Spanish Securities Operator Will Certify Financial Guarantees through a Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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Spanish Securities Operator Will Certify Financial Guarantees through a Blockchain

The time that it takes to issue certificates would be reduced from 24 hours to 10 minutes. Renta 4 Banco is the first customer enrolled in the BME blockchain registration service.

It was announced that the Spanish Stock Markets and Exchanges (BME) will use a blockchain to register processes of pledge (guarantees) on institutional debts. Essentially, the process will be available for Renta 4 Banco, an institution that accompanied the process of developing the tool, which groups together the main stock exchanges of the European country, such as the Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bilbao, and Valencia stock exchanges, among others.

Through a press release, BME announced last Wednesday, December 11th, the successful completion of 9 months of tests to implement the registration system with a blockchain, through a platform called Be DLT-Prenda.

The Spanish company said in the text that this platform “supposes the digitalization of processes and guarantees the access of all the participants to the information in real-time.” In this way, they allege that a reduction in the time taken to create a pledge (guarantee), from about 24 hours to less than 10 minutes, is generated.

Through this platform, those involved in the process will also have the possibility of having direct access to the information and will participate in the validation of the transactions, according to the note. However, it is not explained what the process will be like for the parties to be involved in that validation.

It was explained that pledges are securities given as collateral for debts contracted with Renta 4 Banco, which is in charge of the BME Clearing House. The new process aims to eliminate “physical certificates and the exchange of paper documentation,” according to the note published by BME.

The platform was developed by DLT-Lab, a wing within the BME technology area that focuses on the study and development of solutions with the use of a blockchain. This area works with other offices within the institution, as well as with financial entities associated with BME.

Latest Announcements about Blockchains in Spain

In recent weeks, there has been a proliferation of announcements in Spain about the use of blockchains in companies and public institutions. The various purposes of these developments range from the financial area, as is the case of BME, to ecological initiatives.

Regarding the mitigation of the environmental impact, there have been several recent announcements in Spain. For example, the company Greenb2e, originally from Valencia, launched a project to tokenize the use of renewable energy and the promotion of ecological practices in the business field.

For its part, both Meliá Hotels and the State Post and Telegraph Society of Spain joined the ClimateTrade network, a project of the startup Climate Blockchain Initiatives to contribute to environmental projects and compensate for their environmental impact.

Previously, Siemens Spain launched e-ing3ni @, a platform based on a blockchain for transactions and trading in the energy sector. This platform is based on the Alastria blockchain and provides a direct connection between producers and domestic consumers so that the latter can choose the origin and type of energy that they will consume at their homes.

Additionally, the association of authors and publishers CEDRO announced that it will register its copyright licenses on the Ethereum blockchain. Likewise, the University of San Pablo CEU will certify the issuance of its degrees through a blockchain.

By Willmen Blanco

After Fork, Blossom Zcash Successfully Activates New Faster Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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After Fork, Blossom Zcash Successfully Activates New Faster Blockchain

The project completed its third fork, which activated the new Blossom network. The update had a slight positive impact on the price of ZEC, the Zcash token.

The Zcash project successfully completed its third scheduled fork, whose code name is Blossom, on Wednesday, December 11th. This was announced by Electric Coin Company (ECC), the company behind the development of Zcash, in its Twitter account @ElectricCoinCo.

The update, which was supported by both ECC and the Zcash Foundation, occurred at block height 653,600, extracted at 21:51 UTC by the mining pool Poolin, as reflected in the Zchain block explorer. At the time of writing this note, they have added about 700 new blocks to the chain, without any reported setbacks.

It is worth highlighting that one of the main novelties of the Zcash Blossom, or NU2 update (Network Upgrade 2), is the halving of the time between blocks, which went from 150 seconds to 75 seconds. The modification was part of the Zcash ZIP 208 improvement proposal, which also implies a half-reduction of the block reward.

It is explained in the GitHub repository of the proposal that the reduction of the time between blocks is aimed at improving network performance, at the same time as guaranteeing the security of transactions with fewer confirmations. Besides, low confirmation rates would be maintained.

Zcash Blossom Activation Does Not Raise ZEC Prices

The new features in the Blossom update seem not to have aroused great enthusiasm in investors. In the week before the hard fork, the price of ZEC, the Zcash native token, registered a slight upward movement, from a valuation of USD 28.18 to USD 30.80 per unit, a variation of less than 10%.

This increase does not compensate for the sharp decline in the price of this cryptocurrency, which is focused on private transactions, in the last three months. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the ZEC tokens were quoted around USD 53 by September 18th. However, a few weeks later, around November 25th, it marked its all-time low record of USD 25.45.

Some hours before the Blossom hard fork, a well-known analyst who is identified on social networks as WhalePanda, published a tweet in which he described the Zcash project as a failure for its current market capitalization. “After a round of financing, 3 years of rewards from the founder and a request for an extension of these rewards, the market capitalization of its currency is even less than that of Dogecoin (DOGE),” WhalePanda remarked.

His comment derives from the fact that DOGE, which emerges from a popular meme in social networks, is ranked 31st in the CoinMarketCap ranking, while ZEC occupies the 33rd position by market capitalization. Even though, according to WhalePanda, the DOGE project has not received an update in five years.

The influencer’s post received a response from Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, who said that Zcash privacy research has had a major impact on cryptocurrency technology. Buterin explained that it has been doing cutting-edge research and deployment of privacy technology, at the same time as exploring uncharted terrain in blockchain governance, and the platform continues to improve. He said not to have any idea of how it can be considered a failure.

By Willmen Blanco

75% of IoT Firms Want to Adopt Blockchain Technology

Maria Rodríguez
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75% of IoT Firms Want to Adopt Blockchain Technology

Combining blockchain and IoT technologies may strengthen security. It allows conducting data transmissions from one device to another, avoiding interactions between humans and computers.

Blockchain technology is being used in many and different fields around the world, from Medicine to agriculture, transactions and even cars or food production.

The Internet of Things (IoT) industry is an example of this. Those objects that use the Internet to run an action are taking advantage of the benefits that blockchain technology offers.

Increased security and trust in shared multiparty transactions are the top benefits when the companies combine blockchain and IoT technologies.

In this sense, Avivah Litan, an IT industry analyst, conducted a survey to study and find more about the adoption of blockchain technology in the IoT industry.

Avivah said that “75 percent of the IoT technology adopters in the United States have already adopted blockchain or are planning to adopt it by the end of 2020 out of more than 500 US companies”. That is a way to predict the union of both technologies.

This is according to the survey’s result. Almost 63 percent of the survey respondents said that combining blockchain and IoT technologies strengthens security, while 56 percent said the top benefit is an increase in business efficiency and lower costs.

According to Litan, of the 75 percent of blockchain adopters, 86 percent are implementing both IoT and blockchain in different projects.

How Does It Work?

The study indicated that blockchain technology can create a trusted environment or platform for data transmissions between virtual networks or devices whilst increasing the efficiency of those changes.

The intention of IoT companies is to integrate computing devices with digital and mechanical machines in order to avoid, this way, human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction so these devices could work in a faster way and help save time.

Apple Watch and Amazon Alexa are companies that use this type of technology in consumer goods. They are a current example of the uses that blockchain technology can carry out.

But definitely, increased security and trust in shared multiparty transactions are the top benefits when the companies combine blockchain and IoT technologies. The majority of respondents said the top benefit is an increase in business efficiency and lower costs. This is what they consider as the most important characteristic.

However, Litan said that blockchain technology implementations related to protocol changes could be difficult for long-lived IoT devices due to its relatively high volatility. This is one of the aspects they should evaluate.

“Some blockchain implementations struggle to scale to the transaction rates that can be generated by large numbers of connected things”, Litan commented. The idea will be to support these operations in a safe platform.

The company expects what it considers the necessary evolution in both blockchain technology and the Internet of Things technology to “mature” in five to 10 years so the use of blockchain technology in IoT firms could be every day more present in the evolution of that dynamic industry.

By María Rodríguez

JP Morgan Will Launch its Blockchain Network in Early 2020

Maria Rodríguez
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JP Morgan Will Launch its Blockchain Network in Early 2020

The objective of the financial company is to speed up the payment transactions and to address the main challenges of data sharing between banks.

Multinational investment bank JP Morgan will launch its blockchain-based payment system in Japan early next year. The intention is to accelerate payment transactions and also address major challenges like sharing data between banks.

It will be based on JP Morgan’s in-house blockchain platform Quorum. Currently, more than 80 Japanese banks expressed their interest in being part and join to the new platform. Almost 20% of the total of 365 global participants is from Japan.

This network dubbed the Interbank Information Network (INN) will be used to avoid money laundering so it will be known as an anti-money laundering (AML) tool in a continent where crime cases increased last year.

“The benefits of participating are significant. Accumulating experience with INN will lead to further efficiency, including standardization of procedures”, Dr. Yukio Uchino, from the Daiwa Institute of Research said.

He added that whilst the potential benefits are vast, the main challenge will be “how to get major Chinese banks to join”.

Additionally, Daizaburo Sanai, Executive Director at JP Morgan, stated that the INN is operating in 70 banks in Europe, Asia and also in the United States.

Sanai explained that the reason why Japanese firms want to join the platform is to improve anti-money laundering since the tool, reportedly, makes the tracking of cash recipients “faster and more efficient”.

JP Morgan is Studying How to Employ Blockchain Technology

The project is possible due to JP Morgan’s interest in using new technologies. In this way, the second-largest investment bank of the world has been looking for new ways of using blockchain technology and crypto-related initiatives.

Besides, the company has its cryptocurrency. The name of the digital asset is JPM coin and will be launched very soon, as it was reported in June.

Another project of JP Morgan that was recently announced, was created to speed up cash and collateral transfers, according to the company.

JP Morgan issued an official statement. It explained that it partnered with California-based fintech firm called Baton Systems to settle and manage payments, according to what explained the official announcement in mid-November.

The company expects that the receptivity of the payment network is favorable since Japanese society is very interested in this kind of technology.

China is also doing efforts and implementing some changes to adopt blockchain technology. The Asian country did not accept cryptocurrencies. But now, President Xi Jinping assured it is very important to use and develop blockchain technology.

“We must take blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies”, Xi Jinping said.

The INN network was launched in 2017 when Deutsche Bank became the first institution to adopt it.

JP Morgan will continue exploring blockchain and crypto-related initiatives to develop more and new tools that help its users to execute transactions in a simple, fast and also in a secure form.

By María Rodríguez

The United Nations Will Help Prevent Exploitation of Migrant Employees with Blockchain Technology

Andres Chavez
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The United Nations Will Help Prevent Exploitation of Migrant Employees with Blockchain Technology

The United Nations, through its International Organization for Migration (IOM) and thanks to the help of Blockchain Company Diginex, has launched a blockchain resource that can avoid the exploitation of migrant workers in Hong Kong.

The information was provided via a press release. The useful resource will help approximately 1,500 migrant domestic worker recruitment organizations in Hong Kong, as well as some associated institutions in nations that send people to work there.

The name of the innovative system is the International Recruitment Integrity System Self-Assessment for Ethical Recruitment (IRIS-SAFER). The blockchain technology is being put to good use and will help the developers to make sure the data records are safe as the name indicates, and also immutable.

Enhancing Transparency Thanks to Blockchain

Hence, blockchain technology will bring enhanced integrity and transparency to the process. The announcement outlined that nearly 400,000 migrant workers make their lives in Hong Kong, a prominent commercial and industrial hub in Asia.

Of that total, a whopping 98 percent are women, and more than half of them, 56 percent, were charged a recruitment fee by agencies, which isn’t allowed by the local regulations.

According to IOM China chief of mission Giuseppe Crocetti, “through use of IRIS-SAFER, agencies will first learn what are global ethical recruitment standards, then be able to demonstrate their progress and, ultimately, prove their commitment. With this project, we are drawing from IOM’s global work, through the IRIS initiative, and tailoring it to the specific experience of recruiting migrant domestic workers to Hong Kong.”

The system has been so successful in Hong Kong and other nations that were not specified, the developers plan to implement it on a global scale. It would be an extremely helpful resource to stop abuses in the workplace, not just exploitations perpetrated against migrants.

An “Impactful Project”

Mr. Mark Blick, the Head of Government Solutions at Diginex, was delighted to announce the partnership with IOM on this “impactful project. Using the UN’s IRIS standards as the benchmark for reputable agencies, we are confident that the tool can help to strike out these unethical practices. In Hong Kong, foreign domestic workers are some of the most economically vulnerable people in our society and pay approximately HK$700,000,000 each year in placement/recruitment fees. Being headquartered in Hong Kong, we believe it is vital to support the communities in which we operate, so this partnership and project are close to our hearts.”

Just recently, Diginex became a Nasdaq publicly traded firm following a reverse merger with 8i. The company also became a founding member of Global Digital Finance.

The United Nations have been involved in blockchain-related projects before, so they aren’t precisely novices in the area. The UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) will, according to recent reports, establish a partnership with doc.com, which is a blockchain-based telemedicine and telepsychology enterprise to expand healthcare services and goods in Eastern Africa countries in need.

By Andrés Chavez

The U.S. Fed Announces Repurchase Scheme and Will Print $425 Billion for New Year’s

Andres Chavez
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The U.S. Fed Announces Repurchase Scheme and Will Print $425 Billion for New Year’s

The United States’ Federal Reserve announced at the end of last week that it would be injecting a minimum of $425 billion to the national economy in “printed” or non-existent money and that it will be doing so by the middle of January 2020.

The U.S. central bank made the announcement through a statement. In the text, the Fed also said that it will be accelerating the “repo”, or repurchase operations on specific dates around the New Years’ time.

As things stand today, the Fed will print three times the market cap of Bitcoin, the world’s most influential digital asset, in a matter of weeks. The repo operations have apparently schemed, so they can serve as support for banks’ daily operations. According to the Fed, the time of the year called for additional assurances for financial institutions.

From December 31st to January 14th, 2020

The statement explains that “the Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has released the schedule of repurchase agreement (repo) operations for the monthly period from December 13, 2019 through January 14, 2020.”

The Fed also confirmed that “in accordance with the most recent FOMC directive, the Desk will conduct repo operations to ensure that the supply of reserves remains ample and to mitigate the risk of money market pressures around year-end that could adversely affect policy implementation.”

On New Year’s Eve and January 2nd, the repo offerings will be $150 billion. However, by the time the proposed January 14th deadline comes along, the Fed expects to generate at least $425 billion.

Sizable Liquidity with No Backing

These moves are not uncommon, but they usually conjure sizable liquidity while having no backing. In other words, it can be considered money printing without actually having to physically print any bills.

The move hasn’t lacked critics, and they mainly come from Bitcoin circles and communities. They state that the decision is a perfect example of the failure of central banks in coping with and managing economies in different locations.

That thought creates a bigger current, discussed in Saifedean Ammous’ popular book, “The Bitcoin Standard.” He defends the notion that the fall of countries and empires can be blamed for the fall of a currency that can’t operate in a manipulation-free manner.

In a previous repo peak, the community-made similar calls in favor of BTC. It happened during the month of September.

Three Times Bitcoin’s Market Cap

A noted Bitcoin defender known as Rhythm on Twitter pointed out the fact that the $425 billion that are being talked about are three times the size of BTC’s current market cap. The user said, with notorious sarcasm, that “everything is fine.”

The debt of the United States reached $23 trillion in November and is now at $23.12 trillion, per information from U.S. National Debt Clock. It is an astonishing amount that keeps on growing.

By Andres Chavez

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