Developers from Uruguay to Test Knowledge at the Blockchain Challenge

Willmen Blanco
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Developers from Uruguay to Test Knowledge at the Blockchain Challenge

The event will start on August 14th, with talks about technology. The event will consist of four phases and will end with the support to outstanding projects in the area.

The ORT University of Uruguay, based in Montevideo, has organized an event with the objective of spreading the potential of blockchain technology development. Through its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (CIE), the university created The Blockchain Challenge, jointly with ThalesLAB and IBM Uruguay.

Through a post on its official blog, the university highlights that The Blockchain Challenge will be developed in four stages. The first, called “sensitizing”, aims to “promote the potential of blockchain technologies, presenting successful stories and different platforms on which they can be implemented.”

In that first stage they will hold an opening event with conferences on subjects such as innovation, the challenges of blockchain technologies and business models. This event is programmed for next Wednesday, August 14th, 2019, at the Executive Tower of the educational institution.

Among the personalities talking about the benefits of blockchains, there are innovation specialists from the university itself, as well as the head of the Banking Sector for IBM Uruguay, Gonzalo Boix, and the CEO of Blockbear Blockchain and Blockchain Summit UY, Ignacio Varese.

Next Stages of the Project

The text does not include dates for the other phases of The Blockchain Challenge event in Uruguay. On the second stage, the post states that it will have the name “educating”. This stage will feature workshops to share knowledge about technology and how to implement blockchain-based solutions.

“Creating”, the third phase of the project, will be based on a contest. In that competition, business ideas that incorporate blockchain technologies will be evaluated “to solve challenges in the areas of government, agriculture, logistics and media,” explains the blog post of the ORT University of Uruguay.

The last stage will consist of a closing event that will include the presentation of the best ideas proposed during the third stage. The developers of those projects themselves will have the opportunity to show their ideas to a jury that will select those “with the greatest potential”.

These projects will receive support from the university and will be conducted with the CIE, indicates the post. The text does not clarify the number of projects that will be awarded, or the type of support that they will receive or possible amounts of financing, if this possibility is considered. They do not give any details regarding the parameters that the jury will evaluate to define the winners.

Previously, the university had announced its alliance with Aeternity Ventures for the creation of this project. It was then learned that the idea is for The Blockchain Challenge to serve as an incubator for projects that could be developed in the Aeternity blockchain. One of the projects of this company is precisely to incubate startup projects to generate applications in its decentralized applications platform (DApps).

This is not the first approach to the ecosystem of blockchain technologies in Uruguay. In addition to the options for using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the Blockchain Summit UY was held in 2018, which gathered specialists in the area, not only from Uruguay but also from companies in other Latin American countries.

By Willmen Blanco

New Jersey Signs a Bill to Create Blockchain Workgroup

Maria Rodríguez
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New Jersey Signs a Bill to Create Blockchain Workgroup

The group will study the risks and rewards related to blockchain technology, in order to find ideal blockchain solutions for the state

In order to research and promote new blockchain developments, the Governor of the state of New Jersey in the United States, Phil Murphy, signed a bill number S2297 to create a blockchain research group.

The name of the team will be New Jersey Blockchain Initiative Task Force and it will be dedicated mainly to studying solutions based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and for the benefit of the state.

This information was recently made public through a press release published on the official website of that American region. The statement details that the group will consist of 14 members who are appointed by officials who occupy different positions in the government of that state.

Chris Rein, Director of Technology for the state of New Jersey, will lead the task force and said he feels excited to be part of the process to “shape how the state government can best use blockchain technology”.

Constant Evaluation

The group, in detail, will study the risks and rewards related to blockchain technology, as well as all information related to distributed accounting books:  both public and private block chains and consensus algorithms.

In addition, the team will evaluate the projects that are currently being worked on, as well as the cases of use of blockchain technology in other regions of the world and the possibility of modifying some laws in New Jersey, so that this technology is taken into account.

Once the work team meets for the first time, they will have 180 days to report the findings of their investigation. As part of the study, the team must provide an analysis about the cost-benefit of using blockchain technology in government agencies, in addition to recommendations on how to use blockchain platforms.

Information Protection

“In an age where digital information needs protecting, blockchain is a technological innovation that will protect us from hackers and those seeking to steal our information”, said Senator James Beach, who sponsored the bill.

The official said that blockchain technology will work as a security measure for digital information, something that is currently needed. “Whatever the working group decides, there is a place for blockchain to be used in local governments to protect them from the ever increasing dangers of the Internet”, he said.

In recent weeks, the state of New Jersey has shown interest in taking measures to protect its users from scams. Recently, the state made some decisions and follow some steps with the aim of protecting its citizens from two fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

According to the New Jersey Securities Office, Unocall and Zoptax are involved in fraud for using their unregistered ICOs. As an immediate measure, the Securities Office asked these companies to stop these offers.

The department explained that these companies issued false statements “materially”, by omitting to declare material facts related to the offer and sale of securities.

By María Rodríguez

The Federal Reserve Also Wants to Create its Own Cryptocurrency

Willmen Blanco
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The Federal Reserve Also Wants to Create its Own Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin has been blamed for promoting crime, but the Federal Reserve plans to create its own cryptocurrency. What the Fed seeks to do is already done by Bitcoin, but it is not convenient for the institution to say so.

It has been called in many different ways, including “rat poison”, “money for criminals”, “worthless” and “based on thin air”, among others. Many things have been said about Bitcoin (BTC) in recent years, especially in the United States, where bankers and politicians are terrified of the cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto. However, even the Federal Reserve (Fed) wants to create its own network, a solution similar to that offered by Bitcoin for its digital payments.

The project, released on August 5th, is called FEDNow, and was announced as “a new 24-hour real-time payment and settlement service to support faster payments in the United States,” as can be read in its official statement. In other words, the Fed is announcing its own cryptocurrency, the same as Facebook did before with Libra. The idea is to create something better than Nakamoto’s design, with its features already in operation.

In this case, the technology that Nakamoto developed and originally presented to a small group of citizens’ privacy and autonomy activists in the face of government and state domination, the cypherpunks, is now described by the Fed as a “fundamental opportunity for the Federal Reserve and the payment industry to modernize the payment system” in the United States, nothing more and nothing less.

Thus, it seems that Bitcoin is increasingly becoming a reference for such initiatives. It is no longer just an isolated opinion of Donald Trump or an audience in Congress: the Fed wants its own cryptocurrency. All this yearning and its search are already a reality.

The organization highlighted how these types of tools “have the potential to be widely used and generate economic benefits for individuals and companies.” Thanks to its flexibility it can manage their money and make urgent payments, obviously without making any reference to their names. People talk a lot about Bitcoin even though they do not name it.

This scenario might suggest that cryptocurrencies are something exclusively for criminals. However, the Federal Reserve, one of the most important financial entities in the United States, is concerned about creating its own cryptocurrency. All that remains now is to hear what Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett and Nouriel Roubini have to say against Bitcoin.

Although the proposal has not attracted much interest, the fact that they are intending to create their own cryptocurrency leads to reaffirming that Bitcoin is a reality that came here to stay.

More than 10 years have elapsed and Bitcoin has been functioning as good money and undergone an extremely significant appreciation of its relevance as a value exchange tool. Currently, even the organization that functions as the Central Bank of one of the most powerful countries of the world is trying to copy its best features.

The strength that Bitcoin has shown since it was first launched and its first block was mined has made it the most valuable crypto asset. All new projects take the cryptocurrency par excellence as a reference, which places it in the first position in the market.

By Willmen Blanco

South Korean Online Giant Kakao Reveals Teaser of its Crypto Wallet

Andres Chavez
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South Korean Online Giant Kakao Reveals Teaser of its Crypto Wallet

When a global Internet giant teases with the community and mulls about the possibility of offering crypto-related services, it will certainly draw people’s attention and raise some eyebrows in the process. That’s precisely what Kakao has managed to achieve.

The South Korean online giants have launched a teaser about its upcoming crypto wallet, dubbed Klip. The piece of news was reported by local agency News1 Korea at the start of the week.

An Integrated Part of the KakaoTalk Interface

The report states that users of the social media and instant messaging app KakaoTalk, owned by Kakao, can see the teaser page of the wallet on the “More” tab. As a matter of fact, the wallet will purportedly be available as an integrated part of the KakaoTalk interface.

That means that the potential for worldwide use of the crypto wallet is substantial: KakaoTalk has over 50 million active users, and all of them will be able to access and use the cryptocurreny wallet from the famous messaging app.

Klip was originally developed by GroundX, which is one of Kakao’s blockchain subsidiaries. The wallet will be able to store the Klatyn that people can obtain online. Klip will also support non-fungible tokens and will also include other tools, such as finance applications, content creation resources, and other blockchain powered games and solutions.

Supporting Partners

Not only will users be able to support Klatyn, but also, Klip will allegedly be able to support other tokens that are partners to the Klatyn project, a relatively new initiative that was unveiled and enabled in June.

In fact, the News1 Korea observes that users of the KakaoTalk can see several partner logos on the teasing page, including those of other tokens such as Airbloc, Pebble and Spin Protocol, among others.

According to Han Jae-Sun, who is the CEO of GroundX, Kakao wanted to take advantage of its 50-million people community to make cryptocurrency services, like the Klip wallet, more accessible.

Jae-Sun had previously stated that “everyone is focusing on developing the ability to increase accessibility so that they can easily use the blockchain. We are making efforts to improve efficiency and worrying about cryptocurrency distribution.”

Klip Will Meet the Market in 2019

The Klip crypto wallet is, according to a Kakao official quoted by News1 Korea that preferred to remain anonymous, expected to meet the market this year, although he didn’t reveal an exact date.

One of Kakao’s goals for the end of the year is having at least 34 decentralized apps (dApps) supported on the Klatyn mainnet. The firms currently interacting there are, reportedly, worth nearly $65 billion of market value.

On March 2019, the Internet services company from South Korea implied that it would be repeating the initial coin offering (ICO) for Klatyn. Whilst it received $90 million from investors, the goal was, according to an announcement from 2018, around $300 million in order to develop its own crypto asset.

GroundX, the entity in charge of operating the ICO, has headquarters in Japan, given South Korea’s anti-ICO laws.

By Andres Chavez

Effective Capitalization of Ethereum Falls by more than 30% in One Year

Willmen Blanco
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Effective Capitalization of Ethereum Falls by more than 30% in One Year

The number of ETH addresses with balance has grown by more than 35% since July 2018. The anchored cryptocurrency DAI has the highest transfer value adjusted per day.

A report by Coin Metrics presents a series of new data on the platform and some of the main ERC-20 tokens. The figures are based on a new way of calculating the capitalization of the network.

Analysts indicate in the weekly publication of August 6th that Ethereum’s effective capitalization during the last year went from more than US $42,000 million in August 2018 to US $28,500 million as of July 30th, 2019.

This shows a decrease of more than 30% in this type of capitalization. Unlike the market capitalization applied to the shares, effective capitalization excludes tokens that could be lost, left unclaimed or inert due to errors. According to analysts, this bearish trend in Ethereum’s effective capitalization has remained in 2019, despite a slight recovery recorded by the network since May 2019.

This predisposition is shared by eight of the ten largest ERC-20 tokens, namely the basic attention token (BAT), funfair (FUN), gnosis (GNO), golem (GNT), decentraland (MANA), omiseGO (OMG ), augur (REP) and 0x (ZRX). The two other tokens are the maker (MKR) and the anchored cryptocurrency DAI, which have shown a growth in their effective capitalization during the last year.

Similar to ETH, effective capitalization has fallen for most of these ERC-20 tokens in the last year; however, MKR and DAI rose. The effective amount of MKR increased to more than US $608 million on July 30th, 2019, compared to US $479 million twelve months earlier.

Growth of Addresses with Balance

In contrast to the fall in effective capitalization, data on the number of addresses with a balance greater than zero recorded significant growth over the course of a year. Thus, as of July 30th, 2019, ETH had more than 28.8 million addresses with balance, indicating a growth of more than 35%.

An analogous trend is shown by ERC-20 tokens, whose addresses with balance also grew during the same period. At this point, the rapid growth of the DAI addresses with balance in predominates, going from less than 4,600 to more than 63,000. BAT addresses with balance also grew significantly, from less than 67,000, on July 31st, 2018, to more than 175,000 by July 30th, 2019. Something different occurred with OMG addresses with balance, which stagnated on an average of 600,000 at the end of 2018.

The report also notes that Ethereum’s adjusted transfer value has fluctuated with the price during the year, mainly remaining between US $250 million and US $750 million per day. It is highlighted that DAI has become the dominant ERC-20 for transfers, as it has experienced a constant increase in its adjusted daily transfer value since April 2018.

The only anchored cryptocurrency (stablecoin) of the analyzed group has an average of more than US $25 million in adjusted transfer value per day. Its transaction count is also higher in relation to the other tokens, which indicates that users rely more on DAI than on other tokens for transfers.

Accurate Calculations

This series of data on Ethereum was obtained from the application of a new methodology, devised by the Coin Metrics team at the end of 2018. It is a method called effective or adjusted capitalization. This new methodology emerged as part of the effort to make more accurate and adapted calculations for the cryptocurrency sector, differentiating it from the actions.

Its quid is to value different parts of the supplies at different prices, instead of using the daily closing as market capitalization does.

This is how effective capitalization uses the prices at which each cryptocurrency changed and multiplies them by the amount of tokens involved in each transaction, to arrive at a more accurate metric. Instead of counting all currencies issued at the same current price, UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs) are added and assigned a price based on the market price at the time when they were last moved.

By Willmen Blanco

Stratum V2 Announced as a Software Evolution for Bitcoin Mining Pools

Willmen Blanco
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Stratum V2 Announced as a Software Evolution for Bitcoin Mining Pools

Braiins announced Stratum V2, the second generation of the Stratum mining protocol. The development of Stratum V2 was inspired by BetterHash.

To obtain a more reliable revenue stream compared to solo mining, most Bitcoin miners today mine through mining groups known as pools. This option is enabled by the “Stratum” open source mining protocol currently used by almost all mining pools.

Braiins, the company behind Slush Pool, announced Stratum V2: the second generation of the Stratum mining protocol. The Prague-based mining company believes that it has improved the first Stratum protocol (“Stratum V1”) in several key ways, which makes the new version remarkably better.

Pavel Moravec, Braiins co-CEO, said that Stratum V2 solves historical technical and safety problems, is much more efficient and allows some advanced use cases, such as work selection or easier mining farm management. He considers that that should have been done years ago.

BetterHash

Inspired by BetterHash, a proposal presented in 2018 by Chaincode Labs engineer and Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Corallo, Stratum V2 optionally reverses the Stratum V1 protocol. Instead of having a pool operator send the miners a (partial) block template, the miners can choose to send a block template to the mining pool operator.

For this to work, Braiins (with the help of Corallo) had to solve some of BetterHash’s most practical problems. Even if a miner can find a valid hash, the block itself will not be valid, thus not helping the grouping.  However, the miner himself would benefit from the valid blocks found by other miners.

To solve this problem, the grouping operator could first verify that a miner’s block template is valid before allowing him to enter the cluster. Nonetheless, in a large and public pool, this step would also have technical difficulties.

Security, efficiency and flexibility

Stratum V2 counteracts this attack by allowing pool operators to cryptographically sign partial block templates. If a miner knows the public key of the mining pool operator, he can verify that the partial block template comes with a valid signature and, therefore, is actually provided by the pool operator.

While Stratum V1 communication occurs through human readable text (JSON), Stratum V2 communication is performed in binary (computer readable code). Moravec believes that, combined with some deletion of data at the protocol level, the data shared between the grouping operators would be reduced by half or two thirds, making communication faster and cheaper.

Miners can have independent communication channels on the same connection, allowing their machines to share data on temperatures, chip voltages or their power supply. The mining pools could offer additional services based on this information, or the hash could share it with another service or servers.

Stratum V2 will also allow the pools to “guess” what the next block will be. Each time a new block is found, the mining pool needs a moment to determine which transactions were included in that block and, therefore, which transactions cannot be included in the next block.

With Stratum V2, pool operators or miners can instead make a guess as to the transactions that will be included, based on all unconfirmed transactions. In these first seconds, they can begin to extract what they think will probably be a valid next block.

Improvements

Finally, the Braiins team says that there will be more improvements that have been not been announced yet. Although the company has a working prototype, the protocol specification is not yet finalized.

Moravec said that they want to collect comments from people to finalize the proposal internally. Then, they will publish a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP), while they implement Stratum V2 in Slush Pool and launch it as part of the trial version of the Braiins operating system to get a real-life experience.

By Willmen Blanco

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