About James Kilroe

James is a former Senior Associate at Newtown Partners. James was involved in leading the charge globally in token economics, a cutting edge and largely misunderstood field within the nascent blockchain industry. His token economies and writing were at the forefront of his field. Some of his work included designing token economies for up to $300 million (USD) markets for local African and international start-ups paving the way to solve large social impact problems.

Adoption of Decentralized Networks, A Mental Model

By |2019-02-21T07:26:57+02:00February 20th, 2019|

H/t to Qiao Wang from Messari whose writing on the theory of The Firm sparked this thought process. Since its inception, the internet has structurally reorganized many industries, such as the newspaper industry. The internet has empowered aggregators and platforms who serve customers to the detriment of suppliers by forcing suppliers to compete on [...]

The Smart Contract Platform Master Plan. Fostering Adoption is key

By |2018-06-07T14:58:19+02:00June 7th, 2018|

EOS is about to release its mainnet this week after a year of anticipation and a $4 billion+ raise. It is the first of many new smart contract platforms that will launch in the next 12 months. Second generation smart contract platforms such as Tezos, Cardano and Dfinity, have all raised a staggering amount [...]

Trust without a central authority. How Civic’s updated token model decentralizes trust.

By |2018-05-21T13:28:00+02:00May 18th, 2018|

Authors: Kyle Levin & James Kilroe. As we move towards a more decentralized world, it has become apparent that tokens are critical in enabling true decentralization. DApp builders must design platforms that are both technically decentralized (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) and regulate the behavior of actors on the network without a central authority. Decentralized regulation of [...]

CryptoKitties Genome Mapping

By |2018-05-21T09:33:07+02:00May 4th, 2018|

If you haven’t already heard of CryptoKitties, welcome to the amazing world where ‘digital cats’ have sold for over $100 000. The interesting question I’m hoping to answer today: How do the genes of these peculiar cryptokitties combine to form new offspring? Can we visualize this in a simple manner? I'll briefly discuss the background of Cryptokitties, I'll then touch on the 'birth' of a Cryptokitty and then we dive into the wonderful of genome mapping!

Application Protocols are the better investment. Here’s why.

By |2018-05-17T13:55:50+02:00November 21st, 2017|

Bitcoin is worth over $137 billion, while Coinbase, the most valuable Bitcoin company is only worth $1.6 billion. In fact, in 2015, had DFJ and others invested their $75 million equity investment directly into Bitcoin instead of Coinbase, it would have been worth $2.5 billion, much more than their undisclosed share of $1.6 billion. The Fat Protocol theory has caused many investors to believe ‘the lower the better’ and thus prioritise investing into ‘base protocol’ layer coins (Ethereum, EOS, Tezos, etc.) because this is where they believe major value will be captured. However, protocols have evolved, this thesis is now outdated. Application Tokens are the Value Trap. This post will show why.

Crypto-network effects are driving Thin Protocols

By |2018-05-17T13:57:30+02:00October 12th, 2017|

Traditional network effects have helped Web 2.0 companies dominate because they create a ‘winner-takes-all’ market, and they are fiendishly difficult to create and easy to defend. Most feel that protocols will have the same dynamic (in a hype-drive), but will they? In their current form, I believe protocols are not going to result in the winner-takes-all dynamic. Simply put, this is because economic incentives of controlled supply coins (i.e. Bitcoin) drive forks and competition (read ICO’s). Why? Because the economic incentives of these coins are skewed. To explain this point further, I'll use Bitcoin as an example.

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