Financial Services Industry Spends $1.7 Billion on 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.

Financial Services Industry Spends $1.7 Billion on Blockchain Here’s proof financial services companies are taking blockchain technology seriously. The industry spends about $1.7 billion annually on the distributed ledgers that are best known for underpinning digital currencies, according to researcher Greenwich Associates. Banks and other companies are moving beyond the proof-of-concept stage to commercial distributed ledger technology, or DLT, products, the report said. The study shows the budgets spent on blockchain increased 67 percent last year, with one in 10 banks and other firms reporting spending in excess of $10 million. Likewise, the number of employees working on blockchain initiatives doubled last year. And though DLT products have been a top focus among financial services firms for the last few years, many have not been able to keep up the pace. “More than half the executives we interviewed told us that implementing DLT was harder than they expected,” said Richard Johnson, vice president of Greenwich Associates Market Structure and Technology. June 12, 2018 by Janine Wolf READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/financial-services-industry-spends-1-7-billion-on-blockchain

How companies can overcome the 'trust problem' when using blockchain 2017 saw a major rise in awareness by the general public of blockchain-enabled cryptocurrencies. While cryptocurrencies and ICOs have grabbed headlines, they’re best seen as a technique built on blockchain’s foundation — which is about collaboration and agreement across companies and individuals. As businesses increase their understanding of the technology, they recognize business scenarios where blockchain can remove inefficiency, add transparency, and promote direct collaboration. All blockchain and distributed ledger technologies balance trust, performance and confidentiality to enable multiple parties to work together. Understanding the tradeoffs made by different protocols is fundamental to determining which best apply to requirements of specific scenarios, either to make its use of blockchain more efficient, or sometimes to make blockchain the right approach. The main goal of blockchain systems is to address the problem of multi-party trust. Two organizations may be able to dramatically improve their joint business through collaboration, but they often struggle to work together efficiently because they don’t feel they can completely trust each other. For example, banks currently rely on trusted intermediaries to handle inter-bank payments, reconciliation, and other processes. Rather than use intermediaries to broker trust, blockchain creates trust with technology, which is both more efficient and scalable than the traditional labor-intensive approaches. Blockchain networks combine a variety of cryptographic and distributed systems algorithms with financial incentives that promote good behavior, incentives that are often supported by cryptocurrency. The resulting systems give participants confidence that the information they see on the network is genuine and is the same that all other participants see. That shared source of truth removes the chief obstacle that companies face in multi-party processes and collaboration today, cutting out middle-men and speeding business processes on top of a secure foundation. June 13, 2018 by Mark Russinovich READ FULL ARTICLE https://finance.yahoo.com/news/companies-can-overcome-trust-problem-using-blockchain-181004837.html

Blockchain Contract Management A Perfect Application The analysts say that over the next 4 years, the market for blockchain-related products and services will reach ~$14 billion. Whether that’s true is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure, demand for the technology is skyrocketing. Multiple surveys indicate that more than half of the Fortune 500 are currently active in their technical investigations. And the largest data centers are projecting that all-things-blockchain-related will be their top capacity consumer for years to come. No doubt, there will be all kinds of blockchain applications that find their way into the market, but the supply chain management (SCM) solution space seems particularly ripe for their disruptions. Managing supplier performance and matters of compliance across increasingly vast and dynamic networks represent just a subset of the challenges that the current crop of tools don't handle well. However, and for simplicity, "blockchain-enabled versions" of the approaches supported by these same technologies would, in many cases, directly address their current deficits. So where does it start? it’s helpful to identify the leading candidate applications, as they represent the low hanging fruit that will more generally drive blockchain technology adoption. And I've decided to pick just one --contract management-- because contracting processes have not appropriately evolved and are woefully inadequate. In fact, the anatomy of contracts hasn't changed all that much in decades. Regardless of the reasons, processes dedicated to negotiations, authoring, execution/enforcement and renewal are not well coordinated activities. And frankly, that's just the tip of what's wrong with current contracts. They weren't built for networks and that's what they're supposed to govern. Jun 14, 2018 by Paul Maetyn READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmartyn/2018/06/14/blockchain-contract-management-a-perfect-application

SAP Introduces Cloud Platform Blockchain At the annual conference SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP announced new products, services and partnerships centered on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. It also made a significant announcement concerning its work on distributed ledger technology (DLT), releasing the SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain as a new “blockchain-as-a-service” for enterprises. “This blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) provides the easiest, lowest-risk gateway to experimenting with distributed ledger technology in the cloud,” according to the company’s description of the product. “Eliminate the need for a large upfront capital investment and fast-track blockchain implementation across your business.” SAP, headquartered in Germany, is a leading provider of enterprise software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, with over 335,000 enterprise customers in over 180 countries. SAP systems and services are used by 87 percent of global businesses and 98 percent of the top-100 most valued brands. Most SAP clients are still in the early proof-of-concept phase of DLT adoption, but SAP is already providing DLT services to its clients, according to Gil Perez, senior vice president for product and innovation and head of digital customer initiatives at SAP, as reported by TechCrunch. The new blockchain service allows for the building of business applications with DLTs, such as Hyperledger Fabric and MultiChain. According to Perez, “SAP is taking an agnostic approach” to the underlying blockchain technology. DLT is still in an early development phase, and “SAP doesn’t want to commit” to any underlying blockchain “until the market decides which way to go.” During the conference, the company also announced that the SAP Cloud Platform is now available on all major cloud infrastructure providers, including the Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. SAP also intends to release a private edition of the SAP Cloud Platform, targeted at clients in regulated industries such as banking, healthcare and transportation, as well as those managing sensitive data. In September 2017, SAP announced a “blockchain co-innovation initiative” and that it plans to make DLT “an integrated part of [IoT], manufacturing and digital supply chain solutions.” The first companies participating in the initiative included Capgemini and Deloitte. “Our early access customers and partners can join SAP to get a first-mover advantage innovating and scaling blockchain [technology] as a core part of their Internet of Things strategies,” said Tanja Rueckert, president of IoT and digital supply chain at SAP, per the announcement. So far, SAP’s blockchain co-innovation initiative has helped about 65 companies to integrate DLT solutions in industries such as transportation, food and pharmaceuticals. For example, U.S. sausage maker Johnsonville is using DLT to trace the origin of products in its supply chain. Jun 14, 2018 by Giulio Prisco READ FULL ARTICLE https://distributed.com/news/sap-introduces-sap-cloud-platform-blockchain-service

Starbit Achieves 70,000 Users With WalkyBit Starbit International is on the move to 1 million users goal. As a global family standing together to create opportunities. Anyone can harness their own income opportunities. This is not just a software or technological company. Starbit is a relationship company, empowering people and changing lives in every continent with the most incredible chance of the century made easy for everyone. Sample with style. This is a new key point in the business development. Starting from June all Starbit promoters have the opportunity to give free access to WalkyFit App and WalkyBit Data Access to anyone in the world: any customer can download the App that certify movements, and have already 1 token technical setup included forever. This opportunity has never been so easy. WalkyBit Data Access is going to become an HUB/AIRDROP, a gaming service that converts all movements – certified by  WalkyFit Data transmitting App – into tokens of many different coins. A second community was added few weeks ago (CNT) and a third one will follow in few weeks, and many more by the end of 2018. Up to now users received tokens by the CNTF community. Over 30 million coins belong to new users thanks to this patent pending technology. June 20, 2018 by Ted Nuyten READ FULL ARTICLE https://www.businessforhome.org/2018/06/starbit-achieves-70000-users-with-walkybit

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