Gucci shoes, chicken nuggets, chips and beer. They could be ingredients for an evening in a bar of how we still know it before corona. They are also all products of which a Non Fungible Token (NFT) is made. In this article I discuss the latest developments in the field of NFTs and how you can do one yourself.

It’s not just a few innovative creatives who have launched an NFT. Celebrities such as Snoop Dog, Paris Hilton and Edward Snowden, and companies such as McDonald’s, Pringles and Lego are also stepping in. There are more than 3 million items for sale at the time of writing and sales worldwide in the last two months are up 2882%. The marketplaces where you can create an NFT are popping up like virtual mushrooms with more than $750 million in investments in the past quarter. Wonderful developments, but I do see 4 of them all.

1. Tragedy of the meet
The idea makers of NFTs who first came up with NFTs in 2014 did so with an ideology that technology should give artists control over their own work. This would make it easy to sell and they can protect work from misuse by others. In my view, this is also not the basic principle why many creatives put their work on the blockchain, with an NFT.

That’s why I think it’s really cool to see how DJs like Don Diablo are now making money through NFTs by selling a unique song. Or how Nigerians can suddenly serve a simple market. But things like beer from the sound of a fart don’t give the concept a good name in my opinion. Not to mention the red pixel, which is currently on offer for $900,000.

The warnings are therefore flying around the ears of various experts on all sides. And not with the general warnings for sharp price falls and financial losses of investment. NFTs are recorded on the blockchain. Even though this technology has already been nicely developed in many areas in recent years, NFTs are still new.

Garrett Hardin described this as beautifully as ‘tragedy of the commons’. If there is a common resource that everyone has an individual incentive to exploit, it will eventually dry up for lack of regulation of common standards. I now see this happening in NFT land and that makes an impossible search.

2. 404! Artwork not found
The number of cases of people suddenly losing their NFT and getting a 404 for the place is very strong. As the owner of an NFT, you are really dependent on the platform where you bought the NFT. Just like for cryptocurrencies, there are no clear laws and regulations that describe what your rights are. You can therefore not knock on the door of any authorities if a platform appears to be off if you make a mistake yourself when digitally storing your NFT.

As a digital thief you no longer have to go to a museum with a crowbar in your bag. You can rob a digital museum from home. The number of reports of digital robberies and scams therefore strongly influenced.

3. Not your keys, not your art
As with cryptocurrencies, an NFT is managed by a so-called ‘private key’. This is a cryptographic key of numbers and letters. You can store it, just like with cryptocurrencies, or have it stored in the place where you bought it. In the latter case, the platform holds the private key. In a recent hack of an NFT exchange Nifty, all keys were stolen and moved to the hackers’ wallets. Lost their NFT as well. The hackers only have the private key to the wallets of the hackers. These are, because of the cryptographic background, uncrackable.

The credo ‘not your keys, not your wallet’, or in this context ‘not your art’, is very relevant here. Setting up your own wallet for your NFTs is highly recommended. Online with a browser plugin such as Metamask or offline with, for example, a Ledger. You can check whether your NFT is stored securely on the Checkmynft website.

4. Copyright Confusion
The work of several well-known artists, such as Shakespeare, Beethoven and Charles Dickens, has become cultural heritage after their deaths. This is free for everyone to use. Quarrels between Italy and Italy over the use of the opera La Bohème Germany resulted in a general European directive. This makes the work of the author, 70 years after his death, a public good. Something the owners of Disney and Superman have long held back in the United States.

The new, NFT way of making, selling and distributing art automatically raises the copyright question. The digital artwork of Beeple, which was sold for $69 million, has now been made into a website, with which you can generate a new Beeple with a simple click on the button. Can that just happen?

I toured several lawyers in the Netherlands, specialized in intellectual property and technology law. They mainly point to the fact that when you buy a work of art you have the right to use it for personal consumption or to resell it. You are purchasing ownership of the item, not copyright. An NFT is nothing more than a digital proof, a receipt, with which you can prove the authenticity and prove that you are the owner. That receipt is on the blockchain and can therefore not be adjusted and is transparent for everyone.

In principle, the artist can make and sell an infinite number of copies of the digital artwork, with a unique NFT associated with it. As a buyer, it is therefore highly recommended to do good due diligence with the artist before buying a work of art. Is it a unique work or a copy?

How do you make an NFT yourself?
Many creatives I speak to and poll about this are enthusiastic. It provides a worldwide sales market with a few mouse clicks. And because of the removal of all kinds of intermediaries, it also ensures a greater yield for the creative person himself. It is also easy to make and put up for sale an NFT yourself. I list the steps below, and also watch the video for more explanation.

Step 1: Why do you want to make an NFT?
Before you start, I recommend that you first ask yourself why you want to make an NFT. In my previous article on NFTs, I wrote about the obscene energy consumption required to make an NFT. That touches a lot of sensitive strings worldwide. Are you doing it for fun? Or really because you have a serious creation that you would like to sell?

Step 2: elaborate the legal framework
Also work out the legal framework well. What about property when selling? In the field of copyright, intellectual property and possible royalties. Look carefully at the conditions of the platform where you upload. What do you all agree to?

Step 3: choose a sales platform
The largest NFT selling platform is OpenSea. This is also the easiest to use, so I’ll use that in the next steps. You need a digital wallet for this, of which Metamask is the most used and can easily be added as a plugin in, for example, Chrome or on the iPhone.

Step 4: Link your wallet
At the top right of the OpenSea site, click Create > Submit NFTs. Then you link your MetaMask account to OpenSea in the next step.

Step 5: Upload your artwork
If MetaMask is linked, you will see the My Collections screen. There is also a big blue button with Create, with which you can upload your digital artwork just as easily as you do with a video on YouTube. Just upload the file, enter the correct title, description and keywords and the NFT is ready!

Step 6: Verify the work
You just need to verify the NFT. You can do this by clicking the Create button again and clicking authorize in the automatically opened MetaMask window. After that, the NFT will be live on the platform.

Using a platform like OpenSea is free, so you can repeat this process as many times as you want.

Tulip bulbs and bubbles
Tens of billions of basketball cards were printed in the United States in the 1980s, after respected media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times labeled them inflation hedges and millions of Americans bought them as investments. Like the internet bubble that emerged decades later and the previous cryptocurrency bubble in 2017, they all eventually burst due to oversupply.

The current madness will continue for a while. Respected analysts expect the market to be worth many billions by the end of this year. Work is now underway on environmentally friendly NFTs and NFT museums have been opened in China, Russia and the United States. The sector is developing so fast that there are new developments every week. I watch them with enthusiasm.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Jan Scheele

Jan Scheele werkt dertien jaar op het snijvlak van deep tech, strategie en leiderschap. Als keynote spreker en dagvoorzitter maakt hij technologie tastbaar voor boardrooms, directieteams en grote podia, zonder de complexiteit te versimpelen of te verbergen achter buzzwords.

Zijn achtergrond ligt in het bouwen. Als CEO van een technologie scale-up, oprichter van meerdere techbedrijven en organisator van meer dan vijftig TED-events wereldwijd zag hij van dichtbij hoe technologische keuzes doorwerken in strategie, governance en cultuur. Vanuit zijn betrokkenheid bij het World Economic Forum en de BCNL Foundation kijkt hij daarbij niet alleen naar wat technisch mogelijk is, maar ook naar wat bestuurlijk houdbaar en maatschappelijk wenselijk is.

Hij publiceerde vijf boeken, waarvan twee Amazon-bestsellers, en schrijft wekelijks over AI, blockchain en de organisatorische gevolgen van deep tech. Zijn blogs bereikten inmiddels meer dan twee miljoen lezers.

janscheele.nl

Full piggy banks, negative interest rates, mistrust of governments and banks, but also enthusiasm for new startups, new possibilities and new technology. The hype surrounding cryptocurrency is getting bigger and crazier by the day. What can we expect in the coming months? In my latest article, I share the 6 key developments that will impact the cryptocurrency industry this coming summer. If you are only used to euros in your wallet, the names of the more than 9,600 different cryptocurrencies probably sound crazy to you. Dogs, hamburgers, Dracula and sperm… You can think of it as crazy as a digital currency has been named after it. It is no longer just the early adopters who buy these digital currencies.

According to a recent market effect study, 700,000 Dutch people have already invested in it and 3.5 million plan to do so in the coming months. According to research by Mastercard, that percentage is 40% worldwide.

Elon Musk has shown how strongly the sector can still be influenced with 1 tweet. If we zoom out and look at the previous bull run in 2017, we also saw a strong correction of -20% every month, which then quickly recovered. It will certainly not be the last correction in the market. Especially because in recent weeks it has been proven again how easy this is to achieve.

The Indomitable Bull

After the major crash of Bitcoin in late 2017 and the demise of hundreds of other digital currencies — the so-called ‘altcoins’ in early 2018 — I saw interest in the underlying blockchain technology and currencies fall just as much as the value of the currency itself. The few articles that appeared in the media were mainly negative in nature, focusing on the failed experiments of many organizations and the many myths surrounding crime and energy consumption, which were clearly not properly researched and substantiated. Bitcoin has since been declared “dead” 411 times.

It is wonderful to see how various startups and organizations have continued to build their products in the lee in recent years. Now that the flowers are blooming again, many of these products are being launched and enthusiastically received by investors. The insane amount of money saved during corona, the negative interest and the fact that saving is no longer profitable, has certainly ensured that interest in cryptocurrencies has taken a bird’s-eye view. And, The market is now very bullish.

The predictions of renowned institutions such as Bloomberg and banks such as Goldman Sachs that the price of Bitcoin can still rise to 100–150 thousand euros, only reinforces this. Moreover, The market value has risen from $200 billion to $2 trillion in just a few months. With the predictions about the number of new investors in cryptocurrencies, this will certainly have a strong positive effect on prices and market value.

2. To the moon… or not?

Unfortunately, the madness also creates various shadow sides. During the previous bull run in 2017/2018, I wrote about the importance of doing your due diligence before putting money into a cryptocurrency somewhere.

Bloomberg’s research into the previous bull run showed that 75% of the underlying cryptocurrency projects were outright scams. According to many reports, this resulted in billions of euros in damage, which the (mostly small) investors lost overnight and could not get back.

The many hacks of exchanges, where the cryptocurrencies are traded, also cause people to lose their digital currencies. North Korea has already made more than $2 billion from these hacks, according to a United Nations study.

People are looking for a still relatively unknown currency, which they hope will certainly ‘m00nen’ (go to the moon, crypto language for very strong rise in value). For example, the second best known and largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, was worth 30 cents at its opening sale and has already surpassed $3,000 in value.

Crypto Influencers

In the search for these hidden gems, people quickly come across the crypto influencers on channels like Twitter and YouTube, who promote various cryptocurrencies with texts like “going to explode” and “going to the moon”. Some do this with a good financial-technical substantiation, as is also the case with stock prices, some purely with an unsubstantiated story, which later turns out to be paid for by the promoted projects themselves.

With the greatly increased value of cryptocurrencies, the number of investors and trading exchanges, it is becoming more and more lucrative for hackers and scammers to be active in the market. Even though security measures are increasing, it is becoming increasingly important as an owner / investor to take a good look at the security of your accounts and storage of the cryptocurrency itself. This is often not thought of, with all the consequences that entails.

3. Tulip bulbs in 2021

Just like in 2017/2018, I expect that the bubble will burst again at some point and the prices of many cryptocurrencies will fall very sharply. After the previous crash, the total market value fell by 80% in a few months, which was even more than the ‘dot-com crash’.

The fundamentals are stronger now. I expect that many projects will not suddenly disappear, because they already offer products and services and have thus become a full-fledged startup / scale-up. In addition, many large companies, banks and investors have invested in the various cryptocurrencies and have indicated that they will do so for the long term. Bitcoin treasuries provides a wonderful overview. All major banks worldwide have now also switched and are offering, or are going to offer, crypto to their customers: UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche bank. Dutch banks have indicated that they are not yet a fan.

In my view, various cryptocurrencies are therefore really here to stay. But currencies that even the creators have indicated that they created for fun (such as Dogecoin), I see in value and attention collapsing again in due course. There’s even a “dog token category” already, with token names like Shiba, Dogelon, Akita, and Ourshib.

Bubbles are good!

As I wrote in 2019: bubbles are good in my opinion. To separate the wheat from the chaff, take the hype off something and focus on real problems that a technology can tackle. They are rapidly providing wider acceptance, lots of PR and growth money for startups and budgets for organizations to experiment with and build on.

Think before you invest

As an investor in cryptocurrencies, it is extremely important to take a sober look at this yourself. Do you buy a cryptocurrency because just like in a regular company that you buy a share of, you believe in the mission / vision / product of the company? Or do you mainly want to gamble high risk high reward on a strong price increase? Unfortunately, research shows that 95% of people who choose the latter lose their money.

So take a good look at your current portfolio and any future purchase plans, to avoid coming home from a cold fair in the coming months.

4. Digital El Dorado

One of the biggest and fastest growing hypes in cryptocurrency and blockchain right now is certainly Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). More and more individuals and organizations are embracing digital art and collectibles. Recently, the total trading volume rose to the all-time high of $1.5 billion in one day. It’s not just the individual digital artworks anymore, like Beeple, which sold for $69 million. On the record day, half a billion worth of digital items were sold from the American basketball league NBA.

Traditional financial institutions are now slowly entering the world of cryptocurrencies, and so will the creative sector. From makers of art, music, films and books, to sports clubs and game developers, who put unique digital items on the blockchain.

Former employees of the two largest auction houses in the world (Christie’s and Sotheby’s) have set up Lobus, which makes it easier to manage art collections with NFTs, but also to (sell) partial ones. For example, you can purchase a digital artwork together with a few friends.

Meanwhile, the largest cryptocurrency trading platform in the world (Binance) has also announced that they are setting up an NFT platform. This will further increase the number of NFTs and their sales worldwide. As a result, the opportunities to trade in NFTs as a cryptocurrency investor are growing.

5. Bitcoin banking

The financial world is being shaken on all sides. The European PSD2 directive makes it possible for large technology companies such as Google and Facebook to enter the market.

A bit overshadowed by the NFT hype, but in my view at least as interesting is Decentralized Finance (DeFi). This revolves around decentralized financing instruments such as loans, savings and insurance, but also trade. The same products that we already know from banks and insurers, but the decentralized blockchain character ensures that the intermediary is removed.

Last year this market was worth a few hundred million, now the total value at the time of writing has grown to $130 billion, as much as the market value of banks like Deutsche Bank. In fact, the products have generated $250 million in the past month for the people who have invested in them.

DeFi on the rise

The various DeFi cryptocurrencies are growing at the same pace in numbers and value. The projects are growing and developing at lightning speed due to the madness in the cryptocurrency market. Not only the free PR, but also the amount of money invested in it, ensures rapid, major technological breakthroughs.

These are no longer just individual startups. Entire ecosystems are built with DeFi platforms, such as Persistence. Where the libertine-anarchist approach of Bitcoin was mainly aimed at making banks superfluous, you now see an interesting merger in many areas between the traditional financial institutions (CeFi, Centralized Finance) and DeFi. The Spunta project came from the European Payment Council, a large group of banks has set up the Marco Polo project and a large group of insurers B3i. The most recent highlight was the move by the European Investment Bank, which raised 100 million with a bond on the Ethereum network.

ING has indicated in a recent report (pdf) that they find DeFi more interesting than Bitcoin. A big step in the amalgamation of traditional institutions and these new decentralized variants and a starting point for an insane development around digital currencies.

6.Crypto Catch22

It is an interesting field of tension to exchange ideas with supporters and opponents of cryptocurrencies about regulation versus innovation. Governments are working in all kinds of areas to stimulate innovation, facilitate start-ups and organize a business climate, so that companies like to do business in our country. On the other hand, one of its core tasks is to protect citizens in the broadest sense of the word.

Current policy too strict
Media these days are full of articles about manipulation within the cryptocurrency market and the lack of understanding surrounding the lack of the right regulation. After the European Union announced that it would allow cryptocurrencies, the Netherlands wanted to become a frontrunner and example in terms of legislation and regulations in that area. Unfortunately, due to these strict laws and regulations, many companies have already stopped or moved to another country.

Now I am a big proponent of setting up a good legal framework in the field of cryptocurrencies. But if that stands in the way of innovation or even drives it away, I have my doubts about it. A recent court ruling between De Nederlandsche Bank and a cryptocurrency trader also confirmed that the current policy is too strict.

International cooperation needed

The recent IPO of cryptocurrency company Coinbase has been an important step for the industry, as the company has signaled from the outset that it is working with lawmakers to ensure a well-functioning industry. With the size and very large trading volumes now taking place within the sector, governments can no longer sit back and watch. This requires international cooperation. If it is made difficult for people to buy Bitcoin in the Netherlands, then they are with 1 click at a trading platform located in Malta, where they do have all the freedoms.

The most recent Crypto Crime Report from Chainalysis (the largest blockchain analysis company in the world) shows that less than 0.3% of cryptocurrency transactions are “suspicious” and that this percentage continues to decline. Something that former CIA director Michael Morell also endorses (pdf). Governments are still fully committed to the so-called ‘Know Your Customer’ and ‘Anti Money Laundering’ laws and regulations, even though they are widely known to be ineffective.

Governments react completely differently

We are currently seeing governments react completely differently. India, like Turkey, wants to ban cryptocurrencies. China is leading the way with the development of its own Central Bank Digital Currency, the most blockchain patents worldwide. And recently there was also the statement from the central bank that Bitcoin is an ‘alternative investment’. Even though it is causing power blackouts, according to the government, Iran continues to encourage the mining of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

In recent years we have seen how many companies have emerged and grown, despite increasingly strict legislation. From Uber and Airbnb to Google and AliBaba. I also expect that legislation and regulations will have an impact on the services within cryptocurrencies in the coming months. Important steps to make the sector more mature and thus more accessible to the general public.

More than a coin

In my view, due to the focus of many media on the prices of cryptocurrencies, we almost forget what all innovation is about: the cool products and services that are being developed.

The Limburg Fortuna Sittard was the first Dutch football club to release its own fan token. This allows fans to become more involved with the club in all sorts of ways. With his ‘Podcast 2.0’ model, Adam Curry offers podcast listeners the opportunity to thank / reward the creator with Bitcoin for every minute listened. In Heerlen, citizens are rewarded for volunteering with cryptocurrencies. Facebook is busy building its own digital currency ‘DIEM’ and has therefore teamed up with a company that will arrange the issuance of the coins. New developments are added daily, fueled by the large new amount of innovation money that is currently being pumped into the sector.

The new, the next, the never heard off

Steve Jobs wanted to put a cool phone on the market with the introduction of the iPhone. At the time, no one could have imagined that in 2021 we would work more than 4 hours a day with the device, with applications such as Instagram, Uber and Google Maps.

The same is the case with cryptocurrencies: we can only dream about what the next steps will be. Ethereum started out as the ‘supercomputer of the world’ with so-called ‘smart contracts’, but has now also become the foundation for the entire DeFi and NFT world. Waiting for the latest, brilliant invention. One thing is certain: crypto is here to stay.

This article is not financial advice and should not be viewed as such. It is my opinion and should only be seen from an info point

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Jan Scheele

Jan Scheele werkt dertien jaar op het snijvlak van deep tech, strategie en leiderschap. Als keynote spreker en dagvoorzitter maakt hij technologie tastbaar voor boardrooms, directieteams en grote podia, zonder de complexiteit te versimpelen of te verbergen achter buzzwords.

Zijn achtergrond ligt in het bouwen. Als CEO van een technologie scale-up, oprichter van meerdere techbedrijven en organisator van meer dan vijftig TED-events wereldwijd zag hij van dichtbij hoe technologische keuzes doorwerken in strategie, governance en cultuur. Vanuit zijn betrokkenheid bij het World Economic Forum en de BCNL Foundation kijkt hij daarbij niet alleen naar wat technisch mogelijk is, maar ook naar wat bestuurlijk houdbaar en maatschappelijk wenselijk is.

Hij publiceerde vijf boeken, waarvan twee Amazon-bestsellers, en schrijft wekelijks over AI, blockchain en de organisatorische gevolgen van deep tech. Zijn blogs bereikten inmiddels meer dan twee miljoen lezers.

janscheele.nl

While the world is still fighting hard every day to get the coronavirus under control, another “cold war” is happening the background, the future of our money; the so-called Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Digital bank money is nothing new; worldwide only 8% of the money used is cash, the rest digital and in some European countries this is even less than 1%. The big difference with CBDCs is that the money is managed by a government and not a commercial bank. The revolution around cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology has sparked this discussion but has been accelerated over the past year by Facebook’s Diem (formerly Libra) project and the announcement that China is well advanced in developing its own CBDC. What is a CBDC, what are they used for and what can you expect? In this blog you will find all the information

It’s going to be the biggest change in the global financial system after Bretton Woods, according to experts. While in the early years of Bitcoin and blockchain the technology was still dismissed as “criminal” and “unnecessary”, in recent years the discussion has turned completely and most countries and economic regions have now started developing their own digital currency. According to research by the ‘bank of banks’, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), dozens of central banks are now working on this, representing 80% of the world’s population and 90% of economic activity worldwide and will be 20 in the next 3 years. % of the world’s population have access to it.

“The euro belongs to Europeans and we are its guardian. We should be prepared to issue a digital euro, should the need arise.” Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB

In addition to Facebook and China’s announcements surrounding its own digital currencies, corona has given the discussion an extra boost, according to the European Central Bank (ECB). But it’s not just the pressure from other governments, technology companies and the sharp decline in the use of cash; according to the Dutch National Bank, it can also be used to implement monetary policy, such as reforms around debt and a basic income. According to the Russian Central Bank, their digital ruble is mainly intended to restore power over money to citizens and the Chinese Central Bank has indicated that it will not compete with existing payment apps.

CBDC Developments

The main reason for many central banks to develop their own CBDC remains the risks that commercial banks, such as ING and Rabobank take. According to a recent report by the Dutch Government’s Scientific Council, 10 years after the credit crunch, the commercial banking industry is still vulnerable to major blows. Especially in view of the consequences of corona and the risks that the banks still take, central banks want more control over the money flows. Now that the cash, which they manage themselves, is declining sharply and the influence of tech companies on the financial sector is increasing sharply, setting up their own digital currency is a logical step.

What a digital Euro can look like is clearly shown by the first CBDC recently launched in the Bahamas, the Sand Dollar and the many public experiments with Chinese CBDC, the DCEP. Many experts are frantically looking at the experiments in China, which will reportedly launch the coin globally during the 2022 Winter Olympics, to be held in the country. The country made the first banknotes in our global history and now sees 90% of all payments go through the popular apps WeChat and Alipay, the same size as the worldwide payment of Visa and Mastercard credit cards.

The totalitarian state

According to the government, it is not only a response to Libra, but mainly intended to remove all kinds of layers in payments and thus prevent corruption, combat poverty better and, according to many experts, also to control much more tightly where the money goes. This is also the biggest fear of residents of Europe, according to a recent survey by the ECB. The Chinese government is already going a long way with the control of its citizens, because of the more than 100 million cameras that hang in the country, the ‘social credit’ system and the countless algorithms that automatically determine on big data whether you are a criminal or not.

If, with this information and power over the money, it can also determine (by programming this in the code) whether and what citizens can spend the money on, then you are taking away a significant portion of the freedom. Imagine that a government programs that you can spend money on rent and healthy food, but not on fast food, cigarettes or porn. Or worse; because algorithms think you are engaged in criminal activity, your digital wallet is completely blocked. Due to the “social credit” system, already 23 million Chinese are no longer allowed to leave the country, because their score is too low.

Helicopter money

Even though most Chinese are not yet so enthusiastic about the Chinese DCEP, the government was able to get its citizens to create a digital wallet in a very smart way. Everyone who had installed a wallet on their phone received the digital currency deposited on it. “Free money for everyone,” historian Rutger Bregman would say. The adoption of this currency can therefore go very quickly. African countries are already preparing to use the currency in trade with China, and Huawei’s latest phone models already include a DCEP app. Investment bank Goldman Sachs expects the DCEP to be used by at least 1 billion users in 10 years and to facilitate nearly 20% of all payments in China.

“We need to make sure that our currency is fit for the future. Inaction is not an option.” Fabio Panetta, boardmember ECB

Behind the scenes, Europe is also working hard on its own “digital Euro”. European finance ministers, such as Germany’s Olaf Scholtz, have urged to do everything in their power to have an “answer” to the Chinese plans as soon as possible. Several European countries are already experimenting themselves, such as Italy, Ukraine and the Netherlands that even say they want to play a pioneering role in this. The European Central Bank has indicated in a recent report that it will only make a final decision in the summer of this year whether it wants to issue its own digital Euro and its president, Christine Lagarde, recently indicated that if the ECB decides to do so, it will certainly will take until 2025 before it is actually there.

The American Kodak moment

Also on the other side of the ocean, a fierce discussion about a digital dollar is raging. The head of the American bank has sparked the discussion here with the statement “we do think it is more important to get it right than to be first and getting it right”. However, experts point to the “first mover advantage” that China will have on the global financial scene, with all the consequences that entails. The Chinese government has already indicated that it would like to cooperate with other central banks worldwide, but with the aforementioned, far-reaching functionalities that the DCEP will have, this is mainly viewed with fear rather than enthusiastically worldwide.

There are still a lot of snags that need to be worked on before such coins can appear on the world stage, in my view. The more central the power over such a currency, the easier it is to hack. But also the informal economy, in which 60% of all jobs worldwide function and come under pressure from government regulated money. The International Monetary Fund also continues to question monetary stability, which can be affected by central bank issuance of their own currencies. The speed at which developments are currently taking place on the world stage are fascinating, but also frightening, when you consider the expected consequences of shifts in power. And, The coming year will therefore be a very interesting and important year for the global financial system.

CEO of Web3

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2015. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and agency, he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3 all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the global impact of blockchain technology.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Jan Scheele

Jan Scheele werkt dertien jaar op het snijvlak van deep tech, strategie en leiderschap. Als keynote spreker en dagvoorzitter maakt hij technologie tastbaar voor boardrooms, directieteams en grote podia, zonder de complexiteit te versimpelen of te verbergen achter buzzwords.

Zijn achtergrond ligt in het bouwen. Als CEO van een technologie scale-up, oprichter van meerdere techbedrijven en organisator van meer dan vijftig TED-events wereldwijd zag hij van dichtbij hoe technologische keuzes doorwerken in strategie, governance en cultuur. Vanuit zijn betrokkenheid bij het World Economic Forum en de BCNL Foundation kijkt hij daarbij niet alleen naar wat technisch mogelijk is, maar ook naar wat bestuurlijk houdbaar en maatschappelijk wenselijk is.

Hij publiceerde vijf boeken, waarvan twee Amazon-bestsellers, en schrijft wekelijks over AI, blockchain en de organisatorische gevolgen van deep tech. Zijn blogs bereikten inmiddels meer dan twee miljoen lezers.

janscheele.nl