IBM is using the blockchain to speed up and simplify cross-border payments
The blockchain has long been seen as a method to quicken (and cheapen) cross-border payments, and now that movement — which includes a number of startups making moves privately — just got its highest profile advocate after IBM announced its own solution focused on banks.
The computing giant has teamed up with blockchain startup Stellar and payment company Kickex to launch a cross-border payment system for banks which uses the blockchain to “reduce the settlement time and lower the cost of completing global payments for businesses and consumers.”
Currently, international transactions take days, if not weeks, to be completed. Frustration with that has seen services like TransferWise rise, but, great as they are, they remain solutions for savvy consumers or small businesses rather than all.
A blockchain solution for banks addresses the root cause, and it could minimize the potential for errors thanks to the ledger-based system while also providing transparency and flexibility to banks.
Full story at http://tcrn.ch/2iwTdwZ
Source: TechCrunch
Why Bitcoin Matters More Than Blockchain
Bitcoin is going to do to banks what email did the post office and Amazon did to retail. Understandably those at the center of the financial system are concerned.
The banker’s mantra of “blockchain not bitcoin” has caught fire on Wall Street – everybody loves blockchain, they may not know what it is, but they love it! Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, hates Bitcoin, but loves blockchain, Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has embraced blockchain while he is warming to Bitcoin. Admittedly, I suffered from the same love affair with blockchain. As an early adopter of Bitcoin I still had feelings for the currency, but for a period of time I was infatuated with blockchain.
Perhaps I should begin with the journey that lead me to Bitcoin. For more than two decades I was a part of Jamie Dimon's and Lloyd Blankfein's world of traditional finance. I began my career as an equities trader and then spent most of the internet bubble trading merger arbitrage -- for those old enough to remember the halcyon days of "Merger Monday," I was the guy placing bets on whether the deal would go through and who would be next. After the internet bubble popped and in the throes of a recession, I started a brokerage firm that catered to mutual funds and other institutional investors. My clients were the old guard of the financial world. We did well, but I didn't find it very exciting.
Then I began to trade ADR's (American Depository Receipts). These stocks represented shares in foreign companies and traded on the NYSE and NASDAQ. The trick with this type of trading was to watch the foreign currency markets for unusual moves. When currencies moved and the ADR's did not, there was money to be made. These markets were much more exciting than stodgy blue chip stocks. After a few years playing around in the currency markets, I made the leap to global macro investing.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2yQnjFL
Source: Forbes
How Blockchain is Taking Over Business Systems
Blockchain technology is increasingly moving into the business realm, with a large number of new technology applications being released. Because of the complexity of processes in legacy systems, and the relative simplicity of Blockchain technology in producing the same results, companies are flocking to meet the burgeoning need.
Further, the rise of smart contracts has produced the ability for B2B agreements to be drawn, ratified, and settled in near real time without the hassle of lengthy time delays. Smart contracts allow businesses to interact, place and fill orders, and even manage payments upon delivery, all from a single source, and with a simple wifi connection.
Of course, the rise of smart contracts has led to a huge demand for Blockchain technology-proficient programmers, as evidenced by the bump in job demand on some platforms. However, better UI systems are coming online to offer the same functionality, but with low technical entry barriers.
The basis of Blockchain technology is the foundational principle of transparency. This underlying core principle - that the distributed ledger is transparent - drives newfound levels of efficiency for businesses willing to utilize the platform.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2iwwJwl
Source: CoinTelegraph
Why Blockchain Can Be Good For Competition
In the endless debate about when do you actually need a blockchain within a specific industry vertical versus not, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture.
Proponents of permissioned, distributed ledgers are often quick to point out the shortcomings of permissionless protocols such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Because of their decentralized nature, they do not fit within existing regulatory frameworks, are difficult to monitor and control, and introduce new trade-offs in terms of speed, flexibility and energy consumption into what could otherwise be a seamless process of transaction reconciliation across organizations. Private blockchains, they say, can deliver all the benefits of this new, exciting wave of technological change without disrupting how businesses run their operations.
The catch is that permissioned blockchains take advantage of only one of the two, key costs affected by blockchain technology: the cost of verification. In and of itself, being able to cheaply verify the attributes of a specific transaction (e.g. who is involved, their credentials, etc.) without incurring additional costs or performing an extensive audit can be extremely valuable to society. For markets to thrive, buyers and sellers need to be able to trust the information they use to decide when and with whom to transact. Whenever the asymmetry of information between buyers and sellers is too large, markets unravel, and beneficial trades do not take place. Blockchain technology, by lowering the cost of verification, can make markets more secure and efficient, and expand the types of transactions we are willing to engage in.
Many of the systems used today across the globe to settle and reconcile transfers of value and digital assets could theoretically be made more efficient with a distributed ledger. Of course, for verification costs to actually drop, the data recorded on a blockchain needs to be accurate to begin with. While this is easy to achieve when all the information needed is generated and updated digitally (as in Bitcoin), when a distributed ledger is used to track offline events, the question of how to port such analog information back into the digital space is an unresolved one. This “last mile” problem constitutes a sizable entrepreneurial opportunity for startups and incumbents that realize that blockchain does not necessarily remove the need for intermediaries, but instead changes the nature of intermediation. Third-parties can still add substantial value to marketplaces (e.g. through curation), but a revenue model simply based on processing transactions is unlikely to be sustainable in the long run.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2iwwK3n
Source: Forbes
Many experts agree on the huge impact that Blockchain technology will have on fintech in the coming years. And yet, technical and regulatory issues have hindered the potential of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies to grow past the early-adopter phase and hit the mainstream.
Monaize, an e-banking platform for freelancers and small businesses and Komodo, a top 30 cryptocurrency project met at Money 20/20 in June 2017 and forged a partnership. Their joint vision is to bridge banking Blockchain and help cryptocurrencies achieve mainstream adoption.
The first innovation to come out of the Monaize-Komodo partnership will be a decentralized Initial Coin Offering (dICO) via cross chain atomic coin swap by leveraging Komodo Platform’s Jumblr and BarterDEX technology. It is possible to issue and distribute native cryptocurrencies without a trusted third party. ?The Monaize dICO is also set to push the Blockchain community into an era in which ICOs no longer have to depend on platforms like Ethereum or Waves, reducing problems such as Blockchain bloat and mitigating the damage that would be suffered by hundreds of ICO projects if one of these large parent chains were comprised.
The Monaize asset chain was created in late September with tokens holding the ticker symbol “MNZ.” On Friday Nov. 10 at 12 p.m. (GMT), token sale participants will begin swapping either Bitcoin or Komodo Coin for Monaize Tokens. These coin exchanges will occur across Blockchains through atomic swaps with automatic order matching, using a special dICO wallet developed by Komodo Platform. Monaize will be releasing additional information and a tutorial on the dICO process in the coming days.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2iwwMs1
Source: CoinTelegraph
Four Weddings and a Funeral, Blockchain Style
Smart contracts have brought the Blockchain closer to real life. After the smart contract is signed, it's submitted for permanent storage as a secure record. This permanence has led to the development of a number of services that allow marriage and marriage contract on the Blockchain.
The first marriage was registered in the public registry of Blockchain on Oct. 5, 2014. The wedding of David Mondrus and Joyce Bayo took place at a private Bitcoin conference at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. To legalize the marriage, the couple had to scan and confirm the QR code, which was then written directly to the Bitcoin Blockchain. The oath of the newlyweds was:
Another example of a wedding on registered on Blockchain is Bitcoin activist Oles Slobodenyuk and Irina Dukhnovskaya on Jul. 17, 2016. At the celebration, the presenter recorded a marriage certificate in the Weddingbook.io platform on a Blockchain.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2iwwOjD
Source: CoinTelegraph
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