Here’s How Entrepreneurs Are Making Cryptocurrency Mainstream And Starting A Revolution – Inc.com

Ethereum, Bitcoin, Stratis, Sia and others are becoming mainstream thanks to Entrepreneurs.

Less than a year ago the average human did not know what Cryptocurrency was. The market was limited mostly to a techy crowd of developers and very early adopters, considering Bitcoin was the only major currency on the block back then. But thanks to a number of really smart entrepreneurs, rising prices, and a powerful community, everything is changing and crypto is going mainstream.

Ethereum, Stratis, Sia, AntShares/NEO, TenX and others are leading the charge of the technological revolution that is blockchain. Cryptocurrency based crowdfunding know as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are also a major player in the revolution. Blockchain startups like TenX have raised $80 million dollars in a matter of literal minutes to solve a big challenge for Cryptocurrency holders, actually spending the currency in the real world.

Entire governments like China are considering utilizing a national digital currency. Even the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, met with the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin. All of this good press and positive outlook has caused many billions of dollars to be added to the market in the last 7 months.

More at: Here’s How Entrepreneurs Are Making Cryptocurrency Mainstream And Starting A Revolution – Inc.com

Charities use blockchain for cost savings – V3

Blockchain is being trialled to ensure that non-profit organisations are getting the best deal

A network of global charities has begun using blockchain to provide transparency to donations, ensuring that they are used appropriately.

Organisations including Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid are three of the 42 members of the Start Network, which trialled the use of blockchain in humanitarian projects last year. The group has representatives on five continents, and will work on the project with start-up fund management platform Disberse.

 “This exciting partnership…could catalyse a new way of working,” said Start Network director Sean Lowrie: “one that is transparent, fast and which drives accountability to taxpayers and those affected by crises.”

Disberse uses blockchain, which records all transactions in a distributed digital ledger, to ensure that less money is lost on inefficient exchange rates, banking fees and currency fluctuations. It will also help charities to fight fraud (in 2012, then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that 30 per cent of all UN development assistance was lost to corruption), by tracking all transactions.

More at: Charities use blockchain for cost savings – V3

US Accounting Standards Body Weighs New Digital Currency Rules – CoinDesk

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a financial accounting standards body in the US, is reportedly considering whether to undertake a new initiative on digital currencies.

According to Reuters, the FASB – which sets accounting standards for publicly traded US firms – hasn’t yet decided if it will develop new guidelines for companies dealing with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, the non-profit is apparently assessing whether it should begin that process following a request from the Washington, DC-based Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC) – a trade organization for companies and groups working in the digital currency and blockchain space.

In a letter to the board, dated June 8, CDC founder and president Perianne Boring argued that the lack of standards is creating a barrier for both investors and entrepreneurs:

“The absence of accounting standards for digital currencies is a mission critical issue for companies seeking to invest and innovate in this exciting technology frontier and may hold back economic growth in the United States.”

More at: US Accounting Standards Body Weighs New Digital Currency Rules – CoinDesk

Blockchain Could Make the Insurance Industry Much More Transparent – Harvard Business Review

While Edward Lloyd is largely credited with commercializing the insurance industry, with the creation of his namesake firm, Lloyd’s, over 330 years ago, the original concept of spreading risk (or “mutualizing”) goes back even further. Hundreds of years before Lloyd’s was formed, Chinese merchants would spread their valuable cargo across multiple vessels, with each one carrying an equal share of another merchant’s goods. In this manner, no single loss would be catastrophic. This spread of risk, of course, also prevented a merchant from absconding with his ship’s goods and never reuniting with the other traders; he’d have too much to lose. In effect, they all had skin in the game, which remains one of the most elusive elements of modern finance. Both then and in 1686, when Lloyd’s was born in a London coffee house, the global insurance industry was a business of utmost good faith, as it remains today.

Thus a trust and efficiency engine like blockchain technology has the potential to drive radical change in the insurance industry while improving transparency and outcomes across the entire value chain. Intermediaries or “trust brokers” do not have to be written out of the equation — or disintermediated — as many blockchain enthusiasts argue. Rather, they can become early adopters of the technology. Admittedly, this shift will be hardest on the established monoliths in the industry, for it will require uncomfortable transparency and price corrections in their business models. This will be toughest on the portions of the industry that are the least differentiated, where consumers often decide based on price: auto, life, and homeowner’s insurance. However, even these commodity offerings can find ways to innovate and survive.

More at: Blockchain Could Make the Insurance Industry Much More Transparent – Harvard Business Review

GSA ramps up blockchain exploration — GCN

When the General Services Administration’s Justin Herman launched a pilot program for virtual assistants in April, he did not expect more than six agencies to be interested. Today, 27 agencies have submitted potential uses cases for artificial intelligence-based personal assistants to GSA’s GitHub repository.

Herman, who leads GSA’s Emerging Citizen Technology Program Office, is already working on his next pilot program to bring blockchain into the federal government space. On July 18, Herman’s office will be hosting the U.S. Federal Blockchain Forum to collect potential use cases for blockchain and determine how the tech would work in the public sector when it comes to resources, policy and compliance.

 “We launched the U.S. government blockchain community a couple of weeks ago, and it now includes more than 100 managers across the federal space, state and local blockchain program managers and White House advisors as well as the Congressional Blockchain Caucus,” Herman told GCN.

Herman’s office was designed to help government agencies create tangible use cases for technologies that are reaching a tipping point. “Through the Emerging Citizen Technology Program, we are putting together governmentwide initiatives that are uniting agencies to start building a roadmap to identify the new resources, policies, guidance and relationships in a way that ultimately deliver the best services for American taxpayers,” he said.

More at: GSA ramps up blockchain exploration — GCN

Congressional Blockchain Education Day – ETHNews.com

On July 11, 2017, the Chamber of Digital Commerce hosted the Congressional BlockchainEducation Day. The world’s largest blockchain trade association sought to promote the benefits of the relatively new technology to members of the House and Senate. Working alongside representatives from over sixty Chamber member companies, blockchain advocates spent the working day on Capitol Hill enlightening lawmakers about the technology underpinning a global digital currency awakening.

In a brief announcement on Monday, Chamber of Digital Commerce founder and president Perianne Boring stated:

“We are delighted that so many of the Chamber’s members are flying in to Washington, DC to meet with and help educate our legislators and their staff on this breakthrough and potentially multi-trillion-dollar technology. We’re honored that participants will have the opportunity to hear directly from Members of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus.”

More at: Congressional Blockchain Education Day – ETHNews.com

Bank of England gets closer to blockchain, AI – FinanceFeeds

The latest PoCs covered: analysis of large-scale supervisory data sets; executing high-value payments across currencies and borders; identifying and applying cross-cutting legal themes from regulatory enforcement actions; and measuring performance on the Bank’s internal projects portfolio.

The Bank of England has moved closer to the latest achievements in the financial technology arena, as shown by the results of the third round of Proofs of Concept (POCs) completed by its FinTech Accelerator. In an announcement on Monday, the Bank said the latest PoCs covered four key areas of its work: analysis of large-scale supervisory data sets; executing high-value payments across currencies and borders; identifying and applying cross-cutting legal themes from regulatory enforcement actions; and measuring performance on the Bank’s internal projects portfolio.

An important step was taken towards the use of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, as the Bank has collaborated with Mindbridge Ai, a machine learning and AI firm, to explore the analytical value of using AI tools to detect anomalies in supervisory data sets. Via the use of a sample set of anonymised reporting data, it was found that Mindbridge’s user interface is intuitive, allowing the user to explore a time series of each variable, while comparing the results to industry averages. This PoC allowed the Bank’s internal team of data scientists to compare and contrast their own findings and the underlying algorithms being used, providing a complementary layer to the Bank’s work.

An interesting development was seen in the Bank’s collaboration with Ripple in the area of distributed ledger technology (DLT). In this PoC, the Bank and Ripple examined how DLT could be used to model the synchronised movement of two different currencies across two different ledgers. This formed part of the Bank’s wider research into the future of high-value payments.

The Bank has already concluded that DLT is “not sufficiently mature” to support the core RTGS system, but the exercise with Ripple has reinforced the Bank’s intention to ensure its new RTGS system is compatible with DLT usage in the private sector. The Bank has also identified areas where it would like to conduct further exploratory work.

More at: Bank of England gets closer to blockchain, AI – FinanceFeeds

Hybrid cloud and blockchain solutions will be the future for data backup

Migrating data backup to hybrid cloud and blockchain solutions is an evolutionary no-brainer

Civilisation is built on the ability to manipulate complex data – and on the ability to store that data securely, yet in a retrievable and usable form.

The earliest civilisations used clay tablets, tally sticks, knotted string and scrolls to keep their data safe; with the dawn of the Machine Age, the evolution of storage systems picked up pace, and society rattled through punch cards, cogs, magnetic media, Hard Disc Drives, floppy discs, optical storage systems like CD-ROMs, Laserdisc and DVDs, flash drives and the now almost ubiquitous USB sticks.

The logical next step, given improvements in telecoms and the development of WiFi, broadband, 3G, 4G and 5G services, is to migrate to hybrid cloud data storage, where vital data is kept safe by being distributed across multiple remote locations in off-site servers and can be accessed via Cloud-based platforms as and when necessary.

More at: Hybrid cloud and blockchain solutions will be the future for data backup

Chamber of Digital Commerce To Host “Congressional Blockchain Education Day” on July 11th – MarketWired

Microsoft to co-host the initiative with participation from over 60 blockchain companies on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON, DC–(Marketwired – Jul 10, 2017) – The Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world’s largest trade association representing the blockchain industry, is hosting Congressional Blockchain Education Day this Tuesday. Chamber member companies will spend the day meeting with Members of U.S. Congress, Senators and their staffs to bring awareness to the importance of blockchain technology.

The day will also include a smart contracts briefing at 12:00pm in Rayburn House Office Building 2020 featuring a technology demonstration by Symbiont, the technology partner for the Delaware Blockchain Initiative.

Members of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus will address the national gathering of entrepreneurs at a cocktail reception in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center Atrium at 5:00pm.

More at: Chamber of Digital Commerce To Host “Congressional Blockchain Education Day” on July 11th – MarketWired

Top 4 Ethereum Criticisms Which Need to be Addressed – The Merkle

The Ethereum ecosystem has not yet reached its full potential. Numerous issues have popped up in recent months which may be holding it back. These will need to be resolved soon for Etereum to really take off. Even Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin acknowledges there are many issues which hinder the growth of Ethereum. Below are some of his views on the things that will need to be improved for the foreseeable future.

4. HOLDING LARGE AMOUNTS

It is interesting to see the public face of Ethereum acknowledge the project suffers from issues which make it difficult for most users to hold large amounts of Ether. Buterin feels there is a significant risk of theft, mainly due to third-party wallet service providers and exchanges. There is also the chance of users losing their private keys. These are not issues unique to Ethereum, but it is something any ETH users should be aware of.

More at: Top 4 Ethereum Criticisms Which Need to be Addressed – The Merkle