Last night I attended the Grit Capital's Banking on Blockchain event in Vancouver, along with seemingly every person I've ever met in this city's financial scene. The place was packed - standing room only in a ballroom that usually seats 300+.
HIVE Blockchain (HIVE.V) chief and long time market prognosticator Frank Holmes kicked the show off with a rousing presentation on the block, and HIVE's place in it, followed by a who's who of blockchain public market entrants, including crypto/blockchain streaker
Leonovus (LTV.V) and financial outfit
Mogo (MOGO.T).
One of the participants was a company called eXeBlock, which we've talked about before when we got an early look at what they were planning.
Here's a recap:
eXeBlock: The next generation
Mining is for chumps – at least that’s the thinking behind a lot of folks in the blockchain space, who see definite opportunities in the currency arena but think the future of blockchain applications is going to be monumental and world-changing.
We've all heard the claims that every bank is going to change how they've done business for decades and line up new blockchain-based software – and they will. But those nascent companies that think they’re going to tie down Bank of America to a software deal with six hairy guys listening to industrial hardcore rock in a garage in Kazakhstan are dreaming.
The entrepreneur coders will show what’s possible, then the Forbes 100 crowd will set their armies of bespoke suited code monkeys to the task of creating their own proprietary systems.
The opportunity then becomes in supplying blockchain capabilities to the other 400 in the Forbes 500, or even the guys who haven’t been mentioned in Forbes ever.
The
company says: “eXeBlock employs a team of blockchain programmers currently developing two innovative blockchain DAPPs. eXeBlock will release proof of concept and white papers outlining the operating parameters of the first DAPP by the end of the calendar year, and the second in the first half of next year. Specifics relating to the DAPP’s purpose, market potential and operating protocols will remain confidential until the white paper release date. Further, eXeBlock has plans to launch a minimum of two blockchain based DAPP each year.”
I sat with the team behind eXeBlock yesterday to get more insight, and here's what it comes down to: Their first DAPP (distributed app) will have two purposes. On the surface, it will be a tool that will help charities raise money using the blockchain. But underneath will be tech that the company hopes to put out into the decentralized software world that others will build on in order to achieve their own ends, with eXeBlock getting a small piece of all transactions made using it.
Their next DAPP, Freedom Ledger, will allow the unbankable and those without exchange accounts a way to deal in cryptocurrency/real currency exchanges without having to go through an ordeal in doing so - which is necessary if the mainstream is going to adopt crypto in actual real world purchases. Again, this tool will be available to other developers to assist them in their own development.
In essence, what they're making is the Wordpress of blockchain - they've built the functionality and backend, and what you do with it is up to you - as long as they get their share on whatever business you build out of it.
This is real business, in that they're deep into the process of not only developing their tech, but also proving it out to the blockchain development world. In short, the code has to go out to the world, get ripped apart and criticized and bug checked, before it can go into production. When it does, they'll either find a few things they can improve, or they'll find the code is ready for prime time.
That's not a case of just releasing your software and saying, "Ta-da!" - there's a long development and proving process that involves white papers and planning and pivots.
What's great about eXe is, they're already deep in the weeds on this, having been at it for a few years now. They're not just raising money and telling you what they're planning - they're doing what they planned.
In essence, they're doing the absolute wrong thing if you were simply looking to start a paper company in a hot sector. By actually doing the work first, and in an area that takes a bit more explanation than, say, simply mining Bitcoin for a living, they will not enjoy the same uber lift that some other trending companies might have in the following few weeks, but they'll have a much deeper upside beyond that.
It's early days right now; there are still a lot of things the company is diving into that it just can't talk about for competitive reasons - though acquisition questions do bring a knowing smile to the face of
eXeBlock founder Jonathan Baha'i.
"If we were to be looking at anything, we'd be looking at tools and people," he said. "There's some interesting pieces out there that could really compliment our project."
The acquisition of people is really every blockchain company's bottleneck right now. Baha'i says he prefers to find great coders and teach them blockchain, rather than overpay and compete for the few freelance blockchainers out there right now. In the meantime, his existing team is charging hard.
XBLK opened trading today and jumped to $1.42 on solid trading volume. The group will be telling its story to financiers for the coming several weeks as news unfolds.
-- Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: eXeBlock is an Equity.Guru marketing client