the business lifecycle. The brand reputation that goes along with investment from certain players should also not be underestimated. Such associations for startups early in their lifecycle can be a valuable resource for many projects to cut through the noise and establish their place in the industry.

With extensive industry connections, VCs can also leverage this to play an important role in securing skilled personnel for portfolio projects. Innovative strategies such as hosting hackathons and developer events have been demonstrated as an effective means of attracting such talent.

Coding language proficiency has traditionally been a major barrier to entry for developers into the Web3 industry. Many layer 1s use less common coding languages, making it difficult to attract developers to build applications. VCs can invest in training and education programs to enable a new cohort of skilled developer talent to migrate to the industry and assist projects in finding the right talent to best fit their business.

Reorienting Focus

Changing market conditions have led to a greater focus on business fundamentals and ensuring that products and services are developed at a higher caliber by a capable team that addresses a relevant market need. Startups should also use this period to focus on nurturing and growing their community, which will have a major say in the success and long-term prospects of the venture. Indeed, many of the current industry behemoths such as Solana, Coinbase, Chainalysis and Uniswap were built during previous bear markets.

Bull runs usually see startups and VCs flush with cash, encouraging them to proceed without a suitable product-market fit. In contrast, down markets force teams to construct a meaningful implementation of products and services and experiment carefully with solid proposals. It is also a time for founders to listen to their community and implement feedback, allowing for a more robust offering long-term.

In many ways, the dynamic between a startup and a VC can be viewed as similar to personal relationships — establishing trust and investing in the bond through careful thought and consideration can have far-reaching impacts on both parties and their stakeholders. In life, no relationship is one-size-fits-all, so ultimately, startups must remain patient until they find a partner who is ready and willing to bank on their future together.

Marek Šandrik is principal at RockawayX, a venture capital firm backing Web3 founders. He completed a bachelor of arts in economics and business from University College London before obtaining an MBA from London Business School.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin, not blockchain: Synonym launches mobile BTC wallet

October 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Payments

The new mobile wallet, called Bitkit, was unveiled at the PlanB Forum conference in Lugano, Switzerland on Oct. 29.

Bitcoin and Lightning Network service provider Synonym has launched a new BTC-focused mobile wallet it says could enhance the user experience for holders of the flagship digital currency — and broaden Web3 adoption without relying on convoluted blockchain applications.

Synonym unveiled its mobile Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, dubbed Bitkit, at the PlanB Forum in Lugano, Switzerland on Oct. 29. The wallet supports BTC and Lightning Network payments with a self-custodial node and encrypted backup service, which users can utilize free of charge. Bitkit is being launched as a limited public beta app for both Apple and Android devices.

The Bitkit app is being powered by Slashtags, a Bitcoin cryptographic seed that generates keys and gives users simultaneous control over their data and money. Through Slashtags, Synonym claims that Bitkit will power Web3 “without using a blockchain at all.”

Paolo Ardoino, who serves as Synonym’s chief strategy officer, said the new app would help promote “hyperbitcoinization,” a term that describes a future state where Bitcoin is more widely used as a default value and payment system.

Super excited to have announced Pear Credit at #lugano Plan B.
Pear Credit is a P2P transport layer for credit, leveraging lighting-style channels born from the collaboration between @Tether_to holepunch ( @keet_io ) and @Synonym_to ⚡️
— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) October 30, 2022

The launch of Bitkit also coincided with the release of Blocktank Instant, a Synonym-led service that enables cryptocurrency exchanges to onboard users to Lightning Network without having to run Lightning infrastructure or hire additional engineers.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on the sidelines of the PlanB conference, Synonym CEO John Carvalho said his firm is advancing real-world use cases for Bitcoin without the “magic fairy dust” of blockchain technology:

“What we do at Synonym [...] is try to show how we position Bitcoin in the world without having to use blockchain as some magic fairy dust. [...] You can do all the things of Web3, and in the future, we’ll also show how you can do things with tokens without the blockchain at all.”

He went on to explain how Bitkit can benefit Bitcoin holders:

“With the latest release of our app Bitkit, we’re basically showing a Bitcoin wallet user experience where the user holds the key for everything — you hold the keys for your Bitcoin, for your Lightning wallet, for your public profile, for your contacts.”

Tech talent migrates to Web3 as large companies face layoffs

October 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Analysis

Web3 companies continue to hire amidst a bull market as tech giants undergo layoffs and hiring freezes.

As inflation continues to grow, coupled with a looming recession, many tech firms are having to cut portions of their staff. To put this in perspective, data from Layoffs.fyi found that over 700 tech startups have experienced layoffs this year, impacting at least 93,519 employees globally. It has also been reported that tech giants like Google, Netflix and Apple are undergoing massive job cuts.

While many of these layoffs are likely due to an economic downturn, this has resulted in an overwhelming amount of talent flocking to early-stage Web3 companies. For example, Andrew Masanto, a serial entrepreneur who has founded a number of startups, told Cointelegraph that he recently launched Nillion, a startup specializing in decentralized computation, to help ensure privacy and confidentiality for Web3 platforms.

Although Nillion is still in its early stages, the technological innovation behind the company has already proven to be appealing. Since the company’s inception in October this year, leading talent from companies like Nike, Indiegogo and Coinbase have joined the growing startup.

For instance, Slava Rubin, founder of the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, told Cointelegraph that he had recently joined Nillion as the company’s chief business officer based on the opportunity to join a startup with an innovative business model.

“The tech behind Nillion is massively innovative, as it focuses on advancing secure multiparty computation (MPC). MPC is known for being slow and unable to work for certain use cases. The risk of failure doesn’t concern me here since it’s such a huge opportunity to solve this problem,” he said.

The notion of building technology to advance MPC also attracted Lindsay Danas Cohen to Nillion. Cohen previously served as associate general counsel at Coinbase before joining Nillion this year as the company’s general counsel.

Although Coinbase announced in June that it was cutting its staff by 18%, Cohen explained in a recent blog post that she left Coinbase to join Nillion due to the opportunity to help advance privacy and data sharing through MPC. “This would be a true zero-to-one innovation,” she wrote.

While the crypto industry continues to face a bear market, it’s clear that the projects being built during this period are seen as an exciting opportunity. “I built Indiegogo during the 2008 bear market, and I think we will see the same thing in this market. In about three to five years, we will see some very strong companies emerge that know how to use capital efficiently,” Rubin remarked.

Indeed, well-funded Web3 companies continue to hire, while large tech companies face layoffs and hiring freezes. Sebastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, told Cointelegraph that the popular metaverse platform currently has a total of 103 job openings. “The excitement of working in the front row of Web3 is big, and we are enjoying this interest towards our open positions,” he said.

According to Borget, The Sandbox has grown to 404 employees this year, almost doubling in size from its 208-employee workforce it had in December 2021. Borget added that The Sandbox’s virtual real estate known as “LANDs” is now worth over $1 billion in total market cap.

Moreover, as Web3 companies continue to bring on both new and acquired talent, young jobseekers seem to be displaying a greater desire to obtain the skills needed to join these firms.

Priyanka Mathikshara Mathialagan, president of the Stanford Blockchain Club, told Cointelegraph that she has seen an increasing number of undergraduate students at Stanford taking blockchain-focused courses in preparation for careers after graduation.

Recent: What the Russia-Ukraine war has revealed about crypto

“This year, we had more students enrolled in professor Dan Boneh’s cryptography class than those enrolled in traditional computer science courses,” she remarked.

Despite the bear market, Mathialagan also believes that there have been significant improvements made within the Web3 space, resulting in a more positive outlook toward the sector. For example, she mentioned that the Ethereum Merge that took place on Sept. 15 has helped ensure a more energy-efficient platform, creating appeal for students that may want to leverage the Ethereum network for Web3 projects. Mathialagan added that while a numerous amount of theoretical research has been performed for years within fields like computer science, Ph.D. students are considering Web3 due to new opportunities for advancement. She said:

“The math used in theoretical computer science and cryptography is similar to the math needed to advance zero-knowledge proof-based applications. There is now an industry that wants to pay Ph.D. students for their research and put these findings to use. For example, there is a large demand for distributed system engineers since every single blockchain is really a distributed system. These are the people who can design consensus algorithms and new architectures for scalable and secure blockchains.”

This seems to be the case, as Masanto shared that Nillion has hired 10 engineers within the last six months. Borget added that The Sandbox is currently hiring 17 engineers, along with game designers, architects and other individuals capable of supporting brands building in the company’s metaverse.

Skepticism remains

While it’s notable that Web3 companies are actively hiring, a number of concerns remain. For instance, although companies remain focused on building during a bear market, fundraising may be problematic.

Given this, it’s important to point out that Nillion is currently being bootstrapped by its founding team. A spokesperson from Delphi Digital, a crypto-focused research firm, also told Cointelegraph that while the company is currently hiring across the board, no funds have been raised.

“We have been completely bootstrapped up until now.” While impressive, running a company based on personal finances or operating revenue may be concerning for job seekers. For instance, Mathialagan noted that students starting a career in Web3 want to be assured that the company will exist two to three years down the road.

Jessica Walker, chief marketing officer of Fluid Finance — a fintech company focused on revolutionizing banking with blockchain — further told Cointelegraph that it is a waiting game to see what companies have the strongest communities and teams capable of withstanding the crypto winter, adding:

“It’s important for organizations to build partnerships and roll out products, while also being able to budget their overhead costs during this time.”

Moreover, Mathialagan believes that it’s challenging for students, along with individuals within the Web2 sector, to get connected with Web3 companies. For instance, while companies like Nillion have brought on individuals from organizations like Coinbase, Indiegogo and Nike, Masanto shared that he already knew a handful of these people prior to hiring.

Recent: Does the IMF have a vendetta against cryptocurrencies?

Walker also remarked that due to the bear market, recruiters need to pay additional attention to detail when onboarding new team members. “Some uncertainty comes from new hires about the security of their role, especially during a bear market. At Fluid, we often try to hire from our community first,” she said.

Although strategic, Mathialagan mentioned that the Stanford Blockchain Club is compiling a list of job postings to help students connect better with Web3 firms as more hiring takes place: “For students, hiring remains the biggest single problem even beyond security issues faced by Web3 companies today.”

Web3 to inject $1.1T in India’s GDP by 2032, following 37x growth since 2020

October 23, 2022 Coin Telegraph

<div>Web3 to inject .1T in India's GDP by 2032, following 37x growth since 2020</div>

Coin Telegraph

The explosive Web3 growth in the country is supported by several factors, including a large talent pool, a high adoption rate and product development for global markets.

The global Web3 boom is expected to add $1.1 trillion to the Indian economy over the next decade, supporting the investment-based momentum driven by over 450 in-house startups, including CoinDCX, Polygon and CoinSwitch.

A recent study from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), an Indian non-governmental trade association and advocacy group, highlighted India’s position as a leading global player in the Web3 market owing to several factors spanning a large talent pool, high adoption rate and product development for international markets.

*Snapshot of India’s Web3 startup ecosystem in 2022. Source: NASSCOM*

The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) estimated that “Web3 can add $1.1 trillion of new economic value to the Indian GDP in the next 10 years.”

*Investments in Indian Web3 startups. Source: USISPF and NASSCOM*

Moreover, the study highlighted that investments in Indian Web3 startups mimicked crypto adoption by racking up a 37x growth over the last two years. The explosive Web3 growth in the country is further supported by an increasing talent pool, which makes India’s demand-supply gap the lowest when compared to the USA, China and UK.

In addition, India ranks first when it comes to reskilling in newer technologies, which is considered paramount in emerging technologies such as Web3 and blockchain.

*Global Web3 talent distribution. Source: OKX and NASSCOM*

The above graphic shows the global talent pool for Web3, showcasing the US and China overpowering India. However, the study estimates that India’s Web3 talent pool is expected to experience the fastest growth rate in the coming 1-2 years.

*Focus areas for Indian Web3 startups. Source: Zinnov CoNXT Research & Analysis*

The Indian Web3 ecosystem caters to a variety of real-world applications and roughly 60% of the local startups expanded their footprint outside India.

Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart recently launched a metaverse space — named Flipverse — for locals to try out and purchase merchandise from brands including Puma and Nivea.

Flipverse was developed in collaboration with Polygon-incubated organization eDAO and will support digital collectibles and be made available on Flipkart’s newly online shopping platform, FireDrops.

Crypto Stories: How an entrepreneur raised $10M for her startup during a bear market

October 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Crypto Stories: How an entrepreneur raised M for her startup during a bear market

Coin Telegraph

Josipa Majic explains what she and her partners did to build a crypto company at a time when investors were fleeing the space.

In the midst of the 2018 crypto price slump, a young entrepreneur invested all her funds and personal money into a prototype that combined fintech and crypto services to offer virtual debit cards and crypto payment services for subscriptions. But because it was a bear market, no one wanted to invest the capital to put the solution on the market.

In the latest episode of Cointelegraph’s “Crypto Stories” series, Josipa Majic explains how she and her partners built a crypto company during a bear market at a time when investors were fleeing the crypto space.

“Everyone said no the moment they heard about our crypto roadmap. They said, our LPs [limited partners] — so, their investors — do not understand crypto. [...] It was a really discouraging moment because it just felt like everything was against us. And at that point, May of 2021 approached, and we had little to no cash.”

The company, Revuto, eventually raised $10 million and had 3 million customers on its waiting list before launch.

“Working on a crypto startup is so much more faster, exciting and also stressful than working on a normal startup. It’s literally an order of magnitude in terms of the change.”

BNB Chain to boost European Web3 startups with DApp incubator program

October 10, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Binance

The incubator program focuses on EU-based startups building the next generation of Web3 consumer experiences with an emphasis on accessibility and scalability.

BNB Chain, the blockchain of the Binance crypto exchange and BNB, launched its latest development-focused initiative, which targets European developers building and scaling decentralized applications (DApps) on the network.

The three-week virtual “innovation incubator” program focuses on Web3 startups with at least one key member based in the European Union (EU). Those accepted into the program receive mentorship from industry experts and BNB Chain specialists on tokenomics design and Web3 marketing strategies.

The incubator will host exclusive meet-ups in cities across the continent, such as Lisbon, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Warsaw and London.

According to Zoe Wei, senior business director at BNB Chain, the network is looking to support European Web3 startups that consider both accessibility and scalability in pushing for greater adoption.

“Our objective is to guide European builders in making early commitments to these fundamentals in order to grow large user bases in the long term.”

There are at least 17 organizations with a regional presence participating in the incubator to support the builders. Among those is Jump Crypto, which claims that sharing knowledge within the community will support the next generation of DApps.

A Jump Crypto spokesperson said:

“Crypto is a community, and we believe that knowledge sharing and collaboration fosters a stronger, more resilient, and more advanced crypto ecosystem overall.”

Participants also get on-chain incentives, such as a one-month 100% gas fee incentive and a “strong referral” to BNB Chain’s already existent Most Valuable Builder program.

Developers can apply from Oct. 10 to 23, with the three-week incubation period from Nov. 21 to Dec. 15.

The European incubator is BNB Chain’s latest initiative for developer support and Web3 education. Recently, the network announced a major collaboration with Google Cloud to give participants in the ecosystem access to Google Cloud service to help with on-chain development.

BNB Chain also partnered with a Latin American educational platform in August to develop a Web3 and blockchain course for thousands of students in the region.

This latest announcement comes after the network suffered from a multimillion-dollar cross-chain exploit on Oct. 6.

The network briefly suspended all deposits and withdrawals on the network until validators confirmed their statuses — and was back online in a matter of hours.

Report: Investment Management Giant Invesco Launches Metaverse Fund

August 22, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Decentralized storage providers power the Web3 economy, but adoption still underway

July 28, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Amazon

Decentralized storage providers are proving to be the backbone of Web3, but what does this mean for centralized web service providers?

The promise of owning and managing one’s own data is revolutionary, creating increasing interest in Web3 platforms and applications. For instance, recent findings show that the Web3 market was estimated to be worth around $2.9 billion last year, yet this number is expected to reach $23.3 billion by 2028. Web3 is also capturing the interest of venture capitalists, as Cointelegraph Research found this sector to be the most sought-after investment deal in 2022.

The rise of Web3 has also resulted in the need for decentralized storage solutions, which will ultimately allow users to archive, retrieve and maintain their own data. Findings from Huobi Research Institute further show that increasing global storage data volume will elevate the cost of security and high power consumption, which will fuel the trend toward decentralized storage. The report states, “World storage system demand has progressed from remote storage to instant cloud storage, and now blockchain decentralized storage which we shall call Web3 storage.”

Breaking down decentralized storage

In order to better understand the potential behind decentralized storage, it’s important to explain what these solutions provide and how they differ from centralized platforms. Marta Belcher, president and chair of the Filecoin Foundation — the organization facilitating governance of the Filecoin network — told Cointelegraph that decentralized systems offer an alternative to centralized systems for storing data and making websites available. She said:

“Today’s internet is centralized — right now, the majority of data making up the many websites we use every day sits in data warehouses owned by just three companies: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. We have often seen these companies suffer blackouts, and swaths of the Web go down for hours — that’s the problem with having single points of failure.”

With these challenges in mind, Belcher explained that decentralized storage providers like Filecoin are capable of creating a better version of the Web by combining the storage capacity and computing power of many individual devices into a supercomputer-like network that can store multiple copies of data. “On this decentralized version of the internet, websites stay up even if some nodes fail, and the availability of information is not dependent on any one server or company,” she said.

To facilitate this, Belcher explained that Filecoin uses a programmable money concept to create a decentralized storage network. “If a user has extra storage space on their computer hardware then they can ‘rent’ it out to others who will pay them with Filecoin tokens. We think of this as a foundational technology for the next generation of the web,” she remarked.

Belcher elaborated that Filecoin is based on an incentives model, which means users get paid each time they store information on the network. To date, the Filecoin model has been successful, as Belcher shared that the network has 18 exabytes of storage capacity and over 4,000 storage providers powering more than 1,460 new projects.

While this may sound unbelievable, Belcher pointed out that centralized storage providers like AWS are dependent on a particular server or company to store and provide information. Yet, Filecoin is built on top of the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS.

“Rather than retrieving content where it is located, the IPFS retrevies content by what it is through leveraging content addressing with a cryptographic hash,” she explained. As such, content availability is no longer dependent on one server or company, meaning information can be retrieved faster while also decreasing latency in networks. Belcher explained the Filecoin Foundation recently announced a partnership with defense contractor Lockheed Martin to make InterPlanetary networking possible from space. She said:

“Imagine there is a satellite on the moon and there is a multi second delay with data going back and forth from the moon to earth. IPFS could allow satellites to retrieve data from the closest locations without having a delay. This makes networking across systems faster.”

We’ve got news! @FilFoundation is working with @LMSpace to bring @IPFS to space!
pic.twitter.com/o1JeHYjoik
— Filecoin Foundation (@FilFoundation) May 23, 2022

John Gleeson, chief operating officer of decentralized storage network Storj, told Cointelegraph that decentralized infrastructure is the most credible disruptor for the centralized internet:

Although the concept is revolutionary, Belcher noted that the project is currently in an exploratory phase. “We are still identifying the right demonstration mission that will make this viable for space technology.” In terms of data storage, Belcher pointed out that many users may not even realize that they are using the IPFS today, noting that the vast majority of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are stored on IPFS. She added that Starling Lab — a project from Stanford University and the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation research center — uses the Filecoin network to house sensitive digital records of human history.

“Starting a service to compete with AWS, Google or Microsoft in Web2 requires billions of dollars. Through crowd-sourced capacity, trustless abstraction layers and token-based incentives, decentralized infrastructure can provide more private, secure, performant and economical infrastructures than Web2 hyperscalers.”

Similar to Filecoin’s incentive model, Gleeson explained that the Storj network consists of “storage nodes” that are used to store data for others. Contributors are paid for allocating their storage and bandwidth. “All data stored on storage nodes is client-side encrypted and erasure-coded,” he said.

Gleeson added that Storj uses “uplink clients” to enable developers to house information on Storj decentralized cloud storage. Files are then split into 80 pieces and distributed across the network of storage nodes. “Each of the 80 pieces is stored on different diverse storage nodes with different operators, power supplies, networks and geographies, etc., yielding tremendous security, performance and durability advantages,” Gleeson explained.

While the features provided by Filecoin and Storj are very different from those offered by centralized systems, a number of Web3 platforms specifically require these solutions. For example, the decentralized Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr Network helps a number of blockchain companies run their node infrastructure.

Greg Gopman, chief marketing officer of Ankr, told Cointelegraph that 17 of the top 20 proof-of-stake blockchains use Ankr’s remote procedure call (RPC) service to allow access to their blockchain data. Every time Ankr handles an RPC request, a node is required to fulfill it, which Gopman mentioned is Ankr’s core service. According to Gopman, Ankr uses both Filecoin and Storj to store images of nodes, along with blockchain transactions. He said:

“BNB Chain, Polygon and Avalanche use our solution, and behind the scenes we use decentralized storage providers to make our operations faster. When we need to spin up a new node we can do it 90% faster using decentralized storage providers versus AWS.”

To put this process in perspective, Gopman explained that Ankr manages archive nodes for different blockchains. “The ‘archive node’ is all the historical data of every transaction that happened on a blockchain network,” he said. Ankr manages these archive nodes for different blockchains, meaning the platform needs to have a snapshot of all transactions that have occurred on a specific network. This information is then put on a server and spun up to create a new node.

Gopman added that Ankr initially used AWS for this process but that the platform was slower and more expensive. “AWS wasn’t optimized for Web3. AWS is set up for distributed systems, yet we run profiles on servers for decentralized infrastructure. Moreover, AWS only has 13 geo-locations and we have around 30.”

The rise of decentralized web services

In addition to storage, other solutions are being offered to ensure an entire suite of decentralized web services for the Web3 economy. For example, Akash Network is a marketplace for underused compute resources. Greg Osuri, CEO of Akash, told Cointelegraph that the core of Akash consists of an auction marketplace that allows users to place an ask with providers who have endless amounts of computing power. According to Osuri, prices are market-driven, making cost savings 97% less expensive than AWS.

In terms of use cases, Osuri mentioned that Equinix Metal — one of the world’s largest data center and infrastructure providers — integrates with Akash to offload their compute resources in a decentralized manner.

Web3 projects are also taking advantage of decentralized computing platforms. For example, Colin Pape, CEO of decentralized search engine Presearch, told Cointelegraph that users could run nodes for their platform on top of Akash. According to Pape, Presearch user nodes collect search results from across the web and are used to power the Presearch network. Like other incentive-based models, node operators are rewarded with Presearch’s PRE tokens when they successfully handle a user query.

Pape shared that there are more than 70,000 user nodes around the world powering the Presearch network. Although many of these nodes are running in data centers using a virtual private server (VPS), he pointed out that Presearch encourages node operators to use as many different platforms as possible to run their nodes. He added that decentralized cloud providers are helpful for ensuring an additional layer of resilience to the network since they are more distributed than nodes that operate in a single instance.

It’s also interesting to point out that solutions capable of aggregating different types of decentralized storage networks are coming to fruition, highlighting market growth. For example, Max Li, chief operating officer and founder of Computecoin, told Cointelegraph that the company aims to provide all key AWS services such as computing, storage and machine learning in a decentralized manner. “Our storage solution — Oortech Storage Service (OSS) — provides a decentralized storage solution with a Web2 user experience. Rather than building the infrastructure from scratch, OSS aggregates all types of decentralized storage networks such as Filecoin, Storj and Crust — similar to Expedia, which aggregates hotels,” he explained.

According to Li, OSS aims to simplify the process of leveraging decentralized storage solutions. He believes this is necessary, noting there is a steep learning curve for end users utilizing decentralized web solutions. “Developers require at least a few weeks to understand how to deploy a website on Filecoin. It may take less than one hour to deploy a website on AWS,” he said. Li added that non-crypto native users need to learn how to use crypto wallets for purchasing Filecoin tokens on exchanges and then leveraging them for data storage.

Will decentralized storage solutions overtake centralized web services?

Yet, the benefits provided by decentralized web solutions may outweigh any issues associated with utilizing these platforms — at least for Web3 projects. For instance, Gleeson pointed out that decentralized storage solutions offer enhanced privacy, performance, durability and cost-efficiencies. “All data stored on the Storj DCS service is encrypted (both data and metadata) and users own their own encryption keys. This means that users are in control of their data and that data can’t be compromised or mined,” he explained.

Gleeson added that decentralized cloud storage takes a completely different approach by crowd-sourcing capacity via operating expenditures rather than capital expenditures. He said:

“By tapping into massive latent capacity all around the globe and paying only for what's used, decentralized cloud storage delivers comparable durability and availability to centralized cloud storage, at a price that is 80% lower than AWS.”

Given this, the question remains if centralized storage solutions will soon become irrelevant. According to Gleeson, as the decentralized tech matures, the use cases will crystalize and the benefits will be realized by enterprises. In turn, he believes that adoption will accelerate, especially as the rest of the decentralized stack evolves with compute and tool kits for common integration patterns. However, Gleeson is aware that decentralized storage and other services are still new technologies and must therefore undergo development. “IPFS for instance provides content addressing and is innovative, but some of the largest IPFS pinning services store data on centralized providers,” he remarked.

Wilson Wei, co-founder and chief operating officer of CyberConnect — a decentralized social graph protocol — further told Cointelegraph that AWS as a whole provides a much wider range of services beyond storage. Therefore he believes that AWS won’t die out. Wei added that most current decentralized storage systems are only robust when providers work under some economic incentives. Yet, he noted that these incentives could become extremely volatile and lead to performance/data availability degradation. He said:

“It’s easy to host a simple front-end page using IPFS, but if the website needs some complex computing environment, developers still need to spawn a computing instance on cloud providers like AWS since the centralized servers can offer the most efficient and performance computing resources. Choosing between centralized and decentralized storage always carries trade-offs.”

Over a quarter of Asian Pacific ‘emerging giant’ startups tied to blockchain: Report

July 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Asia

A KPMG/HSBC survey finds NFTs and DeFi are more popular with Asian Pacific big startups than EV charging, quantum computing and a host of other new technologies.

The Asia Pacific region is seeing a major business shift with increasing numbers of new technology startups appearing, even as venture capital investment is decreasing compared to last year. A report from Big Four accountant KPMG and international banking company HSBC based on a survey of 6,472 Asian Pacific startups found that over a quarter of them are blockchain related.

Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, led the way among sectors where Asian Pacific “emerging giants” were active, followed directly by decentralized finance, also known as DeFi. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure, quantum computing and robotic processing automation rounded out the top five sectors. Blockchain real estate and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) ranked 14th and 15th, respectively, on the same list.

Despite their strong collective presence, blockchain-related companies were most common in the lower ranks. Among the top 100 emerging giants, only five were blockchain-related, and only one, Hong Kong’s Catheon Gaming, a play-to-earn platform, ranked in the top ten (in eighth place). Two crypto financial service unicorns — Hong Kong’s Amber Group and Singaporean Matrixport — did not make the top 100 ranking.

The report looked at 12 Asian Pacific countries, which accounted for 94.8% of all companies surveyed. The majority of new technology companies were located in Mainland China (32.8%) and India (30.1%). Japan (12.7%) and Australia (8.7%) trailed in third and fourth places. The report explained:

“The continuing growth of Asia’s middle classes, and especially the emergence of Gen Z consumers will be the biggest single factor driving digital economies across the region. But […] Asia’s more prosperous, ageing societies, too will also be rich sources of innovation.”

“The most successful companies are focusing on local specializations,” the report notes, citing “China’s capabilities in piloting and testing digital platforms” as an example. Although China has banned cryptocurrency trading, its e-CNY central bank digital currency is accepted by more than 4.5 million merchants across the country. India allows crypto trading but has complicated traders’ lives with a punishing tax regime.

Startups

Decentralized vs. private investment

Reorienting Focus

Skepticism remains

Breaking down decentralized storage

The rise of decentralized web services

Will decentralized storage solutions overtake centralized web services?

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