Chase, that is an outstanding article with some very practical advice.  I am frankly surprised that high school students’ financial literacy is only 18%. Perhaps DNotes can help play a role in the future to help change that. CRISP for Children and CRISP for Students are indeed designed for the purpose. Our next step is to start generation revenue to fund worthy projects and that is partly what the book is about.

More on OpenBazaar:

Introducing OB1

JUN 11, 2015

We have said many times that we believe in emergent, decentralized, start-up innovation. Institutions public and private, no matter how well intentioned, tend to protect their institutional interests, whether is it a current revenue stream, or a position of market power. That makes them inherently conservative. Start-ups and the entrepreneurs who create them are almost always outsiders. They depend entirely on innovation for success. So we are sensitive to market power and constantly on the look out for innovations that unlock markets by creating value for consumers and changing the structure of markets.

We bet on networks like Twitter and Tumblr because they efficiently connected creators and consumers challenging the incumbent bureaucratic hierarchies in the media industry. But those networks also concentrate market power through network effects and as they grow, they tend to consolidate control over their creators and consumers in an effort to extract more economic value. This is capitalism’s creative destruction at work. We celebrate it, but we also look for opportunities to continue the process with new models, that are even more efficient.

That interest in what’s next has led us to look closely at protocols that further flatten hierarchies and decentralize control. We are pleased to announce, today, our investment in OB1.

OB1 is a company formed to further the development of OpenBazaar, an open source project that is refining a protocol that will enable anyone, anywhere to sell products and services to anyone, anywhere in a fully decentralized marketplace. Because the marketplace is defined by a protocol and distributed across every participant’s server, the hosting costs are shared and there is no way for a central authority to leverage network effect market power to extract rents from the participants.

This begs the question of how OB1 can be a for profit business that will generate a return on the investment we are announcing today. How can a business that is consciously architected to undo network effect defensibility, one that is tearing down the walls and filling in the moats that every paper on market based competition has insisted are necessary for success… succeed. To paraphrase the old EF Hutton ad (yes I am dating myself), they intend to make money the old fashioned way: they intend to earn it.

OB1 will offer a set of value added services to buyers and sellers on the OpenBazaar market. They expect others to provide services to the participants on OpenBazaar, and they don’t expect to have any proprietary advantage over those competitors. As investors, we hope that their familiarity with the marketplace and the goodwill they generate as early sponsors of the open source project will give them an advantage but we understand they must execute very well or be left behind.

A close observer might say that the recent experience with decentralization is that it often leads to an unanticipated re-aggregation that creates extraordinary market power and financial returns. This is certainly the story of the TCP/IP and HTTP protocols that are the foundation of the Internet. Those protocols radically decentralized the creation and distribution of media and fundamentally changed the structure of the media industry. But the challenge in this newly decentralized world was discovery. When media was defined by distribution, the newspaper, radio station or cable franchise decided what was available to you. In a world where anything was available, the hard problem was finding what you want. The answer was search. And Google, whether they fully understood it or not, stepped in to meet that need and reaggregated human attention is a way that created an enormous amount of market value.

A cynic might then say that OB1, is consciously architected to create this same reaggregation opportunity in commerce. I can say with some conviction, having talked about this for hours with the founders of OB1 that this is not their plan. But I also have to say that none of us understand exactly how discovery will work in a fully decentralized marketplace and how to prevent discovery from becoming a source of market power in the decentralized world we envision. We hope by calling it out here, you will keep us honest and help us imagine a new model for discovery that won’t subvert the goal of empowering buyers and sellers to trade freely and to capture the value they create.

Finally, we can’t end this post without addressing the potential dark side of decentralized markets. Decentralization empowers individual participants in the network or marketplace. Some may use the protocol in ways that others consider immoral or that are illegal in some jurisdictions. That should, however, not prevent us from creating an open protocol. TCP/IP and HTTP, for instance, allow content to be shared between any two people who have access to the Internet. Some of that content is morally reprehensible to many if not most people. Some of that content is illegal.

Still overall, most would argue that society is better off because the Internet has enabled everyone to connect and communicate. The Internet could have been designed to centralize control, but then it would not have enabled the permissionless innovation that led to so many of the services we now use every day. The OpenBazaar protocol makes the same conscious design choice. It is inherently decentralized. It favors innovation over control, so it is possible that the openness of the protocol could lead to use cases that some or most of us would disagree with. But as with TCP/IP and HTTP, we believe the creative and legitimate use cases will quickly dominate the marketplace.

OB1 will, of course, not knowingly offer its value added services to anyone using the OpenBazaar protocol to engage in illegal activities. The trickier question is how OB1 supports the development of an open protocol, one that they do not control, without encouraging, or endorsing, or even facilitating the misuse of that protocol. This calculus is further complicated by the fact that many current contributors to the open source project may be motivated by a mistrust of political or economic power. We do not have an easy answer. It would be disingenuous for us to say the OB1 team has no influence over the open source project.

They are respected code contributors. They are likely to encourage the development of the protocol through their own work and will now be in a position to offer bounties to encourage the development of specific features. But we can’t think of any design principle we could encourage, that would eliminate the possibility of misuse, without undermining the value inherent in a free and open marketplace, so the best we can do is aggressively advocate for the responsible use of the OpenBazaar protocol, be open and transparent ourselves, and be an example for others.

USV and our syndicate partners at A16Z are committed to responsibly furthering the OpenBazaar protocol. We are excited to be working with the team at OB1 who we know shares our values and that commitment.

Source: https://www.usv.com/blog/introducing-ob1

Although the money raised so far is a relatively small amount, it is from very respectable investors.

"The developers behind the OpenBazaar raised $1m in capital last year from venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures as well as angel investor William Mougayar, forming a startup called OB1 to oversee development and create services aimed at OpenBazaar users."

Decentralized Bitcoin Market OpenBazaar is Now Live

Stan Higgins | Published on April 4, 2016 at 20:35 BST

The developers of OpenBazaar, the decentralized e-commerce protocol, have released the first live version of the software.

Now available for download, OpenBazaar enables peer-to-peer digital commerce, with bitcoin used as a payment method – akin to a distributed eBay-style marketplace that uses the digital currency. OpenBazaar grew out of an earlier project called DarkMarket which aimed to facilitate decentralized online commerce.

The release comes after a public testing period that saw a variety of storefronts created using the experiment-focused bitcoin testnet for transactions. The developers said today that this test period resulted in more than 25,000 downloads worldwide (across 126 countries) and more than 3,000 vendors created.

"Starting today, anyone in the world with access to an Internet connection can use bitcoin and OpenBazaar to exchange goods and services freely. We can’t wait to see how people will use this tool," project lead Brian Hoffman said in a statement.

The developers behind the OpenBazaar raised $1m in capital last year from venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures as well as angel investor William Mougayar, forming a startup called OB1 to oversee development and create services aimed at OpenBazaar users.

Source: http://www.coindesk.com/openbazaar-live-version-bitcoin-market/

This "friendlier-sounding, OpenBazaar" could be a paradigm shift, creating many business opportunities. Keep a close watch on it.


How OpenBazaar’s Early Adopters Are Testing the Online Market

Daniel Palmer | Published on March 24, 2016 at 16:31 BST


Back in April 2014, DarkMarket, a decentralized anonymous marketplace with a name guaranteed to fuel the nightmares of conservatives everywhere, was forked and given a more widely acceptable title.

The resulting, friendlier-sounding, OpenBazaar, was a fully functional, free to use, peer-to-peer (P2P) market platform with robust decentralized infrastructure that enabled commercial activities to be conducted outside the control of third parties.

If that sounded like a formula for another illicit drugs marketplace such as the notorious Silk Road, the project lead Brian Hoffman stressed that that wasn’t the aim.

Speaking to CoinDesk in June of that year, Hoffman spelled out the central value proposition for OpenBazaar as being the freedom of two parties to transact without needing to rely on the security and integrity of a questionable centralized service, adding that the team behind the project will push for lawful uses of its service.

A redesigned and improved OpenBazaar launched in test mode on 2nd March. The test period during which the site only accepts "testnet bitcoin," which has no value, is intended to help the developers identify as many bugs as possible, with as little risk as possible.

The project's test version has been downloaded more than 19,593 times and early vendors are up sporadically, with service to the site itself still being rather spotty.

OpenBazaar co-founder Sam Patterson told CoinDesk the market has released four new versions based on lessons learned from the tests and expect at least one more before the final launch in "the next few weeks."

Not willing to wait for the release of a field-tested version of the software, a "handful of eager users" downloaded and ran the "mainnet version" of OpenBazaar at their own risk, according to this Reddit post, which Patterson verified.

On 3rd March, the first OpenBazaar transaction for three "SuperBitcoiner" keychains was conducted between Shayan Eskandari, a blockchain software engineer at BitAccess and Tyler Smith, author of the Reddit post. Shortly thereafter Smith made two more purchases: two sets of two OpenBazaar pins from Patterson and a single can of Red Bull from the other co-founder, Brian Hoffman.

While the potential for illicit sales on OpenBazaar has led to widespread coverage even before its launch, a closer look at what’s actually on the site — besides keychains and Red Bull — reveals a decidedly mild list of offerings, which perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise.

“We anticipate trade on OpenBazaar will reflect society in general,” Patterson told CoinDesk. “Only a small portion of people do morally or legally questionable trade, and that fact shouldn't prevent the vast majority of uncontroversial trade from being allowed to happen.”

Curious to see what the project's earliest vendors are up to? Below are some the ways in which users have already begun standing up digital storefronts using OpenBazaar.

Read more: http://www.coindesk.com/7-vendors-early-adopters-openbazaar/

 

GameCredits team has been doing a great job worthy of our support. We certainly appreciate the great friendship and like to wish you all the very best.

Impressive!

Thanks for commenting on Chapter 15 - The DNotes Story. TeeGee has worked very hard and did an excellent job. It has now been passed back to me for my editing team to work on. If your comments were made in the last 48 hours, you may email them to me to ensure that nothing important is missed. It is quite a process that we have set up but keeping us extremely busy.

At DNotes, we are operating from a different prospective. There are three most important components to digital currency; the currency, blockchain technology, and global payment network. Yes, "improving the ‘usefulness’ of the currency as money itself" is the most important of all. Mass acceptance of digital currency can not be accomplished without meeting and exceeding the full function of money.

As money, fiat currency is our competitor, not Bitcoin and other altcoins, not at this level. We manage DNotes as a business but do not control it as one. "Chapter 1 - Be Equal to or Better than the Competition" is critical mindset to succeed in any business. We will approach technology with the same mindset when we start focusing on it later this year. It is always important to remember, "where you are right now is of less consequence than where you are going from here."

Very interesting article. A creative thinker.

"People say “ideas are a dime a dozen” or “execution is everything.” These statements are not really true. It’s difficult to come up with 10 new ideas a day (try it), and execution ideas are just a subset of ideas."

What do I think of "ideas are a dime a dozen”? That has always been my position, but if you don't continue to come up with your own ideas, you will end just being a "me too" instead of being a trailblazer. Talking about "execution", I wrote a whole chapter on that.

Quote from: indiamikezulu on Today at 12:32:07 AM

The tin-foil-hatters, readers – the libertarians and contrarians – have been correct in their analyses.

Full stop.

And a few months ago, they were saying, ‘Well, after the currency war comes the trade war.’ E voila:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/01/defiant-china-slaps-steel-tariffs-on-britain-as-trade-war-looms/


Stabbings in a Greek refugee camp:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-stabbed-riots-greek-camps-a6963481.html

Quote From Shepherd Today:

I didn't realize that China has been suffering "trade abuses". I thought it was the way around. Lol! I have to stop watching Donald Trump.


"The Chinese ministry of commerce said in a terse statement that it was slapping anti-dumping tariffs of 14.4pc to 46.3pc on companies from the EU, South Korea, and Japan, claiming that China had suffered “substantial damage” from trade abuses."

I agree, RJF "Lets keep working on getting people to use it or, even know what it is before we expect  to solve all the world's problems...." We are working day and night behind the scene to introduce digital currency to those who can benefit from it the most - the small business owners and their employees. We will be back in the news again in a few more weeks. I can't wait to get the book published. That is one of our core foundation blocks and a very important strategic tool. It is almost done. I am seeing a solid winner that could go a long way contributing to the success of the company and DNotes.

Altcoins were hardly mentioned by the mainstream media, even when they frequently headlined Bitcoin. These days it's all about blockchain, yet I am hardly seeing any viable business models for small operators. Don't get me wrong, there are huge opportunities for the likes the "Amazon" of the internet, but most will be spinning their wheels and fail.

The following article sheds some light on why the mainstream media has been mentioning Bitcoin far less frequently but almost exclusively on blockchain these days. 

At least for the time being, “For currency and as a financial rail, bitcoin is the only game in town," said Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group.”

And … “The Ethereum Foundation emphasizes on its website that ether is not meant to be competition to bitcoin, nor is it "intended to be used as or considered a currency, asset, share or anything else,"

If both statements are true, then the banks have nothing to fear. They can use blockchain technology to cut out the middle, cut employee counts, and continue with high banks fees on credit card charges and high interest credit card charges.

It will take a while but we would like to prove them wrong. Our core mission is to build DNotes as the trusted global digital currency to supplement fiat currency worldwide. I have no doubt that we will prevail to make DNotes to meet the full functions of money one day and subsequently become superior, in function, to fiat currency.


Wall Street and tech start to move past bitcoin

Everett Rosenfeld | @Ev_Rosenfeld
Friday, 1 Apr 2016 | 1:38 PM ET

Bitcoin, the revolutionary technological innovation, is becoming old hat.

Even while investors and regulators are paying much more attention (and more money) to the technological architecture underpinning the cryptocurrency, a funny thing is happening: Bitcoin, the very reason for that architecture, is often going completely unmentioned.

That's not to say that bitcoin is becoming less popular as a means of exchange or a store of value — it's price in U.S. dollars is hovering near a one-year high — but people are increasingly showing much more interest in other potential applications of secure distributed ledgers (also called blockchains), which have nothing to do with money.

It's that innovation — the blockchain — that allows for the bitcoin network's global functioning. It securely records information publicly, and concurrently hosts those records on separate computers. And while many have argued that a blockchain is fundamentally insecure without bitcoin's diverse network participants incentivized by monetary reward, not everyone agrees.

"For currency and as a financial rail, bitcoin is the only game in town," said Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group, which oversees 68 companies in the virtual currency and associated technologies space. "But as a ledger, I think that most of the efforts underway by the banks are using permissioned or federated blockchain solutions."

Read More:  Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/01/wall-street-and-tech-start-to-move-past-bitcoin.html

Quite stunning.

That is an interesting headline and certainly caught my attention. In my opinion, what the author proposed is far from being a viable solution even if the bank is interested in Bitcoin. A full-reserve banking scenario for a single bank is hard enough to pull off; for the entire banking system is but a dream. It is always easier to write about a concept than to actually make it happened.


“Bitcoin could be an interesting option to tackle full-reserve banking in the financial industry. The way this could work is by using Bitcoin as a hedge against banks, and assets could be accounted for on the blockchain. Transparency in full-reserve banking is of the essence, yet it is also one trait most banks are lacking right now.

Achieving this goal will be difficult, though, as banks have no apparent interest in Bitcoin.”


The Viability of Bitcoin In A Full-Reserve Banking Scenario

Posted on7:00 pm March 27, 2016 AuthorJP BuntinxCategoriesBitcoin, News, Opinion


Bitcoin could be an interesting option to tackle full-reserve banking in the financial industry. The way this could work is by using Bitcoin as a hedge against banks, and assets could be accounted for on the blockchain. Transparency in full-reserve banking is of the essence, yet it is also one trait most banks are lacking right now.

Bitcoin is often referred to as being many things, ranging from a commodity to currency, and even a solution to solving all of the financial trouble in unbanked and underbanked regions. But very few people believe Bitcoin has the potential to change reserve banking altogether, allowing consumers to be no longer enslaved to the banking ecosystem. While there is serious doubt central bank-issued currency will ever disappear completely, Bitcoin could end up becoming a full-reserve banking solution.

Bitcoin is Financial Freedom
At its core, the Bitcoin protocol is designed to give consumers and business owners complete control over their finances at any given time. Although there is a lot of focus on the financial side of using Bitcoin technology, this point needs to be hammered until people understand Bitcoin is not just the technology, but it is a viable currency as well.

When getting involved in Bitcoin, the sole user is responsible for keeping their funds safe. There are no banks or governments involved, and this thought scares a lot of people. Up until this point, there has been a fair amount of handholding by these established financial players. However, everyone needs to remember banks and governments are the root cause of the financial trouble the entire world is in right now.

That being said, it is unlikely to see government-issued currencies going away anytime soon. Replacing the legacy systemand financial infrastructure all at once will be quite the challenge, even though a good amount of Bitcoin community members would like nothing more than for that to become a reality. However, there is a chance for both fiat currency and Bitcoin to complement each other, in a rather straightforward way.
Reforming Full-Reserve Banking
Reserve banking is an integral part of the fiat currency ecosystem and comes in two different forms. The version one Reddit user was interested in, is full-reserve banking. The way this principle works is by forcing banks to keep a portion of each depositor’s funds in cash, which can be withdrawn on demand. Some people may have noticed that depending on the amount of money they want to withdraw from an account, there is a waiting period involved.

Moreover, the funds deposited in these on-demand accounts would not be loaned by the bank to anyone else, as doing otherwise would be a violation of the legal requirements. It comes as no surprise to find out no country in the world requires full-reserve banking at this stage, despite monetary reforms advocating this change since back in 1935.

Bitcoin could be an interesting option to tackle full-reserve banking in the financial industry. The way this could work is by using Bitcoin as a hedge against banks, and assets could be accounted for on the blockchain. Transparency in full-reserve banking is of the essence, yet it is also one trait most banks are lacking right now.

Achieving this goal will be difficult, though, as banks have no apparent interest in Bitcoin. While they are exploring the boundaries of issuing their digital currencies in the future, they will not be suitable candidates for full-reserve banking. Bitcoin has many advantages, but it will take quite some time – if ever – until banks embrace this concept as part of the financial ecosystem.

Source:  http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/03/27/viability-bitcoin-full-reserve-banking-scenario/

The video will kick in later.

Just a brief response. The site will be launched with limited contents but a lot more will be added in the coming months. I can cover a wide variety of important business related subjects. We intent to work with strategic partners who are currently serving the small business market.

The book is written to generate a fairly broad appeal in a very inspiration manner of building a leadership culture and collaboration among employees and the management team. It laid the foundation for many related follow-ups and training programs. This could turn out to be a significant revenue generator for the new company allowing us to support major R&D projects going forward.  

It is just a quick 1st draft summary. Please PM Joe with edits. Thanks.

I would not make an investment based on their model. I certainly can not make much sense out of it. One can easily argue that Bitcoin is 90% overvalued or 90% undervalued. This is a high risk investment with potentially high return. It is true with Bitcoin as much as it is true with DNotes. Invest with caution and only invest what you can afford in the event of a worst case or total loss.

Having said that it is important to stayed informed.

Thanks, Brandon. We are keeping extremely busy and making great progress. Early feedback on the book has been exceptional. I think it will open a lot of new doors for us, as well as a significant revenue generator to help fund important future development. DNotes, being a digital currency is money and it is important for us to introduce it to the real world of commerce - the entrepreneur - the business owners and even the bankers. Collaboration is crucial to business success.

TeeGee has been working hard on the DNotes Story and it is coming along nicely.

I know that Joe is busy this morning. I will be away to attend a meeting a good part of today. Thanks to everyone for supporting the forum.

This is potentially a great use case of blockchain technology, worth following.


Bitcoin Technology’s Next Big Test: Trillion-Dollar Repo Market
Blockchain, the virtual currency’s digital ledger application, to be tested on repo transactions

By
KATY BURNE and
 
TELIS DEMOS
Updated March 29, 2016 12:53 p.m. ET

Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., a firm at the center of Wall Street’s trading infrastructure, is about to give the technology behind bitcoin a big test: seeing whether it can be used to bolster the $2.6 trillion repo market.

DTCC said in a statement Tuesday that it will begin testing an application of blockchain, the digital ledger originally used to track ownership and payments of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, to help smooth over problems in the crucial but increasingly illiquid corner of short-term lending markets known as repurchase agreements, or “repos.”

Repos play a critical role in the financial system by keeping cash and securities circulating among hedge funds, investment banks and other financial firms.

DTCC, an industry-owned utility that helps settle trades in the repo market and elsewhere, wants to apply blockchain technology to the market, so that lenders and borrowers can keep track of securities and cash flowing between firms in real time.

To test blockchain’s ability to improve repo trading, DTCC has tapped Digital Asset Holdings LLC, a startup run by former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive Blythe Masters. Earlier this year, DTCC invested in the firm focused on blockchain applications, along with a range of banks including J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and others.

Typically in repos, money-market funds lend cash to brokers in exchange for bonds and an agreement to buy back the securities later at an agreed-upon rate. During the financial crisis however, problems in the repo markets were singled out for their role in the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Now, big banks have been shying away from facilitating some repo trades due to new regulations that curtail the firms’ ability to take risks.

Murray Pozmanter, managing director and head of clearing services at DTCC, said in an interview the new arrangement with Digital Asset should help because the ledger would provide a way for all firms to agree on trade terms more quickly.

Currently, he said, traders have to process two legs of each trade separately: one for the borrower to deliver securities in exchange for cash, and the other in which DTCC unwinds the trade. While the trade is in motion but not yet completed, the banks involved can take on risk.

Using blockchain in the area is still at an early stage and may not be rolled out fully if regulators have concerns or if the banks don’t fully embrace the concept. Repo traders ultimately may be slow to embrace changes that they fear could be cumbersome or hurt their competitive position.

But some bankers have been eager to explore blockchain as a way to save money and to make it easier to meet capital rules that apply to the trades. Autonomous Research estimates that $120 billion worth of capital annually is tied up in transactions between Wall Street firms, and that blockchain could reduce that by $6 billion. Those billions could be returned to shareholders or used to fund more profitable activities.

DTCC officials say they may roll out blockchain technology to other markets outside of repos. Startups such as Digital Asset, Symbiont.io and itBit Trust Company LLC are competing with each other and with banks’ own internal efforts to launch new blockchain-based systems. Working with a utility such as DTCC could be a shortcut to becoming a default technology, says Ms. Masters of Digital Asset.

“Working with DTCC is much easier than going to talk to all the participants in the repo market separately and persuading them to adopt a new technology,” said Ms. Masters, who was appointed Digital Asset’s chief executive last year after a 27-year career at J.P. Morgan that included stints as head of global commodities and chief financial officer of the firm’s investment bank.

Even if blockchain does speed up repo trading by a few seconds, the market is grappling with other issues. The Wall Street Journal reported late last year that DTCC is seeking $50 billion in commitments from member banks and trading firms as a credit line to shore up the finances of its subsidiary, the Fixed Income Clearing Corp., which clears repos already between big banks and broker-dealers.

DTCC’s fixed-income unit is also considering expanding its membership to large investment firms and money-market funds.

Write to Katy Burne at katy.burne@wsj.com and Telis Demos attelis.demos@wsj.com

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-technologys-next-big-test-trillion-dollar-repo-market-1459256400