CoinGeek Conversations

The Bitcoin SV incubator Satoshi Block Dojo is approaching the end of its first 12-week programme in London’s East End. The cohort of eight startups is working towards a big night in which they’ll have the chance to pitch their businesses to an audience of potential investors. 

Ahead of that, this week’s CoinGeek Conversations offers a sneak preview of all eight of the startup ideas. And if you want to find out more about Block Dojo itself, just go back to last week’s show, in which COO Osmin Callis explains the Dojo’s philosophy and the opportunities it is offering for many more BSV entrepreneurs. 

Here, then, as briefly as possible, are the first eight businesses: 

• Galatea and Pygmalion (G&P)

It’s an idea for authenticating artworks - and eventually many other kinds of product too. Galatea and Pygmalion highlights the problems of counterfeiting and piracy in the art world, and promises to fix them with a blockchain solution. The founders are two brothers. 

• +App 

+ App offers a way for specialists to charge their customers or clients for their time more easily than by using traditional methods. It aims to create more efficient transactions in the gig economy for a wide range of experts. Its founders are a husband and wife team. 

• Ninja Punk Girls

Ninja Punk Girls is an NFT-based game in which players battle each other to win currency or NFTs. It will be developed as both a card game and 3D fighting game. The founders envisage several sources of revenue, both in-game and beyond.

• Sattva Meta

Sattva Meta promotes net zero carbon emissions through an accounting mechanism offering verifiable ways to track carbon offsetting claims. Its customers will receive audit-ready reports to encourage their decarbonising programmes.

• Soundoshi 

Soundoshi wants to revolutionise the music industry by allowing its customers to once again own the music they pay for. On the blockchain, fans will build an immutable collection and musicians will get a better deal than they do from the streaming services.

• Buzzmint

Buzzmint offers its service to existing brands and businesses that want to mint their own NFT projects. It will collect subscriptions and royalties from the users of its platform and believes the media and publishing world is waiting for such a solution.

• CosmosX

CosmosX is a space-themed metaverse in which businesses and consumers interact, using NFTs and the company’s own tokens. The space-themed world will be the site of virtual music and gaming and the company expects to benefit from the growth of VR and AR. 

• Sesire

Sesire will provide adult video on its Bitcoin SV blockchain platform. It wants to give power back into content creators, allowing them fast and direct payment. And it will use AI to select  content for its users in what is a huge global market. 

CoinGeek is following the whole Block Dojo programme. Watch out for our BSV Stories film, covering this first cohort from start to finish. 

The Bitcoin SV blockchain is “absolutely perfect” for start-ups looking to build their businesses on chain, says Osmin Callis, Chief Operating Officer of the Satoshi Block Dojo. 

“The fact that Bitcoin SV is a complete financial system that you can run your business on is only starting to become apparent to both enterprises and individual entrepreneurs so, yes, the future, I think, looks very bright.”  

 Business building is a subject that Osmin knows a lot about. In her role at the Satoshi Block Dojo, she is responsible for guiding young start-ups with ideas for building services and products on the BSV blockchain. 

 The start-up accelerator, which welcomed its first cohort in January 2022, takes its team members through a highly structured twelve-week mentorship and training programme. This programme can be divided into three stages, as Osmin explains to Charles Miller on this week’s episode of CoinGeek Conversations. 

 The first stage is all about problem validation and looking at the commercial viability of the idea that the entrepreneurs have come up with. The second is focused on the technical elements of the application or service that they intend on building and the third is all about getting them pitch ready, so they are prepared to meet the Dojo’s network of investors. 

 Once the twelve-week incubation process is complete, the start-ups are ready to go out into the world, hopefully with their pockets full of investor change. They are not totally alone though as the Dojo is committed to continuing to support and engage its start-ups until they are ready for their seed round, a process which Osmin predicts will take around 12 months. 

 While the incubator is the Dojo’s main focus, they also run a series of events for those who may not already be switched on to the power of the Bitcoin SV blockchain. These include ideation jams, masterclasses, and university roadshows. 

 Osmin says that she wants these events to stimulate people to harness skills and ideas gained from whatever business or academic experience they have and transform it into “something that can result in them becoming a founder.” 

 For example, there is an ideation jam scheduled for the 20th of April which is focused on using Bitcoin SV to find innovative solutions for the construction industry. The event will be preceded by a workshop and a mixer to get attendees thinking about what challenges need to be tackled in the industry. 

 These events show the role the BSV blockchain can have in solving inefficiencies across a range of industries, and they also draw entrepreneurs into the Bitcoin SV community, with the winner of the jam invited to apply for a place on the Satoshi Block Dojo. 

 Osmin is determined that any hard-working entrepreneur should be able to find a way to connect with the Satoshi Block Dojo, and with investment funding recently announced from Ayre Ventures, this will only become easier. For those looking to join the next cohort of entrepreneurs, applications are currently open to join the incubator with a welcome date of 31st April 2022. 

Users of the Gravity wallet received an unexpected email in February telling them that within a few weeks they must transfer all assets - crypto or fiat - out of their wallets. Gravity had been warned that it wouldn’t be given a licence by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) - and so it had to close its service.

Then, this month, a new email arrived. Gravity was restarting its service under the name of Gravity Money and was now based in Lithuania. Its former users were invited to reopen their accounts.

It’s been a busy and traumatic period for Michael Hudson, the founder and CEO of Bitstocks, the London company which operates Gravity, as he explains on this week’s CoinGeek Conversations.

It was “quite a blow, and quite a shock for us”, Michael says. “The FCA made it very clear in the discussions with them that it would be advantageous for us to withdraw our application as it stood a low likelihood of being approved.”

Michael explains this result was typical for anyone applying with a crypto-related business: “well in excess of 90 percent of applicants have received a quite similar message.”

But Bitstocks was hoping its proactive attitude to regulators over a relatively long period would mean it would be treated differently. “I try to not take it too personally,” says Michael. “It is unfortunate that we just got brushed with the same brush as everyone else in the space, irrespective of our approach. But I guess the FCA as a regulator is just too inundated and busy to actually look at applications based on their individual merit.”

So how did Michael win the approval of Lithuania’s equivalent of the FCA? "Well, the great thing is that they're very structured and very clear about the processes ...in order to be authorised.” In fact, it sounds as though the Lithuanian regulator was everything Michael had hoped for in the UK: “they have a much more efficient process. And also the legal framework is a lot clearer. It's just been a great experience working with the Lithuanians.”

Whilst Michael is as optimistic as ever about the prospects for his company (“I’m more bullish than you could possibly imagine, more than I could possibly state”), he feels he hasn’t received much help in his battles with regulators: 

“If I'm being quite frank, [I'm] a little bit disappointed there hasn't been more support about getting the BSV based solution in the banking system from some of the actors in the BSV space, because I do think it's really important. And I also feel like I'm actually the only one trying to address having a seat in this new transition table from a banking standpoint.”

He’d like to see efforts to get big businesses using BSV for their supply chains and then using their endorsement to persuade bankers and regulators of its merits, rather than having the bankers, as he predicts, heading towards CBDC development based on a proof of stake model. 

Making BSV acceptable in the political and financial world may mean that miners would need to adopt a carbon-offsetting plan. “To ensure that we are not attacked …we need to be carbon zero and we need to have economic value dependent on our infrastructure that's actually the same economic value that's lobbying the political interests.”

“If we start getting really big, huge brands dependent on this infrastructure, then there is a real commercial reason why they will lobby for this infrastructure and not lobby against it.”

In the meantime, Michael’s customers will be pleased to be able to open the new Lithuanian version of their Gravity wallets. 

Yuriy Porytko is a fifth generation Ukrainian-American who says sport has been a significant vehicle in his life when it comes to connecting with people. It was through skateboarding that he met Adam Hawley, the managing partner at NFTfamiliars. It’s a new NFT company which has just launched a charity initiative to support Ukraine. All the proceeds raised will go to the Joint Ukrainian-American Relief Committee (UUARC) to help Ukrainians affected by the country’s war with Russia. 

Yuriy describes Adam as a significant force in the skateboarding community having manufactured skateboard equipment and merchandise under his own company name, Failure. Having been in the same community for more than two decades, Yuriy considers Adam to be “family”.

The Ukrainian Relief NFT collection is a collection of NFTs that can be purchased through NFT marketplace FabriikX. Adam guarantees that the purchase price will go direct to UUARC, something that is made possible with BSV Blockchain. “This NFT means your money goes directly within minutes into that account, into those people's hands, into this channel. The BSV aspect of it just enables it to happen immediately,” he explains.

The NFT artwork functions as a keepsake for its owner and contains images that represent Ukraine, the resilience of its citizens and the spirit that guides Ukrainians as they navigate their way in the midst of war. 

As Adam tells Charles Miller in this episode of CoinGeek Conversations, this is the first charity initiative on NFTfamiliars. He believes that the BSV blockchain will also be able to help with the commercial aspect of integrating community. “It's basically all the familiarity. It's the familiarity of everything. It's the connectivity of everything. It's the blockchain.. through the different NFTs, which puts everyone in their own familiarity space and make them feel comfortable.”

As parting words, Yuriy conveys this message to viewers and listeners: “People don't understand that the simplest little acts make the biggest difference. Every little thing counts. You know, just keep the Ukrainian people in your thoughts and your prayers.”    

To find out more about the Ukraine initiative on NFTfamiliars, check out this CoinGeek article. 

And to purchase your own NFT and contribute to the cause, go to the limited edition NFTs on FabriikX.

The real benefit of NFTs is that they can strengthen the relationships musicians have with fans and grant artists more control, says Mandeep, a rapper and doctor who has recently released his Bitcoin EP 1 on the RelayX platform. 

The album, which includes the tracks Trader Joe and Satoshi Bop, is comprised of seven songs. Each one has been released with a corresponding NFT, which fans have been invited to purchase using Bitcoin SV. 

The NFTs, known as $DEEP tokens act as lifetime revenue shares connecting holders to Mandeep’s music. This means that any fees he gets when his music is played will be shared out amongst token holders.   

“I think that’s one of the main games that Bitcoin lets you play; it finally gives you the chance to control the incentives that people have for interacting with your work in a way that is completely flexible and up to you and so that’s the power that I’m trying to leverage to build a stronger community behind my work.” 

Speaking on this week’s CoinGeek Conversations, Mandeep says that he believes this will be an improvement on the status quo, where fans are only able to stream music on Spotify, with no real connection to the artist. 

“NFTs allow you to have greater control over what happens to your relationship with the consumer after the track has been released,” he adds. 

Mandeep predicts that others in the industry will soon come around to his way of thinking. He points out that a profitable NFT music platform, Jamify, has already been built on the Bitcoin SV blockchain to host musicians like him and ensure they get the exposure they deserve. 

Mandeep has even brought his music into the hospitals he works in. He says he often tries to encourage patients to freestyle with him, believing this to be particularly helpful for younger patients with mental health issues who might struggle to put into words how they are feeling under the scrutiny of traditional therapy. 

His devotion to music is such that he is taking the bold step of quitting a career in medicine to focus on it. From August this year he plans to scale back his time spent on the wards and concentrate on music instead, although he does plan to return to medicine later as a “psychiatrist… with a grey beard.” 

Medicine’s loss will be Bitcoin SV’s gain, as the multi-talented Mandeep is already using his creative thinking and passion for music to shake up the industry, one freestyle at a time.

Check out some of Mandeep's work below:

Trader Joe: https://relayx.com/market/ac7feddc254e0f2a401a39dd808a06b6e3a37b4ec6e3fbd9558adca3b0f8ef2d_o3

See Me As I Am voice choir, TedXNHS:
https://www.ted.com/talks/elftin1voice_choir_see_me_as_i_am

BL@CKBOX I S16 I Ep. 135:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl7pFfCJ3d0 

As nChain’s Director of Research, Owen Vaughan’s background is in the fields of high energy physics, cryptography and differential geometry. Now at the London research and development company for enterprise blockchain, Vaughan’s team provides foundational research in scalable blockchain technology. 

As he tells Charles Miller in this episode of CoinGeek Conversations, he is witnessing an uptick in individuals who have become experts in Bitcoin technology within the last four years. “We're seeing lots of different groups within the BSV ecosystem engaging in really serious research and understanding at a very fundamental level,” he says. 

He notes that developers are now capable of maximizing the use of blockchain technology by building applications that require large transactions and scripts - which was not seen several years ago. 

Vaughan describes nChain as “a wonderfully rich environment in which to research because there's so much to do and so much potential.” He points to a recent nChain discovery around miners validating transactions, saying this opens up a new paradigm in the field of cryptography and zero knowledge proofs. He also mentions the invention of a threshold signature scheme - a potential new product area that could be the best in the market.   

nChain began as a research-led organization but over time has evolved into a more product-oriented company. It has led Vaughan to believe that understanding the challenges in the market will help them solve issues that lie ahead. 

One recent company initiative is to deliver digital cash solutions for central banks around the globe. As Vaughan explains, understanding economics is now integral to the work. He says inflation and monetary supply are some of the issues that needs to be properly examined and understood. 

“We believe we're more than just a tech company, but we are capable of modeling the cash flow in a particular country and explaining what the benefits may be and the challenges involved in moving that to a blockchain based solution.” 

On the question of nChain’s large patent portfolio, Vaughan says patenting is not the goal of the work that they do. But being able to acquire patents demonstrates the justification for the investment in research and helps defend the company and the BSV ecosystem against other operators who have their own patent portfolios.  

The fastest route to enterprise adoption is for those within the BSV ecosystem to work together, says Richard Baker, CEO of TAAL Distributed Information Technologies Inc. 

Richard believes that mainstream adoption is close, and that the next two years will be critical in showing the world what Bitcoin SV is capable of, so long as the community sticks together. 

“We have to remind ourselves that right now we need to group together as an ecosystem and really power through the next 24 months… but this is the best technology and the best utility network for the long term.” 

“The fight is outside, it isn’t inside,” he stresses.

Richard believes that Bitcoin SV is following a Gartner hype cycle model and is currently approaching a ‘trough of disillusionment’. While that may sound disconcerting, it does mean that BSV is one step closer to entering a ‘plateau of productivity’ where it will see mainstream adoption, something Richard predicts will happen around the time of the next Bitcoin halving in 2024. 

On this week’s episode of CoinGeek Conversations, Richard tells Charles Miller that his priority in his new role as CEO of TAAL is commercialising the transaction processing business. To do this it is integral that as many transactions as possible are happening on the Bitcoin SV network and that those transactions are monetised. 

He is particularly excited about developments in the play-to-earn gaming category which he says is “booming”. He singles out CryptoFights, a blockchain game developed by FYX Gaming and built on the BSV blockchain that is regularly recording daily transactions in the millions. 

 But it’s not just the gaming industry that Richard has set his sights on. He hopes that Taal will become a major blockchain infrastructure provider for a whole range of industries.  

 He explains that because of the interoperability of the blockchain and the “ability to jump in and out of all these different ecosystems, these metaverses, is going to require something that looks a lot like a Metanet service provider, we will need to have robust architecture that deals with all of the movement of microtransactions and identities in and out of all those different ecosystems.” 

 His experience as CEO of GeoSpock, a deep-tech software technology company, will stand him in good stead to guide Taal towards this goal. During his tenure at the Cambridge start-up, his focus was on translating real world data from sources like IoT sensors and smart street lighting into data for decision-making for governments and enterprises. 

 He also has experience in the Telecoms industry, building extensive optical fibre networks around the world in the early 1990s. This role saw him establishing infrastructure that became the backbone of the internet we know today and fostered innovation in a way nobody could have imagined, something he hopes to replicate at Taal, with the blockchain. 

 Richard is confident that he will be successful in commercialising the mining company and reshaping it into a dominant player in the blockchain landscape. He predicts a “joining of forces over the next three, five, seven years of mobile operators, the big cloud compute companies and the public blockchain leaders.”

The invention of Bitcoin and the subsequent proliferation of cryptocurrencies will have a lasting impact on traditional finance, says Eswar Prasad, Tolani Senior Professor of International Trade Policy at Cornell University and author of ‘The Future of Money’, a book exploring how finance is changing in the digital age. 

While he has his doubts about the utility of Bitcoin as a currency, arguing that it has largely become “a speculative financial asset” rather than the pseudonymous, peer-to-peer medium of exchange it was designed to be, he is confident its influence will change the nature of money for good. 

“I think the emergence of cryptocurrencies… is lighting a fire into central banks to start issuing digital currencies of their own. So, this is the sense in which I think the cryptocurrency revolution is going to touch all of us, even if you and I might never own a Bitcoin,” he says. 

Eswar predicts that we will soon see the end of cash, with it being replaced by Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and privately run digital payment systems or some combination of the two. 

 He also believes that the creation of Bitcoin in 2008 sped up the FinTech revolution, a development which has democratised finance and made it more accessible, particularly in developing countries. 

 “The fact that even in low-income countries you now have people having very easy access to low-cost digital payment systems makes the life of consumers and businesses a lot easier,” he says. 

 He points to the Aadhaar biometric identification system in India as an example. The Aadhaar Act, which became law in 2016, makes it easier for Indians, especially those in rural areas, to verify their identity and open bank accounts, improving financial inclusion. 

 Figures show that the scheme has been game changing. In 2014’s Global Findex Database just 53% of adults in India had bank accounts, in 2017 that number had increased to 80%. That’s an extra 300 million accounts. 

 Talking to Charles Miller on CoinGeek Conversations, Eswar says he is impressed with blockchain technology and believes it will have a lasting impact. He sees it as not only the foundation for decentralised finance but also predicts that it will play a key role in innovations in public governance, something that we’ve already seen the BSV blockchain proposed for in Tuvalu.  

 But it’s not all good news where Eswar is concerned as he thinks the crypto mania that’s taken hold of our society has a darker side. “I think financial stability issues and investor protection, especially of unsophisticated retail investors who might be investing in cryptocurrencies, getting taken in by the razzle dazzle of the new technology and not understanding the risks… is a concern at the moment.” 

 Overall, he is cautiously optimistic about the impact the digital currency revolution will have on our lives, saying “I think there is a lot to look forward to in the new technologies but also a fair bit of fear.” 

Joshua Henslee, a former ERP and software consultant, isn’t worried by the falling dollar price of Bitcoin SV: “as the price goes down,” he says “it's almost as if the entrepreneurs and applications being built are going up.” 

Talking to Charles Miller on CoinGeek Conversations, Joshua says he is happy to see the increasing utilization of tokens, NFTs, and new marketplaces on the BSV blockchain. As he stressed, “every significant metric is in the positive trend for Bitcoin SV, except its dollar price.” 

Josh also discusses his views on legal matters, referencing the recent Craig Wright vs Ira Kleiman case. He questions the judge’s ability to issue a court order to miners to reroute coins or reassign ownership of a blockchain, saying that the judge did not have sufficient knowledge of Bitcoin and its workings. As he points out, the complexity of the case was evident as the court case dragged on for 45 days with the jury taking 10 days to deliberate and come up with a final verdict. 

Josh also questions the role of law when it comes to income tax in the Bitcoin world. As he points out, “the reality is a lot of people I know, most or some will not [pay],” he says. “It turns into more of the individual taking personal responsibility and doing what they're supposed to do.” 

In another of his YouTube videos called “Upload a file to the blockchain in five minutes,” Josh guides programmers to do as the title suggests. But for non-programmers like Charles, getting his hands on a user-friendly interface might not be too far away in the future, Josh says. “I think really it's the inability for the apps that do that to monetize that really give you a slick UI and make it really easy for the end user.” 

Josh is interested in two recent initiatives built on the BSV blockchain. The first is Jamify a music platform which lets users listen to music, purchase a music NFT and interact with the artist and vice versa. He says Jamify’s advantage compared to conventional music platforms existing today is its low cost barrier to entry and the artists’ ability to accept micropayments. The second initiative, 1000 Blades is an NFT card game in which participants can purchase NFTs and win rewards. To learn more about Josh’s initiatives, go to his YouTube channel.

Europe is starting to realise the full potential of blockchain technology, says Meike Krautscheid, Chief Commercial Office at SmartLedger, a blockchain solution distribution channel. 

Meike believes that Europe is finally catching up with its transatlantic neighbours in recognising the power of blockchain as a solution. This is something that she hopes to capitalise on, by positioning SmartLedger as “one of the first movers in the field.” 

SmartLedger uses blockchain technology to provide solutions to clients through a combination of consultancy, partnership and internal development. This can mean anything from connecting clients with innovators working on blockchain applications to actually developing services to meet client’s needs. 

For example, SmartLedger recently developed TicketMint, a platform built to solve ticketing fraud, scalping and a lack of transparency in the events industry. Built on the BSV blockchain, TicketMint can operate on a global scale without worrying about high numbers of transactions and high transaction fees. It also utilises NFT technology by turning every ticket into an exclusive token. 

 This means that every ticket will be on the blockchain, timestamped and made to follow implemented rule sets. This will help to ensure ticket validity and make it almost impossible for purchasers to resell tickets at extortionate prices, due to the ability to place price ceilings in rulesets. 

On this episode of CoinGeek Conversations, Meike tells Charles Miller that TicketMint is just one of the exciting projects that the company is working on. She hints at further developments within the cybersecurity industry and an initiative called Proof of ESG, which they are working on with a Nobel prize winner. 

Meike is unable to publicly announce who the clients they are working with are due to privacy concerns, but she does say that they are “global companies that everybody knows.” 

In Meike’s role as Chief Commercial Officer, she needs to be well-informed about anything new being developed using blockchain technology.  “I go to the conferences; I speak about the potential of blockchain technology and I’m really an advocate especially of the public blockchain technology of BSV.”  

She is also a member of the Women of BSV, a group of female influencers sharing knowledge and views about Bitcoin SV. She believes that being part of the Bitcoin community is an essential way to keep abreast of new and innovative products, along with more formal study like courses and certificates, of which she has many. 

Bitcoin is not Meike’s only passion. She is a talented double bass player who has taken part in concerts around the world, performing in front of large audiences. She explains that one of the reasons she wanted to diversify her career is due to concerns over sexism in the music industry, admitting to doubts about whether she will still be accepted as a female musician in her 50s and 60s. 

Charles and Meike even joke about the possibility of combining her passions by starting a BSV orchestra. She says, “I think there are many wonderful musicians in this space, and I think we can start a band, a BSV band.”