more insular or autocratic one: and atthe moment the US and China are theleaders in the space. It can be arguedthat the UK, which developed earlyhuman rights, the most commonly usedrule of law and which has been a contin-uous democracy far longer than almostany other country could be their naturalhome.We need to ensure people and leaders,

both governmental and business andperhaps even religious, get familiar withthese technologies now. We need to en-sure they are already thinking about thefuture. Being a little frivolous but topicalwhat kind of “party manifesto” do wewant Artificial Intelligence to follow? Isit Labour: where we strive for everythingto be free but mortgage or futures and re-linquish our freedom and control? Or isit the Tories: where we have to work forwhat we have, have more personal free-dom but risk the more noticeably un-equal society?To try to help influence this the right

way, Eric van der Kleij (creator of theiconic Level 39 ecosystem) and I are build-ing a global ecosystem of connectedhubs. Our project, dubbed Asymmetric,is taking industry experts with greattechnologies and converting them grad-ually and thoughtfully to AI versionswhile engaging with Government, tech-nology companies and both the widerpublic and educators to ensure the solu-tions we deliver are a positive for human-ity and not an undesirable one.As the Daoist philosopher Laozi said “a

journey of a thousand miles begins witha single step”. Let us make sure we takethe right first steps and that we are care-ful what we wish for.

£Daniel Doll-Steinberg, Cofounder ofthe Asymmetric Project & Founder ofAtari Token, in conversation with JamesBowater. You can engage with Daniel viaTwitter: @dandoll

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 FINANCIALADVISOR.

Planning to trade cryptocurrencies in2020? There is a very serious risk thatmany have overlooked. There are

also solutions!Every week “Crypto Scam,” and "Bitcoin

Ransom” jump at you from headlines.Official statistics confirm that digital crimeis increasing. The Australian Competitionand Consumer Commission, for instance,reported a 190% increase in fraud this year.

Cryptocurrency is often incidental to acrime itself. Contrary to popular belief,most cryptographic transactions aretraceable to a degree and digital sleuthshave recently helped bring criminals tojustice. As more villains are caught, therisks of crime should outweigh therewards.

People working with cryptocurrenciesconsider the risk of theft, particularly byhackers, to be a serious concern. Internaltheft is another worry. Sincecryptocurrencies are effectively bearerinstruments where transactions are

irreversible, “fat-finger” operator errorscan also be catastrophic. For these reasonsand more, professional digital assetcustodians were created. Some are evenindependently insurable to manyhundreds of millions of dollars, such asMetaVault’s solution.

There are other serious risks, which areeasily overlooked.

When digital assets are not being storedsafely in a custodial facility, they aremostly held at an exchange. There are

28 TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2019FEATURE CITYAM.COM 29TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2019 FEATURECITYAM.COM

tions probable or even unavoidable.Companies and individuals cannot af-ford to ignore efficiencies by taking ad-vantage of technological improvements;even those that reduce all our employ-ment prospects. This will lead to hugestructural changes. Every industry willbe disrupted – from housing, to trans-port, to workspaces and locations, work-ing practices, business models, roles andcommutes, and even the environment.We need to start considering these im-pacts and preparing now.Fortunately we still have time. This

technology is still at a very early stageand there is still a scarcity of talent tobuild these technologies. There will

likely also be considerable resistance tothe disruption it creates. In addition,technologies are usually subject toAmara’s law whereby we expect them tooutperform in the short term and thenforget about them. However, the otherside of the law, is that they outperformover the medium term and have impactsfar greater than we can imagine. So nowis the time to act; before they reach thatstage.We also have to consider where we

want these cognitive technologies to belocated and which legal and moral sys-tems they adopt. My view is that a morediverse and multicultural location suchas Europe is a far better place than a

At the Malta AIBC (Artificial In-telligence and Blockchain)Summit earlier this month Igave a keynote on “Ecosystemsfor Innovation and Disruption”.

Focussing on the fastest ways of achiev-ing adoption with these disruptive tech-nologies, the merging of venture capitalfunding, technical service delivery andcollaborative working ecosystems may beone of the most effective. This would en-able great teams with innovative prod-ucts, and deep industry knowledge, todisrupt their industries without disrupt-ing their and their customers’ businesses.It is only through the mass adoption of

any technology that we see it bringinghuge efficiencies and benefits. With Ar-tificial Intelligence the impacts on hu-manity could be enormous. It should bea cautionary tale that the huge SocialMedia companies were originally held upas likely channels to improve the worldand put the power back in people’s handsyet, less than a decade later, they haveseemingly damaged our society and re-sulted in dangerous fake news, echochamber mentality and possibly influ-enced elections. Partly because of Section230 of the USA’s Communications De-cency Act.However Artificial Intelligence has the

potential to do so much more: transform-ing our Future of Work, society andeverything around it. I have, for manyyears, been fascinated by the question ofthe Future of Work, starting as an advisorto the European Commission looking atinnovation, growth and jobs, from thechanges brought about by the relativelymore primitive technologies that werebeing delivered 15 years ago. Our nextgeneration technologies are potentially amuch more serious matter for us all, asthey start to mimic our intellectual skills.So they now deserve much more of ourcollective attention. For instance the Eco-nomic Singularity Club considers the im-pact of Artificial Intelligence on our jobs’market and society and how we shouldbe influencing that now, in order to avoidthe same type of mistakes made with So-cial Media.History is usually an invaluable guide:

the Industrial Revolution, which merelyimproved on our physical skills, saw the

number of agriculture workers in theUSA decline from 70% in 1840 to lessthan 2% today. More terminally, thenumber of horses declined some 95%from over 20 million then to around 1million today. Humans didn’t suffer asbadly, as we were able to find new jobsbecause of our ability to take on intellec-tual jobs; horses were not so lucky. Morerecently the computerisation of the Fi-nancial Services industry - and deriva-tives technologies - radically changedfinance jobs and led to the closing of thelegendary trading floors and stock ex-change pits and most high street bankbranches, requiring the repurposing ofall that real estate.

We are now entering the next greathuman revolution: one which we couldcall the Cognitive Revolution, as technol-ogy improves on our intellectual skills.It’s the merging of Artificial Intelligence,Blockchain, the Internet of Things andDecentralisation, which are the buildingblocks, that will likely make this possible.As we do not yet know what humans canoffer apart from their physical and men-tal skills, these technologies may welltrend towards steadily replacing everyarea of employment that we are currentlyable to participate in. Whilst this is clearly a concern, the in-

evitability of competition makes theadoption of Cognitive Revolution solu-

In association with

CITY A.M.’SCRYPTO INSIDER

Crypto A.M. shines its Spotlight on MetaVault

@CityAm_CryptoE:CryptoInsider@cityam.com

JAMES BOWATER

PARTNER CONTENT

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

Mainstream adoption of bitcoinand other digital assets is goingto be slower than many of us

would like. This is in part down to dis-trust of the space as most times bit-coin or crypto gets mentioned in themainstream press it is in relation tohacks, blackmails, drugs, and in par-ticular scams.Scams like OneCoin have been able

to infiltrate the minds and wallets ofthe non-technically or financially liter-ate through something known as net-work marketing or multi-levelmarketing. MLM has been shown to bea highly effective way of spreading theword of an ‘investment opportunity’,particularly when the investment issold as a revolution and destined tosucceed. This is particularly true whenthese scams enter tightly knit commu-nities such as churches or mosques.Time and time again, we have seenthese scams ravage parts of Africa andSouth East Asia via religious groupswho have strong bonds and trust eachother implicitly – only faith is re-quired, right? Due diligence flies outof the window, and relying on implicittrust of others is everything.The scammers always use the façade

of highly complex industries that veryfew people understand through andthrough. Over the past eight years orso that I’ve been helping to exposethese scams, I have witnessed coverstories that include investment oppor-tunities in carbon credits, waste recy-cling, online advertising and VOIP. It’sno surprise that with the rise of Bit-coin, cryptocurrency was the perfectpretence for the next wave of scams.OneCoin pretended to be a new

crypto that would be a bitcoin killer,when in reality there wasn’t even aBlockchain. Other scams in this spacehave used crypto mining and cryptotrading as the lie that covers theirPonzi scheme. However, whatever thepretext is, you can be sure that behindthe scenes there is nothing going onbut a money shuffle in true CharlesPonzi style.

If you want to spot a scam just lookout for the obvious warning signs, andin all of these there’s more red flagsthan you’ll find on a communistmarch. Any investment offering that isbeing promoted via social media is apretty big sign that it lacks legitimacyto begin with, that and the lack ofFCA/SEC registration – just because aninvestment is using a different cur-rency to GBP or USD, it doesn’t meanit doesn’t fall under securities regula-tion.Regulators and law enforcement

must look to be far more proactive onthese scams. The FCA did pout out awarning in regards to OneCoin in2016, and then withdrew in 2017 withno real explanation. This allowedthose who’d been duped to continueon in their Ponzi stupa as it was ex-plained away that OneCoin mustsurely be legitimate if there’s no morewarning. In mine and others' opin-ions, the FCA failed in their responsi-bility to UK consumers who have lostmoney to the OneCoin scammers.Last Thursday we saw the first convic-

tion in the OneCoin saga with MarkScott, a former partner of respectedlaw firm Locke Lord, now awaiting sen-tencing for his part in laundering inexcess of $400 million of stolen in-vestor funds. This should be a shotacross the bow of all scammers hopingthey can ride away into the sunsetwith their ill-gotten gains.We need to close the scammers down

faster, even when we know that an-other one will pop up to replace it fiveminutes later. If you care about thisspace and you see scammers, reportthem to the FCA and City of LondonPolice, write blogs, contact the press,do something, whatever it is - justdon’t sit idly by and complain aboutbitcoin not being mainstream yet asthough it’s someone else’s responsibil-ity.

Jon Walsh, Blockchain, Digital Assets andAdtech professional and amateur sleuth. Getin touch via Twitter @walshjonwalsh.

CryptoCompare announced last week amajor update to its cryptocurrencyExchange Benchmark.

Launched in June 2019, the benchmarkwas created in response to growingconcerns over crypto exchanges engaging inwash trading and incentivised tradingschemes to inflate volumes. The new reportnow ranks over 160 active spot exchangesglobally, using eight key metrics. USexchanges top the rankings - with Gemini,itBit, Coinbase and Kraken taking the top 4spots.

It has been a bruising week for bitcoin andother top cryptoassets with major lossesseen over the weekend. Bitcoin began theweek poorly by dropping below the $8,000mark, before continuing its slide to dropbelow the $7,000 mark for the first timesince May, recording weekly losses of over20% to trade at the time of writing at $6,777.Altcoins also suffered, with ethereum (ETH)dropping nearly 25% over the week to tradeat $138.

In more positive news, digital asset futuresplatform Bakkt saw record volumes for itsbitcoin futures product. According to datafrom Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) -Bakkt’s parent company - daily volumes onthe platform hit a new all-time-high onFriday to reach over $20 million. The newrecord represents a 30% increase over theprevious all-time-high seen on November8th. After a slow start in September, Bakktvolumes have been growing consistentlyahead of the launch of Bitcoin options onthe platform in December.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the cryptocurrencyarm of Fidelity Investments, last weekobtained a trust company charter from theNew York Department of Financial Services(NYDFS), allowing it to offer cryptocurrencytrading and custody services to institutionsin the state. Fidelity now joins 22 othercompanies that have been approved for acharter or license by the regulator to engagein cryptocurrency-related business in theregion.

CRYPTOCOMPARE MARKET VIEW

Crypto and scams

CryptoCompare’s Exchange BenchmarkReveals U.S. Venues Score Highest

Serious security leaks in digital assetworkflows could netattackers millions

of dollars

Earlier this month MeltemDemiorors, chief investmentofficer of CoinShares group

declared “Blockchain is dead”.Conversely, other people claim thatthe next wave of multi-billion dollarcompanies will come from blockchain.

If we look at investment inblockchain companies, the investmentis significantly less than the heady daysof crypt-frenzy in 2017 and early 2018.People were emotionally investing toensure that they didn’t miss out on thenext gold rush, Internet bubble, Dutchtulip craze. But most people had noidea what they were investing in, andfewer still looked at the challenges ofthe underlying business models.

Blockchain is growing slow and

steady and gaining adoption withinmultiple industries. Blockchain isbenefitting not just finance, but alsosupply chain and identity.

Many enterprises have experimentedwith blockchain enough that they canconfidently tell their customers andshareholders that they are on top ofthe technology and watching themarket. Others fully grasp the value ofblockchain as a new form of glue thatcan safely and securely connectmultiple companies to allow for newbusiness models, products andservices. And yes, some enterpriseshave recognised that blockchain posesa material threat to their currentbusiness models.

Blockchain networks can generate

billions in value. But this value doesnot and will not go to a singlecompany. The value will not go to theFacebook or Google of blockchain (andyes - that includes Libra). The value of ablockchain network is contributed by,and returned to, the participants of thenetwork. Ledger data and theapplications built on top of this data iswhere the real value lies.

Blockchain is far from dead.Blockchain is growing slowly andquietly in the background. Equally, nosingle startup or firm is going to makebillions on some blockchain idea.

Get in touch with us:info@blockchainrookies.com / Twitter@igetblockchain

CRYPTO A.M. INDUSTRY VOICES

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Troy Norcross, Co-Founder Blockchain Rookies

BLOCKCHAIN IS DEAD,LONG LIVE BLOCKCHAIN

brokers and custodians. You can't phoneyour fund's bank and ask them to wire thecash to your personal account! Crypto isdifferent: you send the coins to theexchange, you trade, and you send anyresidual coins back to your custodian orwallet. Crypto traders have a gravefiduciary responsibility they don’t havewhen working with any other financialinstrument. This is very dangerous.

This serious security leak in digital assetworkflows could net attackers millions ofdollars at a time if exploited. Alarmingly,almost every firm is at risk today. As digitalsecurity specialists, we created a solutionto this problem earlier this year.

If a crypto trader literally holds the key totens of millions of dollars there is only onesolution: take the key away! Even if notdirectly targeted by criminal gangs runninga simple online search, a few bad months -that kill a trader's chances of earning abonus that year - might tempt them to dosomething they shouldn’t be able to do inthe first place.

MetaVault can protect you today with itsstand-alone, self-serve solution. A fewother companies also offer fiduciary riskshields. If you are planning to trade digitalassets I strongly recommend puttingsomething in place as soon as you can.Don't let the 2020 crime-wave claim you asa casualty.

For further information visithttps://metavault.com

hundreds of exchanges globally thatfacilitate the trading of thousands ofdifferent digital assets. Funds have sprungup to trade them in the last few years butthere are other users: businessesaccepting crypto payments; corporatetreasury functions; and so on. We are

seeing family offices hedge politicaluncertainty and fiat devaluation withbitcoin holdings.

Crypto exchanges are unlike theirinstitutional counterparts. Shares aretraded on a stock exchange, reconciled viaclearing-houses and transferred between

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. In the technologyscene this is the meaning of the acronym FUD,often used in conjunction with the word

‘noise’; “too much FUD and noise divertingattention and causing uncertainty!”

Last week there was no shortage of its use and is something that thenascent crypto and blockchain industries can do without as FUD is usedto attack or boost projects and services which can then have a directimpact on market pricing. When false rumours transcend into ‘fact’ viathe media becoming ‘Fake News’ the effects can be immediate.

By way of example, a Twitter row erupted when Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao,founder of Binance - the world's largest crypto exchange, reacted toFrank Chaparro’s piece published by The Block last week claimingthat the Binance offices in Shanghai were recently raided by thepolice as part of China’s crackdown on bad actors. CZ claimed thatthis was inaccurate reporting and that the Binance office had longsince shut and not in response to a ‘police raid’. According to CZ TheBlock refuses to apologise so he’s now going to sue the publisher andhas set up a fund to counteract ’FUD’. He also contested that as aconsequence the Bitcoin Price has been negatively affected.

Certainly at the time of writing Bitcoin (BTC) was trading down atUS$7,247.16 / GB£5,601.85; Ethereum (ETH) is at US$148.83 /GB£115.60; Ripple (XRP) is at US$0.2220 / GB£0.1717; Binance (BNB)is at US$15.46 / GB£12.01 and Cardano (ADA) is at US$0.03668 /GB£0.02846 Overall Market Cap is at US$196.6bn / GB£152.40bn(data source: www.CryptoCompare.com)

Decentralised Finance (DeFi), according to DeFi Prime, is themovement that leverages decentralized networks to transform oldfinancial products into trustless and transparent protocols that runwithout intermediaries. London based Plutus DeFi is the first cryptolending aggregator company focused on the development of privacyand self-sovereignty within smart contract protocols, protecting userswith private transactions throughout their lending & borrowingexperiences. Backed by well-known VC firms such as Neo GlobalCapital & Obsidian Capital, the company has set sights on becomingthe leading DeFi lending solution in Europe.

I caught up yesterday with Malcolm Palle of Coinsilium Group, the NEXlisted blockchain focused venture builder. He shared the news that itis looking to launch a blockchain software and smart contractdevelopment studio in Gibraltar and has signed an MoU withGibraltar based technology management company Devmons underthe name TerraStream Blockchain Solutions.

He believes that the global blockchain market is expected to be worthUS$57billion by 2025, with major growth drivers coming from financialservices, gaming, media, healthcare, consumer and industrial products,transportation, retail and the public sector. Naturally Malcolm expectsTerraStream to be well positioned to compete effectively in this fast-growing global market with the aim of commencing commercialactivities in Q1 2020.

Justin Short, CEO& Co-Founder ofMetaVault

FUTURE OF WORK?IT’S THE COGNITIVEREVOLUTION

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