Blockchain Weekly Roundup, April 30 — May 6, 2018
Cryptic Writings is not meant just for news about the Orbs protocol, but the blockchain industry as a whole. With that in mind, we will start highlighting the big stories of the past week in blockchain tech and business.
1. Koreas’ memorandum of peace placed on Ethereum blockchain
The shock meet between South Korean president Moon Jae-In and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un along the demilitarized zone provided cautious optimism that the most intractable of Cold War conflicts might be on its way to an unexpected end. To commemorate the Korean Peninsula’s entry into a new future, Ryu Gi-hyeok coded the resulting Panmunjom Declaration into the Ethereum blockchain.
“I just thought it took too long for the South and the North to give way to each other… After finding out what I could contribute to this historic achievement as a developer,” he told Coindesk Korea.
2. Cardano introduces new PoS algorithm in Israel
At the Eurocrypt conference, Cardano presented its Genesis proof-of-stake algorithm for Ouroboros Praos and announced two testnets, letting new participants enter the chain without previous knowledge of the ledger’s history.
https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/991209962482397185
3. Africa turns to blockchain for agriculture and land-grabbing
2. Ethiopia inks deal with Cardano for agriculture on blockchain https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/05/03/ethiopia-cardano-blockchain-cryptocurrency/
“We missed the internet wave, caught up with mobile technology… blockchain is the next wave — and we must be part of it,” Bitange Ndemo of a special government task force told the BBC. The country’s information minister said certifying land ownership would be the best first application for the technology. With land officials and fraudsters conspiring together, paper land deeds might not guarantee honoring land ownership.
To the north, the Ethiopian government reached a deal with Cardano to monitor agriculture. Details were scant on how the implementation would work.
https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/992001912752017408
4. PwC invests in VeChain
PwC (specifically its Hong Kong and Singapore branches) is taking a minority stake in China-based VeChain, a competitor with IOTA to using blockchain to register IoT technology and create private keys for each product. PwC Hong Kong wants to provide “trust based services” on VeChain that would use the latter’s tokens.
“We are glad to establish a deeper relationship with VeChain, which aims to build a trusted and distributed business ecosystem to help address long-standing challenges in supply chain management, food trust and anti-counterfeiting areas,” PwC’s Raymund Chao said.
5. Four car manufacturers launch open blockchain project
Thirty companies — including Ford, GM, BMW, and Renault— are launching the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI). Other companies and include Bosch, SHIFT, and a slew of industry sponsors including IOTA, VeChain, and IBM. The World Economic Forum, Trusted IoT Alliance, Crypto Valley, Hyperledger, and Blockchain at Berkeley are included as affiliates.
MOBI foresees blockchain applied to at least a dozen automobile-specific use cases, including carbon pricing, pollution taxes, ride sharing, car insurance, and the like.
6. Survey says most businesses not looking at blockchain
Only eight percent of businesses are looking into blockchain for long-term plans, according to Gartner’s 2018 CIO Survey. This might be a good thing, however, as rushing into the industry could create unnecessary haste and lead to incorrect perceptions that the technology is all hype, so said Gartner VP David Furlonger.
Of those who did say they were examining blockchain options, nearly a fifth claimed blockchain skills were the hardest to find among engineers on the labor market.
Also a roadblock, though more of a delaying element, is the fact understanding blockchain requires understanding “aspects of security, law, value exchange, decentralized governance, process and commercial architectures” at a “fundamental level.”
“It therefore implies that traditional lines of business and organization silos can no longer operate under their historical structures,” Furlonger said.
7. First blockchain phone for Americans is launched
Last week, Pras Michel launched a new platform called Blacture to provide “both voice and access” to the black community. The project introduces Motif, a blockchain-based phone destined for the U.S. market which will retail between $350-$395 this fall.
It joins the Finney being manufactured by Sirin Labs, designed to make crypto transactions easier, as well as Embedded Downloads’ BitVault.
8. Wanchain launches WANLab
Wanchain is launching WANLab, a mentorship and accelerator program for blockchain startups.
“As the race to build the world’s blockchain infrastructure heats up, Wanchain is committed to building a global community of innovators dedicated to rebuilding finance and beyond,” the company’s president Dustin Byington said. “We don’t have time to wait for adoption and risk low-quality applications in our ecosystem.”
9. Mastercard files patent for faster node verification
Mastercard filed a new patent for fast tracking navigation of blockchains according to its application to the United States Patent and Trade Office.
“The use of specialized flags and hash values included in the headers of blocks in a blockchain may enable for the speed of navigation of a blockchain to be significantly increased, which may greatly reduce the computing time and power required to verify the blockchain,” the patent reads.
Mastercard opened a blockchain-based payment processing option in October 2017, but thus far only for fiat currencies. Pilots using cryptocurrencies are under way in Japan and Singapore.
Join the Orbs community:
- GitHub: https://github.com/orbs-network
- Telegram: https://t.me/orbs_network
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/orbs_network
- Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ORBS_Network/
- Read the Orbs white papers: https://www.orbs.com/white-papers
