As we enter the new year and move onto new investment strategies, Distributed Ledger Technology is taking shape. Much of the speculation that took place in 2017 will begin to crystalize into reality. We also saw large numbers of ICO (Initial Coin Offering) scams taking place. Hundreds of ICO’s were raising fortunes instantly, and disappearing into the Ether. We are now seeing more savvy investors questioning the validity of ICO’s and their use cases. ICO’s have also become stricter in regards to KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering). We have seen the era of decentralized crowd sales reduced and more of a focus on institutional investors and Pre-Sales selling out before a crowd sale is able to take place. Is this the start of a new trend? Traders and investors have also been asking which projects are going to be implemented in 2018. FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) was rampant towards the end of 2017, China had passed regulations on Bitcoin, ICO’s and exchanges. The Crypto traders were discussing Decentralized exchanges like Kyber, 0x, Loopring, and Decentralized web projects like Subtratum and Presearch. It’s a mix of the desire for Decentralized freedom and regulations to protect users and investors. Can the Cryptocurrency community make up it’s mind on how it wants to go forward?
Decentralized Exchanges Launching?
0x Protocol, which had finished it’s ICO in 2017, is a much anticipated project. It will be a Decentralized exchange for ERC20 Tokens. For those who are not familiar with ERC20, it is the standard for creating a Token on the Ethereum platform. We are also awaiting Kyber Network and Loopring, both are DEX’s. This will definitely be disruptive for the heavy regulation environment around the world. Will these really work and succeed? One of the most popular Decentralized Exchanges called Ether Delta was hacked in December 2017. According to an article at Bitcoin.com:
“One of the major benefits of decentralized exchanges is that they can’t be hacked – or so the theory went. As Etherdelta’s users found out last week, however, that’s not quite true. After accessing the site’s DNS records and replacing the domain with a sophisticated fake, attackers were able to hoover up hundreds of thousands of dollars in ethereum and tokens. One week on and thefts are still being reported, as the hacker continues to prey on unsuspecting victims.”
Indeed it will be a challenge for 0x, Kyber, Loopring and other DEX’s that have been finishing their ICO’s to have top grade security protecting it’s users. Regardless of the Ether Delta attack, business is back to usual. This goes to show the resilience of the Crypto community.
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