Presentation of New Members and Advances in Use Cases by Argentine Federal Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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Presentation of New Members and Advances in Use Cases by Argentine Federal Blockchain

One year after its creation, the network has the participation of more than 14 public and private entities. There is no reward cryptocurrency for creating new blocks and the use of the network is free.

On Monday, October 21st, the Argentine Federal Blockchain (BFA) and participating entities of that permissioned network met at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires. There were new members of the public sector and private companies that will join the BFA.

One year after the creation of the BFA and 4 months after the launch of its mainnet, more than 14 public and private entities presented the use cases that they plan to conduct, those that are in prototype and those that are in production.

BFA technical leader Alejandro Elustondo talked about the operation of the blockchain and how its members are organized.

It should be noted that Argentine Federal Blockchain is a clone of the Ethereum code, but the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism was changed to Proof of Authority (PoA) and the nodes that keep the complete history and add new blocks with transactions are called sealing nodes. At the beginning, it was an initiative of NIC Argentina, but now C&S Company is working on the block explorer and is comprised of different entities that have a sealing node.

As to why they decided to make a new Blockchain, since the Bitcoin, Ethereum and other public blockchains already exist, Elustondo responded that it was an issue of costs. In a public blockchain, each transaction is paid in the network’s native cryptocurrency. On the other hand, in the BFA there is a Smart Contract that distributes the necessary GAS free of charge to users who complete a form and undergo the process of accepting a new member on the BFA page.

In that sense, he also explained that, due to the lack of a cryptocurrency with market value, a sealing node receives no monetary incentive to keep it active and generate new blocks. The goal is for it to be a collaborative network and have approximately 26 nodes. The new entities will choose if they want to add a new sealing node.

Use Cases in Public and Private Entities

More than 14 entities explained their work and implementations on this network. One of the most interesting cases was that of the publications in the Official Gazette of the Nation. They explained that they abandoned the Bitcoin blockchain to save the Hash of the PDF document of the Official Bulletin, changed blockchains four (4) months ago, and became the first users of the BFA.

There was also a presentation on the University Information System where they explained the feasibility of using the BFA, in the case of Certifications and Tenders in the academic field, as a future project work.

The National Office of Information Technology, Municipality of Carlos Casares (Province of Buenos Aires), Argentine Naval Prefecture, Nic Argentina, Municipality of the City of Mendoza, Ministry of Transportation of the Nation, Secretariat of Modernization of the Nation and SENASA also presented their initiatives and proposals for implementation.

The challenges of the complexity of verifying the integrity of a document in Blockchain using Hash of PDF documents, and the portability of these documents, were addressed in a presentation by the company OS CYTY. They stressed that these use cases will not be massive unless it is possible to create solutions that allow the end user to do it in a few steps and without unnecessary complexity.

By Willmen Blanco

Eye of the “Big Brother” Countered by Bitcoin

Willmen Blanco
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Eye of the “Big Brother” Countered by Bitcoin

Totalitarianism is strengthened by terror and social control, an effect achieved with surveillance. Bitcoin can also monitor the powerful, introducing new forms of resistance.

When walking down the street, a security camera may be following people’s steps. Social networks carefully capture every gesture, comment or purchase made. In certain parts of the world, the government even regulates which movies the population can or cannot see.

Without realizing it, humanity is currently confined to the eye of “Big Brother”, that terrifying character created by George Orwell for his novel 1984.

It is not paranoia but a latent concern that can turn into terror. At present, social control and extreme surveillance proliferate, practices done by both dictatorial governments and democracies.

Personal freedom always seems to be at risk. However, at this very historical moment, proposals for individuality and privacy such as Bitcoin have also been born.

Ecosystem networks and personalities have published that blockchain technologies can help safeguard human rights. Although these types of statements sound great, no one can understand how it does it.

There Is No Privacy

China’s government is not exactly totalitarian, but it is controlled by the police. Although citizens enjoy individual opportunities and rights, the national police can have access to information published on the Internet, security cameras and even anyone’s personal data.

Freedom seems to be a very fragile asset when the government is constantly watching every step of the citizens. The information collected by the state could be used to the detriment of certain uncomfortable individuals.

Trust is a gift that today’s society lacks, not because of lack of trust but because of the loss of credibility and honesty of figures of power. People have stopped trusting governments, authorities or the media, because they know that the truth can always be manipulated.

Transparency, verification, privacy and decentralization have become the most precious assets, principles that also comprise the Bitcoin ideal. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency was created to provide greater privacy on the Internet and payment systems.

Today, demonstrators in Hong Kong break facial recognition cameras claiming that the state is watching them. Both claims have one enemy in common: people have lost the autonomy in their private lives, but it can be recovered.

Bitcoin Also Watches People

The use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Monero or Zcash is in itself a practice that can help counteract state surveillance in democratic countries. As more people use mechanisms to increase the privacy of the transactions or the information that they share, it will be more difficult to know who has or has not shared a piece of data.

Although the use of Bitcoin as currency can change the rules of the game in the democracies of the world, talking about totalitarian countries or dictatorships makes things complicated. Many people propose Bitcoin as a weapon of resistance although they have never lived in regimes that restrict human rights and freedom.

Andreas Antonopoulos spoke on this subject, ensuring that the true strength of Bitcoin was in its immutable and public record. It is not only privacy, which allows safeguarding human rights, but also Bitcoin’s memory, which can monitor and never forget.

By Willmen Blanco

Binance Launches in Switzerland a Financial Product for Better Network Exchange

Maria Rodríguez
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Binance Launches in Switzerland a Financial Product for Better Network Exchange

Binance achieves an alliance with a Swiss startup for the launch of a physical tool that will facilitate business in the Swiss stock exchange (SIX).

Recently, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms, Binance, launched a tool that will allow better network exchange performance, using Bitcoin as physical backup, in the Swiss stock exchange, SIX.

On this occasion, the exchange company achieved an alliance with the Swiss startup company Amun, which already has experience in this type of digital currency exchange markets.

Regarding this collaboration with the startup of the European country, Changpeng Zhao, who is CEO of Binance, explained the benefits that would be obtained in tokens within the traditional financial infrastructure.

“Our partnership with Amun in the launch of the BNB ETP will provide investors with a new and regulated assets class with a unique dimension to utility tokens, making them more accessible and reliable through a traditional financial infrastructure”, Zhao concluded.

The use of these tools could allow more and more investors to form alliances within the crypto-market since using physical financial products for the marketing of cryptocurrencies helps incorporating these businesses to be more accessible for more people. Investment in fiat money is also a valid option for negotiations. In this way, Binance provides this new solution in order to demolish monetary impediments in the new financial contracts.

Binance has achieved a crucial step in every company: this means, it is in full growth. This is an important step within, in addition, traditional world markets, which see in Binance a business partner with a large volume of operations, especially in countries that have been receptive to cryptocurrencies and new technologies such as Switzerland. The company offers the opportunity to pay with cryptocurrencies and facilitate the adoption of these type of assets.

Binance, one of the Companies with Greater Dynamism in the Cryptographic Community

The world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is having a breakthrough in its evolution in the main markets of the world. The dynamism that this technology is generating allows more and more companies to create new projects and tools based on blockchain technology. Binance has been one of those companies that has found its technological growth level with the advance of the crypto-market.

Binance has established itself very well in the crypto-market, achieving great trust among users who decide to implement cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. This confidence has resulted in greater growth for the company as well as a greater level of projects to create through blockchain.

This advance in the volumes of initiatives has led the company to launch a platform, a few weeks ago, that would help manage the purchase and sale of future contracts for projects developed with Bitcoin, using Binance’s services as its central axis.

After that, this cryptoactive transactions and exchange company has become, according to the world ranking of exchanges with a Bitcoin-based platform, the fourth company with the highest volume of cryptocurrency operations in all the world.

By María Rodríguez

Blockchain Technology Will Boost Drone Delivery

Maria Rodríguez
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Blockchain Technology Will Boost Drone Delivery

Distributed Ledger Technology stores road information and makes it possible to identify users and different devices to approve or deny the delivery.

As military drones respond only to their specified military bases and conduct centralized data, drones on a small scale could use blockchain technology to deliver a package in a safe and fast manner.

NEM Catapult & AXON IoT could be an option for the evolution of the delivery with drones. “Using blockchain technology, we can improve many weak points for the delivery of drones”, said the company. 

The intention is to provide answers and highlight the meaning of the Internet of Things (IoT) through a distributed and tolerant solution.

The details of the order, the pricing, the time of loading, and dispatch are all supposed to be recorded and used in real-time by a system managing the logistics drones.

Drones delivery represents a lot of information that should be stored in real-time, especially the data related to traffic, to control the process. Also, if it is about a system of drones operating at the same time, the data has to be received from all active drones through the system.

A whole network of drones that collaborate with each other can be improved thanks to blockchain technology. This way, the cryptographic material will support confidential, secure and protected communications.

Using blockchain, delivery companies could consider drone models whilst the platform stores information about location, operation, resources, and the package’s route using smartphone applications and makes it possible to authenticate users.

Different Possibilities

According to pages related to the world of drones, there is a growing list of blockchain use cases for drone applications. Some of them can be used for identifying a drone or compensating property owners for low-altitude drone flight over their property.

Chronicled website is an example of the companies dedicated to investigating how to combine blockchain and drones. It is developing and supporting the evolution of an ecosystem to improve the security of IoT products like drones.

That solution includes cryptographic microchips which give delivery drones a unique identity, which IoT applications use to give or deny the drone access to secure locations.

The encrypted chip of a drone communicates with a chip reader which verifies the identity of the drone in the blockchain platform. Once the permission is confirmed, the window or door opens to complete the delivery.

SKYFchain is a blockchain-based business-to-robots (B2R) operating platform that links hardware manufacturers, service providers, and clients. In this sense, the main intention is to integrate market participants into a common platform. There, clients can rent a drone.

Monitoring and reporting potential complaints about inappropriate drone usage, damage to public safety or personal property can be possible using blockchain drone identifiers.

Decentralized Autonomous Vehicle (DAV) is another example. Blockchain is effectively being in decentralized vehicular systems like Uber (a taxi service) or logistics services like FedEx. 

Soon, it is expected to build a global payment network within the system of DAV in order to avoid the loss of data. Small scale logistics networks like smart agricultural systems with drones would run thanks to blockchain technology.

By María Rodríguez 

BitPanda Users Now Can Pay Their Bills with Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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BitPanda Users Now Can Pay Their Bills with Cryptocurrencies

This and other platforms in the world are working on fast ways of sending money from one country to another. The service converts fiat money into BTC, ETH, DASH, and BCH.

Since cryptocurrencies have been used as a means of payment, different companies are trying to take them into account or facilitate fast cross-border payments.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda, which has been on the market since 2014, is now allowing its users to send money and pay bills through their existing accounts.

Also, it will be possible for users to send money to any International Bank Account Number (IBAN) in the European Union. These payments could be conducted directly through the user’s Bitpanda account.

The company gave the information through its official Twitter account. “You can now send money to any IBAN in the European Union and beyond, meaning you can send money to friends and pay bills directly from your Bitpanda account”, it said.

The Reasons

In this way, citizens of the European Union can now pay their utility bills and subscriptions using cryptocurrencies. This is another step to support the adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

The company has a licensed subsidiary. It is called Bitpanda Payments and it is a registered payment service provider under the European regulation PSD2. This exchange allows users to convert money from their cryptocurrency wallets to fiat money so they can send it to any IBAN account.

Bitpanda Global Exchange is based in Vienna, Austria. The users of the exchange use their own token called BEST.

But this is not the first company that use cryptocurrencies to pay bills. In Europe, there is Piixpay.com which is another service to pay bills. In Australia, a similar platform is LivingRoomOfSatoshi.com and in the United States there is DigitalBillPay.com.

Payment processors like Bitpay, Coingate and CoinPayments allow consumers to pay in crypto and retailers receive fiat money.

Cryptocurrencies Recognition

The evolution of the cryptocurrencies world is not going fast, but neither slow. Point of sales terminals are moving forward. Many of this devices allow cryptocurrency payments directly or through payment processors.

Recently, it was known that fifteen institutions in Osaka, a region of Japan, will accept Kintetsu Shimakaze Coin, a digital currency created by the Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) and the Kintetsu railway company.

This asset will be available from November 11th to January 31st as a period to test the initiative. Kintetsu plans to develop a permanent cryptocurrency to use it in its railway lines.

Next year, 25,000 retailers would accept cryptocurrencies. This would include important brands like sneaker shop Foot Locker, supermarket Conforama and make-up retailer Sephora.

Last April, Bitpanda received an EU payment service provider license to operate. This license was issued by the Australian Financial Market Authority (FMA), in accordance with European law (PSD2).

The first service based on that license is Bitpanda Pay and the project of sending money to any region in the European Union.

Currently, the service supports EUR, USD accounts and converts fiat money into BTC, ETH, DASH, and BCH. Finally, the Bitpanda team said they will seek to continuously add more assets that can be used through the platform.

By María Rodríguez

Broadway Will Use Blockchain to Avoid Ticket Fraud

Maria Rodríguez
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Broadway Will Use Blockchain to Avoid Ticket Fraud

The resale of tickets among other problems could be controlled, thanks to the capacity that blockchain has to store unaltered information

Ticket fraud is a current problem in important spaces like Broadway. In response, this giant of the theater industry is looking for new ways to make ticket buying more secure. The possible solution for that problem is blockchain technology.

One of the problems is the resale of tickets of secondary market with inflated prices. Last year, CNBC reported that about 12% of people buying concert tickets get scammed.

Due to its peculiarity of storing information that cannot be erased, and thanks to its ledger system, blockchain is useful in diverse fields from medicine to art and now in tickets sale for a Broadway show.

This happens since blockchain is able to store a lots of information where only participate authorized people. For this reason, the Shubert Organization gave an opportunity to Distributed Ledger Technology to do more than secure crypto-transactions.

Partnership

The organization, through its Telecharge and Shubert Ticketing division, has teamed up with a startup based in Boston called True Tickets. This company offers a mobile ticketing solution that runs on IBM’s blockchain platform.

That startup was one of two companies selected to take part in next summer, when pilots programs, whose objective is to improve and refine the ideas for selling tickets, would be tested.

Shubert Organization is Broadway’s largest theater operator which owns 17 theaters on Broadway itself and a half-dozen more in other areas.

“We are excited for this pilot with True Tickets to help us explore how to standardize processes across our partners and create a more consistent customer experience (…) We are always looking for solutions that help us work better with our many channel partners, while also providing a secure and convenient ticketing experience”, Kyle Wright, representative of Shubert Ticketing Division.

She added they see True Tickets as a “leader” in the space and that they are excited to put their technology to the test on Broadway.

In fact, the collaboration with True Tickets will allow integration of DLT into digital delivery ticketing services such as Telecharge.com, Broadway inbound, among others.

“At the end of the day, we aim to help our clients develop more meaningful relationships with their patrons (…) This pilot affords us the opportunity to do exactly that in a massive multichannel marketplace”, Matt Zarracina, Co-Founder and CEO of True Tickets said.

Blockchain Advantages

One of the benefits that blockchain technology could offer to this sector is preserve the official information. If a show gets canceled, the organizers will be able to easily issue tickets to the rescheduled show.

Maybe, through this technology, in the future it will be possible to use and individual’s face or fingerprint as a means of verification instead of only showing a ticket which could be resold.

The system is being tested until now. But the companies hope the pilot will help reduce the risk of fraud. Specifically, the buyers who have tickets sent to their phones through this new service will have the guarantee that those tickets are real since they were processed in the platform.

Broadway is not the only one experimenting with blockchain technology in the ticket-buying world. Blockparty, a startup based in New York, has been using blockchain technology in concert and event ticketing since last year. It seems that there is still much to prove and observe in this sector.

By María Rodríguez

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