5 Future Uses for Blockchain

Organised as a weekly newsletter, it presents an overview of the current international blockchain debate. You may find below a selection of the best ideas from the most influential media.

5 Future Uses for Blockchain Everyone is talking about cryptocurrency. Projects like Bitcoin and Etherium have accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in value, with a single Bitcoin being worth more than $8,370 at the time of this writing. Every day new companies launch, trying to take advantage of the token economies. Underlying all of that is blockchain technology, which combines cryptography and decentralized record keeping (called "the public ledger") to create the first real concept of digital property. Among technologists it's become The Next Big Thing, and unlike many previous trends, this one actually looks like it might live up to the hype. Just, not for its current use. The exciting thing about Bitcoin and its many similar cryptocurrency projects is not that they create money out of the digital ether. It's how they do so. The real revolution: Blockchain is a technology that allows people to create unique, specific assets online. This may not seem like anything in an era when everything from entertainment to shopping has moved online, but it's game-changing. One of the universal truths about the internet has always been that anything on a computer can be copied. Whether music, movies or tax forms, an unprotected file on a computer can be duplicated endlessly at no cost whatsoever. Blockchain stops that. A digital asset backed by blockchain is unique. It can't be copied or moved. It can't show up on a torrent site, and no one can get rich by just duplicating the file a thousand times. As a currency, this makes for an interesting project. For many other industries, it can change absolutely everything. Here are just a (very, very) few ways. May 16, 2018 by Eric Reed READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.thestreet.com/technology/cybersecurity/five-future-uses-for-blockchain-14589274

Russian Bank Completes Bond Blockchain Transaction Sberbank, a state-owned Russian banking and financial services company headquartered in Moscow, and telecom firm MTS, the leading Russian telecommunications operator and digital service provider, announced that they successfully completed the country's first commercial bond transaction using blockchain. Russian Bank Executes Country's First Commercial Bond Transaction The transaction was carried out by Sberbank CIB, the corporate and investment banking business of Sberbank. The transaction was placed through a proprietary blockchain network system operated by the National Settlement Depository (NSD). It is based on Hyperledger Fabric 1.1, a project under the Hyperledger umbrella. MTS placed commercial bonds of 750 million rubles (around $12.11 million) for sale, and the primary buyer was Sberbank CIB. The bonds involved in the blockchain transaction have a maturity period of 182 days with an annual coupon rate of 6.8 percent. The trade was privately placed on the OTC market. The transaction was processed through the standard delivery against payment settlement system which works on simultaneous transfer of the money from the buyer and securities from the seller using the blockchain system. As per the MTS release, “The framework of the transaction was structured to include the possibility of a dynamic change in the composition of network participants in order to potentially open the issue to a wide range of investors.” Andrey Kamensky, VP of finance, investments and M&A at MTS told CoinDesk, "The entire settlement chain, from security placement and cash receipt to fulfillment of all obligations to the investor." NSD, in collaboration with various Russian banks and other entities, has been working on the trials of its Hyperledger-based commercial bond trading platform since October 2017. Earlier phases of testing the blockchain-based transaction processing system involved Raiffeisenbank Russia purchasing $10 million worth of bonds over a mobile phone network. NSD had announced plans to launch its own cryptocurrency  wallet last year. May 17, 2018 by Shobhit Seth READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.investopedia.com/news/russian-bank-completes-bond-blockchain-transaction

Blockchain Is Not Only About Bitcoin Blockchain is considered a mini-revolution within the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What does that mean? Is it again another challenge for the entrepreneur to deal with on top of everything else? Is it another opportunity? If yes, you might ask: "How can I learn about it, use it, without getting lost in the crypto-mathematical formulae?” Blockchain is the technology that supports the use of bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that is making central banks and governments nervous, and it is true that the latter are not sure whether to ban bitcoin, or embrace it, or hope it will vanish as another ephemeral hype. But blockchain is nowadays more than the technology that ensures the authenticity of bitcoin. It did start that way, but it has acquired new uses, opened new opportunities and charted new vistas. Let's start with the beginnings, which always fascinate as they seem to tell the origin of the idea, the initial thinking behind the spark of genius, before the invention takes a life of its own and flourishes into an infinity of uses. These "foundational moments", as cultural critics would call them, can show us the intent behind the invention of bitcoin. Simply put, bitcoin is a digital currency set up to function without a central bank or entity to regulate it. The transactions are validated by nodal points spread over a network of computers called "miners," using crypto-mathematical formulas, which once solved will allow the "miners" to win more bitcoins. In just a few words, individuals (using computers) solve complex mathematical questions to validate the currency, and are related to each other via a secured and unchangeable chain of blocks, which makes tampering with the authenticity of the currency almost impossible. May 22, 2018 by Lahcen Haddad READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313730

FOLLOWING A TUNA FROM FIJI TO BROOKLYN ON THE BLOCKCHAIN I HAD JUST learned everything there was to know about the fish in front of me. Now a small part of its fleshy, red body was in my mouth. Five minutes earlier, I saw a video showing the waters in Fiji where it was caught, where it traveled on ice, and how exactly it ended up inside a sushi hand roll. The massive yellowfin tuna had been tracked across the globe via the Ethereum blockchain. Each stop on the fish's journey, from the landing dock to the processing facility to the truck that drove it to Brooklyn, had been cataloged. The demonstration, organized by the startup Viant, was meant to showcase one of the potentially most compelling use cases for blockchain technology. A plethora of startups—as well as major companies like IBMand Walmart—are betting that the tech will change the way goods travel around the world. A blockchain is essentially a distributed chain of data entries that everyone can view and that can't be easily altered. In other words, blockchains are digitized, more secure versions of the ledgers that merchants and traders have relied on for thousands of years. For now, the technology is still in its infancy. The industry around blockchains is riddled with scams, false promises, and has been met with a heaping load of skepticism. Many of the "problems" to which its evangelists have tried to apply it don't make much sense, like bacon, iced tea, and ending bullying. But supply chains appear to be a legitimate use case for the technology, tracking materials as they move around the globe. There are promising signs, but also serious hurdles to deploying blockchain tech broadly in logistics. It likely will be years, if not decades, before that happens. May 22, 2018 by Jeffrey Rotman READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.wired.com/story/following-a-tuna-from-fiji-to-brooklynon-the-blockchain

Blockchain helps us take green power into our own hands One way to get a job with the company you think will help save the planet is to say you'll work for free. That's what Canadian Meagan Cojocar told David Martin two years ago over coffee. She was 21 years old. The company was Power Ledger, co-founded by Martin. The tiny Australian startup was at the forefront of a trend in solar energy: using blockchaintechnology in solar energy trading. Power Ledger had pitched an app: If you have solar energy panels, you can download the app and enter a marketplace for selling excess energy directly to your neighbors. The kicker? You can set the price, instead of being ripped off by stingy power companies. Blockchain was Power Ledger's answer to keep people using green energy. It could be the future of distributed renewable energy, putting that power in the hands of the consumers. All I understood was 'more money' Not a blockchain expert? Don't worry. Cojocar says she "didn't fully understand it" at first either. To track the energy your solar panels produce, Power Ledger installs software that uses blockchain into your power meter. Blockchain is a technology that basically involves a ledger housed in more than one public computer. If one computer is corrupted, others have the original record. The blockchain also keeps your power company accountable. Before you can trade energy with your neighbor, you need to buy "Sparkz," a digital currency, from your power company, sold at a flat rate of 1 cent each. The Sparkz sit in your digital wallet and can be converted to Australian dollars whenever you want. By preselling energy, the companies can pay the operator who maintains the grid. May 23, 2018 by Jennifer Bisset READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.cnet.com/news/blockchain-democratise-solar-energy-power-ledger-startup/

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