Activation of Blockchain-Based Foreign Trade Registration in Brazil in 2020

Willmen Blanco
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Activation of Blockchain-Based Foreign Trade Registration in Brazil in 2020

A first phase of the project will be implemented among the Mercosul partners. The bConnect solution is developed on Hyperledger Fabric 1.4.

The Brazilian government, through the Federal Revenue Service, informed that the registration of foreign trade transactions on a blockchain will start during the first quarter of 2020.

Local authorities said that, after technical meetings with teams from Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (“Mercosul,” as it is called in Portuguese), operations were established to share information among customs offices.

Sergio Alencar, a tax auditor from the Federal Revenue Service, said that the project includes several stages, such as automatically identifying companies certified as Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) in their respective countries.

Regarding the implementation, the official explained that it is required to know the companies on both sides in order to facilitate the trade and entry of certified companies. He mentioned that Brazil has an agreement with Uruguay, in which the former sends the latter a list of companies and vice versa.

To accelerate the process, the secretariat will implement a solution called bConnect, which is developed on Hyperledger Fabric 1.4. The programming was conducted by the company Serpro, which serves the technological infrastructure of the public sector in this South American country.

It is worth noting that three aspects will be evaluated by the authorities with the implementation: the first is to secure information so that it is not altered, the second is to guarantee the identity of the person feeding the platform, and the third is to consider the cost of the project.

It was reported in May of this year that Brazil was already working on this project, despite the fact that no dates or working meetings with engineers from “Mercosul” countries were defined. After having held meetings in June and December, a plan was established to activate the platform at the beginning of the year 2020.

Cases of Use

The Brazilian proposal to apply distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain to its foreign trade and customs registers is not the first of its kind. In November 2016, it was reported that the United States was considering a pilot plan to use a blockchain in its customs services.

On that occasion, the possibility of implementing this type of decentralized database for the delivery of permits, licenses, and certificates; the tracking of products and the verification of their components and origin, among others, were analyzed.

With regard to Spain, there have also been reports on the use of blockchains for logistics in the harbors of Valencia. In this case, it is a solution to the companies IBM and Maersk. More recently, in August of this year, the harbor of Veracruz in Mexico began testing a blockchain for its export activities.

Blockchain or distributed accounting is the original technology of Bitcoin as a digital system in which two or more participants can perform any type of transaction without the participation of intermediaries or trusted third parties through the Internet. To conclude, it should be mentioned that it is also an encrypted system that safeguards the data of the transactions.

By Willmen Blanco

Additional Support for Ethereum Thanks to Ethereum Classic’s Hard Fork Agharta

Willmen Blanco
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Additional Support for Ethereum Thanks to Ethereum Classic’s Hard Fork Agharta

The update will include 3 improvement proposals already included in the hard fork Constantinople. The bit-by-bit information processing will reduce operating costs.

The Ethereum Classic (ETC) network will undergo a hard fork, called Agharta, on January 13th, 2020 at the height of block 9,573,000. The network’s developers agreed on the date of the update in mid-December, when they announced an improvement in the compatibility of the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic blockchains and an increase in transaction processing performance.

The Technology Coordinator at ETC Core, Stevan Lohja, published on December 12th an article in which he stated that the network was preparing for the hard fork by launching several test networks, the last one being Kotti, activated on the 14th of the same month in block 1,705,549.

In his publication, Lohja added that all other test networks succeeded in activating the characteristics of Agharta and determined that there is a low probability for consensus errors. The developers also estimated a review period ending on December 19th, after which the protocol was accepted. At the time of writing this article, there is a countdown that predicts that there are about 14 days left before the confirmation of block 9,573,000.

It should be mentioned that ETC customers such as Hyperledger Besu, Multi-Geth and Parity released versions compatible with the Kotti test network. On the other hand, Multi-Geth launched v1.9.6, which is compatible with Agharta. Besides, the platform notified its users that they should migrate from Geth Classic to any of the other clients, since Agharta would be the last fork that it will support.

Changes Brought by Agharta

Ethereum Classic’s developers specified that the motivation that drove the Agharta strong fork was to improve the capabilities of the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM). For this reason, several operation codes will be added to the Ethereum Classic networks, which have been in use in the Ethereum Foundation networks since early 2019.

They also note that establishing and maintaining interoperable behavior among Ethereum clients is essential in the ecosystem. This will generate benefits for participating chains such as Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, Ropsten and Morden, Görli and Kotti.

The GitHub repository explains that the proposed changes for Ethereum Classic’s update Agharta includes the bit-by-bit information processing code that was part of Ethereum’s Constantinople. This improvement proposal (EIP) adds native functionality to the protocol making it more economical and efficient for executing certain functions within the network.

The improvements in Agharta will include the “Create 2” operation code that drives scalability for transactions outside the Ethereum Classic network. This allows interactions to occur with addresses that do not yet exist within the blockchain, but which can be trusted. The other change that it will assume is the EIP 1052 EXTCODEHASH, which involves optimizing large-scale code executions for smart contracts.

Next Ethereum Classic’s fork will be Aztlán, which will also occur in 2020, but the exact date will be determined later. It was stated that this fork would include the features of Ethereum’s recent update, Istanbul.

In March 2019, three years after the hard fork that divided Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, both communities expressed wanting to go further with the implementation of the project PeaceBridge, which managed to build a communication bridge between the two networks thus making possible the tokenization of Ether (ETH) in the Ethereum Classic network.

By Willmen Blanco

Cryptocurrencies Will Be in One of Their Best Moments in 2020

Willmen Blanco
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Cryptocurrencies Will Be in One of Their Best Moments in 2020

According to experts, institutions will become more involved with cryptocurrencies in 2020. The launch of Bitcoin ETFs and diversified investment strategies is predicted.

The analysts of Vision Hill, a firm specializing in digital assets, expect 2020 to be one of the best years for cryptocurrencies. The company predicted that institutional investors will be more involved, with a larger number of capital and human resources investments.

Through a report, the experts stressed that 2020 can become a year for the maturation of the ecosystem. They consider that there are an increasing number of companies that invest capital in digital assets, including Fidelity, ErisX, and Bakkt. Therefore, they believe that next year there will be new products, updates on pre-existing systems, and new investment strategies.

The report indicates that their encouraging forecast is not based on an increase in the price of crypto assets. The firm notes that it is very difficult for the cryptocurrency market to enter a bullish trend without a break. However, it believes that the ecosystem’s success will be demonstrated by the consolidation of a more sophisticated and more liquid market.

Vision Hill forecasts that there will be a larger institutional offer in 2020, since institutional investors remain interested in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In this regard, experts believe that cryptocurrency trade will be more diversified.

Traditional and Disruptive Practices

The document notes that an increase in financial products focused on Bitcoin is expected. It is known that a large part of traditional investors prefer investing in stocks with the lowest possible risk, especially when cryptocurrencies are involved.

Institutional investors usually calculate or determine an indicator called Beta Market when the behavior of a stock helps predict the growth of the market in general. According to Vision Hill, some investors assume that Bitcoin can be a beta market or a cryptocurrency market maker.

The firm expects that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be able to break into the market next year. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed the approval of these funds on several occasions, but the experts predict that some of them will be released.

Likewise, the report predicts that next year financial companies will make more risky bets in the crypto market. The incorporation of specialized investment strategies for well-performing assets will allow them to start getting involved with assets other than Bitcoin. Analysts believe that institutional investors will begin to calculate the Alpha market of the cryptocurrency industry in order to assess the level of performance of a stock and the best cryptocurrency investment.

Some traditional market practices applied to the crypto market are the use of arbitration, long trade operations, high frequency trading, peer-to-peer (P2P) trading and market synchronization. Besides, the analysts assume that the investment in cryptocurrencies will be diversified and institutional investors will acquire more knowledge in 2020. Software engineering, generalized mining and DeFI platforms are practices that companies are studying to better understand the crypto market.

To conclude, Vision Hill experts say that venture capital companies will also play an important role in the ecosystem. It should be noted that this type of companies have injected significant capital into the cryptocurrency industry in recent years, favoring game startups, analysis tools and investment services.

By Willmen Blanco

According to Antonopoulos, Bitcoin Is Not yet Ready to Help Venezuela

Willmen Blanco
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According to Antonopoulos, Bitcoin Is Not yet Ready to Help Venezuela

Antonopoulos is confident about the usefulness of Bitcoin even though the massification has not yet reached the country. The author sees the cryptocurrency as a lifeboat but believes that for now, it cannot rescue all its inhabitants.

Andreas Antonopoulos, who has more than 500,000 followers on Twitter and is the author of best-sellers such as The Internet of Money and Mastering Bitcoin, has a long history in the ecosystem that dates back to the origins of the original cryptocurrency.

The first impression that Antonopoulos makes is that of a born educator, who finds it easy to talk to people. With more than 370 videos on his YouTube channel, a podcast, and countless talks under his belt, he states that he has learned to teach by repetition through trial and error.

One of the most common topics of his introductory talks on digital money is related to his experience with hyperinflation during his childhood and how it relates to the economic instability that Latin America is undergoing.

Antonopoulos explains that nobody notices money while it works but it is hard to ignore it when it stops working. The author confesses that he always had a technical fascination with Bitcoin and, the more he understood its political impact, the more he connected with his childhood. He notes that he was confronted by true cryptocurrency regulation when he first arrived in Argentina in 2013 to talk about Bitcoin technology.

The educator introduces the option of having a freely circulating currency that can be used, even when the government is corrupt or determined to keep its citizens captive and close its borders. However, although he asserts that it is a bridge, he acknowledges that it is not an immediate solution to the problems currently facing many citizens of South America, especially Venezuelans.

The expert warns that not enough people can access that escape, so Bitcoin is not ready to help Venezuela and vice versa. It is the same as when the Internet could not help any revolution or democracy in its early days, but it does give people more and more opportunities to see that the world is different. He believes that human behavior changes by knowing that there is another option, since it is a very liberating sensation.

For Antonopoulos, Bitcoin is not ready to serve countries such as Venezuela or North Korea, where the technological infrastructure is deteriorated. Nor does he believe the US dollar can do it since the currency faces challenges such as theft, counterfeiting, and government control. He says that all that can be seen now of Bitcoin is the promise although it sometimes takes too much imagination to believe it.

Antonopoulos cites the case of a Venezuelan friend who uses cryptocurrency to send remittances to his family, so he highlights its ability to be subdivided into minimal parts. In that hyperinflationary economy, Bitcoin allows him to buy only the bolivars that they need to live during the week whilst keeping the rest of the value safeguarded.

He thus stresses the importance of this characteristic that initially seemed unimportant, but which is useful in this situation. Antonopoulos thinks that, with the right conditions, if there were another situation like Venezuela’s elsewhere in twenty years, perhaps one-third of the population that remains in the country could be saved financially.

Antonopoulos believes that the power of individuals, through technology, cannot be stopped. He highlights that the privacy granted by Bitcoin is one of the fundamental human rights.

By Willmen Blanco

Co-Founder of Ethereum Is Held Responsible for Disposing of over 90,000 ETH

Willmen Blanco
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Co-Founder of Ethereum Is Held Responsible for Disposing of over 90,000 ETH

Jeff Wilcke, the co-founder of Ethereum, is held responsible for selling 92,000 ETH. The address that sent the ETH had received 408,000 ETH in 2016.

On Wednesday, December 25th, a single address sent a total of 92,000 ethers (ETH) to the exchange Kraken. Vitalik Buterin, one of Ethereum’s main developers and visible face of the project, was held by some people responsible for sending that amount.

It was reported that the amount of 92,000 ETH was sent in a total of two transactions. The first was just 0.1 ETH whilst the second was 91,999.9 ETH, as can be corroborated through the Etherscan explorer.

The amount of ethers sent to the exchange represents USD 11,822,920, a price reflected by the cryptocurrency at the time of writing this article, according to LiveCoinWatch data.

The platform ViewBase points to Vitalik Buterin or some Ethereum developer as the possible responsible for sending the aforementioned ethers. To issue such a claim, they start from the fact that that address was financed with about 408,000 ETH sent from one of Buterin’s addresses in 2016.

Some media go further, holding Jeff Wilcke, co-founder of Ethereum, responsible for sending the 92,000 ETH to the exchange Kraken since they say that the address belongs to Wilcke.

Apparently, the developer himself has responded affirmatively to the accusation through his Twitter account, even though the tweet no longer appears on the network. The only evidence left is a screenshot of the alleged tweet.

In that post, Wilcke would have admitted sending the ethers, claiming that he needed money for the development of a game. It is worth mentioning that the developer also actively participates in the development of video games, as indicated by his introduction on Twitter.

Imminent Drop of Ether’s Price

In the controversy over the sale of such a massive sale, the possibility that it affects the price of the cryptocurrency is the most prominent. An obvious example of this is what is occurring with XRP, the native token of the Ripple network.

The Ripple team unlocks 1,000 million XRP per month, claiming that its purpose is to increase liquidity by the demand for the cryptocurrency. However, this has led to a constant depreciation of the crypto asset in the market, to the point that XRP investors have requested to stop this practice.

After the sale of the 92,000 ethers, the concern about the future of ETH increases, since there were at least two other large transactions registered in the Ethereum blockchain, destined for an exchange house. ViewBase noted that Huobi reached almost 100,000 ETH, while another 25,900 ETH went to an address of the exchange Binance.

Until now, no negative impact on the price of ETH has been observed but rather there has been an increase of 1.28% in recent days, according to data from LiveCoinWatch.

Controversy in Ethereum

This has not been the only controversy of the Ethereum project, since on December 24th, on Christmas Eve, it was announced that a new hard fork will be implemented in the platform at the beginning of January, less than a month after the successful execution of the Istanbul fork.

It should be noted that this new update, called Muir Glacier, will delay the Ethereum mining difficulty bomb, something that has already occurred three times.

The announcement did not please many in the ecosystem, with complaints about the implementation of two forks with such a short time difference. Also, they expressed their discomfort as this occurred during festive dates when nodes are unlikely to be updated.

By Willmen Blanco

Blockchain Allows Securing Traceability of Coffee in Brazilian Plantations

Willmen Blanco
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Blockchain Allows Securing Traceability of Coffee in Brazilian Plantations

The first harvests gathered with this technology have already been exported to Poland. The use of blockchain is key for those seeking sustainable products.

There is nothing called Bitcoin flavored coffee, but the blockchain that gives life to this cryptocurrency will be used to track plantations that give life to this centuries-old beverage. This technology will be used by Nucoffee, a platform for the traceability and support of a coffee activity, whose first harvests have already been registered through a blockchain.

The news was released by Syngenta, a global biotechnology company specialized in agrochemicals and seeds, which runs Nucoffee. According to Rural Globo Magazine, the firm announced the use of blockchain technology during the International Coffee Week (ICW), held in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. From that point, 36 bags of coffee were exported by Nucoffee to Poland thanks to the recent use of blockchain-based technology.

Sustainability and Blockchain

It should be noted that the use of blockchain has gained prominence in the process of coffee production in the state of Minas Gerais. This technology allows for greater transparency of information covering from the planting to the harvesting of the beans.

Through the use of this technology, the consumer is brought closer to the process of coffee production. For example, blockchain allows those seeking sustainable products to consult notes on the harvest.

This is the opinion of Nucoffee’s marketing manager, Juan Gimenes, who recently commented on the promotion of competitiveness. The expert considers that blockchain technology contributes to the process of legitimizing the production of coffee in the state of Minas Gerais.

QR Code Allows Monitoring

It was reported that the first coffee bags were exported to Eastern Europe using this technology. However, its use will allow coffee from Minas Gerais to reach any other parts of the world.

From Bitcoin to coffee, blockchain-associated technology can be integrated into numerous production processes. Embrapa, a Brazilian agricultural research company, considers that blockchain should represent the future of contractual and economic relations on a global scale.

The project was developed by Arabyka, a startup that partnered with Nucoffee. The company, recently created in Londrina, in the state of Paraná, Brazil, perfected the system for the traceability of coffee production that Nucoffee already had.

Before implementing the use of blockchain, Nucoffee had initially developed a network of up to two thousand registered farmers. However, it is important to clarify that the project using blockchain is different, and even has an incentive program for those farmers completing the information about the coffee that they produce.

Nucoffee offers input that helps the coffee plantation to the farmers using blockchain to register information. On the other hand, they can also count on technological support to keep abreast of the news on the field.

By keeping track of what comes to the table, future consumers can ensure a closer approach to the drink. All this will be possible through the use of a QR code, which will provide that pleasant smell of coffee from afar and which in turn will have blockchain to export it.

By Willmen Blanco

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