Green Energy Blockchain Project Launches In Estonia

WePower, a green energy blockchain trading platform, has announced a joint pilot project with an independent gas and electricity provider to "tokenize" energy data in Estonia on the blockchain. The the project will be a real-world test using anonymized data to demonstrate what the future of energy trading on a blockchain might look like throughout Europe.  For more information and links to the press release, see the Nasdaq link here: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/estonia-launched-green-energy-blockchain-project-cm904091

This is pretty exciting stuff, hopefully the project will be a success.  The project in this case relates to energy trading and allowing users to buy green energy for a discount to market prices via blockchain technology.  It is an early step into taking energy trading and green energy payments onto the blockchain, decentralizing the process and making it more libertarian.

Even if it has hiccups, it is a signal for the way things could look in the future.  For instance, one of the issues with the former Kyoto Protocol trading mechanism was that the ultimate number of carbon credits was uncertain and also the oversight over their production and issuance was inconsistent worldwide.  If one included the initially assigned Assigned Amount Units under the Kyoto Protocol, the market really didn't need many carbon credits to begin with, and this was made worse by the financial crisis of 2008-2009.  The market's solution was to largely ignore AAUs even though legally they could have supported the entire market needs by themselves and without anyone taking on any renewable energy projects.

Blockchain technology could play a role in fixing this problem for future regional or worldwide emission trading schemes.  A fixed number of tokens could be issued based on the scientific cap of emissions needed to be achieved to prevent negative climate change.  Eligible market participants could trade these units amongs themselves using blockchain technology without lengthy, costly, inefficient, or perhaps even corrupt government stakeholder interference.  Tokens could be differentiated by industry sector and/or subsector, and the cost for the tokens via token offerings to industry players could be set at an agreed level that would seek to capture the opportunity cost versus marginal cost of companies paying for cleanup at their sites themselves.  Then the tokens could freely trade among the eligible market participants, and participants could elect to submit one token as an offset for one ton of CO2 equivalent emissions from their sites each year.  Am I crazy or is this the sort of thing that could work well?

Crack Down Gangnam Style!

Whether we are talking about prices, volatilities, regulations versus libertarianism, instant millionares or even dark criminal activities - topics surrounding cryptocurrencies are never boring.  Give it that, regardless of whether you're for or against it.

And right now South Korea seems to be against it.  Traditionally a large source of cryptocurrency demand and trading (Bitcoins in South Korea typically trade at a premium up to 30% compared to global prices, which led to certain international exchanges to drop that country's price data from their worldwide price averages), now South Korea seems to have taken an aggressive change of direction and started cracking down on local exchanges and speaks of banning cryptocurrency trading altogether.

For a good read on this big development, see Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-southkorea-bitcoin/south-korea-plans-to-ban-cryptocurrency-trading-rattles-market-idUSKBN1F002A

 Look, it's no secret that cryptocurrencies have grown sufficiently large now to threaten domestic tax agencies.  They can claim cryptocurrencies are being used for tax avoidance and people are not reporting their accounts.  Maybe in some cases this is true.  But in South Korea's case, there may also be a combination of fears of capital flight due to an escalating North Korea situation or perhaps fears of societal gambling addiction and all the misery that comes with it.  At a macro level, cryptocurrencies are somewhat of a threat to large powerful governments.  If there was a Crypto World Bank or Crypto IMF for example, owned by nobody but paid for by society, how would the world's balance of power look then.  It would be slightly different.  Would society contribute to pay for such institutions, when people are usually behavior biased to "free ride" instead of contributing to societal good even when they would be better off as a result (i.e., tragedy of the commons)... who can say at this point so it's pure conjecture.

Anyway this is a long way of saying South Korea is scared of cryptocurrencies for their own reasons, perhaps some related to a potential capital flight if the USA and North Korea have a real confrontation prior to 2020 and the capital flight that could result from that.  It is certainly the case that cryptocurrencies have skyrocketed in popularity in South Korea and trade at higher prices than internationally.  I guess those traders will now have to do their trading in Japan, where they seem to embrace cryptocurrency trading at this moment and look at it as a boost to their GDP.

Cryptocurrency Scams Exist - So Be Careful Out There And Beware Eh?

The cryptocurrency market is growing each day.  New participants are entering the market and new opportunities arise constantly - whether it is in the form of day trading coins, participating in ICOs, buying tokens in a coin trading fund, participating in coin lotteries, etc.

With this in mind, the number of tricks and scams on the market also grows.  Hackers, liars, frauds, thieves, fake ICO whitepapers, pump and dump ICO schemes, and so forth seem to pop up from time to time.  The idea is to steal or defraud you of your hard earned money or coins, and whisk everything away somewhere anonymously.  I have found an interesting news group (www.cryptocoin.news) that covers this topic relatively well from an industry perspective: https://cryptocoin.news/category/news/scams/

I would recommend folks to use this resource (among others they also are using) for daily updates on what is happening in the dark corners of cryptocurrencies, so you can stay informed about different tricks and current scamming trends.  There is enough risk already in the market from price and liquidity volatility, regulatory and market questions, etc.  You don't need some jerks adding to that by stealing your property or defrauding you.

Where there is large money there are large opportunities but this likewise attracts criminals and the criminally minded types.  Be knowledgeable and be safe out there, cheers.