What’s all the hype about cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and blockchain technology? Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are digital money that’s decentralized (no banks needed!), and that offers the potential for secure – and transparent - online transactions.It’s the encryption techniques behind blockchain technology that make digital currencies possible.

A blockchain is a public electronic record of every cryptocurrency transaction that’s ever occurred. Because these records can’t technically be modified, businesses are beginning to take notice of the enormous market potential of blockchain technology.

Where are Cryptocurrencies Headed?

Deloitte has claimed that 10% of global GDP will be built on blockchain applicationsby 2025. Some of the exciting possibilities that exist with this new technology include:

• Using cryptocurrency to power the Internet of Things (think consumer devices like vehicles and washing machines buying their own oil or milk).
• Using software in the form of “smart contracts” to store, verify, and execute retail or ecommerce agreements (terms and events are recorded in secure blockchain databases).
• Combining blockchain technology with crowdfunding to improve the accountability of businesses seeking capital.
• More uses for blockchain tech listed here.

Individuals and commercial entities alike are also getting involved with cryptocurrencies through Initial Coin Offerings. ICOs are much like IPOs (Initial Public Offerings), but company “shares” take the form of cryptocurrency tokens.

The value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether have grown as their potential expands. This makes them an ideal investment in many people’s eyes. Valued at just $0.07 in 2010 for example, Bitcoin currently (September 2017) trades at around $4,800 on the NYSE!

Why is the Cryptocurrency Space Dominated by Men?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/04/bitcoin-women-problem/Cryptocurrency and blockchain tech world dominated by men.

The cryptocurrency space suffers from significant diversity issues. In fact, there are even fewer female entrepreneurs in the Bitcoin industry than there are in other tech sectors. Meanwhile, surveys indicate that more than 90% of Bitcoin users are male.  

According to The Cointelegraph, only 1.76% of the Bitcoin community are women.              

Why such glaring gender disparity? Several factors are responsible:

• The well-documented gender gap inside the tech industry itself.
• The under-representation of females in the financial industry in general.
• The theory that women are more risk-averse than men when it comes to dealing with money.

So, as I myself have just briefly skimmed the surface of the potential of this new technology, it’s critical to ask what can be done to get more women involved in blockchain technology and reverse what is yet another massive gender divide?

According to an article depicting the prevalence of sexism in the Bitcoin world, “If you are a woman involved with Bitcoin, you are invariably going to get treated like an outsider.” This is even more reason to change this while it’s still fresh.

This shouldn’t scare women away from the crypto currency world, but rather aggressively influence and motivate more women to get involved.




https://cointelegraph.com/news/its-a-mans-world-only-176-of-bitcoin-community-are-women

Only 1.76% of Bitcoin Community Are Women

For those deep into cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, the early adopters, the success of Bitcoin hinges on mainstream adoption. That means getting more women onboard. Opportunities exist for women to earn more income and impact the global economy - through Bitcoin trading, investments, and virtual spending.

Tech-savvy female entrepreneurs are also looking to ICOs to fund their startupsrather than relying solely on venture capital investment; yet another financial sector that is still dominated by men.Women have significant power as consumers, and are quickly outpacing men as entrepreneurs. However, tech knowledge and talent needs to be encouraged through:

• Education
• Mentoring
• Internships
• Advocacy
• Publicity
• Importance of diversity in hiring talent

While a handful of talented females are already impacting the Bitcoin and blockchain tech sector, it’s vital that more women take part in this disruption.

 I highly encourage women to simply start talking to people who are immersed into cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech, attend some meetups, get into the conversations in person and online, listen to influencers in the industry via podcasts, read about it, educate yourself and get involved by experimenting with cryptocurrencies. 

Don’t get left behind, you just have to....continue reading: 

BY BEN PAYNTER

The future of world food aid arrived, in early May, unnoticed by its first recipients: the grocery shoppers inside a supermarket at the Azraq camp in Jordan, home to 36,000 Syrian refugees. To be fair, their buying process already looked pretty high-tech, especially for a store with a dirt parking lot in the middle of the desert.

Before paying, each shopper peered into a black, rectangular iris scanner mounted at eye-level, which confirms users’ identities with the camp’s organizing group, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and allows them to access a food stipend from the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP).

That’s a spiffy authentication process, but it had been there for months. What the shoppers didn’t see was the new back-end procedure. Instead of receiving WFP funds via a third party, such as a bank, the grocery store was reconciling each purchase directly with the aid group through a secure platform called Building Blocks, based on blockchain technology.

Inside the store, Houman Haddad, a finance officer for the WFP and the founder of Building Blocks, watched as each eye scan led to a cashier’s tablet flashing a green check mark, signaling a completed transaction. “It was the moment when I knew this was technically possible,” he says.

The technology behind cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, blockchain is essentially a shared digital ledger system: a decentralized database that allows information to be exchanged among several parties but not altered. Transactions become blocks of data that are chained together, making everything transparent and easy to review.

The concept arose in 2008 as a way to securely track and transfer bitcoins. Today, blockchain is being applied to everything from energy trading to legal contracts, and is poised to transform how we store and share personal information. But one of its most profound uses, say advocates, may be in international aid, where documentation is scarce and operating budgets are low.

By eliminating intermediaries, blockchain technology creates faster, safer, and, ultimately, cheaper ways of doing business. Organizations working in international relief can lose up to 3.5% of each aid transaction to various fees and costs. What’s more, across the industry, an estimated 30% of all development funds don’t reach their intended recipients because of third-party theft or mismanagement.

In Jordan, the WFP can use Building Blocks to audit each beneficiary’s spending in near-real time. And by paying vendors directly, Building Blocks has reduced money-management costs by 98%, according to Haddad. For an aid organization spending $6 billion annually across 80 countries, that adds up to tens of millions of dollars in savings.

Bernhard Kowatsch, who heads the WFP’s Innovation Accelerator, which incubated Building Blocks, sees more value: “[Building Blocks] provides even higher assurance to individual donors that if you give to the World Food Programme, that money actually reaches the people it’s intended for.”

Haddad, who has worked for the WFP for seven years, approached his employer in mid-2016 about developing a blockchain-based business through its accelerator. The WFP incubator offers intensive coaching and up to $100,000 to social entrepreneurs who share its goal of eradicating global hunger.

Once in the program, Haddad joined forces with Alexandra Alden, a Silicon Valley–based mentor, refined the concept during a boot camp run through California’s Singularity University, and, in January of this year, began testing a prototype in the Sindh province of Pakistan, whose rural inhabitants are dependent on food entitlements and direct cash distributions. (This trial didn’t involve fancy iris scanners, relying instead on text-based mobile voucher codes.)

The WFP initially scheduled just a one-month trial of Haddad’s technology in Azraq, but the program was surprisingly successful. The organization has asked Building Blocks to stay—and expand to other camps later this year, reaching a total of 100,000 people.

An even wider rollout to the country’s half million refugees scattered throughout different host communities will follow. Haddad expects the system to be available in other countries sometime in 2018, along with the ability for recipients to review their balances and itemized lists of purchases.

Because the design for Building Blocks is largely open sourced—its ethereum-based operating system allows for customizable applications—Haddad envisions the technology being used well beyond grocery stores. For instance, the WFP’s recipient rolls could be tethered to health data from the World Health Organization, or educational information from UNICEF.

That would give aid groups a better understanding of their recipients, and refugees a better way to manage their affairs. And the technology would be easily transferable across borders. “That’s when [it] starts getting pretty interesting and powerful,” says Haddad’s mentor, Alden.

Ben Siegel, an impact policy manager at ConsenSys, an ethereum development company that has helped form the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition, considers Building Blocks a “superb” first step, and several UN organizations are exploring how to take it further. The ultimate goal, Haddad says, is to give uprooted people “as much control as possible” over their own lives.




[Illustration: Francesco Ciccolella]

BLOCKCHAIN FOR GOOD
These other organizations are using secure technology to bring stability to vulnerable communities.  

Alice: This London-based platform brings transparency to philanthropy by collecting and holding charitable donations—and releasing them only after an organization shares metrics demonstrating its success. Its first project is with a local homeless charity.

Banqu: Minneapolis’s BanQu uses blockchain to establish “economic identities” for people who lack access to banks. In Kenya, it’s helping refugees secure government aid and services. In Latin America, it has created shareable property registries to help female farmers prove ownership and secure loans.

Aid: Tech: Like Building Blocks, Aid:Tech eliminates transaction fees and fraud by allowing NGOs to disperse digital cash vouchers directly to recipients.

The Irish Red Cross has used it to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon.Project

Amply: The Cape Town organization, which is running a pilot with South African preschoolers, creates immutable digital identities to help children in Africa receive educational services and subsidies.

A version of this article appeared in the October 2017 issue of Fast Company magazine.

Digital Money Index 2017

A 90 market perspective on digital money readiness

The adoption of digital money has tangible benefits
for governments, businesses and consumers alike.

To understand these opportunities, Citi and Imperial College London developed a Digital Money Index. Now in its fourth year, our research reminds us that the gains in making the shift to digital money are hard won.

They depend on action across all four Index pillars, meaning a supportive institutional environment, financial and ICT infrastructure, digital money solutions from government and private sector, and enthusiasm from consumers and businesses.

Continue reading to download the full report here: https://www.citibank.com/icg/sa/digital_symposium/digital_money_index/