Bitcoin SV is bringing excitement back to the world of blockchain. Operating independently for just over a year, Bitcoin SV (BSV) has eclipsed the rest of the crypto world in both efficiency and usage. As a result, the entrepreneurial community in BSV is exploding. That’s why we made the decision at Unbounded Capital to go all in on the BSV ecosystem. With dozens of amazing businesses operating on, launching on, or migrating to BSV, we decided to poll fourteen of the entrepreneurial leaders in the space to hear why they are using BSV and what there is to be so excited about.
What Are you building?
Attila Aros, MatterCloud, CTO. “MatterCloud is a Bitcoin SV blockchain platform built for developers and enterprises. We make it easy to build applications and services that harness the power of Bitcoin SV. Developers can focus on their product instead of worrying about and spending money on costly infrastructure.”
James Belding - Tokenized/Tokenized Protocol, CEO. “We're working hard to revolutionize inter-entity record-keeping by building tools that will help turn the Bitcoin SV network into the global commercial ledger. Our efforts are currently focused on two distinct projects, the Tokenized Protocol, and the Tokenized superwallet. The Tokenized Protocol is an open-source application layer protocol that utilizes the Bitcoin SV network for passing, storing and authenticating data representing all types of commercial records. The Tokenized superwallet aims to leverage the Tokenized Protocol to provide individuals and organizations with the tools required to make the administration of commercial activities simpler, faster and lower-cost.”
Ryan X. Charles - Money Button, CEO. “Money Button is a simple payment system. We also support many advanced features of BSV to make sophisticated on-chain apps.”
Brenton Gunning - Run, CEO. “Run is a platform to build apps and tokens on Bitcoin. It enables apps to share their data and safely build upon each other’s code. Users can own their assets and apps can commit to collaboration with third parties.”
Adam Kling - Kronoverse Inc. CEO. “Kronoverse is an eSports monetization platform for games.”'
Brendan Lee - Faia, Head of Technology; The Bitcoin Association, Training and Development Manager. “Faia is a management and technical consultancy that has built a business around community development and management. The Bitcoin Association is an advocacy organisation focused on delivering guidance to people at all levels on the structure and use of Bitcoin.”
Xiaohui Liu - sCrypt Inc, Founder and CEO. “sCrypt is a high-level smart contract language for Bitcoin SV. sCrypt aims to make writing smart contracts on BSV as easy as writing Javascript for developers, shielding them from the complexity of the underlying script.”
Bernhard Muller - To be announced early 2020. “Building a BSV payment integration into existing PoS (Point of Sales) and e-commerce infrastructure as our MVP. Looking to expand into the events business after MVP launch. “
Connor Murray - True Reviews, Founder and CEO. “We are building a verified review platform that allows users to earn money, rewards, and reputation in exchange for reviews. “
Josh Petty - Twetch Inc, Founder and CEO. “Twetch is a Bitcoin SV platform and API for developers. I am building simple and beautiful interfaces for humans to publish and trade information on Bitcoin. “
Alex Shore - BitBoss Corporation, CTO. “We are a real money gaming company that has created a platform where all money and game actions flow through the Bitcoin SV blockchain to provide a tamper-proof ledger of all transactions that take place. Our technology is tying the casino physical world to the online world and is eliminating the need for the traditional online casino client server architecture. We are enabling casinos to transition to cashless and at the same time drastically improve their mobile app adoption and inexpensively convert their customers to online.”
_unwriter - Planaria Corp, CEO. “Planaria is a Bitcoin data grid.”
Lin Zheming - Mempool and DotWallet, CEO & Co-Founder. “Mempool is a BSV mining pool and hash contract seller. As a miner, we provide BSV blockchain manipulating services which could be paid in FIAT or BSV. DotWallet is a web wallet for BSV and works within WeChat and Facebook. We help to onboard more users.”
Why did you choose to use BSV instead of other blockchains or no blockchain? Did you consider building on another platform?
Josh Petty, Twetch - “BSV is the Bitcoin protocol with no bounds or constraints. It has the most clear mission as a simple protocol built to scale and support big business. It was a logical business decision after trying to build on other cryptocurrency blockchains such as Ethereum. BSV is the only blockchain in the world that can scale.“
Adam Kling, Kronoverse - “We originally were building on Ethereum but had issues with cost, speed, and complexity needed to achieve our long term goals. We chose BSV because it focused on scaling which amounts to fast and cheap transactions that we needed to enable high performance gaming applications.”
Ryan X. Charles, Money Button - “We originally used BTC, but it failed because they didn't increase the maximum block size and the fees went to the moon. We switched to LTC (Litecoin), but abandoned it because they had the same technical roadmap as BTC indicating that if it ever became popular, it would suffer the same fate. We switched from LTC to BCH (Bitcoin Cash) when BCH was launched. It was a great option while it lasted, but disagreements in the community lead to the split between BCH and BSV. We went with BSV because it has a stable protocol, which is a critically important property of any real world protocol.”
Xiaohui Liu, sCrypt - “BSV is the only blockchain supporting unbounded Bitcoin scripting capability which enables developers to use sCrypt to code Turing Complete smart contracts. Other bitcoin forks artificially cap scripts and thus render sCrypt virtually useless.”
Attila Aros, MatterCloud - “The Bitcoin protocol was always capable of handling telecom scale traffic. We know this logically and mathematically to be a fact from algorithm analysis. It is a "pure" system and is the only blockchain game in town that is hyper efficient and limitless scale. There is no blockchain I can remotely trust to store my data for the next 50 years except BSV. BSV is the only blockchain that is following the original vision to become a high speed payments rail.”
James Belding, Tokenized - “From a technical and philosophical point of view, BSV is the only blockchain system that can offer real utility to billions of users because it has a unique combination of properties/features that no other blockchain has. The pseudonymous nature of the public key architecture is important as anonymous systems can't work with any system of property rights. The UTXO model combined with the low-level language makes it a highly parallelizable and computationally efficient design that effectively has no scaling/capacity limits. I'm not sure that you could really make a system that is much more efficient. Even if other blockchains attempted to compete, at best they would be roughly on par with the system's operational costs and performance. However, the competing solutions that we've looked at are simply less efficient/scalable. The use of the proof-of-work system is critical for the system to perpetuate itself through time. Miners compete with the other miners to improve their own profitability by technically outperforming them. This system effectively neutralizes/overcomes entropy and tightly aligns the miner's interests with the network's utility. Finally, a strong commitment by miners and key stakeholders around the ideas of maximizing economic utility, locking down the protocol to provide stability, building towards limitless scaling, and working within the law.”
How can leveraging BSV help a business or application gain a competitive advantage?
Connor Murray, True Reviews - “Building applications on top of Bitcoin allows developers to build massive applications without the need for massive centralized infrastructure. Applications can read/write from the blockchain which enables a swath of new use cases without a lot of overhead. Built into the core of Bitcoin is the ability to tie money to every action taken in your application, so it allows new monetization models to occur as well.”
Alex Shore, BitBoss - “There is constant innovation by many different developers. Further, the numerous patents from nChain and other groups that are heavily invested in protecting and creating technology on top of the BSV blockchain create a significant competitive advantage for businesses leveraging BSV.”
James Belding, Tokenized - “Any data that is stored on the BSV ledger benefits from a number of compelling properties which are extremely valuable for many classes of data, especially where data integrity and persistence is important. On-chain data is immutable, publicly available with 100% uptime, has political and organizational risks removed from the network's operations, and is performant with reliable write confirmation times (clearing and settlement) approaching less than two seconds on a global scale.”
Brenton Gunning, Run - “The next wave of tech companies will be based on open data, because open data creates stronger network effects, and stronger network effects create better businesses. So take advantage. The world will be more interesting if you do. Also, for the first time, you can build apps on a blockchain and not have to worry that the underlying network won’t scale with you.”
Adam Kling, Kronoverse - “The most current thing right now is that BSV is not widely known or adopted in terms of development. That gives us a headstart on our company IQ with regards to Bitcoin development. Other advantages are that it will be much cheaper to conduct business on BSV versus other blockchains. We can utilize that advantage to offer more unique approaches to our projects. One example is game item distribution costs. If you tokenize a game item and want to distribute it to 100k people there will be massive costs to do so using ethereum, for example. On BSV it will be MUCH less.”
Attila Aros, MatterCloud - “All of the benefits that ANY blockchain can give you. If you can name a general "blockchain" benefit. Then it applies to BSV. “
Dr. Craig Wright, nChain - “You shall find out the start of all this at CoinGeek London.”
What are you most excited about in the BSV ecosystem in 2020?
Josh Petty, Twetch - “I am most excited to further explore and implement tools that allow internet users to "own your data". This is perhaps the most powerful selling point beyond Bitcoin being a "sound money". The ability to embed information within a Bitcoin transaction unlocks a whole new paradigm. Users can now carry information and profiles across applications seamlessly. The days of having your data taken away from you are gone. Advertisers will now pay YOU directly. Products like Twetch prove this new model true. Creating a free market for information is the next critical step in order to establish BSV as a sound money, store of value, and efficient file sharing system. It is our job to persuade large enterprises and governments to join our network by proving that it works and scales.“
Brendan Lee, Faia - “For me it is definitely the Genesis upgrade. Since 2010, Bitcoin has been hobbled. The scripting language has been tied down in numerous ways making it impractical for people to engineer innovative solutions that leverage the network properly. The Genesis upgrade represents a return to the original promise of Bitcoin and opens up its unbounded potential to any and all comers.”
Bernhard Muller - “I hope to see more "outsiders" coming in purely for the usability and reliability aspect independent of "ideals". I am excited about businesses like Buskon, BitBoss or Kronoverse, mainly for the reason that all these businesses did not come to BSV for publicity's sake or anything like this. They simply saw, from both a technical and a business sense, that it makes sense for them to use a public chain which scales rapidly. These are all the right reasons and it demonstrates a growing level of professionalism in the industry.”
Lin Zheming, Mempool - “More transactions from different applications. This will help miners to earn more in the coming years.”
_unwriter, Planaria - “Applications that socialize.”
Ryan X. Charles, Money Button - “Getting as far away from the ‘crypto’ industry as possible.”
Dr. Craig Wright, nChain - “Scaling.”
What do you want to see built in the BSV ecosystem in the near term?
Brendan Lee, Faia - “In the last few years, governments have cautiously been dipping their toes into the 'blockchain' industry however I think that they can see that what they are getting does not match the hype of what they are being promised. I think getting governments on-board and using the ledger to track property ownership rights within a sovereign nation will be a watershed moment for all. Immediately, millions of people will be exposed to the benefits of a singular, scalable public ledger that has the flexibility and capacity to manage any project they can conceive of at unbeatable long term cost.”
Adam Kling, Kronoverse - “Biased answer, gaming. I want to see some novel and mainstream gaming applications built for BSV to prove to the world that this can be done on a public blockchain without the need for sidechain tech.”
Brenton Gunning, Run - “New games and social media. The fun stuff. Make something that goes viral among teenagers. Let the rest of the industry focus on DeFi and challenging governments.”
Lin Zheming, Mempool - “I would love to see traditional businesses using the micro-payment nature of BSV to find a new paradigm not currently possible because of high transaction costs. Real utility comes when the cost is low enough.”
Xiaohui Liu, sCrypt - “Applications using smart contracts on BSV that beat traditional apps in terms of usability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.”
Bernhard Muller - “Things like UptimeSV and Codugh are just awesome to see. I would also hope some big media house or publisher integrates a BSV paywall into their mainstream products. I would also love to see real suite products e.g. for fully auditable financial accounting/banking etc. Finally, it would be exciting to see cases which use non standard transactions, perhaps using advanced smart contracts built in SCrypt.”
Alex Shore, BitBoss - “More robust smart contract solutions. For example, the ability to run a smart contract on the chain without having to host/run my own server to do so.”
Dr. Craig Wright, nChain - “TSA - Trusted Timestand Authority. RFC 3161. TSAs are a key part of the Internet and these are insecure. Bitcoin solves this.”
Connor Murray, True Reviews - “I want to see more intermediaries provide services that make interacting with Bitcoin easier. I shouldn't need to become a Bitcoin expert to build on Bitcoin, so making tooling easier for developers is really important.”
_unwriter, Planaria - “Things humans have never dared to build before because of the economics.”
What advice would you give to developers or entrepreneurs looking to get into the space?
Dr. Craig Wright, nChain - “Build and do not see a limit.”
Adam Kling, Kronoverse - “Find businesses that can benefit from utilizing a blockchain versus a legacy system. An example would be why would a blockchain db be better than a cloud db? Find areas where centralization can be democratized and open up flexibility to the end users.”
Josh Petty, Twetch - “I recommend any developers and entrepreneurs joining the Bitcoin economy to contact me directly, josh@twetch.com, so I can tell you the secret to building a profitable Bitcoin application.“
Attila Aros, MatterCloud - “Start. Now. Anything. Do it.”
Brendan Lee, Faia - “Clear your mind of anything you've been told about 'blockchain'. If a thought comes to you that uses that word, it is probably wrong. Understand that 'blockchain' is nothing more than a formatting schema for an immutable public ledger. Now realise that the ledger is there and that you can write anything you like onto it in any format you like. This means you can build anything you can conceive of using the ledger as a foundation. The network is here to support your business so learn how it functions and how to make the most of its capacity. This is not about being anarchist or censorship resistance. This is about having a singular common data structure that everyone in the world can use without restriction. Understand that this gives you tremendous degrees of freedom to be creative and amazing and move forward from there. There are an infinite number of futures, and Bitcoin gives you unbounded opportunity to find your best path. Go forth, build and prosper!”
Xiaohui Liu, sCrypt - “Start building NOW, regardless of the scale or impact of what you can build. Nobody other than us is going to realize the grand Satoshi Vision, which can benefit billions of people's lives for generations to come. This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you can't afford to miss.”
Ryan X. Charles, Money Button - “Focus on building a product that creates value for people. Do not read crypto Twitter, which is almost entirely fake information. Instead, read the great works of history. You will get more value reading Darwin, Kant, and Einstein than anything anyone has written about crypto since the whitepaper.”
Brenton Gunning, Run - “Build an app and open up your data. Encourage others to build on top of you. Make bitcoin invisible to your users. And think big. Bitcoin SV’s technology is disruptive not just to blockchains but to the way all apps are written. These shots don’t come often.”
Alex Shore, BitBoss - “Now is the time! The technology is still young and there are unlimited products and projects that can be built on BSV that haven't been thought of yet, across all domains.”
Lin Zheming, Mempool - “Imagine, what if we can have almost free transaction fees? How could we build upon BSV? How much is the utility of each transaction? What level of cost we can bear? In the long term, we will see huge volume of transactions which will be *almost* free. I think we could start by looking at the utility of the public ledger, rather than thinking about using BSV as a payment method.”
Connor Murray, True Reviews - “Build something now. We are an in a short window of time where the masses haven't realized the potential for building on top of BSV. Use that window of opportunity to your advantage.”
James Belding, Tokenized - “Always analyze all technical and business decisions through the eyes of your customers.”
Bernhard Muller - “If you are already looking to get into BSV, you are on a good track. It takes passing through many many "filters" in order to even seriously consider BSV for building at this time. This will change in the near future as some of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) that is spread about BSV fades away and some of the great tools we have become more widely known. For now these filters ensure that most people you meet in our ecosystem show a high degree of dedication, commitment and intelligence.”
_unwriter, Planaria - “Don't listen to other people's advice. There is no king in Bitcoin.”