Agoracom Blog Home

Archive for the ‘Canadian Blockchain Stocks’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Ripple Adds 11 New University #Blockchain Research Initiative Partners To Fund Research And Education

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:07 AM on Friday, February 8th, 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 large
——————-

Ripple Adds 11 New University Blockchain Research Initiative Partners To Fund Research And Education

  • Ripple, one of the most mature companies in the blockchain space, is currently helping lead development for blockchain-focused academia and research
  • Blockchain based global settlements network launched its University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) in June of last year to accelerate academic research, technical development and innovation in the blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital payments space

Rachel Wolfson Contributor 

Ripple, one of the most mature companies in the blockchain space, is currently helping lead development for blockchain-focused academia and research.

The blockchain based global settlements network launched its University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) in June of last year to accelerate academic research, technical development and innovation in the blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital payments space. Ripple has committed over $50 million in funding, subject matter expertise and technical resources to UBRI’s first wave of university partners, which includes 17 prestigious institutions from around the world.

Announced today, Ripple has added 11 new universities to the UBRI program. The company is now supporting a total of 29 partners to accelerate academic research.

The new institutions include:

  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Cornell University
  • Duke University
  • Georgetown University
  • University of Kansas
  • University of Michigan
  • Morgan State University
  • National University of Singapore
  • Northeastern University
  • University of Sao Paulo
  • Institute for Fintech Research, Tsinghua University

These programs, driven by the university partners, are poised to prepare the next generation of engineers, business leaders, entrepreneurs and other professionals to apply these technologies in practice. This should  increase positive awareness of the transformative impact that blockchain technology will have across all industries, while giving back to the community as part of an ongoing philanthropic effort.

We launched UBRI back in June of 2018 to provide support for 17 different universities around the world to help progress their study of blockchain technology, cryptography, digital assets and fintech. Blockchain is an incredibly transformational technology and helping advance the best minds in the world, who are already showing interest in this field, is sure to benefit the entire ecosystem. We’ve added 11 new universities this time around and now have 29 schools involved with the program. Expanding the ecosystem to a more global, diversified network of UBRI partners will only continue to enrich these projects,” said Eric van Miltenburg, SVP of Global Operations at Ripple.

Funding from Ripple’s UBRI program is intended to support a variety of efforts, across different educational sectors spanning from law, finance, engineering, business and other fields. The support aims to help universities develop curricula, expand or launch courses, host conferences and award scholarships to faculty and students pursuing work in blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital payments and related topics.

We are placing full faith in these universities, knowing that the students and faculty are the most capable individuals in the field. Therefore, it’s under their discretion to deploy the funds in ways they see fit to help advance the study of blockchain research. There are also a variety of factors that go into choosing which schools we partner with. We are working with institutions that have already shown an interest and commitment to blockchain. We want to help accelerate what is already a spark by turning that into a flame to help these schools move forward,” explained Miltenburg.

Fostering Innovation Through Academia

While Ripple’s UBRI program has only been up and running for less than a year, all of the partner institutions are already showing signs of progress, demonstrating Ripple’s goal to foster innovation in the broad blockchain space.

For example, the partnership with the University of California, Berkeley has resulted in cross-departmental collaboration, as several schools within the university expanded relevant course-offerings, funded research projects and supported student-led activities and events, including an upcoming blockchain UI/UX hackathon.

According to Laura Tyson, Faculty Director of the Institute for Business and Social Impact at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, the university has awarded seven faculty research grants and eight research proposals from students through the UBRI program funding.

We are excited by the momentum that the Ripple UBRI Partnership has fostered at Berkeley Haas and throughout U.C. Berkeley in the development of blockchain, digital payments and cryptocurrency-related research and innovation, said Tyson.  In December, we awarded the first round of Ripple-funded faculty and student blockchain, digital payments and cryptocurrency-focused research grants. Also, we are sponsoring numerous student-led activities this semester, including partnering with Blockchain at Berkeley to host a blockchain/fintech industry Spring speaker series at Haas.”

The University of Texas at Austin is another institution that is part of Ripple’s UBRI program. According to Professor Cesare Fracassi who leads the UBRI presence at University of Texas at Austin and serves as the director of the university’s blockchain initiative, the funding from Ripple has allowed U.T. Austin to initiate three important objectives.

First, UBRI has allowed us to provide funding to faculty and Ph.D. students that are interested in researching blockchain technology. Secondly, it has let us increase our curriculum on blockchain, enabling students to learn more through specific classes. Finally, the funding has allowed us to conduct important research that lets us act as a connector for companies, journalists and others outside of the university that are interested in this sector. We are making progress in each of these objectives and have held several events to highlight the research done by our faculty on blockchain. Additionally, we have put out a call for proposals for people who need funding for blockchain-related research and have developed three classes focused entirely on this sector from both a technical and business perspective,” said Professor Fracassi.

From a student perspective, the UBRI program has helped greatly in terms of conducting professional research in this space.

“The donation provided through UBRI has allowed students at U.T. Austin to learn about blockchain technology at an accelerating rate. By funding initiatives such as the Texas Blockchain undergraduate group, graduate courses, and on-campus validators, I believe U.T. is quickly becoming a powerhouse in the blockchain space,” said Alan Orwick, a computer science student at U.T. Austin who also serves as the president of Texas Blockchain.

According to Miltenburg of Ripple, students in particular have benefited from this program, as the funding from UBRI has helped accelerate their research.

“One of the common themes across all the schools we’ve spoken with is that the demand coming from students far outweigh the ability for the faculty administration to meet that demand. There is no surprise that both the students and faculty at these schools are very excited about UBRI.”

At Duke University and Georgetown University, UBRI will support expanding curriculum and teaching, research and technical projects and collaboration across disciplines. Internationally, the University of Sao Paulo is receiving funding for a blockchain innovation program, which will serve as an interdisciplinary forum across its schools of engineering, law, mathematics and economics and business administration.

A Powerful Network Effect

In addition to the progress being made on campuses throughout the world, a powerful network effect has been created through UBRI that is not only spanning across specific college campuses, but also within each partner institution.

There is really a growing interest in blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital payment systems among the best students and faculty in the world. I think that this will continue to flourish, as there is a real interest in this broad space and the application of this technology to solve major social challenges. Moreover, the students and faculty conducting work in this area are creating a powerful network effect in terms of learning and research, both on the Berkeley campus and across the campuses that Ripple has funded. For example, people are now able to identify others working on something similar to what they are researching, which they might not have known otherwise. There is real opportunity here to foster innovation and forward leading research through this network effect,” explained Tyson from U.C. Berkeley.

Tyson believes the real question to consider now is how to ensure that this research continues. Fortunately, Ripple’s UBRI program appears to be the answer.

An individual company can only do so much. Yet the idea of taking funding and supporting a whole research network across universities spanning over five continents is a way to foster development that could be of great interest not only to Ripple, but also to the entire sector and the world, said Tyson. I really believe in Ripple’s message of advancing research to foster innovation for this very important set of new technologies. What a great mission.”

You can follow Rachel Wolfson on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest cryptocurrency happenings.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwolfson/2019/02/07/ripple-adds-11-new-university-blockchain-research-initiative-partners-to-fund-research-and-education/#7011459b6727

Tags: ,
Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Ripple Adds 11 New University #Blockchain Research Initiative Partners To Fund Research And Education

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX to Launch New #Blockchain – Powered Digital Exchange $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 11:16 AM on Thursday, February 7th, 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 large
——————-

Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX to Launch New Blockchain-Powered Digital Exchange

  • Switzerland‘s principal stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange will test blockchain integration for its forthcoming parallel digital trading platform SDX in the second half of this year.

By Marie Huillet

Switzerland‘s principal stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange will test blockchain integration for its forthcoming parallel digital trading platform SDX in the second half of this year. The news was reported by Cointelegraph Deutschland Feb. 4.

SIX Swiss Exchange sees roughly 5.19 billion Swiss Francs (CHF) (~$5.18 billion) in daily turnover, and has a market capitalization of over 1.67 trillion CHF ~($1.6 trillion).

CEO Jos Dijsselhof told Cointelegraph Deutschland in an interview that the company had chosen the technology for the time efficiency and improved security it can offer across all stages of stock trading and settlement:

“The fact is, it takes two days for the buyer of a stock to become the owner. The trade itself only takes a fraction of a second, but after that payments have to be settled and titles transferred. If we put it all on our digital exchange, then the whole process takes only a few seconds. This makes the market more efficient, but at the same time also takes risks out of the system. “

Dijsselhof added that wholly digital, blockchain-powered stock trading will not only minimize risks, but widen the range of tradable titles, affirming his ambition that SIX would succeed in building “a whole new stock market on the blockchain with completely integrated trading, handling and custody of digital assets”.

In an interview with Reuters published Feb. 6, SIX exchange chairman Romeo Lacher noted that the exchange aims to finalize a launch date for the new platform in late summer — with the exact date remaining subject to legal and regulatory clarification with Swiss market watchdog the Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

Reuters further reported that SIX expects its blockchain-based SDX digital exchange to supersede its existing marketplace within a decade. Lacher said the company also has plans to launch its own Security Token Offering, which will offer investors an equity stake in exchange for capital.

Unnamed SIX officials told Reuters that SDX will begin by rolling out support selected stocks, followed by bonds, and possibly exchange-traded-funds (ETFs).

As Cointelegraph has previously reported, SIX listed a pioneering multi-crypto-based exchange-traded product (ETP) in November, which tracks five major cryptocurrencies.

Other major global exchanges are similarly looking to rehaul their platforms — in whole or in part — with blockchain. In January, major global securities marketplace Deutsche Börse reported it was “making significant progress” on its blockchain-based securities lending platform, which will use blockchain consortium R3’s Corda technology.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/major-swiss-stock-exchange-six-to-launch-new-blockchain-powered-digital-exchange

Tags: , , ,
Posted in All Recent Posts, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX to Launch New #Blockchain – Powered Digital Exchange $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – A Technical Breakdown Of Google’s $GOOG New #Blockchain Search Tools $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 12:34 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 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 large
——————-

A Technical Breakdown Of Google’s New Blockchain Search Tools

  • Google is now in the blockchain search business
  • Less than a day after Forbes broke the story that the internet search giant would be launching a suite of tools built by, and for, open source developers, those tools are live.

Michael del Castillo Forbes Staff

Google is now in the blockchain search business. Less than a day after Forbes broke the story that the internet search giant would be launching a suite of tools built by, and for, open source developers, those tools are live.

In addition to loading data sets for all the transactions and metadata in eight cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ethereum, Google Cloud developer advocate Allen Day and his team of open source developers from around the world are launching a number of tools designed to do to blockchain, what Google search did to the internet.

“I’m very interested to quantify what’s happening so that we can see where the real legitimate use cases are for blockchain,” said Day, who manages the cloud portion of the project. “So people can acknowledge that and then we can move to the next use case and develop out what these technologies are really appropriate for.”

Last year Day and lead developer Evgeny Medvedev discreetly loaded transaction data for the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains, along with some basic search tools, to Google’s BigQuery data analytics platform and have been studying how developers are using the software. As of today, they’re taking what they’ve learned and making data sets available for bitcoin cash, ethereum classic, litecoin, zcash, dogecoin and dash, along with an expanded suite of search tools.

Dubbed Blockchain ETL (extract, transform, load), the software, which was created by independent developer Medvedev with support from the rest the team, includes features such as integration with Google’s BigQuery ML (machine learning) tool, which was launched into a test, or “beta” version last year. By searching for patterns in transaction flows, the machine learning integration will automatically give the user basic information about how a cryptocurrency address is being used.

For example, the tool might be used to analyze transaction flows to determine whether an address is holding funds for a cryptocurrency mining pool, in which users contribute unused computer power to audit blockchain transactions in exchange for cryptocurrency. In the future, the BigQuery ML integration could also identify cryptocurrency addresses owned by a single entity, for example an exchange, and condense those addresses into a single data point, simplifying comparisons.

Also included in the launch, the blockchain data sets have been standardized into what Day calls a “unified schema,” meaning the data is structured in a uniform, easy-to-access way. By ensuring this level of consistency across data sets, Day hopes to make it easier for data scientists, auditors, and investigators to make comparative statements about transactions in the supported blockchains. “And others going forward will use the same architecture,” Day adds. 

Another new search feature is what Day calls a “double entry book view,” designed to simplify the way users can search for the cumulative balance of an account over a particular time, accurate to the eight decimal places, which is the smallest possible bitcoin denomination, called a satoshi, named after the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous inventor.

Data sets that fall into what is called the “Satoshi family,” meaning they structurally resemble bitcoin, will be searchable by two criteria: block and transactions. Whereas support for the ethereum and ethereum classic blockchains, with their more complicated smart contract functionality, includes five additional tables designed to enable more sophisticated searches.

The first terabyte of inquiries for these and other data sets are free each month, with additional fees charged per byte or a flat $40,000 monthly rate for high-volume users. Amazon, Google’s biggest cloud computing competitor, entered blockchain last year in a big way, and fellow cloud leader Microsoft is now considered a seasoned veteran of the burgeoning space. As startups like Storj and Perlin aim to use cryptocurrency as a way to incentivize users to adopt their decentralized versions of cloud computing, Day says the industry, expected to reach $411 billion next year, is primed to experience a blockchain renaissance.

“Some people are more theoretical, and the importance of their work becomes fully manifested decades after they’re dead,” says Day. “I guess I’m just more interested in seeing things play out in front of me, as opposed to doing anything deeply theoretical.”

To incentivize as much participation as possible, Medvedev and Day have partnered with the nonprofit Ethereum Community Fund, which is in turn offering cryptocurrency rewards to developers who find and fix bugs in the code. “There are around ten core contributors that helped implement various components of the system,” says Medvedev, who leads the developers and was previously the lead data engineer at cryptocurrency intelligence firm Coinfi. “They are spread around the globe: some live in Russia, others in Singapore or China.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Day’s role as customer zero means his interest in helping create the blockchain search features goes beyond theory. He believes the tools will enable more advanced econometric calculations including the Gini coefficient, which measures the distribution of wealth in a given system, and could eventually be used to understand which nations are using the cryptocurrency. While blockchain data doesn’t natively include information about where a transaction occurs, Day is personally exploring how BigQuery ML might be leveraged to reveal transaction locations.

“This is not some kind of dependency on government agency reporting,” says Day. “We have all the data, and we can pull metrics and and look at them and reason about them over time.”  

To show how Blockchain ETL could result in improvements to the cryptocurrency economy, Day is also using the suite of tools to examine a number of cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoin cash and ethereum classic. While both the cryptocurrencies resulted from a dispute about how to enable smaller, cheaper transactions, Day found, according to the report published today, that the cryptocurrencies are being hoarded in much the same way as their predecessors.

From the report:

“Bitcoin Cash was purportedly created to increase transfer-of-value use cases through lower transaction fees, which should ultimately lead to a lower Gini coefficient of address balances. However, we see that the opposite is true—Bitcoin Cash holdings have actually accumulated since Bitcoin Cash forked from Bitcoin. Similarly, the Ethereum Classic currency was rapidly accumulated post-divergence and remains so.”

And it’s not just Day who has been using the cryptocurrency data sets. So far, the largest group of users are coming from within Google itself. In March 2017 Google purchased data science collaboration startup Kaggle for an undisclosed amount. Comprising a community of data scientists, including Day, Kaggle is now hosting more than 500 bitcoin projects and 16 ethereum projects, many of which are for educational purposes. Projects include Day’s own effort to track the bitcoin transactions of the 10,000-bitcoin pizza purchase widely believed to be the first ever use of bitcoin to buy goods, and some early work to calculate the Gini coefficient for ethereum.

“We saw a very warm reception from that community,” says Day.

Such successes are giving Day a cult following of sorts. In December 2018 Day met Tomasz Kolinko, a computer scientist and creator of the Eveem software for analyzing code, called smart contracts, designed to transparently and immutably execute any number of tasks. The two were attending the EthSingapore hackathon when Kolinko expressed his frustration at having to wait for hours to get results from some of his searches.

Within a month of the two meeting, Kolinko published the results of his analysis using BigQuery, showing the potential benefits and dangers of putting such tools in the hands of the public. Kolinko used the Google BigQuery ethereum dataset to look for a smart contract feature called a “selfdestruct” designed to limit how long a contract can be used. In 23 seconds he was able to search 1.2 million smart contracts and found that almost 700 of them had left open a selfdestruct feature that would let anyone instantly kill the smart contract, regardless of who might be using it. “The scary part is,” said Kolinko, “if there is a new vulnerability, in the past you couldn’t just easily check all the contracts that were using it.”

That same month Day reached out to engineer Will Price, whose work using Google BigQuery to classify the 40,000 richest ethereum addresses with 25 criteria he had seen online. Using the basic search tools previously made available, Price identified ten distinct patterns for how ethereum addresses are being used, but was only able to classify three of them into what he called “archetypes”: exchanges, miners and initial coin offering (ICO) wallets. “The other archetypes are just as valid,” says Price, who is now listed as a member of the developer team. “But I don’t have enough information to say what they are.”

Increasingly, it’s not just cryptocurrency data sets loaded by Day that are being used on Google BigQuery. In November 2018 independent Dutch developer Wietse Wind followed Day’s lead and uploaded his own data set, and similarly gave it away to the open source community. Best known for building the XRP Tip Bot, which has 5,500 active users. Wind invested $20,000 to buy two of his own “bare metal machines”—meaning he’s not using cloud for this work—and helps validate data about XRP transactions. Then, in November, he loaded that data to Google BigQuery; he regularly updates it for public use.

In what is perhaps one of the most visually striking uses of Google BigQuery to analyze cryptocurrency data, graphic designer Thomas Silkjaer exported Wind’s data to a special graphical database, called Neo4J, that visually renders data in ways that make patterns more apparent. By merging his skills as a graphic designer for Bibles with Wind’s data, Silkjaer gives a glimpse of what is possible. His graphs show simple transactions between wallets but give what is perhaps the most memorable answers to the question, what is a blockchain?

“You now have public access to view all transactions on a payment network,” said Silkjaer, “We have never had that before with banks, because each bank is secretive.” Silkjaer is now working to classify the transaction clusters into categories and visually paint a picture of which addresses are being used for trading, for making purchases, or for sending collateral to loan providers. Day sees Silkjaer’s work as an example of things to come. “That’s what I’m actively working on right now,” he adds. “Getting the data available in graph data structures to enable those types of queries.”

While Day’s job as Google Cloud developer advocate puts him in a unique position to build bridges between the search giant and developers, he is not alone in his blockchain interest at the company. Going back to at least to September 2016, Google has reportedly filed more than 20 patents for blockchain-related technology, including one in 2018 for using a “lattice” of interoperating blockchains to increase security. Among Google’s earliest forays into blockchain were a number of high-profile strategic investments, including Blockchain Inc., Ripple, and Veem.

Then, in July 2018, Google revealed it would be supporting development internally using the ethereum blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric and that it had formally partnered with financial infrastructure provider Digital Asset, which counts the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) among its customers, and enterprise ethereum app developer BlockApps, which was an early partner with Microsoft, and recently started working with Amazon Web Services and Red Hat, now owned by IBM.

BlockApps CEO Kieren James-Lubin says that while Google was relatively late to publicly commit resources to blockchain, the company will benefit from watching from the sidelines as the cryptocurrency market collapsed in 2018. To help make up for that lost time James-Kiernen says his team is working “in the trenches” with Google to help their sales and pre-sales teams understand the value proposition of enterprise ethereum applications.

In the meantime, Google has amped up its presence in the global event space, hosting a number of private events that nonetheless attracted standing room only audiences. In August 2018, Aya Miyaguchi, the president of the Ethereum Foundation, joined Day and others on stage at Google’s Asia headquarters in Singapore and discussed how Day’s work might be used to help businesses make better decisions about how customers are using—or not using—their crypto products.

“Allen’s work helps by providing public data sets for businesses or products to make decisions for their implementations,” says Miyaguchi. In December, Google hosted its first blockchain on Google Cloud event in New York City, with startups on stage including partners BlockApps and Digital Asset as well as enterprise blockchain developer Blockdaemon and ethereum investor ConsenSys Ventures. At the next Google Cloud NEXT event in April 2019 partner Digital Asset plans to reveal a number of new developments related to the partnership.

As for Allen, he’s working to put together a cash prize for a contest to use Google BigQuery to calculate cryptocurrency Gini coefficients around the world, and is continuing his work using BigQuery ML to seek out new artificial intelligence in blockchain data, and trying to identify what exactly those seemingly coordinated robots are actually up to? 

“This is the general trend that you’re going to be see going forward,” says Day, referring to the most sophisticated forms of search. “The community that I’m building around this is mostly machine learning people, and they’re thinking about all kinds of other stuff, and it’s gonna start coming out.”

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/02/05/google-launches-search-for-bitcoin-ethereum-bitcoin-cash-dash-dogecoin-ethereum-classic-litecoin-and-zcash/#41e5d4a4c789

Tags: ,
Posted in All Recent Posts, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Featured, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – A Technical Breakdown Of Google’s $GOOG New #Blockchain Search Tools $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Facebook’s $FB latest move proves it’s betting big on #blockchain tech $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 10:21 AM on Tuesday, February 5th, 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 large

Facebook’s latest move proves it’s betting big on blockchain tech

Chris Smith

Over the years, Mark Zuckerberg has made a number of smart moves that only helped him expand the reach of Facebook and improve the outlook of the business going forward. Purchases including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus allowed Facebook to grow its customer base and monetize even more user data via ads, compete better against other image and video-based social networks, and develop new hardware and software experiences targeting VR users. The next major objective on Facebook’s roadmap seems to be the blockchain. The company has already confirmed its working on blockchain technology, and reports said Facebook will release its own cryptocurrency in the future, in the form of a stable coin that will be pegged against the dollar. It’s unclear when that will happen, but Facebook just made a significant move that further proves it’s serious about the blockchain.  No matter where the Bitcoin price will go next, blockchain technology is here to stay, as it offers a number of advantages for payments and other applications. Facebook’s team is led by former PayPal president David Marcus, who’s been working on Messenger before that. And Facebook’s blockchain team has just gotten significantly bigger, as the company acqui-hired the team behind Chainspace.

The startup was founded by researchers from University College London, according to Cheddar, and was working on “smart contracts” technology that would leverage blockchain tech for payments and other services.

Four of the five researchers behind Chainspace’s white paper are joining the Facebook blockchain group, people familiar with the matter said. Two of them, including Alberto Sonnino and George Danezis, already list Facebook as their employer. Chainspace’s website was also updated to note that the team is “moving on to something new.”

Facebook confirmed that it hired employees from Chainspace without disclosing any other details about the move.

Following Cheddar, Mashable also reported that Facebook acquired four key people behind the Chainspace tech. That tech, however, isn’t the scope of Facebook’s purchase, as the company only acquired the researchers behind it.

“Chainspace code and documentation will still be open source, and all previously published academic work remains available,” the note on the startup’s website says.

Source: https://bgr.com/2019/02/05/facebook-vs-bitcoin-facebook-buys-team-behind-chainspace-startup/

Tags: , , ,
Posted in All Recent Posts, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Facebook’s $FB latest move proves it’s betting big on #blockchain tech $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – States Dipping Toes Into #Crypto, #Blockchain $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 3:52 PM on Monday, February 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.

Idk large
——————-


States Dipping Toes Into Crypto, Blockchain

  • One month into the new year, state legislatures are dipping their toes into crypto and blockchain.
  • Many of the bills introduced on the issues in 17 states so far call for legislative task forces and joint business-government study groups.

Ted Knutson Contributor 

One month into the new year, state legislatures are dipping their toes into crypto and blockchain.

Many of the bills introduced on the issues in 17 states so far call for legislative task forces and joint business-government study groups.

Legislators appear to show they want their state governments to learn the ins and outs of fintech before they allow crypto and blockchain to live in the everyday regulatory climate as other ways of conducting business.

Chamber of Digital Commerce Chief Policy Officer Amy Davine Kim said she sees momentum.

“Legislators want to show they’re open for blockchain businesses to come in. They want to know what the industry wants. They want to be supportive,” said the digital commerce trade group executive.

She said efforts to advance blockchain and crypto in the State Houses have a non-partisan flavor.

“People on both sides of the aisle have an interest on this,” said Kim.

A toolkit devised for state legislators by the Digital Chamber boasts blockchain has the promise to create extraordinary economic growth and cost efficiencies.

Mary Pfaff, who keeps tabs on the legislative activity for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, said she has seen a lot of bills to permit the payment of taxes with crypto and to broaden the use of digital currency.

Wyoming legislators have steered their state to the head of the pack.

“They are trying to make Wyoming the center for innovators in the blockchain and crypto space, said the CSBS’s Pfaff.

Last year, they changed the tax code and other Wyoming laws to encourage fintech companies to come in.

This year, there is legislation to place Wyoming as the first state after Arizona to have a light regulatory system in place for fintech startups.

One bill would establish a special bank where blockchain companies could do transactions with digital currency,

National Conference of State Legislatures analyst Heather Morton said there are more bills now than there were this time last year to allow campaign contributions with digital currencies.

She added legislation has also been introduced toauthorize blockchain for corporate records.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedknutson/2019/02/04/state-dipping-toes-into-crypto-blockchain/#727d575c131d

Tags:
Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – States Dipping Toes Into #Crypto, #Blockchain $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Blockchain Technologists And Finance Veterans Collaborate To Bring Blockchain To Capital Markets $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:15 AM on Thursday, January 31st, 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 large
——————-

Blockchain Technologists And Finance Veterans Collaborate To Bring Blockchain To Capital Market

  • Bridging old-world and new-world finance is something that blockchain technology has aimed to achieve since bitcoin was first released in January 2009.
  • Ten years later, this is coming to fruition as blockchain-based solutions designed to enable faster, more transparent, peer-to-peer financial transactions are coming to market.

 Rachel Wolfson Contributor

According to Sam Tabar, co-founder of Fluidity, in order for capital markets to evolve, industry veterans need to join forces with blockchain technologists to truly bring blockchain’s fundamental technology to today’s financial markets.  

“If you look at the industry landscape, to date there has not been a comprehensive platform built by blockchain technology professionals and structured finance veterans,” says Tabar.

In order to bridge this gap, Fluidity, a company that provides technology services to registered broker-dealers, issuers and financial institutions for tokenized securities, has joined forces with Propellr, an end-to-end solution for creating, managing, and servicing digitally held assets with an integrated FINRA-registered broker dealer.

Announced today, Propellr and Fluidity have created “Fluidity Factora,” a new, out-of-stealth company that takes complex financial assets, breaks them down into their basic factors, and encodes them to a blockchain. This enables standardization, transparency, and liquidity, making markets more efficient, while reducing the need for middlemen.

The company is unique because it was built by finance and blockchain technology professionals with extensive expertise in their respective fields. The joint team previously published the Two Token Waterfall whitepaper, a liquidity optimized framework for private placement securities.

Propellr is a team of structured finance experts that continues to create institutional grade deals. Factora and AirSwap are an excellent complement of independent platforms, and are uniquely positioned as a full-stack solution to tokenize and trade real-world assets,” says Michael Oved, co-founder of AirSwap. “We’re excited to help push the blockchain world into this forefront: using the fundamental technology of blockchain to revolutionize the industries that need it.”

Simply put, this team takes a new approach to blockchain, mainly by uniting it with structured finance.

Blockchain gives us a tremendous opportunity to make financial information standardized, normalized, and transparent across capital markets,” says Todd Lippiatt, Propellr’s founder and CEO, and co-founder of Fluidity Factora. “We are not trying to become capital raisers, but are focused on building technology with institutional partners in order to establish easily adoptable infrastructure. We’re thrilled to join forces with the minds behind Fluidity.”

Bringing Blockchain Technology With Traditional Capital Markets

In addition to the unique team behind Fluidity Factora, the company’s initial offerings are focused on tokenizing real estate assets. As regulated institutions increasingly move into the blockchain space, tokenizing digital assets is predicted to be a major trend for 2019.

“Tokenizing assets creates a clear, instant, and elegant solution, simplifying complicated industries. Smart contracts lower friction for investors and issuers, making everything replicable and scalable, all while enabling a fluid digital marketplace,” says venture capitalist Bill Tai.

Furthermore, tokenizing assets, such as real estate, could also help solve the problem of illiquidity.

“The private securities market is historically opaque and illiquid; it is on the investor to vet the quality of an investment vehicle, and once committed she/he holds it for the life of the investment. With Factora, incorporating blockchain technology presents the industry with an opportunity to take a significant step forward,” says Lippiatt.

Additionally, trade settlement and servicing are generally bespoke in nature. A blockchain-based solution helps standardize these constructs, ensuring confidence in symmetrical information and transparency.

“The infrastructure behind privately placed securities has barely evolved in 25 years, which is staggering for a constantly evolving market. This team is upgrading the infrastructure in accordance with best practices from both the blockchain and financial industries to create one cohesive framework,” says Donna Redel of the World Economic Forum.

Ultimately, blockchain technology could push forward an industry that has not evolved in a generation, finally creating a true bridge between traditional and new world finance.

Subject to regulatory approval, Propellr is becoming Fluidity Factora.

You can follow Rachel Wolfson on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest cryptocurrency happenings.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwolfson/2019/01/30/blockchain-technologists-and-finance-veterans-collaborate-to-bring-blockchain-to-capital-markets/#73234f9278ce

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Blockchain Technologists And Finance Veterans Collaborate To Bring Blockchain To Capital Markets $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – 5 #Blockchain Trends Everyone Should Know About

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 8:51 AM on Monday, January 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 large
————————
  • Many big players including IBM and Walmart are continuing to push ahead, confident it can provide real value for organizations in need of innovative solutions around record keeping and secure recording of transactions.

Bernard Marr

Blockchain traveled a rocky road in 2018 but is still hotly tipped as a technology with huge potential for transforming business and day-to-day life.

The past year saw huge drops in value for its flagship use case – cryptocurrency Bitcoin – and reports that many pilot programs are failing to show true value. However, many big players including IBM and Walmart are continuing to push ahead, confident it can provide real value for organizations in need of innovative solutions around record keeping and secure recording of transactions.

5 Blockchain Trends Everyone Should Know About

So, here are my five predictions for how we’re likely to see blockchain use growing and continuing to make headlines – although they may be slightly less hyperbolic – in 2019.

Less Hype and Scams, More Substance

Any new technology has the potential to attract snake-oil salesman, and perhaps blockchain attracted more than most. This meant that 2018 saw regulators stepping in, meaning that those offering “miracle solutions” and get-rich-quick schemes built (or not built) on blockchain should be far less visible in the next 12 months.

What we should see instead is results of more considered, mature endeavors in the blockchain arena. Businesses such as Walmart that is investing in solutions designed to shore up food safety standards in the wake of crises such as 2018’s E.coli outbreak. Walmart’s solution means anyone involved in the supply of certain products will be able to trace individual items back to the farm where they were grown, using a tamper-proof distributed database.

Amazon is also announcing blockchain projects for this year – with two blockchain initiatives aiming to enable its AWS customers to take advantage of distributed ledger technology in their own projects.

With big players like those two (and others) entering the game, it seems certain that blockchain will start to demonstrate that it can bring real value during 2019.

The Blockchain and Internet of Things Convergence Continues to Gather Pace

According to one report, the use of blockchain technology to secure data and devices in the internet of things (IoT) doubled during 2018. This trend is likely to continue next year and beyond, as more organizations wake up to the potential of distributed, encrypted ledger technology in this field. The powerful encryption used to secure blockchains means that attackers need a vast amount of computing power to brute-force their way into just one node. Additionally, their decentralized nature means attackers can’t bypass security by disabling a single-point-of-failure with, for example, a denial-of-service attack.

As well as security, blockchain offers utility benefits in the IoT field, too. With the number of connected devices predicted to top 26 billion during 2019, vast amounts of machine-to-machine communication will be taking place, at far too high a speed for humans to keep up manually. Experts predict that blockchains will increasingly be used to log and monitor these communications and transactions, and although this convergence is at a very early stage, 2019 will see an explosion in its use.

More Blockchain Offerings from the Financial Services Industry

Cryptocurrency values may have taken a hammering during 2018, due in no small part to a bursting of the speculative bubble built up around the arrival of such potentially transformative technology.

But the mainstream financial services industry was undoubtedly shaken by the emergence of this tech and the potential it has to disrupt their businesses. So much so that it seems likely they will be at the forefront of the next wave, when it comes crashing in.  One example is Bakkt, the Bitcoin-based futures trading platform planned by ICE, the operator the New York Stock Exchange.

In developing markets particularly, where much of the population is labeled “unbankable” due to institutions’ inability or unwillingness to connect them to its services, start-ups are likely to lead the way with innovative services built around blockchains and digital, fraud-resistant currencies, storage, and transfer mechanisms.

More Investment Opportunities

Not just in quirky, unknown cryptocurrencies with unproven use cases – blockchain technology makes it possible to offer and track investments in a whole range of asset classes that traditionally have been the preserve of institutional investors and the wealthy.

For example, tokenization lowers the bar to entry for investment in property, potentially allowing more liquid trading of high-value assets and allowing more of us a slice of the pie of the growth (or losses) they can generate. Regulation will be needed before these investment opportunities will be considered safe enough for everyday investors to take part, and as we’ve seen over the last year, this certainly seems to be on its way.

Art, fine wines and property are all examples of investment assets that traditionally were only an option for well-off investors with the luxury of being able to put capital in up-front and be in no hurry for their investment to pay off. With regulation in place, everyday investors can purchase digitally-backed “shares” in these asset classes and sell them off when they need to liquidate their funds.

Additionally, blockchain-based “smart contracts” are designed to reduce the reliance on middlemen such as brokers and lawyers when establishing these transactions, further lowering the costs and barriers to entry.

Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) will still be big business

I’m not going to be stupid or irresponsible enough to predict that the value of cryptocurrencies is going to shoot into the stratosphere (again) in 2019. As I’ve said before, speculating on the value of these digital assets isn’t my business, and if the tumultuous volatility of recent years proves anything, it’s that no one can accurately predict what will happen next.

One thing that is clear, though, is that cryptocurrencies are far from dead. Using the Bitcoin price as a benchmark, prices are still some ten times higher than they were two years ago, and trading volumes on exchanges show there is still a healthy appetite for speculative investment.

And that’s before we even start to consider the possible future of alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Ripple and Tether, that all promise to improve on Bitcoin in some way – offering more utility, security or speed.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/01/28/5-blockchain-trends-everyone-should-know-about/#20f9e8ab3bb9

Tags: , , ,
Posted in All Recent Posts, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – 5 #Blockchain Trends Everyone Should Know About

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Nasdaq Leads $20 Million Investment in Enterprise #Blockchain Startup #Symbiont $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 12:51 PM on Wednesday, January 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.

Idk large
—————————-

Nasdaq Leads $20 Million Investment in Enterprise Blockchain Startup Symbiont

NASDAQ FMC TOWER© 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP

  • Nasdaq today made its largest investment in enterprise blockchain, leading a $20 million Series B in Symbiont,
  • a startup working to bring new kinds of assets that are custodied by blockchain to mainstream adoption.

The investment, which also includes Citi Ventures, Galaxy Digital, and Raptor Group, marks the latest escalation in an arms race among traditional exchanges looking to capitalize on the technology that was once thought of as an existential threat.

Instead of being disintermediated by blockchain technology, which like bitcoin offers the potential for counterparties to move value without a trusted third party, exchanges like Nasdaq and others are partnering with those companies to study the technology and, increasingly, to use it.

As part of today’s investment, Nasdaq is also announcing a commercial integration that could see the company, which runs 26 exchanges for equities, options, bonds, derivatives and commodities in the United States,  Scandinavia, the Baltic region, Armenia, and others, expand into new areas.

“We see this huge opportunity to be able to go all over the globe with Nasdaq,” said Symbiont cofounder and CEO Mark Smith. “And use this marketplace solution from origination to finality, including ways you can buy and transact new types of instruments backed by our smart-contract technology.”

The Series B investment brings the total amount raised by Symbiont to $36 million, with previous investors including Fenbushi Capital and Medici Ventures, Overstock.com’s blockchain investment arm. This is the first time investing in Symbiont for each of the Series B investors. The terms of the investment are not being disclosed.

The investment comes at a time when leading cryptocurrency startups are cutting back on staff after last year’s catastrophic drop in prices. Smith says most of the money will be spent to move out of the WeWork offices in front of the famous Wall Street bull statue that have served as the company’s home for the past five years, and to hire new blockchain engineers. Symbiont has grown quickly recently, doubling its staff to 30 employees in 2017 and doubling aging in 2018. While Smith doesn’t expect that rate of growth to continue, he says most of the recent investment will be spent on new hires.

“The overwhelming place we’ll be spending that money is continuing to grow our team,” he added.

Unlike public blockchains such as bitcoin and ethereum that anyone can build on, and permissioned blockchains developed by IBM, R3 and others and given away to the open source community, Symbiont’s blockchain and smart-contract solution, Assembly, was built for permissioned use from the beginning.

Assembly lets users originate and issue traditional securities, what Smith calls “smart instruments,” and acts as the sole custodian of the assets. By integrating with the Nasdaq Financial Framework (NFF) for building financial applications, Smith says, Assembly will help the exchange streamline the process for finding, executing and settling liquidity.

Startups and larger clients of Nasdaq—and Symbiont’s other partners—can then use Assembly to build solutions for a wide range of marketplaces, including tokenized ownership of real-estate and artwork, both of which would be new lines of business for Nasdaq. Importantly, the commercial integration between Symbiont’s Assembly and NFF is not exclusive. Both companies are free to work with competitors.

Symbiont’s existing customers include investing management giant Vanguard, financial data provider Ipreo, purchased by IHS Markit in 2018, and Lewis Ranieri, an early proponent of mortgage-backed securities. Symbiont also played a pivotal role in helping the state of Delaware pass a number of new measures designed to give companies confidence that shares they issue on a blockchain will be legally recognized.

While Delaware’s new administration has largely pivoted from its original plan and is now working with IBM on an alternative, Smith revealed today that former Delaware governor Jack Markell now serves on Symbiont’s board of directors. “The new administration took a wait-and-see approach,” said Smith, alluding to the potential impact blockchain could have on Delaware’s existing business model. “They wanted to see how it would affect their constituents.”

Nasdaq and Citi had already invested in blockchain startup Chain, a potential Symbiont competitor that was acquired by the Stellar Development Foundation, the organization behind the Lumen (XLM) cryptocurrency, currently valued at $2 billion. In turn, Chain helped Nasdaq and Citi build Linq, an early end-to-end solution for instantly settling private securities, first tested in 2015. Other Nasdaq blockchain investments include Paris-based Stratumn, which builds enterprise blockchain applications, and CFTC-regulation cryptocurrency trading platform, ErisX, which recently added ethereum cofounder Joe Lubin to its board of directors.

Showing a possible path forward for Nasdaq, which has 3,400 companies listed on its exchanges, one of its biggest competitors, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), recently announced it was opening its own cryptocurrency exchange, Bakkt, later this month, after making its own batch of exploratory blockchain investments.

“We are committed to discovering and investing in innovative technologies to help build our future market infrastructure,” said Gary Offner, head of Nasdaq Ventures, in a statement. “We are pleased to support this important, growing area for creating unique institutional applications of blockchain technology.”

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/01/23/exclusive-nasdaq-leads-20-million-investment-in-enterprise-blockchain-startup-symbiont/#5651bfc346d1

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – #Nasdaq Leads $20 Million Investment in Enterprise #Blockchain Startup #Symbiont $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – MIT Professor: Blockchain Can Allow for More Inclusive, Borderless Economy $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 9:13 AM on Tuesday, January 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.

Idk large
————————

MIT Professor: Blockchain Can Allow for More Inclusive, Borderless Economy

  • “Only a true decentralized system, where the power is really so spread that is going to be essentially practically impossible to attack them all and when you don’t need to trust this or that particular node, is going to bring actually the security we really need and deserve.”

By Helen Partz

Blockchain can allow for the creation of a borderless economy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Silvio Micali claimed in a interview on Bloomberg’s Daybreak Asia, Jan. 21.

Speaking on the show, Micali outlined three major properties of blockchain systems that must function simultaneously to enable a more inclusive and borderless economy — security, decentralization and scalability. According to MIT’s Ford Professor of Engineering, until recently, only two of those three basic properties could have been achieved simultaneously at any time.

When asked about scalability in particular, Micali stressed that a decentralized system really needs superior technology to provide the same level of participation and confidence that is enjoyed by centralized systems.

When asked about security breaches in blockchain systems, Micali stated that centralized systems are far more vulnerable to hacking attempts, pointing to the frequency of security and privacy breaches that repeatedly take place among centralized institution of various sorts.

The professor expressed optimism about blockchain in terms of security, noting the level of security built into the concept of a trustless system:

“Only a true decentralized system, where the power is really so spread that is going to be essentially practically impossible to attack them all and when you don’t need to trust this or that particular node, is going to bring actually the security we really need and deserve.”

Recently, a group of major United States universities, including MIT, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, announced the launch of Unit-e, a cryptocurrency project touted as a “globally scalable decentralized payments network.”

Earlier in January, MIT Technology Review issued an article claiming that 2019 will become the year when blockchain technology finally becomes normalized.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/mit-professor-blockchain-can-allow-for-more-inclusive-borderless-economy

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, Smallcap Blockchain stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – MIT Professor: Blockchain Can Allow for More Inclusive, Borderless Economy $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why is $1 Billion Bitcoin Giant Bitfury Building a Blockchain Music Service? $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

Posted by AGORACOM-JC at 8:54 AM on Monday, January 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.

Idk large
————————
  • An early bitcoin mining firm turned global blockchain company based out of London, has announced that it will launch an entertainment division tasked with developing an open-source music platform that runs on blockchain technology.

By CCN.com: The Bitfury Group, an early bitcoin mining firm turned global blockchain company based out of London, has announced that it will launch an entertainment division tasked with developing an open-source music platform that runs on blockchain technology.

From Mining Bitcoin to Tracking Music IP on a Blockchain

Tech companies trying to make waves in the music industry is nothing new. Bitfury is a significant player in the blockchain industry, however, which makes this foray particularly interesting. The aim of decentralizing the music industry has long been a pipedream but could now be closer to reality.

The open-source platform, labeled SurroundTM, will purportedly simplify the safe transferal of copyright assets. At the very core of the project is the creation of an environment that allows musicians to manage their affairs far more efficiently. This includes monitoring their output, being able to see what works, and — most importantly — what doesn’t. According to Bitfury, SurroundTM will lead the way in promoting innovation within the music industry.

Bitfury wants to be more than just a bitcoin mining company. | Source: Shutterstock

Speaking to Reuters, Bitfury Surround CEO Stefan Schulz commented:

There is a very strong momentum for an open entertainment-related blockchain where market participants themselves would be participating in the market venue, not only from a transactional point of view.

The platform itself will look to provide a digital system for both monetizing and sharing intellectual property. Based out of Europe with a presence in Amsterdam and Berlin, offices in Tokyo, LA, Moscow, and Seoul are set to follow. Schulz, a veteran of the entertainment and music industry, said that although “the actual platform is being put together and developed as we speak,” it wouldn’t be near completion for quite a while.

Bitfury isn’t the only major firm to eye blockchain as a solution to copyright management. Via a licensing agreement, Kodak‘s blockchain platform also offers photographers the ability to register their images and secure their intellectual property.

Bitfury Becomes Bitcoin Mining’s Latest Unicorn

Recently valued at $1 billion, The Bitfury Group raised $80 million from investors late last year, including Mike Novogratz-led merchant bank Galaxy Digital. The former Fortress Investment Group hedge fund manager’s contribution helped push Bitfury’s valuation into the “blockchain unicorn” category inhabited by firms such as Bitmain, Coinbase, and Circle.

Source: https://www.ccn.com/why-is-1-billion-bitcoin-giant-bitfury-building-a-blockchain-music-service/

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bitcoin, Blockchain stocks, Canadian Blockchain Stocks, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why is $1 Billion Bitcoin Giant Bitfury Building a Blockchain Music Service? $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »