Spokesperson report 2018-05 BitShares Blockchain Foundation (BBF)

By: Annemieke Dirkes
New York, May 2018

Legal

The legal opinion letter document was finalized with PaulHastings beginning of May and has been sent to Bittrex and its council. Upon earlier request this also has been sent by our council PaulHastings to the exchanges Okcoin and Binance. Date May 18th 2018. As Fabian Schuh and myself were fully involved, we have the opinion it is an impressive piece of work. Predecessors as early as 2013 needed to be explained and they came with almost long forgotten material that we needed to explain from the cradle years of BTS. Things were asked to be explained that are no longer current but still needed to have a legal definition. That was not easy, making external parties understand what often was rushed through in daily development. We did it with the best of our knowledge, picked a memory here and there for confirmation and therefore we thank also those silent helpers.

It has always been the intention to make this document public. Our lawyers strongly advice against that at this point. Their reasons are the following. We await the response from legal council of Bittrex. Also leading lawyers in this field, learning from that as to the content. Publishing now would make any addition only confuse the field. More versions out there, again making more issues. Secondly: we have at this point very little to gain, or rather we should say, we stand to lose with a public discussion about the content on the internet. It might be that the document still needs extra work depending on what they come up with. Then, we also want a no-action procedure with the Regulators. Doing the discussion about that on the web, content based, is just what we do not need right now. Bickering fights over facts will only prove to add to the hurdles we need to overcome. So BBF decided to respect the advice of our Lawyers.

These are already a main driver we found for distrust of our decentralized blockchain. Legal regulations and code of conduct would also require our own lawyers to distance themselves from the publication as the Community might run with the content. That looks silly after spending all that money. However difficult, we decided in the interest of the Community to not put it online at this stage. The short term alternative BBF proposes is that any BTS token holder who are interested can see it on my computer at BitFest in Amsterdam, September 21-23 2018 bitfest.in. We have nothing to hide. You can also make an appointment to come read it at the office. It will take you approximately an hour. Whoever meets me in the field on my trips: you just need to ask.

Worker Proposals & accounting

An overview of how the accounting is performed can be found on the website bitshares.foundation/accounting. The administration itself can be seen on the Blockchain and is also provided in a separate combined report. So far, this approach proves hugely productive an efficient. Blockchain Projects BV sponsors all new ones with a Time Chimp account of their own. So, the back-end is getting more and more digitally transparent. Project leaders like Ryan R. Fox have a real-time view on tasks handled. For clarity, the accounts are just given out, but Blockchain Projects BV does not do anything with them.

The BitShares Blockchain Foundation out and about

The BitShares Blockchain Foundation had the opportunity to take the stage at the Blockchain London Seminar, Blockchain 24-7. April 27th. Main sponsor was Dascoin, that launched their free trade. They are a 2016 complete hard fork of the BitShares Blockchain. Our 7 minute window was short but effective as it proved that by most of the audience BitShares Blockchain was unknown. Afterwards, at the walking dinner event, there were many people asking questions about BitShares Blockchain and its native core token BTS. It is evident that having no marketing for what in our view is a technical superior blockchain has led to many hard forks, used by others and not to growth of the BitShares Blockchain ecosystem itself.

Three out of the six biggest blockchains are Graphene based. Blocktivity showed this week that STEEM and BitShares Blockchain process over 77% of all crypto transactions! The BBF feels we could do more to make that fact benefit BitShares Blockchain. She engages in promotion that comes without marketing cost as often as reasonably possible
We like to remind everyone that we have a free version to work or play with for any student or educational institution on bockchainacademy.nl. Larger crowds get it installed locally as this is sponsored capacity.

Graphene Foundation

A longstanding wish, therefore, is to have technical development at the core that is not just funded by the Working Capital of the BitShares Blockchain, but has more general funding at its core: Graphene. That way, enabling participation by others. We are therefore extremely happy that we now have that. It has been announced at the London event and has received its first donation.

The Graphene Foundation is a legal Dutch entity, non-profit, notarized and registered. Its dealings with its funds will be public. Its website launched Friday 27th of April and can be found at graphene.community. This Foundation is independent and not run by or through the BBF. For complete transparency, I am on the Board. We have asked three technical, well-known people. One from the America’s: Eduardo Garcia; one from Europe: Fabian Schuh; and we are talking to people from China to form the panel to decide on what technical work is being funded. The way on how selection and participation works will be published. Main driver will always be: for the common interest of Graphene users. There is no commercial interest.

Graphene DevCon in Shanghai – May 5th and 6th 2018

Awesome event! For those of you who did not attend: you missed a truly wonderful weekend. In this modest way, we again like to thank the Chinese Community and Jerry Liu in particular for an outstanding effort to organize this event. Attendees came from all over the world and the subjects and discussions had a wide variety. BitFest in Amsterdam, September 21-23 will be the next opportunity to meet again: bitfest.in. We will see speakers coming in to that end of the month. The entrance is also by daily tickets and it is non-profit as the BBF organizes it.

At the Shanghai event, commitment was received by joining the Graphene Foundation by Gdex.io ‘s Jerry Liu, Jonathan B’hai from the PBSA Foundation, and the owners from Scorum. We already had the one from Michael Mathias from Dascoin who put private money in at the start. Another wonderful development in the Chinese Community is the start of a Graphene Applications center under the driving force of Jerry Liu. It certainly looks like there is broad awareness for necessary growth in Graphene development.

United Nations New York invitation– Blockchain for Impact, June 4th 2018

This invitation was indeed a very rare opportunity, also for me personally. BBF funded my hours but the trip and expenses were sponsored. We have no means for that sort of trips. They felt BitShares Blockchain must be at the root of many of the solutions due to its scalability and technical superiority.

With the BitShares Blockchain we have a decentralized solution that might be of interest to the United Nation, as they see those as highly resistant to corruption. The opportunity gave us an entrance to people we otherwise would most likely never have engaged with. When I was there, I also did not expect to see so many entrepreneurial, action driven professionals (almost no politicians in sight…)

And I must say surprising it was. The United Nations is way ahead of many a governmental or financial institution! Their motto is: we leave nobody behind. Blockchain interest was vested at the 72th session of the United Nation in 2017 with the installation of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development blockchaincommission.org. Blockchain Technology and Tokenization are seen as the option to solve some of the worlds largest issues in being non – or underbanked, not registered, slave trading and human trafficking, supply chains, food safety, honest land deals and the list goes on and on. The Commissioner held a speech that clearly showed, out with the middle man and the corruption and we should pull together under blockchain technology and find answers and solutions. Tokenization was a key element everywhere (to my not little surprise).

The attendees were put in informal workgroups in the afternoon and were attended by professionals from the field from various origin. The heat was on to come up with real guidance towards a solution. What a level and a buzz in that big room. Over 500 people from all over the world. What we took home are valuable contacts that are being followed up. Memorable was the speech and contribution of Vincent Molinari, who changed for the speech in a t-shirt with the text “Satoshi is female”. Having an influential person like that pushing for females in our space was remarkable. You will find his credentials all over the web.

For better understanding, this use case: you do not know where you were born, you cannot read or write, you have nothing what we consider an address, no ID in any shape or form and no possessions. How do we give you access to financial services? Financial inclusion is the term for that. Land registration, taxes, transactions on value in land, produce, cattle, the VN is quite demanding on our industry to really come up with how to handle these issues.

At BitFest, we will have a speaker to tell us about a pure blockchain project in Ethiopia. To show tangible result in Blockchain.

At the end of July, I am invited to a Round Table at CAUX Forum, which will mainly deal with transactions on the Blockchain. The intent is to present BitShares Blockchain and simply ask for a spot on our globe to really do something. We have some ideas, but anybody who wants to put in one: you have our address. Seize the moment I would say.

Furthermore, the BBF is regularly being approached by people with inquiries or requests and aims to best help and inform those people.

These are exciting times.

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BitShares Blockchain Foundation
spokesperson@bitshares.foundation

BitShares Blockchain Foundation
Zutphenseweg 6
7418 AJ Deventer
The Netherlands
Registration: KvK-66190169
http://bitshares.foundation

• Official Public Face and sole Spokesperson of the BitShares Blockchain {more}