tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31794397243294202132024-03-18T03:03:53.687-07:00Blockchain ABCA Blockchain A-Z of useful articles, explanations and analyses of the key issues, aspects and concerns of blockchain technology and distributed/shared ledgers; and their current and future potential in banking & finance, law, government and commerce. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-5548860855446007592022-04-03T06:50:00.000-07:002022-04-03T06:50:10.354-07:00<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">10 Years in Bitcoin : 2012 - 2022</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-b768fbf6-7fff-3f1a-5c6b-d737ba458fc4"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On 3 April 2012 my life changed; it was just an ordinary spring sunny day in London (like today) and I came across an article in the London Times about bitcoin. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://tinyurl.com/bitcoinTheTimes" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tinyurl.com/bitcoinTheTimes</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was my Eureka! moment about the potential future of money - decentralized, under the control of no-one, with no trusted central authority. Bitcoin is on a decentralized ledger called a Blockchain.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The link above to the Times article is also on the header of my twitter account which I changed to this handle - @BitcoinByte on the same day, when I jumped into action, securing a domain and creating my first blog post on the following day:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://bitcoinbytes.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-is-bitcoin.html?m=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://bitcoinbytes.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-is-bitcoin.html?m=0</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prior to Bitcoin and the world of digital currencies I had devoted my career to finance and innovation (e.g. Dubai) and loved technology. Having a deep understanding of how the global banking system operates my ‘a-ha’ moment came suddenly with Bitcoin. I very quickly became something of a bitcoin ‘aficionado’ to anyone who would listen and built up quite a following; from there onwards it was a fascinating ride and a lot of fun. I made friends, traveled the world to present at conferences (Cards & Payments) both in South Africa (Johannesburg) and Singapore and continued to learn a great deal. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2012, the London Bitcoin scene was not yet on the mainstream radar and was a melting pot of intellectuals, futurists and open-minded disruptors hoping to bring about positive change to the current legacy banking, money and financial system. Meetups were a fun place to be, full of hope and excitement. I was welcomed by this community and seem to stand out somewhat as an older ex-establishment figure. People were often surprised that an ex-banker, someone with international experience in London, Dubai and Moscow should have embraced this amazing new scene. But far from being held at arm's length, I was supported, pushed even towards speaking out more and helping spread the word as for example in this Forbes piece on Bitcoin by Jon Matonis in 2012.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/11/03/ecb-roots-of-bitcoin-can-be-found-in-the-austrian-school-of-economics/?sh=741cbac23b18" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/11/03/ecb-roots-of-bitcoin-can-be-found-in-the-austrian-school-of-economics/?sh=741cbac23b18</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before long I was being asked to make presentations about Bitcoin to a major UK clearing bank in July 2012 at their Canary Wharf HQ, then again late that year to their credit card HQ in Northampton. In 2013 I was called to present to senior UK civil servants at the Future of Money event held at the Department for Business Information and Skills in Victoria. This was picked up and reported in the Financial Times:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/42ca6762-bbfc-11e2-82df-00144feab7de" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.ft.com/content/42ca6762-bbfc-11e2-82df-00144feab7de</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did other follow-up work including leading a Cabinet Office round table event, a successful and positive meeting with HMRC regarding VAT on Bitcoin - link </span><a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/12/06/uk-tax-authority-hmrc-rethinks-stance-on-bitcoin/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/12/06/uk-tax-authority-hmrc-rethinks-stance-on-bitcoin/ and HM Treasury</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A year after I started, I gave this interview with System D media highlighting the FT front page article on Bitcoin </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1cw251/system_d_media_interview_michael_parsons_about/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1cw251/system_d_media_interview_michael_parsons_about/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next came media interest. With Bitcoin surging to $1000+ in 2013 a British national broadcaster, ITV, did a news segment on Bitcoin. ITV presented this as something of a novelty piece, I can be seen buying, on TV, the first ever pint of Beer using bitcoin (for £3.00 / 0.0474 BTC – now about £1,650!). Looking back now I am proud to have been able to bring this tech to life for skeptics. ITV have since taken down the clip, but you can still see it on the wayback machine. </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130629200720/https://www.itv.com/news/london/topic/bitcoin/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://web.archive.org/web/20130629200720/https://www.itv.com/news/london/topic/bitcoin/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As time went on I made more friends in the space and met many of the bitcoin pioneers and thought leaders. International crypto innovators, disruptors and travelers stayed at my house. I visited many of the key active players of the time at squats and underground events. Memorable ‘pre-fame’ interactions with Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Andreas Antonopolous, Nic Carey, Erik Voorhees, Amir Taaki, Mike Hearn, (etc, etc). In those days, crypto in-fighting was minimal, Bitcoin was a unifying force and Satoshi was a wonderful mystery.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like many others, particularly after Ethereum launched, I strayed away from Bitcoin, keeping an open mind to innovation and becoming frustrated with some of its shortfalls. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peer–to-Peer, censorship resistant, electronic cash was still my main interest but the tantalising disruptive prospect of smart contracts was a strong siren song. But even during those years I never lost sight of where it had all begun and the key role of Bitcoin at the centre of the crypto universe.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I continued (and will continue) to make appearances on the BBC, Sky and Al-Jazeera news channels promoting and discussing Bitcoin e.g. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BBC News - Bitcoin / CSW </span><a href="https://youtu.be/m-S1rCHefLU" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://youtu.be/m-S1rCHefLU</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BBC News - Bitcoin / </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFfGbDtiEio" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFfGbDtiEio</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al Jazeera Arabic channel - Bitcoin </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al Jazeera - Arabic channel -Bitcoin </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BBC R4 Report: Bitcoin - </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/r4report/r4report_20130425-2230a.mp3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/r4report/r4report_20130425-2230a.mp3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BBC Radio 5 Live - no link</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bit-Talk with BitcoinByte - </span><a href="http://www.iamsatoshi.com/bit-talk-bitcoin-byte/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.iamsatoshi.com/bit-talk-bitcoin-byte/</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some years ago some of my time was spent offering occasional consultancy (as a member of 3 expert networks) through my company: I have made telephone and personal presentations about bitcoin/blockchain/crypto to very well-known global companies, including merchant banks, tech stocks and global hedge funds. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although this article is about my own discovery of, and my 10 year bitcoin journey, – outside of bitcoin, I would mention that many of the early adopters whom I know in the blockchain/token/crypto space have gone on from bitcoin to achieve success and recognition with further innovations and development.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My predictions for the next ten years? With Bitcoin, Crypto and Blockchain now having entered the mainstream since late 2017, innovation is continuing to accelerate at an almost exponential rate, compared to the early days prior to 2015 when Ethereum (ETH) was the main additional crypto token launched. Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to be the market leaders with innovations continuing with the development of many other useful Tokens, Stablecoins, De-Fi (Decentralized Finance) and of course NFT’s (Non Fungible Tokens).</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My thanks and cheers to:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://twitter.com/BitcoinByte/status/319845760449527809</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Media</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have also built up significant and useful networks on both on both Twitter: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(@BitcoinByte & @Bitc01n) </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and LinkedIn: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><a href="http://linkedin.com/in/michaelparsons" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://linkedin.com/in/michaelparsons</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ), being connected and well-known to many of the important names in the bitcoin/crypto/blockchain space. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As at 28 March 2022: “Good job @BitcoinByte, you are 84 on #CryptoLeaders the toplist of Crypto & Bitcoin Influencers.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://top.visitory.com/LeaderBoard/hashtag/CryptoLeaders/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://top.visitory.com/LeaderBoard/hashtag/CryptoLeaders/</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/VisitoryGlobal/status/1461316588624388096" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://twitter.com/VisitoryGlobal/status/1461316588624388096</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has been a very interesting and exciting 10 years and I wish everyone success in whatever they choose to do in the future in this fast moving, dynamic and engaging space.</span></p><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-54296051135064063922017-04-24T06:34:00.001-07:002017-04-24T06:34:53.435-07:00Cardano: A Blockchain with privacy and regulation<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Blockchain is a potentially transformative technology</em><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;">. However current solutions are hampered by issues such as lack of regulatory oversight, experimental software with unproven security, poor governance that stifles scalability, and a lack of long-term planning for protocols. With the imminent launch of the Cardano protocol and the completion of the first ever crowdsale to perform detailed compliance checks on its 10,000 individuals, Cardano aims to change this.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.063px;">What is Cardano?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.8); letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><a href="https://medium.com/@BitcoinByte/a-blockchain-with-privacy-and-regulation-cardano-3606e1288bc2" target="_blank">Read the full article on medium by Michael Parsons </a></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-81334781095677015002017-04-24T06:16:00.001-07:002017-04-24T06:23:03.368-07:00Blockchain and the future of audit<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Some say it will be as big as the internet, so what exactly is Blockchain? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">We’ve been told that Blockchain is set to transform financial transactions and thus the world of corporate reporting. It’s predicted to be as big as the internet, but what exactly is it and how could it affect all of us?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-variant-ligatures: normal;">Blockchain is a type of database known as a distributed ledger that operates on a consensus basis. Whenever a user submits a new data block to the blockchain, the majority of other users must confirm that it is valid. The database does not have a central administrator.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Read the full article and watch a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">video which explains what blockchain does, how it works and the ways in which it will affect us all:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/assurance/ey-reporting-blockchain-and-the-future-of-audit" target="_blank">Blockchain and the future of audit</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://players.brightcove.net/1066292269001/BJmSlObm_default/index.html?videoId=5182463760001" target="_blank">Blockchain video</a></span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com73tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-87188913064035607582016-11-29T06:04:00.002-08:002016-11-29T08:12:12.998-08:00Blockchain - White Paper on DLT<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.hkma.gov.hk/media/eng/doc/key-functions/finanical-infrastructure/Whitepaper_On_Distributed_Ledger_Technology.pdf" target="_blank">Whitepaper</a> on Distributed Ledger Technology</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"DLT.... is better known as “blockchain.” and is essentially a technology that supports networks of
databases that enable participants to create, disseminate and store information in a secure and efficient
manner. While database technologies are not new, what makes DLT's special is that these networks of
databases can operate smoothly and securely without necessarily being controlled and administered by a
central party that is known and trusted by every participant."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"Bitcoin marked the introduction of blockchain-based DLT. Since then, there has been a rapid evolution in
the design of DLT platforms. Platforms with varied features and characteristics have emerged on which
developers can build different applications.
DLT platforms can be divided into two main categories: <i>unpermissioned</i> and <i>permissioned.</i> In
<i>unpermissioned </i>platforms, the ledger is maintained by collaborative action among nodes in the public
network, and is accessible to anyone. In a <i>permissioned</i> platform, participation is restricted to member
nodes only: the ledger is maintained by authorised nodes and is accessible to registered members only.
Permissioned platforms enable fast transaction validation to take place, offer enhanced privacy, and at the
same time take less energy to operate."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b><a href="http://www.hkma.gov.hk/media/eng/doc/key-functions/finanical-infrastructure/Whitepaper_On_Distributed_Ledger_Technology.pdf" target="_blank">The Research White Paper </a></b></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.hkma.gov.hk/media/eng/doc/key-functions/finanical-infrastructure/Whitepaper_On_Distributed_Ledger_Technology.pdf" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">The full DLT Whitepaper is here</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">In this connection, the Fintech Facilitation Office (FFO) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has
commissioned the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) to conduct a
research project on the subject of DLT. The key objectives of this project are to carry out an open-minded
and an in-depth examination of the technology (including an investigation into its potential, its risks, and
its regulatory implications); and to identify possible applications of DLT to banking services by engaging in
proof-of-concept work."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-59436006126235736652016-02-29T04:23:00.000-08:002016-11-29T06:19:04.344-08:00Rootstock Explained | Smart Contracts on the Bitcoin Blockchain<span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"As a concept the Rootstock [1] platform is one of those ideas that once it is proposed it is obvious that it is a great idea. Essentially Rootstock aims to be what Ethereum is, a decentralized, Turing-complete smart contract platform. However, Rootstock aims to utilize the Bitcoin ecosystem rather than creating a new one from scratch. The way this will be accomplished is via the still not fully implemented sidechains technology [2]. This approach presents both advantages, and its own set of challenges. We will briefly outline what the Rootstock platform promises to offer and then will discuss the main points of the proposal."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Rootstock will exist as a Bitcoin sidechain. If you haven’t heard of the sidechains proposal you can review the whitepaper </span><a href="https://blockstream.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/sidechains.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; font-family: "source sans pro", helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, or read our explanation of sidechains </span><a href="http://blog.cryptoiq.ca/?p=19" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; font-family: "source sans pro", helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. But in summary a sidechain is a blockchain that is separate from the main Bitcoin Blockchain, but assets can be transferred back and forth."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Full post <a href="http://blog.cryptoiq.ca/?p=320" target="_blank">here by </a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://blog.cryptoiq.ca/?p=320" target="_blank">Albert Szmigielski</a></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-37505030250569940792015-11-06T08:49:00.001-08:002015-11-06T08:52:20.893-08:00Permissioned Ledgers And The Case For Blockchains Without Bitcoin - Tim Swanson<div class="show_description" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<b>Tim Swanson recorded this in June 2015 </b><i>- an important addition to the Bitcoin blockchain debate:</i><br />
One topic that is guaranteed to cause heated discussion among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is the idea that blockchains can be controlled by known validators and function without an underlying cryptocurrency. Some think this is a non-sensical idea fabricated by those spineless enough to want to appease regulators and but clueless enough to miss the whole point of cryptocurrencies. But others believe that Bitcoin is unsuited for a lof of ‘Bitcoin 2.0’ applications and that permissioned ledgers have wide-reaching potential to increase efficiency and transparency.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<a href="https://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/084/" target="_blank">Tim Swanson takes part in an important discussion of permissioned ledgers.</a> He’s among their best-known proponents and has recently published a whitepaper discussing how they work and looking at different startups in the space.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Topics covered included:<br />
– Why the ‘blockchains without bitcoin’ idea is so controversial<br />
– Why it is strange that KYC is done widely on Bitcoin users but not on the validators<br />
– Why even semi-decentralized blockchains can provide big efficiency gains<br />
– Why the 51% attack possibility is an obstacle for the use of the Bitcoin as a settlement network<br />
– Why financial institutions don’t care about censorship resistance but do care about irreversibility</div>
</div>
<div class="show_links" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br />
<aside style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><h4 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Reso, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Links</h4>
<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px 26px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-image: url(https://epicenterbitcoin.com/wp-content/thesis/skins/nina-cross-promo/images/list.png); margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1QLDrMn" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14a693; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="Tim Swanson: Permissioned Distributed Ledgers Whitepaper">Tim Swanson: Permissioned Distributed Ledgers Whitepaper</a></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-image: url(https://epicenterbitcoin.com/wp-content/thesis/skins/nina-cross-promo/images/list.png); margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1JdB94z" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14a693; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="Tim Swanson: Needing a Token to Operate a Distributed Ledger is a Red Herring">Tim Swanson: Needing a Token to Operate a Distributed Ledger is a Red Herring</a></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-image: url(https://epicenterbitcoin.com/wp-content/thesis/skins/nina-cross-promo/images/list.png); margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1eCRz9P" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14a693; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="Robert Sams: No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement">Robert Sams: No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement</a></li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style-image: url(https://epicenterbitcoin.com/wp-content/thesis/skins/nina-cross-promo/images/list.png); margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="http://bit.ly/1GhoxmQ" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14a693; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank" title="JP Koning: Why bitcoin has failed to achieve liftoff as a medium of exchange">JP Koning: Why bitcoin has failed to achieve liftoff as a medium of exchange</a></li>
</ul>
</aside></div>
<div class="show_meta" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br />
<aside style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<dl style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<dt style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Discussion here:</dt>
<dd style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/084/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14a693; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">https://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/084/</a></dd></dl>
</aside></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-73953916386097762602015-11-04T08:18:00.003-08:002015-11-04T08:21:14.245-08:00Bitcoin to be the world's sixth largest global reserve currency?<div style="border: 0px; color: #404041; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.32em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Bitcoin is going to be the world’s sixth largest global reserve currency, a new study has found, as blockchain becomes increasingly important to mainstream lenders.</div>
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Interviewing 30 leading bitcoin companies, mergers and acquisitions adviser Magister Advisors found that over the next 15 years bitcoin is set to soar in popularity as a reserve currency, a currency held by governments and institutions in large amounts, as part of their foreign exchange reserves.</div>
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Today, the US dollar is the most popular reserve<br />
<ins style="border: 0px; display: inline-table; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; height: 250px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: 300px;"></ins></div>
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Bitcoin has been having a bullish month, with the price <a href="http://www.cityam.com/227716/bitcoin-price-the-digital-currency-just-hit-a-2015-high" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 152, 218) !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">soaring to a 2015 high last week</a>, and trading at $374 today. The cryptocurrency was also boosted by the European Commission’s recent decision to <a href="http://www.cityam.com/227120/european-court-of-justice-bitcoin-is-exempt-from-vat" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 152, 218) !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">exempt it from VAT</a>, effectively accepting it as a currency.</div>
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But the real game changer, the study argues, is likely to be the technology that bitcoin builds upon: the distributed ledger known as the blockchain.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #404041; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.32em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Magister Advisors estimates that the top 100 global financial institutions will invest over $1bn on blockchain-related projects in the next two years. Major banks, including <a href="http://www.cityam.com/company/barclays" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 152, 218) !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Barclays</a>, and UBS are <a href="http://www.cityam.com/226639/barclays-is-teaming-up-with-blockchain-startups-chainalysis-and-wave-as-the-banks-bitcoin-experiment-expands" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 152, 218) !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">increasingly experimenting with blockchain</a> to keep up with the developing technology.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #404041; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.32em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Jeremy Millar, a partner at Magister Advisor, said:</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #404041; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.32em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"We have now reached a fork in the road with bitcoin and blockchain. Bitcoin has proven itself as an established currency. Blockchain, more fundamentally, will become the default global standard distributed ledger for financial transactions."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><a href="http://www.cityam.com/227903/bitcoin-will-become-sixth-largest-global-reserve-currency-by-2030" target="_blank">Read the full article here</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-45222862520467787632015-10-30T07:14:00.000-07:002015-10-30T07:19:22.878-07:00Blockchains: The great chain of being sure about things<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #5b5b5b; line-height: 2rem; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The (Blockchain) technology behind bitcoin lets people who do not know or trust each other build a dependable ledger. This has implications far beyond the bitcoin cryptocurrency.</b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The blockchain began life in the mind of Satoshi Nakamoto, the brilliant, pseudonymous and so far unidentified creator of bitcoin—a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash”, as he put it in a paper published in 2008. To work as cash, bitcoin had to be able to change hands without being diverted into the wrong account and to be incapable of being spent twice by the same person. To fulfil Mr Nakamoto’s dream of a decentralised system the avoidance of such abuses had to be achieved without recourse to any trusted third party, such as the banks which stand behind conventional payment systems.</span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #4a4a4a; line-height: 2.3rem; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is the blockchain that replaces this trusted third party. A database that contains the payment history of every bitcoin in circulation, the blockchain provides proof of who owns what at any given juncture. This distributed ledger is replicated on thousands of computers—bitcoin’s “nodes”—around the world and is publicly available. But for all its openness it is also trustworthy and secure. This is guaranteed by the mixture of mathematical subtlety and computational brute force built into its “consensus mechanism”—the process by which the nodes agree on how to update the blockchain in the light of bitcoin transfers from one person to another."</span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #5b5b5b; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 2rem; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #4a4a4a; line-height: 23px;">"...a world with record-keeping mathematically immune to manipulation would have many benefits. </span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; line-height: 23px;">If blockchains have a fundamental paradox, it is this: by offering a way of setting the past and present in cryptographic stone, they could make the future a very different place."</span></span></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #5b5b5b; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 2rem; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21677228-technology-behind-bitcoin-lets-people-who-do-not-know-or-trust-each-other-build-dependable" target="_blank">Read the full article in the Economist here</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Leader article: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 2.3rem;"><span style="color: red;">T</span><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21677198-technology-behind-bitcoin-could-transform-how-economy-works-trust-machine" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">he promise of the blockchain</span><span style="color: #e3120b;"> -</span></a></span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 4rem;"><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21677198-technology-behind-bitcoin-could-transform-how-economy-works-trust-machine" target="_blank">The trust machine</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-67359983476615223832015-10-20T02:29:00.004-07:002015-10-20T02:29:36.808-07:00A Brief Introduction to Smart ContractsA Brief Introduction to Smart Contracts<br />
By Charles Hoskinson<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/3bY66Zgr8Cs" target="_blank">YouTube video presentation here</a><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-6692328919024649922015-10-16T04:28:00.003-07:002015-10-16T04:52:22.290-07:00Why and How Banks should embrace Blockchain Tech<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #353536; font-family: ProximaNova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
"A recent flurry of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ubs-barclays-bnp-paribas-are-front-runners-bitcoin-2-0-technology-ethereum-1514138" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.25s linear; border: 0px; color: #408bfe; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s linear;" target="_blank">media reports</a> and <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/survey-47-of-finance-pros-say-firms-exploring-blockchain-tech/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.25s linear; border: 0px; color: #408bfe; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s linear;">surveys</a> have touted that some banking and financial services sector players are <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/8-banking-giants-bitcoin-blockchain/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.25s linear; border: 0px; color: #408bfe; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.25s linear;">undertaking interesting projects with blockchains and decentralized ledgers</a> in particular. But this burst of activity is hardly enough to prematurely claim victory on behalf of the few banks who have publicized such initiatives.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #353536; font-family: ProximaNova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
It is naive to assume that the blockchain will make the most impact where it is to be adopted early. Rather, it will make the most impact where change is hardest to achieve, and that might take a little longer, realistically.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #353536; font-family: ProximaNova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
The blockchain and its derivative technologies are one of the biggest opportunities for reengineering financial services. It’s a looming tsunami, and the big question is whether the banks will fail to reinvent themselves as they did with the Internet, or if they will dare to induce a self-inflicted shake-up and embrace the future."<br />
<br />
<strong style="border: 0px rgb(230, 230, 230); color: #505050; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"The blockchain is not perfect, but it is that perfect catalyst for business process changes</strong><span style="color: #505050; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, and this type of opportunity doesn’t present itself that often. The last time it came was with the Internet. Let’s hope the banks see this as a big opportunity for change, not just a small one."</span><br />
<br />
Read the 3 full articles by William Mougayar:<br />
1. <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-another-banking-headache/" target="_blank">Bitcoin: Another Banking Headache</a><br />
2. <a href="http://startupmanagement.org/2015/08/05/dear-big-bank-ceo-re-blockchains-obliterate-dont-automate/" target="_blank">Dear Big Bank CEO, Re: Blockchains: Obliterate don't Automate</a><br />
(Also: <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/why-and-how-banks-should-embrace-blockchain-tech/" target="_blank">Coindesk edited version) </a><br />
3. <a href="http://www.coindesk.com/the-8-steps-to-becoming-a-bitcoin-savvy-bank/" target="_blank">The 8 Steps to becoming a Bitcoin-Savvy Bank</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-79306101073642385762015-10-08T06:02:00.003-07:002015-10-09T01:59:50.403-07:00Blockchain in the Banking Industry - Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit 2015 London <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is a video of the panel speaking on:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"The Future of Finance: Blockchain in the Banking Industry"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">at Bloomberg Markets, Most Influential Summit 2015, London. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The panel of speakers were:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jon Matonis (Bitcoin Foundation), Richard Brown (R3 CEV)</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, Oliver Bussmann. UBS), and Daniel Marovitz (Earthport); the moderator was Ed Robinson who is a senior writer with Bloomberg Markets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The panel discussed the opportunities and challenges of the blockchain – the code behind bitcoin – and it's potential impact on the banking and financial services industry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After 32 mins, listen to a key Blockchain/blockchain question posited by Michael Parsons @BlockchainABC @BitcoinByte and expertly answered by @jonmatonis</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Video here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://t.co/YPPBAecok6" target="_blank">Future of Finance: Blockchain in the Banking Industry- Bloomberg Business</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-14714106428518992532015-10-06T06:39:00.000-07:002015-10-06T07:37:19.339-07:00Private blockchains are not “just” shared databases<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To state that a private blockchain is just a shared database is like saying that HTML and HTTP are “just” distributed hypertext. It’s wrong in two ways. First, the semantic one: private blockchains are a technology that enables shared databases, like pens enable writing and HTML/HTTP enable distributed hypertext. The bitcoin blockchain and its primary application cannot be meaningfully separated, because one could not exist without the other. But this equivalence does not apply to private blockchains at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes, private blockchains are just a way to share a database. But they enable a new type of shared database, with huge implications for the financial world and beyond.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.multichain.com/blog/2015/10/private-blockchains-shared-databases/" target="_blank">Read the full article by Dr Gideon Greenspan to find out exactly why</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-18411965562738410332015-10-05T04:42:00.000-07:002015-10-05T05:28:35.458-07:00Blockchains and Banks<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s a conundrum concerning blockchains: Bitcoin bundled together various existing technologies in a unique fashion to create something genuinely new — an almost unhackable, replicated database with no master server, via updates which are based on quickly verifiable effort rather than permission. Blockchains (permissioned chains) remove the genuinely new bit, but they are the current focus of activity in the Financial Services sector. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bitcoin created an awareness of a mechanism that could conceivably disrupt both banks and existing banking infrastructure providers via a financial network without either middle men or trusted entities. This created the incentive for strategic investment to look into blockchain applications. These replace banking infrastructure providers with software that doesn’t need to be run by a separate entity (e.g. SWIFT), and lower internal costs but still keep the requirement for trusted entities (banks themselves).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What blockchains achieve could have been done before, albeit in a less elegant way, but there wasn’t the alignment of incentives to produce the applications that will create a de facto reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even without the advantages of the Bitcoin (Blockchain) approach, this will stimulate the creation of Internet era banking infrastructure. With them, we could see the web of money and, more generally, any kind of contract.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, internet era Banking Technology has found its best ‘Ecosystem fit’ in the form of blockchains.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://medium.com/design-matters-4/blockchains-and-banks-cef72f0fcf29" target="_blank">Read the full article By David Galbraith</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://medium.com/design-matters-4/blockchains-and-banks-cef72f0fcf29" target="_blank">Link Here </a></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-89604356496622140542015-09-30T03:35:00.000-07:002015-09-30T03:42:32.530-07:00Blockchain Design is Academic Work?<h1 itemprop="name headline" style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-weight: 300; line-height: 22px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; width: 347px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: small;">Blockchain design is academic work and shouldn't just be decided by banks, suggests Dr Gideon Greenspan, who is the founder of Coin Sciences and <a href="http://www.multichain.com/" target="_blank">MultiChain</a>. Dr Greenspan believes that the fundamentals of blockchain design constitutes "academic work" and is probably not something that should just be decided by banks alone. </span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">He continues; "...rather, I think this is work that should be done by experienced computer scientists and system architects, wherever they might happen to be."</span></h1>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/dr-gideon-greenspan-blockchain-design-academic-work-shouldnt-just-be-decided-by-banks-1520754" style="font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">Read the full article here</a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-74890343403009789782015-09-21T03:22:00.001-07:002015-09-21T04:27:19.255-07:00Blockchain in an Investment Bank<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What does blockchain technology mean for an investment bank?</span><br />
<span style="color: #00b5e2; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #00b5e2; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Blockchain is a disruptive technology platform that uses cryptography and a distributed
messaging protocol to create a shared ledger between trading counterparties. The idea is to allow
for a simple transfer of asset ownership or more complex transactions using “s</span><span style="color: #00b5e2; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">mart contracts" </span><br />
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<span style="color: #00b5e2;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blockchain technology was originally leveraged by cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin being the first and most successful) whose popularity gave<br />
rise to the idea of Blockchains as a means of building consensus. To that end, there are many
functions within capital markets and other industries which can be simplified and enhanced by
the order and validation in a distributed ledger via Blockchains."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #00b5e2;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source: <a href="http://fsblog.accenture.com/capital-markets/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/CM_ATS_POV_Blockchain_in_the_Investment_Bank-web.pdf" target="_blank">Read full article from Accenture here</a></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-33890793528287446682015-09-13T14:50:00.002-07:002015-09-13T15:17:12.948-07:00Distributed Ledgers<div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #666666; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 18px;">
<strong style="line-height: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Distributed ledgers</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://blockchainabc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/definition-of-blockchain.html?m=1" target="_blank">Blockchain</a> is just one type of public, permissionless, proof-of-work, peer-to-peer distributed ledger. Distributed ledgers are probably the future of financial services. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consider this statement from the Bank of England (<a href="http://blockchainabc.blogspot.co.uk/p/bank-of-england.html?m=1" target="_blank">2014 Quarterly Bulletin Q3</a>): “Although the monetary aspects of digital currencies have attracted considerable attention, the distributed ledger underlying their payment systems is a significant innovation. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The potential impact of the distributed ledger may be much broader than on payment systems alone. The majority of financial assets — such as loans, bonds, stocks and derivatives — now exist only in electronic form, meaning that the financial system itself is already simply a set of digital records.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #666666; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Concepts of trust arise in many philosophical puzzles. Mutual distributed ledgers look like becoming the system of trust in shared economies. If mutual distributed ledgers displace trusted third parties, they will change the systems outside them, most notably <a href="http://blockchainabc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/definition-of-blockchain.html?m=1" target="_blank">today’s financial services.</a></span></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Read the full article by Professor Michael Mainelli: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://dialoguereview.com/unblock-shared-economy/" target="_blank">Unblock the Shared Economy</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-15476301047423669452015-09-07T12:02:00.000-07:002015-09-08T04:24:45.245-07:00Blockchains Without Tokens <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Is there any value in a Blockchain without a cryptocurrency (token)? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">And can these “tokenless shared ledgers” be called blockchains at all?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dr Gideon Greenspan, of Coinspark - Coin Sciences Ltd, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">explains and debates the issue:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ending-bitcoin-vs-blockchain-debate-gideon-greenspan" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ending-bitcoin-vs-blockchain-debate-gideon-greenspan</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-15143204966123340592015-09-05T04:09:00.001-07:002015-09-05T04:18:07.077-07:00What are Colored Coins?<h3 class="graf--h3" id="1e00" name="1e00" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); font-size: 26px; letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: 1.2; margin: 18px 0px 4px -1.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Colored Coins: </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Due to the nature of the Bitcoin blockchain, bitcoins are not inherently fungible: every single coin mined can be uniquely identified and its entire history tracked. The smallest identifiable, indivisible, unit is known as a “satoshi.” A single “bitcoin” is a collection of 100,000,000 satoshis; thus the price of a satoshi is very low: about $0.0000026 at current market rates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This lack of fungibility, though potentially problematic, opens the door to the implementation of ledgers on top of the Bitcoin ledger. If several parties agree to attach meaning to a particular satoshi and to recognize its control as representative of the ownership of some other asset — potentially existing outside of the blockchain — then they can use the decentralized consensus offered by the Bitcoin blockchain to track ownership of the asset and permit secure transactions. The antecedent is crucial. The asset can only be tracked on the blockchain insofar as its physical custodians, or the relevant authorities, agree to recognize the legitimacy of the colored coin. The mere technological ability to track an asset, from common stocks to parcels of land, does not magically translate into the ability to form an authoritative record of ownership. All too often is that obvious fact sacrificed upon the altar of hype.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Assuming such an agreement is in place, these tiny, identifiable, pieces of bitcoin can be used to represent and track assets. Such a coin is known as a “colored coin.” In addition to the ownership tracking abilities inherited from the Bitcoin blockchain, small amounts of data can be embedded in the blockchain, allowing for potentially more complex mechanisms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Read the full article by ArthurB:</span><br />
<a href="https://medium.com/@arthurb/making-sense-of-colored-coins-c0a9e3459b1e" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Making Sense of Colored Coins"</span></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-69911211075371337252015-08-25T07:38:00.000-07:002015-08-27T03:22:50.999-07:00Blockchain Technology Will Transform the Practice of LawThe blockchain will not replace the need for lawyers. It will, however, change how lawyers approach contract drafting, administration and enforcement among other aspects of the practice.<br />
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In the future, transactional lawyers may draft contracts that resemble how developers code software applications. In fact, future lawyers will likely need basic-to-intermediate training in coding in order to implement smart contracts based on the blockchain — a phenomenon that is already taking hold in the general population. In addition, lawyers will need to understand the intricacies of how these systems work in order to counsel clients on potential pitfalls and best practices in utilizing these systems for their business. Countries, like Honduras, have already committed to replacing their existing real estate records with blockchain technology — which one day could allow for its citizens to sell or buy a house via an iPhone app.<br />
<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">This (blockchain technology) has significant implications for lawyers and the business of law. Ultimately, however, this technology offers a great opportunity for those firms who can innovate. Those firms that are willing to adapt and embrace this technology will be able to provide more effective and efficient services, which will lead to a competitive advantage over those firms who do not evolve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>By Joe Dewey, Partner, and Shawn Amuial, Associate, Attorneys at Holland & Knight</i></span></span></h5>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://bol.bna.com/blockchain-technology-will-transform-the-practice-of-law/" target="_blank">Read the full article here</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-43701382710141716752015-08-25T07:01:00.003-07:002015-08-27T07:15:03.734-07:00Banks and Exchanges Turn to BlockchainThe Blockchain — the technology that underpins bitcoin — has been called “the future for financial services infrastructure”. Now banks, clearing houses and exchanges are becoming increasingly excited at the prospect of blockchain fundamentally transforming their business models.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Banks and exchanges see a ledger updated in minutes as saving millions in collateral and settlement costs to third parties.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Blockchain technology continues to redefine not only how the exchange sector operates, but the global financial economy as a whole,” says Bob Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://tinyurl.com/BlockchainBanks" target="_blank">Read the full article published by the FT here:</a></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BlockchainBanks"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://tinyurl.com/BlockchainBanks</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><b>Comment:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">The Blockchain and its derivative technologies are one of the biggest opportunities in the last 30 years to re-engineer banks and financial services. The key question is whether the banks will fail to reinvent themselves as they did with the Internet, or if they will dare to induce a self-inflicted shake-up and embrace a "Blockchain Banking" technological future with significantly lower costs, less friction and faster settlement and clearing times. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #505050; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<b>FT Explainer: </b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At present, when one bank sends money to another, no physical currency changes hands. Banks and settlement systems use central electronic ledgers to track assets. But they can be slow and inefficient, often relying on faxes or manual input. That not only wastes time but racks up fees. The system is also open to hacking and fraud.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Proponents say a ledger updated in minutes <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/81b6145c-0309-11e5-b31d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3f7HHCwcm" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Nasdaq to step up blockchain trials - FT Trading Room">could save</a>millions in collateral and settlement costs, while also automating banks’ creaky and expensive back office systems. Collateral could also be moved around the system faster, to meet new rules on derivatives markets implemented after the financial crisis.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Full article here:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://t.co/OIpcZ8UMH6" target="_blank">The blockchain and financial markets </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">————————————————————</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Interview with Gideon Greenspan</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 23px;">"Crucially, banks want permissioned ledgers so they can say who can connect to the network, who can send, who can receive and who can confirm transactions."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #222222; font-family: HelveticaNeue, Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; padding: 0px; width: 292px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"While the bitcoin network expends vast amounts of collected computation power to prevent a 51% attack, private blockchains can employ simple but effective security enhancing techniques such as forced rotation mining patterns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
Greenspan explained: "If there are ten permitted miners (Ed: ie. validators) we could insist that at least eight of them mine in rotation."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Full article from IB Times:</span></div>
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<a href="http://t.co/fDfa2cLCRe" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What do banks want from blockchains?</span></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-56536388740801632052015-08-25T07:00:00.005-07:002015-08-27T07:11:56.642-07:00What is a Smart Contract?<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Smart Contracts</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Smart contracts are self-executing automated digital contracts stored and operated in a distributed blockchain.</span><br />
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<div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">A smart contract is an event-driven program, with state, which runs on a replicated, shared ledger and which can take custody over assets on that ledger. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">(An excellent definition of a <a href="http://gendal.me/2015/02/10/a-simple-model-for-smart-contracts/" target="_blank">Smart Contract by Richard Gendal Brown</a>)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Smart contracts refer to defined services which are enacted by code on a censorship-proof ledger system - the blockchain. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Smart contracts are able to securely execute a wide range of services including for example, financial exchanges, voting systems, property (land) registers, crowdfunding platforms, insurance, decentralised auction sites, a decentralised personal identity system, other self-enforcing contracts and intellectual property.</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><i>Main features of smart contacts are:</i></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Data Driven Verification</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Smart Contracts provide proof of performance by tracking verifiable data, eliminating the risks inherent in traditional paper contracts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Fully Automated Enforcement</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Smart Contracts can be written to execute their own conditions, eliminating the risk of relying on someone else to follow through on their commitments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Securely Stored in the Blockchain</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Smart Contracts are self-executing contractual states, stored on the blockchain, which nobody controls and therefore everyone can trust.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-60116323617544937152015-08-19T13:26:00.001-07:002015-10-28T00:10:55.980-07:00Public or Private Blockchains?<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">Bitcoin is the first iteration of a public decentralized Blockchain, controlled by no-one and cartel free.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">What other options are there? To summarize, there are generally three categories of blockchain-like database applications:</span><br />
<div style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<ul style="margin-left: 20.25px; margin-top: 30px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="list-style: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 9.515625px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Public blockchains</span>: a public blockchain is a blockchain that anyone in the world can read, anyone in the world can send transactions to and expect to see them included if they are valid, and anyone in the world can participate in the <em style="font-weight: 600;">consensus process</em> – the process for determining what blocks get added to the chain and what the current state is. As a substitute for centralized or quasi-centralized trust, public blockchains are secured by cryptoeconomics – the combination of economic incentives and cryptographic verification using mechanisms such as proof of work or proof of stake, following a general principle that the degree to which someone can have an influence in the consensus process is proportional to the quantity of economic resources that they can bring to bear. These blockchains are generally considered to be “fully decentralized”.</span></li>
<li style="list-style: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 9.515625px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Consortium blockchains</span>: a consortium blockchain is a blockchain where the consensus process is controlled by a pre-selected set of nodes; for example, one might imagine a consortium of 15 financial institutions, each of which operates a node and of which 10 must sign every block in order for the block to be valid. The right to read the blockchain may be public, or restricted to the participants, and there are also hybrid routes such as the root hashes of the blocks being public together with an API that allows members of the public to make a limited number of queries and get back cryptographic proofs of some parts of the blockchain state. These blockchains may be considered “partially decentralized”.</span></li>
<li style="list-style: square; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 9.515625px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Fully private blockchains</span>: a fully private blockchain is a blockchain where write permissions are kept centralized to one organization. Read permissions may be public or restricted to an arbitrary extent. Likely applications include database management, auditing, etc internal to a single company, and so public readability may not be necessary in many cases at all, though in other cases public auditability is desired.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source: read full article:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On <a href="https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/07/on-public-and-private-blockchains/" target="_blank">Public and Private Blockchains - ethereum blog </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">by: Vitalik Buterin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Forbes 9 September 2015: Bitcoin’s Shared Ledger Technology: <a href="http://t.co/fZ6jlYKYAo" target="_blank">Money’s New Operating System</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">See also -IB Times UK, by Ian Allison, 8 September 2015:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;">Nick Szabo: <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nick-szabo-if-banks-want-benefits-blockchains-they-must-go-permissionless-1518874" target="_blank">If banks want benefits of blockchains they must go permissionless</a></span></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 22px;">Extract:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Legendary cryptographer Nick Szabo says the only way to realise seamless, automated, and global financial integrity is if banks embrace permissionless blockchains, like the system Bitcoin runs on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If banks were to embrace permissionless blockchains they could participate as well or better than the newcomers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"But their bureaucracies are so heavily invested in the expertise and importance of local regulations and standards that it's extremely difficult for them to cut the Gordian knot and implement seamless global systems."</span><br />
See also:<br />
<div class="graf--p" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; margin-top: 2.4rem;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"There are many benefits to permissioned ledgers, but the cost of immutability provided by the most popular unpermissioned blockchain is so low, that it makes sense for even a permissioned ledger to utilize it as insurance.</span></div>
<div class="graf--p" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; margin-top: 2.4rem;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By using the same SHA encryption technology that protects bitcoin balances, I would argue that either the central point (i.e. permission giver) and each of the players in a permissioned blockchain can create a full hash of their blockchain and record it in the Op_Return of a unpermissioned blockchain. In fact I can see a future where permissioned ledger wallets/nodes vary their chatter to the decentralised network dependent on the level of risk they perceive in the permissioned ledger environment.</span></div>
<div class="graf--p" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 2.4rem; margin-top: 2.4rem;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By treating a permissioned blockchain almost as a mutable coloured coin asset on a decentralised blockchain, this cheap insurance policy will act to strengthen the immutability of the permissioned ledger, along with the prestige and reputation of the global blockchain."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Read the full article:
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/permissioned-ledgers-picking-low-hanging-fruit-phil-manville" target="_blank">Permissioned versus un-permis</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/permissioned-ledgers-picking-low-hanging-fruit-phil-manville" target="_blank">sioned Blockchain ledgers?</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FT article:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white;"><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7aad0826-638c-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html%23axzz3pks4yX3Y&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari" target="_blank">Blockchain promises back-office revolution</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white;">"For now the market remains split between three core system approaches: private blockchains such as R3CEV and DAH, known as permissioned ledgers, which make use of trusted networks; open-ended blockchains such as Ethereum, which stay faithful to bitcoin’s original design but improve on the smartness of the ledger technology; and applications designed to take direct advantage of the prevailing bitcoin network."</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179439724329420213.post-47597530131962813822015-08-17T17:16:00.001-07:002015-10-27T23:46:37.522-07:00Definition of Blockchain<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>What is a Blockchain?</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Video: Bitcoin's <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/video-bitcoins-blockchain-technology-explained-in-2-minutes-2015-09-09?utm_content=buffer1154d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">blockchain technology explained in 2 minutes</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://t.co/hFEND2jZb1" target="_blank">Blockchain Definition from Financial Times Lexicon</a></span><br />
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<h2>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></h2>
<h2>
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Blockchain description</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Blockchain is a peer-to-peer public ledger maintained by a distributed network of computers that requires no
central authority or third party intermediaries. It consists of three key components: a transaction, a transaction
record and a system that verifies and stores the transaction. The blocks are generated through open-source
software and record the information about when and in what sequence the transaction took place. This “block”
chronologically stores information of all the transactions that have taken place in the chain, thus the name
blockchain. In other words, a blockchain is a database of immutable time-stamped information of every transaction
that is replicated on servers across the globe. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Blockchain technology is the foundation of and underpins bitcoin, a decentralized digital cryptocurrency.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In traditional transactions such as money transfers or foreign currency, there is usually an intermediary or a
centralized entity that records the transmission of money or currency that exist apart from it. In a blockchain, the
token or digital coin itself is what has value, which is determined by the market. This is what makes the system a
truly decentralized exchange. When people buy or sell bitcoins, a secret key or token is broadcast to the system.
“Miners” use nodes, computers or devices linked to a network, to identify and validate the transaction using
copies of all or some information of the blockchain. Before the transaction is accepted by the network, miners
have to show “proof of work” using a cryptographic hash function –a special algorithm- that aims to provide high
levels of protection. Miners receive some form of compensation for their computing power contribution, avoiding
the need to have a centralized system. Newer protocols such as Ripple rely on a different consensus process that does not
need miners nor proof of work and can agree on the changes to the blockchain within seconds. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blockchain disruption in banking and finance</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first levels of disruption would seem more likely in the payments space where traditional transactions such as
money transfers, credit and debit card payments, remittances, foreign currency and online payments, require an
intermediary such as a clearing house or a financial institution. In these cases the transaction would occur
directly between the buyer and the seller without any intermediary and the validation of the transaction would
happen in a decentralized way or “distributed ledger”. This would result in significant infrastructure savings for
banks by allowing them to bypass payment networks that are oftentimes slow, cumbersome, and expensive.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
However, the biggest potential impact of a public ledger may extend beyond the payment system. Given that the
majority of financial assets such as bonds, equities, derivatives and loans are already electronic it may be
possible that someday the entire system is replaced by a decentralized structure. In fact, the latest innovations
are using tokens to store and trade assets like shares, bonds, cars, houses and commodities. These so-called
“colored coins” attach additional information on the asset, generating “smart property” or the ability to record and
transact these assets using “smart contracts”, which are enforced by complex algorithms, through distributed
platforms without a centralized register, thereby increasing efficiency. In this environment, the current system
where financial institutions record individuals’ accounts in a centralized fashion and the banks’ reserves are
stored by the central bank (ie. The Federal Reserve or The Bank of England) would be replaced by the “internet of money” or the “internet of
finance” – a fully decentralized and independent financial system. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Source: read full article:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: #009ee5;">Blockchain Technology: The Ultimate Disruption in </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: #009ee5;">the Financial System</span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); color: #009ee5;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...published by <a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150710_US_EW_BlockchainTechnology.pdf" target="_blank">BBVA </a><a href="https://www.bbvaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/150710_US_EW_BlockchainTechnology.pdf" target="_blank">research</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And, what about the Blockchain future?</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.701961); font-style: italic; line-height: 30px;">“blockchain technology…is presented as a piece of innovation on a par with the introduction of limited liability for corporations, or private property rights, or the internet itself” (</span><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21650295-or-it-next-big-thing" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border-bottom-color: rgb(78, 58, 126); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #4e3a7e; font-style: italic; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Economist</a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.701961); font-style: italic; line-height: 30px;">)</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2