Few new technologies have raised as much discussion as blockchain. One reason is the controversy, concern, and perceived opportunity around blockchain-based cryptocurrencies (such as bitcoin and ether) and crowdfunding via initial coin offerings (ICOs). But what is blockchain’s role in the enterprise?
This article gives some ideas to think about. Take those trends with grain of salt. There will be a crash ans bubble burst on blockchains in few years.
782 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nearly every other business network has a crypto miner
According to the data security company Check Point’s statistics, some 42 percent of corporate networks were found in February by a crypto-lawn. In the fifth organization, Coinhive, which was lympic Monero, was ranked number one in the Top 5 list of malware. Crisis cryptool Cryptoloot rose to rank two, with a prevalence rising from 7 per cent in January to 14 per cent in February.
In Finland, the number one malware was Roughted, but Cryptoloot and Coinhive followed it.
- Cryptominers have steadily increased over the last four months. They slow down the work of PCs and servers, but when they reach the corporate network they can cause more damage. Therefore, it is even more important that companies have access to a multi-layer cybersecurity strategy that protects both known and unknown threats, says Maya Horowitz, a research group of Check Point’s security researchers.
The most common malware in Finland in February
Roughted – A versatile ad spreader and malware distributor
2. Cryptoloot – The Crusher Louder
3. Coinhive – a cryptolourager that raises Monero
4. The cryptolouwer to be planted on JSEco’s website
5. Fireball Browser Capable through which you can download malware to the victim’s machine
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7716-lahes-joka-toisessa-yritysverkossa-kryptolouhija
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lightning Labs just raised millions from Jack Dorsey and others to supercharge blockchain transactions
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/15/lightning-labs-just-raised-millions-from-jack-dorsey-and-others-to-supercharge-blockchain-transactions/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Lightning Labs, a young, Bay Area-based startup, is trying to make it easier for users to send bitcoin and litecoin to each other without the costly and time-consuming process of settling their transactions on the blockchain.
It has investors excited about its work, too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Build Your Own Trezor Hardware Cryptocurrency Wallet
https://blog.hackster.io/build-your-own-trezor-hardware-cryptocurrency-wallet-6146a1148320
When handled properly, cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is very secure. But, because it’s specifically designed to be decentralized and untraceable, someone can easily steal your money if they gain access to your authorization key. Thieves do that with fraudulent websites that phish for your key, or with malware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A New Start Up Wants To Pay You To Watch Porn – There’s Just One Tiny Catch
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/you-can-get-paid-cryptocurrency-to-watch-porn/
Vice Industry Token (VIT) will effectively pay you for looking at online porn. Sound too good to be true? Well, there’s a catch, as you no doubt anticipated. The payoff is that you will be handing over more and more of your precious data. On top of that, you will be paid in a digital coin that you can only spend on more porn. Damn, the Internet is a weird place.
VIT uses a blockchain
VIT think that their cryptocurrency could help stimulate the anxious industry of pornography
In a wider sense, you are able to watch free porn (or use free social networks and access free apps) because the platform is able to gather data about you and sell it to third parties, usually for the purposes of advertising.
“My plan is to attach my blockchain to any existing adult website and tokenize certain aspects of the business that they’re operating,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blockchain: 3 things people get wrong
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/2/blockchain-3-things-people-get-wrong?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Will blockchain solve that problem? As interest in blockchain grows, misunderstandings persist about data accuracy, cultural and legal barriers, and smart contracts
When evaluating future applications for blockchain, you may find it useful to take the following three considerations into account. Misunderstandings persist about all three of these important issues.
Blockchains don’t guarantee accuracy
Supply chain tracking inspires a lot of enthusiasm for blockchain. One frequently cited story concerns using blockchain to track the provenance of diamonds.
Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project, it uses blockchain as an immutable ledger to track the provenance and quality of diamonds.
Tracking provenance and movement through a distributed process with many intermediaries would seem to be well-suited for blockchain. And it probably is.
At the same time, it’s worth remembering that a blockchain doesn’t itself guarantee that the information put onto the blockchain is true. Blockchain does make it very hard to tamper with that information after the fact. But if the original supplier is able to falsify the source or quality of an item, or if two parties later in the supply chain collude to falsify a transaction, a blockchain won’t necessarily help.
Technology isn’t always the problem
It’s not hard to find examples of information that seems to be stored inefficiently. It may even be information that’s ostensibly public and therefore should be easily accessed.
To be sure, the relatively greater transparency and decentralized nature of blockchain relative to a traditional database may well be attractive characteristics for an application like this one. But, even if blockchain is better than existing options, don’t assume that tech is the answer to what may be human, cultural, or political problems.
Contracts rarely cover all the edge cases
Closely related to blockchain technology is the concept of smart contracts. The idea behind smart contracts is that you can code a contract that takes an action based on an event in the blockchain. For example, delivering an item could trigger a payment as well as orders to suppliers up through a supply chain.
A lot of enthusiasm for smart contracts stems from the idea that contracts can be expressed in code – so that they can trigger a complex series of precise actions upon the completion of a well-defined transaction without middlemen like brokers or lawyers being involved. (And, because this is taking place in concert with blockchain, all the actions are being recorded immutably.)
That’s all good, but remember that code has bugs and that even contracts written by expensive lawyers contain ambiguities and fail to account for edge cases.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Oberhaus / Motherboard:
Plattsburgh, NY imposes an 18-month moratorium on bitcoin mining for new commercial operations, after residents complained of increased electricity bills — Plattsburgh, New York has imposed an 18-month moratorium on Bitcoin mining to prevent miners from using all the city’s cheap electricity.
This City Just Passed the First Bitcoin Mining Ban in the US
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xk4qv/bitcoin-ban-plattsburgh-coinmint-mining
Plattsburgh, New York has imposed an 18-month moratorium on Bitcoin mining to prevent miners from using all the city’s cheap electricity.
On Thursday evening, the city council in Plattsburgh, New York unanimously voted to impose an 18-month moratorium on Bitcoin mining in the city.
Mining is the extremely energy-intensive computational process that secures the Bitcoin blockchain and rewards miners with bitcoins.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints that electric bills have gone up by $100 or $200,” Read said. “You can understand why people are upset.”
According to Read, Plattsburgh has the “cheapest electricity in the world” due to a hydroelectric dam on the St. Lawrence river and residents pay only 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. (For the sake of comparison, the US average is a little over 10 cents per kilowatt-hour). Industrial enterprises—including Bitcoin mines—in Plattsburgh pay even less: Just 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Although Read said this lower rate was to incentivize industries to set up shop in the city, it has also made Plattsburgh increasingly attractive to cryptocurrency miners, who depend on cheap electricity to turn a profit on mining.
In January, Plattsburgh went over its power allotment and was forced to purchase electricity on the open market for far higher prices.
In the next 18 months, city officials pledged to work with citizens and local Bitcoin miners to develop a solution to Plattsburgh’s energy problem. Read suggested a number of possible solutions, such as making miners pay for any overages of the city’s power budget or increasing the kilowatt rate for miners.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hashgraph wants to give you the benefits of blockchain without the limitations
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/13/hashgraph-wants-to-give-you-the-benefits-of-blockchain-without-the-limitations/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
The spotlight on the distributed ledger space to-date is primarily focused on blockchain . Yet, blockchains come with limitations by design. Consensus mechanisms using proof of work (POW) are by their nature slow, so the community can come to agreement and throw away the blocks they don’t agree on. This design also includes inherent inefficiencies such as electricity consumption discarded on stale blocks.
Distributed ledger technologies envision a new, better peer-to-peer compute model that could help us harness compute power like never before.
The hashgraph algorithm, invented by Leemon Baird, the co-founder and CTO of Swirlds, is a consensus mechanism based on a virtual voting algorithm combined with the gossip protocol to achieve consensus quickly, fairly, efficiently, and securely. Today, the founders of Swirlds, a permission-based ledger that uses the hashgraph consensus mechanism, launched the Hedera Hashgraph Platform, a separate venture dedicated to developing a public ledger based on the hashgraph.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Want To Make Millions? Copy Someone’s Cryptocurrency Project.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/cryptocurrency-white-paper-plagiarism-tron-justin-sun?utm_term=.wrXlD62oG&utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email#.kqrLop2ZJ
Copying other companies’ work and intellectual property can generate big paydays for hucksters in the cryptocurrency world. One company has maintained a $2.3 billion valuation despite widespread allegations of plagiarism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin Is Ridiculous. Blockchain Is Dangerous
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-09/bitcoin-is-ridiculous-blockchain-is-dangerous-paul-ford?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
The true believers won’t stop until they’ve remade the world. Some of it will be thrilling. Some of it will keep us up at night.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t Get Caught Up In Blockchain Hype
https://hackaday.com/2017/12/16/dont-get-caught-up-in-blockchain-hype/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reverse Engineering A Bitcoin Miner
https://hackaday.com/2018/02/10/reverse-engineering-a-bitcoin-miner/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alexander J Martin / Sky News:
Sources: Twitter will ban ads for ICOs, token sales, and cryptocurrency wallets in the next two weeks
Twitter to prohibit range of cryptocurrency ads
https://news.sky.com/story/twitter-to-prohibit-range-of-cryptocurrency-ads-11293387
The social media platform may ban ICOs and almost all cryptocurrency exchanges, with just a few exceptions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crypt-NO-coins: US city bans mining funbux on its electrical power grid
New commercial alt-cash crafters turned away from slurping cheap electricity
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/16/plattsburgh_new_york_bans_crypto_mining/
A city in upstate New York has become the first in America to effectively ban any new commercial-grade cryptocurrency miners from powering up.
Mayor Colin Read and the city council of Plattsburgh this month signed off on a measure to place an 18-month moratorium on any new industrial-scale crypto-coin crafting operations within the city limits. Alt-cash mining companies typically require a permit to operate within Plattsburgh – now no more applications will be approved for a year and a half.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trump bans Venezuelan cryptocurrency in the US
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/facebook-creator-monetization/
U.S. President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to ban Petro in the U.S. Petro is a cryptocurrency developed by the government of Venezuela.
As of today, U.S. citizens, residents and companies can’t buy or sell Petro.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sierra Leone government denies the role of blockchain in its recent election
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/sierra-leone-government-denies-the-role-of-blockchain-in-its-recent-election/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
The National Electoral Commission Sierra Leone has come out with a clarification to – and, an outright condemnation – of the news that theirs was one of the first elections recorded to the blockchain. While the blockchain voting company Agora claimed to have run the first blockchain-based election, it appears that the company did little more than observe the voting and store some of the results.
“The NEC [National Electoral Commission] has not used and is not using blockchain technology in any part of the electoral process,” said NEC head Mohamed Conteh.
“Anonymized votes/ballots are being recorded on Agora’s blockchain, which will be publicly available for any interested party to review, count and validate,” said Agora’s Leonardo Gammar. “This is the first time a government election is using blockchain technology.”
In Africa the reactions were mixed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Power Companies Can Now Charge Bitcoin Miners More
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/03/19/2355242/new-york-power-companies-can-now-charge-bitcoin-miners-more?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Last Wednesday, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) ruled that municipal power companies could charge higher electricity rates to cryptocurrency miners who try to benefit from the state’s abundance of cheap hydroelectric power.
New York power companies can now charge Bitcoin miners more
With few community benefits, power authorities are cracking down.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/new-york-power-companies-can-now-charge-bitcoin-miners-more/
On Wednesday, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) ruled that municipal power companies could charge higher electricity rates to cryptocurrency miners who try to benefit from the state’s abundance of cheap hydroelectric power.
Over the years, Bitcoin’s soaring price has drawn entrepreneurs to mining. Bitcoin mining enterprises have become massive endeavors, consuming megawatts of power on some grids. To minimize the cost of that considerable power draw, mining companies have tried to site their operations in towns with cheap electricity, both in the US and around the world. In the US, regions with the cheapest energy tend to be small towns with hydroelectric power. (Politico recently wrote extensively about the Bitcoin mining boom in Washington state’s mid-Columbia valley, a hotspot for cheap hydro.)
A group of 36 municipal power authorities in northern and western New York petitioned the PSC for permission to raise electricity rates for cryptocurrency miners because their excessive power use has been taxing very small local grids and causing rates to rise for other customers.
The PSC responded on Wednesday that it would allow those local power companies to raise rates for cryptocurrency miners.
The PSC offered a truly staggering look at the electricity demand that cryptocurrency has created in the region, saying that in some communities cryptocurrency mining requires “thousands of times more electricity than an average residential customer would use”
In another instance, the power demanded by cryptocurrency companies accounted for 33 percent of the local power company’s load. In the Village of Akron, a cryptocurrency mining operation requested a 5 MW increase in electricity delivery.
Of course, cryptocurrency mining is hardly the first industry to arbitrage electricity prices to make some good’s production more profitable. The practice is common in aluminum production, where the smelting process uses vast amounts of electricity to create aluminum metal from alumina. Not surprisingly, the Pacific Northwest and Upstate New York are both US regions where aluminum manufacture is common.
But the New York PSC said that cryptocurrency mining should be treated differently, because a local community doesn’t benefit from cryptocurrency mining like it does from, say, aluminum processing plants.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin’s blockchain: Potentially a hazardous waste dump of child abuse, malware, etc
Boffins warn of legal risks from arbitrary data distribution
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/19/ability_to_dump_illegal_content_in_bitcoins_blockchain_puts_participants_in_peril/
Emergent Tech
Bitcoin’s blockchain: Potentially a hazardous waste dump of child abuse, malware, etc
Boffins warn of legal risks from arbitrary data distribution
By Thomas Claburn in San Francisco 19 Mar 2018 at 20:11
27 Reg comments SHARE ▼
Bitcoin’s blockchain can be loaded with sensitive, unlawful or malicious data, raising potential legal problems in most of the world, according to boffins based in Germany.
In a paper [PDF] presented at the Financial Cryptography and Data Security conference on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao – “A Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin” – researchers from RWTH Aachen University and Goethe University identified 1,600 files added to the Bitcoin blockchain, 59 of which include links to unlawful images of child exploitation, politically sensitive content, or privacy violations.
The researchers suggest Bitcoin’s blockchain can also be loaded with malware, something Interpol warned about three years ago but has not yet been documented in the wild.
“Despite potential benefits of data in the blockchain, insertion of objectionable content can put all participants of the Bitcoin network at risk, as such unwanted content is unchangeable and locally replicated by each peer of the Bitcoin network as benign data,” researchers Roman Matzutt, Jens Hiller, Martin Henze, Jan Henrik Ziegeldorf, Dirk Müllmann, Oliver Hohlfeld, and Klaus Wehrle explain.
https://fc18.ifca.ai/preproceedings/6.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
15-Year-old Finds Flaw in Ledger Crypto Wallet
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/15-year-old-finds-flaw-in-ledger-crypto-wallet/
15-year-old security researcher has discovered a serious flaw in cryptocurrency hardware wallets made by Ledger, a French company whose popular products are designed to physically safeguard public and private keys used to receive or spend the user’s cryptocurrencies.
Yet Saleem Rashid, a 15-year-old security researcher from the United Kingdom, discovered a way to acquire the private keys from Ledger devices. Rashid’s method requires an attacker to have physical access to the device, and normally such hacks would be unremarkable because they fall under the #1 rule of security — namely, if an attacker has physical access to your device, then it is not your device anymore.
The trouble is that consumer demand for Ledger’s products has frequently outpaced the company’s ability to produce them (it has sold over a million of its most popular Nano S models to date). This has prompted the company’s chief technology officer to state publicly that Ledger’s built-in security model is so robust that it is safe to purchase their products from a wide range of third-party sellers, including Amazon and eBay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucinda Shen / Fortune:
Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey says he believes bitcoin will eventually become the world’s single currency, but it will probably take over ten years
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Says Bitcoin Will Be the World’s Universal Currency
http://fortune.com/2018/03/21/jack-dorsey-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-transactions/
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey isn’t pulling his punches on Bitcoin.
While J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon sees promise in blockchain but a bubble in Bitcoin, Twitter and Square’s chief executive, Dorsey, thinks the poster child of the cryptocurrency movement will come to replace all currencies.
“The world ultimately will have a single currency, the Internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin,” Dorsey told the The Times of London Wednesday. His timeline: “probably over ten years, but it could go faster.”
That comes even as Bitcoin’s price, now at $9,000, remains below its peak of $20,000 on some exchanges in December.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shannon Liao / The Verge:
Symantec report: instances of cryptojacking rose 8,500% in Q4 2017, partly due to easy-to-operate coin mining apps, coin mining up 34,000% in 2017
Cryptojacking rates increased by 85 times in Q4 2017 as bitcoin prices spiked: report
Where the money is, the thieves will follow
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17147320/cryptojacking-8500-percentage-points-bitcoin-monero-spike-symantec-security-mining
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Blockchain Capital, an investor in Ripple and Coinbase, raises $150M for its fourth fund, which appears to be the largest fund focused on crypto and blockchain
Blockchain Capital raises $150 million for new fund
https://www.axios.com/blockchain-capital-1521650515-db901233-2c86-42f8-b21a-1d1d323e658a.html
Blockchain Capital, an investor in such companies as Coinbase and Ripple, has raised $150 million for its fourth fund.
Why it matters: This appears to be the largest venture capital fund raised to focus exclusively on blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to tell when moving to blockchain is a bad idea
https://opensource.com/article/18/3/3-tests-not-moving-blockchain?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Three questions to determine when you can avoid the hype.
So, there’s this thing called “blockchain” that is quite popular…
You know that already, of course. I keep wondering whether we’ve hit “peak hype” for blockchain and related technologies yet, but so far there’s no sign of it.
When I’m talking about blockchain here, I’m including distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), which are, by some tight definitions of the term, not really blockchains at all.
I’m interested in business applications of blockchain beyond cryptocurrency.1
And, if the hype is to be believed—and some of it probably should be2—then there is an almost infinite set of applications for blockchain. That’s probably correct, but it doesn’t mean all of them are good applications for blockchain. Some, in fact, are likely to be very bad applications for blockchain.
The hype associated with blockchain, however, means that businesses are rushing to embrace this new technology without really understanding what they’re doing.
The danger, then, is that the confluence of those three drivers may lead to businesses moving to blockchain applications without fully understanding whether it’s a good idea.
I’m convinced that we need some simple tests to tell us when we should definitely not move a process or an application to a blockchain. I present my three tests.
Test 1: Does it have a centralised controller or authority?
If the answer is “yes,” then you don’t need a blockchain.
The lesson is: Blockchains really don’t make sense unless the tasks required in the process execution—and the trust associated with those tasks—is distributed among multiple entities.
Test 2: Could it work fine with a standard database?
If the answer to this question is “yes,” then you don’t need a blockchain.
Databases are good at what they do, they are cheaper in terms of design and operations than running a blockchain or distributed ledger, and we know how to make them work. Blockchains are about letting everybody see and hold data, but the overheads can be high and the implications costly.
Test 3: Is adoption going to be costly or annoying to some stakeholders?
If the answer to this question is “yes,” then you don’t need a blockchain.
It’s very easy to create and introduce an application, blockchain or not, that reduces business friction for the owner of the process but increases it for other stakeholders.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drew Cloud / The Student Loan Report:
A survey of 1000 college students with student loan debt found that 21.2% of them have used financial aid money to buy cryptocurrency
Financial Aid Funding Cryptocurrency Investments
https://studentloans.net/financial-aid-funding-cryptocurrency-investments/
In a recent survey conducted by The Student Loan Report, we found that 21.2 percent of current college students with student loan debt have used financial aid money to fund a cryptocurrency investment.
The survey was administered over the course of four days and the participants were asked the following question: “Have you ever used student loan money to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin?”
More than one-fifth of college students are dipping their toes, or maybe diving in head-first, in the virtual currency space, and they are using their student loans to do it.
Student loan borrowers would be able to pull off such a maneuver because they are given their remaining student loan funds to be used on “living expenses.” Sometimes, student debtors borrow more than they end up needing for that semester of classes. Once the borrower’s college or university’s financial aid office uses the necessary financial aid to pay for courses, they send a refund check to the borrower.
Essentially, there is no system in place to ensure the debtor is using the leftover money for college living expenses. Therefore, borrowers may spend that money any way they wish.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yasmin Yablonko / Globes Online:
Israel-based social trading and multi-asset brokerage startup eToro raises $100M, source says at $800M valuation, for expansion and R&D in blockchain
Israeli social trading co eToro raises $100m
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-social-trading-co-etoro-raises-100m-1001228869
eToro has raised $162 million to date and the latest financing round was completed at a company valuation of $800 million.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Something Deeply Disturbing And Illegal Has Been Found Hidden Within Bitcoin’s Transaction Log
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/links-to-child-pornography-found-hidden-in-bitcoins-transaction-log/
Bitcoin’s price began to drop early this year, leading many economists and investors to speculate that the cryptocurrency bubble is about to burst spectacularly.
Yet a recently published analysis by German researchers highlights how one of the digital currency’s greatest strengths could lead to its downfall, regardless of monetary value.
According to their report, governments across the world could be forced to outlaw Bitcoin due to users’ ability to store illegal – and disturbing – content within its open-access transaction ledger, called the blockchain.
The problem? To buy, sell, or trade bitcoin, every user must download a copy of the blockchain in its entirety, meaning that they are technically in possession of all the undeletable content contained within. And perhaps unsurprisingly, given human nature, many misuse the blockchain to store objectionable content
dozens of folders contained links to copyright or privacy-infringing content, and two were link lists to child pornography websites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Evans / TechCrunch:
Dear blockchain startups: do not promise decentralized Internet, you don’t have to scale to the size of Facebook, just think small and build viable applications
Towards a world without Facebook
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/25/towards-a-world-without-facebook/
Dear blockchain people: this is your hour. Abandon your transparently greedy get-rich-quick schemes, turn away from your casinos of de-facto modern-day penny stocks, and focus your decentralized attention on what the world needs. Save us, O blockchainers, from the scourge that is Facebook! Decentralize all the things!
I’m kidding, of course. For now.
Every year, it seems, a new “new Facebook” arises, swells, deflates, and vanishes, generally in a matter of weeks. Remember Diaspora? Ello? Mastodon? Vero?
And yet. It is whispered in dark corners, at conventions with names like Consensus and TokenFest, that there is a secret tunnel in that wall, a fundamental flaw. That Facebook’s advantage of massive scale could melt away if faced by the dark magic of decentralization, wherein users own their own data, encrypted by them, stored in the location of their choice, shared only as and when they explicitly approve, while they connect peer-to-peer with interactions mediated and paid for via a tokenized protocol, across an armada of nodes running — yep, you guessed it — some sort of blockchain.
This is essentially nonsense. For now. Its fundamental flaw is the fundamental flaw of most grandiose decentralized blockchain notions; they are too much, too large, too megalomaniacal, too soon. They want to supplant the entire existing order, whether it be money, the entire financial sector, democratic governance, social media … or, really, pick a field of human endeavour, there’s probably some white paper outlining a token-based decentralized wholesale replacement for the way things are done now.
Dear blockchain people: stop it. I like big thinking as much as anyone, but in practice you don’t change things by overthrowing them. You won’t blow out a torch that’s been burning for many years with your new Big Bang. Instead, in practice, you start small, with a tiny cohort of enthusiasts, and you iterate — sometimes for a very long time — before you get any traction that the wider world notices at all. You do not, repeat not, gather a band of adventurers together in an inn to immediately form up and charge The Wall.
Especially stop it with consumer applications. I stand by my statement that “blockchains are the new Linux, not the new Internet” more strongly with each passing month. Blockchain enthusiasts may enjoy perusing their wallets and counting how many different kinds of ERC20 tokens — which generally still have no actual utility, beyond that of a penny stock — are contained within. Ordinary users, however, do not.
Better token UX won’t fix their fundamental problem. Online micropayments didn’t fail again and again because decentralized tokens weren’t a thing yet; they failed because their cognitive load was far too great to sustain their use. Tokens don’t change that one iota. If your consumer decentralized app involves ordinary users knowingly accumulating, spending, or transferring custom tokens, your consumer decentralized app will fail.
Rather, your goal right now is to create a viable alternative for those who reject existing centralized services, whether they be many or few.
That’s what Bitcoin itself is, after all; a weird little alternative to centralized finance. Over the course of a decade it has, beyond astonishingly, actually become viable, useful, self-sufficient, and globally successful, but it remains a weird little alternative, and will for the foreseeable future.
But my point is that you don’t have to scale to the size of Facebook for an alternative to be viable. Think small.
The world will have Facebook for a long time to come, but Facebook doesn’t have to be part of your world … especially if a weird, clunky, charmingly ramshackle little alternative exists, one from which you ultimately find you get far more net emotional and practical value.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Camila Russo / Bloomberg:
Coinbase says it will support Ethereum’s ERC20 standard on its platform in the coming months, allowing for future support of ERC20 assets across its products
Crypto Exchange Coinbase Adds Support for Ethereum-Based Tokens
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/crypto-exchange-coinbase-adds-support-for-ethereum-based-tokens
Coinbase Inc., which owns one of the largest U.S. cryptocurrency trading platforms, is opening the door to offering digital tokens based on the Ethereum network.
The San Francisco-based company said it will support Ethereum’s ERC20 technical standard on its platform in the coming months, according to a blog post the firm published Monday. ERC20 is the technical standard used to build Ethereum-based tokens, such as EOS, Qtum, OmiseGo and Bancor. There are more than 50,000 ERC20 token contracts, according to Etherscan website.
“This paves the way for supporting ERC20 assets across Coinbase products in the future, though we aren’t announcing support for any specific assets or features at this time,” the post said. Coinbase trades Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether and Litecoin on its GDAX exchange.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
Twitter says it will ban cryptocurrency advertising on its platform, including ads for ICOs, token sales, and crypto wallet services
Twitter to ban cryptocurrency ads from Tuesday as online crackdown widens
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-twitter/twitter-to-ban-crypto-ads-as-online-crackdown-widens-idUSKBN1H222H?il=0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Despite its recent price growth, Bitcoin is still a largely niche currency in the real world. It has a global reputation as an investment commodity, but it hasn’t yet affected how ordinary people live their lives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chart Shows Bitcoin Hitting $91,000 By March 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/03/17/chart-shows-bitcoin-hitting-91000-by-march-2020/#2354e5e442e6
Warren Buffett has concerns about Bitcoin and Allianz’s Head of Global Economics & Strategy thinks it could fall to $0. But Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors’ head of research, thinks it could rise to $91,000 by March 2020. Fundstrat and Lee have compiled an impressive database, statistics and graphs on Bitcoin that helps to visualize short-term and long-term trends. They include the cost of mining Bitcoins, hourly, daily and monthly trading trends and technical analysis.
Lee also introduced the Bitcoin Misery Index, or BMI, just over a week ago that is at the second lowest point of the past eight years. It is a contrarian indicator, meaning the lower it is, the more positive the outlook for Bitcoin to move up in price.
Short-term pain for long-term gain
Lee and his team have produced a new graph that shows Bitcoin’s four declines of 70% or greater since 2010 . After the previous three drops it has experienced significant gains, probably eclipsing the returns of any other asset over the same time period.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vantiv:
3 Ways Large Organizations Are Using Blockchain — Check out our 2 infographics on how large organizations are adopting blockchain technology to save money and secure data.
Blockchain Adoption in Enterprise Business – A Crouching Tiger
https://developer.vantiv.com/community/news-and-communications/blog/2018/03/21/blockchain-set-for-big-moves-in-enterprise-applications?utm_campaign=TechMeme&utm_medium=PaidPlacement&utm_source=Referrer&utm_content=BlockchainEnterprise
To the general public, the buzz around blockchain is focused primarily on the skyrocketing rise in Bitcoin prices and the growing market value of other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple. For developers though, blockchain is a “Crouching Tiger” in Enterprise business and it’s set to pounce to the forefront of many business processes we touch on a daily basis.
Q: Even for developers, there’s still a lot of confusion around how blockchain development will find it’s way into Enterprise business. Can you give us an example of how blockchain will change Supply Chain Management?
Blockchain in supply chains provides a new traceability system for material and product traceability. The blockchain gives unchangeable visibility that can be audited and remain secure through a supply chains lifecycle and beyond. It allows anyone to track the provenance of anything. Just look at the infographic below to see how the relationship between the farmer, the food manufacturer and you, the consumer, can benefit from blockchain technology to trace food production, assist in the tracking of the manufacturing and processing, provide better management of food safety and finally aid in the transportation of food to the consumer. There are efficiencies all along the supply chain lifecycle.
The term “Farm to Fork” could be the new blockchain managed ecosystem for food retailers to manage food safety while offering the potential for better management and increased profits.
Other Enterprise Industries Using blockchain Applications.
1. Financial Services
American Express announced it is using Ripple for corporate transactions between the US and UK.
Mastercard has been active with blockchain patents for storage of payment histories.
2. Health Services
IBM and the US Food and Drug Administration started a partnership to work on a scalable health data exchange to address lack of transparency in health data while improving the trust in patient privacy.
3. Auto Industry
Volkswagon and Renault are testing vehicle telematic tracking, capturing vehicle mileage, engine use, repair history and other data on blockchain to store a historical accounting of use for insurance, maintenance and resale purposes in Germany.
Toyota is using blockchain to test the purchase of secure, private driving data to build autonomous vehicle driving algorithms.
4. Aviation
Airbus joined Blockchain at Berkley to test Proof of Concept for parts tracking technology using blockchain.
5. IoT
Cisco now has a patent delving into using blockchain technology to help verify the identity, safety, and trustworthiness of various devices connected to the internet.
Q: Josh, where do you see blockchain making its way into the payments industry? You mentioned some interesting news from Coinbase. For those unfamiliar, Coinbase is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
This is called, Coinbase Commerce and it allows you to exchange cryptocurrency as a form of payment in a global fashion through an easy integration with the exchange. They have one of the most well-known eCommerce platforms, Shopify, already integrated into the system.
Coinbase is expanding their merchant services. They are offering a way to do an integration through Coinbase for the exchange of goods for a merchant.
Q: How can developers get started in blockchain?
For developers in payments, you need to ask yourself what is the mechanism to bring blockchain into your enterprise? Is it a KYC / AML component? Perhaps your focus should be looking into identities where the Know Your Customer and Anti Money Laundering components can be improved. There are blockchain projects that bring that to the table and ways for a customer to identify themselves on the blockchain. There’s also been some blockchain work around remittances and cross-border payments with Stellar and Ripple where Ripple is going down the traditional banking route and Stellar is going down the partnership route model to facilitate these transactions across borders.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethereum falls after rumors of a powerful mining chip surface
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/ethereum-has-the-asic-blues/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Rumors of a new ASIC mining rig from Bitmain have driven Ethereum prices well below their one-week high of $585.
According to a CNBC report, analyst Christopher Rolland visited China where he unearthed rumors of a new ASIC chip dedicated to Ethereum mining.
Historically users have mined Ethereum using GPUs which, in turn, led to the unavailability of GPUs for gaming and graphics. However, an ASIC would change the mining equation entirely, resulting in a certain amount of centralization as big players – including Bitmain – created higher barrier to entry for casual miners.
“Ethereum is of the most profitable coins available for GPU mining,”
“It can be seen as an attack on the network. It’s a centralization problem,”
Avady points out that there is a constant debate among cryptocurrency aficionados regarding ASICs and their effect on the market. Some are expecting a move to more mineable coins including Monero and ZCash.
“What would be bad is if there was only one Ethereum ASIC manufacturer,” he said. “But with Samsung and a couple other players getting into the game it won’t be bad for long.”
There is also concern over ICO launches and actual utility of Ethereum-based smart contract tokens. “The price of ETH is becoming consolidated as people become more realistic about blockchain technology,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia CEO comments on GPU shortage caused by Ethereum
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/nvidia-ceo-comments-on-gpu-shortage-caused-by-etherium/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
AdChoices
Nvidia CEO comments on GPU shortage caused by Ethereum
Matt Burns
@mjburnsy / 1 hour ago
NVID0633
There’s currently a shortage of Nvidia GPUs and Nvidia’s CEO pointed to Ethereum distributed ledgers as the cause. Today at Nvidia’s GTC conference he spoke to a group of journalists following his keynote address and addressed the shortage.
Huang simply stated that Nvidia is not in the business of cryptocurrency or distributed ledgers. As such, he stated he preferred if his company’s GPUs were used the areas Nvidia is targeting though explained why Nvidia’s products are used for crypto mining.
“[Cryptocurrency] is not our business,” he said. “Gaming is growing and workstation is growing because of ray tracing.” He noted that Nvidia’s high performance business is also growing and these are the areas he wished Nvidia could allocate units for.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
A deep look at JavaScript-based cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive, a cryptojacking tool used to steal processing power of users’ devices for mining Monero
Who and What Is Coinhive?
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/who-and-what-is-coinhive/
Multiple security firms recently identified cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive as the top malicious threat to Web users, thanks to the tendency for Coinhive’s computer code to be used on hacked Web sites to steal the processing power of its visitors’ devices. This post looks at how Coinhive vaulted to the top of the threat list less than a year after its debut, and explores clues about the possible identities of the individuals behind the service.
Coinhive is a cryptocurrency mining service that relies on a small chunk of computer code designed to be installed on Web sites. The code uses some or all of the computing power of any browser that visits the site in question, enlisting the machine in a bid to mine bits of the Monero cryptocurrency.
Monero differs from Bitcoin in that its transactions are virtually untraceble, and there is no way for an outsider to track Monero transactions between two parties. Naturally, this quality makes Monero an especially appealing choice for cybercriminals.
Coinhive released its mining code last summer, pitching it as a way for Web site owners to earn an income without running intrusive or annoying advertisements. But since then, Coinhive’s code has emerged as the top malware threat tracked by multiple security firms. That’s because much of the time the code is installed on hacked Web sites — without the owner’s knowledge or permission.
Much like a malware infection by a malicious bot or Trojan, Coinhive’s code frequently locks up a user’s browser and drains the device’s battery as it continues to mine Monero for as long a visitor is browsing the site.
According to publicwww.com, a service that indexes the source code of Web sites, there are nearly 32,000 Web sites currently running Coinhive’s JavaScript miner code. It’s impossible to say how many of those sites have installed the code intentionally, but in recent months hackers have secretly stitched it into some extremely high-profile Web sites, including sites for such companies as The Los Angeles Times, mobile device maker Blackberry, Politifact, and Showtime.
Mursch said Coinhive appears to have zero incentive to police the widespread abuse that is leveraging its platform.
“When they ‘terminate’ a key, it just terminates the user on that platform, it doesn’t stop the malicious JavaScript from running, and it just means that particular Coinhive user doesn’t get paid anymore,” Mursch said. “The code keeps running, and Coinhive gets all of it. Maybe they can’t do anything about it, or maybe they don’t want to. But as long as the code is still on the hacked site, it’s still making them money.”
“We have developed Coinhive under the assumption that site keys are immutable,” Coinhive wrote in an email to KrebsOnSecurity. “This is evident by the fact that a site key can not be deleted by a user. This assumption greatly simplified our initial development.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
Massachusetts’ top securities regulator orders five firms allegedly conducting ICOs to halt the offer of “unregistered securities”
Massachusetts regulator blocks ICOs by five firms
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-massachusetts/massachusetts-regulator-blocks-icos-by-five-firms-idUSKBN1H32PC
Massachusetts’ top securities regulator has ordered five firms that were allegedly conducting initial coin offerings for cryptocurrencies in the state to halt the sale or offer of their “unregistered securities,” he said on Tuesday.
William Galvin, the secretary of the commonwealth in Massachusetts, said his office ordered Mattervest Inc, Pink Ribbon ICO, Across Platforms Inc, Sparkco Inc and 18 Moons to stop sales of their coins.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Energy-saving Bitcoin rival Chia raises from A16Z, plans mini-IPO
Legit crypto startups are ditching the ICO
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/chia-vs-bitcoin/
Dram Cohen invented torrenting. Now he’s building a cryptocurrency called Chia that doesn’t waste electricity like Bitcoin, and top investors are lining up. Chia has just raised a $3.395 million seed round led by AngelList’s Naval Ravikant and joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock and more. The money will help the startup build out its Chia coin powered by proofs of space and time instead of Bitcoin’s energy-sucking proofs of work, which it plans to launch in Q1 2019.
Chia will do a pre-mine of its currency but initially retain ownership of 100 percent of the coins, using the mini-IPO to foster a community of investors. “We’re planning on issuing a dividend of Chia to our shareholders in advance of the network launch,”
The killer feature in crypto: Legitimacy
After Cohen invented the torrenting file transfer protocol in 2004 and co-founded a company around it called BitTorrent, the startup suffered through a decade of mismanagement by other CEOs. So this time around, he seems determined to keep control, holding the CEO title himself.
. “You absolutely must worry on a technical level about all the ways something could go wrong because building secure distributed databases is hard.” It’s quite a statement from a guy who built the protocol BitTorrent said at one point moved 40 percent of world’s internet traffic per day. Chia is now aggressively hiring engineers with experience in decentralized network protocols, math and cryptography.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Developer Show | Blockchain and the Hyperledger Sawtooth Implementation
https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/iot-developer-show-blockchain-and-the-hyperledger-sawtooth-implementation
Tomi Engdahl says:
Something Deeply Disturbing And Illegal Has Been Found Hidden Within Bitcoin’s Transaction Log
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/links-to-child-pornography-found-hidden-in-bitcoins-transaction-log/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/kumppaniblogit/abb/digitaalisuus-mullistaa-energian-tuotannon-ja-kulutuksen-tai-sitten-ei-6708399
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quintacorn Robinhood’s free crypto trading rolls out in Cali, 3 more states
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/free-bitcoin-trading/
Robinhood is rolling out its Coinbase-killer that’s already helped the fintech startup’s valuation grow 4X in a year. Zero-fee trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum is now available to all investors in California, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Montana. Everyone else is still on the waitlist. Robinhood users everywhere can already track 16 crypto coins including BTC, ETH, Litecoin, and Ripple, as well as trade traditional stocks with no transaction commission.
Announced in January, Robinhood Crypto vastly undercuts Coinbase’s U.S. fees that range from 1.5 to 4 percent. Four million users waitlisted for Robinhood Crypto in the first 5 days after it was announced.
Rather than charging per trade, Robinhood earns money from interest on money in users’ accounts and its Robinhood Gold subscription service. For for $6 to $200 a month in subscription fees, users can borrow between $1,000 and $50,000 to trade with.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google is banning all cryptomining extensions from its Chrome Web Store
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/google-is-banning-all-cryptomining-extensions-from-its-chrome-web-store/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Google today announced that it will ban from its Chrome Web Store any and all browser extensions that mine crypto.
Mining cryptocurrencies in the browser isn’t the most efficient way for individuals to get rich, but if you are a developer and you get thousands of machines to mine for you, that equation changes in your favor. For the longest time, Google’s Chrome Web Store allowed for single-purpose mining extensions. That is, developers could publish extensions in the store that clearly stated their purpose and that had no other purpose than to mine.
As it turns out, 90 percent of extensions that mine crypto don’t comply with those rules. The lure of cheap Monero is simply too great for some developers
So starting today, Google won’t allow into the Chrome Web Store any extension that mines cryptocurrencies, and starting in late June, all of the existing extensions will be removed. It’s worth noting that Google will still allow for blockchain-related extensions that don’t mine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Bans Crypto-Mining Chrome Extensions
https://www.securityweek.com/google-bans-crypto-mining-chrome-extensions
Google on Monday announced that Chrome extensions designed to mine for crypto-currencies are no longer accepted in the Chrome Web Store.
While still focused on allowing the Chrome extensions ecosystem to evolve, Google also wants to keep users as safe as possible. Thus, a rise in the number of malicious Chrome extensions that mine for virtual coins without informing the users has sparked the Internet giant to ban all such extensions.
The scripts designed for mining purposes often require significant CPU power to perform their activity, and could result in severely diminished system performance or in increased power consumption. Called in-browser cryptojacking, such mining behavior is employed by many websites as well, often with heavy impact on user experience.
Extensions with blockchain-related purposes that do not attempt to mine for virtual coins will continue to be distributed through the Web Store.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Monero-Mining Android Malware Discovered
https://www.securityweek.com/new-monero-mining-android-malware-discovered
A newly discovered malware family attempts to leverage the (limited) computing power of Android devices to mine for Monero crypto-currency, Trend Micro warns.
Dubbed HiddenMiner, the malware was developed with self-protection and persistence mechanisms that allow it to hide itself from the unwitting user and to abuse the Device Administrator feature to perform its nefarious activities.
The main issue with this threat, however, is the fact that it has no switch, controller, or optimizer in its code, meaning that it essentially continuously mines for Monero until all of the device’s resources are depleted. Because of that, the malware can cause the infected devices to overheat and potentially fail, Trend Micro’s researchers point out.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ry Crozier / iTnews:
Australian regulator AUSTRAC approves first two digital currency exchanges, Independent Reserve and CoinSpot, as compliant with new regulations — Seen to legitimise fledgling industry. — Australian digital currency exchanges Independent Reserve and CoinSpot are the first to confirm compliance …
AUSTRAC approves first two digital currency exchanges
Seen to legitimise fledgling industry.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/austrac-approves-first-two-digital-currency-exchanges-488165
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethereum Founder Confronts Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright, Calls Him a Fraud
https://slashdot.org/story/18/04/03/1947222/ethereum-founder-confronts-self-proclaimed-bitcoin-creator-craig-wright-calls-him-a-fraud?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
The dispute between Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and self-proclaimed “Bitcoin creator” Craig Wright is far from over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TglmWKJBTec
Tomi Engdahl says:
John McAfee charges $105,000 for cryptocurrency promo tweets
https://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2018/04/03/john-mcafee-charges-105000-cryptocurrency-promo-tweets/33511689/
John McAfee charges $105,000 per tweet for crypto tweets. Buzz60
Tomi Engdahl says:
JPMorgan’s blockchain head is leaving to start her own business
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/03/jpmorgans-blockchain-head-is-leaving-to-start-her-own-business/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Sirin Labs chooses Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile to manufacture its blockchain smartphone, called Finney, will ship first units in October to Turkey and Vietnam
Foxconn to Manufacture Blockchain Phone From Sirin Labs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-04/foxconn-to-manufacture-blockchain-phone-from-sirin-labs
The device will make it easier for people to use digital coins
Sirin is competing with a slew of blockchain phone rivals
While millions of people have bought Bitcoins, relatively few bother to use them for daily transactions. To prevent theft, owners have to keep the coins on special memory sticks until needed, then remember user names and passwords that can be dozens of characters long.
With the current user experience, “the mass market would never get it,” Sirin Chief Executive Officer Moshe Hogeg said in an interview. “There’s no chance my mom can figure out how to use Bitcoin, and my mom is smart.”
Sirin raised $158 million in December for the project in an initial coin offering, in addition to $70 million raised previously. The phone is slated to ship in October. Sirin plans to sell the device through eight new stores, located in places with the most active crypto communities, such as Vietnam and Turkey.
The device seeks to integrate all kinds of tokens. It will let owners shop on crypto friendly sites like Overstock.com and Expedia, converting cash into specialized tokens if needed. Users may also activate their phone’s Wi-Fi while commuting and get paid in tokens by fellow bus riders looking for access to a wireless network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM’s tiny blockchain computer will help protect against counterfeiting
https://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Standalone_Mobile/IBM_39_s_tiny_blockchain_computer_will_help_protect_against_counterfeiting.aspx
The micro-computer is a complete system-on-a-chip with a processor, memory, storage, and a communication module that can implement blockchain and act as a crypto-anchor
IBM released something huge for blockchains but extravagantly small in size. The company’s new computer, which is the smallest in the world, has a footprint of only 1 x 1 mm. That is astonishingly small for a computer, considering that it’s smaller than a grain of salt. The computers contain a complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) with a processor, memory, storage, and a communication module and can analyze, communicate, and even act on data. Used with blockchain technology with added crypto-anchors, this new computer may revolutionize the way that shipping companies track freight to fight fraud.
This ordinary-looking chip is actually an array of 64 SoCs, each containing a photocell and LED array for optical communications, SRAM, and IBM’s salt-grain-sized processor.
The new tiny computer IBM has created may be able to solve the problem of counterfeiting through the application of blockchain technology. Originally created for use with cryptocurrency, blockchain technology is a distributed electronic ledger that records all interactions that take place involving a particular transaction, providing a secure copy to all stakeholders in the transaction that includes links to records of prior transactions. Blockchains record every time a bitcoin changes hands, for instance, with the links providing a history of its ownership. The secure, distributed ledger ensures that no one can falsify a transaction without detection.
A second element of the counterfeiting solution involves crypto-anchors, which extend blockchain’s value into the physical realm. A crypto-anchor is a tamper-proof digital “fingerprint” embedded into a device that provides it with a unique identity. Coupled with blockchain, the presence of a crypto-anchor allows secure tracking of the object’s ownership as it changes hands. Counterfeits then become simple to detect because they will not have a valid blockchain associated with them.
IBM aims at applying its tiny computers as crypto-anchors to this method of blockchain-based object tracking. By embedding the computers, each encoded with a unique, encrypted identity, into goods intended to be shipped, the retailers or customers who buy those products can then use blockchain to track products back through the places that the items have been — even in real time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is venture capital ready for companies with no founders?
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/04/is-venture-capital-ready-for-companies-with-no-founders/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
ICOs can reinvent how entrepreneurs bring innovations to market
AdChoices
Is venture capital ready for companies with no founders?
ICOs can reinvent how entrepreneurs bring innovations to market
Hemant Taneja
@htaneja / 19 hours ago
facebook-anonymous-blur
Hemant Taneja
Contributor
More posts by this contributor
The tech industry needs to move towards responsible innovation in 2018
Why pulling out of Paris Accord damages America’s economic future
Initial coin offerings (ICOs) — a funding mechanism based on the technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin — are a hot new way to launch a startup, and they’re forcing investors to look at the startup process anew.
Venture firms like mine understand that ICOs can reinvent how entrepreneurs bring innovations to life, but no one is quite sure how this will play out.
The tech community is so perplexed by the swelling interest in ICOs, notable firms that traditionally compete to invest in the early stages of a company are trying to figure it out together, and often end up co-investing in the ICOs.