Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 1:26 PM on Tuesday, February 26th, 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.
——————-
$66 Million Building to Be Tokenized on Ethereum Blockchain in Record Deal
ICP is about to put this idea to the test. The company plans to tokenize some $260 million in four private real estate and debt transactions, starting with a WeWork-occupied building in downtown Miami, Florida.
For Patrick O’Meara, there is a world of difference between security tokens and tokenized securities.
A security token merely means an issuer is selling a crypto token in
compliance with securities laws. But with a tokenized security, “it’s a
whole different world,†where blockchain technology gives investors an
unprecedented level of transparency, said O’Meara, chairman and chief
executive officer of Inveniam Capital Partners (ICP).
ICP is about to put this idea to the test. The company plans to
tokenize some $260 million in four private real estate and debt
transactions, starting with a WeWork-occupied building in downtown
Miami, Florida. Announced Tuesday, the firm intends to sell tokenized
shares of the building, valued at $65.5 million, likely the largest
piece of real estate to be financed this way to date.
The company placed a deposit on the building last month using an
unspecified amount of bitcoin. Once the other three deals are finalized,
ICP will be auctioning off shares in the assets, represented by ERC-20 tokens on the ethereum blockchain, in the coming weeks.
Shares in the four assets will be sold through what is known as a Dutch auction,
meaning potential investors will place their own bids outlining how
many shares they want, what price they would like to pay per share and
which cryptocurrency they would like to pay with.
Inveniam will accept bids denominated in the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap at launch.
When the sale concludes, tokens will be distributed in order from the highest bids to the lowest, O’Meara told CoinDesk.
“The price that every bidder pays will be based on the lowest price
of the last successful bid dependent upon the bidder’s fiat-to-crypto
conversion rate limit,†a press release noted.
In order to participate, potential buyers must hold at least $10
million in crypto, with a minimum purchase of $500,000. The sale will be
conducted in accordance with private placement rules issued by the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Inveniam.
Tokenized transparency
Perhaps more ambitious than the auction, however, is what ICP intends to do with the tokens representing each share.
A Wall Street veteran,
O’Meara explained that typically, shares come with large amounts of
data, from how they are created, as well as data collected through its
life and performance – which could be 20 or 30 years in the case of some
debt offerings. ICP will put all of this data onto its platform and
associate it with a token, he said.
“We built our entire software, our stack, everything we do, the way
we tokenize the instrument is so the enormous amount of data that’s
associated with the financial instrument … can be aggregated and is
attached to the token,†he explained.
One of the benefits to collecting all of this data into one system is that it is suddenly “uniquely searchable,†he said.
At present, legal documents are converted into PDFs or similar file types, which make them difficult to search through.
If, instead, a company stores the hash and a cipher that is
associated with a legal document on a blockchain, it allows for these
documents to be stored in their native form.
“We can store those documents in their native form, Word, Excel,
because an Excel table in a PDF document is uniquely useless,†he said,
adding:
“If we can store all this data in its native form, and the way that
we have surety is because of the hash and the cypher … you can literally
trace, as a regulator, every document associated with this
transaction.â€
This allows a large amount of data to be stored, which in turn can
allow the investing world to make decisions based on quantitative data
in a way that was not as accessible before, O’Meara said.
Other offerings
In addition to the WeWork building, Inveniam plans to tokenize shares
for a student housing facility in North Dakota, which is being valued
at approximately $90 million; a North Dakota water pipeline worth $50
million; and a multi-family housing facility in southwest Florida worth
$75 million.
Like the WeWork auction, shares from each building will be sold as tokens and can only be purchased using cryptocurrency.
The proceeds will be converted into their fiat equivalents before being passed to the buildings’ sellers, O’Meara noted.
The company may launch other projects as part of this transaction as well prior to the auction’s starting date.
All told, the total value of the four properties will add up to $260 million.
Future of real estate?
Tokenized real estate has become an increasingly popular use case for
blockchain in recent months. Templum Markets, a token trading platform
and advisor, sold a security token representing shares in a Colorado ski resort last year, accepting U.S. dollars, bitcoin and ethereum.
Similarly, security token startup Harbor is selling 955 shares in a high-rise building in South Carolina, though each share is only worth $21,000.
Harbor CEO Josh Stein told CoinDesk last November that using
tokenized shares allowed the company to more easily track shareholders
and verify that they are compliant with relevant securities laws.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:04 AM on Monday, February 25th, 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.
——————-
Mastercard, Amazon and Accenture Partner To Establish Transparent Blockchain Supply Chain
Mastercard, Amazon and Accenture plan to connect consumers and producers through its work on a blockchain-based supply chain.Getty
Today Accenture introduced a “circular supply chain†allowing consumers to make more sustainable choices about what they buy. Consumers are also able to tip producers, directly rewarding them for their choices in production.
All of this is made possible through digital identity management and blockchain technology.
Accenture is collaborating with
Mastercard, Amazon Web Services, Everledger and Mercy Corps to build its
supply chain capability. Everyday, whether we think about it or not, we
interact with a global supply chain, for example when we shop, and
these innovations could help us better navigate the system. A recent Nielsen study
shows nearly two-thirds of Americans want a frictionless online
shopping experience and want to support more efficient and eco-friendly
farming and manufacturing. The problem today is that we don’t have much
access to how things are made or who makes them.
David Treat, a managing director and global blockchain lead at Accenture says,
Over the past several years, we have built upon our
longstanding identity work with a focus on the more than 1 billion
people in this world who lack any form of recognized identity. We saw
directly linking consumers and the value created at the end of a supply
chain directly back to help small producers at the beginning as critical
to actually driving real social and environmental change.â€
Treat says Accenture and its partners
are working on in-store, web and app-based implementations where
consumers could scan a unique digital identifier on an item registered
to the people who produced it. Scanning the tag on a pair of jeans, for
example, would give customers its supply chain origins from start to
finish, along with the opportunity to send a token of appreciation to
the people who produced them. This allows the system to benefit not
just huge corporations who know the system well, but also individuals
such as smallholder farmers, who grow crops on small plots of land.
For the 3.4 billion people –
almost half the world’s population – that still struggle to meet basic
needs, we believe that digital technologies are largely untapped.â€
says Tara Nathan, Executive Vice President, Humanitarian &
Development at Mastercard, “Through our work with smallholder farmers in
Kenya, India, Mexico and elsewhere, we’ve deployed digital solutions
helping to drive commercially sustainable social impact – and we
understand that collaboration is essential for this journey.â€
Why Blockchain?
A blockchain provides a public, independent digital record called
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). By distributing a public ledger,
Amazon, Mastercard, Accenture, consumers and smallholder farmers can all
interact with the same information without risk of someone altering the
data.
DLT could benefit consumers and
farmers interacting across the supply chain, helping people across the
entire process by increasing transparency and sharing profits more
deliberately throughout.
Source:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leslieankney/2019/02/25/accenture-mastercard-and-amazon-partner-to-establish-transparent-blockchain-supply-chain/#393a39341f81
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:45 AM on Friday, February 22nd, 2019
SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by
legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based
venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap
companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just
lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap
exits. Click Here For More Information.
——————-
Why 2019 May Become The Year Of Enterprise Blockchain
Last year, 95% of companies across different industries were investing in blockchain tech projects.
In 2019, those pilot projects are finally moving from the test stage to the end users.
Goldman Sachs, a former vocal skeptic of the blockchain, has launched a crypto-investing product for their clients in the end of last year.
Last year, 95% of companies across different industries were investing in blockchain tech projects. In 2019, those pilot projects are finally moving from the test stage to the end users. Goldman Sachs, a former vocal skeptic of the blockchain, has launched a crypto-investing product for their clients in the end of last year. Beyond investing and finance, major blockchain projects have been released in several other industries including cybersecurity, healthcare and agriculture.
Enterprises no longer question whether blockchain is even worth the attention, according to Sky Guo, CEO of Cypherium,
a startup offering enterprise-ready blockchain solutions. On the
contrary, Guo says they are now proactively seeking new ways of
incorporating this technology in their legacy systems. Henri Arslanian,
head of fintech and crypto department at PwC, said that
2018 ‘cleared the noise’ in the blockchain space, and 2019 will be the
year when big players enter the crypto world. Indeed, in the first
months of 2019, several major companies have signed off new partnerships
with blockchain startups (ING Bank and R3); invested in blockchain projects (Nasdaq and Symbiont); and new consortium partnerships emerged (Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and R3).
Further in 2019, we should see more
enterprise-level decentralized ledger technologies (DLTs) emerging on
the market as the underpinnings for those a strong.
1. Ready-to-use software is now available from top vendors
Amazon, IBM and most recently Oracle offer enterprise-grade blockchain solutions. R3 – an international blockchain consortium, also plans to unveil its platform, Enterprise Corda, later this year.
“Unlike the open-source blockchain
software, enterprise solutions come with better scaling mechanisms,
security, privacy and additional protocol changes that make them more
attractive to the private sector,†Guo
said. “In our case, we have improved upon the existing Ethereum
consensus mechanism to maximize decentralization and scalability,
without sacrificing one for the other. This, in turn, allows to achieve higher transaction speed and smart contract execution time.â€
The particular appeal of
enterprise-grade DLT is that it also enables unprecedented collaboration
opportunities not just within large organizations, but cross-company as
well. Several of the largest world food suppliers including Nestle,
Unilever, Walmart, Kroger and others, are working with IBM to create a global food tracing system on blockchain.
The collaboration is a crucial factor here to reach complete visibility
into the origins of potentially hazardous goods and rapidly trace the
source of contamination. Guo said enterprise-grade solutions set unified
standards for such collaboration, enabling faster adoption and better
interoperability between companies, ultimately benefiting everyone in
the industry.
2. Interoperability has significantly improved
Lack of connectivity mechanisms
between different types of blockchain solutions was a major roadblock to
wider adoption. But these days, tech companies are presenting new
viables ways for establishing connections between different ledgers.
Ripple has released an Interledger –
mid-ware arbitrary protocol that can “connect†different types of
ledgers, both distributed and traditional centralized ones. Its main
goal is to improve interoperability between financial institutions. The
additional benefit is that Interledger allows users to store aggregate
transaction data off a public blockchain by using a connector to
transfer funds between private versions of the Ripple network.
“Customer data privacy remains a sore
point for enterprises as they must constantly upgrade their systems to
remain compliant with emerging regulations,†Guo said. “By leveraging
blockchain businesses can actually reduce their data ownership. Customer
information recorded on the distributed ledger doesn’t have to change
hands when transactions are executed. Instead, users can simply grant
permission for access to those records whenever needed. This, in turn,
allows enterprises to remain compliant with less effort, and users can
benefit from greater privacy and security.â€
3. The overall improved understanding and sentiment around blockchain
Blockchain is no longer viewed as an abstract technology supporting crypto-currencies. Over a half (58%) of investors and 55% of consumers feel
that blockchain are optimistic about the blockchain’s potential for
money transfers. What’s more important though, is that customers’
perception of the blockchain is changing too. Per Deloitte survey,
only 18% of respondents in the US consider blockchain to be just “a
database for money†with little other applications outside the financial
industry. For the majority, it’s a promising new technology capable to
transform a multitude of business processes.
In fact, that’s how most businesses now view blockchain. According to
the same survey, 74% of companies state that they already have a
“compelling business case†for blockchain technology; 34% already
initiated a blockchain deployment.
As the sector clears of opportunistic
ICO projects and speculative use cases, Guo argues that enterprises are
becoming the key market players. And as more successful projects
emerge, legacy companies are feeling an increasing pressure to innovate
as well. With ready-to-use software and a burgeoning ecosystem of
blockchain consortiums joining the bandwagon has become easier than
ever.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 8:33 AM on Thursday, February 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.
——————-
Report: Bank of China Joins New Blockchain Platform for Property Buyers
Property development firm New World Development and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) will jointly launch a blockchain platform for home buyers with the Bank of China reportedly being the first bank user.
Property development firm New World Development and the Hong Kong
Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) will jointly
launch a blockchain platform for home buyers with the Bank of China reportedly being the first bank user. The news was announced by local news outlet the Standard on Feb. 20.
The platform reportedly aims to replace paperwork operations — such
as signing the Provisional Sale and Purchase Agreement or a mortgage
application — with digital authorization. This will supposedly allow
users to send the purchaser’s authorized, encrypted and digitally signed
provisional agreement to selected banks.
Integration of distributed ledger technology (DLT) into
organizations’ internal processes is estimated to help reduce banks’
operating costs by 15 to 60 percent, while the platform itself expects
to see an increase in the number of users.
ASTRI CEO Hugh Chow reportedly said that DLT could reshape property
market operations, resulting in efficient and flexible property buying
procedures, while the HKMA argued that DLT “allows all […] users in
the ecosystem to share customer information and transaction histories
securely over a distributed data infrastructure, without compromising
customer privacy or sensitive business information.”
Last August, Bank of China — one of the four largest state-owned banks in China — partnered
with financial services corporation China UnionPay (CUP) to jointly
explore blockchain technology applications for payment systems. Within
the initiative, CUP was set to build a unified port for mobile
integrated financial services, where cardholders will be able to use a
QR code to spend, transfer and trade on a cloud flash payment app.
In January, China’s self-regulatory bank organization, the China Banking Association (CBA), announced
it will launch a blockchain-based platform to improve efficiency across
the sector. The project, formally dubbed the “China Trade Finance
Inter-bank Trading Blockchain Platform,†aims to use blockchain to
target trade finance, transactions and other financial services.
China has been actively adopting blockchain technology in various sectors. Recently, the country’s government issued
the “Guiding Opinions on Rural Service Revitalization of Financial
Services.†The new framework aims to use emerging technologies like
blockchain to “improve the identification, monitoring, early warning,
and disposal levels of agricultural credit risks.â€
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:10 AM on Tuesday, February 19th, 2019
Coinbase has acquired blockchain analytics startup Neutrino as part of a wider push to offer more diverse crypto assets across borders.
“This is particularly important as we work with regulators and agencies in different countries to bring new assets there,†Coinbase’s director of engineering and product, Varun Srinivasan, told CoinDesk
Coinbase has acquired blockchain analytics startup Neutrino as part
of a wider push to offer more diverse crypto assets across borders.
“This is particularly important as we work with regulators and
agencies in different countries to bring new assets there,†Coinbase’s
director of engineering and product, Varun Srinivasan, told CoinDesk. He
added that Neutrino would help Coinbase identify “which new tokens are gaining value and gaining traction in the space.â€
Neutrino’s eight employees will move into Coinbase’s London office
this week, retaining their distinction as a separate entity in order to
continue serving external clients. Srinivasan said this acquisition will
help Coinbase research new assets while simultaneously ensuring the
cryptocurrency exchange can identify undesirable activity, like theft,
without handing over internal information to external
companies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move comes just a few weeks after Israeli blockchain analytics
firm Whitestream identified a Coinbase account that was funneling
bitcoin donations to the Palestinian military-political group Hamas,
which the U.S. government deems a terrorist organization. Coinbase
declined to comment on this incident and Srinivasan said the Neutrino
acquisition was already in the works for some time.
Broadly speaking about the benefits of owning an in-house analytics
platform, Srinivasan said: “We are beefing up our abilities to do
compliance and to work with regulators on issues across the space.â€
Neutrino CEO Giancarlo Russo said in a statement that the acquisition
was an “important milestone†for innovation in Italy, where it is
based, adding:
“We decided to join Coinbase because we’re totally aligned with the
company’s mission of building an open financial system and we share the
same commitment to regulation, compliance and security in the
cryptocurrency space.â€
Compared to its competitors, such as Whitestream and Chainalysis,
Srinivasan said the Neutrino team was working much faster to include
features for cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin. Plus, Neutrino’s European
connections could help Coinbase gain a foothold in that region.
“They’ve done a really good job of building up in the European
market,†Srinivasan said. “But we want to bring them to the American
market and the international market and introduce them to companies that
are doing all kinds of things with crypto that need blockchain
intelligence.â€
Srinivasan prefers the term “blockchain intelligence,†rather than
analytics because it includes the aim to predict trends based on data
insights, among other applications.
Rising sector
Blockchain analytics is becoming an increasingly important part of the broader cryptocurrency landscape.
Jonathan Levin, co-founder of the rival blockchain analytics firm
Chainalysis, told CoinDesk his company is now working with 100 clients
across the industry, including exchanges.
While Coinbase was busy acquiring Neutrino, Chainalysis raised a $30 million Series B and opened a new office in London, preparing to expand even further into the European market now that the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is expected to inspire new compliance requirements in several countries.
“Our revenue in 2018 quadrupled,†Levin told CoinDesk, declining to
specify how much Chainalysis earned. “We’ve definitely seen an increase
in demand across the board. And that’s because we’ve seen greater
clarity in regulation, in APAC [the Asia-Pacific region] and in Europe.â€
Coinbase has a significant amount of historical data that could help
differentiate Neutrino from younger analytics startups. Overall,
Srinivasan said Coinbase is looking to become the “Google of cryptoâ€
with “many different products†across the sector.
Srinivasan also added that several other acquisitions are still in
the works related to smart contracts and diversifying crypto-asset
offerings.
“If we see a really great team that’s built a really great product,
like Neutrino, for example, you’ll see us go out and talk to them and
try to bring them into the Coinbase family to extend the suite of
products that we have,†Srinivasan said.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:59 AM on Friday, February 15th, 2019
SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by
legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based
venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap
companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just
lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap
exits. Click Here For More Information.
——————-
Mass Adoption is Coming: The Biggest US Automaker Turns to Blockchain to Help Save Millions in Identity Theft
General Motors Financial has partnered with blockchain company Spring Labs to help reduce identity theft.
It’s a move that could potentially save the car maker millions of dollars in fraud costs.
As CCN previously reported, 95% of carmakers expect to use blockchain technology in the next three years, but General Motors is leading the pack.
The partnership will see GM Financial, the finance branch of General
Motors, join Spring Labs’ Spring Founding Industry Partners Program. The
initiative is designed to advance the role of blockchain in data
sharing.
This is a huge nod towards real-world adoption of blockchain technology.
Very excited to officially unveil our partnership with @gmfinancial, one of the largest global providers of auto financing with operations in North America, South America, and Asia. https://t.co/DQ3HPpslXf
Speaking to Forbes,
GM Financial Chief Strategy Officer Mike Kanarios said he believes
blockchain technology will deliver a “better, faster, and cheaper
system†to identify fraud.
Solving a Million Dollar Problem
GM Financial is fighting a huge problem: synthetic identity fraud. It’s the fastest-growing form of identity theft in the US. Synthetic identity fraud is a process where someone blends various parts of people’s stolen data to create a new identity.
It’s effective and incredibly difficult to trace. By using synthetic
identity fraud, an individual can take out multiple credit cards or a
loan on a car.
“As the captive finance arm for General Motors and one of the world’s
largest auto finance providers, we are continually innovating and
evolving our fraud prevention and detection capabilities to better serve
and protect our customers and dealers.†GM Financial Chief Strategy Officer Mike Kanarios.
GM Financial is responsible for issuing loans, finance, and leasing
options. It has a presence in North America, South America, and Asia.
The company is a huge target for fraudsters and it reportedly loses
millions of dollars per year fighting identity theft.
General Motors isn’t just selling small-ticket items. If a fraudster
buys a car, it can be almost impossible to track them down to reclaim
the money. Blockchain technology could help identify and verify
individuals before they are approved for a car loan.
Blockchain technology could save General Motors millions in money lost to fraud.
Spring Labs: Raised $15 million to Kickstart Blockchain Adoption
Spring Labs is a blockchain startup that has already raised $15
million in seed money. It is developing the Spring Protocol, a
blockchain-based network which allows companies to share data and
information privately. The protocol ensures the underlying source of
data is never revealed.
To spur growth, Spring Labs launched the Spring Founding Industry
Partners Program. It has so far invited a handful of FinTech startups to
work together on research and development of its technology.
“We are excited to partner with GM Financial to create solutions on
our developing network to address vexing economic problems such as
identity fraud.†Adam Jiwan, CEO of Spring Labs.
The ultimate goal is to get companies to share information via the
Spring Protocol. By doing so, they can spot and stamp out cases of
identity fraud.
General Motors Leading the Charge in Blockchain
General Motors is one of the few Fortune 500 companies taking
meaningful steps in blockchain adoption. GM Financial is also a member
of the Hyperledger project, an initiative designed to drive real-world blockchain solutions.
62% of auto execs agree that blockchain will shake up the industry within three years, but it might be here sooner than they think.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:54 AM on Wednesday, February 13th, 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.
Blockchain Intelligence Firm Chainalysis Raises $30 Million From Accel, Others
New York-based blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by venture capital giant Accel, the company confirmed in a post on Feb. 12.
The fresh funding will reportedly be used to expand Chainalysis’ corporate operations, which include a proprietary Know Your Customer (KYC) product that allows financial institutions and digital asset trading platforms to vet and verify the identity of their clients.
The firm reports that the latest funding round was led by Accel, “with participation from existing investors.â€
Chainalysis reports that it also plans to open an office devoted to
research and development in London, with Accel partner Philippe Botteri
set to join the firm’s board of directors.
In an interview with American business magazine Fortune,
Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager revealed that, whereas 90 percent of
the firm’s revenue formerly came from clients in the law enforcement
sector — who used Chainalysis’ blockchain analytics tools to track
illicit use of cryptocurrencies — corporate clients now comprise the
lion’s share of the business, at 60 percent.
Aside from diversifying research and products, Gronager told Fortune
that Chainalysis was benefiting from the momentum of the burgeoning stablecoin sector. As previously reported, 2018 saw the proliferatingissuance and adoption of new stablecoins — a type of crypto asset designed to experience less price volatility — either by being notionally fiat-collateralized or via an algorithmic peg.
Chainalysis’ CEO remarked:
“Born out of the ashes of this [the crypto bear market and initial
coin offering downturn] was the stablecoin as another way to easily and
safely create tokens. This ability to trade U.S. dollars against crypto
is very powerful.â€
While not disclosing financial specifics, Gronager told Fortune that
Chainalysis’ revenue had grown threefold since April 2018, when it raised $16 million
from Benchmark Capital to increase the number of cryptocurrencies it
monitors. However, the company has yet to become profitable, he noted.
As reported, Chainalysis also conducts research into the blockchain sector. This January, a report from the firm argued that two — likely still active — organized hacker groups have reportedly stolen $1 billion in cryptocurrency, accounting for the majority of funds lost in crypto-related scams.
Chainalysis’ co-founder and chief operating officer, Jonathan Levin, notably declined to comment
as to whether the firm had contributed to the United States Department
of Justice investigation into the alleged use of Bitcoin (BTC)
to fund purported interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential elections.
In connection with said allegations, 12 Russian intelligence officers
were indicted in July 2018.
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.
——————-
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
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.â€
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,â€
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.â€
You can follow Rachel Wolfson onTwitter andLinkedInto stay up to date on the latest cryptocurrency happenings.
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.
——————-
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.
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.
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.
——————-
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.
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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,â€
says Day. “We have all the data, and we can pull metrics and and look
at them and reason about them over time.â€
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.â€
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 “archetypesâ€: 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.â€
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 machinesâ€â€”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.â€
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.â€
