An accounting and compliance professional with a background in dynamic and fast paced environments. A proven track record of solving complex problems and addressing regulatory questions and issues.
CoinPoint: How do you see the next 2–3 years in terms of the Blockchain technology implementation? Which markets or industries will thrust the implementation process forward?
Michael: Blockchain technology will provide:
1. Quick easy exchange of value without friction
2. Quick easy exchange of value without a high price
3. “If this, then that” arguments for currency
4. Main Street Access to investments in growing companies, historically only available to institutions and the wealthy
5. Banking for the unbanked
6. Capitalization for entrepreneurs looking to build the new digital organizations necessary to provide this quick easy exchange of value
7. The new opportunities these organizations need to start and grow
8. Disintermediation and Disruption
9. A level playing field
Every Industry will be affected by Blockchain Technology. Industries like Fintech, Distribution and Logistics, Agriculture, Digital Rights Management, Commerce, Real Estate, Research and Development, Social Media, Investing, Voting, Government, Ride Sharing, Cyber Security, Education, IT, and many others are likely to lead the way.
Ivan:
I see greater acceptance in the area of payments and cryptocurrency adoption. I also expect to see a breakthrough in inventory and contract control. Distributed ledger technology in contracts or any kind of asset will change how we view assets in the futures. Blockchain technologies have the ability to digitize and physical asset in the world.
Adrian:
I think in the next 2–3 years, regulatory incertitude will give way to competing frameworks. And the same will happen with blockchain infrastructures, all striving to solve the Blockchain trilemma. Changes in the social structure will soon follow afterwards. The entire world as we know it will change, but that will be on a slighly longer timeframe.
CoinPoint: In your own words, how important it is for a blockchain enterprise to on-board an advisor? Generally, what are your responsibilities as an advisor, and what are the most challenging aspects to deal with?
Sergej:
Active advisors play an important role when it comes to giving a business direction, independent and unbiased feedback loops for continuous improvements, experience and insights in fields that the company has no prior experience in and where it requires someone that works full-time in that area, to make the best decisions and achieve the greatest outcomes. This is a crucial role and requires any consultant to stay up to date with any development in the areas of regulation, tech, projects and so on. In a fast moving space such as cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger technology, this can easily take up a substantial amount of time available for consulting on projects.
Adrian:
For non-blockchain people, understanding how blockchain can optimize their processes and cut costs is more about mental flexibility, especially since blockchain is all about decentralization and consensus, not the individual, which sometimes is counter-intuitive. A good advisor helps companies adopt the technology and proposes technical solutions. Sometimes it even gets involved in actually designing the process architecture.
CoinPoint: Which blockchain or crypto related conference would you single out as being the most disruptive and interesting for blockchain advisors? As an advisor, is it important to attend such conferences?
Michael: Consensus ,Distributed ,Elev8con, CryptoBlockcon, World Crypto & Blockchain Conference, etc. Advisors need to be connected to the community, and this is how advisors connect to the community.
Sergej: There are obviously so many different conferences around the world every week, that it hard to pick the „best one“. Speaking of Germany, I highly recommend to attend the Crypto-Assets-Conference 2020 in Frankfurt. We are also involved and since Germany is becoming a role-model for crypto adoption, you will find the „who is who“ in Europe’s largest economy.
CoinPoint: According to you, which are the top crypto jurisdictions that are opening the door for a wider crypto adoption, and why?
Adrian: I would say Switzerland, Malta and Estonia. Malta was a prime mover, but now seems to lag behind a bit. Innovative EU countries such as Estonia keep pushing forward and Switzerland has the advantage of not being constrained by EU regulations, which means more freedom to innovate.
Sergej: Since we are based in Munich, Germany, we can confirm that a lot of crypto-friendly regulation is coming out of Germany, as well as neighbouring countries such as Switzerland or Liechtenstein. The financial regulator, Bafin, has approved several Security Token Offerings this year, alongside with the regulator in Liechtenstein, FMA, and their parliament, which has voted for the Liechtenstein’s Blockchain Act. that enables a real token economy and publishes guidelines. For smaller jurisdictions like Malta, Gibraltar, or Estonia, the legal costs are often lower and the government is quicker.
CoinPoint: What aspect of blockchain is most interesting to you, and what made you have a hand in the industry?
Michael: With organizations like Swift Harvest, I was instrumental in scoping the workflow from the beginning. It other organizations I have been instrumental in developing a successful business plan with complicated Tokenomics in mind. Scoping and developing Distributed Ledger Native workflows is where I seem to be the most useful. Planning and implementation of the organization are where my passions are. It has been extremely rewarding to be involved in the Blockchain Industries growth over the last 4 years.
Adrian: Infrastructure. Without a solid, scalable, secure and easy to use infrastructure, no Dapp can reach out into mainstream. This is the focal point at Swazm and so far we manage to break some records, for example reaching 200.000 tx/s on a decentralized network.
Sergej: My personal view is that the whole Blockchain space, no matter if we speak about certain DLTs or the cryptocurrency and speculation aspect, is such a huge, complex and astonishing topic, that there is hard to find anything that is not interesting to me. Beginning at the beauty of Bitcoin and it’s simple, but robust architecture, that removes trust from third parties in moving money and be in control of it, over to decentralised applications, that enable new types of economic models, backed by cryptography, computational power or staked assets.
Ivan: The distributed ledger and the fact that you now have an immutable record, something that cannot be tampered with, is the best and biggest impact of blockchain technologies.
