Sharon Henley

7 Years Ago |

One for the ladies...   London Women in Tech Revolution: Secret Dinner Club.
During London Fintech Week. Join the innovators who are investing in women in Industry 4.0.  Enjoy food with friends you are yet to discover and business partners you are soon to meet.  

The London Women in Tech Revolution focuses on providing a safe, friendly and fun environment focused on business collaborations, life long learning and success!

The Secret Dinner Club runs once a month, in the city of London offering guests an all-inclusive dinner, at a secret location.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/london-women-in-tech-revolution-secret-dinner-club-tickets-62083982864

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Barry James

7 Years Ago |

Will the SEC's "Reckless" land-grab come back to bite them?

The SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) are under fire "for reckless" action and massive overreach: 
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Sharon Henley

7 Years Ago |

As a reminder - BBFTA members have access to discounted tickets for blockchain related conferences so do be sure to check out the events page when looking for events to attend. Next week we have the TelcoBlockchain Forum where BBFTA members have access to 20% discount. https://tinyurl.com/y678ypga

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Barry James

7 Years Ago |

UKJT Cryptoasset Consultation - What Should the BBFTA Response Be?

The UKJT, which is chaired by the Chancellor of the High Court and supported by the FCA and the Law Commission, is inviting feedback from technology and legal professionals in order to prepare an authoritative legal statement on the status of cryptoassets and smart contracts under English private law. 
 
Yesterday's public launch event at Barclays Rise provided a useful opportunity for industry participants to learn more about the project and to offer feedback on the questions to be addressed in the legal statement. Having input from industry bodies such as the BBFTA...

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Jonny Fry

7 Years Ago |

If you would like to come to a conference 6/6/19 in Amsterdam on Tokenizing Assets TeamBlockchain have managed to get some free tickets to this event.Please use this link to register: https://www.meetup.com/ICO-Meetup-London/events/261996474/

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Jonny Fry

7 Years Ago |

Major shipping firms join a Blockchain-powered supply chain and logistics platform
 
The United Nations, in 1996, established the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT). UN/CEFACT was mandated to find ways to improve global co-ordination and co-operation in trade facilitation and electronic business standards.
Its main priority continues to encourage interoperability: simplifying exchange of information up and down the supply chain, including commercial and governmental processes. TradeLenshas tried to digitise the written standards that UN/CEFACT created, as it has striven to harness Blockchain technology to bring greater traceability and transparency to international shipping of goods. It processes over 10...

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World’s biggest banks look to create a new digital coin

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

The Bank of England has been working with a number of FinTech companies exploring possible uses for Blockchain technology, as it looks at possible solutions to upgrade the Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS) platform.

CHAP processes £500 billion a day as it transfers money between banks in the UK. It was first introduced in 1984 but, at a cost of £35 per transaction, cheaper, faster and more efficient alternatives are being researched.

One of the firms that the Bank of England has been working with is Clearmatics, which raised $12million last year, and now Reuters has reported that a consortium of some of the world’s largest banks are looking to invest a further $50 million into Clearmatics.

Clearmatics has been working on a project which aims to create a more efficient clearing and settlements platform and...

CHAP processes £500 billion a day as it transfers money between banks in the UK. It was first introduced in 1984 but, at a cost of £35 per transaction, cheaper, faster and more efficient alternatives are being researched.

One of the firms that the Bank of England has been working with is Clearmatics, which raised $12million last year, and now Reuters has reported that a consortium of some of the world’s largest banks are looking to invest a further $50 million into Clearmatics.

Clearmatics has been working on a project which aims to create a more efficient clearing and settlements platform and hopes to have it running by 2020.

BNY Mellon, ICAP, Deutsche Bank, and Santander all joined UBS bank and Clearmatics on the “utility settlement coin” (USC) project. Clearmatics founder, Robert Sams, said: “USC is as a form of digital cash that is fully backed by cash assets at the central bank.” It is understood USC would be like a “central bank-backed cash digital equivalent” that would run on a platform powered by Blockchain Technology, i.e. it would be convertible at parity and backed by cash assets held at a central bank. Therefore, using the USC would be the same as spending the fiat currency it would be paired with. However, in order to be successful, the USC project will need to have multiple central bank approval and prove that it can be scalable to handle potentially millions of transactions securely and accurately on a daily basis. This potentially will require different jurisdictions to agree on the legal compliance and potential tax treatment for this Digital Asset, which could pave the way to help others adopt Digital Assets.

Meanwhile, The Central Bank of The Bahamas (CBoB) is looking to launch its own digital currency by 2020, as the bank has announced that it has selected a company called NIZA to provide the technical expertise for its digital currency. The CBoB’s aim is to have a digital currency, so enabling its citizens and businesses to have an affordable electronic payment system and to have cheaper, easier access to global markets.

In Sweden, where the use of cash is the lowest in Europe as more and more people use credit and debit cards, the Swedish Riksbank believes that an e-krona (a state-backed national currency using Blockchain technology) could be a promising and reliable substitute. But Riksbank is not rushing to introduce this asset to the general public in the short term. These are clear examples of how Digital currencies are being driven “top-down” (i.e. by governments and global banks) as opposed to Digital tokens being driven “bottom-up”(start-ups issuing cryptocurrencies via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)).

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Who are the top three Bitcoin owners?

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

The largest single owner of Bitcoin is believed to be Satoshi Nakmoto, who is thought to own over 980,000 Bitcoins, taking a Bitcoin value of $8,600 they would be worth approximately 8.4 billion.

He/she is credited to have been the person that originally created Bitcoin over 10 years ago.

Bitcoin miners, who are holding just over 1.6 million Bitcoins, worth approximately $13.7 billion according to Byte Tree, a company that has analysed the entire Bitcoin Blockchain history of transactions. Byte Tree claims that there are currently over 1.6 million Bitcoins that have been mined but are still residing in the initial wallets they were transferred to when they were created. Byte Tree monitors this number to study the correlation between Bitcoin’s price and the % of, in effect, “virgin Bitcoins” that are yet to be...

He/she is credited to have been the person that originally created Bitcoin over 10 years ago.

Bitcoin miners, who are holding just over 1.6 million Bitcoins, worth approximately $13.7 billion according to Byte Tree, a company that has analysed the entire Bitcoin Blockchain history of transactions. Byte Tree claims that there are currently over 1.6 million Bitcoins that have been mined but are still residing in the initial wallets they were transferred to when they were created. Byte Tree monitors this number to study the correlation between Bitcoin’s price and the % of, in effect, “virgin Bitcoins” that are yet to be spent for the first time. It also has a running update which shows if miners have been net sellers or accumulators of Bitcoin on a rolling weekly basis. This could be interpreted as to whether miners anticipate if Bitcoin is likely to rise or fall in price in the short term - or maybe they are just selling Bitcoins to pay their electricity bills!

The Bulgarian government is reported to be holding enough Bitcoins to pay off 25% of the country’s national debt, as it holds over 200,000 Bitcoins, worth over $1.7 billion. These Bitcoins have been confiscated by the Bulgarian government, due to companies and individuals being accused of carrying out various nefarious activities. Interesting, that as yet the Government has not reduced its exposure and sold off the stash! Maybe the Bulgarians have decided they do not want to make the same mistake that the FBI made! The FBI seized over 144,000 Bitcoins, which would be currently worth $1.2 Billion, when it closed down the illegal Silk Road in 2013, which was a website selling sex, drug arms and all sorts of other illegal goods and services.

There are lots of sites that list the biggest Bitcoin owners, but the reality is it is very difficult to be sure who actually owns what, as understandably many prefer to keep their finances confidential. What is more interesting is we are seeing the volume of Bitcoin being traded and, indeed, other currencies gaining momentum as record volumes have been recorded on different exchanges around the world. This is leading to higher prices, so making those holding Bitcoin even wealthier!

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Smart Contracts - are they the answer?

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

If you are involved with Blockchain technology, it is not long before the subject of Smart Contracts arises.

Smart Contracts was a term Nick Szabo was talking about in 1997, and he described them the following way: “Smart Contracts utilize protocols and user interfaces to facilitate all steps of the contracting process. This gives us new ways to formalize and secure digital relationships which are far more functional than their inanimate paper-based ancestors”.

A more simplistic way to explain Smart Contracts is to think of them as an algorithm. For example, if the plane is late, then there is pay compensation, if it is on time, no compensation is due.

As the diagram above illustrates, essentially Smart Contracts are able...

Smart Contracts was a term Nick Szabo was talking about in 1997, and he described them the following way: “Smart Contracts utilize protocols and user interfaces to facilitate all steps of the contracting process. This gives us new ways to formalize and secure digital relationships which are far more functional than their inanimate paper-based ancestors”.

A more simplistic way to explain Smart Contracts is to think of them as an algorithm. For example, if the plane is late, then there is pay compensation, if it is on time, no compensation is due.

As the diagram above illustrates, essentially Smart Contracts are able to digitise agreements. After all, Smart Contracts are, in effect, a software that automatically executes instructions without the need for any human interaction. Smart Contracts have their contractual terms encoded in computer language, instead of the legal language that you would find in a standard contract. Many lawyers will readily tell you that ‘Smart Contracts are not smart, nor are they contracts!’ Indeed, Nobel prize winner for economics in 2016, Oliver Hart, who won his award for the work he had done on contract theory, has recently claimed that Smart Contracts “are quite convenient, taking into consideration the fact that they are automatically executed”. He goes on to state that “their basic outlines suggest that the contracts are not a cure or solution for all issues plaguing the crypto verse… but contracts do not address conditions or problems where a smart contract may have been drawn out to cover a long-term situation”. However, we do need to take Hart’s comments with caution as he admitted he, himself, knew very little about smart contracts, or Blockchain, from a practical point of view!

These mixed views on Smart Contracts have not stopped Gartner from predicting that, by just 2020, autonomous software (not reliant on any human interaction) will account for 5% of economic transactions. As we see the global economy increasingly become more digitised (i.e devices using technology like Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchains that can execute Smart Contracts) the challenges, as well as the opportunities that Smart Contracts present, will no doubt be tested in courts across the world.

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Blockchain technology brings greater transparency and traceability to the wine industry.

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

Ernst and Young (E&Y), one of the top four accountants globally, has just announced that it is helping a firm called Blockchain Wine, in Singapore, to operate a platform using Blockchain technology.

The platform will be called Traceability, Authenticity, Transparency, Trade, Origin, and  Opinion (TATTOO), and will initially be used by an Asian wine retailer, called The House of Roosevelt, to be able to track and ensure the provenance of wine from vineyards to customers. It is also the intention to be able to use tokens, which help producers pay to track wine, by improving their supply chain logistics. In time, this may lead to lower insurance premiums, as TATTOO offers greater traceability from vine to a shop’s shelf.

There are other companies that are also using Blockchain technology to help track,...

The platform will be called Traceability, Authenticity, Transparency, Trade, Origin, and  Opinion (TATTOO), and will initially be used by an Asian wine retailer, called The House of Roosevelt, to be able to track and ensure the provenance of wine from vineyards to customers. It is also the intention to be able to use tokens, which help producers pay to track wine, by improving their supply chain logistics. In time, this may lead to lower insurance premiums, as TATTOO offers greater traceability from vine to a shop’s shelf.

There are other companies that are also using Blockchain technology to help track, trace, and improve the provenance of wine. Everledger, which started its platform in 2016 in response to research, claimed that up to 20% of international wine sales were counterfeit. Vinsent also has a Blockchain-powered platform for wine. It was formerly known as VinX and attracted investment from the venture capital arm of US-based Overstock (the firm that has created a Digital Asset trading platform in conjunction with the Boston Stock Exchange). Vinsent’s platform enables consumers to buy wine directly from vineyards and so cuts out many of the intermediaries while speeding up the time for the viticulturist to be paid.

The chart above shows the demand for red wine from China and Hong Kong has been increasing, and the Asian total wine market is predicted to grow by 4% p.a from its current $57,372 million size. As the Chinese population ages, it is expected that China will become the second biggest wine market globally. The US has 8.7% of the international share of imported wine – worth $22.9 billion, according to Vinexpo/IWSR figures.

Global sales of wine are expected to reach over $224 billion by 2021, and there is increasing demand for sparkling wine, together with premium wines, where provenance is so important. Therefore, with the credibility of a firm such as E&Y offering their Blockchain skills to create the ability to track and trace wine from vineyard to consumer, the outlook for Blockchains being used in the wine industry looks “rosé”.

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Food & Beverages

Logistics And Supply Chain

Blockchain solutions helping the Muslim community

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

There are over 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, which accounts for nearly 25% of the global population), with many of them living in Asia and having thriving, young and growing demographics, so this 1.8 billion is likely to expand further.

Indeed, in a report on the halal market globally, it was predicted this market will grow in value to be worth over $9.7 trillion by 2025. Therefore, it is of no surprise that a number of initiatives are being launched by different companies to ensure that Muslims can have better transparency as to where their food, cosmetics or pharmaceutical products have come from, and how they have been prepared.

Halal in Arabic means “permissible”, but halal is not just restricted to meat - it covers a wide range of other products and services.

Halachain claims to be the first public Blockchain company...

Indeed, in a report on the halal market globally, it was predicted this market will grow in value to be worth over $9.7 trillion by 2025. Therefore, it is of no surprise that a number of initiatives are being launched by different companies to ensure that Muslims can have better transparency as to where their food, cosmetics or pharmaceutical products have come from, and how they have been prepared.

Halal in Arabic means “permissible”, but halal is not just restricted to meat - it covers a wide range of other products and services.

Halachain claims to be the first public Blockchain company that is focussed on the Halal sector, helping companies to be able to assure their clients that certain food, drugs, and cosmetics comply with halal specifications. In Malaysia, Miss Elwani is a cosmetics company that is using the Halachain platform, offering transparency of where products have come from, details of the certification each product has, and what the certification actually entails.

In Singapore, WhatHalal has just launched an App designed to help companies that wish to trace the origins of ingredients, and so be able to offer assurance that a product is ‘halal-compliant’, as there is an auditable record from producer to the shop shelf.

Multinational companies will not want to ignore the rapidly growing Islamic markets and, as global supply chains become larger and more complex, any solution that can create greater transparency and is tamper proof (which is what Blockchain technology is able to offer) is going to be increasingly in demand.

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Market Research

Microsoft - embracing Blockchain and Bitcoin

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

Microsoft had a stock market valuation of $1 trillion in April 2019, and for years has been a leader in software development, transforming the way organisations do business, having developed Windows, Excel, and Word.

Microsoft is embracing Blockchain and Digital Assets more and more, an example being how it is now looking to have a “Bitcoin icon” as a currency option as part of its latest version of Excel.

Microsoft was one of the first multinational companies to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment in 2014, so it is by no means a “newcomer” to using Digital Assets. It has also been using Blockchain technology internally to help speed up license and royalty payments for its Xbox video games. Microsoft claims that it has decreased the time it takes to get statements and information...

Microsoft is embracing Blockchain and Digital Assets more and more, an example being how it is now looking to have a “Bitcoin icon” as a currency option as part of its latest version of Excel.

Microsoft was one of the first multinational companies to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment in 2014, so it is by no means a “newcomer” to using Digital Assets. It has also been using Blockchain technology internally to help speed up license and royalty payments for its Xbox video games. Microsoft claims that it has decreased the time it takes to get statements and information on payments from 45 days to just minutes. This could help Microsoft further target the global video games market which grew in 2018 by over 10% to $135+ billion, helping Microsoft to be more efficient and profitable.

Microsoft has also been rolling out it’s Azure cloud-based service, and by using its Blockchain expertise is now attracting attention from a wide range of different industries. Working with the luxury brand and goods manufacture, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, Microsoft is creating a platform that will try and combat fraud in the luxury goods sector. Starbucks has also been using Microsoft’s Azure and Blockchain knowledge to help it have greater transparency over its supply chains. Starbucks’ customers will be able to download an App so they can see where Starbucks is sourcing its coffee beans from, and understanding how Starbucks is helping some of the 380,000 coffee farmers that it uses.

In the financial services sector, Microsoft is working with JP Morgan, as the bank will be using Microsoft’s Azure as it rolls out the JP Coin - a Digital Asset pegged to the US$. Microsoft is also working on a project to manage and verify identity, called Identity Overlay Network (ION). This enables your identity to be digitised, and then be shared, but only once you have given permission for others to have access. It would operate a little like Facebook Connect, whereby users can connect to over 15,000 websites based on details that they have initially entered onto their Facebook account. The big advantage that the Microsoft identity solution offers is that YOU, not Microsoft, control who and how your information is used.

Thus, one can see Microsoft is engaged with Blockchain and Digital Assets in many different ways, helping its clients develop new markets, such as ION, or bringing greater transparency to companies like Starbucks.

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$150 Trillion of assets and potentially 66% to be turned in to Digital Assets

BBFTA News Editor | June 04, 2019 | PERMALINK

This podcast interview with the founder and CEO of eToro, Yoni Assia, is over 1 hr long, but it is worth listening to https://pod.link/1434060078.

eToro was only established in 2007 when Yoni and his brother thought there had to be a more user-friendly way for people to be able to buy and sell shares, currencies and other financial assets. They have achieved this by creating what they refer to as a “social market”. The eToro platform enables someone in Hong Kong to find an investor in Germany (that buys and sells German smaller companies) and then follows and automatically invests in these same companies in the same proportion. This type of ‘mirror-trading’ is also known as “copy trading” and has been popular for a...

eToro was only established in 2007 when Yoni and his brother thought there had to be a more user-friendly way for people to be able to buy and sell shares, currencies and other financial assets. They have achieved this by creating what they refer to as a “social market”. The eToro platform enables someone in Hong Kong to find an investor in Germany (that buys and sells German smaller companies) and then follows and automatically invests in these same companies in the same proportion. This type of ‘mirror-trading’ is also known as “copy trading” and has been popular for a number of years, being possible to do copy-trading with relatively small sums of capital. Typically, the person who is initiating the trading ideas and strategy will earn either a % of the profit (from the person who is mirroring the trade) or a % of any brokerage that is created.

However, I digress - what is also interesting in the podcast is that Yoni was involved in Colour Coins in 2014 which, in effect, were what we now refer to stablecoins i.e. Digital Assets pegged/linked to real assets - $, £, gold, etc. The Colour Coins were run on the Bitcoin Blockchain, as Ethereum did not yet exist. When he was only 19, Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum’s founder) helped Yoni with some of the initial codings for Colour Coins. Vitalik decided that digitising assets was a great idea, but the concept needed a new blockchain - so he invented Ethereum.

From 2015 to 2016, eToro grew by 600%, and then from 2017 to 2018 by a further 400% (according to this podcast). eToro has now become a very successful company, which has over 10 million clients who, in 2018, traded over $1 trillion worth of assets. Yoni believes that, in the same way Bitcoin has proved it can replace cash as a medium for people to trade, Smart Contracts has the ability to replace and totally disrupt the legal system. Smart Contracts can replace many intermediaries and allow computer/machine-driven execution of trades and agreements, which will be cheaper, faster and not prone to human error.

eToro has been offering the ability to trade Bitcoin for over 5 years and, during Cryptocurrencies’ bull-run in 2017/18 Ethereum went from $4 to over $350 and Ripple increased in value by over 35,000% in a year. This encouraged people to open accounts with eToro to such an extent, that eToro signed up over 20,000 new customers in a single DAY! Given eToro’s success in traditional and Digital markets, how much credence ought one pay to its CEO’s pronouncement, that financial markets are going to radically change? The combination of Digital Assets and Smart Contracts disintermediate the financial services sector and could result in 66% of the $150 Trillion global bonds and equities becoming digitised.

Certainly, younger investors are spending increasing amounts of their time online, usually on a mobile phone, and therefore to engage with them, financial service providers will need to communicate and offer services in a more digital manner 24/7.

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Jonny Fry

7 Years Ago |

“Lord Voldermort” ends up in a Singapore prison

Wherever there is money to be made, it seems there is always someone who wants to carry out “dodgy dealings”, and unfortunately this does not help the public’s perception about Cryptocurrencies. Law courts globally continue to hand out prison sentences to people who have some form of involvement with Cryptos and, while some of the nefarious activities are clearly criminal, some of those perpetrators are indeed extraordinary.
Take Mr Ye Lin Myint who was jailed for two years in Singapore, as he admitted criminal intimidation and harassment against a multitude of people. The 36-year-old...

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