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China‘s upcoming state-controlled digital currency is to be similar to Facebook‘s proposed coin, which makes total sense, because Libra isn’t really a cryptocurrency.

Mu Changchun, deputy director of payments at China‘s central bank, explained the country was issuing its digital currency “to protect our monetary sovereignty and legal currency status,” Reuters reports.

“We need to plan ahead for a rainy day,” Mu added.It’s likely these concerns reflect those of the European Central Bank. Earlier this week, a representative claimed that Facebook‘s Libra could undermine its power if it was readily adopted, as it could reduce overall demand for the Euro.

Next week: China discovers its digital token is capable of alchemy

Amazingly, Mu mentioned that his government‘s proposed tokens will be just as safe as China‘s paper-based fiat.Payment platforms like WeChat and Alipay are to supposedly support them, and Mu promised they’ll even be usable without an internet connection.

More incredibly, Reuters reports that Mu said China‘s purported coin would find a balance between allowing anonymous payments and preventing money laundering.

Considering that China is considered by many to be a surveillance-state (with scholars now referring to its politics as “networked totalitarianism“), these claims are outright laughable.

So, while Facebook does its best to brand its Libra offering as a real “cryptocurrency,” China has taken notes on issuing an entirely centralized digital currency that’s susceptible to censorship.If anything, the two deserve each other.

The US could someday try to crack down on cryptocurrency by calling certain users financial institutions. Critics say that would be a terrible idea.

by Mike Orcutt

If you are interested in the future of cryptocurrency, you should probably get to know the Bank Secrecy Act, a nearly 50-year-old law that requires financial institutions in the US to help law enforcement agencies police money laundering. 

The government could someday try to use the law to impose strict controls on how—and whether—certain blockchain-based currencies can be used. 
Take it from David Murray, a vice president at the Financial Integrity Network, a consulting firm in Washington, DC, that focuses on illicit finance. In testimony this week before a Senate subcommittee, Murray called on the government to expand its powers under the BSA to combat the use of cryptocurrency by human traffickers.

“Virtual assets are vulnerable to illicit finance because they offer rapid and irrevocable settlement and the potential for anonymity,” he said. Traditionally, efforts to weed out illicit finance have focused on banks and other financial intermediaries. But public blockchain networks like Bitcoin pose unique challenges for law enforcement.

The BSA, for instance, mandates that financial institutions collect certain information about their users and file reports to the US Treasury Department when transactions are larger than $5,000 or otherwise qualify as “suspicious.

” But since a global network of computers—not a centralized institution—validates Bitcoin transactions, who are they supposed to regulate? 

To tighten its grip on cryptocurrency, Murray said, the Treasury Department should broaden the BSA’s definition of a “financial institution” to include certain cryptocurrency “service providers” as well.

While cryptocurrency exchanges and crypto-asset storage providers are already covered by the BSA, other important participants in blockchain systems remain outside the law’s scope, and that should change, Murray argued.

One group he mentioned specifically was “virtual asset transaction validators.” Different blockchain systems work in different ways, but in all of them, participants who run the software the network uses are required to validate new transactions. 

Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies call them “miners” because they receive newly minted digital money in exchange for this activity. Murray said the US should regulate miners as so-called money services businesses.

But regulating miners would “basically make the technology nonviable,” at least in the US, says Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, a blockchain policy advocacy group in Washington, DC. It’s also probably not even feasible.

Given the global, pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin and similar systems, it would be difficult if not impossible to identify and locate all miners, who could just move to other countries with less strict rules.

Besides, says Van Valkenburgh, it doesn’t make sense to force Bitcoin miners to keep track of their customers the way a financial institution would, since they don’t really have customers.

“They have no idea who has requested transactions on the blockchain,” he says, adding that they are “just running the protocol” in hope of a reward.

Van Valkenburgh notes that the Treasury Department has long had the power to broaden the BSA’s definition of a financial institution to include cryptocurrency miners, but thus far it has explicitly chosen not to.

The international body in charge of policing money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force, has also chosen to avoid regulating miners, instead focusing on cryptocurrency exchanges.

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that this could change, perhaps in the wake of some future crime that involves the use of cryptocurrency.

If US authorities ever do try to expand their powers under BSA to crack down on cryptocurrency, though, they’ll be in for a fight. Van Valkenburgh argues that using the BSA to regulate cryptocurrency software developers and individual users would be unconstitutional.

Blockchain proved itself as a revolutionary technology. It has been transforming many sectors since its inception. Initially, change started with the finance and banking industry which soon spread to other sectors.

Retail, energy, governance, and healthcare sectors started experiments with blockchain. Agricultural industry, too, soon understood the potential of blockchain. Many countries, like India, are working to create a system which can help grow agriculture industry.

Supply chain is an essential part of the industry. Blockchain based applications are able to maintain every track record happening from farmer to consumer.

There may be a long chain of intermediates between a farmer and a consumer. Traditionally, It was not easy to trace every transaction happened among each intermediate. Blockchain can make these transactions traceable.

How it Works?

Farmers can create a small contract with the suppliers to whom they are selling their crop. This data will be saved in the blockchain database. Now, if suppliers sell this crop to the retailers, they will create the same contract with them.

When their transaction is complete, the data will be saved in the blockchain platform. This process can be followed by and with everyone in the chain. Whether it is transport service or port authorities or insurance agencies.

If this process is followed then the last person can check all the transactions happened in the database. This can help him know which farmer grew the crop, which supplier supplied it, and which transport company transported it.

We analysed some major challenges which farming sector faces and tried to understand how blockchain based application development can make a difference.

Food Safety: The consciousness about food safety is rising in consumers globally. Buyers are keen to know whether manufacturers have followed the food safety parameters or not.

The World Health Organization (WHO) found out that around 400,000 people die every year due to contaminated food.In 2017, more than 200 people were found infected with Salmonella infections in the US.U.S. FDA investigated and found that imported Maradol papayas from Mexico were the reason behind the infections.

Above are a couple of scenarios which can help you understand why food safety is important.Blockchain can solve this problem with traceability feature. Let’s understand this in the next point.

Traceability:As we discussed earlier that supply chain is an essential part of the industry. But now, tracing this chain is not easy. If you want to find out which farmer has grown the grains you bought, you will have to go through a long and hectic process. This may take some days or months.

Now, if this supply chain is using blockchain then you can know about the manufacturer or farmer within a few seconds. Blockchain based applications make the supply chain process transparent.If there is an epidemic due to poisonous food then the producer of the food can be traced within seconds.

 We can also trace where else that food was supplied and can pull all that back.This transparency will alert the manufactures and producers as well to not make mistakes.

Transportation & Logistics: The transport and logistics industry is enormous in itself and the challenges are also not less. Whoever has worked in this industry knows that this sector has many difficulties.

Logistics is the backbone of the supply chain industry. In that case, logistics is very important in the agriculture sector as well.Logistics industry always looks for innovative ways which can reduce their task force and improve functionalities.

With blockchain, this industry can improve the efficiency of the shipping process, they can track inventory easily, their transparency will improve, and invoicing will be more comfortable.

Transaction Costs: One of the most important features which made blockchain popular was its negligible transaction cost. Blockchain based applications can reduce the cost of a transaction.

Buyers and sellers can make transactions without the need for a third party (e.g. banks) using blockchain.Blockchain is a digital ledger which can not be hacked. One can only update it but practically it can not be hacked.

This means that blockchain will be a game-changer for supply chains because it will reduce the overall cost of a product.

Conclusion:Above are a few challenges which are important and very potential to the agriculture industry. It will be a massive task to reshape the complete framework of an industry which is so very vast. But we have to begin from any point to reach our goal.

Though, many organizations even countries have started working to implement blockchain development.Soon, we will see agricultural transactions, transportation, and contracts executing on the blockchain platforms.

Categories: Blog • Enterprise Technology






Kuldeep Kundal, Mr.

Cyber Infrastructure, "CIS"

As Technology Geek since 2002, Mr. Kundal, Founder & Chief Marketing Officer at Cyber Infrastructure Pvt Ltd., handled Global Technology and Business Leadership includes building world-class multinational organizations, centers of excellence to strategize.

He is a proven hands-on leader with a successful track record in business leadership and ownership, both offline and online. His strong personality and social skills have led to CIS’s consistent expansion. He is responsible for key alliances and has structured, managed large and complex contracts for CIS and its clients.