That’s in the August issue


The new crypto compass is here. From the summer slump to the coin of the month: Quant Network; from IOTA to Robinhood and much more – that’s inside.

Coin of the month: Quant Network – a coin without a blockchain

Over the years, the crypto market has grown not only in terms of market capitalization, but also in breadth: a whopping 8,376 coins can be found on the crypto tracking page Coingecko at the time of writing. The fact that there are numerous specimens of the “Shitcoin” genus has not changed much since the ICO bubble burst in 2018. But above the token-turned pump-and-dump systems, fraudulent Ponzi projects and other perversions of the crypto economy, numerous ambitious candidates such as Ethereum, Solana, Cardano or Flow are enthroned.

Now there are also some projects in the crypto space – including Polkadot – that position themselves as the “Internet of Blockchains”. One project goes one step further: Quant Network (QNT) wants nothing less than to fundamentally change the architecture of the Internet.

Christopher Klee explains the exact plans in Coin of the Month August.

When does the summer break end?

The air is out. At least one could get this impression with a view to the Bitcoin course and the Altcoins in the last few weeks. But the Bitcoin price jump at the end of July – from 30,000 US dollars to 40,000 US dollars within a week – again gives hope that the summer break will end soon.

In order to classify the current market situation and give an outlook on how things could continue, BTC-ECHO editor-in-chief Sven Wagenknecht deals with the following questions in this month’s cover story:

  • What does the news reveal about the current market environment?
  • What about the volatility?
  • What signals do institutional investors send?
  • How does inflation affect the Bitcoin rate?
  • How severe are the climate and China debates?

Pay-per-use: How IOTA heralds the industrial transformation

Anyone who has seen one or two science fiction films should be familiar with the following scenario: A fully automated world where every element is networked with one another; Machines that carry out manufacturing tasks in huge production halls where people used to stand; driverless vehicles that transport goods from A to B and service robots that perform household tasks for their organic “masters”.

Even though some aspects have already moved closer to these former visions of the future, it will probably take a few years before fiction has fully become reality.

However, digitalization is accelerating these processes noticeably. The vision of “Industry 4.0” has been circulating in the industrial sector for a while, in which, for example, smart machines communicate with one another, automatically recognize bottlenecks in the company and place orders in order to compensate for them. Networking via the Internet does not only take place within factories, but also extends across industry boundaries. From medium-sized logistics companies to specialized technical service providers to creative start-ups. The plays an important role in this Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The example illustrates where disruptive technology is already being used today Synctive.

Synctive uses DLT technology from IOTA back, which was specially developed for the machine economy and IoT use cases.

Daniel Hoppmann explains exactly how Synctive is using its pay-per-use technology thanks to IOTA.

Robinhood IPO: is it worth getting started?

When the FinTech Robinhood suspended trading in a total of 13 shares of ailing companies in the wake of the WallStreetBets case – including GameStop, Nokia, BlackBerry and AMC – the outcry from the users was great. How could a broker who is literally committed to social justice stand on the side of the hedge funds and against the “little man”? The result: Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev received threatening letters, had to testify before a committee of the House of Representatives of the United States and finally filed an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to bring Robinhood public.

Paol Hergert explains whether an investment in Robinhood is worthwhile.