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The Bitcoin Association has just celebrated a huge year. The publication of their first annual report speaks to the rapid expansion of Bitcoin SV (BSV) worldwide, with developers, merchants and consumers alike all turning to Bitcoin in increasing numbers for its convenience, efficiency and flexibility. With a focus on raising awareness, improving accessibility for developers, as well as encouraging businesses to adopt BSV as a platform for developing apps, the Bitcoin Association looks set to be busier than ever in 2020. CoinGeek caught up with the Bitcoin Association’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, Ella Qiang, to chat about what the future has in store – both for BSV and the Association. Qiang said Southeast Asia had been an active region in 2019 and the pace is growing. Southeast Asia has been an active region for blockchain and digital asset development. Singapore in particular is the hub for the region – serving as Southeast Asia’s financial and innovation center, with an open and well-defined regulatory framework on this new technology and asset class. As a result, there have been a number of global blockchain and digital assets infrastructure service providers choose to base themselves out of Singapore. “On the BSV-front, we’ve seen a range of blockchain infrastructure companies based here being to provide BSV support in areas such as custody solutions and wallets. I expect that there are more to come too, as the rapid growth of the Bitcoin SV network and ecosystem presents an increasingly strong business case.” 3 main BSV objectives in Southeast Asia On her focus for Southeast Asia, she spoke of three main objectives for the year to come: “The focus in Southeast Asia for BSV is going to be in the following areas: 1) Infrastructure service providers that will provide the necessary building blocks to facilitate businesses built on top of Bitcoin SV, such as payment service providers, digital asset custody solutions, blockchain analytics, trust and banking services; 2) consulting institutions that have existing enterprise relationships and pipelines of enterprise use cases; 3) developer education that focuses on training blockchain and non-blockchain engineers to understand bitcoin and build applications on the Bitcoin SV blockchain.” Qiang joined the Bitcoin Association after a career in project finance. After earning an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, she developed an interest in digital currencies and blockchain technologies, leading to high-profile roles at several emerging BSV startups, including BSV-based exchange FloatSV and bitcoin superwallet RelayX. She described “understanding Bitcoin as an economic system,” which “was the pivotal moment for me and has guided me on the journey of the big block Bitcoin and later on Bitcoin SV.” Year ahead for Bitcoin SV Qiang said the year ahead would see more exciting developments with BSV, including the emergence of greater interoperability within the application ecosystem, in addition to better development frameworks. “I’m particularly excited to see advancement in the following areas this year: 1) more BSV based applications participating an interoperable application ecosystem; 2) more innovative offerings from competitive transaction processors; 3) better developer tooling and frameworks that makes BSV a low barrier developing platform for non-bitcoin engineers; 4) early phase rollout of enterprise use cases such as EHR Data and UNISOT supply chain solution.” In closing, Qiang said companies that believe in Bitcoin should consider joining the Bitcoin Association, and supporting its aims of helping the BSV ecosystem reach its global potential. “As a global industry organization that advances Bitcoin SV, Bitcoin Association fosters an ecosystem of business interests, technology development and regulatory oversight. By joining the Bitcoin Association, companies and organizations will be able to influence the technical stewardship of Bitcoin SV, as well as amplify their industry expertise and branding. It also provides a unique platform for members to collaborate, gain insights into both the technology and businesses built with it, in addition to having the opportunity to build relationships across the value chain.” Read the full Bitcoin Association Annual Report here.

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