TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022

      Rain wants to merge with Telkom: asks to pitch proposal to board

      11 August 2022

      Rain lashed by Takeover Regulation Panel over Telkom statement

      11 August 2022

      Largest SA telecoms operators launch new industry association

      11 August 2022

      MTN shares climb on robust Nigeria, SA performance

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 August 2022

      Disney tops Netflix in streaming subscribers

      11 August 2022

      Jumia says it’s past peak losses, shares jump

      10 August 2022

      Elon Musk sells $6.9-billion of Tesla to avoid Twitter fire sale

      10 August 2022

      Nvidia issues profit warning on slump in demand for graphics cards

      8 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      SIU seeks to set aside R215-million IT tender

      19 July 2022

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»Jo’burg home to new blockchain firm with big global backing

    Jo’burg home to new blockchain firm with big global backing

    News By Duncan McLeod23 May 2018
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Riccardo Spagni, Naveen Jain and Dan Teree

    A consortium co-founded by Riccardo Spagni, the South African blockchain and cryptocurrency expert who is lead maintainer of monero, has announced a new open-source blockchain protocol built specifically for digital assets.

    And the company that will develop the protocol, called Tari — and whose backers include several high-profile Silicon Valley venture capital firms — is setting up shop in Johannesburg. Tari has already drawn financial backing from Redpoint (one of the early investors in Netflix), Trinity Ventures, Canaan Partners, Slow Ventures, Aspect Ventures, DRW Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital and Multicoin Capital.

    The idea behind Tari is to “redefine the digital asset experience for both businesses and consumers by making these assets easier to manage, transfer and use”, the company said in a statement.

    There is incredible talent here in Johannesburg. The quality of the developers you can find here is amazing

    Plettenberg Bay-based Spagni, who is also known by the moniker “fluffypony”, is well known — and highly regarded — in global cryptocurrency circles as a member of the monero core team, which oversees development the privacy-focused digital currency. Monero is one of the world’s top 10 cryptocurrencies.

    Tari is headed by Spagni, US-based entrepreneur and angel investor Naveen Jain, and Dan Teree, who built Ticketfly into one of the biggest players in the US ticketing industry before selling it to Pandora in 2015 for $450m.

    The company is now hiring a Johannesburg-based team — mainly developers — to build the protocol, which will allow people to “manage and transfer digital assets with more flexibility, enable true digital scarcity and break down the industry-specific silos in which businesses currently operate”.

    “Tari is going to fundamentally change the way we interact with digital assets,” Jain said. “Our current world of digital assets is incredibly inefficient and frustrating, and we want to fix that.”

    Spagni said that much of the talent needed to build Tari already exists in South Africa, hence the decision to open the office in Johannesburg. “The process of recruiting our team is well under way. Our developers have the opportunity to build a decentralised assets protocol, on top of monero, that will be used by millions of people in their everyday lives.”

    Developers

    “There is incredible talent here in Johannesburg,” Jain said in a podcast interview with TechCentral. “The quality of the developers you can find here is amazing.”

    The Johannesburg office will have about 30 people to start with, most of them developers, Jain said.

    The team will focus on solving problems in the digital asset management space and on “bringing a blockchain protocol to the real world in a highly visible way”. Jain said one of the big challenges in the blockchain space is applying the technology to real-world problems.

    If you are a promoter or an artist or a venue or a sports team, you can now say that every time my tickets are resold I want 20% of the revenue that is generated

    “Growing up in the music business, I learnt a lot about ticketing and the videogame industry and other entertainment-related industries,” Jain said. “There are some real challenges around digital assets — things like concert tickets, loyalty points, virtual goods and games — and a very common problem is the people that issue these digital assets (promoters or artists, for example) set rules around them that they really aren’t able to enforce.

    “A promoter might not want his tickets to be resold, but once they sell the ticket to somebody they are unable to enforce the rule. A videogame publisher might want to issue an in-game item that might have a lot of power but doesn’t want that resold for a certain period of time, and ultimately a thriving black market is created where people try to game the system.”

    The idea behind Tari is that digital assets are a “really good use case” for blockchain-based systems, Jain said. “We are building a protocol on top of monero that is purpose-built for digital-asset use cases.”

    He said the platform is meant to solve problems for both businesses and consumers. Issuers of digital assets — tickets, say — will be able to use Tari to set rules and know they will be enforced.

    “If you are a promoter or an artist or a venue or a sports team, you can now say that every time my tickets are resold I want 20% of the revenue that is generated. You can now participate in the secondary market for your tickets. Well, it turns out that the secondary market for tickets is a $15bn industry worldwide.”  — © 2018 NewsCentral Media

    • For more on Tari, listen to TechCentral’s podcast interview with Riccardo Spagni and Naveen Jain
    Dan Teree monero Naveen Jain Riccardo Spagni Tari top
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleInterview: SqwidNet acting CEO Phathizwe Malinga
    Next Article ZTE losses from US ban at least $3bn

    Related Posts

    Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

    11 August 2022

    Rain wants to merge with Telkom: asks to pitch proposal to board

    11 August 2022

    Rain lashed by Takeover Regulation Panel over Telkom statement

    11 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022

    5 ways to make attack-path management more manageable

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    SIU seeks to set aside R215-million IT tender

    19 July 2022

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.