The Real Sector of the Blockchain Economy

May 31, 2018June 12, 2018 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics 2 Comments

Most cryptocurrencies are now over 60% down from their December 2017 peak. While prices are still quite volatile, the trend for the last five months is decidedly downwards. While some still expect a recovery to the glorious days of last year, others see overvaluation all around accompanied by a financial bubble about to burst. Comparisons to the good old dot-com boom and subsequent crash of 20 years ago are cited as empirical evidence of what is coming.

Indeed, the current blockchain boom has similarities with the previous one. But there are also some fundamental differences springing from by the very nature of what we can call the blockchain economy. The first one is the marriage between technology and finance. Not that in the past the financial sector refused to use new technologies.

Blockchain Mining Revisited

May 21, 2018May 22, 2018 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics, Inequality Leave a comment

Blockchain mining cannot catch a break when it comes to environmental sustainability. This is especially true for Bitcoin mining which seemingly has an insatiable appetite for electricity. A recent paper suggests that by 2020 Bitcoin mining will consume as much energy as Australia. While these estimates are not exempt from criticism, mining does not appear to be best friends with sustainable development, at least not for now. An alternative way to look at this issue is to compare Bitcoin’s mining power use to that of cloud-based providers who have now become well-established tech corporations. Such comparison should be made not only in absolute terms (gigawatts) but also in relative fashion by considering, for example, the total population being served by these platforms and networks.

Democracy and Capitalism: Friends or Foes?

April 30, 2018May 5, 2018 Raul Zambrano Economics, Governance, Human Development Leave a comment

The post-WWII era can be arguably defined as the golden age of democratic capitalism – at least from the perspective of developed or industrialized countries. Rebuilding Europe and pumping capital into Japan triggered a long economic boom that lasted until the 1980s – notwithstanding the infamous 1973 oil crisis. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 opened new markets to capital investment and recruited new members to the democracy club thus providing a much needed second wind to the then declining golden age. During that same period, democracy, defined narrowly, continuously expanded in developing countries, including those that became independent nations in the 1960/70s. By the end of the last Millennium analysts and observers were openly speaking about the third wave of democratization,

ICO Update: A Slowdown in Sight?

March 7, 2018March 9, 2018 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics, Innovation Leave a comment

ICO data for last February is now available and shown in Figure 1 below.

We can immediately see that both the number of ICOs and the total investment volume has decreased. The latter, which amounted to 1.2 billion USD for the month, is 20 percent less than the total for January this year. The same goes for completed ICOs which decreased 21 percent. Among them, only one ICO surpassed 100 million dollars, reaching 150 million. And it managed to distance itself from the runner-up by a cool 100 million.

Figure 2 confirms the decline in total monthly investment but shows that the median declined only slightly or about 1.2%.

Even so, the median investment per ICO is still above 16 million dollars.((The average is much higher but probably not significant as the statistical distribution

Chasing ICOs (away?)

February 7, 2018February 18, 2018 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics, ICTD, Social Innovation Leave a comment

Recent events seem to suggest the cryptocurrency bubble is finally starting to deflate. Bitcoin, Ethereum and most of their crypto cousins are significantly down while regulators in several countries are finally beginning to take action on the ground. Nobel laureate economists are also speaking up against the digital currency, arguing that the new currency is not capable of fulfilling the three core functions that define money.

Does this mean that ICOs are on the way out?

If we look at the latest ICO data,((Data was obtained from tokendata.io. Sample size includes 1032 ICOs completed by the end of 31 January 2018. 485 or 47% percent did not report any funding. The total number of successful ICOs is thus 547. The DAO ICO is not included as it is considered a failure. Hdac, quoted by some

Cryptocurrencies and Development

January 14, 2018January 30, 2018 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics, Human Development, ICTD Leave a comment

While not the only cryptocurrency around, Bitcoin was the first to solve the well-known double-spending problem that characterizes digital currencies. Tackling the issue demanded the creation of blockchain technology (BCT) combined with the use of a brute force algorithm known as proof of work.

Created in 2009, Bitcoin is now one of the largest (and most unstable) currency in the world (Says & Says, 2017). Launched in the fringes of the Internet and initially used only by computer geeks, the cryptocurrency has now become a hot financial asset attracting both traditional and new investors. Word out there is that Bitcoin billionaires do not spend because they fear losing money as Bitcoin rapidly appreciates over time and ad infinitum (Tucker, 2017).

Bitcoin and its crypto-cousins have

The Butterfly Effect

January 7, 2018January 14, 2018 Raul Zambrano Climate Change, Economics Leave a comment

The weather forecast indicated that heavy rain will commence overnight, lasting close to 36 hours and, in the process, dumping from 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.5 centimeters) on the ground. Yes, a lot of rain was expected. But I had to find a break in the rain to be able to go out and complete my planned running session.

The night before the local weather person told the audience a two-hour rain break in the early morning was in the works. With this in mind, the first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was to check the cool radar option on the mobile app that shows the future path of the incoming rain. Indeed, the radar showed that between 7:45am and 9:15, more or less, the storm will be missing in action in my location.

I started my session at around 7:55am. It was drizzling. Fifteen

Blockchain ICOs Revisited

August 20, 2017 Raul Zambrano Blockchain, Economics, Inequality 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, Coindesk launched an ICO tracker which seems quite comprehensive and includes data starting in 2014. It has information on 164 ICOs¹I downloaded the data on 18 August but was unable to replicate some of the charts Coindesk has on its web site. The data I downloaded ends on 27 July of this year whereas the Coindesk site includes data until 31 July. and the data is expected to be updated every week or so.

In a recent post, I shared some insights on the nature of ICOs. In a nutshell, ICOs should not be equated with crowdfunding nor are they comparable to the more traditional IPOs. What has really changed since my initial posting is the fact that SEC is now planning to get involved in the process and will soon start to regulate how ICOs are run and managed. In the

Endnotes [ + ]

⇧

I downloaded the data on 18 August but was unable to replicate some of the charts Coindesk has on its web site. The data I downloaded ends on 27 July of this year whereas the Coindesk site includes data until 31 July.

Tax Season 2017

April 11, 2017May 5, 2017 Raul Zambrano Economics Leave a comment

Spring finally arrived but today feels more like summer. Not sure it will last but in I know New York Springs usually tend to be relatively short. Summer seems to always be extremely eager to enter the scene.

In any event, the arrival of Spring is always associated with the US deadlines for submitting taxes, the so-called Tax Day. The usual date is 15 April which works as long as it does not fall on a Friday or over the weekend. This time around it falls on a Saturday so the official deadline for filing 2016 income is Tuesday 18 April.

Filing taxes have also benefited from the rapid development of new technologies, the Internet included. Now it is possible to use one of the many online tax platforms to file one’s taxes. Some of them are free but most will charge between 30 and 50 USD

Towards a Philosophy of Technology

December 14, 2016March 21, 2019 Raul Zambrano Book review, Economics, ICTD Leave a comment

Written back in 1984, the content of Albert Borgmann’s book loudly resonates today.

Borgmann argues that contemporary life is shaped by technology that stamps its imprint all over the place, and can even define its whole character. However, such a pattern is not usually evident nor always utterly dominant as technology has to compete with other factors while simultaneously threatening to obliterate some aspects of our lives.

The book is an attempt to study these phenomena which demand a robust analytical framework. The first and shorter part of the books attempts to develop this. Part 2 considers the character of technology or what the author calls the pattern of technology and its central traits in modern society. And section 3 of the book deals with the issue of reforming technology

TechPlus+

Technology rumblings, and a bit more

Category: Economics