Ecosystems

Recent discussions have focused on the environmental sustainability of blockchain technology and digital currencies, with critics quick to highlight their potentially harmful impacts. Often, these arguments are out of context or without reference to the negative externalities other financial services in the global economy have on the environment.

At the same time, some of the most innovative solutions to environmental issues are rooted in blockchain technology; however, they are consistently overlooked or misunderstood. Now, blockchain-based solutions are beginning to be implemented that have the potential to re-invent how clean energy is organized and produced. 

New Business Models

As technology improves and devices are made “smarter” in terms of their ability to monitor and transmit data, more precise measurements of the production of clean energy and emissions of carbon-based gases can be obtained. A blockchain-based ecosystem can connect the data being recorded to a digital token, and quantify the energy created in a digitally transmittable form.

This would involve connecting a blockchain to a windmill or solar farm, and integrating the data flows collected into the distributed network.This tokenization of energy allows for an unprecedented level of transparency into who is producing or emitting the cleanest possible energy and carbon emissions, resulting in new business and incentive models between enterprises and governments.

For example, governments could grant tax exemptions or credits in exchange for digital tokens linked to clean energy productions, incentivizing companies to use clean energy. Using distributed ledger technology, the data becomes quantifiable and proof of production is made a reality. 

Natural Resource Management

Blockchain also enables natural resource extraction, public land management, and pollution levels to be made easily visible to citizens and city officials. By recording asset ownership on a blockchain, the amount of resources being extracted from the ground at a certain time, or levels of air and water pollution can be integrated into a single secure data flow that can be made visible to any interested party.

For city officials, this can improve the way resources are managed, and for citizens it can provide the opportunity to make more educated or environmentally conscious decisions.

Meanwhile, large-scale projects involving land registries and industrial resource extraction can be precisely measured and inspected to verify that no resource has been unduly extracted or that all legal restrictions on particular resources and geographies have been observed. 

Proactive Decision-Making

Altogether, blockchain offers the possibility to digitize and monitor clean energy production and consumption in a manner where more proactive decisions can be made, and more enduring and sustainable energy initiatives created.

As a new digital age arrives, blockchain-based solutions oriented towards clean energy management stand to be automated through smart contracts, with additional decision making being done by artificially intelligent and “big-data” based machinery. In many ways, the tip of the iceberg is just being discovered. 

Not Comparing Apples to Apples

In light of these possibilities, there are now certain factors to keep in mind with regard to the overall environmental sustainability of blockchain-based ecosystems. The high amount of energy consumed on the Bitcoin network refers to the infrastructure of an entire decentralized payments ecosystem.

Experts mistakenly compare this number to the energy cost of a single transaction in traditional finance, however the real comparison must be made on a structural level to the current global payments system of centralized banks, servers, and ATMs. When the two payment systems are compared, it is clear the physical and digital infrastructure of banks and servers around the world are more energy-intensive.

More importantly, Bitcoin’s energy consumption is due to its Proof-of-Work Consensus Mechanism. As many experts have noted (among them Ambrosus Solutions Architect, Professor Roger Wattenhofer), there has been a clear shift away from Proof-of-Work models in favor of more efficient and less energy intensive mechanisms.

The real value of a technology or system – especially with regard to its environmental sustainability – must be considered in light of its function and the effect it promises. Blockchain, as an original and widely applicable general purpose technology, is nothing short of revolutionary in its ability to bring trusted, transparent, and accessible data to problems in environmental sustainability.

By Angel Versetti, Global CEO and Founder, Ambrosus

Though research shows that Irish people are hesitant to dive into blockchain in their professional lives, David Wachsman is confident that it’s inevitable not only for you, but your little dog, too.

Blockchain elicits all reactions and none. The response from people when the topic is broached can range from a blank stare to a laboured sigh. Some know blockchain only through bitcoin, others don’t know it at all. A small cohort of people will nearly scratch a cornea rolling their eyes at its mere mention, deriding it as a fad.

David Wachsman, founder and CEO of Wachsman, certainly disagrees with the technology’s detractors. He, described by Crunchbase as a “world-renowned blockchain expert and thought leader”, welcomed me in the glass conference room of his company’s Dublin office.

This office recently announced the expansion of its functions beyond PR, now offering a broad swathe of blockchain professional services to clients such as Dash, CoinDesk, Indiegogo, Kik and more.

David has been away from his native New York and hopping between Wachsman’s hubs in Ireland and Singapore, the latter of which recently opened. He has been living out of a suitcase for the better part of three months, though it shows neither in his temperament nor appearance.

Serene and self-possessed, sitting in the house that blockchain built, his (professional) house, he is confident enough in Ireland’s blockchain scene to double down on his commitment to it. He is baffled that the majority of Irish people, according to research recently published by the company, disagree with him.

As many as 75pc of people say they would not consider a career in the area.“Most people don’t know what blockchain is, that’s what our findings found. They don’t get it. To them, it’s simply some buzzword technology. That’s a big PR problem. It’s also a problem for companies that are building out in the space, and we have many here in Ireland who are doing that.

”The blockchain ecosystem in Dublin is in pretty good condition. A healthy mix of blockchain-focused companies such as ConsenSys have operations here. Many of the large consultancy firms have dedicated blockchain labs.

Finance giants such as Fidelity Investments and Mastercard have poured resources into gaining a foothold in blockchain. “All the big tech giants, some of them probably secretly, are looking to hire people with blockchain backgrounds here in Dublin.”

Blockchain’s inevitable takeover

The proliferation of blockchain technology is as inevitable as the tide coming in. It’ll wash over us all in a matter of time. The march of technological progress is as unrelenting as the spinning of our Earth. It won’t be a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object – you will be moved into working in blockchain.

Though many in the Wachsman survey cited an inappropriate educational background as a reason they would not want to wade into it, the worker of tomorrow will likely learn on the job.

“Almost everyone today works at an internet company. The company itself may not be actually building websites but they probably have one. The company itself isn’t developing email applications but I guarantee you they use [them], or a chat app.

Blockchain companies are going to be just like that in future. Blockchain will be a piece of the technology stack that people use every single day.”For now, most of the blockchain jobs lie in building infrastructure, and the roles are mostly developer roles.

David maintains, however, that this is temporary.“Tomorrow, it’s going to be every company. I think [workers] are going to gain their skills by simply working with companies endeavouring blockchain.”

Steel, your dog and your mobile phone

This inevitability doesn’t address the fact that people still neither understand nor trust blockchain as a technology. If it is going to be such a large element of the future of work, as David implies, then a huge obstacle will have to be overcome in order to attract workers to the area.

“We need to do a better job of educating.

That means 101-type pieces, that means meet-ups, that means lectures. We need universities to chip in a bit because that’s what they’re really good at: teaching complicated concepts to people.

”More importantly, David adds, a “big consumer-y brand” or website needs to adopt blockchain. Airlines need to tokenise loyalty points. It needs to be normalised, which will likely happen. The question is, by whom?

David cites in particular blockchain’s potential application to the supply chain as the use case he is most excited about “because it’s boring”. Supply chains are complicated and expensive with a huge amount of moving parts. Maximising the efficiency of this process by reliably tracking all the various extenuating factors could lower the price of steel.

“That changes the world. ”Moving away from the macro, David opines that man’s best friend could end up having as much of a relationship with blockchain as humans.

Blockchain, though it’s “peer-to-peer trading of value”, could easily be applied to energy. “If your dog were wearing a little backpack with a solar panel on it, that dog, cute as it might be, would be an energy producer.

Because of the nature of how energy transmission works, the further you are away from the energy producer, the more is wasted. Imagine your dog being able to power, or at least being able to recharge, your cellphone.”

Hello Brexit, goodbye blockchain

Thanks to Brexit, Ireland can expect for its blockchain industry, and therefore the number of blockchain jobs, to only grow with time. This is in line with the general jobs boon that Ireland is experiencing as the UK, rather disastrously, attempts to negotiate its way out of the single market.

Companies such as Coinbase have announced plans to set up shop in Dublin, citing concerns about Brexit.“Ireland is a very important part of Europe. It’s the only English-speaking EU country, and Britain is making damn sure of that.

 I would say that as a launch pad for Europe, it’s a vital place for companies to set up – blockchain companies [in particular] because it is such a borderless enterprise. So many of the applications of blockchain must be international, that’s what makes them so effective. This distributed database must be distributed.”




 By Eva ShortEva Short is a Careers reporter at Silicon Republic who, coincidentally, was raised in Silicon Valley and has been nicknamed a ‘digital native’. Her passions include Pomeranians, witchcraft, skincare, wearing exclusively dark colours and eating.

When she’s not writing about tech professionals, she’s working backstage at festivals, yelling at musicians, and amassing a collection of crumpled gig tickets to stick on her wall.

“Blockchain is more than just a tool to enable digital currencies”An opportunity is being missed to use distributed ledger technology to tackle some of the largest environmental challenges in the world, according to a new PwC blockchain report, published Monday.

Only three percent of investment in the technology in the second quarter of 2018 went towards environmentally beneficial projects, the global consultancy said.PwC identified 65 emerging and existing uses cases of the technology that could disrupt how the world manages environmental resources.

These range from decentralisng management of natural resources such as energy and water, to creating cleaner and more transparent supply chains.

“Blockchain may be able to facilitate the collation, monitoring and management of vast quantities of Earthsystem data in a geospatial digital ledger. New blockchain-enabled geospatial platforms are in the early stages of exploration and could monitor, manage and enable market mechanisms that protect the global environmental commons,” the report [pdf] suggested.

PwC Blockchain Report: Less than 1% of Blockchain Projects Tackle Environment

The paper notes that in the second quarter of this year 412 blockchain projects were invested in to the tune of £2.5 billion ($3.3). However, out of the 412 projects less than one percent were in the utilities and energy sectors; areas in which there is considerable scope for environmental improvement.Celine Herweijer a Partner at PwC UK commented:

“Blockchain applications to transform finance and commerce have been front of mind for business and investors to date. But there is an opportunity for fresh ideas to harness this nascent technology to help deliver big gains for our
environment.”






The blockchain is a journal that adds a new block of transactions or information in intervals. Every user holds a copy of the complete chain, thus information can be compared and contrasted to make sure that the new block of information is correct.

A computer is chosen to upload the next block by being the first to solve a computational heavy task, like solving a math equation, this is done by the miners who are often rewarded with a cryptocurrency token for their effort. PwC defines Blockchain technology as, “at its most fundamental level… a new, decentralized and global computational infrastructure.”

Environmental Issues

The report found that many of the use cases which are relevant to environmental applications were often clustered around themes such as peer-to-peer trading of permits or resources, new financing models for environmental outcomes and supply-chain transparency and management.

The study highlights London-based start-up Provenance, which in 2016 piloted a public blockchain that tracked the fishing of tuna in Indonesia to its consumption by UK customers.

See Also: IBM Brings Blockchain to “Antiquated” Insurance Compliance Processes

Around the world the fishing industry is host to human rights abuses, unfair and illegal work practices. In 2014 the Guardian uncovered supply chains that ran into UK supermarkets that originated from slave labour in Asia.

Provenance designed an application utilising blockchain technology that works through a simple smartphone to link identity, material attributes location, audit information and certifications with a batch ID or specific item.

Provenance state that this: “Data is stored in an immutable, decentralized, globally-auditable format which protects identities by default, allowing for secure data verification.

”“Fishermen sent simple SMS messages to register their catch, thus issuing a new asset on the blockchain with each SMS,” Provenance added.






Once this origin link is set up with the actual people who farm the fish it is then connected into existing supply chain systems. Since the blockchain can’t be retroactively changed, there is now a clear traceable line from line to fork for farmed fish.

Yet as the report points out this type of project only represents a small number of the blockchain projects that are being funded.Dominic Waughray Head of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Global Public Goods commented in a released statement that:  “If history has taught us anything, it is that these transformative changes will not happen automatically.

”“They will require deliberate collaboration between diverse stakeholders ranging from technology industries through to environmental policy-makers, and will need to be underpinned by new platforms that can support these stakeholders to advance not just a technology application, but the systems shift that will enable it to truly take hold.”

Blockchain will “probably take a little longer” to develop than the internet, because it is “much more complicated,” ConsenSys creator Joseph Lubin told German media outlet t3n in an interview, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported Nov. 9.

Lubin, who is also the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), told reporters that blockchain technology is developing in a similar way to the web, citing its exponential growth with “hundreds of projects that are already practical for humans” to date.

Based on blockchain’s use case for decentralized cryptocurrencies, the digital entrepreneur also suggested that distributed ledger technology (DLT) will be able to “permeate society more than the Internet” and enable a decentralized internet, or Web3.


Lubin, however, forecast that the adoption of blockchain on a mass scale will take longer than that of the internet:

“[Blockchain projects] will enable people to build more things that will come in handy again. That's how the web was developed. It will probably take a little longer, because it is much more complicated. Also, because we work on topics such as digital money, Blockchain will permeate society more than the Internet. Everything will be networked in a Web3.”

In the interview, Lubin stressed the fact that ConsenSys – an Ethereum-focused startup incubator and infrastructure development firm – was “born” prior to the release of Ethereum, with the goal of building the tools and infrastructure to enable a decentralized “ecosystem” in which Ethereum could function. 

Lubin also emphasized that the firm is interested in bringing that ecosystem forward rather than “controlling” it:

“We [ConsenSys] do many things, but we are not interested in controlling the ecosystem. We are interested in promoting the ecosystem.”

Addressing the question of the Ethereum ecosystem’s decentralization, Lubin retorted “[d]o you expect it to be fully mature, three years after its creation?

When asked about how the dynamics of the current internet could be transformed in Web3, Lubin shrugged off a comparison between ConsenSys and major internet giants like Facebook and Google, insteading pointing to “IBM and Microsoft, Accenture and Deloitte” as possible centralizing forces in blockchain.

Lubin also stated that the principle business models of the internet today are contradictory to the nature of blockchain, which “enables a self-determined, sovereign identity.

”Earlier this year, Lubin predicted that the global community is moving towards a world based on “decentralized governance,” supporting the idea that major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) is likely to remain the world’s “digital gold,” while Ethereum would serve as a “fuel” for decentralized ecosystems.

HM Land Registry is exploring how blockchain technology could be used to to provide quicker and simpler services.

From:

HM Land Registry



Spainter_vfx/Shutterstock.com

HM Land Registry is partnering with software company Methods, who will utilise R3’s blockchain platform, Corda, for the second phase of HM Land Registry’s groundbreaking research and development project, Digital Street.

Methods will be supported by a team of global experts from R3, Blockchain Digital, and their wider partner network. The organisations will bring their blockchain expertise to HM Land Registry, enabling Digital Street to fully explore the potential benefits of the new technology.

Digital Street will work with the industry to understand how the innovative use of technology, such as blockchain, distributed ledgers and smart contracts, could revolutionise the land registration and property buy-sell process.Graham Farrant, Chief Executive of HM Land Registry, said:

Our ambition to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, ease of use and an open approach to data requires HM Land Registry to be at the forefront of global innovation in land registration. By working with Methods on Digital Street we are taking another step toward that goal, as we explore how new technologies like blockchain can help us to develop a faster, simpler and cheaper land registration process.

Peter Rowlins, Chief Executive Officer of Methods, commented:

When we read the HM Land Registry requirement, we recognised that the unique features offered by Corda in terms of security, privacy, interoperability and the smart contract flow framework, originally designed for financial services, would be an excellent fit.

David Rutter, Chief Executive Officer of R3, commented:

We are pleased to see another innovative deployment of Corda in the public sector and look forward to working with the world’s most well-recognised land registry, HM Land Registry. Blockchain holds the potential to transform land registry services by improving speed, simplicity and efficiency. We will be working closely with HM Land Registry, Methods and our partners over the coming months to turn this potential into reality.

John Reynolds, Blockchain Digital’s Innovation & Delivery Director, commented:

Digital Street and blockchain has the potential to synchronise and optimise the way all participants in the property market interact, from solicitors to banks, from surveyors to estate agents. Over the coming months, and in support of HM Land Registry’s commitment to open data and open innovation, we will be announcing a programme of innovation and collaboration events that enable the property eco-system to join the Digital Street Community.

Notes to editors

Digital Street

HM Land Registry’s ambition is to be at the forefront of innovation by exploring how land registration and conveyancing can be made easier and how technology and data could revolutionise the process.

Digital Street is HM Land Registry’s research and development project designed to make buying and selling property simpler, quicker and cheaper through the innovative use of technology.

Now in its second year, the project is exploring the use of blockchain technology and smart contracts to bring greater transparency, speed, and trust to property transactions.

The project has already created a digital register for a small selection of properties, which is a first step towards establishing a register that is fully machine-readable and able to be updated instantly.

Methods was selected following a tender process which attracted 22 bids to support the Digital Street project team and develop greater in-house expertise.

HM Land Registry

HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £4 trillion, including around £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 25 million titles showing evidence of ownership for more than 85% of the land mass of England and Wales.

HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services.

Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.For further information about HM Land Registry visit gov.uk/land-registry.Follow us on: Twitter @HMLandRegistry, our blog, LinkedIn and Facebook.

HM Land Registry Business Strategy

Digital Street is just one of many projects being developed by HM Land Registry as part of the organisation’s Business Strategy. The organisation is exploring a number of potential services to make the buying, renting, selling, financing, building and managing property easier.

The first digital mortgage was signed in April using HM Land Registry’s ‘Sign your mortgage deed’ service. The initial mortgages have signed by customers of Coventry Building Society and Enact Conveyancing, HM Land Registry is now actively expanding the number of lenders and conveyancers who are using the service.

The recently launched Local Land Charge Register brings data from 326 local authorities to a central database, removing the need for manual searches in overworked local offices and removing weeks of potential delays from each sale.

Homebuyers can use the ‘Find property information’ service to quickly find information about properties they are interested in at the start of the transaction, rather than waiting until an offer has been accepted.

Working in collaboration with key stakeholders from across the industry, including property technology (PropTech) specialists, data experts, conveyancers, property developers, mortgage lenders and others, over the coming years HM Land Registry will be exploring innovative uses of technology.

Methods

Methods is the leading digital transformation partner for the UK public sector. We bring innovation, bespoke development, and service management capability to align UK public services around citizens and safeguard them for future generations.

R3

R3 is an enterprise blockchain software firm working with a broad ecosystem of more than 200 members and partners across multiple industries from both the private and public sectors to develop on Corda, its open-source blockchain platform, and Corda Enterprise, a commercial version of Corda for enterprise usage.

R3’s global team of over 180 professionals in 13 countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its global member base. R3 is backed by investment of over $120 million from more than 45 firms.

The Corda platform is already being used in industries from financial services to healthcare, shipping, insurance and more. It records, manages and executes institutions’ financial agreements in perfect synchrony with their peers, creating a world of frictionless commerce.

Persistent Systems

Persistent Systems, a $470 million listed company, builds software that drives the business of our customers; enterprises and software product companies with software at the core of their digital transformation.

Blockchain Digital

Blockchain Digital is the leading business process innovation and service design consultancy, focused on the application of blockchain in the public sector and enterprise.

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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

David Katz is on a mission to democratize material handling and waste management. Since co-founding The Plastic Bank in 2013 in Vancouver, he has been hard at work creating an ecosystem that attaches a value to plastics that make their way into the oceans and rivers around the world.

The key to helping him realize that vision is blockchain, a technology that is often misunderstood by the layperson. Many confuse it with cryptocurrency or assume blockchain opportunities are mainly targeted to the financial services and cybersecurity sectors.

But the possibilities for application developers are much more diverse.The power of blockchain is that it provides a single shared source of the truth that is immutable and can be shared.

This offers the ability to validate and authenticate transactions within seconds versus days or weeks, whether it’s tracking the distribution of goods from source to consumption, sharing medical histories or pinpointing the exact source of a food product, explains Manav Gupta, director and distinguished engineer, Cloud Native Competency at IBM Canada in Toronto.

Blockchain can achieve a variety of things for developers and end users. It can be used to create a large business network tying people and entities, provide the ability for parties to digitize and trade assets, and/or provide a single shared ledger on a distributed platform that can cross markets and sectors.

In Katz’ case, blockchain is serving as a platform for the use and exchange of waste materials, which will put value into the hands of the poor. While he prefers not to use the term “the Uber of recycling,” he admits it’s a good analogy.

“A driver has their own car and expenses. But the more they want to work, the more money they can make.”

Through The Plastic Bank, individuals or groups in poverty-stricken parts of the world are able to collect plastic waste and exchange it for tokens or credits that can be deposited in an online account. The tokens can then be applied toward goods and services they typically can’t afford, such as education, Wi-Fi services or medical insurance, among others.

Katz says blockchain is propelling these types of initiatives in a number of social applications.

“The ability to share authentic data is critically important, especially when working in areas that suffer from poverty and corruption. We know who is collecting materials and where – all questions that couldn’t be answered before. It speeds up everything.

”He joins a growing group of entrepreneurs exploring the value of blockchain for social good, from recyclables and charitable donations, to distribution within refugee camps and clean energy management, says Mark Kovarski, a Toronto-based technology consultant and partner at 85 Advisors in New York, an accelerator focused on blockchain innovation.

“If you look at the startup space from a cleantech and envirotech perspective, the growth has been phenomenal. There are now over 130 startups globally, and over $300 million being invested in startups using blockchain with an environmental focus.

It’s a huge growth market right now.”Key areas of development include energy efficiency, recycling using tokenized rewards system, end-to-end supply chain transparency, carbon footprint reporting and non-profit contributions.

Blockchain has great potential to lead the way to a more energy efficient, lower cost-of-energy world, while helping achieve global greenhouse gas emission targetsPaul Ghezzi, CEO, Kontrol Energy Corp.

 

Kovarski stresses that for startups, it’s all about the application layer and there are numerous platforms available to developers for little to no cost. These include IBM Blockchain, Ethereum, IOTA, NEO, EOS and Ripple.

“These platforms are like the glue for building distributed apps.”Paul Ghezzi, CEO at Kontrol Energy Corp. in Vaughan, Ont., a developer ofenergy efficiency solutions and technology, says his company has a number of accelerator initiatives within the blockchain sector that are using the various platforms.

He says as an energy services provider, the focus is on creating the applications that reside on them.“In terms of energy savings, blockchain has great potential to lead the way to a more energy efficient, lower cost-of-energy world, while at the same time helping to achieve global greenhouse gas emission targets,” he explains.

“For each $1 of energy saved, up to $3 of utility transmission and distribution investment can be mitigated. The return potential to save $1 dollar of energy is higher than having to build a new energy infrastructure.

”The areas that show the greatest upside within energy include, peer to peer trading of energy networks; carbon reduction monitoring, recording and monetization; and infrastructure planning and management, he adds.

Gupta says there are countless opportunities that developers can explore that will contribute to improving society, from securing food supply chains to improving energy efficiency.

“Ultimately, if a solution makes it easier and better to reconcile information in a trustable manner – that’s a social good right there.”

Discover more from Financialpost here: 
http://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/how-blockchain-can-help-remove-plastics-waste-and-hel... 

In today’s fast emerging economic zones, technology adoption can be a journey of faith into the unknown, riddled with the conflicting priorities of modern societies, bouts of human and institutional inertia and not to forget, legal and regulatory considerations.

Having grown up in Nigeria, I have first-hand experience on how complex or excruciatingly difficult real estate transactions can be. I stand to be corrected but the multibillion-dollar property and real estate sector, a key sector of the Nigerian economy, is largely driven by paper-based systems and processes, and the industry could do better with the aid of information technology.


Advanced technology solutions will help tidy things up, and make transparency, trust and peace of mind a permanent feature of dealings in the sector.

Every document or financial transaction that needs to be exchanged, settled, confirmed, validated or signed has a similar element of friction.


It is obvious that when these sorts of bottlenecks are eliminated, significant economic value is unlocked.In any property deal, the number of participants that are required to be involved from realtors, banks, insurance companies, brokers, land registries, government tax authorities, and other intermediaries is incredible, not to mention the ever-present danger that the seller of the property may not be the actual owner of the property being sold.




In any case, I suspect this is not a problem unique to Nigeria. The respected Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto believes that up to five billion people worldwide suffer from lack of title to their property. He reckons that this global scenario results in more than $20 trillion of capital that is outside of the traditional financial services ecosystem.

Banks have a key role to play in this dynamic. Their functional and statutory obligations mean they must galvanize social harmony, business investment and economic value for their diverse stakeholders.

I am aware that Nigerian banks and financial institutions across Africa have consistently sought for ways to resolve key sector issues like this one. But before supporting economic activities, these banks must ensure that their product and service delivery value chains are driven by a creative workforce and technology innovation.


Also, I know from my interactions with chief technology officers in the financial services sector that their ongoing investments in technology systems has helped the sector to build operational resilience into their systems even they begin contemplating adopting new concepts and practices like blockchain.


Designed to inject the trust element in technology-enabled transactions, blockchains are built on shared ledgers where participants write transactions in near real-time to an unbreakable chain that becomes a permanent record of an asset or transaction. This is viewable by all parties in the transaction. Blockchain thus allows businesses to work together in a new way resulting in lower cost, faster transactions and less risk.




In this way, blockchain can be used by individuals who want to complete transactions involving multiple parties. Large organizations may also want to use blockchain to collaborate across organizational silos. Ecosystems could tap blockchain to handle complex transactions across different jurisdictions, or governments may want to use it in the service of citizens.


This will have a profound impact, bringing wholesale change to organizations, ecosystems and economies. My personal view, also echoed by other experts, is that blockchain technology will do for transactions what the internet did for information — and in the relatively near future.


My thoughts on this subject seem to have been authenticated by two recent studies released by IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) which found that banking and financial markets are adopting commercial blockchain solutions much faster than initially expected. 15% of banks and 14% of financial market institutions globally interviewed by IBM plan to adopt full-scale, commercial blockchain solutions in 2017.


And within the next three years, 65% of banks expect to have blockchain solutions in production.Consider how assets from cars to contracts, art to corporate bonds — even identity-based assets, such as health, product provenance, or tax records — can be shared, exchanged or transferred on a blockchain platform with greater efficiency and privacy.

Read: 7 Emerging Technology Trends Expected To Disrupt Business By 2020

As transaction costs plummet and the way organizations are governed matters more and more, blockchains will create a new distributed form of business governed and managed transparently through smart contracts that include agreed upon by-laws.


In the emerging blockchain economy, the role of third-party intermediaries to broker trust and/or to reconcile will increasingly be called into question as we reinvent new processes that eliminate the need for such reconciliation and intermediation.

While blockchains can powerfully improve businesses’ efficiency, trust and value, executives must carefully evaluate where blockchains can be used.

While blockchains can powerfully improve businesses’ efficiency, trust and value, executives must carefully evaluate where blockchains can be used to gain improved efficiency and support new business models. I would therefore recommend that businesses answer these three questions:

• How fast should we move? Early movers in the blockchain adoption race may have an advantage as they are setting business standards and creating new models that will be used by future adopters of blockchain. We’re also finding that these early adopters are better able to anticipate disruption, fighting off new competitors along the way.
• How can we scale across business networks? Once blockchain technology has scaled across multiple participants, they can anticipate achieving the kind of network effects that can drastically reduce the frictions that curb growth.
• How can we innovate with new revenue models? As new entrants and business models emerge, banks may be forced to defend current revenue streams or move to where the money will flow next. New revenue models must anticipate the potential for disruption in areas core to the business today and in the future. As the market evolves, blockchain technology may add at least one new revenue stream; and so, the potential to monetize reference data looms large.

African businesses, especially banks and non-bank financial institutions, will be the first set of enterprises to get on board the blockchain train

My take is that African businesses, especially banks and non-bank financial institutions, will be the first set of enterprises to get on board the blockchain train, and fervently exploring the potential uses of blockchain technology.



Beyond banking and real estate, other economic sectors including manufacturing, retail and government agencies will pick and choose lessons from these trailblazers, recalibrating their needs and expectations as they gradually adopt blockchain technology.

In other climes, the Japan Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange Group are two of the leading bourses collaborating with IBM to explore blockchain to manage risk and bring additional transparency to global financial markets.

• Africa
• Blockchain

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Nov 20, 2017

Dipo Faulkner

Dipo Faulkner is the Country General Manager for IBM Nigeria.
He is responsible for IBM’s overall business in Nigeria with a focus on deploying IBM’s advanced technology capabilities in Cognitive, Cloud Computing, Big Data and Analytics, Mobile and Security to solve current and future needs of institutions in key economic sectors across the country.
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