Blockchain opportunity
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Leo
Jan 7, 2018, 10:46:12 PM1/7/18
to OpenFrog
Looking for a CTO candidate for a blockchain project that is backed by a public listed company. Please pm me
drllau
Jan 13, 2018, 9:53:05 AM1/13/18
to open...@googlegroups.com
Whilst startups like being in stealth mode, I'd like to ponder on the difference between meeting markets and market making. When I was in London last year for the FinTech week, my general observation that 95% of the startups were doing something similar to existing financial service but cheaper (outsourcing IT infrastructure via mining), better (UX or API gateways) or faster (straight-thru processing in T < 1). I can understand the mentality, London is an expensive place to live and ex-bankers don't seem to want to undercut Wall Street style salaries so having rapid sales and clear target market (niches) is a big positive in showing traction and thus surviving the cash burns.
However, my point is that new industries follow a social trend or lifestyle subculture. An example is Lonely Planet who basically grew the independent traveller movement from the traditional organised group tours. Most developed countries have sophisticated financial architectures with multiple layers of intermediatories .... however, new approaches to the same problems (or perceived problems) only end up in a competitive red sea with lowest cost, hidden risk (variation) or reduced service quality (automated voice telemenus). But creating a new market, whether blank space or blue ocean requires a true sense of entrepreneurship ... perceiving and addressing unmet needs ... I'll be giving a review of the India leg of World ICO Showcase as I'm curious about how the bottom of the (financial) pyramid will benefit ... India has both talent and titanic problems ... you might have heard how micro-lending has fallen somewhat out of favor with focus moving from the original village/township level back to the suburbs ... one wonders how smart contracts or related building blocks can work without electricity, connectivity or relunctance to cut red tape. It will be interest to compare the local approach versus the more aggressive NY/London/SG FinTech.
Lawrence
However, my point is that new industries follow a social trend or lifestyle subculture. An example is Lonely Planet who basically grew the independent traveller movement from the traditional organised group tours. Most developed countries have sophisticated financial architectures with multiple layers of intermediatories .... however, new approaches to the same problems (or perceived problems) only end up in a competitive red sea with lowest cost, hidden risk (variation) or reduced service quality (automated voice telemenus). But creating a new market, whether blank space or blue ocean requires a true sense of entrepreneurship ... perceiving and addressing unmet needs ... I'll be giving a review of the India leg of World ICO Showcase as I'm curious about how the bottom of the (financial) pyramid will benefit ... India has both talent and titanic problems ... you might have heard how micro-lending has fallen somewhat out of favor with focus moving from the original village/township level back to the suburbs ... one wonders how smart contracts or related building blocks can work without electricity, connectivity or relunctance to cut red tape. It will be interest to compare the local approach versus the more aggressive NY/London/SG FinTech.
Lawrence
ant...@powerdata2go.com
Jan 14, 2018, 8:42:03 AM1/14/18
to OpenFrog
Lawrence,
Fintech needs to address some basic of banking operations and how banks work.
I wrote an article on TechInAsai, take a look about how new trust model from blockchain & DLT are able to change the foundation of bank risk management (operational risk mainly)
https://www.techinasia.com/talk/blockchain-dlt-trusted-system
By the way, I also looking for people with interest in cybersecurity to start a new project. Feel free to drop me an email
Antony Ma
drllau
Jan 17, 2018, 2:28:05 AM1/17/18
to OpenFrog
part 1 of 3
Antony, the point about smart contracts is that the notion of risk is completely eliminated by design. An example is proof of work v proof of stake. An analogy is a man giving a love-charm to a beloved ... but if that can be taken back anytime, it doesn't show sincerity ... but if it is purchased, given and destroyed (irreversible) then it shows the sacrifice is permanent. What you want to to design (using smart contracts) is a system which enforces the rules ... eg a man comes up with a stake ... the wedding AND engagement ring, with the latter given to the other party as token. If the engagement is broken off by fiance, then the ring is returned ... but if completed the wedding ring is already present and compels the male party to live up to the engagement promise. Coming from a legal background I understand the massive overheads that financial institutions have in implementing transactions (front/back/middle office) robust against failure (and even so a Barings Bankruptcy could still happen) which explains why there are so many fees and scale-effects to amortize the cost of enforcing trust (and the adversarial legal system is another example for contract enforcement). Tweaking around the system is not the same as rebuilding the notions of trust via DLT ... cf micro-lending where the social peer pressure encourages repayment. I need to do some background research before expounding on next post.
But getting back to my original point was that the sophisticated financial architecture built up for the developed West is overkill in urban/rural india ... I was exploring the back-streets of Mumbai last night and whilst the disparity of wealth is not as bad as China, the absolute level is still disturbing. The entrepreneurs I met last night were applying their skills and talents to the bottom of the pyramid, not fancy Ripple SWIFTer FX or yet another wallet repository (concentrated target for pickpocketers ?) ... one example was Agerits Lab, a founder applying AI & machine learning to automating grain quality inspection ... not anything fancy like drone formation flying or brain anomaly automapping but to improve the food supply quality If you'd tossed a random rock in the room last night, every 2nd person would be either data scientist, IT developer or project manager ... much more techy/hard core than Singapore where you're more likely to hit an MBA or UX designer by mistake. There is a lot of technical talent out there in India who don't have the same access to VCs and much less credit cards .... how to fund these socially useful endeavours in a developing country where it is still illegal to hold rupees outside borders is what was the main topic of discussion (wait for part 3 of 3)..
The other interesting take-away is that the Y-combinator accelerator model is, if not outright failing, is having growth pains in India. I need to talk with more insiders but I conjecture the problem is bottom of barrel ... the accelerator model relies on having a large pool of candidates to identify the 1% top of heap ... if you have too many accelerators, then concentration of the top of heap reaches a tipping point and you lose the advantage of cohort comparison and self-pacing (comparing progress to other best of class). Part of the issue may be the lack of urgency .... the time value of money as investors like to fund workaholic charismatics ... just by observing the pace of how the average crowd walks shows a more relaxed attitude compared with singapore (exemplified by the 3+hour immigration airport queue). A possible third factor is that investment beauty contests only works if you have a surplus of investors chasing a carefully curated cohort so there is the incentive to invest now rather than wait and see traction.So it may well be the Y-combinator mode is a bad fit for India ... and perhaps the Chile model is not so great either given the rather complex bureacratic system of authority. What would work is the billion dollar question ... I'd put forward a feeder model akin to the US college sports regime where you have scouts who identify local talent to take to the professional league (Singapore?) with scholarships (or termsheets) and then recirculate back to India as coaches.
Lawrence
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drllau
Antony, the point about smart contracts is that the notion of risk is completely eliminated by design. An example is proof of work v proof of stake. An analogy is a man giving a love-charm to a beloved ... but if that can be taken back anytime, it doesn't show sincerity ... but if it is purchased, given and destroyed (irreversible) then it shows the sacrifice is permanent. What you want to to design (using smart contracts) is a system which enforces the rules ... eg a man comes up with a stake ... the wedding AND engagement ring, with the latter given to the other party as token. If the engagement is broken off by fiance, then the ring is returned ... but if completed the wedding ring is already present and compels the male party to live up to the engagement promise. Coming from a legal background I understand the massive overheads that financial institutions have in implementing transactions (front/back/middle office) robust against failure (and even so a Barings Bankruptcy could still happen) which explains why there are so many fees and scale-effects to amortize the cost of enforcing trust (and the adversarial legal system is another example for contract enforcement). Tweaking around the system is not the same as rebuilding the notions of trust via DLT ... cf micro-lending where the social peer pressure encourages repayment. I need to do some background research before expounding on next post.
But getting back to my original point was that the sophisticated financial architecture built up for the developed West is overkill in urban/rural india ... I was exploring the back-streets of Mumbai last night and whilst the disparity of wealth is not as bad as China, the absolute level is still disturbing. The entrepreneurs I met last night were applying their skills and talents to the bottom of the pyramid, not fancy Ripple SWIFTer FX or yet another wallet repository (concentrated target for pickpocketers ?) ... one example was Agerits Lab, a founder applying AI & machine learning to automating grain quality inspection ... not anything fancy like drone formation flying or brain anomaly automapping but to improve the food supply quality If you'd tossed a random rock in the room last night, every 2nd person would be either data scientist, IT developer or project manager ... much more techy/hard core than Singapore where you're more likely to hit an MBA or UX designer by mistake. There is a lot of technical talent out there in India who don't have the same access to VCs and much less credit cards .... how to fund these socially useful endeavours in a developing country where it is still illegal to hold rupees outside borders is what was the main topic of discussion (wait for part 3 of 3)..
The other interesting take-away is that the Y-combinator accelerator model is, if not outright failing, is having growth pains in India. I need to talk with more insiders but I conjecture the problem is bottom of barrel ... the accelerator model relies on having a large pool of candidates to identify the 1% top of heap ... if you have too many accelerators, then concentration of the top of heap reaches a tipping point and you lose the advantage of cohort comparison and self-pacing (comparing progress to other best of class). Part of the issue may be the lack of urgency .... the time value of money as investors like to fund workaholic charismatics ... just by observing the pace of how the average crowd walks shows a more relaxed attitude compared with singapore (exemplified by the 3+hour immigration airport queue). A possible third factor is that investment beauty contests only works if you have a surplus of investors chasing a carefully curated cohort so there is the incentive to invest now rather than wait and see traction.So it may well be the Y-combinator mode is a bad fit for India ... and perhaps the Chile model is not so great either given the rather complex bureacratic system of authority. What would work is the billion dollar question ... I'd put forward a feeder model akin to the US college sports regime where you have scouts who identify local talent to take to the professional league (Singapore?) with scholarships (or termsheets) and then recirculate back to India as coaches.
Lawrence
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drllau
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