Hello everyone! Welcome to Flagship Friday.

This week we're going over blockchain development's rise in demand, Akon founding a city and Craig Wright... again. Tune in for more!

• Rapid Fire
• Blockchain is Most In-Demand Skill in 2020 LinkedIn ReportCompanies weren't even looking at blockchain a year ago and now it's the top in-demand hard skill—beating out other hot skills like AI and cloud computing.
• Warren Buffett had his worst year in a decade.Berkshire Hathaway lagged behind in 2019. While it did perform at a reasonable 11% in 2019, it lagged behind the S&P in 2019 which posted a 29% return. Sure, Berk still has 700 Billion with a capital B but his unwillingness to hop on the Bitcoin bandwagon seems to be having an effect.
• Luxury giant Kering certifies its watches with Bitcoin.Ulysee Nardin, the Swiss watchmaker behind Kering, is using blockchain to certify the authenticity of it's watch.
• The idea is that the watchmaker will log each watch on the blockchain, meaning owners can rest in the knowledge that they have a one of a kind timepiece. It also means that they won't be swindled, and sold a fake.
• Once bought from Ulysee Nardin, a customer will receive a PDF that contains all the information about the watch, such as the serial number, model, and warranty information. With that, the customer can trace the watch on the Bitcoin blockchain's immutable ledger. This will be handy when selling the watch, as this information can be used to certify the watch's authenticity, as well as its maintenance history.
• List of prices where mainstream media declared Bitcoin dead. Karim what's BTC at currently? (Twitter)
• https://twitter.com/bloqport/status/1214887680686858240
• Space gets just a bit less scammy - K
• We had 518 blockchain and crypto projects falling by the wayside in 2019
• still marks a 20% decrease from the previous year.
• largest number of cryptocurrency projects disappeared during the early months of 2019 (the deep red)
• 115 folded in January, with 48 collapsing in February and a further 120 in March
• remember deadcoin?Deceased, hack, scam, and parody
• Most dead projects were scams (55% in 2018, 58% 19)
• Most scams seem to have a life cycle less than 1 yr, 1-3yr for legitimate fails
• SEC Issues IEO Investor Alert - B
• Here's the quick version - IEO's are basically now on the radar of the SEC.
• They use a lot of wishy washy languge, but the end result is very similar to the ICO announcement years ago. You might have more to deal with if you're holding an IEO coin.
• They also explain a lot of the things that are completely true about the space - scams etc.
• 20 Blockchain Predictions for 2020 (Adam)
• Former head of Global Business Development at ConsenSys makes 20 predictions for 2020. He's been heavily involved in the space for years and is now a managing partner at DARMA Capital. He has made yearly predictions within the space since 2016.
• We've heard this analogy before but Ethereum rn is like dial-up internet in 1996 running at 14.4kbps.
• US will have to play catchup after China made big moves into crypto and blockchain
• Ethereum 2.0
• Radically altered blockchain landscape by 2021
• the tale of Libra will continue
• Sleeping giant of blockchain—supply chain awakens
• Coinbase had to payup for some random exchange called Cryptsy? - B
• So this is kinda weird, but it's Coinbase so I like shitting on them.
• They lost nearly $1M in a lawsuit that's been in court for the last 3 years.
• Apparently this Cryptsy exchange pulled a MtGox back in 2015 and got away with quite a bit.
• Apparently they were able to launder this money on Coinbase.
• Coinbase was just found liable for not having a better money laundering control system.
• Nakamoto Awakens - K
• Craig Wright files notice of compliance with the court, saying the bonded courier he said would bring him the keys to Satoshi wallets finally arrived
• But defense said it was just a list of addresses
• “Craig, however, did not provide any information on the bounded courier, the company he/she worked for, when he/she came, or the message delivered.”
• And Bitcoin SV went up over 100%, before the news droped.
• Attorney Steven Palley
• “I’m not saying that the list is or isn’t authentic,” he said in a tweet. “I am saying that this is a guy who two federal judges have basically called a liar and he just opened a new Pandora’s box of discovery. So it may not end well.”

Crypto Around the World

• AKON IS OPENING A CRYPTO CITY LFG - B
• Akon is apparently from Senegal, so he was able to get his ancestal home to agree to let him create Akon City.
• Akon City will have its own currency: Akoin.
• It will consist of 1000 Acres
• They expect Akon city to be open in 2025.
• Akoin still isn't out yet, but it will in July .
• He also almost ran for president. HE WAS THIS CLOSE
• UN officials warn against attending North Korea cryptocurrency conferenceattendance could count as a violation of sanctions.
• North Korea under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
• They had their first one in April, and thats the one Virgil Griffith got arrested for
• been released on $1 million bond
• Uzbekistan is looking to create a national cryptocurrency mining pool and digital asset exchange (The Next Web) - A
• To incentivize foreign and domestic miners to work together. Miners that join the pool will receive discounted electricity rates. They want to increase transparency and security in cryptocurrency mining as well as help energy efficiency in the sector.

THAT'S A SCAM

• COSS.io Exit Scamming?
• Not sure yet, but we've got some red flags flying.
• I actually owned some coss at some point, but I saw some serious UI flags back in the day so I got out quickly.
• Red Flag - Coss suspended all withdrawals without warning for 3-4 WEEKS. Not days, hours, WEEKS. They said they were migrating all users to a new platform.
• Red Flag - The e-mail went out to tell everyone 9 minutes AFTER the exchange actually pulled all ability to withdraw.
• Red Flag - One of the mods was removed as a moderator of the CossIO subreddit. According to him, he was very against deleting any of the bad press. Only those active at deleting negative comments were allowed to stay. Reddit mods are anonymous, but this could very well be someone who works there.
• Red Flag (CEO) - The CEO is Rune Evensen. One of his last Ventures? A company called SiteTalk, which was an MLM for virtual products. The primary way to make money on Site Talk wasn't selling these items, but convincing others to convince others to buy them. This was back when myspace was in existence.
• BehindMLM.com -
• TWITTER
• Red Flag (CEO) - Rune was connected with Sebastian Greenwood on Linked in, he was also the top seller of the One Coin scam (another MLM, the one that got real big) . They were also connected on SiteTalk.
• Exit
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