Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:01 AM on Wednesday, February 27th, 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 Fund Launches With $22 Million Round Backed By Roger Ver
Switzerland-based Pangea Blockchain Fund is making its debut after closing a $22 million seed round backed by crypto investor Roger Ver.
Announcing the news on Wednesday, Pangea said other investors in the round included Copernicus Asset Management, a Swiss firm regulated by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority. Copernicus is also acting as investment manager for the fund.
Pangea will invest in “transformative†blockchain startups around the
world to provide them with an early-stage capital boost and other
resources. The aim is to focus on the “commercial and industrial
applications†of blockchain technology, and there are no plans to invest
in cryptocurrency, the fund said.
The fund’s Swiss investment advisor is Blockchain Investment Advisory
Sagl, while U.S.-based Blockchain Investment Advisory LLC is acting as
sub-advisor. Pangea expects to cap its fundraising at $200 million.
James Duplessie, co-founder of Blockchain Investment Advisory Sagl,
said he believes blockchain technology will “fundamentally alter the way
society collaborates, transacts, governs and brings new concepts to
life.â€
He continued:
“Blockchain technology has the potential to change the nature of the
systems that lie beneath the things we do every day and could be the
greatest driver of value creation in our lifetime.â€
Maggie Rokkum-Testi, chief investment officer of Copernicus Asset
Management, added that the use cases for “a transparent, verifiable
register of data transactions are endless.â€
Blockchain Investment Advisory Sagl will also launch a Swiss-based incubator to be called Ticino Labs in the coming months.
Tags: blockchain, tsx Posted in ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Blockchain Fund Launches With $22 Million Round Backed By Roger Ver $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca
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 4:29 PM on Wednesday, February 20th, 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 blockchain may be blockchain’s best cybersecurity option
One of the hallmark features of blockchain is that it is supposedly
much more secure, adding remarkable levels of transparency that could
help better identify and mitigate cyber threats. But, at a time when we’re approaching 2,000 blockchain projects in development worldwide, watching thousands of crypto miners do their thing each day and seeing billions of investment dollars pouring in each year, are we taking warnings about potential threats seriously? Has the greater community taken some aspects of blockchain’s security for granted? The hard truths reveal affirmatives to both questions.
There are multiple ways that enthusiasts can contribute to their
favorite blockchain projects – whether that’s mining, staking or
operating all types of nodes. Regardless of what they’re doing, these
private deployments require an investment of time, money and effort to
set up, so the last thing anyone wants is to fall victim
to hackers. Unfortunately, people often don’t invest as much energy in
securing their deployments as they do in getting their different
features to work and scale, making the hacker threat very real.
Various attacks have already been seen
on mining software, and there have been multiple high-profile thefts
that were worth a lot of money. Tokens in staking wallets make very
attractive targets. Malicious actors have successfully infected
enterprise infrastructures with sneaky mining malware, called cryptojacking; and in 2016, Hong Kong-based exchange platform Bitfinex was hacked,
resulting in more than $60 million (at the time) of crypto losses. The
fact is that a victim may not even realize they’ve been hacked until
it’s too late. Savvy hackers are careful to cover their tracks and siphon only a portion of tokens at a time.
Another emerging security challenge in the crypto community is the potential exposure of sensitive metadata through common actions like checking balances, initiating transactions or just receiving block updates. This was recently called out
by Ethereum Core Developer Peter Szilagyi. While metadata may seem
harmless, it can lead to exposing the physical location of a blockchain
deployment, which is something most would prefer to avoid. Why is it
important to call out some of these threats?
The difficulty of securing blockchain projects with traditional security applications
Addressing these and other threats today can lead you down a rabbit hole. Some of the chatter on BitcoinTalk forums reveals
useful advice – often learned the hard way – about using virtual
private networks (VPNs) and firewalls to secure deployments. However,
these discussions are often light on more specific details, especially
on adequately configuring protective applications. As you dig deeper,
you can get lost in threads upon threads detailing which ports need to
be opened for each blockchain and which should be locked down. That’s
all to say that solutions like traditional VPNs and firewalls to protect
blockchain networks are possible solutions, but it’s difficult, messy
and sometimes fragile.
And it’s not just necessarily fragile in the sense of penetrable, but
even more so in that one misstep or misconfiguration could open the door
to vulnerabilities. What you’re left with is a security fig leaf: a
false sense of safety actually covering for a gaping hole.
Then there is the centralized nature of network traffic management
itself, as it is largely managed by a few centralized internet service
providers (ISPs), which are vulnerable to threats like routing attacks.
In fact, research previously suggested that just 13 ISPs host 30 percent of the Bitcoin network, while just three ISPs route 60 percent of the transaction traffic.
Making blockchain work for blockchain
So how can we be sure that the networks blockchain developers and
crypto miners use are secure? The answer may be to fuse network security
directly into blockchain implementations. For example, secure channels
for data transport using packet-level encryption can be enabled by
default for any deployment, rather than enabling with a separate
solution like a VPN. VPNs not only require specialized knowledge to set
up and maintain, but also introduce a central authority and point of
failure into an otherwise decentralized system. Isn’t decentralization
one of the main points of blockchain?
It’s also essential that peers establish secure connections between
all nodes in a network so traffic is securely transported. Many existing
networks may have transport layer security
(TLS) for encryption, and some networks still have its predecessor,
secure sockets layer (SSL). But neither may be enough in today’s complex
cybersecurity environment, especially as it relates to metadata.
Instead, directly building in things like network layer virtualization
and traffic proxying within a blockchain implementation would make
protecting traffic much easier.
Speaking of protecting traffic, by managing traffic routing and
packet processing with rules stored in blockchain-based smart contracts,
users could simplify deployment and maintenance of rules across
multiple machines instead of updating them individually. Furthermore,
this configuration allows developers to define their own network traffic
rules, such as conditioning on packet-level features to spot common phishing strategies
(e.g. a misleading website, similar to a trusted one, is sent to lure
in a user). However, these framework ideas are just the beginning,
especially with an enthusiastic blockchain developer community.
Developers should take the initiative to build their own decentralized
security applications for anti-phishing, anti-malware, intrusion
detection and distributed VPNs to deploy on the global blockchain.
The bottom line is that it’s not enough to just trust blockchain’s
security because of more transparency than other technological data
security and privacy methods. Developers, miners and even enterprises
need to look at the entire digital ecosystem when considering security,
as every single point provides savvy hackers a weak link to exploit. As
blockchain investment continues to skyrocket and the crypto markets
continue to diversify – even with the recent slowdown – we will see more
unique and sophisticated examples of cyber criminals penetrating
blockchain’s security veneer.
That’s the paradoxical ratio of technology: for as many positive
innovations that tech creates, there almost is an equal amount of
sinister “innovations†to match. This is most certainly true regarding
blockchain. The key is to keep discussing threats to blockchain to
inspire those securing it.
Tags: blockchain, stocks, tsx Posted in ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca – Why #blockchain may be blockchain’s best cybersecurity option $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:08 AM on Thursday, February 14th, 2019
SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by
legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based
venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap
companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just
lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap
exits. Click Here For More Information.
——————-
6 blockchain trends in 2019
2018 was yet another big year for blockchain
Organizations across many industries from retail to shipping are using the technology to counter disruptive threats, and push into new markets to create new revenue streams.
One of IBM Australia’s major projects is the work we are doing with Herbert Smith Freehills, Data61 and King & Wood Mallesons to pilot the Australian National Blockchain (ANB).
In this consortium, we are designing and building an enterprise-grade
blockchain to serve as the backbone to Australian business and address a
challenge that spans all industries – the age-old, but indispensable,
process of contracting.
The ANB will serve as an ecosystem for smart legal contracting,
bringing to life key terms and connecting these to the data sources and
business processes that they ultimately govern.
This is my third full year working solely on blockchain, and I am
often asked by organisations to help them anticipate market shifts and
changes in the competitive landscape.
So, what will this year hold for blockchain? Here are 6 blockchain trends we think you should look out for in the coming months.
1. Blockchain quietly goes mainstream
Consumers will begin to see blockchain applied to a variety of
everyday uses without even recognising it as blockchain. Much of this
exposure will come through supply chain projects, such as the ability to
scan a label on a food product – put in place by the food ecosystem to
enhance consumer trust and improve food safety and traceability.
2. Regulators flex their muscles
Expect to see government agencies worldwide issuing opinions as they
work to classify blockchain-based financial instruments and build
sustainable regulatory frameworks. For what is, in theory, a borderless
technology, borders are playing a big role.
3. Production-ready blockchain initiatives emerge in government
We fully expect to see state-led projects setting the tone in this
space and acting as the proving ground for subsequent federal
initiatives and whole-of-government work. This has started to emerge
with examples across governments in Delaware and Idaho in the United
States as well as the NSW government in Australia.
4. Engineers start skilling up
Blockchain proof of concept (POC) initiatives aren’t especially hard
but production-ready blockchains running live transactions across a
(sometimes very large) group of organisations need highly capable
software engineers.
Expect strong software engineers that turn their attention to
blockchain to become the new rock stars of the tech world in 2019.
Diverse and multi-disciplined tech teams will be as important as ever
too, to bring IOT, AI, analytics and other technologies together with
blockchain to unlock the next level of value that these networks should
bring for early adopters.
5. Blockchains get chatty
Blockchain networks to date, while sharing the same underlying
technology, typically remain siloed. But in 2019, as organisations
integrate their existing systems and business processes into these
solutions, this will in turn trigger the linkage between blockchain
solutions – likely at all levels of the tech stack.
Everyone knows that blockchain interoperability is a ‘must’ at some
point, the question is when and how it will manifest in solutions and
projects.
IBM is doing work in this space and we expect to see it becoming a
common ask from consortia and clients as we move through the year.
Standards are going to be crucial as part of this challenge too.
6. Consortiums become clearer
The word ‘consortium’ seems to get more airtime in relation to
blockchain than ever before. At the heart of consortiums, is
collaboration. Blockchain networks struggle to grow or trigger the
all-important network effect without collaboration.
Mobilising a consortium or business venture when you are establishing
governance models around shared data and distributed systems, as well
as encouraging fast product development and setting things up to scale,
is not easy.
This level of complexity is why the experience and expertise to guide
projects from a POC phase to a pilot and then to a production-ready
solution is becoming so valuable. Companies and people that know this
stuff and have done it before will be the ones to give consortiums
greater clarity and confidence this year.
Rupert Colchester is head of blockchain, at IBM Australia and New Zealand.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:34 PM on Monday, February 11th, 2019
Announce that it has acquired ownership and control of an aggregate of 10,883,764 common shares of GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. on February 8, 2019.Â
The Subject Shares represented approximately 11.5% of all issued and outstanding common shares of the Company as of February 9, 2019 immediately following the transaction described above.
TORONTO, Feb. 11, 2019 — ThreeD Capital Inc. (“ThreeD†or “the Acquirerâ€) (CSE:IDK), a Canadian-based venture capital firm focused on investments in promising, early stage companies and ICOs with disruptive capabilities, is pleased to announce that it has acquired ownership and control of an aggregate of 10,883,764 common shares (the “Subject Sharesâ€) of GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. (the “Companyâ€) on February 8, 2019. The Subject Shares represented approximately 11.5% of all issued and outstanding common shares of the Company as of February 9, 2019 immediately following the transaction described above. Neither the Acquirer nor any of its joint actors otherwise own any securities of the Company.
The Subject Shares were acquired pursuant to a business combination
transaction of which the security holders of GoldSpot Discoveries Inc.
completed a reverse takeover of the Company (formerly Duckworth Capital
Corp.) and not through the facilities of any stock exchange. The
Subject Shares were acquired in connection with the transaction are
subject to a Tier 1 Value Escrow Agreement as required by the TSX
Venture Exchange (the “TSXVâ€). The Subject Shares shall be released in
accordance with such escrow agreement as follows: 25% release on the
date of the TSXV bulletin approving the transaction; 25% released six
months after the date of the bulletin; 25% released twelve months after
the date of the bulletin; and 25% released eighteen months after the
date of the bulletin. The common shares of the Company are expected to
resume trading on the TSXV under the symbol “SPOT†at a date to be
approved by the TSXV and announced by the Company.
The holdings of securities of the Company by ThreeD are managed for
investment purposes, and ThreeD could increase or decrease its
investments in the Company at any time, or continue to maintain its
current investment position, depending on market conditions or any other
relevant factor.
The trade was effected in reliance upon the exemption contained in
Section 2.3 of National Instrument 45-106 on the basis that ThreeD is an
“accredited investor†as defined herein. A copy of the applicable
securities report filed in connection with the matters set forth above
may be obtained by contacting the Company at 69 Yonge St., Suite 1010,
Toronto, ON, M5E 1K3, Attention: Denis Laviolette, President and CEO
(tel: 641-992-9837).
About ThreeD Capital Inc.
ThreeD is a publicly-traded Canadian-based venture capital firm
focused on opportunistic investments in companies in the Junior
Resources, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain sectors. ThreeD seeks
to invest in early stage, promising companies and ICOs where it may be
the lead investor and can additionally provide investees with advisory
services, mentoring and access to the Company’s ecosystem.
Tags: AI, goldspot discoveries, stocks Posted in All Recent Posts, ThreeD, ThreeD Capital | Comments Off on ThreeD Capital Inc. $IDK.ca Acquires Securities of GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. $NSM.ca $PEEK.ca $CKR.ca $ZC.ca $PNP.ca $VQS.ca $NXJ.ca $KXS.ca $PFM.ca $HIVE.ca $BLOC.ca $CODE.ca
By Frank Holmes CEO and Chief Investment Officer U.S. Global Investors
Gold mining is one of the very oldest human occupations. The earliest
known underground gold mine, in what is now the country of Georgia,
dates back at least 5,000 years, when people were just starting to
develop written language.
Over the centuries, a number of innovations have emerged that
disrupted and forever changed how we explore and mine for gold and other
metals. Think dynamite, or the steam engine.
Lately, however, innovation has slowed. Mining companies are in cost-cutting mode,
and many producers have favored generating short-term cash flow, often
to the detriment of longer-term value. In last year’s “Tracking the
Trends†report, Deloitte analysts observed that “miners from 50 years
ago would find little has changed if they entered today’s mines, a
situation that certainly doesn’t hold true in other industries.â€
Consider the earth-shattering change that’s taken place in oil and
gas over the past two decades. Fracking and horizontal drilling have
completely revolutionized how we extract resources from the ground,
making hard-to-reach oil and natural gas accessible for the first time.
No equivalent technology exists in precious metals. Some companies are now using cutting-edge technology like blockchain
to improve supply chain efficiency and transparency, but to date
there’s no “gold fracking†method. As a result, metal ore grades are
decreasing, and large-scale gold discoveries are becoming fewer and farther between.
One company thinks it has the formula to reverse this trend. I think it could be sitting on a gold mine, pun fully intended.
Meet Goldspot Discoveries
“Some people call it ‘peak gold,’ but I tend to think of it more as
‘peak discovery,’†says Denis Laviolette, the brains behind Goldspot
Discoveries, a first-of-its-kind quant shop that aims to use artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning to revolutionize the mineral
exploration business.
A geologist by trade, Denis conceived of Goldspot while serving as a
mining analyst with investment banking firm Pinetree Capital. His
vision, as he described it to me, was to disrupt mineral exploration as
profoundly as Amazon disrupted retail and Uber the taxi business.
“We have more data at our fingertips than ever before, yet new
discoveries have been on the decline despite ever increasing exploration
spending on data collection,†Denis continues. “We believe Goldpsot can
change that. Harnessing a mountain’s worth of historic and current
global mining data, AI can identify patterns necessary to fingerprint
geophysical, geochemical, lithological and structural traits that
correlate to mineralization. Advances in AI, cloud computing, open
source algorithms, machine learning and other technologies have made it
possible for us to aggregate all this data and accurately target where
the best spots to explore are.â€
Hence the name Goldspot—though I should point out that Denis
considers the Montreal-based company “commodity agnostic,†meaning it
collects and aggregates data for all metals, including base metals, not
just gold.
Moneyball for Mining
Denis has the record to back up his extraordinary claims. In 2016,
Goldspot took second place in the Integra Gold Rush Challenge, a
competition with as many as 4,600 worldwide applicants. After
consolidating more than 30 years of historical mining and exploration
data into a 3D geological model, the company was able to identify
several target zones with the highest potential for gold mineralization
in Nevada’s Jerritt Canyon district, among several others.
Goldspot’s targeting approach was a complete success. New zones were
discovered by AI, validating the company’s models of finding patterns in
the data that humans alone couldn’t have seen.
The exercise stands as an example of what can be unlocked when machine learning is applied to geoscience.
“When I first entered the field, geologists were still using
pen and paper, and I’m not even that old,†Denis says. “We were paying
for all this data, but no one was really doing anything with it.â€
Denis’ quant approach to discovery reminds me a lot of Billy Beane,
the former general manager of the Oakland A’s and subject of the 2003 bestseller and 2011 film Moneyball.
Beane was among the first in sports to pick players, many of them
overlooked and undervalued, based on quantitative analysis. His strategy
worked better than anyone anticipated.
Although the A’s had one of the lowest combined salaries in Major
League Baseball—only the Washington Nationals and Tampa Bay Rays had
lower salaries—the team finished the 2002 season first in the American
League West.
Similarly, Goldspot seeks to help mining companies cut some of the
costs and risks associated with discovering high-quality
deposits—something it’s managed to do for a number of its clients and
partners, including Hochschild Mining, McEwen Mining and Yamana Gold.
And speaking of teams, Denis has assembled an impressive roster of
PhDs and experts in geology, physics, data science and other fields.
But Wait, There’s More…
The company, not yet three years old, does more than assist in
exploration. It also invests in and acquires royalties from exploration
companies, similar to the business model practiced by successful firms
such as Franco-Nevada, Wheaton Precious Minerals, Royal Gold and
others.>
The difference, though, is that Goldspot has developed an AI-powered
screening platform to identify the very best and potentially most
profitable investment opportunities.
For this, Goldspot has also received accolades. It was one of only
five finalists in Goldcorp’s 2017 #DisruptMining challenge, for
“revolutionizing the investment decision model by using the Goldspot
Algorithm to stake acreage, acquire projects and royalties, and invest
in public vehicles to create a portfolio of assets with the greatest
reward to risk ratio.â€
I’ll certainly have more to say about Goldspot in the coming weeks.
For now, I’m excited to share with you that the company is scheduled to
begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange early next week. The future
belongs to those that can mine data and harness the power of AI, and I’m
convinced that what Denis and his partners have created fits that bill.
Congratulations, and the best of luck to Denis Laviolette and Goldspot
Discoveries!
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.
