In order to achieve blockchain mass adoption, three fundamental problems should be solved. Let’s dive into the third one: governance.

This is Part 3 of a three-part series in which Andrew Levine outlines the issues facing legacy blockchains and posits solutions to these problems.

Read Part 1 on the upgradeability crisis here and Part 2 on the vertical scaling crisis here.

Upgradeability, vertical scaling and governance: What all three of these issues have in common is that people are attempting to iterate on top of a flawed architecture. Bitcoin and Ethereum were so transformative that they have totally framed the way we look at these issues.

We need to remember that these were developed at a specific moment in time, and that time is now in the somewhat-distant past when blockchain technology was still in its infancy.

One of the areas in which this age is showing is in governance. Bitcoin launched with proof-of-work to establish Byzantine fault tolerance and deliver the decentralization necessary to create a trustless ledger that can be used to host digital money.

With Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin was seeking to generalize the underlying technology so that it could be used not just to host digital money but also to enable developers to program that money.

With that goal in mind, it made perfect sense to adopt the consensus algorithm behind the most trusted blockchain: proof-of-work.

Proof-of-work is a mechanism for minimizing Byzantine fault intolerance — proving BFT is not as easy as people like to pretend. It is not a governance system.

Bitcoin doesn’t need a governance system because it is not a general-purpose computer.

The reason general-purpose computers need a governance system is that computers need to be upgraded.

One needs no clearer proof than the magnitude of changes planned for Ethereum 2.0 and the aggressive advocacy for the adoption of the necessary hard forks.

We are not the first to point out this problem. The founders of Tezos accurately forecast this problem, but they ultimately failed to deliver a protocol that meets the needs of most developers for the following reasons:

• The blockchain is written in a different language than the smart contracts.
• They introduced a political process where decision-making occurs off-chain.
• They failed to deliver on an on-chain explicit upgrade path.
• They failed to establish distinct classes that can act as checks and balances.

The smartness of smart contracts

Developers must be able to code up the behaviors they would like to see in the blockchain as smart contracts, and there must be an on-chain process for adding this behavior to the system through an explicit upgrade path.

In short, we should be able to see the history of an upgrade just as we can see the history of a given token.

The appropriate place for governance is in determining which smart contracts are made into “system” contracts based on whether they will increase the value of the protocol.

The challenge is, of course, coming to a consensus on that value.The most controversial point I will make is the critical need for algorithmically distinct classes that act as checks and balances on one another.

While intuition might suggest that more classes make consensus more difficult, this is not the case.

First, if the upgrade candidates are already running as smart contracts on the mainnet, objective metrics can be used to determine whether the ecosystem would benefit from turning the “user” contract into a “system” contract.

Second, if we were not trying to bundle upgrades into hard forks, they could be piecemeal and targeted.

We would simply be trying to assess, in a decentralized manner, whether the system would be improved by a single change.

Checks and balances

It is commonly understood that in any economy, there are essentially three factors of production: land (infrastructure), labor and capital. Every major blockchain only recognizes one class: capital.

In PoW chains, those who have the most capital buy the most ASICs and determine which upgrades can go through. In proof-of-stake and delegated proof-of-stake chains, control by capital is more direct.

In addition to being problematic on its face, the absence of any other classes to act as a check on capital has a paradoxical effect that leads to political paralysis.

No group is homogenous. Classes, properly measured, create efficiency — not inefficiency — by forcing the members of a class to come to a consensus around their common interest.

Without such pressure, subclasses (groups within a class) will fight among one another, leading to gridlock. Properly designed classes motivate their members to come to an internal consensus so that they can maximize their influence on the system relative to the other classes.

If we can codify individual classes representing infrastructure, development and capital, then upgrades that receive approval from all three classes must, by definition, add value to the protocol, as these three classes encompass the totality of stakeholders within any economy.

Such a governance system, when combined with a highly upgradeable platform, would be able to rapidly adapt to the needs of developers and end-users, and evolve into a platform that can meet the needs of everyone.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Andrew Levine is the CEO of OpenOrchard, where he and the former development team behind the Steem blockchain build blockchain-based solutions that empower people to take ownership and control over their digital selves.

Their foundational product is Koinos, a high-performance blockchain built on an entirely new framework architected to give developers the features they need in order to deliver the user experiences necessary to spread blockchain adoption to the masses.

What Would You Choose? To find out, click here: https://lnkd.in/eGXCe7s . If you like what we are doing, kindly share this post.

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When blockchain technology was first created by a small group of individuals, many banking systems stated they would never use it. That was partly due to the reputation the technology had of being used by anarchists looking to avoid using banking systems, according to head of delivery for ConsenSys, Julien Vincent (pictured), when he spoke recently with Insurance Business.

Since then, it has progressed to the point that the banking sector has realised that it makes sense to invest and utilise blockchain, he said, and in 2019 the financial sector as a whole started to invest heavily in these solutions.

Read more: Aon’s latest report examines the "true potential" of blockchain for insurers

Vincent, who manages the delivery of ConsenSys projects worldwide, as well as the implementation of major blockchain programs for ConsenSys’s global customers, has led digital transformation projects for several international consulting firms and outlined that technological revolutions will always occur – it is only a matter of whether businesses are ahead or behind the curve.

It is difficult to say whether or not the insurance sector is late to the table when it comes to blockchain, he said.

Though the sector is lingering behind other financial services who already have substantially sized projects in production, he said, in many ways, the solution has not been fully ready for the insurance industry until now.

Up until recently, ConsenSys was carrying out proof of concepts within the insurance sector to show that the use case was working, but these projects were not going into production, Vincent said. In 2020, the value of projects began to rise from being under €500,000 to being valued between €500,000 and €2 million. 

“The insurance sector is investing more in blockchain, especially this year and next year, and I think this is the right time for that investment,” he said. “It’s becoming much more important in terms of investment and most of these projects are centred around bringing efficiency to the actual use case.

”Blockchain has several significant benefits to carriers, Vincent noted, among them the capacity to save them time, cut costs, improve transparency, assist them in complying with regulations, and helping them to build better products and markets.

From his own work with insurers, he has noted that the key benefit offered by blockchain that insurance companies are interested in is its capacity to bring efficiency and reduce the cost of processes.

“Most large corporations are ready to invest one euro if they can save one euro in return,” he said, but he highlighted that for some organisations blockchain has become something of a buzzword without any real understanding of exactly what this means for the business.

“Sometimes clients come in and want to utilise blockchain, but at the end of the audit, they don’t need this, they just need to modernise their IT systems and there is no point in implementing blockchain unnecessarily.

”Blockchain has the capacity to maximise operational efficiencies for brokers, Vincent said, particularly when it comes to the opportunities afforded by this for simplifying communication between brokers and insurers.

Taking a KYC (know your customer) check for example, he said - if the KYC of one broker is validated, then, when another insurer is reached out to, this must be redone.

As seen in other areas of financial services already once the KYC is validated it can be published into the blockchain with the trust of the company validating this check.

Then, when a new client comes along, the KYC has already been validated by one or several companies and can be trusted, thus preventing the need for brokers to redo the entire process.

There is a lot of discussion about insurers and brokers adapting to new technologies and the problem of legacy systems preventing transformation, but Vincent noted how quickly transformation can take root within the employees of an organisation, and prompt significant changes in the way that businesses carry out their processes.

Looking to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and how it is forcing people to understand how to work remotely is one example of this, he said. He highlighted how a strike in France precipitated the use of public transport and how, when the strike was over, people continued cycling to work.“I think that COVID-19 will do exactly the same,” he said.

“You can see that most are now working remotely, and with Zoom, and lots of people will start saying ‘why do you have this information on paper, why is it not in a database?’.

They will ask why they cannot access information immediately and why they have to wait. And this will push companies to innovate and allow employees to access information right now, wherever they are.”

Related stories:

• Blockchain, insurance and the customer experience
• Aon's latest report examines the "true potential" of blockchain for insurers

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Though blockchain technology has usually been thought of has simply providing the rails for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a host of startups are using it in more subtle, but extremely powerful, ways.From Kenya’s BitPesa, now AZA, to Ghana’s Bit Sika, the initial wave of blockchain startups in Africa built solutions on the premise that it was the remittances space where blockchain and crypto could best be applied.

That is not necessarily wrong, and many such companies continue to launch, grow and raise funding, and bitcoin exchanges are springing up across the continent, but the application of blockchain in Africa is slowly maturing. Various startups are using it as a means of promoting transparency and increasing trust in various spaces.

The potential power of blockchain in AfricaSo far, we’ve seen African blockchain solutions used within elections, to make trade finance transactions, and to track the origins of cobalt. Startups across the continent are developing even more innovative and important use cases, and blockchain’s impact in various spaces could yet be immense.

George Maina is co-founder of Kenyan agri-tech startup Shamba Records, which has built a blockchain-based platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to collect farmers’ harvest records, process payments and issue credit. He says blockchain is so important in Africa because the continent is still trying to emerge from the colonial era as a more independent and developed continent.

“This means we’re still playing catch up to the west and the east. When we embrace blockchain, it can leapfrog us ahead, since we shall have created strong systems that ensure the set policies are adhered to,” Maina said. “It will help us fight corruption by ensuring transparency and traceability of national resources.

In addition, blockchain will assist in solving the challenges of counterfeit or substandard goods that affect our health, production capacity and in the long run our economies.

For me blockchain is an enabler to a better Africa.”Yele Bademosi, co-founder of early-stage VC firm Microtraction and a director at the blockchain-focused Binance Labs, agrees with this, saying blockchain has the potential to drive transformative change on the continent, especially in financial services and capital markets.

“Digitisation without decentralisation, in the wrong hands, can lead to an imbalance and abuse of power, especially within nation states where there’s a lack of good governance and institutions are weak,” he said. “Blockchain creates the right type of counterbalance and empowers individuals to take control of their economic activities without the need of a middle man or centralised authority.

”The solutionsSo what solutions are being developed? There are a host of them across the continent. In Kenya, there is Shamba Records, as well as RideSafe, which is using smart contracts to ensure quality service and high insurance penetration in the moto-taxi industry.

Another Nairobi-based company, the recently-funded UTU Technologies, is building a trust infrastructure for the digital economy on the blockchain.In Nigeria, HouseAfrica has developed Africa’s first blockchain-based land and property registry, reducing the time it takes banks, lawyers and other stakeholders to query and register land titles.

Agri-tech startup Hello Tractor, which arranges leasing of farming equipment, uses the technology to reduce transaction costs between tractor owners and farmers. Hello Tractor’s founder Jehiel Oliver says there is an extremely wide scope for application of blockchain, which he says is bringing about a “revolution”.

“From finance to fashion and even to agriculture, the innovation has proven to be versatile, bringing enhanced performance to these industries through increased transparency, efficiency, security and easier traceability,” he said.

“Blockchain really is the next wave of the technology revolution, holding the potential to solve some major real-world problems and spur the growth of new businesses and business models.

”It could, in fact, be as transformational as the arrival of the internet itself.“Just like the internet came and shaped the world, so also would blockchain technology significantly change the world and the way people carry out business in the future,” said Oliver.

Governments and startups support ecosystemsWhere is the help, then, for the startups and entrepreneurs building these transformational solutions on the blockchain. Assistance from policymakers has been limited thus far, with Kenya’s blockchain taskforce probably the most enlightened and tangible development thus far.

RideSafe founder Asiimwe Benson Mugisha says most African governments have not yet fully understood the potential that blockchain has. “Many still see it as a threat due to its ability to move money without government control,” he said.

Jason Eisen, chief executive officer (CEO) of UTU, said there had been movements in the right direction from some governments. 

“Governments are looking at key touch points between citizens and the government from IDs, land titling, and elections, to service delivery, securities issuances, quality standards enforcement, and IP protection as areas to harness the radical transparency, smart contracting, and data management capabilities of distributed ledger technologies,” he said.

There are international models for African governments to follow here. China is creating new legislation to deal with blockchain and how it enables new businesses, and has rolled out a Central Bank Digital Currency.

Singapore is following a similar approach. While policymakers delay, the private sector is stepping in to assist entrepreneurs, with the launch of blockchain-focused incubators like Kenya’s BitHub and South Africa’s Blockstarters.Kreaan Singh, the co-founder of Blockstarters, says in spite of blockchain’s huge potential power, hubs like his were necessary as building and implementing solutions using the tech can be a challenge.

“We have to realise that implementation will be extremely difficult, as those in power will fight tooth and nail to prevent the introduction of transparency in a system from which they personally benefit,” he said. 

“Money is arguably the only proven use case of blockchains so far. We know for sure that blockchains are capable of timestamping events or provenance of digital assets, so we are likely to see them being used for applications in law and digital identity.

This will, however, rely on a user experience that is seamless for the average person. We may also start to see African businesses becoming much more prominent in the global economy, given the accessibility and transparent nature of smart contract applications.”And what of investors, who have blown and cold at the space so far?

Llew Claasen, co-founder of VC firm Newtown Partners, which has invested in a number of blockchain and crypto startups, says in many cases the technology is still relatively immature and difficult to deploy at scale.

Yet it is getting better quickly.  “I think that the age of decentralised blockchain-based co-operatives as the evolution of two-sided marketplace business models are more than 10 years away, but there are strong incentives to invest early because these crypto-economic networks will tend to create strong network effects and have strong first-mover advantages that will be difficult to overcome once they achieve scale,” he said.

When and how they achieve scale is the big question for now, but what is not in doubt is the huge potential for blockchain in Africa and the serious amounts of innovation we are seeing from companies in the sector.

Blockchain Company is closer to its beta launch of Blockabase! One of several apps for our Token Economy Ecosystem. Go see Blockabase.com , start adding urls as a very early adopter of almost anything you love or care about and get BASE! Our token for free, each time you submit urls.

Our Search Engine platform token is called BASE and is credited to your Blockabase account by proxy. You are rewarded BASE on every url you add and you are also rewarded BASE when people click, comment or vote on quality urls you have added.

You can import your bookmarks too! Adding urls to Blockabase is a bit like mining Bitcoin! But without all the complexity, anyone can submit urls to help power up Blocakbase.

Blockabase assigns synthetic ownership of the urls you have added for web discovery through our search engine for life! This means you could be making a passive income forever. Every url is unique and added on a first come basis. You can also add as many sub urls of a site you like or care about. Every bit of millions of information, on the entire web is associated with a url and thousands of new websites and platforms are being launched every day all over the world.

So What is Blockabase?

Blockabase ( a colloquial new term we coined for database) is a tokenized, incentivized, interactive and user generated search engine powered by humans + AI.  

Google which is still the greatest and most powerful search engine, makes an annual revenue of over $100 billion a year, harnesses all your data for its benefit and users except for publishers, get nothing! At the same time, AI is rapidly eliminating humans from the process of work and our ability to make a decent living. Plus, data surveillance of all your personal data is the new oil.

Blockabase will help you harness your data, so only you can decide whether you wish to monetize it! We believe the future of data should be under your full control of how you wish to share it, keep it, or monetize it. Whenever we utilize your data to show ads over our network, you will see the revenue share in your Blockabase, it's that simple! We have no interest whatsoever in selling your data, unless you expressly opt-in to monetize it over our platform when we enable such features.

As the world inevitably changes, we believe, it is not Universal Basic Income that will provide an income, as white and blue collar professionals lose their jobs significantly, up to 46% by only 2025 according to Oxford University research. Instead, we take the view, it will be the new Token Economy that provides an increasing source of wealth and meaningful income for humans going forward.

We believe Silicon Valley platforms will start to tokenize and reward users for powering up their utilities, leading to an entirely new global economy and user inclusivity dynamics towards 2030. 

Our BASE search engine utility token, will seek listings on several crypto exchanges, as we evolve through 2020 and any token rewards in your account will be distributed to wallets respectively at the end of 12 months or sooner.

What you currently experience on Blockabase, is just the very first embryonic MVP ( medium viable product) phase of our development.

Blockabase will aim to morph into a digital economy fit for purpose, where BASE the token, can be p2p exchanged for thousands of products and services discovered in Blockabase search engine and accepted my merchants all over the world using Blockabase for site discovery in competition with the likes of Google, Yahoo and Bing, whom we admire by the way. The only difference is, a new token economy is emerging and we aim to be a significant part of it, with you included. 

Blockabase also rewards users for Ads they view over our search engine and wider network. Blockamail, Blockaads, Blockashop and soon Blockapay, are all interoperable applications part of Blockabase network. While Bitcoin unfortunately struggles with a utility use case, Blockabase search engine is the utility use case, powered up from ground zero by you!

At this very early stage, there are still bugs and lots of things for our team to fix going forward. However, it works reasonably now as a medium viable product fit for your purpose to utilize.

There are millions of urls that can be added to Blockabase and and we've made it more engaging and gamified fun to interact with. There are lots and lots of new features coming to Blockabase soon, to give our users a robust experience, as we aim to capture a reasonable part of that $100 billion a year Google makes. We believe the value of our efforts, combined with your user collaboration, should naturally be reflected in the BASE token as we scale.

You can be a passive stakeholder too!

Its free to join and start earning rewards for submitting quality urls, and earning rewards when users comment, like and vote to rank urls you added. The current free user URL Add reward, is 10 BASE per url added. This value and other rewards will decrease or increase, as our governance determines its network growth and stimulant effect.

You can think of Blockabase like an economy where interest rates are determined, subject to growth, supply, or inflation. However when you upgrade and pay a modest annual fee of $50.00, you will be entitled to up to 5x all activity rewards over the platform.

Our Ads utility rewards you separately in your Blockabase account too when Blockaads utility kicks in anytime very soon.

So that’s the skinny for now!

Go tell your friends, mates and family, get on board early to get BASE! Don’t miss out again like most of us did on Bitcoin. Start mining URLs, by simply submitting sites, news, social media and any content with a url to Blockabase.com today... Get involved! 

Note* Like most reputable platforms, Blockabase fully reserves the right to remove any content it believes is not acceptable for its search engine.

Imagine an application that doesn’t run on one server but harnesses the excess power of thousands of computers globally and that can be controlled by business automation software that ensures if a specific parameter is met, only then can a function be carried out.

That’s a distributed application – or dApp, as it's sometimes abbreviated – and there are thousands available for download.

[ Read the Download: Beginner's guide to blockchain special report ]

Running atop a blockchain, peer-to-peer (P2P) network that acts as a kind of operating system, dApps create an innovative open-source software ecosystem that is both secure and resilient. And it allows developers to create new online tools, many of which have piqued the interest of global business markets.

[ Take this mobile device management course from PluralSight and learn how to secure devices in your company without degrading the user experience. ]

"DApps will pool resources across numerous machines globally," said Juniper senior analyst Lauren Foye. "The results are applications which do not belong to a sole entity, [but] rather are community-driven."Bitcoin was arguably the first dApp, enabling anyone in the world to download a bit of open-source code to join a blockchain network and verify transactions using a “mining” algorithm, thereby generating digital currency (cryptocurrency) as a reward.
 Like a RAIDed storage array, if one of the computers (or nodes) running the dApp software goes down, another node instantaneously resumes the task.

Because smart contracts, or self-executing business automation software, can interact with dApps, they're able to remove administrative overhead, making them one of most attractive features associated with blockchain.

While blockchain acts as an immutable electronic ledger, confirming that transactions have taken place, smart contracts execute predetermined conditions; think about a smart contract as a computer executing on "if/then," or conditional, programming.

“DApps interact with smart contracts that are on the blockchain. So dApps support the user interface into the back-end smart contract that writes data to the blockchain,” said Avivah Litan, a vice president of research at Gartner.

DApps run the gamut, from digital asset exchanges like LBank to online gambling like PokerKing and games like Cryptokitties. (LBank holds the equivalent of more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency.)

Depending on the blockchain platform (there are more than a dozen and vastly more modifications of those), dApps are also used by small and large businesses to track and trace goods as they move around the globe and enable cross-border financial transactions without the need of a middleman such as a central bank or clearing house.

The following is a list of 10 game-changing dApps – both business and consumer –  in no particular order, according to industry experts such as Litan, and the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger organization. Some were chosen because of popularity, others because they’re innovative and feature-rich.

Chainlink

This secure middleware is promoting an open standard for a secure, decentralized data input or “oracle” system that validates information from external feeds. In short, Chainlink offers any smart contract secure access to data feeds, APIs and payments.It’s so promising that Google is testing it as the intermediary for its BigQuery platform-as-a-service data warehouse.In blockchain, an oracle can be a database or other data source that feeds traditional business information to a smart contract running on a blockchain ledger. Chainlink basically secures the data feed to and from the smart contracts and makes it that much harder to compromise, since it relies on the same types of consensus mechanisms blockchains use to come to agreement on the validity of a transaction.

A smart contract requires multiple inputs to prove contractual performance and Chainlink, which can connect to any API, can be used to validate money transfers from a bank or any number of other industry financial players, such as Visa or PayPal. Oraces are needed because smart contracts don’t interface with external systems or information directly; the oracle allows a smart contract to interact with any external system outside the blockchain (or DLT) they run on, according to Gartner.“This function is critical, especially in permissioned blockchain use cases, so that smart contracts can automatically and reliably respond to changing external circumstances, events and information. Some common examples in financial services include being notified of changing interest rates or asset prices,” Gartner said.

Brave

A web browser with almost 9 million active users, Brave is attempting to turn the online advertising model upside down by putting consumers in the driver's seat. The app creates a new measure of value in the advertising world where “consumer attention” is used to set value more than unverifiable views or clicks on a webpage, Gartner said in its Cool Vendors in Blockchain Applications report. Co-founded by Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript and a founder of Mozilla and Firefox, Brave seeks to create a blockchain-based digital advertising and services platform that gives both information control and privacy back to users – an increasingly hot topic after the rollout of GDPR.

The dApp enables key participants in the ad ecosystem (namely advertisers, publishers and browser users) to participate in a new business model that cuts out excess intermediation between publishers and advertisers by rewarding users with “Basic Attention Tokens (BATs) or Brave Rewards that can be traded like bitcoin.“If successful, it will greatly reduce the power and influence of the powerful Internet gatekeepers, e.g. Google and Facebook,” Litan wrote via email.

EOS Dynasty

In this mix, we had to include at least one game. EOS Dynasty, which has nearly 12,000 unique daily users, claims to be the first role-playing, player-versus-player (PvP) game based on blockchain. Players create up to three “heroes” or warriors who can fight battles to gain experience and grow in power and capabilities by collecting materials, forging equipment and riding mounts (horses, tigers, tortoises, etc.).

The player can also be awarded Three Kingdoms Tokens (TKTs), a limited cryptocurrency (ahem, limited to 1 billion), that enables users to earn material or profit dividends in two marketplaces based on a smart contract.Tokens are collected through a variety of accomplishments, including trading, battlefield conflicts, tasks and PvP fights. Dividends from the game are only awarded after players reach specific military ranks, enabling them to stake TKT cryptocurrency coins and then earn from them.

MakerDAO

A decentralized credit service that runs on the Ethereum blockchain platform, MakerDAO supports Dai, a stablecoin whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar.Anyone can use MakerDAO to open a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP), lock in ETH (Ethereum cryptocurrency) as collateral, and generate Dai as debt against that collateral, according to Marta Piekarska-Geater, director of Ecosystem at Hyperledger.Users can borrow Dai up to 66% of their collateral’s value (150% collateralization ratio).“CDPs that fall below that rate are subject to a 13% penalty and liquidation (by anyone) to bring the CDP out of default. Liquidated collateral is sold on an open market at a 3% discount,” Piekarska-Geater said via email.

Chainyard

This dApp and consultancy is striving to solve problems with Supplier Information Management systems, which today are slow, inefficient and unable to adapt to new requirements quickly. Chainyard, a permissioned blockchain-based network, is designed to improve supplier validation, onboarding and life cycle information management.In many cases, supplier information management systems still leverage dated technology and processes; email, spreadsheets and word documents are still used to verify identities and track documents like ISO certifications, bank account info, tax certifications, and certificates of insurance throughout the lifecycle of a supplier.In partnership with IBM, Chainyard launched Trust Your Supplier, a blockchain-based service giving buyers access to their supplier’s verified background information for the purpose of onboarding them onto a supply chain. The ultimate goal: frictionless connectivity across supply chains.

TRACEDonate

When it comes to charitabe giving, the “donation sector suffers from lack of transparency and traceability,” Piekarska-Geater said. That's where TRACEDonate comes in: its identity management platform is designed to allow for transparent and traceable cross-border remittances and giving.The dApp created by AID:Tech connects charitable organizations and donors to beneficiaries. It hopes to give donors peace of mind that their funds will be used for the intended purposes by those in need, whether it’s for buying groceries or utilities, rather than alcohol, etc., according to Piekarska-Geater.“It is nearly impossible for regular donors to gain transparency around the distribution of charity and what effect it is having on improving lives,” Piekarska-Geater said.

“Unfortunately, this lack of trust affects end-beneficiaries the most, who are also most in need of support.”Blockchain is used to prove the identity of the charitable organization and/or the individual to which a donation is made. It then allows the donor to track how the money is spent, because the funds are kept in a digital online wallet. Donors can also specify how they want the money used, whether for medical aid, food or other emergency supplies.

Circulor

Like similar dApps that emerged before it, Circulor is a dApp offering supply chain traceability – in this case for the electric vehicle and electronics industries. It provides traceability to demonstrate the ethical and sustainable sourcing of raw materials used in the production of the latter.The track-and-trace platform enables users to secure deliveries, manage payments and check provenance of raw materials, and provides a host of other features, making Circulor designed for real-world complexity.

Cipher

Created by Avanza Innovations, Cipher is middleware that supports a portfolio of four blockchain dApps for government agencies and regulators in different regions; it includes a reconciliation and settlement network, tokenization of loyalty points, a procurement payment network and a document-exchange, verification and compliance network for banks and their customers.The focus areas for Cipher's blockchain-based solutions are Digital Government Transformation and Financial Regulation & Supervision.

The company works with entities in Dubai, including Smart Dubai Government, the Department of Finance, the Dubai Electric & Water Authority, the Knowledge & Human Development Authority, Emirates NBD Bank and Network International.

“The dApp reduced 40 days of manual reconciliation to instant reconciliation, thereby cutting huge wastage in Dubai’s government functions,” Piekarska-Geater said.

KYC-Chain

This app is used by businesses to verify customer identities and streamline the on-boarding process in a way that meets know-your-customer (KYC) regulations. It can verify individuals as well as corporate and institutional business clients for criminal or prohibited activities in real-time through a partner sanctions and watchlists database that spans more than 240 countries.

Together with a self-sovereign identity dApp from partner company SelfKey, KYC-Chain lets users store their own certified identity details on-chain and control public access to their credentials by offering up public keys when access is needed. The dApp allows users to pay individually for 10 services, such as accredited investor checks, crypto funds screening, ID verification and document authentication. The service also lets users check client crypto wallet spending to check against known-risk indicators and comply with anti-money laundering rules.

DLT.sg

Built on the Hyperledger Fabric business platform, DLT.sg (Distributed ledger Technologies, Singapore) includes a series of enterprise-grade blockchain dApp modules focused on supply chain and counterfeit recognition technologies; DLT.sg is built for collaborative ecommerce in large supply-chain organizations. It enables trade finance, tracks end-to-end product flow and delivers a model for unlocking inventory and freeing up cash. 

For example, SKR,sg’s SmartCode for Pharma is focused on resolving Pharma counterfeits by tracing their provenance throughout the production process. Another module, SmartFIN, is a dApp to help fund trade between multinational corporations, commodity traders and banks; it creates a permissioned online ledger through which corporations can securely interact with their financial institutions in the negotiation of trade finance, bonding & guarantees and risk mitigation.

DLT.sg’s dApps can also integrate with SAP and Microsoft software via APIs, if needed, in order to connect to legacy data sources.

Senior Reporter Lucas Mearian covers financial services IT (including blockchain), healthcare IT and enterprise mobile issues (including mobility management, security, hardware and apps).

China’s recent blockchain development bonanza shows no sign of abatement. Business leaders and investors seized on President Xi Jinping’s first-ever endorsement of blockchain as an underpinning technology, and new initiatives sprung up almost overnight.

But Chinese firms, investors and universities have been working quietly on blockchain projects since 2014.  From pledging loyalty to the Communist Party and identifying smart city citizens to verifying pigs and tracking liquor shipments, here’s how China’s gone all-in on blockchain.

1. An identification system for cities

China’s wasting no time with this one. Since Sunday, city authorities across China have been eligible to apply for a city identification code to link them into a blockchain network developed by three institutes in Shijiazhuang city. The network aims to enable data sharing and interconnectivity between provinces. But Chinese smart city goals don’t end there. China’s aim is to have 100 operational smart cities by 2020, including its future capital Xiongan, and blockchain will feature prominently. 

2. An authentication method for everything from liquor to pig meat

Prized by international dignitaries (one bottle is a staggering $450,) Moutai liquor is blended from up to 200 spirits and is manufactured by only one company, Kweichow Moutai Co., a partially state-owned Chinese enterprise. The company has been working with Ant Financial (an affiliate of China's internet behemoth Alibaba) since March 2018, to develop a blockchain-based anti-counterfeiting system for its premium hooch.

The country that’s famous for its copies of everything from Louis Vuitton bags to WAL-MART (China’s version is WU-MART), has embraced blockchain’s authentication talents like no other. It’s using them for everything from verifying pigs to “information asymmetry" in trade finance. 

3. A national digital currency

Many of China’s applications are a far cry from the vision of the technology’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. One example is China’s plan for a national digital currency. It won’t be decentralized—one of the main factors ensuring that a blockchain is tamper-proof. That’s why some are calling the technology’s renaissance in China, “blockchain with Chinese characteristics.”Decentralized or not, China’s national digital currency is still likely to get off the starting blocks before Facebook’s Libra—the project that’s rumored to have precipitated its speedy rollout. 

4. A highway to innovation for Big Tech and banks 

China’s Big Tech players, such as Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, have long been experimenting with blockchain for financial applications, such as cross-border micro-transaction payments, as well as medical reimbursement and leasing contracts. Things are going well. The People’s Bank of China, Shenzhen branch, reported, in October, that its blockchain-based trade finance platform has processed $10.7 billion in transactions in the past year.

5. A hallowed technology worthy of government investment

Local government officials have begun to provide funding for "outstanding blockchain projects.”—a step up from more stealthy governmental funding of the technology through its “key pillar” projects, such tech giant, Tencent. The city of Guangzhou, a blockchain innovation hub since at least 2017, last week introduced a $150 million initiative to support two public or private-based blockchain projects per year.

There’s no reason to think that other regions won’t follow suit. And standardized regulations for the industry are also in the works.For good measure—irony of ironies, considering its prohibitive stance on cryptocurrencies—China has begun cracking down on any articles daring to tarnish blockchain.

6. A breeding ground for tech unicorns

The prospect of billions of dollars in cheap government financing and subsidies, has led to Chinese investors snapping up shares in blockchain-related businesses. More than 85 stocks surged by 10 percent—the daily limit on trading  in Shanghai and Shenzhen— the Financial Times reported last week.

But China is also home to three of the world’s top Bitcoin mining companies. Last week Chinese Bitcoin miner Bitmain bested all other crypto startups on this year’s “Global Unicorn List,” published by the Shanghai-based Hurun Report. And, on Wednesday, China finally put an end to speculation that bitcoin mining would be phased out, ensuring a more certain future for Canaan and Ebang, and Bitmain too, if it can sort its civil war.

7. A tool for party loyalty

The study of blockchain has become a national movement in China—from civil servants, to stay-at-home moms, the public has been encouraged to study Introduction to Blockchain, on “Xuexi Qiangguo,” an app designed to teach President Xi’s thoughts. A national “Blockchain Day” is even under consideration.

And to provide indisputable evidence of loyalty to the Communist Party, a news publication operated by the People’s Daily newspaper has asked Party members to stamp their declarations of fealty directly onto a blockchain.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A little over two years ago, I was at my company’s holiday dinner, and the only topic of conversation was the stratospheric rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and those others that were lesser known but certainly more amusingly named (like Putincoin).

Related: Should You Still Invest in Bitcoin in 2018?

With Bitcoin at that time topping $20,000 and Crypto Kitties also hitting the world by storm, something momentous was afoot; and we all wanted in. Yet, my company’s CTO called a halt to our excitement, cautioning that a deep decline was coming.

The reason he gave: The potential of the blockchain -- the platform through which cryptocurrencies are built -- to create real-world applications with strong customer use cases had yet to be realized.“Raising $10 million from retail investors on a two-page paper is not enough,” our CTO said.

Boy, was he ever right. What came next was that massive slump, in which Bitcoin lost over 80 percent of its value, and the swiftness with which the SEC put an end to initial coin offering scams.Yet, a few weeks ago, as I was attending a demo day for Binance Labs -- a kind of accelerator program but for blockchain startups -- I saw that some of our initial energy had returned.

In particular, I was struck at the focus and discipline of these entrepreneurs from Binance Labs, the venture arm of Binance. Rather than releasing a white paper and trying to raise money on ideas and theory alone, these people had already fully built their product, conceived of applicable real-world use cases and secured strong early customer traction.

More important: They were focusing, as has startup fund-raising has traditionally done, on getting skilled investors on board, the kind of investors who contribute so much more than just capital.

This got me thinking: Is now the time to invest in or start a blockchain-focused company?  What are the factors that entrepreneurs and investors should be looking for in this space?To quote the words of Wired founding editor Kevin Kelly, now (yes, right now) is the best time to start something (never mind that he wrote those words in 2014).

This mindset, in my opintion, is extraordinarily applicable to the blockchain which, as it matures, presents more and more opportunities to create new solutions. To take advantage of this trend, entrepreneurs and investors should seek opportunities that present an immediate real-world application as well as customer traction.

And these investors should be ones whose value-add is more than just capital; the colleagues they bring in, meanwhile, should be the type interested in the long-term impact of the technology.

Real-world traction matters.

At Binance’s demo day, nearly all presenting companies had some early customer buy-in and traction.  Whether it was a brand signing up for a test run on a new decentralized loyalty platform or a marketplace touting the growth of its supply-side volume, customer-use cases won the day.

Many entrepreneurs commented that with blockchain solutions slowly gaining acceptance among everyday consumers, it was only appropriate to demonstrate real-world adoptionA case in point: Cerebellum Network, a decentralized version of Salesforce’s famed CRM. 

Rather than publish a white paper, the founders built a product and tested it, to positive feedback, with early customers like Benefit Cosmetics. Because of this, Cerebellum’s founders were able to secure significant early investment from the likes of Arrington XRP Capital and others. 

Related: Why Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Panic About the Bitcoin Slump

Are you starting or investing in a blockchain company? If so, the first question to ask yourself is: What real-world problem are you solving for consumers?

For instance, an entrepreneur friend of mine is planning to start a next-generation nomadic home-sharing platform that will allow members to hop from house to house at exciting locations around the world.

While the entirety of the database, billing and identity components of the product will be built on the blockchain, that’s not what the founder is excited about. Rather, he’s psyched about bringing to market a product  that people have expressed a desire for. In this instance, blockchain technology is just acting as the enabler. 

Seek investors who add more than just capital.

During the height of “Crypto Mania,” it was not uncommon to see new ICOs floated to retail investors, and see coin prices shoot skywards in a matter of hours, if not minutes.

These cryptocurrencies were an incredibly efficient way to acquire capital to scale a business.Yet, this process misses the most important point: Advice and help from investors is often more important than money in early-stage companies. Yes, this includes blockchain companies, as well.

Early-stage investors offer so much more than just capital.  They offer connections to talent, first-mover customers and additional investors.  Some, like Match.com co-founder Will Bunker, use help as a form of due diligence.

Even if he does not invest in a prospective company, Bunker goes out of his way to offer help and guidance because he knows that that’s what matters to early-stage companies.

So, if you're launching a business, seek investors who offer resources help and guidance, even if this route it costs you a bit more than other fund-raising channels do. While you may be paying a little more now, you will be able to maximize your valuation down the road.

Seek out long-term colleagues who “get it.”

Sitting down on my friend’s couch one night, talking crypto with others, I was struck by how short-term many of those attendeess' thinking seemed. Rather than building a sustainable, real-world application, my friends were more interested in releasing a hot new coin and pumping value out of it, rather than in the long-term transformative nature of their product.

Of course I understand that any new field will generate a lot of buzz, excitement and FOMO, or fear of missing out. Like moths to a flame, people often flock to what’s “hot” rather than what’s sustainable.

Yet this instinct of theirs misses the foundational point of cryptocurrencies and blockchain: their long-term revolution and transformation. The potential of cryptocurrencies to fundamentally alter our global economy, trade pathways, financial system and supply networks cannot be understated. 

According to investor Lou Kerner, blockchain is “the biggest thing to happen in the history of humanity.” Okay, maybe that's over the top, but Kerner follows up that phrase by cautioning that this revolution will be a long time in the making.

Naturally, founders should seek out colleagues, partners and even investors that understand the long-term nature of the space and are willing to invest the time, capital and, yes, the patience needed in order to make something happen.

Related: 7 Reasons Experts Say It's Not Too Late to Invest in Cryptocurrency

Right now is the best time to start something.

With crypto prices recovering, albeit slightly, and the market opening up to new entrants and applications, now may be the best time to start a blockchain-powered company. 

While the technology offers unlimited opportunities, when starting a new business, founders should not ignore the key points. Namely: Build a product that people want; seek out investors who are true advisors and partners; and hire colleagues who are in it for long-term gain.  

The EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum has built a new interactive map to highlight Europe’s crypto ecosystem. The map points startups and events in the sector, helping make blockchain enterprise exploration easier. Companies on other continents can also be mapped on the platform.

By

 Viraj Shah

Europe’s premier blockchain organization, the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum has built a new interactive cryptocurrency map for the continent. The map points out crypto companies and highlights related events in an area.

It could help users find informationabout various startups and what they do. The map is open to users from around the world, who can filter results or mark startups in their respective continents.

A Map for Detailed Crypto Exploration

The interactive map marks crypto and blockchain companies and provides relevant details of their objectives, purpose, year of establishment, etc. It also displays the website and other important information about the company.

Blockchain events will also be listed on the map for easy access to enthusiasts. Users can create filters in the search criteria to find companies or events in an area or find blockchain initiatives in a certain sector.


The Observatory designed the map with Europe in mind. However, it welcomes global users to add companies and events from other continents too. Currently, only European entities are available. The agency warns users that the map is crowdsourced, but entries are reviewed before submission.

Therefore, it will be vital for users to do their research before adding any companies.

The Observatory Takes a Giant Leap With Multiple Projects

The interactive map project was first announced In March. The agency stated that they are:

“Creating a public map of existing blockchain initiatives; regrouping key players, projects, and regional activities driving the ecosystem’s development. The end result will be a dynamic, geographical map, available on the Observatory and Forum website. Such map is highly valuable for both the European Union and other participants in the blockchain ecosystem.”

Every company submission takes 10 to 15 minutes, for which a user needs to fill a form. Event submissions are made through a separate form.The agency has been very active recently in educating citizens about blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

Apart from several workshops, it also announced a 90-minute ‘Ask Me Anything (AMA)’ session on its website to answer questions related to the blockchain, its use cases and its future in the world.
https://blokt.com/news/an-interactive-map-lets-you-explore-eus-cryptocurrency-startups

Smart contracts are a major technological breakthrough that will affect our society substantially. So far, interfacing with said smart contracts is still a bit challenging for the average user. Even developers sometimes struggle to do so. This is where ChainLink comes into the picture, as it provides a fully decentralized oracle network called LINK.

ChainLink is an Interesting Venture


It is certainly true that smart contracts can make a big impact on our society as a whole, although a lot of use cases have yet to be identified. Interfacing with a smart contract on any platform is a major challenge right now. This is especially true for financial institutions and other organizations looking to explore this technology.

Rather than using public blockchains, they will often develop a private and a permissioned version to use similar technologies. In the long run, these private and individual efforts still must communicate with one another, as well as with public blockchains in the future.

Connecting a smart contract to external sources is currently not possible in a convenient manner. Off-chain data and even APIs need to be introduced to smart contracts and vice versa. Currently, this is a major hindrance which can’t be resolved all that easily whatsoever.

ChainLink may be the solution for all these problems in the future. That is what its developers are hoping, at least. In fact, some new solutions are required to make this concept work in the first place. ChainLink is capable of connecting any smart contract to an external system and an API.

This secure blockchain “middleware”, as the team calls it, provides the bridge for the gap between smart contracts, APIs, and any other form of external data one might need. While it may not be the perfect solution, it should be useful for at least 90% of current and future use cases.

The project revolves around a fully decentralized network of oracles which are compatible with Bitcoin and Ethereum. It is possible other blockchains will be supported in the future, but those are the two main points of focus for the time being. In a perfect future world, this new platform would allow anyone in the world to use the LINK network.

All service providers would be able to securely provide smart contracts with access to key external data and potentially even off-chain payments. This latter point will be of particular interest to a lot of companies and service providers, for obvious reasons. Do keep in mind you will need LINK tokens to do so, though.

While it is commendable to see such a decentralized network, the use of proprietary tokens will not necessarily make it more appealing. This is the first solution of its kind, though, and we may see more competing services in the near future.

ChainLink will certainly find its place in the market, as users can become node operators to monetize their API experience. It’s a very intriguing concept, although it remains to be seen how many companies will actually use it.

Discover even more blockchain articles on Merkle here: https://themerkle.com/what-is-chainlink/

Nuco, a startup founded by a group of former Deloitte employees, has released a new white paper detailing its latest blockchain initiative.

Dubbed Aion, the proposed technology aims to connect different blockchains, including private networks operated by enterprises. The idea is that, as more companies turn to the technology for a variety of applications, there will need to be a public layer through which these future networks can communicate – and that's where Aion comes in.

As the white paper outlines, Aion would act as a kind of "bridge" between those networks, serving as "a mechanism to transfer data and value securely between them." Aion, as a public blockchain, will utilize a token aimed at incentivizing the various parties involved in both validating transactions and putting up the resources to transact between the different networks.

The paper explains:

"The AION 1 itself can be used to deploy decentralized applications on, as well as will maintain a public record of transaction between bridges. Essentially, facilitating a network that is to blockchains what the internet is to computers."

Aion's public nature is notable among enterprise-facing solutions on the market today, which have tended toward private, permissioned networks in which only approved parties can participate. Aion's "Connecting Network", according to the paper, would link both private and public networks alike.

Nuco also details a built-in governance structure that functions by way of a voting system, with the aim of .... continue reading: 
http://www.coindesk.com/nuco-builds-tokenized-blockchain-bridge-enterprise-applications/

Refugees fleeing conflict zones around the world have to deal with hardships like illness, hunger, exhaustion, and culture shock. They have to keep their families together and find shelter and food in safe environments far from what drove them from their homes.Amid all this, worrying about their economic identity doesn’t sound like it would be foremost in refugees’ minds.

The same goes for the extremely poor, whose day-to-day focus is likely to be on fulfilling basic needs like food or water.But according to Ashish Gadnis, cofounder of a blockchain platform for digital identification called BanQu, establishing an economic identity is fundamental to breaking out of the cycle of poverty.“Think about refugees,” he told the audience at Singularity University’s Exponential Finance Summit in New York this week.

“Everything that happens to them will get reset every time they move. Owning your data is the baseline that will allow you to break through and not just be a number.”




Ashish Gadnis and Jane Barrat at Exponential Finance.In a joint talk with Jane Barrat, founder of an online investment portfolio tool called GoldBean, Gadnis explained why economic identity is crucial to ending extreme poverty, and how technology can help.

BanQu defines economic identity as “the marriage of identity and commerce, resulting in a global, vetted, and manageable asset.” In the developed world, our economic identities are constantly monitored, and they’re closely tied to our ability to make transactions in our daily lives. Want to buy a car, apply for a mortgage, rent an apartment, or get a new credit card? Having a good credit history will make it all a lot easier.

Banking the 'unbankable'

But what about people who not only don’t have a good credit history, they don’t have a credit history at all—in fact, for the purposes of financial markets, they don’t even exist?“If you’re a poor farmer who’s providing grain or coffee in a large supply chain, no one knows the farmer,” Gadnis said. “This is where technology can matter, because it can allow the farmer to participate equally in the transaction.”Many aid programs around the world work by simply giving money to the poor, with the idea being that once people can stop worrying about basic needs like food, water, or shelter, they can shift focus to their longer-term wellbeing.

That’s a start, but what happens when those same people—people who have never had a recorded transaction with the larger supply chain—go to open a bank account or try to take out a loan for a new business? They find that they’re completely disconnected from the global economy and are therefore powerless even to manage their own assets.

"Banqu estimates 2.7 billion people around the world lack an economic identity. But of those 2.7 billion, 60 percent have mobile phones."

BanQu estimates that 2.7 billion people around the world are “unbanked,” meaning they lack an economic identity. But of those 2.7 billion, 60 percent have mobile phones. BanQu’s platform enables people to use an app to set up a digital identification profile where they can record transactions like remote purchases, funded wallets, and cash disbursements, as well as property, health, and education records.... continue reading: https://singularityhub.com/2017/06/11/how-blockchain-is-helping-in-the-battle-against-extreme-povert...

Augur is a decentralized prediction market built on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows you to forecast events and be rewarded for predicting them correctly.

Stunningly accurate forecasts on any topic

Augur's prediction markets provide powerful predictive data - you can think of the current market price of any share in any market as an estimate of the probability of that outcome actually occurring in the real world. For example, a share priced at 64 cents has a 64% probability of happening.The accuracy of prediction markets rests in the idea of the

"The Wisdom of the Crowd". This states that the average prediction made by a group is superior to that made by any of the individuals in that group. Markets are the perfect way to aggregate this collective wisdom - which is made up of all the information, analysis and opinion held by members of the group. With these individuals buying and selling shares in the outcome of real-world events, based on their personal knowledge and opinion, the market prices reach an equilibrium that reflect the opinion of the entire group.

Prediction markets have proven to be more accurate at forecasting the future than individual experts, surveys or traditional opinion polling. They provide real-time predictive data and are traded using real money - which incentivises market participants to reveal what they think will happen, rather than what they hope will happen. Traders are putting their money where their mouths are.... Learn more:
https://augur.net/

NEM, a revolutionary Blockchain project with API Access, built-in Multisig, a unique Proof-of-Importance (POI) algorithm, and it's cryptocurrency XEM...

Learn more:
https://www.nem.io/

Synereo’s Attention EconomyThe Future of Content Creation, Publishing and Distribution 

Synereo is developing tools which allow content creators to easily monetize original works without having to turn their channels into advertisment real estate, while granting their followers the opportunity to be rewarded for getting the word out.




Monetize Content You Create





Get Paid for Curating Your Feed





Amplify Your Message

Simply put, the attention you generate online is worth money. The better the content you create, the more followers you have, the more attention flows around you. Synereo’s applications and monetary models enable you to tap into this resource and reap the fair share of what your create online.

Learn more:
http://www.synereo.com/

Stable Currency

Tether converts cash into digital currency, to anchor or tether the value to the price of national currencies like the US dollar, the Euro, and the Yen.

100% Backed

Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves. So 1 USD₮ is always equivalent to 1 USD.

Blockchain Technology

The Tether platform is built on the Bitcoin blockchain, the most secure open ledger in existence today...

Learn more: 
https://tether.to/