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Use Case: Blockchain Platform For $100 Billion Luxury Brand Comes to Life – Bloc... (blockpublisher.com)Luxury brand conglomerate, Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy otherwise known as LVMH, has stepped into the blockchain space as it announced to launch a blockchain-powered platform, Aura, for authenticating high-end luxury goods.
LVMH, the owner of the iconic Louis Vuitton label, controls over 60 luxury brands across various categories like watches, jewelry, perfumes and cosmetics, fashion and leather goods, selective retailers, even wines and spirits.
The group reported revenues of $53 billion in 2018 only, in addition to Louis Vuitton, another LVMH brand Parfums Christian Dior, has struck a partnership with the blockchain software technology company, ConsenSys and Microsoft for their blockchain endeavor.
LVMH recruited a full-time blockchain team, which purportedly has been operating in secrecy for over a year now, working in alliance with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure.
READ ALSO: Ivy League Professor’s Crypto Has the Solution to Blockchain Scalability
The partnership resulted in the platform named, AURA, a cryptographic provenance platform specifically designed to serve the entire luxury industry with powerful product tracking and tracing services. According to the press release:AURA makes it possible for consumers to access the product history and proof of authenticity of luxury goods — from raw materials to the point of sale, all the way to second-hand markets.
AURA is a new blockchain, based off of the permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain, called Quorum. Designed through JP Morgan’s partnership with the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, Quorum specifically focuses on data privacy as well as transparency.
READ ALSO: JPM Coin is the Evidence of Trust in Blockchain Technology
The technology can store unique information about every product stored on a shared ledger and customers are then able to use the brand’s official application to obtain a certificate, offering details about its background.
According to reports, AURA will also offer ethical and environmental information, instructions for product care and warranty services.
It is expected to go live later in May or June with Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior initially, however, it will be extended to LVMH’s other 60-plus luxury brands and eventually those of its competitors.
READ ALSO: “Blockchain is Useless” Crypto Community Reacts to CTO’s Remarks
The team behind AURA hopes that in the near future it will be used by rival luxury brands as well, which will enable them to offer tailor-made services and strengthen customer loyalty. According to Ken Timsit, managing director of ConsenSys Solutions:AURA is a groundbreaking innovation for the luxury industry. ConsenSys is proud to contribute and to work with LVMH on an initiative that will serve the entire luxury industry, protecting the interests, integrity, and privacy of each brand.
Although not much was revealed regarding the platform but it is expected that AURA will be used to prove the authenticity of LVMH’s luxury products, allowing for the tracking of origins to the point of sale.
The second stage of the project, according to reports, will explore the protection of creative intellectual property, in addition to exclusive offers, events for customers and anti-advertising fraud.
READ ALSO: Coffee Over Blockchain – Starbucks & Microsoft Tracks Production
However it is not the first to propose the idea of an authenticity-tracking blockchain, there are other luxury brands provenance platforms out there. The French startup Arianee claims to be building perpetual relationships between brands and owners made of trust, respect and transparency.
The startup boasts former employees and advisors from luxury brands such as Tiffany’s, Omega, Balenciaga and the Richemont group.
READ ALSO: PepsiCo Gets 28% Efficiency Boost Through Zilliqa Blockchain
The team behind Arianee created a new blockchain, which was a copy of Ethereum, thus combining both permissioned and permission-less elements through its use of a consensus mechanism, it’s calling “proof-of-authority.
” It is permissionless in the sense that users who are interested in selling their products to one another can interact with the blockchain, but the verification of the ledger and issuance of new tokens is controlled by the participating businesses.
Furthermore there have been other high-end brands that are turning to blockchain technology for the reason of provenance. Recently, the premium scotch whiskey brand Ailsa Bay, which is owned by William Grant & Sons (WG&S) and has yearly revenue of about $80 million, was in the news for releasing world’s first scotch whisky tracked with a blockchain-based system.-
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Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The blockchain is the tool of trust putting together the future economy. This use case shows something: there are companies, both new startups and old big ones, working without propaganda on platforms offering new solutions which save time, money, and are more in consonance with the digital economy.- 10 1 vote
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Getting funding for their startups is not an easy feat for blockchain entrepreneurs.
Despite the rising prevalence of blockchain in today’s world, it still isn’t enough to push blockchain at the forefront of investment. More startup companies are turning to outside funding in order to gain the money they need to run their digital business.
Unfortunately for them, it's not that easy to ask investors to fund a blockchain startup. This is what blockchain investors look for in a startup before they decide to take the plunge.
Real innovation
Blockchain may be an innovation all in itself, but that isn't enough for investors who want real innovation from an individual company. Real innovation, in this case, can be defined as something new and unique that a company has managed to come up with using current or upcoming technology.
Blockchain is a technology that can potentially contribute to the modernization of our businesses and our economy. And it's involving very fast.Based on this statement, it would seem like investors are the ones not having enough projects to invest in.
If entrepreneurs can focus more on developing their blockchain-capable businesses more, they will be able to attract investors who are specifically looking for something new created out of blockchain technology.
Tech connectivity
Investors are not interested in using blockchain in isolation. They are interested in seeing how blockchain can be used in relation to other technology, such as artificial intelligence, for instance.Although both have remained as standalone technologies in the last decade, more and more academics have been trying to combine the two.
The convergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence could lead to several benefits in various sectors, including healthcare and finance, the two sectors that see the most identity fraud cases in recent years.
With blockchain and AI integrated together, companies in these sectors can create an encrypted method of storing sensitive data that can then be securely unlocked using the knowledge and sophistication of AI.
This is just one example of the way blockchain can be used to improve existing technology and even create an entirely new technology altogether.
Useful solutions
Investors are also interested in a startup that can suggest and develop useful blockchain solutions that even the mainstream public can accept and adapt.Many companies use the word blockchain as a buzzword in order to entice investors, which is why many investors tend to avoid those.
These investors prefer companies or projects building something with the core value that comes from a set of functions native to blockchain and cannot be attained in the absence of blockchain.
Valuable data
Another thing that investors look for in a startup is valuable data. Valuable data can lead to valuable discoveries, and at the same time, help create projections and forecasts for specific startup products. Like any serious investor, most investors prefer to invest in a product when it’s still fresh on the market, as long as its forecasts are positive.
One of the biggest problems with blockchain startups is that they try too hard to look for problems to solve, instead of solving problems that are already in front of them. Investors want someone with a clear vision for what they're building, a balanced skill set, and an ability to get things done.
Attentive Founders
Lastly, investors are attracted to startups with founders who are attentive to industry happenings and are quick to adapt their business based on current situations.
The reason for this is two-fold. One, staying updated on whatever's happening within the industry ensures investors that the founders themselves are interested in blockchain and are thus motivated to improve the sector.
Two, knowing how to adapt to remain sustainable and profitable is extremely vital in running a business in the digital realm.Just using the word blockchain in your business proposal is not enough to secure funding from investors. If you can integrate all these factors that affect the decision-making process of investors, you'll stand a better chance of getting your company funded.
Chris Porteous
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I'm a serial entrepreneur and owner of three internet ventures, including My SEO Sucks. A contributor to ZeroHedge, Entrepreneur.com, Forbes, Inc.com, and dozens of other media outlets, I believe in SEO as a product. I developed a proprietary technology fueling the #1 rankings of My SEO Sucks clients. In guest speaking ventures across North American, I advocate for organic search traffic as the backbone of any comprehensive digital marketing strategy.-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst We have witnessed many "blockchain solutions" since 2017. But real, active and profitable solutions? Very few. Those investing in 2017 anywhere have learnt the lesson. They want real use cases, real solutions, interconnected. They want profit and participate in the start of the 4th IR.
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Want a career in blockchain? Here are the 4 skills you'll need - Study Inte... (studyinternational.com)More businesses plan to use blockchain in future. A survey by Big Four auditing firm KPMG found that 48 percent of C-level executives believe blockchain is likely to change the way they do business in the next three years, while 41 percent of respondents said they are likely to use the technology in their companies.
For fresh graduates planning to venture into this hot sub-industry, the following information will come in useful. KPMG has recently released what it deems to be the top four skill sets for those planning a career in blockchain.
Blockchain refers to the secure and transparent ledger behind technologies such as cryptocurrency. A vague term just a few years ago, the technology and its capabilities are now more understood by businesses.
It’s expanding business models, piloting projects and presenting new solutions to many companies. But to succeed, they require graduate talent.
“Like any emerging technology, having the right talent is paramount to driving results,” the report states. “Blockchain projects will not succeed or scale without a multifaceted team that goes beyond technologists.
We expect more universities to integrate blockchain into future coursework, which will help prepare both end users as well as those who will be responsible for building, deploying and managing blockchain.
”And these talented individuals should possess these following skills:1. Business acumen
From IT to finance, procurement to mailroom, blockchain will have an impact on every organisational role. A person working in blockchain needs to understand a business deeply as the technology works in such a way that each entity has a unique view and access. Failing to do this will result in a blockchain project without a compelling use case.2. Tech literacy
Knowing the cloud, protocols, consensus, ERPs and networks aren’t enough. Future blockchain employees should also know when to use different tools and platforms, as well as how blockchain interacts within an existing technology ecosystem and vice versa. Some knowledge of coding like JavaScript, HTML and Solidity will be important for those planning to work on the development side of blockchain, too.3. Data analysis
One of blockchain’s greatest benefits is data. The report says the key to success lies in those who can understand and make use of this to be presented to a variety of people across the business.4. Hacker mentality
A blockchain worker must be open to explore and experiment by “hacking the problem” from a business and technology perspective. This means working collaboratively in a workshop-type setting to think through the business objectives, implications and value story for each of the participants and then define the architecture and overall solution flow.-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Good resume of individual skills for a blockchain based job. Blockchain start ups already know this and create teams which mix all these skills, to produce results.
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Instagram Data Breach Reports Prove You Should Skip Facebook’s Crypto
Another day, another Facebook data leak affecting millions of dubious users. This time around, security researcher Anurag Sen discovered a public Amazon Web Services (AWS) database containing the contact information of more than 49 millionInstagram accounts, TechCrunch reports. For those out of the loop, Facebook is the monopolistic owner of Instagram and most other things social media.DETAILS OF THE INSTAGRAM DATA LEAK
The exposed database includes public information from Instagram accounts such as the number of followers, likes, and shares of a particular user. More concerning, though, is the inclusion of email addresses and phone numbers of numerous account owners – information that Instagram allegedly keeps private.
Chtrbox, a social media marketing firm, owns the database. As part of the data, the company calculated a net worth for each account using public information and presumably reached out with offers through the suspiciously obtained contact information.Facebook has had little to say on the matter, telling TechCrunch:“We’re looking into the issue to understand if the data described – including email and phone numbers – was from Instagram or from other sources.”
46 0 DAYS SINCE FACEBOOK’S LAST PRIVACY ACCIDENT
This latest Instagram snafu further proves that Facebook either doesn’t care or doesn’t know how to secure user privacy. Just last month, security firm UpGaurd revealed that you could find hundreds of millions of private Facebook user records through public third-party databases on Amazon. Sound familiar?
In the past five years, Facebook has leaked the private information of its users on several different occasions. August 2017 saw hackers obtain and sell email addresses and phone numbers of around 6 million Instagram users. In September 2018, Facebook security vulnerabilities enabled malicious parties to gather the personal information of almost 50 million users. And, who could forget the ridiculous Cambridge Analytica debacle?
Throw in Facebook’s risky, plaintext storage of passwords, and you paint a picture that’s drastically different than the company’s new “privacy-focused” brand.YOU CAN’T TRUST FACEBOOK WITH ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY CRYPTOCURRENCY
Facebook’s crypto launch is right around the corner, but the recent data leak serves as a swift reminder to stay the hell away.Project Libra, the social media company’s secretive cryptocurrency project, has been in the works for more than a year. Initially, a payment system between Whatsapp users, the product has ballooned into a $1 billion conglomerate courting potential investments from payment processors like Visa and Mastercard.
But even big-name investments can’t help Facebook’s anti-privacy image. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company has seen a decline in job acceptance rates. Additionally, the social media platform’s user base is following a similar trend, losing 15 million users since 2017.
Facebook usage continues to fall due to constant privacy blunders. | Source: Edison Research
Now more than ever, people care about the secrecy of their online personas. Although Facebook is starting to talk the privacy talk, it’s clear that the company isn’t prepared to walk the privacy walk.
Facebook’s cryptocurrency is already taboo because the company is completely centralized and even the hint of another security breach isn’t helping Mark Zuckerberg’s case.-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst We are not precisely defenders of FB here, but this article points could be said of many other private companies trying to launch a crypto. Hacking, hackers, backdoors, etc, are here to stay and try to get inside. The blockchain offers precisely a safer and more secure environment, as trust is at its core. The truth is that a future FB's crypto makes us unease due to FB's centralised business model, the opposite of a future digital tokenised 4th IR economy.
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Use Case: 10 questions about blockchain | Imperial News | Imperial College Londo... (imperial.ac.uk)What is blockchain, where is it used, and will it become mainstream?These are just some of the questions on the lips of the public as the word – and cryptocurrency in general – are becoming more widely used.
Dr Ying-Ying HsiehBut if you’re new to the idea of blockchain, it can seem a tricky concept to get your head around. With this in mind, we recently sat down with Dr Ying-Ying Hsieh, Assistant Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Imperial College Business School, to talk about blockchain and its applications in cryptocurrency and beyond.
Here are her confusion-busting answers to some of the public’s most common questions.
1. What is blockchain?
Blockchain is simply a piece of software that enables the sharing of value, such as payments, between peers online. Importantly, blockchain allows the information to be shared without the need to go through any third-party intermediaries such as banks or payment companies.
As its name suggests, it is made of blocks that are connected in chains and each block stores a small part of the history of the transactions that have taken places on the blockchain.
2. When was blockchain first created?
Blockchain is not so much an original idea as it is a combination of a number of pre-existing technologies such as cryptography, peer-to-peer computing and others. The successful first digital implementation of blockchain was in 2008, with the publication of a whitepaper by an anonymous developer, nicknamed Satoshi Nakamoto, in which the idea of blockchain-mediated cryptocurrency, known as bitcoin, was first proposed.
3. How does blockchain support bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that one can think of as digital cash. Bitcoin only exists online and therefore, its exchange needs to be recorded digitally. Blockchain essentially acts as a digital ledger to record all transactions happening between the peers online and provides a secure and decentralised record for all of the exchanges.
4. What does a decentralised blockchain mean?
It means that the information in the blockchain is not stored in a single place but it is distributed across the network of people who are using it. For example, standard cash, such as pounds or dollars, are issued by the central banks that keep the records of where the money is going. However, with bitcoin, there is no single entity that is responsible for issuing bitcoins and keeping the records. Bitcoin works through an anonymous network of people who provide nodes to the blockchain. Anyone can join or exit the blockchain at any time and the cross-validation between the nodes is required to record anything on the ledger.
5. Does the decentralised nature of the blockchain make it more secure?
Yes, here is an example: if you have a pot of gold you can store it in the vault and trust the people who own the vault, i.e. banks and their personnel, to keep it safe for you. But if your gold is analogous to bitcoin, then, rather than putting your pot of gold into a bank vault, you actually put it in someone’s house in some imaginary village and it gets moved to a new house every 10 minutes or so. No one knows where your gold will be moved, which makes it very difficult for any burglar to know where it will be at any given time. Moreover, to enter the houses in which your gold is stored, the burglar would need to solve complicated equations, which are both time consuming and extremely energy expensive.
6. But there have been many reports of bitcoins being stolen, so it is possible to hack the blockchain, right?
Well, most of those reports actually refer to the hacking of exchanges in which the cryptocurrencies are being traded and not the blockchain itself. In fact, we can still find the stolen currency on the blockchain we just do not have the access to it or know who has stolen it.
7. Can anyone start a blockchain?
Yes, in principle anyone with some computing knowledge can do it, but the start is the easy part. The success and value of the blockchain comes from its size and to make it attractive to the users the creator of the new blockchain needs to be able to grow it fast by adding as many blocks as possible to the chain. The scaling of the blockchain is referred to as bootstrapping and it is often done through the so-called initial coin offerings at the early stages of a cryptocurrency creation.
8. Are there different types of blockchains?
Currently there are several different types of blockchains, which were mostly developed to improve the original bitcoin blockchain. Another very popular blockchain is the Ethereum blockchain developed to exchange ether tokens online. Ethereum blockchain is more energy efficient, allows smart contracts (transfer of currency only under certain conditions) and also uses proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-workprotocols to validate transactions.
9. Is there any disadvantage to using a blockchain?
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage from the government’s perspective is that blockchain-based technologies are very difficult to track. The decentralised nature of the blockchain makes it difficult to regulate transactions happening online and therefore, it is very attractive for criminals to use it for illegal trade and money laundering purposes. In fact, we often see bitcoins being the preferred payment method during the ransomware attacks and in online black market for weapons and drugs.
10. Can blockchain be used outside the cryptocurrency field?
There are many potential avenues for the use of blockchain, though, so far, it has been used more as a proof-of-concept and not yet fully implemented. Essentially, any situation where trust is of key importance could make use of blockchain, whether that is the financial industry or electronic voting systems. In the shipping industry the blockchain could be used to track where the goods versus the money is, and in the healthcare system it could be used for the secure storage of patient data.Listen to Bernadeta’s interview with Dr Ying-Ying Hsieh:
Article text (excluding photos or graphics) © Imperial College London.
Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission or © Imperial College London.
Reporter
Bernadeta Dadonaite
School of Professional Development
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Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst Blockchain's divulgation is necessary. Although ultimately prosumers won't have to understand how it works, only that their problems get solutions though digital platforms and Dapps powered by the blockchain. This said, blockchain evangelisation through general knowledge is commendable.
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The price of Bitcoin has rallied by more than 150% since the December lows, Alex DeGroote from DeGroote Consulting talks to IGTV’s Victoria Scholar about the outlook for bitcoin.
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Killian Stokes and Shane Reilly had both experienced different countries of the coffee belt during their worldly travels before met during postgraduate studies at UCD’s Innovation Academy.
Reflecting on their experiences and the fact that 99.9 per cent of coffee is exported before roasting, they felt there was something they could do about that.
Now, not only are they making an impact in the coffee industry, they are looking at blockchain to help consumers to do the same.
“We started to explore ethical trade and coffee brands and we looked at whether we would be able to set something up. We came across this Dutch-Ethiopian collaboration, Moyee coffee,” says Stokes.
The company supports farmers to roast their own coffee beans before export.After a trip out to the mountains and forests of Ethiopia to see the supply chain in action, “I thought this is brilliant, we should bring this product to Ireland and the UK.
” The pair met Moyee Coffee founder Guido van Staveren van Dirk in Amsterdam, “and decided that we would help expand the product and bring it here to the Irish market”.
That was more than two years ago and now Moyee Coffee Ireland has found its market selling to tech companies such as Groupon and Slack, “the sweet spot, coffee at work,” as well as independent retailers.
Moyee Coffee, as a whole, wants to deliver transparency of its supply chain to its customers and is building a platform which incorporates blockchain technology delivering instant information to the consumer.FairChain Foundation
“Behind Moyee there is the FairChain Foundation,” says Stokes. “I guess it gives the credibility to the coffee brand. It’s the FairChain foundation that’s building the blockchain and it’s training farmers – helping at the ground level for those farmers to get to a living wage.
“In many ways what we are trying to do with your coffee is, we’ve three principles: it’s 50/50 shared value, we want 50 per cent of what you pay going to that country of origin.
We believe in quality, not charity, so the quality is really important – are the beans graded in the top 5 per cent of all coffee in the world? “And I guess we believe in trade, not aid, so taking out the middle man, ironing out inefficiencies and shifting value back.
Maybe you could say [we are] redesigning the business model to make it more fair, more balanced. “Your supply chain is your brand. It’s not just a colourful logo or having a celebrity front your coffee.
For us as consumers the brand is knowing where that product came from – it was developed in an ethical fashion and it didn’t destroy the planet and the people involved there weren’t in slavery and got paid a fair wage for their input.
”They propose to use money from their marketing budget to either reward the consumer or have the consumer send the reward back somewhere along the supply chain.
“That is really is the beauty of the blockchain,” says Stokes. [For us] it’s got two massive potentials to it. One is that you and I can pick up a product and zap a QR code and see exactly who got paid what, from the farmer to your bag or cup.
So that’s 100 per cent transparency and the blockchain is validating every process in that journey. And the second part is really to connect you as a consumer with those farmers.
“When you buy a product there’ll be another QR code on the inside of the bag or at the till – you get 50 cent back out of your purchase to do with what you wish, you either keep or share.
You might decide to share that with the farmer, so effectively tip the farmers, maybe send the 50 cent back to pay for seeds or tools or loans the farmers are seeking or maybe to plant trees in their community.
”FairChain is using Hyperledger Fabric to build its platform. “This allows us to create ecosystems in which not everybody can just freely participate,” says Amerjeet Singh, platform architect at FairChain.
“Not any brand can just join and take the leverage or the benefits of a blockchain-based system in terms of the tractability and value transfer. It will only work with organisations that have a series of chains that are willing to divide value equally and they want to prove their story. This allows us to create certain boundaries for entering.
”The tokens that will be distributed in the products will create a digital trail. Using euro currency, with the use of blockchain the transfer will be instant, with no cost involved. There will also be the added benefit of creating a credit history for the farmers and giving them ownership of their own data.Tracking
“Every asset that goes through the supply chain is being tracked. That means that you get full insight as a consumer into the people that touch the product and the prices. Knowing exactly if you are paying €2.99 for a chocolate bar, who were the contributors to it and what money did they receive? You can actually see that proof, the places it’s been and the processes it underwent,” says Singh.
All consumers who decide to share their token will get instant feedback on where their investment went and, subsequently, the continuation of the impact that investment delivered via feedback loops.
“They receive the feedback – [for example] some kind of seedling has been bought; they receive a photo that the seedling has been put in the ground and the outcome of the tree that has been grown,” says Singh.
“We believe that consumers do want to invest a bit more and then they have some money on their hands but usually there is a trust level that is just so low. If you can enhance that trust, let’s see what consumers do.
”Consumers are becoming far more aware of the products they are buying and the impact production is having on the planet. Using blockchain is just one of the things companies can do to help conscious consumers make a difference.
“One of the things that we learned is economics alone does not end poverty,” says Stokes. “You need social change, you need environmental change. If you want to protect the planet, the environment, you have to protect the people that work the planet.
If you don’t want people to chop down trees for firewood you have to make sure they are not desperately poor and hungry.”- By Admin
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