The company Idoneus used the token from its platform to buy the sketch made by the Spanish painter. Idoneus uses a blockchain to sell luxury vehicles and precious stones, among other services.

In recent days, a company purchased one of Pablo Picasso’s works through a transaction with its own cryptocurrency.

On May 29^th, the luxury goods provider Idoneus announced, through the Ethereum blockchain, that they bought the Picasso painting from a private seller. They said that they acquired the work “Belly Dance before an Impassive Man” (Danse du ventre devant homme impassible) in exchange for the IDON token.

Regarding this purchase, Jarrett Preston, CEO of Idoneus, stated that this is the first time that full ownership of an original work of art by Pablo Picasso has been formally transferred with payment in cryptocurrencies.

The Idoneus wallet development team and Marlissa Gardner, an entrepreneur in the fine arts industry, were the ones who facilitated the transaction. Gardner is also the founder and CEO of Emillions Art, LLC, a source for modern and old masterpieces.

The company has not disclosed the total amount that they paid to acquire the Picasso work. Some websites in the past have estimated the work of art that Idoneus purchased at between USD 3,000 and USD 5,000. The Spanish artist produced this sketch on woven paper in 1971 and put his signature on it. Experts estimate the price of various works by Picasso at more than USD 100 million.

Through its Ethereum-based platform, Idoneus offers the purchase of private islands, luxury services, luxury vehicles, jewelry, precious stones, pieces of art, and planes. According to Preston, the IDON token has been used on previous occasions to pay for other high-value assets. On June 1^st, they added the token to the English exchange P2Pb2B.

Art Industry Included in Blockchain

Idoneus is seeking to create an ERC-721 token that represents Picasso’s painting on the Ethereum blockchain. Additionally, they will use ERC-20 tokens to represent the property shares sold at any future auction. This will allow the owner to have a voice on some issues. For example, he can say how they should sell the work of art or how they should make it available to the public.

The company states that its main goal is to make the entire luxury goods industry move to blockchain-based systems. In this way, they will be able to conduct faster transactions, transparently, and securely.

Blockchain platforms have been used in the past for the registration and verification of works of art to prevent them from being forged. In March 2018, the Verisart platform reportedly used the Bitcoin blockchain to certify works of art.

This type of certification, based on blockchain technology, allows artists to create individual certificates of authenticity with image hashes. Likewise, the use of decentralized ledger technology for the verification of paintings and plastic artworks further drives the online market.

By Alexander Salazar

The tests concluded in January and, due to the current crisis in the oil sector, the consortium could be evaluating to apply more tests soon.

One of the largest oil groups in the United States of America recently announced that the pilot plan to test the software for the control of Distributed Ledger Technology was a success. This successful software is based on blockchain technology.

Some industry experts highlight that these results may be promising and that it represents an important path for using blockchain technology at major production sites.

In this case, the OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain Consortium, which is made up of renowned companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Repsol, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, inter alia, conducted proofs of concept of a blockchain tool that the Data Gumbo Corp created. This plan intends to control the payments made to obtain the necessary water for the oil and gas fields.

According to data that the group offered, the company specialized in water removal and extraction, Nuverra Environmental Solutions, was present during the test. The company was also centered on five Equinor-owned oil wells in North Dakota.

A brief explanation accompanied the announcement of the test. This explanation detailed the operation process of a blockchain network and compared it to an accounting book that can facilitate the conduct of transactions. Besides, the document clarified that if implemented, the system could help reduce costs, improve security, and optimize the time of operations.

On this point, the results of the tests highlighted that this technology helped to considerably reduce the time invested in the work, which, as the report emphasizes, in the traditional way could represent between 90, 100 and up to 120 days to complete.

The system was able to complete the same job in just 7 days. The group further commented that the new process eliminated nine steps that were necessary for the workflow and performed 85% of the volume measurements automatically.

Although the group noted that these tests only focused on the water transportation service, they did not rule out that they were planning to target the same technology to other areas of the industry. Spokespersons of the group commented that this technology is very versatile and that it only remains to ask what other sectors are most necessary for the oil sector.

Rebecca Hofmann, who is the Director of the OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain Consortium, mentioned that they concluded the tests in the past month of January. She said that, at that time, they had no plans to continue with the tests. However, the recent Covid-19 outbreak has forced the industry to rethink some methods, making it much more necessary to go ahead with the tests and plans.

Hofmann explained that the savings that this system could bring to the industry could reach millions, so “the industry could adopt this technology this year,” the executive said.

She also announced that Equinor executives and other members of the company could be evaluating the application of this system soon. “Equinor and others in the consortium are looking at the value and researching how it can be implemented to bring much-needed cost savings to their companies.”, she commented. This technology could continue growing.

By María Rodríguez

IBM executive believes that distributed ledger technology will be key after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. Companies would be more interested in raising security levels and ensuring privacy.

Latin American companies will make investments to adopt distributed ledger technology (DLT), which will reach USD 200 million by 2023. Ana Paula Assis, general manager of IBM in the region, stressed that this type of platform will be one of the key industries in local development.

The executive noted that the industry behind supply chains will be essential in the growth of Latin America. She highlighted that consumers base their relationships with companies on trust. In this respect, blockchain technology would play an important role in maintaining that closeness.

The manager stated that this technology is a turning point that entails important changes for society, concerning the way of doing business and relating to others. She emphasized that security is not a matter of compliance, but fundamental trust so that people continue to maintain relationships with companies.

The representative of IBM considers that DLT allows the traceability of products, from their manufacture to their distribution. Likewise, it establishes a health security guarantee, a factor that influences consumers when making decisions to purchase a product.

Blockchain Technology after COVID-19 Pandemic

Besides, Assis predicted that the post-COVID-19 era will bring changes in the operation of companies and their interaction with users, an element that would be closer to the security arena. She notes that there has been a 4,300% increase in the amount of spam related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus due to the pandemic.

The figures have set alarm bells ringing among companies seeking ways to ensure privacy and safeguard their users’ information, which could encourage the use of DLT.

IBM is one of the information technology companies that see the most potential in distributed accounting technology. The company heads the Hyperledger consortium, a project to develop blockchain solutions between companies and corporations. Fabric, one of the main proposals of Hyperledger, was developed from the codes proposed by IBM.

Last May, IBM reportedly launched a free platform in Spanish that would allow users to learn about blockchains, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. The multinational said that it intends to encourage the training of students from 14 to 20 years old, as well as teachers from all over the world, on this type of shared systems.

DLT is an original Bitcoin technology as a digital system in which two or more people can conduct data or value transactions, without the participation of trusted third parties or intermediaries. The information is stored in an immutable distributed registry and is visible to participants.

Initiatives to finance blockchain projects are common in Latin America. For example, there was an announcement last December in which Colombia said that it would allocate USD 5.5 million to finance developments of this type. These would include product traceability, document certification, and digital identity, among others.

By Alexander Salazar

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, explains why businesses must have a decentralized architecture amid the global pandemic.

No one knows what will happen in the world after the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. Right now, it is only possible to arrive at a series of conjectures about today’s information. This is precisely what the CEO of Binance has done, stating that decentralization is essential.

In recent days, Binance published on its blog an article written by Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, where he gives his opinion on the post-pandemic world.

The year 2020 has proven to be like a terrifying roller coaster, which has imposed challenges and obstacles, in addition to the need to change and revolutionize.

CZ focuses on the changes made by companies, which have reshape their organizations to implement remote work and face the crisis.

However, although the COVID-19 pandemic affected the entire humanity, CZ believes that decentralized organizations have had a greater ability to cope with the current harsh business environment.

Decentralization as the Solution

Changpeng Zhao notes that his development team devised a decentralized solution based on microservices. According to the CEO, this has offered Binance the opportunity to become more flexible and allow developers to work from any place in the world.

CZ explains that this is possible because multiple teams can work on different parts of the software independently while communicating through APIs.

In this sense, this geographical decentralization contributes to the Binance team’s having much faster and autonomous reactions. Therefore, this solution allows the team to work remotely and independently, thus reducing friction costs.

User Protection

Binance uses a cloud-based server solution, which enables it to deploy services closer to local users. This reduces latency and enables users to enjoy a more responsive user experience.

Therefore, the cryptocurrency exchange can manage thousands of servers worldwide from consolidated interfaces. This allows the platform to provide a high- quality service, where the main priorities are security and users.

Binance uses an internal system that follows a zero trust model to ensure security when it comes to identity verification. In other words, no internal or external user is reliable unless his or her identity is verified

Organizational Stability and Decentralization

Although security is very important, CZ says that it is important to increase the resistance of the system to improve and maintain excellent user experience.

One of the external elements that can put the user experience at risk is high traffic. For that reason, Binance monitors the flow of users and responds to the influx by adjusting the architecture of the system automatically.

Finally, CZ explains that Binance has been a decentralized organization from its very design.

In other words, CZ explains that each of his employees does his or her activities autonomously. Therefore, they make quick decisions when necessary, thus reducing so-called “bottlenecks”.

Therefore, most employees own and lead their projects, set their own goals, and continually find new ways to innovate on existing solutions.

This idea probably scares many entrepreneurs, but Binance has managed to achieve greater efficiency and speed in their projects, according to CZ.

By Alexander Salazar

The figure totaled 469,100 Euros in this first collection phase.

The renowned Spanish company Globatalent, which is dedicated to implementing blockchain technology in the sports field, almost raised half a million Euros in its first round of financing.

According to company data, the amount raised exceeded what they had planned and totaled EUR 469,100 in funds. This could improve the objectives that the company had set and project other actions.

Globatalent is a company that is dedicated to using blockchain technology for the benefit of workers in the sports sector, clubs, and players from different branches. One of the objectives of this fundraising round is to open a channel so that fans could contribute and finance key sectors of the sport.

According to company spokespersons, the main objective of their work is to develop methods that combat the unequal distribution of resources. The main idea is that each sector can receive what is necessary and fair for its maintenance. In this way, they explain that they hope to change the traditional scheme of this industry, which is generally centralized.

In response to the crisis the sports industry is going through, Globatalent created a system based on the Ethereum blockchain that will help sports centers, and their players to maintain local, own financing and also be able to offer their fans a token system in which they may have income rights in the future.

The System Could Relieve the Income Crisis in Sports

Due to the economic crisis that the Covid-19 pandemic has generated, the sports industry has experienced a decrease in its income that could reach billions. This, according to Globatalent promoters, could affect the sector like never before in its history.

The financing round could be a method for the sector to receive the necessary income for its maintenance. This time, Crowdequity Enveators conducted the collection.  Crowdequity Enveators is a platform of British origin that would allow investors to contribute at least £ 500.

During this process, the platform detected the participation of 22 investors, including Nacho Llovet, who is a player in the ACB, and Javier Saviola, the former Real Madrid soccer player.

Participating fans will benefit by helping to maintain their favorite teams. These participants will receive tokens that they can then use for sporting events. Participants can exchange these tokens for profits.

Players and sports centers will also benefit from the platform as it will allow them to better manage their income and work to offer their fans and investors a better experience in the future.

According to data about the company, this platform covers a large number of sports ranging from soccer, golf, basketball, American football, among many others. Until now, the women’s handball team in Spain is ready to use the service.

Globatalent’s statements detailed that, in this first round, they achieved the planned objectives. However, the platform does not yet offer information related to the next round, nor what they hope to capture. The platform did not mention the start date for the second phase of the project or its duration.

By María Rodríguez