TAAL Distributed Information Technologies Inc. (CSE:TAAL | FWB:9SQ1 | OTC: TAALF) has released its financial results for the first half of 2020. Its gross revenues for the January-June period were CAD$7,608,956—a 76.8% increase on the same period in 2019. The gain is due to TAAL bringing new revenue sources online this year, and more than compensated for its termination of hashing services in May 2020.
However, overall the company reported a net loss of $2,425,520 for 1H 2020 compared to $139,743 in 1H 2019. TAAL, like others, has faced many challenges in 2020, but said it has “ample liquidity” with working capital of CAD$14,363,983 as it tackles changes both in the digital asset market and wider economy.
It reported total assets of CAD$48,684,268, up $1,907,840 from December 2019, and liabilities of $21,201,630 (down $938,472).
New management and structure for a new economy
TAAL has diversified its income streams as it transitions from mostly hashing-based income to a computing and management services company. For example, it generated just CAD$1,604,452 directly from hashing in the April-June 2020 quarter, compared to $4,304,627 over the same period in 2019—a 62.7% drop. However the company found new sources in maintaining and managing third-party hashing equipment (as “fleet services”), earning CAD$558,074. It also earned $11,303 in fees by licensing its “TAAL Orchestrator” software.
The first half of 2020 also saw an increase in TAAL’s operating expenses, which went from $883,197 to $2,287,655. Most of this additional expenditure went to management fees, salaries and wages, plus office/administration costs.
Marking the beginning of a new, Bitcoin based economy, TAAL in 2020 is not the TAAL of 2019 and before. The company indicated it wants to be at the forefront of a new industry where data processing, in the form of Bitcoin blockchain transactions at high volume, become a major income source.
For this to happen, the Bitcoin economy itself needs to expand. This will take a cultural shift both in the way large organizations use data, and in the digital asset industry itself. For too many years its proponents have offered only speculative tokens as product, or promoted “blockchain” as a new way to secure data, without explaining properly why either of these were necessary.
Bitcoin SV (BSV) restored the original Bitcoin protocol only in February 2020, its developers saying they had finally fulfilled “Satoshi’s Vision” for the technology—a reference to Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s original creator. Unlike others who claim the “Bitcoin” name, its model is built on a secure and unchanging protocol, and usage/revenues based on high-volume microtransactions. These may involve payments, or process data for large enterprises and government bodies.
This is a change from the usual view of digital assets, or so-called “cryptocurrencies“, which promote alternate money systems that have not captured much mainstream attention, except when their value increases (or falls) dramatically. The industry has also been tarnished by infighting among groups with differing outlooks—arguments that often end with the blockchain working in a completely different way, as happened with BTC and soon with Ethereum.
Bitcoin BSV and TAAL say the idea is that large projects will only trust a data processing protocol that offers stability without the chance of surprise protocol changes, and the ability to handle large quantities of data. The Bitcoin blockchain is actually able to handle the same amount of data throughput as today’s internet, making all that data more permanent and auditable.
TAAL announced major changes to its management team and structure in 2020 that reflect this new approach. It also released a new five-year Strategic Vision detailing how it plans to profit from this new model. As well as earning fees from processing all those extra transactions, TAAL intends to provide Pool Management (third-party group processing) and Data Storage, as well as produce specialized blockchain hardware devices that will in turn produce more data—and make processing it more efficient.
This comes at a time when, unexpectedly, the global economy is changing too. This could actually be a plus for Bitcoin and blockchain, which is offering a new vision. TAAL will continue to build and communicate the benefits of its outlook, and would sit as pioneers should others see it too.
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