Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 1:22 PM on Wednesday, June 19th, 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.
Industry bigwigs explain ‘blockchain’ in as few words as possible
The blockchain and cryptocurrency industry is always changing.
At this year’s annual TNW conference, Hard Fork took the opportunity
to ask a number of industry experts to explain blockchain in as few
words as possible. We hoped to get a bit of insight into how the tech is
developing and what the industry currently makes of it.
Here’s what they said:
1. “Blockchain is a chain of blocks. That’s the definition, anything
else is wrong.†– João Almeida, co-founder and CTO of Opennode – the
Bitcoin payments system that recently helped Lil Pump’s merch store accept Bitcoin.
2. “Blockchain is the freedom to trade.†– Kirill Suslov, the CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform TabTrader.
3. “Blockchain is a hash-linked data format.†– Francis Pouliot, CEO of Canadian Bitcoin company Bull Bitcoin.
4. “A new technology enabling us to take the control and governance of information from the few, and to the many.†– Jessi Baker from Provenance, a firm using blockchain to make supply chains more transparent.
5. “Blockchain is simple, take a bunch of transaction, record them as
a unique block, and link all these blocks together.â€â€“ Ricardo Mendez,
the European technical director from Samsung’s emerging tech investment
arm, Samsung NEXT.
The take away?
There is some consistency in what is being described here.
Interestingly though, all the people Hard Fork asked steered clear of
the common buzzwords that tend to accompany blockchain in the media.
Blockchains are often described as being immutable, tamper-resistant, and decentralized. However, with private permissioned systems being the preferred type of blockchain for institutional use, these buzzwords aren’t always so applicable.
It seems too, that blockchain’s definition is, from this small sample
at least, broadening so that it can include all kinds of distributed
databases and applications with varying levels of decentralization.
Baker’s response also highlights the undeniable politic that’s associated with the decentralized tech too.
We’ll have to remember that when someone says blockchain, what they mean specifically, isn’t always that simple or universal.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:59 AM on Monday, June 17th, 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.
——————-
Crypto is coming: get ready to spend Facebook’s money
The social network is likely to release details of its cryptocurrency this week: and it won’t be much like Bitcoin
First it had your friends, then it had your
pictures, then it had your diary. Now, in the latest effort to entwine
its systems still further into the everyday lives of its users, Facebook wants to get into your wallet.
On Tuesday, the social media behemoth is expected to reveal its own
cryptocurrency, which has variously been called Libra and GlobalCoin.
However, unlike other cryptocurrencies, the new creation will not have
been founded in the spirit of libertarianism, outside the backing of
established, conventional authorities. Instead, it appears to have the
endorsement of more than 12 corporations, from Uber to PayPal, Visa and
Mastercard.
Since they have risen to prominence over the past decade,
cryptocurrencies have conjured up visions of a wild west of finance,
where values fluctuate wildly and terrorists and drug dealers come
piling in.
Facebook’s new venture appears to be somewhat removed from that
image. Reports suggest that the new currency will be overseen by a group
of companies that have each invested some $10m to join a consortium and
administer it.
Another indication that the Facebook currency will be different from
its predecessors is the fact that it will be pegged to a number of
government-issued currencies, in a bid to avoid the vast value
fluctuations that have dogged other digital currencies.
That inconsistency in valuation is best illustrated by the price of
Bitcoin, which was initially sold for a few cents before it reached a
record high of just under $20,000 per coin in December 2017. Each one
now sells for just over $8,300.
The Facebook project is expected to cost $1bn and has been in
development for a year. It should enable Facebook’s 2.4 billion monthly
users to change dollars and other international currencies into its
digital coins. The currency can then be used to buy goods on the
internet – and in shops and other outlets – or to transfer money,
without the need for a bank account.
Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg,
met the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, last month to
talk about his plans, and has also discussed the matter with US Treasury
officials.
“Payments is one of the areas where we have an opportunity to make it
a lot easier,†Zuckerberg told the company’s developer conference in
April.
“I believe it should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo.â€
It is expected that Facebook will aim to shatter the poor image of
cryptocurrencies, which were initially widely used by criminals to make
transactions on the dark web.
It has been reported that Facebook will not directly control the
currency but that some members of the consortium will act as “nodesâ€
within the system that can give the green light to transactions.
Reports also suggest that hotels website Booking.com and the payments
technology company Stripe have signed up. It is expected that Facebook
will release a briefing on the new cryptocurrency this week.
Concerns have been raised, however, that regulatory issues and
Facebook’s hitherto poor track record on data privacy and protection are
likely to prove major hurdles on the way to making any cryptocurrency a
success.
Facebook is also looking at paying users fractions of a coin for
activities such as viewing ads and interacting with content related to
online shopping, in a system similar to the loyalty schemes run by
retailers.
The powerful in tech…
… must keep being challenged with bold investigative journalism. It’s
been a year since The Observer and The Guardian broke the story that
became the Cambridge Analytica scandal, exposing the truth and shedding
light on the reality of foul play within the tech industry. We saw how
personal data could be harvested on an unprecedented scale to fulfil the
ambitions of the powerful. Through this courageous investigative
reporting, we shamed Facebook, and prompted a global conversation about
the importance of data privacy, holding tech companies to account and
pressuring governments to enact regulation.
The Guardian is committed to continuing this vital work; we will keep
persevering, uncovering and challenging those with so much power in the
tech industry. This has never been so pressing: we’re living in a time
when the integrity of our democracy and the legitimacy of our votes are
in question. Political campaigns reside in our many digital feeds and,
with each year, this will become ever more prominent. The world needs
journalism that promotes transparency and investigates where others
won’t go. Reader support means The Guardian can keep investigating the
critical issues of our time.
The Guardian is editorially independent, meaning we set our own
agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced
by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our
editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important as it enables us to
give a voice to those less heard, challenge the powerful and hold them
to account. It’s what makes us different to so many others in the media,
at a time when factual, honest reporting is critical.
Every contribution we receive from readers like you, big or small,
goes directly into funding our journalism. This support enables us to
keep working as we do – but we must maintain and build on it for every
year to come.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:19 AM on Tuesday, June 4th, 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.
——————-
Apple Publishes Bitcoin Icons & ‘CryptoKit’; iPhone Crypto Wallet Coming?
The new Mac Pro is grabbing the headlines while a ‘CryptoKit’ for developers is getting crypto adopters excited. | Source: Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small
By CCN: Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is underway, and while most of the focus is on iOS3, Apple quietly revealed a new upgrade for developers called CryptoKit.
Apple also released its new icon set for designers which feature four bitcoin logo
It begs the question, what are Apple’s plans for cryptocurrency integration?
Apple’s Frederic Jacobs announced new CryptoKit for developers
Apple CryptoKit: a path to a hardware wallet?
CryptoKit provides developers with a new toolkit for cryptographic
functionality. It means app developers can integrate operations like hashing, key generation, and encryption. In particular, CryptoKit will facilitate the use of public and private key management.
“Use public-key cryptography to create and evaluate digital
signatures, and to perform key exchange. In addition to working with
keys stored in memory, you can also use private keys stored in and
managed by the Secure Enclave.â€
Viktor Radchenko, founder of TrustWallet, said CryptoKit brings Apple one step closer to full hardware wallet functionality.
“Only a few steps away before you can turn your phone into a hardware wallet.â€
TrustWallet’s Viktor Radchenko said Apple is one step closer to facilitating a hardware wallet
Apple’s Frederic Jacobs, part of the cryptographic and security
engineering team, said CryptoKit is “a fast and secure Swift API to
perform cryptographic operations.â€
Jacobs did not respond to a request for further comment at the time of publishing.
Apple bitcoin icons
The company also released the new San Francisco icon set designed for
iOS3. Among the set of 1,000 icons are four bitcoin logos. Two circular
BTC logos and two square. There are no ethereum logos or any other
cryptocurrency.
Apple releases new icon set complete with bitcoin logos
The new icon set means developers can easily integrate bitcoin icons into their apps.
Apple’s CryptoKit will allow developers to perform common cryptographic operations, such as:
“Compute and compare cryptographically secure digests†and “generate
symmetric keys, and use them in operations like message authentication
and encryption.â€
For developers, it provides a toolkit to build more secure apps and frees apps from handling raw pointers.
The tech giant will reveal more about CryptoKit in a WWDC session on Wednesday.
Still too early to predict Apple’s crypto plans
It’s too early to draw any conclusions about Apple’s cryptocurrency
plans, if there are any. But at least Apple is providing the tools for
cryptocurrency developers to build on iOS. For now, consider this the
start of a much longer story.
Ben is a journalist with a decade of experience covering financial
markets. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post and he worked
at Block Explorer, the world’s longest-running source of Blockchain
data. Reach him at benjamin-brown.uk
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:47 AM on Monday, June 3rd, 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.
Big banks are launching a blockchain trade platform powered by ‘Bitcoin-like’ token
The financial giants have poured over $60 million into the new company, called Fnality International.
The token, which has been in the works for four years now, will function both as a payment device and a “messenger that carries all the information required to complete a trade,†according to the report.
Story by: Mix
The banking industry wants to blockchain too
The banking industry is hell-bent on taking over the nascent
blockchain and cryptocurrency market. A group of financial firms led by
UBS Group AG is eyeing blockchain technology for settling cross-border
trades worldwide with its own “Bitcoin-like†token.
The 14 firms – including Barclays, Nasdaq, Credit Suisse Group, Banco
Santander, ING, and Lloyds Banking Group – have registered a new entity
to control the devleopment of the token, dubbed ‘utility settlement
coin’ (or USC for short), The Wall Street Journal reports
The financial giants have poured over $60 million into the new
company, called Fnality International. The token, which has been in the
works for four years now, will function both as a payment device and a
“messenger that carries all the information required to complete a
trade,†according to the report.
The new permissioned
blockchain system will purportedly make cross-border trades much faster
and less risky. “You remove settlement risk, the counterparty risk, the
market risk,†UBS investment strategy head Hyder Jaffrey told the WSJ.
“All of those risks add up to costs and inefficiencies in the
marketplace.â€
In addition to the previously mentioned institutions, Bank of New
York Mellon Corp., Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce , State Street
Bank & Trust Co., Commerzbank AG, KBC Group NV, Mitsubishi UFG
Financial Group Inc., and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp have also agreed
to use the USC token.
The new platform is expected to take off within the next 12 months, which corroborates past reports suggesting the platform will be fully operational by 2020.
It remains to be seen if USC is more of a cryptocurrency than JP Morgan’s token, though.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:47 AM on Wednesday, May 29th, 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.
——————-
Debunking the Top 5 Blockchain Myths
Satoshi Nakamoto’s seminal paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,†published in 2009, which took cues from “How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document,†published by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991, sparked a feeding frenzy of accolades for blockchains
which inscribed an urban legend about trusted public decentralized
blockchains, a historical departure from the mediation of brokers and
third parties. The first paper sought to create trust in digital
currencies by solving the decades-old “double spend†problem associated
with digital currencies with applied cryptography and the second by preventing the tampering of digital documents with time stamping.
The information, documents, transactions or digital coins are mathematically protected with hard-to-crack hash functions
that create a block and interconnect it to previously created blocks.
To validate the new chain of blocks, it is then broadcasted and shared,
to a distributed network of computers, to collectively agree about the
authenticity of the transactions, using additional mathematics of a
consensus algorithm.
The entire cryptographic proof of transactions is stored as an
immutable record on a distributed and shared ledger, or the blockchain.
“In effect, this is triple entry accounting which includes the two
entries of the transacting parties and a third record for the public,
registered on a public distributed ledger, which cannot be tampered
with,†Ricardo Diaz, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based founder of Blockchain CLT and management consultant for commercialization of enterprise blockchains, told us.
Rising from the trough of disillusionment, the myths around public
centralized blockchains have been reexamined and we will now assess the
controversy. (Blockchain is being used for much more than just
cryptocurrency. Learn more in Why Data Scientists Are Falling in Love with Blockchain Technology.)
Myth #1: Private permissioned blockchains cannot be secure.
Private permissioned blockchains are a contradiction in terms and
public blockchains are the only secure and viable option. Public
blockchains gain trust by consensus, which is not possible when private
blockchains need permission for a small group of people.
In actual implementations, centrally controlled private or federated
permissioned blockchains, albeit distributed, are common. Federated
blockchains focus on specific verticals
such as R3 Corda for banks, EWF for energy and B3i for insurance
companies. The motivation to keep a blockchain private is
confidentiality and certainty of regulatory compliance as in banking,
unique needs such as in renewable energy
where small producers need to connect with consumers, or the fear of
cost overruns or underwhelming performance of unproven technologies as in insurance.
The jury is still out whether private blockchains will last beyond their pilot programs. TradeLens is one private blockchain which IBM created with Maersk,
the largest container company in the world. According to press reports,
the project has gotten off to a slow start as other carriers, which
could be potential partners, have expressed skepticism about the
benefits they will realize from joining.
Steve Wilson, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research,
cautioned against a rush to judgment. “IBM is moving slowly because it
is bringing together a group of partners who have not worked together
before. They are also transitioning from a world where trades were
mediated by brokers to an unfamiliar world of direct trading. The trade
documentation is convoluted, and IBM is trying to avoid errors,†he told
us.
Fundamentally, Wilson does not see a well-defined use case for public
blockchains. “Public blockchains overlook the plain fact that any
business solution is inseparable from people and processes. The double
spend problem does not exist when transactions in physical worlds are
tracked at each stage,†he concluded.
By contrast, private blockchains, such as Corda in financial services,
are solving real problems. “The supervision of private blockchains by
credible stewards narrows down the problem of trust. Private blockchain
realize efficiency gains from a common and secure distributed ledger
which takes advantage of the cryptography, time-stamping, and smart contracts which were prototyped in public blockchains,†Wilson explained.
Myth #2: Hybrid blockchains are an incompatible mix of private and public.
Public, permissionless decentralized blockchains and private
centrally controlled permissioned blockchains are mutually exclusive.
They seek to create a trustworthy environment for transactions in
entirely different ways which are not compatible. It is not possible to
have a combination of the private and the public in a single secure
chain.
Hybrid combinations emerge as the market matures and dispel the
skepticism about the early forms of new technologies. Just like the
precursors to the internet were intranets and extranets which evolved into the internet with sites searchable with browsers; the cloud followed a similar path and hybrid clouds are widely accepted these days.
In the crypto community, there are two camps: the public,
permissionless blockchains and private, permissioned blockchain.
According to Diaz:
The private blockchain side has historically presumed to require miners and a cryptocurrency
financial incentive to validate the blockchain was unnecessary. Today,
new blockchain projects support private and public distributed ledger
technologies. Ternio.io, an enterprise
blockchain platform, leverages Hyperledger Fabric (a permissioned
blockchain technology) AND Stellar (a permissionless blockchain). Veridium.io, a carbon credit marketplace blockchain project, also has a similar DLT architecture.
Diaz also noted:
Jaime Dimon, CEO of JPMC, who dismissed bitcoin as a fraud, has not only invested in building a popular, secure, private blockchain called Quorum, but also introduced an enterprise stable coin (a type of cryptocurrency token) called the JPM Coin. It was built using the Ethereum
blockchain code base, a public blockchain protocol, and the privacy
technology from ZCash, another public but more secure blockchain
protocol. Security on Quorum is reinforced by secure enclave technology
which is hardware-based encryption.
Quorum is not a hybrid blockchain that has public and private
blockchains working together, but it incorporates the code from public
blockchains and cryptocurrencies that are normally integral to public
blockchains. It creates a fork on Ethereum to create a private
blockchain. There are other hybrid blockchains in which private and
public blockchains play complementary roles.
Hybrid blockchains have a compelling value that is driving skeptical
enterprise clients to progress from private blockchains to hybrid ones
that incorporate public blockchains and token economics on an as-needed
basis. The bridges between the private and the public chains in the
hybrid blockchain ensure that the security is not compromised, and
intruders are disincentivized by requiring them to pay to cross the
bridge.
Hybrid crypto networks of the future will be more secure than anything the internet, Web 2.0, has today. Diaz explained:
Crypto mesh networks that are supported by crypto routers, like the wireless router
in your home, will only process transactions that are cryptographically
secured not only with blockchain technology but also true crypto
economics. Imagine a crypto router or device that requires a small
amount of cryptocurrency to process a transaction like an email between
two parties. This one key difference will drastically impact hackers across the planet who are used to freely hacking computers and networking them together to launch a massive denial of service attack on some business. On the Decentralized Web, Web 3.0, the hacker would have to pay upfront for his/her bot army to launch the same attack. That is token economics crushing a major cybersecurity issue.
Myth #3: Data is immutable in any circumstance.
A cornerstone of public blockchains is the immutability of the pool of the data for all transactions that it stores.
The reality is that public blockchains have been compromised either
by an accumulated majority, also known as a “51% attack†of the mining
power by leasing equipment rather than purchasing it, and profit from their attacks or by bad code in poorly written smart contracts.
Rogue governments are another cybersecurity risk. “Private
individuals respond to incentives for keeping the data honest. My worry
is governments who have other non-economic objectives immune to
financial incentives,†David Yermack, Professor of Finance at the Stern
Business School in New York University, surmised.
Public blockchains have to come to grips with the fact that human error is possible
despite all the vetting — it happens in any human endeavor.
Immutability breaks when corrections are made. Ethereum was split into
Ethereum Classic and Ethereum following the DAO attack which exploited a vulnerability in a wallet built on the platform.
“The Bitcoin blockchain network has never been hacked. The Ethereum
blockchain has suffered attacks but the majority of them can be
attributed to bad code in smart contracts. Over the last two years, an
entirely new cybersecurity sector has emerged for the auditing of smart
contract code to mitigate the common risks of the past,†Diaz told us.
Auditing of software associated with blockchains, including smart
contracts, helps to plug the vulnerabilities in supporting software that
exposes blockchains to cybersecurity risks. (For more on blockchain
security, see Can the Blockchain Be Hacked?)
Myth #4: Private keys are always secure in the wallets of their owners.
Blockchains rely on public key infrastructure (PKI) technology for security, which includes a private key to identify individuals. These private keys are protected by cryptography and their codes are not known to anyone except their owners.
The reality is that in 2018 over $1 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen.
The myth about the privacy and security of private keys rests on the assumption that they cannot be hacked. Dr. Mordechai Guri
of the Ben-Gurion University in Israel demonstrated how to steal
private keys when they are transferred from a safe location, unconnected
with any network, to a mobile device for usage. The security vulnerability is in the networks and associated processes.
“Today there are many best practices and technologies that reduce the
risk of this perceived weakness in basic cryptography to protect
private keys. Hardware wallets, paper wallets, cold wallets and
multi-signature (multi-sig) enabled wallets all significantly reduce
this risk of a compromised private key,†Diaz informed us.
Myth #5: Two-factor authentication keeps hot wallets secure.
My private keys are safe on a crypto exchange like Coinbase or Gemini. The added security of two-factor authentication (2FA) these sites provide in their hot wallets can’t fail.
A crypto hot wallet cybersecurity hack that is becoming more and more common is called SIM hijacking, which subverts two-factor authentication. Panda Security explains how hackers receive verification passcodes by activating your number on a SIM card
in their possession. This is usually effective when someone wants to
reset your password or already knows your password and wants to go
through the two-step verification process.
“If you must purchase cryptocurrency through a decentralized or
centralized crypto exchange, leverage a third-party 2FA service like
Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator, NOT SMS 2FA,†Diaz
advised.
Conclusion
Distributed ledger technologies and blockchain technologies are
evolving, and the current perceptions about their risk are more muted as
new innovations emerge to solve their inadequacies. Although it is
still early days for the crypto industry, when Web 3.0 and decentralized
computing become more mainstream, we will live in a world that will put
more trust in math and less in humans.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:34 AM on Tuesday, May 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.
——————-
What Could Google’s Blockchain Mean For Bitcoin?
A Google led blockchain promises to totally change the way blockchain technology exists in the world.
Of course, Google have not yet confirmed that they are building their own blockchain as such, but we can bet your bottom dollar (or Bitcoin) that Google have employed a team to heavily investigate the use cases of blockchain technology.
A Google led blockchain promises to totally change the way blockchain technology
exists in the world. Of course, Google have not yet confirmed that they
are building their own blockchain as such, but we can bet your bottom
dollar (or Bitcoin) that Google have employed a team to heavily
investigate the use cases of blockchain technology.
Google are of course behind some of
the biggest technological products available in our era, namely Android
and the Google Search network. Combined, this pair makes Google one of
the most prolific tech giants around. This means notoriety, which in
turn means the name of Google gets about a little bit. In fact, you’d
struggle to find a person in the western world that hasn’t already heard
of Google. So, what does this mean? Well Google is clearly huge, they
are a vast company with a truly international reach – this means when
they release new products, they don’t have to work very hard to market
them. Moreover, because they already have a portfolio of products, they
often find ways to link them together, meaning everyone with an android
phone (for example) can automatically get access to the latest Google
updates (again, for example).
If Google created their own
cryptocurrency, called say, Googlecoin, this would be guaranteed instant
world adoption, simply because Google itself is already so widely
adopted. Moreover, people trust Google, it’s a name that people know and
therefore it’s a name that people are happy to buy from. A Googlecoin
would be well greeted within the world and this could have significant
consequences for the growth of the rest of the cryptocurrency market.
When one large coin see’s mass adoption, the entire markets will open up
and cryptocurrency all in all will become far bigger than it already
is.
The production and development of Googlecoin will ensure that more people start to invest in other cryptocurrencies
such as Bitcoin, XRP and Ethereum too. A Googlecoin would no doubt be
tradeable on many exchanges and as a matter of fact, we could also
expect Google to build their very own exchange too.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:58 AM on Thursday, May 23rd, 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.
——————-
Despite Crypto Rally Pause, This Billionaire Still Expects Bitcoin at $250,000
Tim Draper, a prominent venture capitalist known for sporting an “offensive†purple Bitcoin tie, recently told The Street that now’s still an optimal time to purchase Bitcoin.
He goes on to state that by 2022, “maybe 2023â€, he expects for each BTC to be valued at $250,000, explaining his prediction as an estimate of the market share that Bitcoin will obtain as a viable currency and digital store of value.
Bitcoin
(BTC) may have dropped by 4% in the past 24 hours, receding to $7,600
in an interday drop, but many analysts and investors are still
optimistic. The thing is, the fact that BTC collapsed to $6,100 and then
skyrocketed to tap $8,000 for a second time was deemed by many to be
wildly positive, as it asserts that the bulls have control of the
cryptocurrency wheel.
One prominent investor claims that this is just the start though. He
recently asserted that Bitcoin’s runway is a lot longer than some expect
and that BTC can easily reach a value in the sextuple-digit range.
Bitcoin Rally Is Just Getting Started
Tim Draper, a prominent venture capitalist known for sporting an “offensive†purple Bitcoin tie, recently told The Street
that now’s still an optimal time to purchase Bitcoin. In a comment
characteristic of his long-term expectations for this space, the
investor quipped that it may be wise to “buy the dip [or] buy the
reboundâ€, hinting at his belief that whether your BTC cost basis is
$5,000 or $10,000 in years from now won’t matter.
He goes on to state that by 2022, “maybe 2023â€, he expects for each
BTC to be valued at $250,000, explaining his prediction as an estimate
of the market share that Bitcoin will obtain as a viable currency and
digital store of value.
This is far from the first time he touted such a lofty prediction.
Speaking to CoinTelegraph, the staunch permabull remarked that 2018’s
sell-off to $3,150 from $20,000 was simply a “fluctuationâ€, musing that
the move was catalyzed by manipulators looking to turn a quick buck.
Explaining why buying cryptocurrency whenever is logical, Draper opines:
“All times are good times to enter the crypto market. If you are
forward-thinking, you’re going to look and say ‘this is just better
currency’, so it’s just a matter of time before the world adopts it.
[This will happen] when everything I can do with fiat, I can do with
Bitcoin.â€
Indeed, many have expressed that the simple adoption of Bitcoin as a
digital currency, potentially the money of the future, is what will
drive such long-run growth. Researcher Filb Filb expressed
four months ago that if Bitcoin’s supply schedule, BTC’s adoption
rates, its share of global financial transactions, and worldwide debt
continues to follow his in-depth model, BTC could hit $250,000 by as
soon as 2022, lining up with Draper’s forecast.
He then added that Bitcoin’s fair value (at that time) was $5,500, meaning that the spot market was then undervaluing the asset.
What’s Crypto’s Endgame?
What comes after Bitcoin hits $250,000? Well, in the extremely long
run, like in the coming decades, Draper expects for the value of all
digital assets to begin to make a move on the $100 trillion hegemony of
fiat, government-issued money. While fiat makes up a vast majority of
global capital flows, Draper argues
that using such “poor†currencies is illogical, citing their
controllability, lack of transparency, and subjectivity to political and
social whims on the day-to-day.
With the brightest developers, engineers, and academics working on digital assets — Blockchain Capital’s Spencer Bogart would agree — Draper notes that there could be a capital flight from fiat to crypto over time. He elaborates:
“My belief is that over some period of time, the cryptocurrencies
will eclipse the fiat currencies. That would be a 1,000 times higher
than what we have now.â€
In a subsequent comment, Draper quipped that in five years’ time,
when consumers walk into Starbucks using fiat, the baristas will “laugh
at you.†He’s effectively implying that Bitcoin and other media of
exchange digital assets will be used in the place of traditional payment
rails, like U.S. dollars, Euros, or Yen on Visa or Mastercard.
What Will Bring BTC Higher?
Although the aforementioned commentators seem to be 100% sure that
fresh highs are in Bitcoin’s cards, what could kick off the adoption of
Bitcoin as a currency. Theses on this matter very, but many are coming
to the conclusion that a reduction in supply (the halving), growing
interest in BTC, and capital flight from traditional assets is what will
cause this embryonic industry to see massive adoption.
Per previous reports
from NewsBTC, quantatative analyst PlanB writes that money from silver,
gold, negative interest rate economies, authoritarian and capital
control-rife states, billionaires looking for a quantitative easing
hedge, and institutional investors will be what pushes Bitcoin to
$55,000 after 2020’s halving. This inflow could potentially kick off
what many call “hyperbitcoinizationâ€, which is when fiat currencies
rapidly lose value as Bitcoin supplants it.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:41 AM on Wednesday, May 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.
These and many other insights are from Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Based on interviews with 1,386 senior executives in twelve nations
(Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Luxembourg,
Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the
United States), 53% of whom say blockchain technology has become a
critical priority for their organizations in 2019. Please see page 2 of
the study for a methodology. The study is available for download here (PDF, 52 pp., no opt-in).
Blockchain is gaining trust in the enterprise by succeeding at
pragmatic, well-defined pilots that show the potential to scale into
production. Deloitte found financial services leads blockchain adoption
today with adoption accelerating in technology, life sciences, media,
telecommunications, and government. Key insights from the survey include
the following:
53% of senior executives say blockchain has become a critical
priority for their organization this year, 10% higher than last year.
Deloitte found that senior executives are gaining more experience and
insights into blockchain’s potential contributions and pitfalls as more
use cases are evaluated, piloted, and moved to production. The following
graphic compares blockchain’s relevance between 2018 and 2019.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
86% of senior executives interviewed believe that blockchain
technology is broadly scalable and will eventually achieve mainstream
adoption. The majority of senior executives (83%) believes
there is a compelling business case for blockchain. 81% are planning to
use blockchain to replace their system of record, which reflects a shift
in mindset away from relying entirely on legacy systems. A growing
number of senior executives also believe blockchain is overhyped (43% in
2019, up from 39% in 2018).
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Blockchain’s three greatest organizational barriers include
implementation (which includes replacing or adapting existing legacy
systems), regulatory issues, and potential security threats.
Additional barriers include lack of in-house capabilities, uncertain
Return on Investment (ROI), concerns over the sensitivity of the
information, and the lack of a compelling application of the technology.
The following are the respondents’ responses to the question, What are your organization or project’s barriers, if any, to increase adoption and scale in blockchain technology?
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
73% of enterprise leaders in China are prioritizing blockchain
as one of their top five strategic priorities, the most in the ten
nations surveyed. The Chinese government’s Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology cited blockchain as a key driver of economic
development in a recent economic analysis. The Chinese government sees
product traceability, copyright protection, and smart contracts as
examples of blockchain’s potential to strengthen China’s global
technology direction. “China, more than anywhere else in the world, will use blockchain strategically instead of tactically,†says Paul Sin, consulting partner, Deloitte Advisory (Hong Kong) Ltd., and leader of Deloitte’s Asia-Pacific blockchain lab. “More projects are driven by top management who use blockchain as a strategic weapon rather than a productivity tool.†The following is a comparison of countries’ differing attitudes about blockchain along with several metrics.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
18% of enterprises are planning to spend $10M or more on
blockchain initiatives this year, and 23% will spend between $5M to
$10M. Senior executives based in each of the twelve nations
included in Deloitte’s survey are predicting wide variations in
blockchain investment levels. Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are
the home nations of enterprises planning to invest $10M or more in
blockchain technologies in the next twelve months.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Blockchain use cases are proliferating today, with data
validation (43%), data access/sharing (40%), and identity protection
(39%) being the most popular. Enterprises are piloting
blockchain to improve payments, achieve track and trace accuracy
throughout their supply chains, and evaluating the digital currency
aspects of the technology. It’s important to note that 87% of
enterprises first start evaluating blockchain due to its innate
strengths for enabling completely automated or touchless business
processes. 86% of enterprises are evaluating and piloting blockchain to
achieve the goals enabling new business models and revenue streams.
Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
For the majority of enterprises actively piloting and promoting
blockchain into production, success is defined by greater process
efficiency first. 55% of enterprises define blockchain success
by the process efficiencies they can accomplish first, followed by cost
saving (51%) and risk reduction (50%). Deloitte also found blockchain is
proving to be an effective platform for revenue generation, enabling
new business models and customer acquisition.
Source: Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey: Blockchain gets down to business.
Louis Columbus is an enterprise software strategist with expertise in
analytics, cloud computing, CPQ, Customer Relationship Management
(CRM), e-commerce and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:40 AM on Tuesday, May 21st, 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.
——————-
Bitcoin and Blockchain: The Tangled History of Two Tech Buzzwords
“I’m interested in blockchain, not bitcoin.â€
Admit it, you’ve heard this hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
(You might have even said it yourself.) And sure, people know what
you’re saying, you’re talking about the “technology underlying bitcoinâ€
and you sound smart enough.
Once it became known – or at least presumed – that you could apply
cryptography in finance, in ways similar to how it’s used in bitcoin,
everyone started making sure that statement fell from their lips. And
that refrain – kicked off by bitcoin itself – remains powerful today.
Sounds plausible? Sure. But, interestingly, the word “blockchainâ€
doesn’t actually appear in the original bitcoin white paper, released
back in 2008. Rather, the white paper uses the words “block†and “chainâ€
separately many times.
It describes the word “block†as the vehicle for a bundle bitcoin
transactions. Then, these blocks of are linked together, forming a
“chain†of “blocks.â€
Turns out, the origins of the word are not quite so revolutionary.
“The word blockchain was never used in the early days,†former
bitcoin developer Mike Hearn told CoinDesk. Although, Hearn did
acknowledge that Satoshi often referred to bitcoin’s “proof-of-work
chain†in discussions on forums.
It seems the first references to the word came about on Bitcoin Talk, a bitcoin-specific forum created by Satoshi, in July 2010 – more than a year after bitcoin’s release.
And at that time, these remarks weren’t about how innovative the
technology was, but instead were complaints about how long it took to
download the bitcoin “blockchain†(the entire history of bitcoin
transactions).
While compared to today, the download would have far faster,
according to one Bitcoin Talk user: “The initial blockchain download is
quite slow.â€
In other words, initially, blockchain was far from the sexy word it is today.
Blockchain mania
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the word really took hold.
But interest in the term seems to have sprung out of professional
organizations and individuals hesitance to align themselves with bitcoin
itself because of its bad reputation as the currency for drugs and gray
economies.
“I think it [became popular] around the time people started going to
Washington [D.C.] and trying to make bitcoin respectable by divorcing
the currency from the underlying algorithms,†Hearn said.
To many, bitcoin the currency could be decoupled from bitcoin the
blockchain protocol, and so a whole new industry of so-called “private
blockchains,†devoid of a cryptocurrency, emerged. Sure enough, around that time in 2015, Google Trends data show the term surged.
“Initially people said ‘block chain’, and then, thanks to a great PR
campaign, we were blessed with the much improved ‘blockchain,’
single-word, probably thanks to a community-wide effort near and around
the Bitcoin Talk forums,†long-time cryptocurrency developer Greg Slepak
said.
Not only did it become one word, but it also came in vogue to
describe any blockchain that wasn’t bitcoin’s blockchain as “a
blockchain.†Bitcoin got to keep the terminology “the blockchain,â€
giving credence to the fact that it was the first.
Yet blockchain has become so divorced from bitcoin that both words
typically see a similar spike when cryptocurrency prices start mooning.
For instance, the word blockchain saw a huge uptick in Google searches
in late 2017.
Still, it’s unclear exactly where the idea itself begins. To some,
blockchains existed even before bitcoin, although that term wasn’t
applied to them back then.
For instance, cryptographer Stuart Haber, whose whitepapers on
timestamping were cited in the bitcoin white paper, claims to have
created the first blockchain called Surety.
According to Haber, that has to be the reason why Satoshi cited his
work – three times out of just nine total citations. Surety was launched
in 1995 for timestamping records, and it’s still running today.
Yet, Haber admits that his version doesn’t have all the same benefits
of bitcoin since it’s centralized – managed by one company.
And that highlights where things get tricky when you’re talking about
a blockchain. See, there isn’t necessarily agreement on a single
definition of a the technology.
The Merriam Webster dictionary
actually presents a much older word for blockchain – “a chain in which
the alternate links are broad blocks connected by thin side links
pivoted to the ends of the blocks, used with sprocket wheels to transmit
power, as in a bicycle.â€
While Google defines blockchain as:
But, for those seasoned veterans of the space, even this definition
is problematic. Many of these new-age private blockchains don’t record
their transactions publicly.
“The term has become so widespread that it’s quickly losing meaning,†as The Verge put it earlier this year.
Blind men
Haber pointed to an Indian parable to help explain the incompatible descriptions.
In the parable, a group of blind men come upon an elephant and start
touching the animal to try and figure it out what it was in front of
them.
Depending on what part of the elephant each man is touching, their
answer changes. For instance, one of the blind men, touching the
elephant’s trunk, thinks it’s a snake, while the other, touching the
elephant’s leg, exclaims it’s a tree trunk.
It’s similar when people define blockchain, Haber said.
He told CoinDesk:
“Some definitions will be completely silly, showing that people don’t
understand what they’re doing, but there will also be a bunch of
accurate descriptions of various parts of the vast body of work.â€
As such, he argues there isn’t just one meaning.
Even though, bitcoiners believe a blockchain can only be the one and
only bitcoin blockchain, like words, definitions are always evolving and
changing.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 3:01 PM on Tuesday, May 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.
——————-
IBM Establishes 5 Blockchain Principles To Drive Enterprise Adoption And Benefit Society
As an early advocate for blockchain, IBM has been working vigorously to commercialize the technology through its enterprise-grade version of Hyperledger Fabric, known as IBM Blockchain.
Hyperledger Fabric currently empowers 1300 networks in the IBM blockchain cloud, 100 of which are live in production today.
Following years of experimentation and the advancement of established live networks, IBM has now established a set of 5 “blockchain for good principles,†demonstrating how trusted and transparent enterprise blockchains can benefit organizations and society as a whole.
The principles, which are also outlined in an IBM blog post, are:
Open is better
Permissioned doesn’t mean private
Governance is a team sport
Common standards are common sense
Privacy is paramount
When IBM’s CEO, Ginni Rometty, began
commenting on data rights with respect to data analytics, we became
inspired on the blockchain side. Over the past 3 years, we have worked
with many clients and have gained perspectives that have driven these
principles. There are ways to use blockchain technology that are
critical and would lead to good outcomes, but let’s make sure we don’t
leave that to guess work. That is how these 5 principles came about and
it’s our responsibility to abide by them wisely and share them with
others,†Jerry Cuomo, Vice President of IBM Blockchain and IBM Fellow,
told me.
In order to better understand how each principle is being applied, Cuomo went into detail about the standards.
Open Is Better
According to IBM, blockchain networks must foster diverse communities
of open source contributors to promote innovation and ensure the
overall quality of code.
The open is better principle is
carried across many aspects of what we do at IBM. Open is always better
when it comes to the cloud, artificial intelligence or the Internet of
Things, but it has especially interesting implications when looked at
from a blockchain context. We have always been an ‘open by design’
company, but we think carrying that principle to blockchain is
fundamental to our strategy,†explained Cuomo.
For example, IBM points out that The
Hyperledger Project, operated under The Linux Foundation, is a
“greenhouse†for growing enterprise-grade blockchain software with
strong and diverse code contributors.
“Hyperledger is an open technology
co-created by multiple institutions. The users of this technology
benefit since collaborations create diversity,†said Cuomo.
Moreover, Hyperledger Fabric also allows IBM to monetize due to the collaborative nature of the technology.
Institutions like IBM working on
Hyperledger Fabric are able to monetize due to the openness. For
instance, Oracle has the Oracle Blockchain, but they monetize using
Hyperledger Fabric. We are all collaborating to create these blockchain
networks, but we all have competitive offerings. Without breaking the
openness, we can add value to differentiate from our solutions. In turn,
consumers get high quality code offered through multiple institutions.
This is a unique business model built around the idea of open source,â€
noted Cuomo.
Permissioned Doesn’t Mean Private
Although anonymous public blockchains afford a number of powerful
capabilities, IBM believes that these are not suitable for most
enterprises, particularly those in regulated industries. Rather, to
support an enterprise-grade platform aligned with regulatory and
fiduciary responsibilities, enterprise blockchains must be designed
around the principle of permissioned and trusted access. However, it’s
important to understand that permissioned doesn’t mean private.
Blockchain is about trust. For
instance, we trust businesses because of the rules they follow. But
rules also have accountability, meaning you have to know which
businesses are participating in certain systems. There are types of
blockchains that are anonymous like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and there are
types of blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric and several others that are
permissioned. Permissioned is important because it insists that members
of the network are known to the network. Permissions are balanced with
privacy so blockchains that follow these principles have privacy
capabilities that allow members to transact confidentially,†said Cuomo.
Maintaining a balance through a
permissioned network is critical for IBM, as most organizations need to
know whom they’re conducting business with to ensure that no illegal
activity is being transacted over the network.
Governance Is A Team Sport
IBM also believes that enterprise blockchains must embrace
distributed and transparent governance to ensure that networks serve the
needs of all participants and are managed in a manner reflective of
each use case.
“Governance means rules. These rules will define who the elected
officials are, who is responsible for what roles and obligations, etc.
Governance is mandatory in a blockchain network,†said Cuomo.
Moreover, IBM notes that a trusted governance model requires at least
three designated trust anchors and that governance frameworks should
also take into account a network’s funding model.
For example, the Verfied:Me identity network in Canada, convened by
SecureKey Inc, has enlisted major Canadian banks to participate as trust
anchors to host nodes and validate network transactions. SecureKey has
created a governance model that involves ongoing checks and balances
between its constituent working groups.
Common Standards Are Common Sense
Additionally, IBM understands that enterprise blockchains should be
architected around common standards that are interoperable in order to
help future-proof networks, prevent vendor lock-in and foster a robust
ecosystem of innovators. This also involves interoperability of cloud
platforms. And while most blockchain networks presently exist in siloes,
the technology is evolving to support a network of networks.
According to IBM, the first step in promoting this interoperability is to make blockchains visible to one another through a registry, such as Hacera Unbounded. Moreover,
blockchain networks should define and publish their data models and
policies for change according to industry standards.
Privacy Is Paramount
Finally, IBM thinks that an enterprise blockchain should control who
can access data and under what circumstances. Blockchain networks must
also abide by privacy regulations such as GDPR. In most cases, that
means any personal data should be kept off-chain.
For example, IBM Food Trust
is a blockchain network aimed at ensuring food safety, freshness and
sustainability. This network enables brands like Walmart, Albertsons and
Driscoll to leverage shared data to enact various supply-chain
efficiencies, while safeguarding each member’s proprietary information.
