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Tag: blockchain

  • Kakao’s blockchain gets 9 development partners

    Kakao’s blockchain gets 9 development partners

    Nine companies have agreed to develop apps for Kakao’s new Klaytn blockchain system. The public platform was developed by Ground X, Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary. It was offered on Oct. 8 on a test basis, or testnet. Kakao, Korea’s largest messenger app company, announced the introduction on Monday.

    The companies building the apps are from a wide range of industries from gaming to health care. They are planning to use Klaytn for the development and operation of dApps, or decentralized applications.

    Service operators are attracted to dApps because of their decentralized nature, transparency and ability to incentivize users through in-app rewards.

    Wemade Tree, a subsidiary of game developer Wemade Entertainment, is one of the Klatyn partners. Wemade said it wants to use blockchain because it allows for smooth and speedy operations. Wemade’s games, including its popular Legend of Mir massively multiplayer online role-playing games (Mmorpg) series, have over 200 million accumulated users.

    Piction Network, which helps web comic and novel creators retain ownership over their works while making them available for users, has also partnered with Klaytn. Piction Network plans to provide its Klaytn-powered network to webtoon platform Battle Comics, which currently has over a million active users.

    A blockchain-based food data project called Hint Chain, operated by Vital Hint, has also announced a plan to utilize Klaytn. Vital Hint first gained popularity for providing recipe recommendations through apps like Foodiest. Hint Chain goes one step further and analyzes individual tastes and eating habits. Hint Chain plans to use Klaytn to help consumers manage their eating and purchasing habits, and make this information available to restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets and hospitals.

    Other notable industry partners include Nabu Studio, a sports simulation game developer, Airbloc, a data marketplace for businesses interested in gathering personal information for research and advertising, and Humanscape, a data marketplace specifically dealing with health information related to rare and incurable illnesses.

    Cosmochain, another partner, is a beauty information platform that incentivizes users to provide feedback on cosmetics products.

    VETTA is a crowdfunding platform for games selected by GTR, a game accelerator. Rayon connects borrowers and lenders.

    “It’s important to prove the value and utility of blockchain in order for the technology to commercialize,” said Han Jae-sun, chief executive of Ground X. “We will soon gradually begin presenting high-quality services that we worked on together with partners.”

    After the selected partners complete a test run, Klaytn plans to launch in the first quarter of 2019. Until the official release, Klaytn will continue forming new partnerships with qualified companies.

    “Service providers and developers interested in using Klaytn’s testnet can still register on the official Klaytn homepage,” said a Kakao spokesperson.

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  • Samsung works with Dutch on blockchain

    Samsung works with Dutch on blockchain

    Samsung SDS said on Sunday it signed a partnership with two Dutch entities, ABN AMRO and the Port of Rotterdam, to use blockchain technologies for logistics. The IT solutions and logistics arm of Samsung will link its Nexledger blockchain product with ABN AMRO’s Corda platform by February. In doing so, it will verify whether the system is compatible with other blockchain systems.

    ABN AMRO’s system is designed mainly for financial transactions.

    Blockchain technologies, which allow for the validation of data without central management, will be used for the paperless administration of container financing and logistics, the Samsung SDS pilot project integrating container payments, administration and physical transportation.

    At present, the various processes in the handling of containers utilize separate circuits.

    “The project came after Europe took note of Korean marine logistics blockchain services,” said Kim Hyung-tae, vice president and general manager of the smart logistics unit at Samsung SDS. “It will help our global blockchain business expand and improve our competitiveness.”

    Last year, Samsung SDS led a consortium to conduct tests on blockchain-powered storage in marine transport. The consortium included companies and government bodies.

    “The ultimate goal is to reach an open, independent and global platform that operates from the perspective of shippers,” said Daphne de Kluis, ABN AMRO’s CEO of commercial banking. “This will make the logistics chain more transparent and efficient, and millions of euros can be saved in the long term.”

    According to the bank, the hope is to create an entirely new industry standard.

    “The transportation, monitoring and financing of freight and services should be just as easy as ordering a book online,” said Port of Rotterdam in a release.

    The pilot with the Dutch companies starts in January, and the results will be announced in February.

    The cooperative network will become open to other parties, according to ABN Amro and Port of Rotterdam.

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  • KBank-Visa to pilot blockchain based B2B payments

    KBank-Visa to pilot blockchain based B2B payments

    Visa announced Kasikornbank is the first Thai financial institution to join the Visa B2B Connect pilot program. Visa B2B Connect is a new platform that Visa is developing to give financial institutions a simple, fast and secure way to process cross-border business-to-business payments.  The pilot is currently in the Bank of Thailand Regulatory Sandbox.

    Kasikornbank is the first Thai bank to be included in the pilot designed to simplify the cross-border payments.  Globally, Visa has partnered with several other financial institutions on the pilot.

    Suripong Tantiyanon, Country Manager, Visa Thailand said, “Visa is proud that we have a representation from a Thai financial institution in the pilot program.  Building on the enterprise blockchain technology, Visa B2B Connect is a new transaction platform designed for the exchange of high-value international payments between participating banks on behalf of their corporate clients. Managed by Visa end-to-end, Visa B2B Connect combines Visa’s core capabilities in security, governance and distributed ledger technology.”

    Siriporn Wongtriphop, First Senior Vice President, Kasikornbank said, “Kasikornbank is dedicated to delivering new and innovative solutions for our customers. Through our relationship with Visa, we are excited to be participating in the Visa B2B Connect pilot which is the first step of new paradigm in                               reimagining cross-border payment transactions. As the first mover in Thailand, we believe that KBank will be a leader in the industry which benefits for KBank’s enterprise clients in terms of more secured payment.”

    “Visa’s focus is to provide our financial institution partner with access to our products, tools and expertise that will enable their growth and success.  With our technological capability and network, we are pleased to partner with Kasikornbank to create a more efficient, transparent way for business-to-business payments to be made across the world,” Mr. Suripong added.

    With Visa B2B Connect, Visa aims to significantly improve the way international B2B payments are made by offering improved processing time and visibility into the transaction process – ultimately reducing the investment and resources required by banks and their corporate clients to send and receive business payments around the world.

  • Bitcoin Cash Wallet Cointext Expands to Asia via Hong Kong

    Bitcoin Cash Wallet Cointext Expands to Asia via Hong Kong

    Hong Kong is the primary city in Asia to formally be associated by Cointext, an administration which empowers anybody to send cash to mobile numbers or Bitcoin Cash addresses without Internet, applications, or records. Notwithstanding inhabitants of the Chinese independent domain, Israelis and Palestinians likewise now approach the administration.

    Cointext, an administration which empowers digital money clients to execute transactions straightforwardly over mobile  SMS, has declared that it released bolster for its Bitcoin Cash (BCH) wallet to Hong Kong, and additionally Israel and the Palestinian regions. It is private and secure for casual use.

    “These are important regions for us to connect because they’re financial centers, and Cointext gives them a simple alternative to physical cash,” said founder and lead developer Vin Armani.

    Cointext clients get to their wallets by sending SMS directions like BALANCE, RECEIVE, and SEND to a local number. It never holds funds. Another wallet is in a split second set up the minute the beneficiary gets a message through the administration.  The system does not write data to disk and stores no information about phone numbers, keypairs, or transactions pushed through the system. There’s no database layer. All transactions are settled immediately on-chain. Citizens in the new nations get a Cointext wallet by messaging the word START to their separate numbers: 85257456744 for Hong Kong and 972526230418 for Israel.

    Propelled back in March of this year in the US, Canada, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, and the UK, Cointext is a full-highlighted wallet that doesn’t require applications, records, passwords, or even access to the Internet. The administration offers an entrance ramp to the digital money community for anybody with an SMS-empowered phone.  In order to be viable, the CoinText application requires a cryptocurrency that is committed to 0-confirmation speed and on-chain scaling to keep network fees low.

    Not long ago, it was revealed that Cointext has extended its support of six more European nations. On Oct. 1, the organization reported that individuals would now be able to utilize the application to send BCH over SMS in Portugal, Estonia, Germany, France, Austria, and Czech Republic. CoinText collects a fee of 10 Satoshi (.0000001 BCH) per byte to broadcast a SEND message through its API.  In US Dollars, the fee is about $.05 (five cents). This cost is fixed no matter how much perceived value of BCH is moved on the network. This fee may differ by region due to varying costs of SMS gateways.

    Both the Hong Kong and Israel discharges have the default information in English. However, Hebrew and Chinese dialects are in progress of development, the organization said. With this most recent extension to East Asia and in the Middle East, Cointext currently caters to over 25 nations and backings of 15 dialects.

  • Blockchain Yet to Prove Its Use to the World according to Jack Ma

    Blockchain Yet to Prove Its Use to the World according to Jack Ma

    Alibaba chief Jack Ma thinks blockchain tech is pretty meaningless – unless it helps us transform the manufacturing industry and protect the environment.

    In a keynote at World Artificial Intelligence Conference in China, the star entrepreneur shared his beliefs that budding technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) have yet to prove their utility to the world.

    For the record, while he did touch on blockchain, Ma focused his speech on some common misconceptions about AI and what role the technology can play in the future.

    Although the entrepreneur stopped short of revealing whether and how Alibaba intends to integrate blockchain into its services, it appears the company is no stranger to distributed ledger tech (DLT). Indeed, reports suggest Alibaba and IBM hold 90 percent of all DLT-related patents worldwide.

    “The data age is major opportunity for manufacturers to reform the industry,” Ma said at the conference. “But blockchain and IoT will be meaningless tech unless they can promote the transformation of the manufacturing industry, and the evolution of the society towards a greener and more inclusive direction.”

    Still, it turns out that wasn’t enough to stop Alibaba – and fellow Chinese tech giants Baidu and Tencent – from banning all cryptocurrency-related activities from its platform. A search for the two forums named “Digital Currency Bar” and “Virtual Currency Bar” shows that they have been temporarily closed in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and policies.

    On the other hand, Alibaba and Tencent are cracking down on cryptocurrency transactions on their mobile payment services.

    WeChat, Tencent’s social media, messenger services, and mobile payments app, banned a series of cryptocurrency media outlets for spreading hype in violation of Chinese law.

    Now, Tencent has said in a statement that the company will also ban cryptocurrency trading on WeChat. The company will monitor daily transactions in real-time and block any cryptocurrency trading related activity.

    Alibaba Group’s Ant Financial said that it will take similar measures on its mobile payments app Alipay. The company will restrict or block all accounts that indulge in cryptocurrency trading.

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  • Blockchain, AI the next big thing for advertisers

    Blockchain, AI the next big thing for advertisers

    The integration of analytical and data-driven technologies with AI and Blockchain can help businesses better understand customers’ behaviors, habits, interests, and needs. Thus, direct advertisements are easy to access consumers at the right time and the right situation, experts say.

    “Blockchain can be a game changer when it comes to marketing. The technology will create transparency, reliability, and positive values,” said blockchain consultant David Lang.

    “While users can better manage their personal information, blockchain can help brands not only reach the right customers more effectively but also more accurately measure the performance of each advertising campaign,” he added.

    At present, certain weaknesses have become apparent in the advertising industry. Studies have shown that fraud in digital advertising costs $1 for every $3 in advertisement expenditure. Online advertisers estimate that total losses from fraudulent activities in the industry will reach $19 billion in 2018.

    Bigbom, an online advertising solution built on the blockchain platform, has clearly identified three major issues that the advertising industry needs to address.

    Second, manual advertisement management takes too much time and is inefficient.First is the building of trust between the advertisers and ad platforms or publishers. It takes a huge amount of time for advertisers to find and establish a partnership with absolute strangers.

    Third, the budget for advertisement campaigns is still poorly allocated.

    Bigbom, a Singapore company has rolled out Bigbom Ads, Bigbom Contract and Bigbom Marketplace as the promising solution to soothe the mentioned sore of this industry. The first one is a tool which helps advertisers optimize their ads in such an efficient and simple manner. Through their innovative algorithm, this is the flagship product in the journey to change the conversation of digital advertising and make the one-click optimization come true. Bigbom Marketplace powered by Bigbom Contract creates a transparent economy for advertising community to join by harnessing the power of blockchain technology.

    Those are Bigbom’s trinity force to revolutionize the online advertising industry. Currently, their products have been launched with the very first attributes and received positive feedback from the interested audience. According to their plan, these services will be up and running in the first two quarters of 2019 with more advanced features.

    More information regarding the project is available at bigbom.com as well as their whitepaper.

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  • Country Heights plans to issue own crypto called “Horse Currency”

    Country Heights plans to issue own crypto called “Horse Currency”

    Country Heights Holdings Bhd (CHHB) is looking to issue its own asset-backed cryptocurrency (ABC) known as “Horse Currency” through an initial coin offering (ICO).

    The group told Bursa Malaysia that it will seek the support and endorsement from the shareholders at its EGM scheduled to be held on November 8.

    Citing blockchain technology as the way forward, CHHB highlighted that the main and defining difference of the “Horse Currency” and other cryptocurrencies available in the Malaysian market is that it is backed by the group’s existing assets worth of RM2 billion.

    “When launched, the ‘Horse Currency’ will mainly be used as a utility token, a reward token and royalty program with the businesses, products and services under the company’s new business strategies such as stays at the Palace of the Golden Horses, restaurants, golf memberships, private jet trips, Car City Centre, medical treatments and checks at the Golden Horses Health Sanctuary and many others.”

    CHHB said the group is also looking at allowing the “Horse Currency” to be used as legal tender in purchasing and leasing its unique properties scheme, especially the resort properties.

    Founder and chairman Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew proposes to issue 1 billion units, of which an intial 300 million units will be made available to the public.

    CHHB said its assets will be placed in a trust held by a reputable legal firm and a prominent technology partner and other external consultants (if necessary) will be appointed to give back-end support to this exercise.

    “We seek the shareholders to approve the appointment of these external consultants. In the fast moving digital age, the company intends to ride this wave of popularity of blockchain technology and assetbacked cryptocurrencies, in finding new and creative means to raise capital for the expansion of the company.”

    “We seek the shareholders’ support especially on this ABC, which the company will match minimum RM2 worth of assets eventually for 1 ‘Horse Currency’, across all ICO phases.”

    CHHB’s share price fell 1 sen or 0.8% to close at RM1.28 on 5,000 shares done.

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  • How blockchain is disrupting fashion

    How blockchain is disrupting fashion

    One of the most cutting-edge development is the incorporation of blockchain technology. Blockchain is a global online database that anyone with an internet connection can use, but it doesn’t belong to anyone.

    Block What?

    A blockchain is a distributed database maintaining a constantly-growing list of data records secured from tampering and revision. The data are recorded in a blocks structure, with each block holding batches of individual transactions. Meaning the database is secure, open, auditable and what makes it unique is that it runs without a single centralized operator. The defining feature of a blockchain is that it cannot be modified by any party, it is coded in the way that prevents fudging the data, whether that data is bitcoin quantities or the origin of a piece of clothing. That means information can be transmitted through huge networks, such as supply chains, and can be added to by users on those networks without compromising on security.

    Conceived in 2008, it is mostly used in the banking sector for the moment, because the technology easily helps tracing transactions and it happens to be the main technical innovation of the bitcoin. The idea was to create a decentralized digital property that keeps track of who owns what. Today it is not bitcoin, but blockchain that everyone is buzzing about.

    Blockchain Meets Fashion

    A few months ago, blockchain made its fashion debut during Shanghai Fashion Week. Babyghost, a young Chinese-New York label, teamed up with BitSE, a company specialized in blockchain, and VeChain, an anti-counterfeiting application to showcase its Spring and Summer 2017 collection. VeChain is a cloud product management solution integrated with blockchain technology that puts unique IDs on the blockchain and can verify if an item is genuine or not. So the collection could be verified on the blockchain to fulfill a bunch of possibilities: anti-counterfeiting, supply chain management, asset management and client experiences. The result of this union is called FashTech, where a clothing collection canbe verified on the blockchain through Near field communication or by scanning the QR code on the label. A person’s phone communicates with the small VeChain chip embedded inside the clothing which then tells its ‘story’ to the consumer. VeChain can be programmed with photographs, videos and even personalized information such as to whom it was purchased for and why.

    Blockchain Is Use At Shanghai Fashion Week

    Blockchain is based on a simple idea, but built upon a complex technological framework. Its goal is to establish trust, accountability and transparency while streamlining business processes. Blockchain relates to fashion in different ways.

    Intellectual Property

    The most immediate and obvious use of blockchain in fashion is to verify the originality of a garment. Microchips utilizing blockchain can tell a customer with complete certainty whether a piece of cloth is genuine or an imitation, whether it was stolen, where it was made, and the item’s general history. All this information is accessible via smartphone. With revenues around US$ 600 billion per year, counterfeiting hurts brands and consumers alike.

    Supply Chain and Transparency

    Blockchain could conceivably tell a customer not only where an item was made, but who it was made by, the conditions they worked in, and how much they were paid. Shoppers could have immediate access to information such as composition of an item’s fabric, where the cotton was grown, which polyester compounds are used, what chemicals have been used for bleaching and so on. Blockchain technology has the ability to garner greater trust and brand loyalty throughout the product lifecycle.

    Especially in the fashion community, supply transparency has been a major concern. The Fashion Revolution began a campaign to show ‘who made my clothes’. The movement is humanizing a manufacturing process that we forget is still controlled by human hands. Blockchains can bring transparency to supply chains and on the governmental level, let them request information from
    even distant suppliers.

    History has shown that centralizing data into the hands of one single party doesn’t work for transparency: having a single party able to control what is seen creates bias, even when it is a third party, and cannot be totally disinterested whilst being incentivized enough to maintain the system, without being vulnerable to bribery, social engineering or targeted hacking. Even without mentioning if the party is the brand itself, or the biggest actor in the supply chain, making a major conflict of interest. Blockchains will entirely change the game for certifying, tracking and tracing the origin of goods.

    Customer Experience

    It’s the dawn of a new era in fashion, in which customers interact with their clothes on a profound and meaningful way. Blockchain therefore is storytelling and brands can do that actually fairly easily and merge it with Social Media.

    By looking beyond sustainability to production, and getting consumers to understand the layers of complexity involved in bringing a product to market, the blockchain can help move the mentality away from throwing products into landfill and instead appreciating the value of items. Over a third of garments purchased find their way into landfill sites or are otherwise disposed of within just one year. The Internet is the digital medium of information, and blockchain is the digital medium of value. We cannot predict the future, but undoubtedly, blockchain is a technology that is worth getting to know, as it may very well spark a revolution across various industries. It is estimated that until 2025 up to 70 percent of all global markets will depend on blockchain, directly or indirectly. A huge potential will be the so called ‘Smart Contracts’, these are automatically executed agreements, with no human intervention. As one of the unfolding technologies, blockchain is empowering fashion brands to take a lead towards greater transparency. By educating consumers via the product journey, it is going to redefine the meaning of fashion by including elements like honesty and real transparency.

  • Collectivize, industrialize, Vietnam farmers urged

    Collectivize, industrialize, Vietnam farmers urged

    Instead of working individually, Vietnamese farmers should band together and become “industrial workers,” an expert says.

    Dang Kim Son, former director of research with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said at the Vietnam Economic Forum on Tuesday that farmers need to join forces to take Vietnamese agriculture to the next level, applying advanced technology and engaging in large scale production.

    He said farmers need to work together under a co-operative system where their combined produce is sold by one representative organization, which will give them greater control over both input and output, Son said.

    Vietnam also needs to establish a research institute that provides data helping farmers to focus on cultivating the most productive fruits, he added.

    One of the downsides of Vietnamese agriculture is that produce quality is not guaranteed, said Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

    “When farmers industrialize agriculture, manufacturing costs will be lower and produce quality higher,” Hai said.

    Technology, especially blockchain technology, should be applied in farming, said Vu Truong Ca, CEO of Lina Network.

    He said a standardized supply chain should be applied in growing fruits to yield higher value, Ca added.

    Other experts at the forum reiterated what they’ve been saying for many years now, that Vietnam needs to reduce export of raw produce and focus more on processing produce after harvest.

    With 90 percent of exports being raw material, the country’s produce value will continue to be low, said Nguyen Quoc Toan, acting director of the Department of Processing and Market Development of Agricultural Products.

    “Produce like lychee have short cycles, so we need to improve processing before exporting,” Toan said.

    Vietnam’s agriculture export-import turnover reached $17.5 billion last year, an increase of 16 percent from 2016. Vegetable, fruits and cashew each account for 20 percent of total agriculture produce exports, while coffee makes up 19 percent, according to Vietnam Customs.

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  • Tug-of-War: Will Blockchain Bring Data Ownership Back to Users?

    Tug-of-War: Will Blockchain Bring Data Ownership Back to Users?

    Since the advent of the internet, users have marvelled at the ability to create a persona of themselves online – be it in the first virtual communities, social networks, retail sites and multi-player games. Increasingly, a greater proportion of our personal lives and information can now be found on digital platforms.

    Coupled with a plethora of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can only expect that generated data, particularly of the individual, will increase exponentially. In fact, the global datasphere is projected to hit a staggering 163 Zettabytes (163 trillion GB) in 2025, according to a recent IDC-Seagate study.

    Even as data continues its exponential increase, recent cyber breaches and incidents around the misuse of user data have also cast the spotlight on the ownership of user data and how blockchain is disrupting this.

    Growing concern over data ownership

    The notion of one’s identity in the online world has evolved over time – once solely defined by a username and password, the increased integration of social media profiles, shopping history and other personal data has meant that our digital identity is fast becoming a reflection of our physical lives.

    Such data can be beneficial for businesses to better understand their customers and provide tailored services and offerings for an improved overall customer experience, particularly in e-commerce.

    However, the issue arises when individuals no longer have control over how their data is used and collected, particularly in the scenarios where organisations monetise user data without the user’s knowledge or request for more personal information than required.

    It’s unsurprising that consumers are increasingly becoming concerned about how their data is used and shared, and policies such as the European Union’s recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are also a reflection of the growing demand for greater ownership over personal data.

    Gaining a foothold on one’s data

    Blockchain, a technology that has seen success in cryptocurrency and beyond through its security, efficiency and non-centralised control, has been seen as a way of democratising data and putting ownership back into the hands of users.

    As compared to the current practices where ownership of user data is held by the enterprise, blockchain would enable the creation of a self-sovereign identity, where individuals control their own identities and personal data and are able to decide who to share it with, and to what extent.

    In addition, blockchain offers the possibility of micro-incentivising people to share data at their own will, which can significantly disrupt current ways of working for industries such as advertising and content.

    Organisations will need to come to terms with this new reality and be aligned with the changing mindsets and desires of their users when it comes to management of personal data. While a selfsovereign identity that is enabled by blockchain could revolutionise how personal data is managed, it does not come about without hurdles.

    For starters, the burden of managing and allocating access would have to be borne by the individual. Education would be crucial to familiarise users themselves with treating and managing data as assets that they now control and use to their benefit. Additionally, users themselves should be aware of the pros and cons of self-managing their data, rather than having organisations manage these on their behalf.

    At the broader level, this new approach also requires organisations to evaluate and adapt existing systems to ensure compatibility and that they continue to deliver the same user-friendly experience for their users.

    Despite the hurdles, blockchain will undoubtedly bring about changes with regard to personal data and digital identities as barriers to adoption gradually decrease for both enterprises and individual consumers. Given the rallying call for organisations to be more open about the data they collect about their users and how it is used, organisations will need to be prepared for the possibility of a future of acquiring data on the conditions of their users.

    Blockchain may pave the road to a future where large scale cyber breaches involving millions of stolen personal identities could be a thing of the past. Organisations too will need to evolve accordingly and bear responsibility for the just use and management of user data. After all, personal data belongs solely to the individual, and blockchain might well enable users to regain that control.

     

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  • More wholesale operators join blockchain trial

    More wholesale operators join blockchain trial

    More operators have joined the joint blockchain trial being conducted by HKT’s PCCW Global and telecoms and data center services company Colt.

    Members of the ITW Global Leaders’ Forum (GLF), including Australia’s Telstra, Hong Kong based HGC Global Communications, Spain’s Telefónica and the UK’s BT, are now getting involved in the initiative.

    The trial involves the use of blockchain to automate the inter-carrier settlement of wholesale international services.

    During a proof of concept trial in March, conducted with blockchain startup Clear, the companies demonstrated how blockchain can reduce the labor-intensive process of inter-carrier settlements from hours to mere minutes.

    Now the solution developed for the trial is being utilized in real time, with PCCW Global and Colt now using live data to settle and verify traffic, PCCW Global said.

    The companies aim to expand the bilateral testing to encompass multilateral relationships within the wholesale telecommunications industry.

    “We are very pleased that this PoC is expanding to include more carriers. A lot of the conversations at the GLF have been around how innovative technologies such as blockchain can be used to improve the overall efficiency of the industry,” PCCW Global CEO and GLF chairman Marc Halbfinger said.

    “With the PoC expanding to include more carriers, it is clear that the industry is seeing the benefit of becoming further aligned. Industry cooperation in this area will be incredibly powerful for the whole sector.”

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  • Blockchain-based ride-hailing app to arrive in Vietnam

    Blockchain-based ride-hailing app to arrive in Vietnam

    MVL says drivers will not have to pay commission, and the company will make a profit from selling data. A blockchain-powered ride-hailing app which requires no commission fee from drivers will be arriving in Vietnam this July in the wake of Uber’s departure last month following Grab’s acquisition of the firm’s Southeast Asian operations.

    MVL from the Singapore-based startup MVLchain is going to recruit its first batch of drivers in Vietnam this month.

    The upcoming app utilizes blockchain technology, and is the first ride-hailing app in Vietnam to do so, said CEO Kay Woo during a conference held in Ho Chi Minh City last Saturday.

    Blockchain technology utilizes a growing list of digital records which are linked and secured using cryptography. That means a blockchain system can act as a secure, open and transparent distribution ledger to record transactions between two parties efficiently and verifiably. Blockchain technology can be applied to manage assets, contracts and global payments.

    “Our data is stored using blockchain technology. That means all data belong to all suppliers in the system, which provides transparency,” said Woo. Fellow ride-hailing apps Grab and Uber instead store all their data in servers, said Woo.

    MVL will also not require its drivers to pay a commission. Instead, the firm will sell data generated from its daily operations to insurance and market survey companies to make a profit.

    The firm hopes to attract more drivers this way, aiming to eventually acquire 25 percent of all four-wheel and two-wheel vehicles currently operating in Vietnam.

    MVL will have to compete with Grab, the largest ride-hailing app currently operating in Vietnam. Once all the legal procedures are completed, MVL is expected to go live in Vietnam this July.

    Grab has raised suspicions about creating a monopoly in Vietnam now that its biggest rival Uber is gone, despite an official from the Ministry of Transport saying Grab is unlikely to do so, considering how there are other apps competing with Grab, including ViVu, Mai Linh Bike and Go-Jek.

    MVLchain was founded in 2012 by a group of Korean investors. It currently operates in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

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  • Blockchain Startup Nuggets Selected to Join Prestigious Access India Programme

    Blockchain Startup Nuggets Selected to Join Prestigious Access India Programme

    E-commerce payments and ID platform Nuggets has been selected to join the Access India Programme (AIP) – a prestigious initiative providing support to high-potential UK businesses seeking to establish a presence in India.

    In partnership with the UK India Business Council, the High Commission of India in London launched the AIP programme in 2017. It identifies high-potential UK SMEs using innovative technologies, and helps them establish themselves within the fast-growing Indian economy. Selected companies receive a range of invaluable services, from mentorship to networking and market-entry support.

    Nuggets offers compelling potential for the Indian economy. The country has only recently moved away from making 80% of payments in cash, with 60% of the population unbanked. Even so, India’s GDP is forecast to grow by 7.4% in 2018, and the economy is set to overtake both the UK and France in size over the next few years.  A consumer product like Nuggets, which enables simple, secure e-commerce payments, has obvious value in accelerating India’s move towards a cashless society.

    That move is already under way. IndiaStack, for example, is an ambitious program aiming to combine APIs and software on a single platform, and use bleeding-edge technology to bootstrap a new cashless infrastructure. It already boasts protocols such as eKYC and UPI, and could soon add Nuggets to its ranks.

    Seema Khinda Johnson, COO and co-founder of Nuggets, said: “Nuggets is a global payments and identity platform. Having support like this from the Indian High Commission will help our expansion efforts immeasurably.

    “We’re proud to have been selected for this programme. We’ve always believed in the power of our technology to empower consumers and boost economies. That’s especially true in such a vibrant, tech-focused environment as contemporary India.”

    Manish Singh, Economic Minister with the High Commision of India in London, said: “We are delighted to welcome Nuggets to our flagship AIP programme. Nuggets is exactly the sort of product we look for: exceptionally innovative, delivered in a way that can empower an entire population.

    This latest international victory for Nuggets comes soon after similar success in China. On 13th April 2018, the UK Government and the Mayor of London announced Nuggets would lead the UK Tech Mission in China. The company also took part in the recent launch of ‘Regulatory Sandbox for FinTech: UK-China Collaboration to Promote Financial Innovation’.

    Government support has played a critical role in Nuggets’ development. In its early days, the startup was selected by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for its Project Innovate, enabling Nuggets to test its revolutionary product with consumers in the regulatory sandbox.

    Using blockchain technology, Nuggets enables people to make payments without having to share their personal data. That protects them from fraud, and eliminates the need for a username, password and payment details to be shared.

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  • Blockchain might beat crooked contractors

    Blockchain might beat crooked contractors

    Brothers Frideric and Alexandre Prandecki’s journey to success in the home repair business started with a simple problem – their air conditioner broke in the Las Vegas heat.

    Rather than scan the local yellow pages, the brothers called in a repairman with a five-star rating through the Google for Work platform.

    “A guy comes in, big company, with his gadget and says, ‘Your AC unit is down, shot broken, you can’t even fix it, don’t repair it,” Frideric Prandecki said in an interview in Seoul. “I can give you a call, it’s $5,500 for a small unit.”

    The evaluation sounded fishy to Prandecki. He called another independent repairman named Nicu, who had a license but wasn’t well-known on the contractor listing sites. But Nicu turned out to be just the guy for the job.

    “He came to the house, he checked this, checked that and looked at the air filter, which is stupid by the way, and our air filter was dirty,” Prandecki said. “He changed the air filter and cold air started blowing.”

    The brothers realized that they had stumbled upon a business opportunity – connecting honest repairmen to customers.

    The Prandeckis’ business, Bob’s Repair, which introduces honest, skilled contractors with affordable rates to customers, grew steadily since they founded it.

    Since then, Bob’s Repair has handled over $1 million in transactions and facilitated more than 50,000 service calls.

    One of the barriers to solving the problem of overcharging customers is the nature of popular contracting platforms such as Angie’s List, Home Advisor or Google for Work. Because contractors are the main fee-paying customers of those sites, reviews posted on those platforms often can’t be trusted.

    “Home Advisor or Angie’s List will take down bad reviews if there’s a big complaint,” Prandecki said. “The only contractor that’s good is the person that pays [the most].”

    The company is adopting blockchain technology to further improve transparency for customers, who are often taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors.

    “There’s a big issue where there’s a lot of fraud,” Prandecki said. “They’re overpaying for a simple repair or a toilet installment or an AC unit.”

    Prandecki believes the solution to this problem is blockchain. In a blockchain-based system, once a transaction is made and the review for the service is posted, the review will remain visible and can’t be removed or altered.

    “Someone said my business plan would never work because contractors won’t want anyone to know how much they’re charging,” Prandecki said. “That’s a lie.”

    Prandecki believes that successful blockchain services will combine blockchain with traditional businesses. That way, customers can directly experience the advantages of blockchain in their daily life – like when they need to call a handyman.

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  • Blockchain experts imagine a new economy

    Blockchain experts imagine a new economy

    Tech-savvy Koreans in their 20s and 30s are increasingly turning to blockchain to bypass the privacy and financial restrictions they regularly encounter online.

    International blockchain pioneers now frequent the country to give presentations at conferences in Seoul.

    “Every time I come to Korea, I can sense there are more developers leaping into the world of blockchain,” remarked Loi Luu, CEO of Singaporean-based cryptocurrency exchange Kyber Network, who hosted one such seminar in Gangnam district on Jan. 20.

    “Sharing security information through collective intelligence and rewarding these activities with coins in a blockchain ecosystem is more efficient in facing digital security threats,” said Patrick Kim, co-founder of the Uppsala Foundation. Kim, who previously worked for a British security tech company, launched the start-up in Singapore to develop a security solution for cryptocurrency assets.

    Besides attending conferences, programmers interested in blockchain also try to form lasting connections with each other by participating in common-interest groups and researching the new technology together. Yonsei University engineering students got in the game early in February, when they formed YBL, or Yonsei Blockchain Lab.

    “Research [on blockchain] among university students is active in the United States and China, but we are just beginning now,” explained the group’s founder Lee Hyun-jae, a 23-year-old sophomore majoring in electrical engineering. “We plan to debate the future of blockchain by meeting up with world-famous founders of blockchain companies who visit Seoul.”

    Blockchain enthusiasts argue that blockchain-based cryptocurrencies are the way to overcome the limits of the digital economy. These young advocates bemoan how the openness that characterized the early Internet age is now gone, replaced by closed markets of information and technology monopolization by tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon.

    “Google and Naver have become so big that they monopolize each country’s market,” said CEO Charles Pyo of Chain Partners, a blockchain company builder that nurtures new start-ups. Pyo is skeptical of the current digital economy where institutional middlemen like banks and portals pocket large service charges.

    “There is a saying that even smart people become fools once they enter Google,” said Uppsala co-founder Park Hae-min. “A blockchain system where individuals are rewarded with cryptocurrency or crypto assets for their skills will last longer than the current digital economy.”

    They are counting on blockchain to succeed shareholder capitalism as the leading model of investment.

    “The current model does not reward consumers who used a business’ products and services in their early days,” explained Kim Seo-joon, who founded the blockchain investment fund Hashed last year. “The lives of Uber taxi drivers remain the same even if the value of Uber reaches trillions of won. Also, not a single CD is given to fans who cheered a K-pop singer in his or her obscurity, with most of the profits going to entertainment agencies.”

    He continued, “A fair model is one which gives early adopters the opportunity to become shareholders and rewards them for demonstrating confidence in new products.”

    Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, are the new form of fund procurement that aims to achieve just this.

    New cryptocurrency ventures use ICOs to raise capital by issuing their own coins instead of issuing stocks or obtaining seed money.

    ICOs are regarded as a refreshing method of crowdsourcing where companies can get financed by anyone in the world, as opposed to conventional forms of fund procurement which requires conducting protracted negotiations and giving up large shares to venture capitalists.

    To the frustration of Korean blockchain supporters, ICOs have been technically banned in Korea since September 2017, when the country’s Financial Services Commission prohibited all forms of blockchain funding “regardless of their technical terminology.” While the practice is not outlawed in the United States, some states heavily regulate the process by requiring ICO issuers to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    To date, hundreds of millions of dollars have been procured through ICOs worldwide, showing great potential. Protocol Labs, an American blockchain company, put their self-developed cryptocurrency Filecoin up for sale and amassed $257 million last year, the most funds procured by a company via an IOC in 2017. Protocol Labs is pushing for a decentralized storage network project that allows users to trade leftover storage on their personal computers for legal tender or cryptocurrency.

    “Young people who don’t want to rely on the good will of data-monopolizing IT giants and the impartiality of the government as the middleman sympathize with blockchain,” explained Choi Bae-geun, an economics professor at Konkuk University.

    As ICOs gain more publicity, scams are on the rise as well. Tech-savvy swindlers only have to make websites to lure investors to fund their fictional projects, promising them that the coins and tokens they issue will jump in value a couple of months later.

    Given the high risks and potential of ICOs, industry experts are pushing for their legalization. Don Tapscott, the best-selling Canadian author of “Blockchain Revolution” and “Wikinomics,” visited Seoul for a blockchain conference at the start of the year.

    “ICOs are a great way to procure funds for start-ups,” Tapscott told the audience in Korea. “Though some ICOs may be scams and fail, companies that receive investments from venture capitalists can also fail.”

    Some critics are still concerned about ICOs given the volatility of cryptocurrencies. “If the value of funds amassed through ICOs fluctuate wildly,” assessed Kim Young-sik, an economics professor at Seoul National University, “it may not be a sustainable way of raising funds.”

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