We’re a day off from my regular weekly posting of the landscape recap and for good reason — this morning I released the latest edition of my Blockchain Landscape (included below for download) that provides an overview of the industry highlighting over 900 global companies, venture funds, and working groups. If this is the first version you’ve seen of the landscape, consider it your guiding roadmap to further navigate the industry.

Now for this week’s deep dive. Bitcoin drives half of Square’s Cash App revenue in the 4th Quarter (2019). The central bank of Sweden has started testing its digital version of cash, the e-krona. New partnerships aim to bring NFTs to the NFL, MLB, Soccer, Formula 1, and UFC (Dapper Labs). Enterprise blockchain startups are suddenly cool, learn why. International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that, by 2023, Chinese companies will have invested $2.7 billion into blockchain technology. South Korea’s Central Bank is building a new blockchain system for the bond market. LiquidApps releases a customizable enterprise blockchain. Unikrn is putting racetrack NFTs on ethereum. Nexus Mutual, a DeFi insurance firm, has paid its first payout in-form of two claims worth approximately $31,000 after the bZx attacks.

I even found room to cram in plenty of research (Q1 2020 Blockchain Landscape (NEW & UPDATED) & DApps Landscape) along with insights on venture capital (new funds + M&A activity!!), infrastructure, DApps, Bitcoin, Economics, Exchanges, and Stablecoins. For MORE and to keep you up to speed, here’s a snapshot of the top stories this week around the industry.

📈 JPMorgan Says Blockchain Is Laying Foundation for Digital Money

JPMorgan Chase & Co. stated that the emergence of linked databases like the blockchain has modernized the payment industry by laying a foundation for digital money. But the challenge arises with the rapid adoption like Facebook’s Libra fell short of attaining scale due to short-term liquidity issues. Still, blockchain could be a promising technology for banks and financial institutions, if implemented with a planned structure…read more

📖 Sweden is now testing its digital version of cash, the e-krona

The central bank of Sweden has started testing its digital version of cash, the e-krona, by launching a year-long pilot project. In collaboration with the consulting giant Accenture, the project will be carried out using distributed ledger technology inspired by the blockchains that run cryptocurrencies. The bank is still reviewing the possibility of issuing a digital complement to cash, which will require the involvement of the Swedish public as well…read more

📖 How blockchain is changing the face of soccer

Blockchain is playing a salient part in soccer as paradoxical as it may sound, the blockchain technology would help football to get back to its traditional roots. Some of the soccer clubs are using blockchain platforms to engage fans around the world. Socios is the platform that sells a limited number of blockchain-based Fan Tokens to supporters in return for a voice at the clubs…read more

📈 New Partnership Aims to Bring Blockchain Sports Tokens to the NFL, MLB

Blockchain sports firm Chiliz has partnered with marketing agency Lagardere Sports and Entertainment, which would allow American sports fans to interact with their favorite teams by using blockchain-based tokens. The blockchain-based platform Socios will be implemented in the major sports leagues such as the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), having average team valuations are in the billions of dollars. The partnership will help Chiliz to mark its footprint for the first time with further opportunities for business expansion…read more

📖 What Changed? Enterprise Blockchain Startups Are All Of A Sudden Cool

The blockchain industry has observed an upside trajectory with exciting and new technology innovations, partnerships, and vast numbers of companies and institutions investing in enterprise blockchain companies from the financial year 2019. Some experts still believe that that blockchain space is too new or that it’s not solving real issues, but the validation received from big players like Google, Samsung, Wells Fargo, and Salesforce speaks loudly…read more

💰 China blockchain industry to boom to $2.7 billion by 2023

The International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that, by 2023, Chinese companies will have invested $2.7 billion into blockchain technology. That’s $700,000 more than a prediction the IDC made in November when it predicted Chinese companies would spend $2 billion on blockchain in the same time period, with a compound annual growth rate of 65.7 percent. Other predictions include that 10% of Chinese cities will adopt blockchain-based digital currencies by 2023, and 40% of Chinese financial institutions will move from SWIFT — the international payment system that’s dominated by the US — and central bank infrastructure, to blockchain-based cross border payment systems…read more

📈 The State of Blockchain: Experts Weigh in on Adoption Around the World

Blockchain utilization is detonating far and wide. In any case, despite the innovation’s numerous vocal supporters, the spread of innovation is never a never-ending point. Radoslav Dragov, the blockchain lead for the International Data Corporation, clarified that various variables could make ideal conditions from investment to talent, however, pending regulation, and overall government attitude towards the technology may slow its adoption. IDC anticipated blockchain spending to be $2.7 billion in 2019, an expansion of 80% more than in 2018…read more

This week I released the Q1 2020 edition of the Blockchain Landscape. Now the fifth edition of the landscape I’ve released and includes 747 companies (900+ total unique companies including broader key Ecosystem players) and more than $22 bn in funding raised across the landscape from 2010–2020 — over $18 bn invested since 2017! — Noticeable cycles emerging and full breakdown available.

Congratulations to Harbor (acquired by BitGo), Copper.co, Lightning Labs⚡️, PoolTogether, Authereum, SIMBA Chain, and Paystand on their recent fundraising. Lead VCs in the landscape are Digital Currency Group with 47 investments, Pantera Capital with 27 investments, Blockchain Capital with 22 investments and Andreessen Horowitz and 20 investments each — portfolio breakdowns available.

📈 JPMorgan Global Research: Blockchain, Digital Currency, & Cryptocurrency from the BLOCKDATA team

📖 Cloud Giant Microsoft Azure Embraces Commercial Blockchain

📖 Loopring Launches zkRollup Exchange: Loopring.io

📖 Compound Governance by Robert Leshner

📖 Polkadot Will Feature Layer Two Scaling Thanks to Celer Network

📖 The State of Blockchain: Experts Weigh in on Adoption Around the World

📖 2019 Q4 Foundation Report by The Open Application Network

💰 South Korea’s Central Bank Is Building a New Blockchain System for the Bond Market

📖 Tim Draper puts $1M into the Aragon blockchain project to create digital courts

📖 6 Questions For Aubrey Strobel of Lolli

📖 Future Applications & Products on Ethereum

A group of over 50 entrepreneurs and seasoned product leaders convened at IDEO CoLab to brainstorm future applications and products that could be built on ethereum. The discussions focused on the opportunities of decentralized finance (DeFi) & DeFi-adjacent using composable payment streams, and usage of privacy tools for proof-of-membership…read more

📖 Why Decentraland is more than just Minecraft with crypto

Decentraland’s MANA cryptocurrency was publicly launched on February 20, and now can be used to buy 10x10m plots of land (Land) in the game. The Ethereum-based MANA token has initially raised $20.7 million selling out within five minutes. With the help of this excitement, the land auction saw 161m MANA spent by users to buy virtual plots around $8.8m in today’s value. With this launch, no agent has the authority to modify the rules of the software, curate LAND content, make changes to the economics of MANA, upgrade LAND smart contracts, or prevent others from accessing the world…read more

📖 LiquidApps releases customizable enterprise blockchain specific solution: LiquidChains

LiquidApps, creators of the DAPP Network, have announced the release of a customizable enterprise blockchain specific solution named LiquidChains. This solution will help enterprises and dApps looking to bridge public, permissioned, and private blockchains when deploying mission-critical blockchain applications; the technology will allow anyone to spin up a customizable chain in minutes and connect it to a public ledger for transparent record-keeping…read more

💰 ‘The Sandbox’ Game on Ethereum Sells $206,000 Worth of LAND

📖 Fake Horses, Real Bets: Unikrn Is Putting Racetrack NFTs on Ethereum

📖 The Domain Startups Building an Uncensorable Internet on Top of Ethereum

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