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ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why Some Executives See #Crypto As A New Business Tool $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 5:18 PM on Wednesday, August 28th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

Why Some Executives See Crypto As A New Business Tool

  • Executives are leveraging blockchain-driven currency to axe business process friction or fuel innovative products and services.
  • Signals are building that more organizations recognize its alluring features as fuel for innovative products and services, or useful for axing friction in the business process behind a transaction.

By: Jason Abdilla, Unsplash

Many executives see blockchain-driven digital currency as a terribly clunky payment vehicle or speculative investment. But signals are building that more organizations recognize its alluring features as fuel for innovative products and services, or useful for axing friction in the business process behind a transaction.

Unlikely Bedfellows Align Around Feature-Rich Token Projects

For example, a group of 14 financial firms led by UBS Group AG and including Barclays PLC, Nasdaq Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG , Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and State Street Bank & Trust Co have created a new company, Fnality International, to control development of a bitcoin-like token that the firms plan to use to settle cross-border trades. The token, called utility settlement coin (USC), is designed so banks can settle transactions directly with each other without having to involve a third-party intermediary, removing layers of costs and inefficiency. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is taking a similar approach, creating a network of more than 250 members that is working on a token called JPM Coin. Twenty eight brands, led by Facebook and including Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Spotify, PayPal, and eBay have created the Libra Association to develop a token, which is named Libra. In so doing, unlikely bedfellows are coming together to take on the extremely difficult work of forging a new financial infrastructure, pioneering challenging territory in joint governance, and navigating regulatory uncertainty.

What Is So Compelling?

Blockchain-driven digital tokens have very attractive attributes that make it possible to do something totally new: merge business and operational activity with the movement of money. All of a sudden, money can be programmable—terms and conditions could be directly embedded into how money moves from one party to another. While this is certainly possible in today’s financial world, the potential to reduce the cost of doing so to writing a few lines of code is tantalizing.

For example, the USC token serves as a messenger that includes the data needed to complete a trade along with payment, which could cut transaction cost and time. A key feature of Facebook’s Libra is a programming language called Move that can be used to customize transaction logic and create “smart contracts” that dictate the conditions under which value is moved—an element which could fuel a range of financial innovations. Imagine a world in which a few lines of code ensure a transaction doesn’t take place until certain other conditions are met—an asset couldn’t be spent until a certain time in the future, or until a certain number of parties have registered their approval. While moving this logic to code comes with a new set of challenges (including the possibility of bugs and the open question of legal enforceability), pioneers imagine digital tokens flexibly embedded into existing products, used to create innovative bundling, or develop completely new financial products.

Digital tokens carry other attractive attributes as well. They are designed to be interoperable (they are more useful the more widely accepted they are, and so token development is a race to get the flywheel turning on network effects). They are typically traceable, so they provide clear auditability, and hold the potential to settle on a near-immediate basis.

By cutting out intermediaries, they also offer the prospect of a low-transaction cost global currency. According to Bloomberg, retailers are paying $90 billion in swipe fees on credit and debit cards every year. On August 14, supermarket giant Kroger stopped accepting Visa at 21 supermarkets and five gas stations because of what the company called “excessive fees”.

Digital tokens could eventually also serve as an efficient way to shape and align consumer or partner behavior, functioning as a high value rewards system, like a supercharged loyalty point. This has the potential to exert influence across a wide range of organizations and business objectives.

Regulators Are Taking These Signals Seriously

UNITED STATES – JULY 16: David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet service, prepares to testify during the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Momentum has been met with a heightened response from regulators and lawmakers. Facebook’s announcement of Libra led to heated U.S. Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee held hearings. At the hearings, Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo of Idaho painted the complexity ahead, “Libra is based on a relatively new and continually evolving technology in which it is not entirely clear how existing laws and regulations apply.” The Financial Stability Oversight Council, an umbrella group of regulators that includes the Fed, has formed a working group to discuss oversight of digital assets. The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations have elevated cryptocurrencies to a priority issue, with finance ministers debating how global cryptocurrency could impact financial markets. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney even suggested central banks should consider joining forces to create a virtual currency (based on a network of digital central-bank currencies) that could ease the global economy’s reliance on the dollar and be used to facilitate cross-border trade and international payments.

Suddenly, the prospect of whether this new form of money could undermine the role of central banks or become a viable alternate to national currencies had become serious debate. This acknowledges the power and influence of the players exploring these new currencies as well as the complexity of projecting how they would operate in the wild.   

Canary In The Coal Mine?

Will these initial projects succeed or fail? It is too early to project the outcome of such early work in the space, much less how it could evolve as momentum builds. However, we are seeing clear signals that there is hunger for the features and functionality blockchain-driven digital tokens and currency make possible. And many in the space are taking the position that it’s inevitable that something like these early projects will ultimately come to market, even if the initial attempts fail to make it through the regulatory gauntlet. It is likely we will see a race for innovation in this space, one that could blur the lines between the financial services industry and other sectors, and even the role of nation-states versus corporations.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonmccauley/2019/08/28/why-some-executives-see-crypto-as-a-new-business-tool/#676b926c37ae

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Large Enterprises Are Betting On #Blockchain In 2019 $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 2:53 PM on Wednesday, August 14th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

IDK: CSE

Large Enterprises Are Betting On Blockchain In 2019

  • First half of this year was full of blockchain developments led by large enterprises in almost all important sectors, including insurance, financial services, supply chain, healthcare and trade finance.

Biser Dimitrov Contributor

2019 is the year when the blockchain ecosystem and the crypto industry as a whole had to get sober. After a wild 2017 and a bear 2018, the blockchain space is back on an upwards trajectory with new developments. There are no more Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) to distract the crypto ecosystem and the building mentality is back on. This post-ICO and post-useless-PR-partnerships age urges the blockchain community to be less focused on the current price of bitcoin and more focused on producing meaningful services and advancements. Big projects from established enterprises like Facebook Libra are taking all the media space now and this is net positive for the enterprise blockchain space as well.

The first half of this year was full of blockchain developments led by large enterprises in almost all important sectors, including insurance, financial services, supply chain, healthcare and trade finance.

There is a huge benefit in joining a specialized industry-focused blockchain consortium because you sit at the same table with your main competitors but at the same time you work toward the same goal. You are not alone in figuring out the benefits, implementations and roll-out of distributed ledger technologies. There is also a financial benefit when commonly building applications as sometimes the membership fee is lower than the cost of hiring and training blockchain developers. Some of the big names in leading blockchain consortia networks that have made significant progress so far in 2019 are:

  • B3i, a blockchain consortium focused on the insurance industry, recently launched its first live product on R3’s Corda platform. Their members include big insurance and reinsurers companies like Allianz, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Tokio Marine, XL Catlin and Zurich.
  • Energy Web Foundation (EWF) launched their enterprise-grade public blockchain with 17 applications already on it. That network consists of 100 affiliate members like Total, Shell, GE, Siemens, Duke Energy and PG&E.
  • Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) was created by five of the ten largest container carriers: CMA CGM, COSCO SHIPPING Lines, Evergreen Marine, OOCL, and Yang Ming.
  • Two of the largest health insurance companies in the United States, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, have teamed up to tackle the massive datasets of provider demographic data from hospitals and medical partners.
  • Health Utility Network was formed by Aetna, Anthem, Health Care Service Corporation, PNC Bank and IBM to drive digital transformation and blockchain enabled-solutions within the healthcare industry.
  • In the space of trade finance, the biggest names are project Voltron, focusing on letters of credit; Marco Polo, implemented on R3’s Corda; and we.trade, which runs on IBM Blockchain and consists of 12 of the biggest European banks, including CaixaBank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Santander, Société Générale, UBS and UniCredit. They are all moving forward with pilots and we have seen live results, like the completed transaction between the European Union and Asia on Marco Polo.
  • The owners of the famous Louis Vuitton label, LMVH, launched a special blockchain that will help prove the authenticity of expensive goods. It is built on Ethereum with the help of Microsoft.
  • Samsung launched a consortium including six major South Korean companies, focused on launching a blockchain-based mobile ID system. The company is already pretty advanced in their blockchain and crypto developments with the release of the Galaxy S10 phone with designated crypto wallet and Blockchain Keystore online app marketplace. Moreover, Samsung released a developer-friendly Blockchain SDK.
  • The IBM Food Trust network launched. Built on Hyperledger Fabric, the network aims to create a traceable audit log for time-sensitive foods and when an issue occurs, the network participants will be able to pinpoint exactly where the damaged items shipped and won’t have to empty all their shelves. The consortium consists of companies like the European giant Carrefour, Walmart, Nestle, Dole Food, Tyson Foods, Kroger and Unilever.
  • Walmart, similarly to Samsung, is involved on several different tracks with blockchain. They have joined MediLedger, a private consortium that aims to create a drug supply chain. Apart from that they are also partnering with KPMG, Merck and IBM as part of the FDA’s program to evaluate the use of blockchain to protect pharmaceutical product integrity. Recently it become public that Walmart also filed a patent for issuing a digital currency on a blockchain, or stablecoin, as they are known in the industry.

The whole private consortia ecosystem is still in early development but the right mentality is there. We will see how the technology develops over time to support those formations. A popular approach might be a hybrid infrastructure, where consortium members interact with each other in a permissioned environment or a shard but eventually anchor to some public blockchain for audit and reference purposes.

From the enterprise blockchain technology perspective, this first half of 2019 was pretty interesting and the major blockchain platforms made progress in not only improving and maturing their services but releasing new products. The general sentiment has been to focus on privacy, consensus options and digital asset standardization in anticipation of the tokenization revolution.

  • Digital Asset is another of the big names that made great progress in 2019. While work with the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is still going as planned, they have completely open-sourced their modeling language, called DAML. That move was very well accepted by the blockchain developer community as DAML is a great language to code smart contracts with.
  • The Hyperledger family got bigger with a new tool called Transact, which should provide advanced transaction execution and state management. The long-awaited version of Fabric 2.0 is still in the shop but once released it will provide performance improvements in many areas, such as data storage, privacy and consensus layer, over the current 1.4.2 version.
  • Pantheon, the open source enterprise Ethereum client from PegaSys, launched version 1.2 with extensive privacy features like on-chain smart contract node and account rules, whitelisting nodes and others.
  • Microsoft was very active during H1 2019 and launched a decentralized online identity platform on top of the bitcoin blockchain called ION. More than that, they continued to expand on their Azure Blockchain development kit, which is very helpful from a developer perspective.
  • R3 achieved a large milestone this year by releasing version 4 of their Enterprise Corda protocol. Now their well-rounded team is perfectly capable of publishing regular releases on both the open source and the enterprise versions of Corda. Another great achievement was releasing the Token SDK; now it is easier to implement and work with tokens on the Corda network. Recently also R3 announced a large expansion of their London office and growing of IT team.
  • Ernst & Young released their project Nightfall, which uses zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology to enable transfers of Ethereum-based tokens with complete privacy. There are a few things that E&Y are doing here that deserve acknowledgment. They are using the permissionless public Ethereum network, which is the complete opposite of the permissioned and siloed approach adopted by similar enterprises. Then they rely on privacy and implement ZKP to achieve that. It remains to be seen what they will decide to support when Ethereum 2.0 becomes a thing and the current chain might split as not nodes will migrate.

2019 has proven to be a year when blockchain technology has gotten down to business. Going further from the wild early days of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, blockchain is making large steps in nearly every industry, from insurance to pharmaceuticals to luxury goods. Backed by large enterprises, we saw the maturing of the underlying protocols and improvements in security and privacy aspects. There is still a lot to be done as the core blockchain infrastructure needs to mature enough to be prime-time ready, and like Q1 and Q2, the second half of 2019 is certain to be filled with new developments.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/biserdimitrov/2019/08/13/large-enterprises-are-betting-on-blockchain-in-2019/#5521e97a1bff

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Kakao Corp raises $90M for its blockchain platform $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:55 AM on Monday, March 11th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Kakao Corp raises $90M for its blockchain platform

  • Raised $90 million in a private coin offering for its upcoming blockchain platform, as reported by Bloomberg.
  • The company is planning to have another round, similar in size, in March

Kakao Corp., the parent company of a South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk, raised $90 million in a private coin offering for its upcoming blockchain platform, as reported by Bloomberg. The company is planning to have another round, similar in size, in March. IDG Capital, Crescendo Equity Partners and Translink Capital participated in the round, per Bloomberg.

The blockchain platform dubbed Klaytn, which is planned to launch in June, will start with popular third-party services such as games and travel apps but eventually could support some messaging features of KakaoTalk. Klaytn already has 26 partnerships lined up with apps that already have millions of daily active users. The platform aspires to attract a user base of 10 million accounts within the first year.

Source: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/kakao-corp-raises-90m-for-its-blockchain-platform/

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why 2019 May Become The Year Of Enterprise Blockchain $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:45 AM on Friday, February 22nd, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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Why 2019 May Become The Year Of Enterprise Blockchain

  • Last year, 95% of companies across different industries were investing in blockchain tech projects.
  • In 2019, those pilot projects are finally moving from the test stage to the end users.
  • Goldman Sachs, a former vocal skeptic of the blockchain, has launched a crypto-investing product for their clients in the end of last year.

Andrew Arnold Contributor  

Last year, 95% of companies across different industries were investing in blockchain tech projects. In 2019, those pilot projects are finally moving from the test stage to the end users. Goldman Sachs, a former vocal skeptic of the blockchain, has launched a crypto-investing product for their clients in the end of last year. Beyond investing and finance, major blockchain projects have been released in several other industries including cybersecurity, healthcare and agriculture.  

Enterprises no longer question whether blockchain is even worth the attention, according to Sky Guo, CEO of Cypherium, a startup offering enterprise-ready blockchain solutions. On the contrary, Guo says they are now proactively seeking new ways of incorporating this technology in their legacy systems. Henri Arslanian, head of fintech and crypto department at PwC, said that 2018 ‘cleared the noise’ in the blockchain space, and 2019 will be the year when big players enter the crypto world. Indeed, in the first months of 2019, several major companies have signed off new partnerships with blockchain startups (ING Bank and R3); invested in blockchain projects (Nasdaq and  Symbiont); and new consortium partnerships emerged (Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and R3).

Further in 2019, we should see more enterprise-level decentralized ledger technologies (DLTs) emerging on the market as the underpinnings for those a strong.

1. Ready-to-use software is now available from top vendors

Amazon, IBM and most recently Oracle offer enterprise-grade blockchain solutions. R3 – an international blockchain consortium, also plans to unveil its platform, Enterprise Corda, later this year.

“Unlike the open-source blockchain software, enterprise solutions come with better scaling mechanisms, security, privacy and additional protocol changes that make them more attractive to the private sector,” Guo said. “In our case, we have improved upon the existing Ethereum consensus mechanism to maximize decentralization and scalability, without sacrificing one for the other. This, in turn, allows to achieve higher transaction speed and smart contract execution time.”

The particular appeal of enterprise-grade DLT is that it also enables unprecedented collaboration opportunities not just within large organizations, but cross-company as well. Several of the largest world food suppliers including Nestle, Unilever, Walmart, Kroger and others, are working with IBM to create a global food tracing system on blockchain. The collaboration is a crucial factor here to reach complete visibility into the origins of potentially hazardous goods and rapidly trace the source of contamination. Guo said enterprise-grade solutions set unified standards for such collaboration, enabling faster adoption and better interoperability between companies, ultimately benefiting everyone in the industry.

2.  Interoperability has significantly improved

Lack of connectivity mechanisms between different types of blockchain solutions was a major roadblock to wider adoption. But these days, tech companies are presenting new viables ways for establishing connections between different ledgers.

Ripple has released an Interledger – mid-ware arbitrary protocol that can “connect” different types of ledgers, both distributed and traditional centralized ones. Its main goal is to improve interoperability between financial institutions. The additional benefit is that Interledger allows users to store aggregate transaction data off a public blockchain by using a connector to transfer funds between private versions of the Ripple network.

“Customer data privacy remains a sore point for enterprises as they must constantly upgrade their systems to remain compliant with emerging regulations,” Guo said. “By leveraging blockchain businesses can actually reduce their data ownership. Customer information recorded on the distributed ledger doesn’t have to change hands when transactions are executed. Instead, users can simply grant permission for access to those records whenever needed. This, in turn, allows enterprises to remain compliant with less effort, and users can benefit from greater privacy and security.”

3. The overall improved understanding and sentiment around blockchain

Blockchain is no longer viewed as an abstract technology supporting crypto-currencies. Over a half (58%) of investors and 55% of consumers feel that blockchain are optimistic about the blockchain’s potential for money transfers. What’s more important though, is that customers’ perception of the blockchain is changing too. Per Deloitte survey, only 18% of respondents in the US consider blockchain to be just “a database for money” with little other applications outside the financial industry. For the majority, it’s a promising new technology capable to transform a multitude of business processes.

In fact, that’s how most businesses now view blockchain. According to the same survey, 74% of companies state that they already have a “compelling business case” for blockchain technology; 34% already initiated a blockchain deployment.

As the sector clears of opportunistic ICO projects and speculative use cases, Guo argues that enterprises are becoming the key market players. And as more successful projects emerge, legacy companies are feeling an increasing pressure to innovate as well. With ready-to-use software and a burgeoning ecosystem of blockchain consortiums joining the bandwagon has become easier than ever.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewarnold/2019/02/21/why-2019-may-become-the-year-of-enterprise-blockchain/#70688acb427e

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #HSBC suggests it might have found a… use for #blockchain? $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:59 AM on Tuesday, January 15th, 2019

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click Here For More Information.

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HSBC suggests it might have found a… use for blockchain?

  • HSBC claims to have settled three million foreign exchange (FX) transactions and made payments worth $250,000 using distributed ledger technology (DLT).
  • The bank said it had made “significant efficiencies” while using its DLT product, HSBC FX Everywhere, for the past year – suggesting the risk-averse financial sector is treating blockchain technology as a legitimate biz tool.

Says it used tech to settle 3 million forex transactions, $250k in payments last year

HSBC claims to have settled three million foreign exchange (FX) transactions and made payments worth $250,000 using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The bank said it had made “significant efficiencies” while using its DLT product, HSBC FX Everywhere, for the past year – suggesting the risk-averse financial sector is treating blockchain technology as a legitimate biz tool.

In a statement, the bank revealed it had been using a share-permissioned ledger for payments on its internal balance sheets. “It transforms the process around intra-company foreign exchange activity, automating several manual procedures and reducing reliance on external settlement networks.”

The DLT was used for 3 million FX transactions and 150,000 payments, which HSBC admitted was a small proportion when compared with traditional processes.

The much-hyped technology has long been criticised by observers who see it as a solution in search of a problem, as over-eager vendors stick the buzzword on everything they can.

A recent study of its use in the international development sector found no evidence of success – rather just “a proliferation of press releases, white papers, and persuasively written articles”.

Up until now, the most common example of a practical use of blockchain – where it was being used to solve a problem in a way other tech couldn’t – has been in supply chain management, although such deployments haven’t been a raging success for a variety of reasons.

HSBC’s announcement, which discusses three main benefits for its use in FX trading, is also notable because risk-averse financial institutions are typically regarded as being less keen on untested emerging technologies.

But the bank’s interim global head of FX and commodities, Richard Bibbey, said that it was now looking into using DLT to help multinational clients with multiple treasury centres and cross-border supply chains to “better manage foreign exchange flows within their organisations”.

In listing the benefits, HSBC said the singularity, transparency and immutability provided by DLT created a “shared, single version of the truth of intra-company trades” from execution to settlement, reducing “risk of discrepancy and delay”.

Meanwhile, confirmation and settlement can be automated by matching and netting transactions – reducing costs and reliance on external settlement network – and a consolidated, global view of cash flows and certainty of funds “supports greater balance sheet optimisation”. ®

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/15/hsbc_blockchain_forex/

ThreeD Capital $IDK.ca – Report: Blockchain Deployment Could Add $3 Trillion in International Trade by 2030 $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 4:41 PM on Wednesday, November 28th, 2018

SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital (IDK:CSE) Led by legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD Capital is a Canadian-based venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap exits. Click here for more information

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  • The World Trade Organization (WTO) released a report on blockchain technology’s effect on international trade today, Nov. 27.
  • Per the study, blockchain’s economic value-add on a global scale could reach almost $3 trillion by 2030.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) released a report on blockchain technology’s effect on international trade today, Nov. 27. Per the study, blockchain’s economic value-add on a global scale could reach almost $3 trillion by 2030.

“Blockchain and International Trade: Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for International Trade Cooperation” analyzes blockchain applications and challenges that must be considered before the technology’s deployment in various sectors. The study considers the technology’s effect on industries such as trade finance, customs clearance, logistics and transportation.

Blockchain Business Value Forecast. Source: WTO

The study estimates that blockchain has the potential to significantly cut trade costs by increasing transparency and facilitating processes automation, including financial intermediation, exchange rate costs, coordination, and other aspects. “The removal of barriers due to blockchain could result in more than $ 1 trillion of new trade in the next decade,” the report reads.

Blockchain is expected to help administer intellectual property rights across multiple jurisdictions by delivering more transparency and efficiency, and enhance government procurement processes, including fighting fraud and managing public contracts.

Blockchain purportedly could improve supply chains, allowing for the tracking of shipments and proving their authenticity. Additionally, the technology could open new opportunities to micro, small and medium-sized companies.

Conversely, the study warns about challenges that must be addressed before deploying blockchain, as well as its impact on international trade. The researchers point out limited scalability of blockchains due to the predetermined size of blocks, in addition to energy consumption and security issues.

Although “blockchains are highly resilient compared to traditional databases due to their decentralized and distributed nature and the use of cryptographic techniques, they are not completely immune from traditional security challenges,” the study states.

The report stresses the importance of developing a multi-stakeholder approach in order to find appropriate use cases in cross-border trade. According to the WTO, blockchain requires frameworks that ensure the interoperability of networks and provide clear legal status for blockchain transactions across jurisdictions. The report concludes:

“Blockchain could make international trade smarter, but smart trade requires smart standardization — and smart standardization can only happen through cooperation. If we succeed in creating an ecosystem conducive to the wider development of blockchain, international trade could well look radically different in ten to 15 years.”

Earlier this week, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin said that the misapplication of blockchain technology in some industries leads to “wasted time.” Buterin argued that although there are a number of companies that try to establish higher standards by using blockchain technology, he does not think the technology is applicable in every industry.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-blockchain-deployment-could-add-3-trillion-in-international-trade-by-2030

 

Stock exchanges find novel uses for #blockchain $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:05 AM on Friday, November 16th, 2018

  • Although stock trades are often made in milliseconds by algorithms, completing them involves co-ordinating payment and delivery among a mess of databases and then reconciling the records
  • In big financial centres trades take two full days to settle. Some stock exchanges wonder whether blockchain’s distributed, tamper-proof ledgers and immutable and transparent transaction records could speed up and simplify the process

BLOCKCHAIN, THE technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, was designed with an ideological aim: to sidestep central authorities and governments. But many people have become intrigued by its practical uses, such as updating back-office processes. And few institutions have shown more interest in such applications than financial exchanges.

Although stock trades are often made in milliseconds by algorithms, completing them involves co-ordinating payment and delivery among a mess of databases and then reconciling the records. In big financial centres trades take two full days to settle. Some stock exchanges wonder whether blockchain’s distributed, tamper-proof ledgers and immutable and transparent transaction records could speed up and simplify the process.

Exchanges from America and Australia to Switzerland and Singapore are studying the concept. Australia’s stock exchange, the ASX, has moved furthest towards using blockchain to replace its main clearing and settlement platform. It has been testing technology from Digital Asset, an American firm, and will go live in mid-2021. And on November 11th SGX, Singapore’s stock exchange, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), its central bank, announced a prototype using blockchain for delivery, payment and settlement of assets.

These projects are strikingly unlike the vision of blockchain enthusiasts. ASX’s, for example, uses ledgers but remains quite centralised. A single counterparty, ASX itself, must approve participants (which removes the need for energy-intensive verification and updating of records, as with bitcoin). Though open to all, only some banks and brokers will opt for direct access. Everyone else must trade through them. In contrast to the complete transparency of the bitcoin ledger, market participants will not have access to the whole dataset (for legal reasons, but also so they do not have to give away their positions). And settlement will not be in real time.

Why, then, bother? Kelly Mathieson of Digital Asset says her firm’s purpose-built programming language, DAML, which enables financial contracts to be automated, will make further innovation easy. The tedious processes of reconciliation, she says, will be drastically simplified.

As soon as next year investors will be able to see the result of another, smaller experiment. SIX, the owner of the Swiss stock exchange, will launch a separate digital platform for trading assets, such as stocks and bonds, in “tokenised” form—that is, in a format blockchain can handle. Tokenising will eliminate minimum trade sizes, says Thomas Zeeb of SIX. It will also make a much wider range of assets tradable. Mr Zeeb has already been approached by a museum that wants to tokenise its art collection, as a novel source of funding. Investors would gain exposure to the value of the art going up or down through such tokens, which they could trade.

All these projects have, or plan to obtain, official blessing; after all, exchanges are highly regulated. But the Singaporean project shows the value of seeking more than a nod of approval. MAS’s involvement meant the prototype did not limit itself to stock trading or settlement, but also looked at digital currency issued by the central bank. Quite a turnaround for a technology designed to circumvent governments.

Source: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/11/17/stock-exchanges-find-novel-uses-for-blockchain

Three Ways #Blockchain Technology Will Revolutionize Real Estate in 2019 $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:27 AM on Thursday, November 15th, 2018
  • Blockchain is poised to redefine how we make transactions in the same way that the internet has redefined how we communicate and share information
  • It was originally created a decade ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin, but has grown to be so much more. Blockchain has lead to the creation (and loss) of millions of fortunes, the launch of hundreds of new companies, billions of dollars in investor funding and, most commonly for the non-technical, a lot of confusion around its true benefits.

Hunter Perry

Senior Manager of Strategic Growth at Compass. Pairing the real estate industry’s top talent with best in class technology coast to coast.

Blockchain is poised to redefine how we make transactions in the same way that the internet has redefined how we communicate and share information.

It was originally created a decade ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin, but has grown to be so much more. Blockchain has lead to the creation (and loss) of millions of fortunes, the launch of hundreds of new companies, billions of dollars in investor funding and, most commonly for the non-technical, a lot of confusion around its true benefits.

In its most basic form, blockchain makes it possible for the first time ever for people and companies to make major transactions without going through an intermediary. Intermediaries like credit card service companies, stock exchanges, banks and governments can make transactions expensive, slow and illiquid and may open opportunities for fraud or crime.

Access to deals, the amount of time it takes to close, property title mistakes, high fees and fraud bog down the real estate industry. It is the largest asset class in the world and has had minimal innovation in the way of increased efficiency during transactions. Blockchain poses major opportunities for innovation in real estate. Here are three innovations that will change how real estate is done for the better in 2019.

Tokenization

Historically, owning the most lucrative hard assets required investors to already be wealthy and have the luxury of being able to wait years to liquidate. That changes with tokenization.

Tokenization democratizes ownership of assets by using cryptocurrency to split assets into tokens that are stored on the blockchain. Someone who wants to invest in a trophy real estate project now has the luxury of being able to resell their share on the open market through secondary trading. Also, people in different geographies and tax brackets now have access to attractive investment opportunities that they previously would not. Landlords now have the ability to sell off just a portion of their property to the crowd. In 2019, I believe we will see a major migration of real estate ownership moving to the blockchain.

One of the pioneers in the space is Templum Markets, the first federally regulated marketplace for the primary issuance and secondary trading of security tokens. It recently closed what is thought to be the first digital security tokenization of a trophy real estate asset: Investors had the opportunity to invest as little as $10,000 in the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen. Unlike with most major real estate investments, owners are not locked in until the building is sold. They will be able to sell their portion on the secondary market.

Smart Contracts

The current state of property agreements have a lot of moving parts and middlemen. A transaction using a smart contract is completed entirely between the buyer and the seller (or renter and landlord) and has no human interaction.

Transactions can be done in far less time with far less chance of fraud. The seller includes all of the details of the property and the buyer puts all of their necessary information on a 100% encrypted and secure block. Computer protocols check the legitimacy of the transaction and no agreement can be completed until all of the terms are met.

Propy is one of the most well-known incumbents in the space. It has built technology for buyers, sellers, brokers, title agents and notaries to come together through a suite of smart contracts on blockchain to facilitate transactions.

Real estate purchasing can be a very emotional decision for people. I believe that middlemen such as brokers and attorneys earn their commissions for people making potentially the largest financial decision of their lives. While smart contracts are currently being built to replace middlemen, I believe this technology will ultimately be utilized to make advisers in this space more efficient.

Property Title

Title insurance has grown to be a $15 billion revenue per year industry by ensuring buyers that their property is clear of old liens and debts. Every municipality has their own way of storing property data. Some cities and towns have put records online while others still use printed paper. If all property title was decentralized on the blockchain, an immense amount of time and money would be saved and, potentially, it could eliminate the need for title insurance altogether. It could also be possible to add information about construction, damages and improvements to the title, almost like Carfax for homes. This will help make it so that people truly know what they are buying.

Unfortunately, while having all title on the blockchain would be great for property buyers, inputting this amount of data from every municipality is an extremely laborious and expensive undertaking. There are a few exciting technology companies in the space, like State Title and Jetclosing, but it is unclear if they are up for the task. It will be interesting to see whether governments, corporations or a combination of both cough up the dollars to enhance the data quality for where we live, work and play.

The coming year will be an inflection point for blockchain usage in real estate. Private investment has been flowing in real estate technology, cryptocurrency wealth is massive, real estate professionals are being increasingly aware of blockchain and the underlying technology is improving. When it comes to the potential growth and adoption of blockchain technology, we are in the first inning. Similar to using the internet, blockchain usage may soon be so common that you forget you’re even using it.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2018/11/15/three-ways-blockchain-technology-will-revolutionize-real-estate-in-2019/#1cebb0c06d20

#Blockchain momentum is growing across Europe $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:16 AM on Wednesday, November 14th, 2018

Telefonica, Central Bank of Azerbaijan and others demonstrate that the blockchain momentum is growing across multiple industries in Europe

  • According to the IDC, “blockchain spending in Europe is now growing faster than anywhere else.”
  • Leading European companies are continuing to innovate with blockchain technology, progressing projects from proof of concept to production environments. And many, have selected IBM Blockchain as their partner of choice.

Blockchain in the enterprise

The attributes of blockchain technology are ideally suited to large networks of disparate partners. As such, it represents an attractive technology for large corporations and start-ups alike, with assets spread across the world in various forms.

The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology, which establishes a shared, immutable record of all the transactions that take place within a network. It then enables permissioned parties access to trusted data in real time.

‘By applying the technology to a variety of business processes, a new form of command and consent can be introduced into the flow of information, empowering multiple partners to collaborate and establishing a single shared view of a transaction without compromising details, privacy or confidentiality,’ according to an announcement released today by IBM.

IBM Blockchain

‘The hallmark of IBM’s blockchain business has been the ability to convene broad groups of network participants to embrace a collaborative platform approach to blockchain adoption,’ reads the announcement.

‘These clients are capitalising on the opportunity for greater trust and transparency using blockchain across a variety of industries, for example to better manage the reconciliation of international mobile phone roaming charges, securing digital identity for citizens, and complying with new European banking directives on customer communications.’

IBM has more than 500 blockchain projects globally, and is engaged across all industries. The company notes that European projects, in particular, are on the rise. According to the IDC, “blockchain spending in Europe is now growing faster than anywhere else”.

“From large enterprises to startups, across multiple industries, businesses across Europe are selecting IBM Blockchain,” said Andrew Darley, IBM Blockchain Platform Leader, Europe. “Clients are attracted by the production-readiness of the IBM Blockchain Platform, allowing them to run highly secure networks in any environment of their choosing, on premise, via IBM Cloud, or an increasing number of other industry cloud providers.”

Use cases

European clients are working with IBM to drive blockchain innovation in their industries:

Telefónica and IBM are collaborating in the development of a proof of concept based on IBM blockchain technology to help solve one of the major challenges of operators, the management of international mobile phone call traffic.

The project resolves in real time the veracity and traceability of the information generated by the different networks of the operators when they route an international call thanks to a decentralized platform to which all the operators that intervene in the process have access. As a consequence, fraudulent behaviors and discrepancies between the information recorded by each operator are significantly reduced.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan and IBM are developing a Digital Identification System based on Hyperledger Fabric for individuals and legal entities, to verify the reliability of the documents related to them, when individuals or legal entities turn to banks, credit providers and other organizations. The new system will simplify and automate the ‘Know Your Customer’ validation process, and will be used by both clients and credit organisations serving citizens of Azerbaijan.

Finnish retail cooperative S-Group is testing their Pike-perch radar solution, which is based on IBM Blockchain technology, as part of the retail group’s strategy to improve customer experience. Customers in Finland can trace a fillet of pike or perch freshwater fish back to its home waters using the QR Code on the package of “Kotimaista-kuhafile” fish, or by logging in to a tracking website.

PKO Bank Polski, together with KIR (Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa S.A. – Polish automated clearing house) and in partnership with IBM and Accenture, is using blockchain to help the bank achieve compliance with the European Union Payment Services Directive related to customer communication. Now the client documents and communications sent digitally to more than 5 million customers of the bank will be held in a highly secure blockchain-based repository.

The Central Securities Depository of Poland (Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartościowych, KDPW) has implemented their e-Voting solution in production, designed to encourage greater retail shareholder participation in company AGMs, and ensure transparency to regulators on the history of AGM agendas, and voting results.

Startup software developer Comgo.io, with support from IBM, is digitising the entire donation and spend process for NGOs using Hyperledger Fabric, a Linux Foundation project. NGO donors can see in real time what money has already been spent and the activities supported.

For example, when charity workers in India purchase hygiene products for the street children they support, the payment is tracked on a mobile phone, and written to the blockchain, allowing the approved people to see the transactions, and triggering the NGO responsible to verify that the children did actually receive the products.

The application enhances transparency to build a deeper connection between the donors and the charity, and helps donors to understand more about the work of the NGO. Comgo.io is implementing the application with 7 NGOs: Fundación Recover; Orden de Malta; Fundación Exit; Farmacéuticos sin Fronteras; KUBUKA; Itwillbe, and homelessentrepreneur.

Blockchain momentum

IBM attributes this blockchain momentum to the ease of use of the IBM Blockchain Platform and the open nature of the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework, coupled with the deep industry expertise of the organisation.

Another factor is the availability of services and developer resources on the ground in Europe, supporting clients, according to IBM: IBM Client Centres and Blockchain Garages in London and Böblingen; IBM Client Innovation Centres in Paris, Nice and Gronningen; an Industry Solution Centre in Montpellier; IBM Food Trust operational in Frankfurt; IBM Research centers in Zurich and Dublin, focused on cryptography, innovations in AI and optical imaging to help prove the identity and authenticity of objects, detect anomalies and support preventative maintenance in industrial environments; and at the Watson IoT Center in Munich, clients are engaged on projects to explore the convergence of IoT and blockchain, and how clients can automate business processes, gain competitive advantage, and create new business models, by embedding end point and sensor data into blockchain networks, to trigger smart contracts.

IBM’s Blockchain Starter Plan on IBM Cloud is also helping developers, startups and enterprises build blockchain proof-of-concepts quickly and affordably with an end-to-end blockchain development experience: a secure test environment, suite of education tools and modules and one-click network provisioning.

Source: https://www.information-age.com/blockchain-momentum-europe-123476474/

Banks complete first syndicated loan on #blockchain $IDK.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:08 AM on Wednesday, November 7th, 2018

  • Spain’s BBVA and two partner banks have completed the first syndicated loan on the blockchain, providing a working example of how transactions in the $4.6tn-a-year market can be simplified and made faster using technology that underpins cryptocurrencies
  • Syndicated loans were identified early on as a key use for blockchain in financial services, since banks rely on outdated and inefficient processes including faxes to share information between different parties who are structuring complex agreements.

Laura Noonan

Spain’s BBVA and two partner banks have completed the first syndicated loan on the blockchain, providing a working example of how transactions in the $4.6tn-a-year market can be simplified and made faster using technology that underpins cryptocurrencies.

Syndicated loans were identified early on as a key use for blockchain in financial services, since banks rely on outdated and inefficient processes including faxes to share information between different parties who are structuring complex agreements.

Combining shared databases and cryptography, blockchain technology is the basis for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Banks have seized on the technology, which allows multiple parties to have simultaneous access to a constantly updated digital ledger that cannot be altered, as a way to cut costs and speed up many activities.

On Tuesday, BBVA used a private blockchain network to arrange a $150m syndicated loan for Red Electrica, the Spanish grid operator, with co-lenders MUFG of Japan and BNP Paribas of France. Legal advisers Linklaters and Herbert Smith Freehills also had access to the system which allowed all parties to exchange information instantly.

The information was time-stamped, to show exactly when each event occurred, and the network was secured with user codes. Once the contract was signed, it was given a unique identifier that was recorded on the Ethereum blockchain, preserving its authenticity.

BBVA says the blockchain technology, which is being rolled out on a pilot basis, simplifies and speeds up the process of completing syndicated loans from about two weeks to a day or two. Loan signing and documentation processing, which traditionally takes a few hours, can be done in minutes.

As well as the saving time, moving syndicated loans to the blockchain will also deliver a “huge reduction in internal costs” for clients, Ricardo Laiseca, BBVA’s head of global finance, told the FT. He said: “Everything is automatically recorded by the system, in terms of back office and operational costs.”

Mr Laiseca said that BBVA had a pipeline of “five or six” other syndicated loans that would be done over the blockchain in the coming months as the pilot continues.

“We are offering these technologies for collaboration with any other banks . . . This is not just for BBVA, we feel that as a second stage (we are) working on a new markets infrastructure which will be good for everyone.”

Another platform built by fintech group Finastra and pioneered by the UK’s NatWest is offering syndicated loan servicing over blockchain, using the Corda distributed ledger technology. which is due to go live on November 17. In the broader lending space, BBVA earlier this year issued the world’s first corporate loan by blockchain.

The banking industry’s single largest blockchain project remains the Interbank Information Network, where more than 75 banks led by JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Canada and ANZ are using distributed ledger technology for some interbank payments.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/2b12d338-e1d1-11e8-a6e5-792428919cee