The first half has been quite promising for blockchain as many new developments took place. These are the top headlines for the year as half of it pass.

1. The recovery of crypto asset prices, particularly Bitcoin.
2. The world’s largest enterprises revealing plans to support blockchain applications ordevelop own digital assets.
3. The dramatic emergence of Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs) as a start-up fundingmodel.

IEO VS ICO

The publicly available evidence suggests that these trends are not isolated but have re-enforcing effects and intercorrelation between them. Looking from the top down, the conclusion of 12–14 month-long bear market (depending on how you make your calculations) has a spiked interest and brought back some confidence to the ecosystem in terms of new entrants and new start-ups which had rescheduled, delayed or prolonged their ICO fundraisers last year.

The form in which the hype started to return changed a bit although — the new upward movement introduced a phenomenon also known as Initial Exchange Offering or IEO for short. Typically, IEOs are fundraising events conducted through cryptocurrency launchpads such as Binance, Huobi, Ex–Markets and such which act as an extra security layer for retail users, helps to protect from phishing attempts and scam exits.

However, these new launchpads have to establish themselves first to earn user trust. This need pushes companies behind them to get regulated and get operational licenses, and in turn, makes the whole market a more transparent and trustworthy environment. No one wants another year of hacks like 2018.

FACEBOOK’S LIBRA

What also should be a sign of growth is the fact that the major global technology & communication companies are integrating blockchain technologies into their native frameworks. Initially, it was Samsung that announced plans for crypto wallet support in their upcoming phones, followed by Apple and the nearing introduction of ‘crypto kit’ into the iOS. But without a doubt, the biggest bomb was dropped by Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency & Calibra digital wallet.

Facebook claims it wants to reach out to the 1.7 billion people around the world, most of them in developing countries who do not have access to a bank account.

The company is most likely to run into regulatory hurdles and antitrust concerns around the world, especially at a time when many regulators aim to break up Facebook, but no specific legislation has been put forth yet ahead of the launch. Amidst rumors of Facebook’s new financial expansion, members of the US Senate wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg in May asking for clarification on privacy concerns.

Some experts claim that Libra may be a huge competitor to the controversial Tether and might take a large chunk of its market cap that currently stands at $3.5 billion. At this point it’s only speculation.

Facebook is claiming that it will keep financial data from transactions on Libra separate from user ad profiles. The blockchain is “pseudonymous”, the company stated and, like many other crypto networks, it will allow users to hold one or more addresses not linked to their real-life identities.

Account information and financial data of the Calibra customers will not be used to improve ad targeting on Facebook.Inc family of products said Facebook.