Our London Correspondent Nick Ayton aka the Sage of Shoreditch reports on another exciting week in London, with Gibraltar rapidly becoming the most progressive center in the EU, SpaceCoin going to Planet-1F, the real Satoshi appearing again.

He also explains why banks won’t adopt Blockchain, ever…

ICO RoundUp

There is no sign of the ICO circus abating as we go on from on from ICO strength to strength with it seems most meeting their goals and reaching new highs.

With Storj, Metal coming soon and Exscudo looking good we are seeing a new momentum in ICO behaviors which is always great when the ‘naysayers’ bemoan ICOs are where the stupid money goes.

Well, I stupidly have done very nicely thank you with many other crypto investors a shrewd bunch. I will continue to invest ‘stupidly’ in ICOs and because I love them so much I have of course my own 21Million project on the horizon for early June 2017.

Bitcoin bubble

A Bitcoin breaks new ground the balance of power is shifting. Not only does 99 percent of the world not care what the SEC has to say, and come to that most central banks about Bitcoin, the total Market Cap of all cryptocoins is growing fast. Bitcoin is now approaching 56 percent of the total market value.

Good news travels fast – with Litecoin and Ether making moves Dash, Monero and Gnosis are looking consistent if not showing underlying strength.

The Bitcoin Bubble is a consistent story these days with many predicting, even more, new highs in the months ahead. Although I am sure there will be some spikes to come in both directions.

Given the community remains in intense disagreement about scaling, with the Bitcoin Unlimited debacle and SegWit still sniffling in the background, Bitcoin remains, it moves on, slows a little and yes many of the old concerns remains unresolved. But does it matter?

The dark horse is Ether which is looking as though it will finally come of age in 2017, where Ethereum is being recognized for the genius that lies at its core.

As POCs and pre-production projects start to move to become real systems that touch customers Ethereum whose currency Ether was never meant to be, a tradable currency is on the march reaching new highs.

With new Ethereum payment systems and cards, the package looks strong to attract investors and new participants as the network expands. We look forward to Serenity release: that offers Casper, Swarm and Whisper and the eventual Proof Of Stake, something I have never been a fan of.

But this time PoS is Consensus by Bet as an economic model. The network validators in the absence of miners, bet their deposit on what the consensus will be where the validators who bet right get their deposit back and the network consumes less power and doesn’t require the huge investments in mining rigs.

Satoshi Spotted Again, really…

The theories that Craig Steven Wright, Hal Finney and Dave Kleiman are behind Bitcoin is for the purists debated over the sinking of many beers and no doubt the taking of other substances…

Is it a he, a person, a group of people, or indeed comprise these gentlemen and others. We may never know. For others, we don’t need to know.

Truth be known why would anyone come forward and claim the mantle “I am Satoshi Nakamoto” given where Bitcoin is today and the many Bitcoins they would be sitting on.

Or is the simple reality the authorities move in, with the ambition to try to dismantle and tone down what has already gone before us.

Many outspoken crypto-anarchists, agitators and libertarians have in the past had their ‘collars felt’ by a global community of central banks, governments and the secret services they control, driving the core members deeper under ground and more determined than ever to shake things up, rattle cages and push back. It is an “I am Spartacus” moment.

But of course, readers of this column will know Satoshi lives in London, he watches rugby, has a pedicure, has a phobia of chocolate and is stalked by our own ‘Vittalark Buttering’ who pursues him relentlessly across our capital to get a single chance to speak to the man.

So what chance do the authorities have to catch Satoshi if Vittalark has been so unsuccessful and someone that is on the scent and has come close several times?

Gibraltar plays second fiddle to London as a Blockchain hub, but only just…

I spent the past week in SotoGrande, form many golf country, if not god’s country and the home of famous Valderama club and the Ballers of the Polo sets who each year come together for the Gold Cup and a show of wealth and festival of indulgence and excess. And marvelous it is.

It is the home of TokenMarket.net one of the leading ICO platforms and WaveCrest the predominant Payment platform and the provider of the Crypto Cards that sit behind many well-known Bitcoin and Ethereum options.

Gibraltar has always been progressive and now they are leading the way in Crypto Economics, Crypto Capital Markets and Regulation holding the Digital Currency Summit with the good a great of the Blockchain world attending.

And with the Gibraltar Government and Stock Exchange GSX fully engaging is this the best pace to be to establish your next Blockchain organization…

Are they creating the perfect environment for Blockchainer’s and will GSX be the first to fully embrace crypto-funds?

SpaceCoin goes up, and then up in value

Cointelegraph caught up with pioneering space-cadet Uril Gorgorin who used to be a reserve astronaut for the Ibetitcanstan Space Agency, as he plans his next steps to colonize new planets following NASA Spitzer Space telescope findings revelations.

Cointelegraph: So when are you planning to go up?

Uril Gorgorin: We have our SpaceCoin ICO planned for September 2017 where we want to raise $9.4 bln and then launch in Jan 2020.

CT: That seems quite ambitious to be ready in time?

UG: The planets are only 40 light years away, so you technically don’t need warp capabilities or stasis hibernation chambers machine to put people to sleep for the trip.

We’ve been testing our designs to land on Trappist-1 like terrain and I think we can do it. We have chosen Planet 1F which contains water.

CT: Why do you need water?

UG: Our new engines run a hydrogen burner fuel system and we can’t carry enough to get there and back, so we will need to refuel.

CT: How does SpaceCoin work?

UG: We plan to have 1,000 Billion coins “SpaceCoins” and when you buy a SpaceCoin you get entered into the prize draw for a free ticket.

CT: How many free tickets?

UG: Well, to be honest, we don’t have any crew yet. I was going to go myself but my astronauts license from Icantgoistan Space Agency has run out and they won’t renew it as they say I am unstable in confined places.

Well, it sounds like a great opportunity Uril to be launched up there alongside Uranus and through a big black hole… Relish the thought. I might just buy a few SpaceCoins just for the Crack!

Why Banks will be the last industry to fully adopt Blockchain

Despite the high profile of the banking sector with all their posturing around Blockchain, puffing their chests out at every opportunity to mention their involvement in R3cEV, joining Ripple and playing with Hyperledger, alas after burning hundred of millions of dollars it seems all this gusto hasn’t amounted to much at all.

Yes, you can hear bankers claims they are solving key industry challenges in payments, automating reconciliation and speeding up settlements, mentioning testing is going awfully well, but when you ask “when will this go live” they change the subject and start quoting ISDA, ESMA, Dodd Frank back at you.

Oh dear oh dear, are we to believe a little bit of regulation stands in the way of banks globally adopting Blockchain. It seems so. BOOM there it is.

Lots of effort, lots of money, not much to show. But then again why be surprised and I am not about to defend banks.

But it is obvious to those of us outside the tent you ain’t ever going to get things done because of regulation. Albeit arguably it remains inadequate and isn’t preventing the next bubble building up on both sides of the pond.

Banks won’t adopt Blockchain at scale, and certainly not the Blockchain we see being deployed in other industries. It will be a fudge, some form of controlled, permissioned ledger system that behaves like a centralized database, that isn’t one really but looks and feels like one, they call a DLT. Where they make decisions, control the nodes, appoint the validators and make all the decisions.

Why are we at all surprised…

In any event, IoT is rapidly maturing Blockchain faster than any bank project, solving the scaling challenges and the inevitable compromise between Consistency and Availability.

The Cap Theorem states a distributed data-based system can either be consistent or available but not both at the same time. Blockchains tend to favor availability and then synchronize for consistency where all nodes see the same writes to the ledger, and why the Block refresh time and why you get more than one winning Blocks that can fork the network.

Healthcare is likely to struggle to the same ends as crippling regulation and concerns of data privacy hinders progress, like in Banking. Lifescience is likely to follow suit, so what industries are open and easier to disrupt?

Personally I favor Supply Chain and Provenance and Rights related applications such as Publishing, Music and Entertainment, Aerospace, Industrial Manufacturing, Defense, Energy and Power Distribution (Renewables), Automotive, Minerals and Mining and yes even Government where the rules apply and where options apply to move past the rules, the regulations for the benefit of all.

Happy days…