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 UK Discusses Viability of "Digital Pound" "We're launching a new taskforce between the Treasury and the Bank of England to coordinate exploratory work on a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC)," Sunak told a financial industry conference.
Soon after, Sunak tweeted the single word "Britcoin" in reply to the finance ministry's announcement of the taskforce. |
 The Bank of England and HM Treasury have today announced the joint creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Taskforce to coordinate the exploration of a potential UK CBDC. A CBDC would be a new form of digital money issued by the Bank of England and for use by households and businesses. It would exist alongside cash and bank deposits, rather than replacing them. |
Christine Lagarde emphasizes the importance of Digital Euro in the midst of global Pandemic. In her opening speech in Singapore FinTech Festival in 1918 Christine Lagarde had said: "Distinguished guests, ladies
and gentlemen - good morning and thank you for the opportunity to participate in
this important event. In
Singapore, it is often windy. Winds here bring change, and opportunity.
Historically, they blew ships to its port. These resupplied while waiting for
the Monsoon to pass, for the seasons to change. 'Change
is the only constant,' wrote the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of
Ephesus." 2 years after this speech, in Paris Europlace International Financial Forum in October 2020, Christine Lagarde points out the urgency of accelerating the move towards digital currencies including digital Euro due to worldwide effects of pandemic. The question is when the digital currency - Euro will be ready?According of Central Bank of Europe, a decision will be made towards the middle of 2021 whether to launch a digital Euro project. |
Talked about since 2018 as in the video.
A number of central banks are creating and testing sovereign digital currencies amid #Covid19 crisis. The race among central banks to launch sovereign digital currencies is heating up. China has made considerable progress, with hopes of using its digital currency to help internationalize the yuan. China, the world’s largest mobile payment market, has been among the most vocal about digital currencies, with Beijing seeing it as an opportunity to further promote use of the yuan amid growing tensions with Washington. “Some central banks see [digital currencies] as a useful tool, especially to go fully cashless,” said Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. He added “I assume that some central banks are more interested in these policy goals and monetary tools than others.” Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said the central bank has been looking into the possibility of issuing a digital currency. “We’ll go on looking at it, as it does have huge implications on the nature of payments and society,” Bailey was quoted by Bloomberg as saying in July. “I think in a few years’ time, we will be heading toward some sort of digital currency.” The US Federal Reserve has remained largely quiet over a digital US dollar. In February, when US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell was asked by the US House Committee on Financial Services to discuss China’s progress with its national digital currency, he took a cautious tone on the idea of rolling out. We will see soon see which countries will be leading on this front to change the workings of outmoded structures of the societies for the betterment of the world human population as a whole amid growing disaster of the world pandemic. Read more on the development of Chinese Digital currency >> |
in the Philippines there are so many provinces or rural areas where there are vast number of underserved in terms of financial access or financial services. Regional players are trying to provide platforms as a service to the enablers of the bottom of the pyramid. NCCC is one of the biggest supermarket chain in mindanao has partnered with tracxion to provide credits to cooperative members and small business employees. The partner program that relies on Oracle blockchain technology uses a QR code technology saving the transactions of these members, thus expanding the products and offerings that provide this community of underserved, unbanked. |
 Speaking at the IBM Think Singapore event on Wednesday (Aug 14), Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing pointed out that the world is facing a “great challenge” today as there are many parts of the world that do not believe in integration. He said the world risks being fragmented, and if this does happen, “we will all be poorer for it”. He said in the conference that “Companies like IBM, Google, PayPal - any company that relies on digital services, any company that relies on having data flowing across borders to produce products and services - will not survive very well if the fragmentation trend continues. He emphasized that the world is a better place if everyone can integrate and optimise their production systems and supply chains, and if ideas can be shared and worked on collectively. Singapore’s exports together with the exports for electronic products, particularly that of integrated circuits, disk media products and PCs, heavily hit. Singapore economy shrank 3.3 per cent in the second quarter. The Trade and Industry Ministry pointed out that the sharp slowdown is due to “strong headwinds” ranging from an escalating trade war between the United States and China to a downturn in the global electronics cycle. Read more at >> |
"Published on August 6 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, IBM’s patent is for a web browser backed by a peer-to-peer network.
"The browser collects pre-specified information from web browsing sessions, according to the patent. The information is then transferred to a network of peer-to-peer nodes for collection and storage. Information collection depends on the type of browsing experience chosen. Browsing on a work computer versus a personal browser would demand different settings, for example.
"Types of potentially storable session information include what websites one visits, bookmarks, task performance, geolocation, plugin installation, and security patches.
"As the company states, a blockchain-based browser 'affords a system for storing browsing information such that privacy is preserved and places privacy in the ‘hands of a user’ rather than a third party.
"One potential use-case the document includes, among others, is an attack on a computer’s browser. If secured by blockchain technology, a viable backup of all user information is available.
"Interestingly, IBM included a token in their model. IBM says tokens will verify a users browser session activities as they are packaged into blocks for the peer-to-peer network. ..."
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"Blockchain will do for business what the internet did for communication – and it’s already happening with these leading blockchain networks"
Leading blockchain networks already making an impact today are as follows: Socially-conscious network Plastic Bank Stopping ocean pollution and reducing poverty by turning plastic waste into currency. Cross-border payments network IBM Blockchain World Wire Clearing and settling of global payments with finality in seconds instead of days. "IBM Blockchain World Wire Presenting the new financial rail that simultaneously clears and settles cross-border payments in near real-time, integrating seamlessly with existing payment systems. How IBM Blockchain World Wire works Using blockchain technology and the Stellar protocol, IBM Blockchain World Wire makes it possible for financial institutions to clear and settle cross-border payments in seconds. Two financial institutions transacting together agree to use a stable coin, central bank digital currency or other digital asset as the bridge asset between any two fiat currencies. The digital asset facilitates the trade and supplies important settlement instructions.* The institutions use their existing payment systems – seamlessly connected to World Wire’s APIs – to convert the first fiat currency into the digital asset. World Wire then simultaneously converts the digital asset into the second fiat currency, completing the transaction. All transaction details are recorded onto an immutable blockchain for clearing." Luxury goods network Everledger Transforming the jewelry industry by logging the identifying characteristics of over 1.6 million diamonds. European trade finance network we.trade Spreading opportunity to small and medium sized businesses in traditionally underserved markets. Food safety network IBM Food Trust™ Growers, distributors, retailers and others enhancing visibility and accountability in each step of the food supply. Multinational insurance policy network A smart contract policy brings transaction trust, security and certainty to multinational insurance coverage. AIG Private equity network Real-time insights, increased efficiency, security and transparency for fund managers and investors. Northern Trust Canadian digital identity network SecureKey Helping consumers instantly verify identities for bank accounts, driver’s licenses and more. |
 Modern day business has to pay an utmost importance to Cloud Security. Wherever there is a security breach, there is download of unsecured customer files from retailers, theft of intellectual property from tech firms, and complete business disruption, and many others. The number of organisations have reported an increase in the use of business-critical cloud services and a huge increase in the number of enterprises storing their data in the cloud. Resolving Cloud Security issues became more urgent than ever before as the number one task for the business. Oracle and KPMG published “Oracle and KPMG Cloud Threat Report 2019” to get business understand more what the threats are in the ever increasing use of the world of cloud services and cloud applications. "Organisations don’t know what their employees are doing with cloud services and where their corporate data is being placed.” says Greg Jensen, Senior Director at Oracle. "If there are suspicious user activities associated with your portion of the shared responsibility model, you have to be aware of those events, monitor them, and react to them.” says Brian Jensen, Risk-Management Consultant at KPMG. Increasingly, organisations trust the cloud for critical applications and for storing essential data. Security technology is doing a good job of keeping up, but more still needs to be done, as is documented in the “Oracle and KPMG Cloud Threat Report 2019”. Read more at >> |
 “We are truly honoured and excited for the young women as they will have access to the new technological advancements of Alibaba Cloud. This moment is truly historic. Working with Alibaba Cloud will make a great difference in the lives of millions of young women globally.” These are the words of Mariéme Jamme, Founder of iamtheCODE on the new partnership between iamtheCODE and Alibaba Cloud to enable 1 million young women coders by 2030. Announcement made on February 26, 2019 in the Tech for Change initiative at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). The initiative calls for inspiring ideas and joint efforts from enterprises, start-ups and young entrepreneurs, to tackle global social and humanitarian challenges in areas such as education, economic development and the environment through technologies. "Under the partnership with iamtheCODE, Alibaba Cloud will provide tailored courses on a range of topics including cloud computing, data analysis, machine learning and security. iamtheCODE will also add Alibaba Cloud on their blended curriculum, as certificates will be awarded to young women students who pass the course to help them along with their career path towards engineering and other practical subjects. To date over 13,000 girls have access to the iamtheCODE Curriculum. In addition, each enrolled student will be offered free access to cloud computing resources during their study." |
Because there is an uncertainty in regulatory environment and because the currency is so volatile insurers have been reluctant to get involved with the risks of insuring Bitcoin transactions so far. A managing director for Accenture had published a blog post detailing why he believes the insurance industry will move to embrace the blockchain within the “next few years”. Abizer Rangwala, who focused on insurance IT strategy for the professional services firm, wrote |
 IBM is to manage Vodafone's cloud and hosting systems for eight years valued at $550 million (€480 million). IBM and Vodafone will work together on building and delivering solutions in areas like AI, cloud, IoT to enterprise customers. The two companies have previously collaborated on a number of projects over the past twenty years. This time the focus will be on creating new digital solutions. Vodafone's chief executive Nick Read quoted as saying “Vodafone has successfully established its cloud business to help our customers succeed in a digital world” ...“This strategic venture with IBM allows us to focus on our strengths in fixed and mobile technologies, whilst leveraging IBM’s expertise in multicloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and services. Through this new venture we’ll accelerate our growth and deepen engagement with our customers while driving radical simplification and efficiency in our business”. The venture will focus on Vodafone' s British, German, Irish markets, targeting multinational and national enterprises mainly operating in retails, manufacturing, utilities, agriculture or transportation. The deal will be operational in the first half of 2019. More read on >> |
Based on Blockchain technology, cryptocurrency market is developing and growing. However increasing investments on cryptocurrencies bring some questions to customers on investor protections. While regulations and laws governing the cryptocurrency market is developing, investors is seeking protection through securities lawsuits. An increasing number of cryptocurrency lawsuits registered in courts this year. Investors is becoming more aware of safeguarding their rights and preserving their legal remedies as a result of declining in the price of cryptocurrencies. Most of the law companies advise investors to be more vigilant, more cautious and perform their own due diligence before deciding where and how to allocate their funds. Here is an article puplished by a company Hogan Injury on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency litigation: 
"Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are gaining more attention as days pass. Aside from the advantages that cryptocurrencies have like anonymity and easy international transactions, people are enticed by the fact that it can become a good investment. Apart from trading bitcoins for cash, you can also use bitcoins to buy gift cards, book flights, and hotels, buy furniture, or even buy real estate properties. Bitcoin purchases are not taxed at the moment since there is no way for third parties to identify, track, or intercept transactions that use bitcoins. Transaction fees are considerably lower as well compared to credit card transactions or services like Paypal.
"Although there are many advantages in using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, just like any other investments, you should always be careful with your transactions. Since cryptocurrency is not regulated, many unscrupulous people have taken advantage of this and incidents of fraudulent cryptocurrencies, and other types of scam related to cryptocurrency have happened. One example of this is Prodeum, a cryptocurrency start-up that scammed its investors in just one weekend.
"Because of these scams, law firms have now been involved in helping the victims. Cryptocurrency litigation has now become something that some lawyers specialize in. There are a lot of factors to consider when a cryptocurrency dispute arises. Aside from fraudulent Initial Coin Offering (ICO), lawyers could get involved if the cryptocurrency was used to launder money or hide assets; they could also get involved when there is an issue with the company, commercial, or intellectual property laws being violated in relation to cryptocurrency.
"Here are some things that you can do as a cryptocurrency user to avoid being scammed:
"1. Research. – Just like with any other investments that you will make, research is essential. When investing in an ICO, make sure to read and dissect their white papers to ensure that you’re working with reliable people. Take time to research the people behind the ICO, their whole team, board members, and other investors. It’s vital for you to learn as much as you can about the company before investing so that there will be no unpleasant surprises.
"2. Be vigilant. – Cryptocurrency is still primarily bought and sold at exchanges. Because cryptocurrency is something new and the fuss around it is its value, many people get scammed by the promise of unrealistic prices. If an exchange promises incredible discounts or offers that seem too good to be true, it probably is. Another thing that you can do to avoid bitcoin exchange scams is to check the exchange’s URL. If a website’s address starts with HTTPS instead of just HTTP, that means that the traffic is encrypted and therefore has more protection.
"3. Only use trusted sources. – Hardware wallet is a physical device that stores your private keys. Hardware wallets offer more protection from hacking since there is no way for hackers to access them when you’re not online. However, hackers have now found a way around that. Some hackers sell hardware wallets that have a backdoor for them to access all your cryptocurrency and the best way to avoid this is only to accept hardware wallets from trusted sources."
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 Microsoft has announced the initial release of the Azure Blockchain Development Kit on 15, November 2018. The kit is built on Microsoft’s serverless technologies and seamlessly integrates blockchain with the best of Microsoft. The Azure Blockchain Development Kit is regarded as a great platform for blockchain application development. It makes "developing end to end blockchain applications accessible, fast, and affordable to anyone with an idea." Here is a summary of the concluding words from a post in Microsoft Blog: "It is built atop our investments in blockchain and connects to the compute, data, messaging, and integration services available in both Azure and the broader Microsoft Cloud to provide a robust palette for a developer to realize their vision. "Logic Apps and Flow deliver a graphical design environment with more than 200 connectors dramatically simplifying the development of end to end blockchain solutions, and Azure Functions enable the rapid integration of custom code. "A serverless approach also reduces costs and management overhead. With no VMs to manage, built-in scalability, and an approachable pricing model the Azure Blockchain Development Kit is within reach of every developer – from enthusiasts to ISVs to enterprises. "Solutions are written using online visual workflow designers and Visual Studio Code, a free download that provides an integrated development environment on Windows, Mac, and Linux. "The resulting applications will run atop a network that has higher rated cloud performance than other large-scale providers and enable federating identities between participants using Azure Active Directory. With Azure, those applications can be deployed to more regions than any other cloud provider and benefit from more certifications...." "To learn more about how to use these samples to build and extend blockchain applications, you can find a host of videos on.." |
  Leading global retailer Carrefour announced, they will use the IBM Food Trust blockchain network to strengthen their food excellence actions. Carrefour is one of the world's leading retailers with more than 12,000 stores in 33 countries. Laurent Vallée, general secretary of Carrefour said "being a founding member of the IBM Food Trust platform is a great opportunity for Carrefour and widen the integration of blockchain technology to our products in order to provide our clients with safe and undoubted traceability". Every passing day there are new participants to this movement among retailers and suppliers. Walmart for example recently announced that it will begin requiring its leafy green suppliers to capture digital, end-to-end traceability event information using IBM Food Trust. IBM Food Trust uses a decentralized model to allow multiple participating members of the food supply chain – from growers to suppliers to retailers – to share food origin details, processing data and shipping information on a permissioned blockchain network. Each node on the blockchain is controlled by a separate entity, and all data on the blockchain is encrypted. The decentralized features of the network enable all parties to work together to ensure the data is trusted. Participants can select from three IBM Food Trust software-as-a-service modules with pricing that is scaled for small, medium and global enterprises, beginning at $100 USD per month. Suppliers can contribute data to the network at no cost. IBM Food Trust is available as a subscription service for members of the food ecosystem to join. Read more on >> |
 "The adoption of blockchain is still in its early stages across EMEA, although at different speeds in different sectors and geographies. Overall, however, there is strong belief in thelong-term impact of blockchain to help transform business and government services. Government organizations are coming to the forefront in spearheading the adoption of blockchain. The European Commission has supported the signing of a 27-country pact on blockchain, the European Blockchain Partnership, that will see EU-wide collaboration on regulatory and technical matters. The EU will allocate €300 million in blockchain investment over the next three years. It has also established the European Blockchain Observatory toundertake research on how blockchain can be applied. In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates has developed a visionary strategy for blockchain with theintent of having 50 percent of government transactions on blockchain by 2021. Elsewhere, individual countries are working to advance their own specific initiatives, such as Sweden’s blockchain-based land registry project. At a regulatory level, many of the national and regional regulators are adopting a wait-and-see approach, preferring to explore and understand blockchain’s regulatory and policy implications before moving forward. ... Despite this significant activity, a number of factors areimpacting the pace of adoption: • Reputational issues with cyptocurrencies are contaminating blockchain investment decisions and causing board-level concerns • Slow progress on the development of the necessary regulatory frameworks, legislation, and industry standards that are required to move from pilots to production • A lack of available talent with blockchain expertise • Governance challenges around consortia While progress is being made on preparing the ground or further development in locations, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Switzerland, it is also clear that there is more to accomplishto accelerate blockchain adoption in this region over the next two to three years." Read more >> |
The DAIBC was held in Kuala Lumpur on September 27-28, 2018. Feng Chi, CEO of Genesis Group, was invited to deliver a speech on the development of the blockchain market in China.
“The blockchain is becoming the critical area for international competition,” he said. “The blockchain sets no block to any country. It is a global revolution on productive relations and the blockchain market differs in every country.”
From 2013 when China Central Television reported BitCoin for the first time to 2017 when the blockchain hype emerged in China, China’s blockchain market has undergone ups and downs, creating opportunities and challenges.
According to 2018 China Blockchain Industry Whitepaper published by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of March 2018, there were 456 companies specializing in blockchain businesses. Before 2013, this number was only 31, but 136 and 178 respectively in 2016 and 2017. These companies fall into several categories, with the financial services being the majority, followed by blockchain solutions, underlying platforms, and blockchain media & communities. So far, the blockchain technology has been applied in areas such as supply-chain finance, credit investigation, product tracing, copyright trading, digital identity and digital evidence...
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"The 11-storey data centre is 170,000 sqm and will 'support hundreds of jobs', says the social media giant.
"SINGAPORE: Social media giant Facebook on Thursday (Sep 6) announced it will pour in more than S$1.4 billion to construct its first data centre in Asia in Singapore.
"The new facility, located at Tanjong Kling (formerly known as Data Centre Park) in the west of Singapore, will span 170,000 sq m and will 'support hundreds of jobs', the company said in its press release, adding it will form part of its growing presence in Singapore and across the region.
"Mr Thomas Furlong, vice president for Infrastructure Data Centers at Facebook, told reporters at the launch event that the new project will create 'thousands of construction jobs', while the facility will require "hundreds of operators" ranging from network maintenance to logistics staff. He added that given it is a long-term project, the company is still working out its staffing needs..."
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  "The U.S., Switzerland, and Singapore were ranked as the top three 'most favorable' countries for Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) in a recent report, according to a press release the researchers shared with Cointelegraph July 14. "Analysts associated with the Crypto Finance Conference compiled the research based on publicly available data of the top 100 ICOs by country in terms of funds raised and ranked them by number of projects launched. "The report highlights the U.S. as the most favorable country for ICOs with a total of 30 companies launched in the field. The second country is Switzerland, which is responsible for half as many of the projects, while Singapore is ranked third place with 11 projects. "The report also features Russia, Estonia and the UK as some of the most promising countries for crypto project funding... "Cointelegraph also recently reported that ICO volumes reached new records in the first half of 2018, amounting to already twice as much as it was during the entire year of 2017. "As a top location for conducting biggest ICOs and crypto projects, the U.S. continues to combat cases of illegal activity in the sphere..." Source >> |
On May the 7th 2018, Microsoft has announced the public preview release of "Azure Blockchain Workbench" a new offering that can reduce application development time from months to days.
"Azure Blockchain Workbench" connects your blockchain projects to the cloud with an ease. It simplifies developments and your experience with prebuild networks and infrastructure. "With Workbench users can quickly:
The companies engaged with Microsoft "Azure Blockchain Workbench" preview program currently are: Bank Hapoalim - Israel Nestle - Italy Apttus - United States Microsoft says "With the release of Azure Blockchain Workbench, we take another step towards making this technology more developer friendly. As we continue to learn with customers and partners, we look forward to extending its capabilities, open-sourcing more of its code and partnering with organizations to expand its usefulness." Source >> |