Self-sovereignty and decentralized energy would be on the uptrend as well, the foundation’s co-founders said.
The up and up of Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s rise in 2020 has seen widespread coverage and hype among both the crypto- and traditional-finance markets, with fund managers, tech firms, and even governments discussing and allocation or taking their first steps into the burgeoning market.
But despite Bitcoin’s rise from under $4,000 to over $41,000 last year, some industry insiders say the asset has room to grow further. This thought has been echoed, for the first time ever, even by banks and traditional market participants—with some predictions pegging each Bitcoin to as high as $450,000.
Take the Energy Web Foundation for example. The firm’s founders, Walter Kok and Micha Roon, who lead their team towards accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by enabling any energy asset owned by any customer to participate in any energy market, say decentralized transfers of energy assets and Bitcoin are poised for more rockstar years of growth ahead.
This, and more, in this week’s interview with Alex Fazel, the host of crypto edutainment platform Cryptonites, a YouTube channel that interviews influential crypto entrepreneurs, personalities, and individuals weekly to narrow the gap between the increasingly complex crypto industry and the normal world.
How this time is different
Kok shared that he has been in the Bitcoin space since 2016 and it has widely evolved since then. He said the market was “quite speculative” and “for a very small group” at the time, but now, the “big money” is coming in as they see Bitcoin as sound money, and that most pricing models position the asset for a mammoth rise.
“It’s much more enterprise-driven, much more enterprise adoption,” Kok said. Roon added in the regard:
“It’s really hard to assess, but you are right. Enterprises are getting in and so the volatility will go down a little, which will be very welcome. And the rise will be maybe slower in the coming year, but more steady with fewer jigsaws and that’s nice.”
Roon added such price behavior also brought more visibility to the crypto market. “We have seen pretty much a U-turn from the banking sector on crypto. So it’s, it’s really promising. I am very confident in the future,” he said.
Inside the EWT
Apart from Bitcoin’s rise, Kok and Roon see big adoption plans for their Energy Web Token (EWT), which powers the enterprising Energy Web Chain network. The latter is the world’s first open-source, enterprise blockchain platform tailored to the energy sector.
It is designed on the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS), a full-stack that includes front-end applications and a variety of software development toolkits, and is maintained by over 25 Validator nodes from 15 countries, including utilities, grid operators, and startups.
Kok said about the token, “We’re building digital infrastructure with the sector. In a source model and we invite a lot of new companies to innovate on top of it,” adding:
“Like you’ve seen lots of innovation on the internet and then because it’s all public infrastructure, everybody benefits, it’s open-source, very nicely put, and that’s a perfect transition.”
But how does EWF work between different enterprises, cities, and entire nations? What do Kok and Roon think of CBDCs and other state-governed digital currency projects? How do blockchains evolve from here? Find out all this and MUCH more in the entire Cryptonites episode available for streaming below.
