The Magnificent Seven A closer look at functional attributes of blockchain platforms The Magnificent Seven1 Following a whitepaper published in late 2008, the Bitcoin system came into being in 2009, and the underlying technology became what we refer to as Blockchain today. 1 The top seven cryptocurrencies covered a good variety of attributes that are essential to gain a more thorough understanding of the potentials offered by this new technology. The Magnificent Seven 1 Since then, a variety of different cryptocurrency platforms have been created, and based on data from CoinMarketCap (https://coinmarketcap.com/), as of 27 March 2021, there were 8,964 crypto tokens in existence, with a total Market Cap of over USD$1.6 Trillion. The top seven cryptocurrencies made up around 80% of the global market capitalisation: Market Cap Token Symbol (billion USD) % Bitcoin BTC 1,026.8 59.23 Ethereum ETH 0,196.2 11.32 Cardano ADA 0,040.2 02.32 Binance Coin BNB 0,039.1 02.25 Tether USDT 0,038.5 02.22 Polkadot DOT 0,030.4 01.75 XRP XRP 0,025.8 01.49 80.58 Rest of 8,957 tokens 19.42 Bitcoin alone represents nearly 60% of the total cryptocurrency value, with Ethereum being the second highest by value. However, these cryptocurrencies are not in fact the same: value aside, they differ in some interesting ways, which in turn affect their “function” and value proposition. Asset Smart Token Year Type Minable Consensus2 Limit Backed Contract BTC 2009 Native Yes POW No 21m ETH 2012 ERC-20 Yes / No3 POW | POS No Y none ADA 2017 Native No POS No Y 45bn BNB 2017 ERC-20 No Tendermint No 100m Multiple Forms: USDT-Omni, USDT 2014 USDT-TRON, No NA USD none USDT-ERC20 and USDT-EOS DOT 2017 Native NPOS No Y none Ripple XRP 2012 Native No Transaction No 100bn Protocol Source: https://icorating.com/ and https://coincodex.com/ 2 In simple terms, consensus mechanism is a means of authenticating and validating transactions on a Blockchain (or distributed ledger) without having to trust or rely on a central authority. There are many forms of such mechanism, and Proof of Works and Proof of Stakes are two of the more commonly used methods. 3 Ethereum was first launched using a PoW consensus mechanism, but efforts are in progress to change the network's consensus protocol to PoS, which does not require mining (https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/beacon-chain/). The Magnificent Seven 2 The Original Bitcoin is often referred to as Blockchain 1.0, being the first successful deployment of a cryptocurrency. It is however important to remember that Bitcoin was designed to function as a “peer to peer electronic cash system”. Hence all of its design features contribute towards achieving that primary purpose. Specifically, the mining mechanism provides incentives for participation so as to eliminate reliance on third parties; and the consensus mechanism (Proof of Work) is designed to ensure the integrity of the system, and contribute towards resolving the double spending problem⁴ . The limit of maximum Bitcoins in circulation (21 million) is another key design feature: all currencies in the world are inflationary as central banks can issue new money and withdraw money at any time without any restrictions on how much money they can print. Bitcoin works by setting a pre-programmed issuance mechanism, reflecting the intent to do away with having a central authority, whilst maintaining control of Bitcoin’s supply. Bitcoin as a virtual asset can also be fractionalised, with the smallest unit being the “satoshi”, equal to 100 millionth of a bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). Practically this means that there is an abundance of “units” of Bitcoins to support future transactions. 4 Double-spending is the risk that a digital currency can be spent twice, as digital information can be reproduced (e.g. copy and paste) relatively easily. The Magnificent Seven 3 Ethereum and Smart Contracts Ethereum, referred to as Blockchain 2.0, was developed with the intention of enabling the development of decentralised applications (dApps). The ability to enable computer scripts, termed Smart Contracts, to run on the blockchain was a unique and innovative feature at the time of its launch. Smart Contracts are a key enabling feature of a “blockchain eco-system”, allowing anyone to execute programs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which runs on the Ethereum blockchain network. This significantly increases the ease of building blockchain applications that can automate business processes, which in turn enable the transformation of traditional industries. In a sense, the Ethereum blockchain can be considered as the first decentralised computer platform that can be accessed by anyone anywhere in the world. Ethereum and Smart Contracts enabled the creation of on- blockchain digital assets; in particular the ERC-20⁵ token standard allowed project developers to create new tokens with ease, and was a key catalyst to the boom in “Initial Coin Offerings” (ICOs) during 2017 and 2018. To date, Ethereum is still the main platform for creating custom tokens, mostly in “ERC-20” format. ERC-20 tokens are a type of “fungible” token, i.e. one token is identical to and interchangeable with another in much the same way as fiat cash. However, there are several other Ethereum token standards such as ERC-223, ERC-777, etc. that have different design features. In recent months, ERC-721, a standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can be used to represent ownership over specific and unique digital or physical assets, became immensely popular, taking the world by storm. 5 ERC stands for “Ethereum Request for Comment”, these are application-level standards for the Ethereum blockchain platform and include token standards, name registries, and many other aspects to enhance efficiency in development and facilitate interoperability. The Magnificent Seven 4 The need for Trust in a Trustless Eco-system The global launch of Tamagotchi (たまごっち) took place in May 1997. This was the first digital pet designed by Bandai, the famous Japanese toy manufacturer, and became one of the best-selling toys worldwide. Twenty years later in 2017, with the introduction of the Blockchain technology, Cryptokitties was launched. Leveraging the ERC-721 token standard, Cryptokitties was the first digital asset of its type running on a public blockchain. Fast forward to 2021 - fuelled by the cryptocurrency boom, NFTs took the world by storm: in the month of March 2021, the first NFT virtual art was auctioned for over USD 69m by Christies⁶ , and the first digital NFT home was sold for some USD 0.5m⁷ ; even major brands like Gucci have joined this emerging trend by launching an exclusive pair of virtual designer sneakers⁸ . NFTs can also be used to associate with real world assets. However, attaching a real-world asset to a blockchain would require a mechanism for ensuring the safe custody of the physical asset, such as a painting, as well as the integrity of the association with its digital equivalent. This gives rise to a very interesting situation: the need for a trust mechanism within a trustless system! In other words, trusted third party intermediaries in today’s commercial world are not necessarily displaced by the emergence of decentralised systems; instead some may evolve into a different role, creating new value propositions in the new digital commercial eco-system. 6 https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/beeple-first-5000-days/beeple-b-1981-1/112924 7 https://www.instagram.com/p/CMcOLELhmyq/ 8 https://www.gucci.com/us/en/st/stories/article/sneaker-garage The Magnificent Seven 5 Incentives for Participation The design of Bitcoin included an incentive mechanism to encourage participation in operating the Bitcoin blockchain, commonly referred to as “mining” where new coins are created and credited to the creator of a new block. Not all tokens are created this way: in some blockchain systems, a certain amount of tokens are “pre-minted”, and then these are sold (such as via a private sale) or awarded to participants in some pre-defined manner. Whilst all blockchain eco-systems have their respective operating model, and thus incentive mechanism of some form, how these operate differs. Despite these differences, the general principle is that for any one blockchain eco-system, users and participants need to “spend” these tokens in order to use the services of the blockchain, and the more that people use the services, the more demand there will be for these tokens, and their value can thus increase, creating a positive cycle that incentivises participation. The Magnificent Seven 6 The Desire for Stability In reality, and as we have seen over the past few years, the value of cryptocurrencies fluctuates wildly, sometimes within a single day. If this level of fluctuations were to occur in traditional stock markets, it would have triggered circuit breakers in many markets. Against this need for stability, a new type of cryptocurrency called “stablecoin” was conceived, where its value should not fluctuate to the same extent. To achieve this, the typical approach is to peg this to an asset in the physical world (with redeemability also being an ultimate feature) where the value can be easily ascertained; fiat currency being a popular choice. Launched in 2014, the USDT (Tether) is a cryptocurrency that was designed to have a 1:1 conversion rate with the U.S. dollar. The latest and highly prolific addition to this family would be Facebook’s Libra 9 (now re-branded Diem) project. Stablecoins came in many forms 10, and over the years, there have been controversies on a number of these projects. However, there is as yet no perfect mechanism to manage the underlying assets and to align the changes in value of the underlying assets with the value of the corresponding stablecoin.