The independent statistical research company, Statitsica, claims there are only 40 million Digital wallets in existence globally. Can Coinbase really have 75% of all wallets?

Source: www.Statitsica.com

According to the website Blockchain.com, as at 22/07/2019, there were just over 40.6 million Bitcoin wallets so it would appear that potentially Statitsica’s stats may be a little out of date. 

One has to be careful when looking at statistics, as according to Finder.com, 97% of Brits are yet to buy a cryptocurrency and 31% have not bought because they believe it’s too high a risk. However, the figures Finder.com is quoting in its June 2019 article were taken from a survey carried out in 2018!

Nevertheless, Digital Assets continue to be a niche asset class although, with Facebook’s announcement wanting to launch its own Digital Currency, Libra will potentially massively increase the number of digital wallets.

FinBoot has been developing a Blockchain-powered platform to improve the efficiency of tracking the multitude of samples that energy companies need to continuously create. Repsol typically has over 60,000 samples it has to create, as refining and transporting petrochemicals requires products to be sampled and checked in order to meet Repsol’s clients’ requirements. “Currently, there is a lot of rework involved in these types of processes where we handle a large number of samples due to labelling errors, information losses, or incorrect connections between information” explains Tomas Malango, at Repsol, adding “it allows us to identify the samples correctly throughout their whole life cycle.” The existing system is largely manual and paper-based, and therefore subject to human error and mislabelling so is time-consuming, as paper records often go missing.

Repsol believes that it could save up to €400,000 p.a. using this new Blockchain platform and FinBoot is now looking at how similar technology could be used to help other industries, such as the fashion sector where it needs to trace the provenance of the materials used in making clothes.

Meanwhile, the co-founder of Apple, Jo Wozniak, has invested in a firm that uses Blockchain technology called ENFORCE project. Wozniak reportedly said “ENFORCE aims to bring money savings on energy, but it also helps the environment”, a factor he said was important to him. He further added, “Blockchain will bring improvements to energy use and reduce consumption without consumers needing to change their habits”.

Where Blockchain technology is being used in the energy sector.

Source: https://www.indigoadvisorygroup.com/blockchain

Indigo Advisory Group, in the chart above, keeps record of various ways globally that Blockchain technology is being used for different purposes, which is updated as it discovers new initiatives. 

Blockchain technology is increasingly been used in the energy sector as it potentially provides solutions across the energy trilemma: 1) it reduces costs by optimising energy processes, 2) it improves energy security in terms of cybersecurity, but also acts as a supporting technology that could improve security of supply, and 3) it promotes more renewable energy generation and low-carbon solutions.

In a survey of 140 Blockchain research projects, Science Direct has identified many ways that Blockchain technology could help the energy sector:

•  Billing: Blockchains, smart contracts and smart-metering can offer automated billing for consumers and generators. Utility companies could benefit from energy micro-payments, pay-as-you-go solutions or payment platforms for pre-paid meters.

• Sales and marketing: Sales practices could change according to consumers' energy profile, individual preferences and environmental concerns. Blockchains, in combination with artificial (AI) techniques, could identify consumer energy patterns and therefore enable tailored and value-added energy products provision.

• Trading and markets: Blockchain-enabled distributed trading platforms could disrupt market operations, such as wholesale market management, commodity trading transactions and risk management. Blockchain systems are currently being developed also for green certificates trading.

• Automation: Blockchains could improve control of decentralised energy systems and microgrids. Adoption of local energy marketplaces, enabled by localised P2P energy trading or distributed platforms, could significantly increase energy self-production and self-consumption, also known as behind the meter activities, which could potentially affect revenues and tariffs.

• Smart grid applications and data transfer: Blockchains could potentially be used for communication of smart devices, data transmission or storage. Intelligent devices in the smart grid could include smart meters, advanced sensors, network monitoring equipment, control and energy management systems. In addition to providing secure data transfer, smart grid applications could further benefit from data standardisation, enabled by Blockchain technology.

• Grid management: Blockchains could assist in network management of decentralised networks, flexibility services or asset management. Blockchain technology could achieve integrated trading platforms and optimise flexible resources, which might otherwise lead to expensive network upgrades. As a result, Blockchains could also affect revenues and tariffs for network use.

• Security and identity management: Protection of transactions and security could benefit from cryptographic techniques. Blockchain could safeguard privacy, data confidentiality and identity management.

• Sharing of resources: Blockchain technology could offer to charge solutions for sharing resources between multiple users, such as sharing electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

• Competition: Smart contracts could potentially simplify and speed up the switching of energy suppliers. Enhanced mobility in the market could increase competition and potentially reduce energy tariffs.

• Transparency: Immutable records and transparent processes could significantly improve auditing and regulatory compliance.

 Source: https://www.indigoadvisorygroup.com/blog/2019/7/15/blockchain-in-utilities-2019-electric-utility-insights-infographic

According to Indigo Advisory Group, the pros and cons of using Blockchain technology in the energy sector can be summarised and illustrated as above. Therefore, one can see how fundamental Blockchain technology could be in the energy sector.

This represents a growth of 24.73% per annum, as companies desperately seek to attract and retain customers’ attention and their repeat business. Increasing online sales and the impact of technology, as millennials use mobile devices to shop, is helping to stimulate more companies to put additional resources into loyalty programs. But why bother?

Source: Shopify

As the above chart illustrates, if you can retain customers it can lead to a significant increase in revenue. This explains why loyalty schemes are seen as being an important part of the marketing mix for many organizations.

The concept of loyalty programs is thought to go back to the 18th century, with “premium marketing” in America. This was when retailers gave their customers copper coins with their shopping, which could then be used at a later date to make further purchases. However, it was not until 1958, when Green Shield stamps first started to appear in the UK, when those modern loyalty schemes took hold. We have now seen an explosion in the number of loyalty schemes which, in turn, has led to customers being disillusioned and feeling “why bother?”, as it results in them being signed up to a “cornucopia of programs”. However, how often can their loyalty points be redeemed for anything meaningful?

Blockchain technology can help us instead of signing up to dozens of different schemes, a customer can join a network that offers reward points which aren’t just redeemable at one company but are with any business in the loyalty schemes network.

Blockchain technology makes this possible by keeping a record of all of the transactions that can be accessed by the whole network. Instead of having separate accounts for all your airline miles and a wallet overflowing with paper-based cards, which get stamped every time you buy a coffee, a Blockchain platform securely holds and enables the sharing of the data, without breaching data protection legislation. While providing greater security and transparency for customers, for retailers this type of loyalty schemes can also be less expensive to create and maintain. 

Purdue University has developed X-Blockchain, allowing customers to buy goods and services, and be rewarded within a loyalty scheme and receive points. The companies that are part of these loyalty schemes and who pay for the points have access to “shredded data”—meaning any personal or confidential information has been removed. 

Source: Perdue University

Mohammad Rahman, an associate professor at Purdue's Krannert School of Management, and who leads the research team said. "This technology enables two people to confidentially exchange rewards points from perhaps a coffee chain for airline rewards points at a rate that both find acceptable and this is not disclosed to any third party, including our platform." In effect, technology is used to “code data” by removing sensitive information and enables access to the non-private data which is still very valuable for marketers.

Using Blockchain technology in loyalty schemes to collect and store rewards enables customers to redeem their points more easily, and therefore make loyalty schemes more appealing. 

If we are to see Cryptocurrencies being given to users for their attention and patronage, as a way to entice them to spend more time on a website and/or make more repeat purchases, etc, then we will need to see more initiatives such as the one from Purdue University. Using Blockchain technology means that data can be held securely, and only the relevant data is shared with those who are entitled to have access to it. It also gives customers more flexibility and transparency, so leading to greater engagement with the brands and retailers who are sponsoring the loyalty scheme.

Instead of offering exposure to the rise and fall of property valuations, a German company called Fundament has received permission from BaFin (the German Financial Market Supervisory Authority) to issue €250 million of bonds, run on the Ethereum Blockchain. The Fundament bonds will be issued in digital form as a token backed by property. This could lead to more property-backed bonds being issued by other firms.

Meanwhile, in Luxemburg, one can now get access to Real Estate from as little as €1,000, via Property Token SA. This is a digital token which uses Smart Contracts whereby rental income from the property will be automatically distributed to investors.

Blockchain technology, according to Gold Standard, which is a founding member of the Climate Ledger Initiative, offers three key benefits when monitoring climate control.

• the creation of an immutable transparent ledger

• trust in peer-to-peer transactions – particularly important in the context of weak regulatory institutions

• Smart Contracts – applications that can automatically execute the terms specified in a contract on a Blockchain, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing transaction costs.

Indeed, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change stated that it would support a Blockchain platform to make use of the technology’s great potential. This is hoped to lead to better control and reduction of emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere, and increase the search for funds to finance environmental projects.

The Climate Chain Coalition (CCC), set up in 2017, and now with over 140 members globally, also believes that Blockchain technology can help to track climate change. CCC aims to support stakeholders to embrace Blockchain (along with other technologies e.g. IoT, Big Data), thus stimulating investment, enhance measurement, reporting and verification of climate change. An example of a global climate change initiative is the South Korean - based W-Foundation, which promotes global climate action projects, including compensation of greenhouse gas emissions, by using rewards in Cryptocurrencies. The W-Foundation is supported by the United Nations and is a Blockchain-based gaming App, which encourages people to take action to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Every month 20% of the most active users are rewarded with W-Green Pay, (WGP) tokens. 

Other examples are projects being organised by Plastic Bank, which use Blockchain-powered platforms and rewards in the format of Cryptocurrencies, that can be earned by collecting plastic waste. Its first initiative was in Haiti, and Plastic Bank now has similar projects in several other countries around the world. The tokens that are given away for collecting waste plastic can be used to buy fuel for cooking, clothes, food or education vouchers.

Blockchain technology could be used to provide the following benefits to stimulate finance thus helping climate change, according to a report from the Climate Ledger Initiative: 

• Reduce bureaucracy and the number of intermediaries and, corresponding transaction costs 

• Avoid fraud and financial data manipulation 

• Ensure that climate finance reaches beneficiaries while reducing overheads

• Improve the legitimacy of climate actions funded 

• Avoid misreporting and backpedalling from governments and other entities

Blockchain technology could dramatically help to track what steps are being taken to tackle climate change. It could create a secure database available for all to see and assist our understanding of different private and public climate commitments and actions which are being implemented, and what their results could be. By being transparent and secure Blockchain technology could help make the monitoring of climate change more inclusive and sustainable, and so hopefully slow down the impact of global warming!

The details can be found in a Facebook post published by one of the members of the ‘Votazioni Napoli Blockchain’ team.

According to the post, the project aimed at “creating an electronic voting system in symbiosis with blockchain technology”, which, interestingly, excluded the option of online voting to try and prevent rigged votes.

In Virginia, in the USA, a company called FollowMyVote is looking to offer a Blockchain-powered voting package. Adam Ernest, CEO of FollowMyVote said, “There is a common misconception that voting cannot be done online in a secure way. However, the introduction of Blockchain technology is changing the conversation,” FollowMyVote has a system ensuring each vote is recorded only once, and this is permanently recorded onto a Blockchain. Another company working on creating a platform that uses Blockchain technology to replace and/or enhance the current voting methods used today is BitCongress. Both FollowMyVote and BitCongress were cited and written about in a paper produced by Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London, where it looked at the pros and cons of digital voting.

Utah County, in the USA, has confirmed that it will be offering a Blockchain-powered mobile option for those serving in the military, and away on active duty, enabling them to vote in Utah County’s upcoming elections. This initiative follows on from West Virginia and Colorado, both of which had also already introduced voting based on Blockchain technology.

Finding alternative ways to encourage people, especially the young, to vote in certain countries such as the UK and Hungary, is a challenge given their apathetic voting as shown below.  

Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/2117/young-people-who-have-voted-in-a-political-election/

On the other side of the world, a company called Infoaddicts, headed up by Dan Crane, has been using Blockchain technology for elections. It has also been using the technology for community engagement (with a housing association that was being redeveloped in New Zealand), and with a trade association in Australia to elect committee members and pass resolutions. However, it is the work that Infoaddicts has been doing in the corporate sector which is most interesting as, in August 2019, a large publicly quoted company (yet to be disclosed, for confidentiality reasons) is going to run its proxy voting for its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on a Blockchain-powered platform.

If we see more successful case studies of Blockchain technology being used at a corporate or government level, whether it be local or national, there could be a very rapid adoption by other significant institutions.

As the world increasingly becomes more digital, one cannot help feeling that there will be greater demand to be able to vote electronically using mobile devices. If this is the case, then holding votes in a secure and transparent database is surely going to be the default choice - hence the use of Blockchain technology!

Video footage is dominating the content on the internet, with more videos being posted in 30 days on the internet than the major US television channels have created in the last 30 years! Video content looks set to grow as, by 2021, every second, 17,000 hours of video content will be streamed across the internet, according to Cisco.

There are various initiatives that have been launched. The Wall Street Journal has a project to root out “deep fake news” ahead of the 2020 Presidential elections. The Washington Post in the USA has developed a “visual explainer of manipulated video” to highlight some of the recent fake news stories, including Mark Zuckerberg, Trump and Nancey Pelosi (speaker of the United States House of Representatives). The most recent project trying to address “fake news” is by The New York Times, and it is using Blockchain technology, creating a website called “News Provenance”. The aim is to see if it is possible, using a Blockchain-powered platform, to identify what is fake and what is real media news.

It is hoped that Blockchain technology, which holds data using military-grade cryptography and gives access to the data in a very transparent way, will enable there to be more trust and engagement between citizens and governments, shareholders and companies, and society as a whole. This will hopefully lead to fake news being less prevalent.