Regulatory measures will be, but the final legislative registration is still far away
Despite the widespread debate, most insiders are confident that there will be no clarity in the near future. The courts are expected to be very active, especially with regard to issuers. "There will be new legislative measures against non-issuers," says a former SEC attorney Nicolas Morgan, referring to promoting tokens of celebrities, as well as brokers and exchanges that do not meet local laws. Timothy Peterson of the law firm Murphy and McGonigle, also a former SEC representative, noted that ICO will have to be more subject to regulations and, in particular, to help investigations. As for the SEC and the CFTC, many people think that the final regulation on their part this year is unlikely. During the recent Senate hearings, the Chairpersons of the commissions, Jay Clayton and J. Christopher Giancarlo also did not name a specific time frame, linking this uncertainty with the fact that the technology is in the development stage, and with the international character of the market.
Increased funding
Wendy Shadek, Vice Consul of Northzone, notes the high activity among both large and small investors. Szadek and other experts predict that the investment rounds in the crypto-space will become more similar to traditional venture capital investments. "The action must move in the direction of shut tomenselo while the public rounds will be less extensive and in many cases will completely disappear," says McLane Wilkinson, co-founder of blockchain project NuCypher.
Startups will find an alternative to Ethereum
This trend began at the end of last year, during the period of increased demand, and as a result of the overload of the Ethereum network. In December the transition of a Kik messenger with the Ethereum blockchain on Stellar announced CEO Ted Livingston, and the draft SophiaTX was forced to postpone the ICO due to hit Ethereum "lottomania". In January, the completion of the 39 million ICO was announced by Mobius Network, which moved to Stellar during the development period: "we understood that Ethereum would not cope with our technology. He's too slow, expensive and unsafe," said the CEO of the project David Gobaud. McLane Wilkinson predicts that the majority of ICOS this year will be held at Stellar, as well as the development of new protocols will begin. In addition to the Stellar main competitor Ethereum became NEO. But at the same time, many believe that Ethereum will successfully solve the problem of scalability: at the beginning of December, Vitalik Buterin announced two financing programs and invited new developers specifically for this purpose. "Ethereum today is a clear winner, thanks to the development tools it provides," said Josh Fraser, co — founder of the Origin decentralized exchanges platform.
Boom of decentralized applications
The co — founder of Boost VC Brighton Williams in his post at Medium has already called 2018 the year of "talent realization", saying that more ideas should be implemented and more projects should reach the stage of functioning: "Boost VC has always supported developers, but now we are changing the strategy a little and will support those who bring products to users," Williams said. Partner of Andreessen Horowitz Chris Dixon said that at the moment" prices are ahead of real progress", and today's products are often slow and unfinished.
Check "licenzirovanie economy" for strength
How to behave "tokens of value" (utility tokens) when they will actually perform its function? In December last year, MulticoinCapital partner Kyle Samani published an analysis of the speed of token circulation, arguing that the holder is obliged to store a certain number of utility tokens so that their price does not fall to zero: "in the absence of speculation, assets with a high rate of circulation will be able to maintain long-term price stability".
Consumers will become smarter
Technology will evolve, and more and more people will understand the ecosystem. According to experts, the adaptation of technology is evidenced by the expansion of the terminology: "utility tokens" and tokens in the form of securities (in connection with the requirements of regulators in relation to the securities market) are already different. Co-founder of Tokensoft Mason Borda proposed to introduce "reward tokens" that encourage "correct behavior", by analogy with the air miles of airlines. Former Coinbase employee nick Tomaino, managing Director of the 1confirmation cryptocurrency Fund, put forward the idea of "working tokens" that provide income through the Protocol on which they work. Filecoin, Augur, and NuCypher projects use This function in their tokens. "I think the most interesting work token is created when Ethereum will go from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake," said Toumani.
Traditional tech company would decentralize or, at least, will introduce its own cryptocurrency
In early January, Facebook CEO mark Zuckerberg announced his intention to" delve into the positive and negative aspects of technology and understand how to better use them, "stressing that decentralization will help to return to the origins and the idea with which many came to the techsphere — "to transfer power into the hands of people." Large - scale project of the blockchain platform TON, while without an official announcement, is deployed inside the messenger Telegram. "I think those giants already have employees who are exploring ways to implement technology," Brighton Williams said. However, some believe that large companies have no good reason to decentralize. McLane Wilkinson is confident that tokens will be incompatible with the business models of modern technical corporations.
The transition to the new model ICO
Another trend may be proposed by Vitalik Buterin new model DAICO. As the name implies, it is an advanced ICO that includes features of a decentralized Autonomous organization (DAO). DAICO is designed to minimize risks by involving investors in the development process. The rights of the financing participants will be fixed in the smart contract. The main feature of DAICO is that the investors themselves will manage the funds on the principle of a" crane", which can be unscrewed and twisted, that is, to allocate a certain number of tokens for use by developers. Such decisions will be taken by vote. If investors are not satisfied with the model of the project, it is contrary to their requirements or does not reach the stage of implementation, then, according to the smart contract, they can return the invested funds. According to experts, DAICO significantly reduces the probability of scams and attacks by 51%. The first project planned by DAICO, is a decentralized platform video game Abyss