The Bitcoin Bridge year-end holiday special: A year of wins for BSV blockchain

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Another year has passed, and the BSV blockchain is now bigger, more complex, and more advanced than ever. Even as industries are still just now starting to adapt to a world with COVID-19, the world of digital currency continues to develop at an accelerating pace. This year, we saw many of the innovations happening on the BSV blockchain on The Bitcoin Bridge, and as we cap off 2021, Jon Southurst looks back to some of the highlights of the year. 

Fueng Li of BSVdata 

“The fundamentals of Bitcoin are payments and data,” says Fueng Li, the founder of BSV data analytics platform BSVdata.com. And Bitcoin, he asserts, is the future of data and economics. 

Li says his work is based around the four aspects of Bitcoin that will emerge to form a new market: data computation, storage, sharing, and pricing. And BSVdata’s mission is to change how users and corporations deal with data as well as to build products and services based on the four aspects mentioned. 

In his interview, Li discussed how his company incentivizes what’s considered “honest economic activities” and touched on how business is conducted differently in China.

Women of BSV

The digital currency space may be dominated primarily by men, but that doesn’t mean women aren’t making their own waves. One group, called the Women of BSV, is determined to carve out its place in the blockchain. 

The members of the group, Diddy Wheldon, River, and Ruth Heasman, told John about their mission and the obstacles they face. Ruth points out that it can be intimidating for women to work in a male-dominated environment, and this is one of the reasons why she wants women to join together and be a source of confidence for each other. She says the group has “amplified our voice massively.”

All three women are also entrepreneurs. River has released her own NFT in tandem with a self-healing community project called Lifehouse Online, Diddy works on video tutorials, and Ruth focuses on educational content.

CATN8

Solving the problems of today’s internet is a tall order for anyone, but the third-place winners of the 4th Bitcoin SV Hackathon are up for the challenge. 

CATN8 is an online video platform that uses peer-to-peer SPV (simplified payment verification) wallets for micropayments, and with this, its creators aim to revolutionize online video streaming. Two of the platform’s founders, Marcel Gruber and Dave Foderick, discussed their project and how they ultimately bagged $20,000 for their idea. 

CATN8’s platform enables viewers to “pay as they go” while watching streaming content, using a stream of micropayments to the content creator. Gruber explains, the idea was born out of a need to give people an alternative over the highly commercialized platforms of today.

Ultimately, this is only the beginning for CATN8, and there’s more work to be done.

“What we’re seeing in the space in BSV now is there are a lot of people putting in a lot of hard work behind the scenes,” Gruber said. “There are synergies forming that you don’t see on the surface, and so we want to connect with other people in the space and identify opportunities,” he added.

Proof of ESG

Thanks to the BSV blockchain, it has become much easier to enforce corporate accountability. Bryan Daugherty discussed how Proof of ESG keeps companies honest and how new technology makes it possible.

“ESG” refers to “environmental, social and governance.” In other words, it’s a way to keep score of both a company’s financial performance and so-called “ethical investment” or “triple bottom line.”

One of the main problems that Daugherty’s project is solving is “greenwashing.” In a bid to gain public approval, many companies make bold claims of being environmentally friendly, claims that are sometimes either gross exaggerations or outright lies. Proof of ESG provides a way to verify these claims through frameworks where data can be gathered, timestamped, and checked on the BSV blockchain. 

Daugherty says that the majority of ESG up to date has revolved around investment portfolios, but the availability of a stable blockchain is a game-changer.

The Bitcoin Trial of the Century

Finally, we can’t leave 2021 without mentioning Dr. Craig S. Wright’s win in the so-called “Bitcoin Trial of the Century.”

Jurors in the Kleiman v Wright civil trial were faced with the difficult task of determining whether or not Dr. Wright partnered with his late friend Dave Kleiman in creating and mining Bitcoin. They also had to decide if Dr. Wright fraudulently transferred assets belonging to Kleiman to himself based on the evidence. 

In both cases, the jury determined that the answer was no. Britevue Founder and CEO Connor Murray believes that the jurors got it right. 

“If anyone actually looked at the facts of the case, I don’t think they really got anything wrong,” Murray said. Despite this, he believes that no amount of “smoking guns” will ever convince Wright’s doubters.

“Identity is not something that’s granted to you by signing a key, by a driver’s license, by anything else,” Murray said. “You can only get the identity of someone by talking to the people that know them, by getting the information about their life,” he added.

Onwards to 2022

Looking back, 2021 was a year of many wins for BSV, and the new year promises even more—more advancements, more innovations, and most likely even more drama in the BSV world. As always, Jon Southurst and The Bitcoin Bridge will be there to witness it all and to share the scoop with everyone. 

Watch the full episode of The Bitcoin Bridge year-end holiday special on CoinGeek’s YouTube channel.

Happy New Year to all the CoinGeek viewers!