Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:21 AM on Friday, February 8th, 2019
SPONSOR: Enthusiast Gaming Holdings Inc.
(TSX-V: EGLX) Uniting gaming communities with 80 owned and affiliated
websites, currently reaching over 75 million monthly visitors. The
company partial 2018 reported revenue of $7.4 million representing a
625% increase over the same period in 2017.
EGLX: TSX-V ———————————-
Esports Playing in the Big Leagues Now
In 2018, esports captured the attention of nearly 400 million viewers worldwide—and cable and OTT platforms took note, with media rights revenues topping $180 million.
Total esports revenues reached $869 million in 2018, and is forecast to more than triple by 2022, reaching $2.96 billion, according to an October 2018 report by Goldman Sachs.
By Lucy Koch
In 2018, esports captured the attention of nearly 400 million viewers
worldwide—and cable and OTT platforms took note, with media rights
revenues topping $180 million.
Total esports revenues reached $869 million in 2018, and is forecast
to more than triple by 2022, reaching $2.96 billion, according to an
October 2018 report by Goldman Sachs.
More modestly, a report from PwC
(cited by the Goldman Sachs report) projected worldwide esports revenues
of $1.58 billion by 2022—an 18.4% compounded annual growth rate.
Ad Revenue
According to PwC, esports revenues totaled $805 million in 2018, with
the largest portion coming from sponsorships ($277 million), followed
by media rights and streaming advertisements.
PwC estimated that over the next three to five years, media rights
revenue would grow 11.5%—to roughly $449 million by 2022. That’s more
than twice the growth rate of sponsorship and advertising, at 5.5%.
As audiences grow, so do expectations. Esports viewers want to be
able to watch their favorite teams, players and tournaments on any
screen, at any time—and this will push profitability.
Paul Verna, principal analyst at eMarketer, explains: “Marketers who
try to reach esports fans through video ads will be able to tap into the
sophisticated targeting and measurement capabilities that streaming
services offer. In that sense, there’s more value to a marketer in
attaching itself to game streams than sponsoring an event or team. It’s
all about harnessing data.â€
And there’s plenty of data to harness.
Esports Viewers
There were approximately 380 million esports viewers in 2018, and
that’s expected to surge to roughly 557 million viewers by 2021,
according to a report from Newzoo. Of
those 557 million projected viewers, 307 million will identify as
“occasional viewers” and 250 million will consider themselves “esports
enthusiasts”.
Breaking Down Key Players
Occasional Viewers: People who watch professional esports content less than once a month.
Esports Enthusiasts: People who watch professional esports content more than once a month.
What’s more, Asia-Pacific leads the global esports market and is
projected to capture the largest market share, with $1.5 billion by
2022, according to a study from Activate. Close behind, Europe and the US tie for second at $1.2 billion.
“The US is a natural growth opportunity for esports because of the
strong gaming culture here, the ties between gaming and sports, and the
country’s natural inclination toward competitive endeavors. The same is
true of Western European markets, particularly the UK, Germany, and
France,†Verna said.
Somewhat behind the curve due to the lack of fixed broadband, Latin
America will account for just $100 million of esports market share by
2022. However, growth is expected in Brazil and Mexico, where esports is
officially recognized as a sport.
Verna adds that the majority of the esports market is young and is
“therefore less likely to be reached through traditional ad channels
than an older TV audience,†saying that “sponsorships and endorsements
are equally viable for marketers whose brands align with the target
audience.â€
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:12 AM on Friday, February 8th, 2019
SPONSOR: Bougainville
Ventures Inc (CSE: BOG) Converting irrigated farmland to
greenhouse-equipped farmland. Bougainville does not “touch the plantâ€
and only provides agricultural infrastructure as a landlord for
licensed marijuana growers. Click here for more info.
BOG:CSE —————————————
POT Ticker Generates Frenzy As WHO Softens Stance On Marijuana
Little illustrates the mania for cannabis investments better than the unprecedented demand over the stock symbol POT.
But new recommendations from the World Health Organization suggest some of that frenzy may not be unwarranted.
Tiny Vancouver-based cannabis company Weekend Unlimited saw its stock
gain as much as 148% Feb. 1 after winning out over 40 other companies
in the first-ever lottery for a stock ticker held by Canadian exchanges.
Weekend Unlimited, which previously traded under YOLO, short for “you
only live once,” wasn’t exactly lacking a memorable ticker before it won
the POT ticker.
In a weird twist, the YOLO symbol may find new life in another
pot-related security, as the AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis ETF has filed
to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under YOLO.
In more serious news, the WHO is recommending that cannabis and its
resin be removed from Schedule IV, the most restrictive category of a
1961 drug convention that governs international treaties. The WHO is
also moving to clarify that CBD containing less than 0.2% THC is not
under international control at all.
If adopted, these recommendations would recognize changing attitudes
toward the drug and its medical properties, potentially encouraging
fence-sitting politicians to speed up the pace of legalization. They
could also be a “catalyst for Big Pharma to further assess the global
medical cannabis opportunity,” according to BMO analyst Tamy Chen.
Advertising Challenges
“The treaty’s recommended cannabis rescheduling provides countries
additional political cover to re-examine their current state on
cannabis, given it serves as the regulatory framework for many,” writes
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kenneth Shea.
The proposals will now go to the United Nations’ Commission on
Narcotic Drugs, whose 53 member nations will have the chance to vote on
them, likely in March.
POT hype and WHO recommendations aren’t making it any easier to
advertise cannabis brands, at least not yet. Earlier this month, CBS
declined to air a commercial touting the benefits of medical marijuana
during the Super Bowl and Facebook (FB) has booted some pot sellers off Instagram, Bloomberg’s Craig Giammona reported last week.
The restrictions are even tighter in Canada, where nearly all forms of marketing and branding are prohibited.
Canadian Supply
The Canadian government reported that total cannabis sales in
December were up 4% from the month before, a muted gain given that
November sales marked a 42% decline in per-day recreational pot sales
from October, when legalization took effect.
The fact that total inventory continues to grow, hitting nearly two
months’ worth of dried pot and five months’ of cannabis oil at the end
of December, indicates that Canada’s ongoing supply shortage is more a
function of supply-chain problems than a lack of product, according to
Eight Capital analyst Graeme Kreindler.
“The process of getting products from vault to shelf remains a key
step in alleviating supply issues in the Canadian market,” Kreindler
said.
Edibles Question
The ongoing shortages, whatever their root cause, have raised
concerns among some in the industry that it won’t be ready to meet
demand for edibles and concentrates, which were expected to join dried
flower and oils on store shelves by October of this year. However,
Justin Trudeau’s pot czar told Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove last week that
sales may lag regulations, citing the 17-week gap between the federal
pot law passing last June and the formal market opening in October.
According to Keith Merker, CEO of WeedMD, “It’s classic cannabis
industry stuff; you’re operating in this mist of uncertainty and trying
to make business decisions that are appropriate.”
The lack of clarity isn’t deterring big U.S. funds from sniffing
around the industry. Funds with $100 billion or more in assets under
management are exploring lending to Canadian cannabis companies as a way
to gain expertise in the burgeoning market ahead of potential
legalization.
The idea is to provide first-lien loans, which are first to be repaid
when a company fails, to mid-tier pot firms, according to Cormark
Securities’ Alfred Avanessy. This would open up a whole new world of
financing to the industry, which has largely relied on equity raises and
convertible debt to date.
Tags: Marijuana, weed Posted in All Recent Posts, Bougainville Ventures | Comments Off on Bougainville Ventures Inc $BOG.ca – #POT Ticker Generates Frenzy As WHO Softens Stance On Marijuana $CROP.ca $VP.ca NF.ca $MCOA
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 4:23 PM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019
SPONSOR: Good Life Networks (GOOD:TSX-V)
Video advertising is the future! Company’s A.I. makes 80,000
calculations / second, targeting 750 million users to deliver higher
prices and volume. Company announced combined trailing 12 month revenue
at just over $40 Million, $7.9M EBITDA, $3 Million net income. Click here for more information.
GOOD: TSX-V
—————————
How Blockchain Integration Will Evolve Programmatic RTB for Smart TV
Programmatic RTB(Real-time bidding) is set to become a leading method for advertising on Smart TV.
Is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% during the forecast period and reach $292.55 billion by 2025.
Alex Bornyakov, founder of Adtelligent, talks about how the growth of blockchain will help in the transformation of programmatic advertising through RTB for Smart TV.
The programmatic advertising industry is rife with issues, including
fraud, manipulation of data, low traffic quality, and lack of
transparency of the bidding process. Despite these issues, programmatic
RTB(Real-time bidding) is set to become a leading method for advertising
on Smart TV. The global Smart TV market, according to Grand View Research,
was valued at $145 billion in 2017, is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of
9.5% during the forecast period and reach $292.55 billion by 2025.
I, along with other leaders in the digital advertising space, believe
that blockchain integration has the potential to satisfy the market
demand for transparency and reinstate trust in programmatic advertising.
This will be achieved by creating a new blockchain-based RTB protocol
for Smart TV that propels industry growth, meets required thresholds for
transaction speeds, and fights fraud through irrefutable smart
contracts.
Big potential for industry growth
Programmatic and RTB have had a tremendous impact on the web,
becoming the most popular and widely-used types of digital display
advertising in the USA and the UK in 2015. In the US alone, $27.47
billion was spent on programmatic digital display advertising just last
year.
Programmatic RTB for Smart TV has the potential to scale into an
increasingly valuable ad channel. 32% of TV buyers today own Smart TVs,
totalling 1 billion devices worldwide. Yet, this form of advertising has
several new roadblocks when it comes to growth. One such example is the
current low availability of premium inventory. Publishers today have to
adapt quickly to the latest media buying trend if they want to remain
on board.
Blockchain removes intermediaries, meaning that brands and content
owners can directly transact with one another. Content owners, as a
result, are faced with fewer restrictions and will be able to attract
with smaller and niche brands of all shapes and sizes. Due to the nature
of P2P transactions through blockchain and less funds going to
middlemen, brands will have the opportunity to place targeted
advertisements at lower costs than ever before. With all transactions
recorded on an irrefutable ledger, blockchain ensures marketing budgets
are used effectively, another compelling impetus to advertise and for
industry growth.
A need for speed
One of the central issues with executing blockchain RTB for Smart TV
today is transaction speed. A system does not yet exist that allows
large enough volumes. This inhibits the potential for advertisers.
What’s needed is a new protocol that can handle sending sufficient
volumes of data to the blockchain.. With transaction volumes up to
speed, brands will be able to optimize their costs, better target
clients, and choose the time and amount of advertising scrolling at
suitable prices. In turn, enabling brands to not only pay for the number
of scrolls, but also the displayed duration which cannot be done today.
As an example, this approach would allow advertising at a time when a
television is being viewed across many devices, increasing audience
coverage and the overall effectiveness of advertising.
Enforcing safeguards to fight fraud
Trust is eroding in the ecosystem for a number of reasons. For one,
ad fraud is alive and well across OTT channels, typically in the format
of masking n techniques that go undetected. In fact, Pixalate, the first
MRC accredited vendor of detecting and filtering invalid traffic in
OTT, reported that global OTT fraud rates average 19% and that Marketers may lose $10 billion annually in OTT ad spend by 2020.
Due to the aforementioned issues, advertisers are demanding
transparency from partners to ensure fair value. Blockchain integration
would allow brands to control pricing and manipulation of data, ensure
transparency of the bidding process, target users at the right time
through access to user data via blockchain smart contracts.
Today, there are a few major players working to make RTB for Smart TV a reality.
In September 2017, The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Technology Lab announced version 3.0 of their OpenRTB framework
which was, “evolving to handle new kinds of programmatic buying and
selling, such as header bidding, content sales, product recommendations,
Smart TV, or perhaps even products.†It was the biggest revision to the
protocol in seven years and has recently been rolled out in beta, with
mass adoption projected for 2019.
Such innovative types of the business models which combine B2B
marketplaces and blockchain technology has created a new system that
allows accumulating a large volume of events, and after that sends this
data to blockchain in one package. In other words, it’s not
necessary for B2B advertising marketplace to save each transaction from
RTB to the blockchain due to the fact that customers of such type of
platforms will use an independent verification accounting system
that will be able to benefit from internal RTB. Not all data will be
saved into blockchain, but only critical resulting events such as
division of profits among participants.
Integrating blockchain technology into the RTB system for Smart TV
shows promise for growth of the advertisement industry and the
elimination of fraud and lack of transparency. By eliminating
intermediaries and introducing smart contracts to the platform, brands
large and small have more opportunity to be profitable and are granted
access to accurate analytics and data.
Tags: stocks, tsx Posted in All Recent Posts, Good Life Networks | Comments Off on Good Life Networks $GOOD.ca – How #Blockchain Integration Will Evolve #Programmatic RTB for Smart TV $TTD $RUBI $AT.ca $TRMR $FUEL
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:26 PM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019
SPONSOR: North Bud Farms Inc. (NBUD:CSE) Sustainable low cost, high
quality cannabinoid production and procurement focusing on both
bio-pharmaceutical development and Cannabinoid Infused Products. Click Here For More Information
NBUD: CSE
—————
Canada’s top marijuana enforcer stands by Liberals’ new pot policy
A former police chief and narcotics enforcement officer, federal Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair is convinced Canada has done the right thing with its new marijuana decriminalization and regularization laws.
Martin C. Barry
As the federal minister responsible for the implementation and
enforcement of Canada’s new marijuana legalization and regularization
laws, there’s no mistaking the fact Bill Blair stands one hundred per
cent behind the Trudeau Liberal government’s groundbreaking policy.
If anybody might be in a position to question the government’s
stance, it could easily be Blair. The veteran policeman and former chief
of the Toronto Police Service spent years fighting on the front lines
against drug-related crime as a narcotics squad officer.
Former narcotics cop
“As a police officer for 40 years, I was involved in drug
enforcement,†Blair, who is Minister of Border Security and Organized
Crime Reduction, said in an interview with Newsfirst Multimedia while on
a ministerial stopover in Montreal.
As chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Organized
Crime Committee, he said he was “well aware of the impact that illegal
drug trafficking as controlled by organized crime was having in all of
our communities.â€
Drugs and violence linked
While noting that the link between organized crime and illegal drug
trafficking had a lot do with an escalation of violence in Canadian
cities these past few decades, Blair also pointed out that organized
crime was earning billions of dollars in profits each year being the
sole purveyors of a range of illegal substances that included marijuana.
Since the only means of controlling the situation available to
society was criminal sanction, young people got swept up in the overall
enforcement of the country’s drug laws, “which was disproportionate,â€
added Blair, “and was actually causing in many cases more harm. We
wanted to discourage their use of the drug. But we also did not want to
saddle that child with a criminal record for the rest of their life.â€
Approached by Trudeau
According to Blair, all of this transpired long before he was asked
by Justin Trudeau to run in the suburban Toronto riding of Scarborough
Southwest in the October 2015 election. Blair and the future Prime
Minister discussed the possibility of radically changing Canada’s
cannabis laws.
“We talked about Canada’s control of cannabis. And he said ‘What do
you think of legalizing it?’ And I said if we lift the criminal
prohibition it gives the opportunity to get the situation back under
control. Because currently the situation we were in was we had the
highest rates of use among our kids in the world. And this is a
dangerous drug for children. This is a drug that can have very serious
implications for children.â€
One third were breaking law
Leading up to the changes last October by the Liberal government to
the country’s longstanding prohibition on cannabis, more than a third of
Canada’s population had been breaking the law, Blair added. As such,
“we began the process of looking at how do we reduce the harm of this
drug.
“Some people say to me, ‘Well you’ve legalized cannabis.’ And I say
no – we’ve regulated the daylights out of it. We’ve brought in all sorts
of new rules – enforceable, proportionate, sensible rules – that
control every aspect of its production, its sale and its consumption.
Says no to other drugs
“Whereas before we had only one tool and it was like a sledgehammer
and we were trying to drive a nail. And no one wanted to swing the
sledgehammer. But now we have the right suite of tools to control the
system. And I believe it’ll result in a healthy situation for our
children and a safer situation for our communities.â€
Blair insisted that neither he nor the Liberal government would ever
consider going down the same route with other street drugs as it has
done with marijuana. “Cannabis is not a drug that kills people,†he
said.
“But unfortunately with other more serious drugs which are deadly –
the opioid crisis, for example, crystal methamphetamine, which is
ravishing some of our prairie and northern communities – those drugs
represent such a significant risk. And we don’t have a system of
regulated production and control.
Meth and fentanyl out
“There is no alternative. We can go to a Health Canada-regulated
production facility for marijuana, for cannabis. But we’re not going to
create a similar thing for crystal methamphetamine. So there will be no
other source other than the criminal source.†For drugs like
methamphetamine and fentanyl, Blair said an important of the approach
for dealing with them is to “interdict the supply to keep those drugs
out of our country. We need to be very effective at restricting the
supply. But we also have an enormous amount of work to do – and we have
embarked as a government on this – to reduce the demand for those drugs.
And that’s to prevent people from beginning to use them in the first
place.â€
Tags: Marijuana, tsx, weed Posted in All Recent Posts, North Bud Farms Inc | Comments Off on North Bud Farms Inc. $NBUD.ca – Canada’s top marijuana enforcer stands by Liberals’ new pot policy $ACB $WEED.ca $HIP.ca
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:16 AM on Thursday, February 7th, 2019
SPONSOR: ThreeD Capital Inc. (IDK:CSE) Led by
legendary financier, Sheldon Inwentash, ThreeD is a Canadian-based
venture capital firm that only invests in best of breed small-cap
companies which are both defensible and mass scalable. More than just
lip service, Inwentash has financed many of Canada’s biggest small-cap
exits. Click Here For More Information.
——————-
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 3:54 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine
Specializing in the software engineering of computer based
electrocardiogram (heart monitoring) management and reporting software
Software permits physician interpretations of ECGs and supports private and public payer fee-for-service billings
ECGs are electrical recordings of the heart and performing an ECG is one of the most common diagnostic tests performed
Successfully launched technologies that enable the use of new
medical devices and communication portals utilizing internet and
cellular based technologies for the recording, transmission and viewing
of ECGs
Recent Highlights
CardioComm Solutions’ HeartCheck(TM) Device Enters Final FDA Review Phase Read More
Completed a request for additional information from the US Food and
Drug Administration (“FDA”) for the Company’s premarket notification
510(k), Class II medical device clearance application for the
HeartCheck™ CardiBeat and GEMS™ Mobile Application.
Company had submitted a letter of revocation of their supplementary
information submission on December 26, 2018 in compliance with the FDA’s
directive
CardioComm Solutions’ HeartCheck(TM) CardiBeat and Smart Phone App Enter Final Stage of FDA 510(k) Review Read More
Market Release of HeartCheck(TM) CardiBeat and GEMS(TM) Mobile Application Set For Early 2019
Completed its response to the USA Food and Drug Administration for
additional information following the Company’s filing of its premarket
notification 510(k)
Class II medical device clearance application for the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat and GEMS™ Mobile Application
HeartCheck™ CardiBeat is the second of several planned Bluetooth-enabled ECG recording devices to be marketed by the Company
Launched 12-Lead ECG Smart Wearable Garment Monitoring Solution Read More
Announced joint partnership sales plans for the commercial launch of
its newest software release designed to support an innovative and easy
to use wireless, 12 lead ECG, vital signs, arrhythmia and ischemia
monitoring wearable smart garment manufactured by Israel-based
HealthWatch Technologies Ltd.
Company to Receive Royalty Payments from Biotricity Read More
Confirmed progress on a royalty licencing agreement with Biotricty Inc.
Royalty payment phase became active following confirmation that all
necessary clearance and software development pre-conditions have been
achieved
Royalty fees are due from the use of the ECG software Cardiocomm
developed, or any derivative products, on a per patient monitored basis
First Company to Receive Approval for ECG Product Sales Direct to Consumers Read More
CardioComm was the first company to be approved to sell an ECG
product directly to consumers in North America as evidenced by OTC Class
II medical device clearances by both the United States Food and Drug
Adminstration and Health Canada in 2012
HeartCheck ECG PEN is currently available for OTC sales on the shelves of Canadian pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart.
Completed
HeartCheck(TM) Clinical Validation for Long-Term, Self-Managed, Remote
Monitoring of Atrial Fibrillation Patients Post-Ablation Read More
Moved into routine clinical use following completion of a long-term, remote arrhythmia monitoring pilot in high risk patients.
PACE cardiologists have been prescribing use of the HeartCheck™ ECG
PEN and ECG Handheld Monitor to their patients to provide up to one year
of enhanced remote patient monitoring for arrhythmias in addition to
use of conventional but term-limited Holter and event monitoring.
Products
HeartCheck™ Pen
The HeartCheck™ PEN handheld ECG device is the only device of its kind cleared by the FDA for consumer use.
✓ Monitor For Arrhythmias Anywhere ✓ Web Access to a Qualified Physician ✓ No Prescription Required
The pocket-sized PEN allows you to take heart readings from anywhere, the moment symptoms appear.
The HeartCheck™ ECG Device
The FDA-cleared HeartCheck™ ECG device is portable, easy to use and can store up to 200 thirty second ECG readings.
Whether at home, the gym or at the office, the HeartCheck™ ECG Device
with SMART Monitoring can help detect and monitor arrhythmias from
wherever you are.
Features & Benefits ✓ SMART Monitoring ECG Interpretations ✓ Cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ✓ Easy to use ✓ Accurate heart readings in only 30 seconds ✓ Store up to 200 ECGs
Company Accolades
FULL DISCLOSURE: CardioComm Solutions Inc. is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:03 PM on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
SPONSOR: Esports Entertainment
$GMBL Esports audience is 350M, growing to 590M, Esports wagering is
projected at $23 BILLION by 2020. The company has launched VIE.gg
esports betting platform and has accelerated affiliate marketing
agreements with 190 Esports teams. Click here for more information
GMBL: OTCQB
China recognizes esports as a profession
China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (CMHRSS) announced 15 new professions on Jan. 25, including “esports professional†and “esports operator.â€
The world’s most populous nation has finally recognized esports as a legitimate profession, and the ministry has officially identified it in the courts.
China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (CMHRSS) announced 15 new professions on Jan. 25, including “esports professional†and “esports operator.â€
The world’s most populous nation has finally recognized esports as a
legitimate profession, and the ministry has officially identified it in
the courts. It comes as news following last year, when the Chinese
government issued its support and interest in the esports industry.
The term “esports professional†is defined as players who compete in
esports tournaments, perform at esports events, or train with other
professional players, according to the CMHRSS. While “esports operatorâ€
is explicitly classified as those who organize or develop content for
esports tournaments.
Additionally, the CMHRSS noted that “account boosting†is one of the
main jobs accompanying the esports profession. Account boosting and
cheating are punishable offenses in League of Legends, Overwatch, and
a number of other esports titles, and have caused controversy in the
past. A lack of communication between the Chinese government and the
esports industry could be the reason for the term account boosting being
used, or it could just be a misunderstanding.
The term account boosting could have been used by the CMHRSS to
reference players using their teammates’ account during professional
play, but generally “account boosting†is defined as the act of one
player logging into another player’s account with the intent of boosting
their rank.
It is not clear yet if the ministry’s use of the word account
boosting will be revised. However, the announcement of the inclusion of
esports professional and esports operator as official jobs is a positive
step for the growth of esports in China. It means that Chinese players
will have extended working rights, giving them easier access to working
visas, and allow them more freedom of movement.
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€
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Facebook’s latest move proves it’s betting big on blockchain tech
The next major objective on Facebook’s roadmap seems to be the blockchain.
Over the years, Mark Zuckerberg has made a number of smart moves that
only helped him expand the reach of Facebook and improve the outlook of
the business going forward. Purchases including WhatsApp, Instagram,
and Oculus allowed Facebook to grow its customer base and monetize even
more user data via ads, compete better against other image and
video-based social networks, and develop new hardware and software
experiences targeting VR users. The next major objective on Facebook’s
roadmap seems to be the blockchain. The company has already confirmed its working on blockchain technology, and reports said Facebook will release its own cryptocurrency in the future,
in the form of a stable coin that will be pegged against the dollar.
It’s unclear when that will happen, but Facebook just made a significant
move that further proves it’s serious about the blockchain.
No matter where the Bitcoin price will go next,
blockchain technology is here to stay, as it offers a number of
advantages for payments and other applications. Facebook’s team is led
by former PayPal president David Marcus, who’s been working on Messenger
before that. And Facebook’s blockchain team has just gotten
significantly bigger, as the company acqui-hired the team behind
Chainspace.
The startup was founded by researchers from University College London, according to Cheddar, and was working on “smart contracts†technology that would leverage blockchain tech for payments and other services.
Four of the five researchers behind Chainspace’s white paper are
joining the Facebook blockchain group, people familiar with the matter
said. Two of them, including Alberto Sonnino and George Danezis, already
list Facebook as their employer. Chainspace’s website was also updated
to note that the team is “moving on to something new.â€
Facebook confirmed that it hired employees from Chainspace without disclosing any other details about the move.
Following Cheddar, Mashable also reported
that Facebook acquired four key people behind the Chainspace tech. That
tech, however, isn’t the scope of Facebook’s purchase, as the company
only acquired the researchers behind it.
“Chainspace code and documentation will still be open source, and all
previously published academic work remains available,†the note on the startup’s website says.
