Shell Invests in a Blockchain-Based Energy Company

Maria Rodríguez
-
0
Shell Invests in a Blockchain-Based Energy Company

The world of oil is not far behind and continues to venture into the terrain of blockchain technology

Shell, the fifth largest oil and gas company in the world, valued at $262 billion, invested in a blockchain-based energy company, according to what Forbes reported on July 10th.

The European-oil-and-gas giant invested an amount not yet disclosed in LO3, a technology and business development consulting firm which is based in New York, and whose Exergy platform is responsible for tracking energy with blockchain technology.

LO3’s objective is to make it easier for individuals to buy and sell locally produced energy using the existing network of power cables.

This investment in LO3 is the Shell’s fourth public investment in blockchain-related firms, according to Forbes, which lists platforms such as Vakt, Komgo and Applied Blockchain as other blockchain portfolio companies.

How Is the Shell Project?

According to the recently published report, Shell has an option to convert its investment in native LO3 tokens called XRG, which will be used to incentivize the platform and will be necessary to access the distributed energy network.

The company originally planned to raise funds through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) through the use of XRG, but, according to the report, these plans are in storage for the time being.

Exergy from LO3 is currently based on the Ethereum blockchain, but is also being designed to integrate with the EOS blockchain, according to Forbes.

The publication details that Exergy is designed to track the flow of energy as it is added to a shared local energy network. This characteristic gives the neighbors that purchase the energy “absolute certainty it really came from a windmill, a solar panel or a gerbil running on a treadmill”.

Since late 2018, Shell has been a member of Vakt, a blockchain-base-trading platform for energy commodities, along with major oil companies, including BP and Equinor.

Energy Sales

The so-called transactive energy market is growing and having presence in more and more companies. This allows users to sell and buy the surplus of energy that they possess, and helps to economize businesses, homes, but also take advantage of the generation of energy.

Recently, the new Australian-based company Power Ledger announced the launch of its peer-to-peer (P2P) power distribution network in Graz, the second largest city in Austria. Similar to LO3, the company intends to optimize energy management and gradually switch to zero-carbon energy.

Shell Oil is continuing its exploration of blockchain with another investment related to Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). Last March, Shell was looking for blockchain experts in order to generate more oil and gas solutions.

Citizens look for environmentally friendly alternatives to buy a renewable energy certificate (REC), with the aim to contribute with energy production. In this way, they what guarantees about the origin of the energy they buy.

LO3 and its competitors could change the role of traditional electricity to achieve more efficient, distributed local energy grids.

“ We see that its society’s ambition to live in a lower-carbon environment. LO3 is a platform that enables that”, Shell Ventures Investment Director, Kirk Coburn, said.

By María Rodríguez

Russia Postpones Legislation for Cryptocurrencies Due to Lack of Consensus

Maria Rodríguez
-
0
Russia Postpones Legislation for Cryptocurrencies Due to Lack of Consensus

The Russian parliament is trying to decide on banning digital assets in the nation or whether it will allow the exchange of cryptocurrencies

The Russian Parliament, the State Duma, postponed the adoption of the country’s main cryptocurrency bill, which is called “Digital Financial Assets” (DFA), due to lack of agreements.

The decision that would be announced this week could wait until the next autumn session, according to what local news media TASS recently reported.

“The DFA law is ready to decide whether we will prohibit cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange in Russian legislation, which means that there will be no exchange points or exchanges that work with cryptocurrencies. We have not yet reached a consensus on the subject”, Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Financial Market Committee, Anatoly Aksakov, said.

The official added that they need to define what cryptocurrency is at the legislative level. Then, there is a fork in the road: prohibit the organization of infrastructures for the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies in Russia or allow these exchanges and businesses based on cryptocurrencies.

The Duma is considering changing the adoption of the DFA bill to the fall session, whilst the representatives of the Russian Parliament have largely agreed on a bill about crowdfunding, according to local news.

Waiting for Decisions

Initially, the country’s parliament planned to adopt the law at the end of June. At that time, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister, Alexei Moiseev, revealed that the authorities of that nation had approved different and separate legislation for cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs), which will be a part of Russia’s law related to crowdfunding.

Previously, Russia had already postponed the adoption of cryptocurrency legislation due to a special requirement made by the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at the end of May in order to prevent Money Laundering and other crimes.

Two months ago, the FATF instructed Russian lawmakers to expand the terminology of the federal draft law related to the regulation of cryptoactives, which requires the country to legislate by determining and taking into account the main terms of the digital asset industry, such as cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin (BTC), in order to avoid misunderstandings in the future.

Russia’s main cryptocurrency bill, “Digital Financial Assets” (DFA), was approved by the Russian Parliament in May 2018, but it was returned to the first reading stage after reports that it did not include key concepts such as cryptomining, cryptocurrencies and tokens.

The Russian authorities had to delay the second reading of the bill to comply with the FATF order, even though the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had established that summer would be the deadline for the state to adopt the regulation of digital assets, after having placed a similar order in 2018. In this way, the project continues waiting.

Last April, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance issued a report stating that the lack of standard global terminology for cryptocurrency assets is an impediment to the adoption of clear regulatory policies in the cryptocurrency industry, so defining the concepts would be the main step to achieve a more efficient and secure regulation.

By María Rodríguez

Grin Will Have Its First Anti-ASIC Fork Next Week

Willmen Blanco
-
0
Grin Will Have Its First Anti-ASIC Fork Next Week

The Grin network will be updated at the height of block 262,080, which will be reached next July 17th 2019. The fork will update the PoW algorithm to prevent ASIC mining from taking over the network.

The Grin project, one of the cryptocurrencies focused on privacy that use the MimbleWimble protocol, will perform a programmed anti-ASIC fork (hard fork) next week. According to an announcement on the website of the project, the event will take place on July 17th, at the height of block 262,080.

This is the first of the four hard forks planned by the Grin developer group, in the course of the first two years of the project’s life. The main objective is that the network remains resistant to mining with application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) equipment, which may eventually monopolize the network. It was reported that the other three hard forks are programmed to match blocks 524,160, 786,240, and 1,048,320.

One of the main developers of the project, known under the pseudonym Ignotus Peverell, explained that during the first stage of Grin, whilst its mining market matures, it cannot be expected to have full confidence in the ASICs. That occurs especially because the ASIC market for cryptocurrency mining is currently centralized, according to what Peverell posted in the Grin forum.

This first Grin anti-ASIC fork is said to be already active in the project’s test network, where the new 2.0.0 version of the network was successfully launched on June 23rd at the height of block 185,040.

The update includes changes to the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, which will change from Cuckaroo29 to Cuckarood29. According to Grin Developer, John Tromp, the development of new ASIC equipment leads to the need to make frequent adjustments to the PoW algorithm in order to maintain an efficient resistance to this type of mining.

In the 133 days of Grin mining until now, there have been no signs of ASIC mining. There is knowledge of several ASIC products planned to be released in the summer. To the extent that any of these ASICs has incorporated support for Cuckaroo29, it is desirable that the personal setting block it.

John Tromp

Tromp also noted that an adjustment to the Grin mining difficulty is not considered. Those changes are usually made depending on how much hashing power the network of miners have used.

The scheduled date for the update was compromised last March, after it was publicly known that new Innosilicon G32 Grin ASIC Miner equipment, compatible with Grin’s Cuckaroo algorithms, would appear. The developers even considered having the fork ahead of time, but this idea did not materialize.

Grin recommended the miners, nodes and exchange houses that support the cryptocurrency, update the Grin software, as well as the Grin wallets to version v2.0.0 or higher, to be ready for the hard fork.

Despite the fact that Grin is not as profitable as Bitcoin, it can be a good experience for novices to invest in this cryptocurrency. Of course, its hard rock on July 17th will definitely lead to changes in its price.

By Willmen Blanco

McAfee Is Willing to Help Cuba Develop Its Own Cryptocurrency

Andres Chavez
-
0
McAfee Is Willing to Help Cuba Develop Its Own Cryptocurrency

As cryptocurrencies grow as an industry, more and more countries are willing to experiment with them as means to hold and store value. The idea of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has long been discussed, and it has been applied in more than a few locations around the planet.

The newest country to be related to cryptocurrencies is, believe it or not, Cuba. Not because there has been an official announcement yet, but because crypto entrepreneur and online security expert John McAfee has revealed his opinion: if Cuba wants his insight and expertise as a crypto advisor, he is more than willing to help.

A Way to Get Around Sanctions

Cuba officials recently admitted that they are considering the idea of coming up with a cryptocurrency to get around American-imposed economic sanctions. So far, the controversial government of the colorful Caribbean island has talked about the intention of developing a crypto asset.

News agency Reuters reported in the past few hours that McAfee stated that such as project is more than viable for the Cubans. Not only that, but he also thinks that it would not be so complicated, offering his guidance pro bono.

“It would be trivial to get around the U.S. government’s embargo through the use of a clever system of currency. So I made a formal offer to help them for free on a private channel… through Twitter,” he said according to the news hub.

A “Real World Application for Cryptocurrencies”

In his official Twitter account, @officialmcafee, the crypto enthusiast, presidential candidate, and cybersecurity entrepreneur wrote that “Cuba is planning to use cryptocurrency to get around the 63 years of economic strangulation imposed upon 14 million Cuban people by the insanity of the US Government. Finally, a large scale, real world application for Cryptocurrencies. If Cuba wants my help, I am here.”

As McAfee notes, Cuba has long suffered the embargo imposed by the United States. Recently, Venezuela has endured the same fate due to political tensions between the two countries, and it has also made efforts to create its own cryptocurrency.

False Expectations

According to McAfee, previous unsuccessful attempts can be attributed to false expectations. He said that “you can’t just create a coin and expect it to fly.” It is not that easy, but he highlights that the key for the Cubans is to be able to adapt the intended crypto asset to the nation’s current reality. “You have to base it on the proper blockchain, have it structured such that it meets the specific needs of a country or economic situation,” he expressed.

There are reasons behind McAfee’s attempts to help Cuba develop its own cryptocurrency. He has freedom ideals, and he, additionally, spent some time in Havana in the past, so he is familiar with the country’s social and economic conditions.

He seems excited about the project as a whole, and thinks he would be perfect for the job at hand: “There are probably less than 10 people in the world who know [create a cryptocurrency] and I’m certainly one of them.”

By Andres Chavez

Profitability of Cryptocurrency Mining with GPUs in 2019

Willmen Blanco
-
0

According to the 2miners website, Nvidia GPUs currently offer higher performance than AMD. The results of the WhatToMine website match some of the figures revealed by 2miners.

The profitability of cryptocurrency mining is affected both positively and negatively by market fluctuations. Just as the miners using ASIC equipment have benefited from the rise in crypto assets’ price, also those using GPUs (graphic cards) are enjoying better revenues than in 2018.

The price and fluctuations of cryptocurrencies are not the only important aspects regarding the profitability of GPU mining. Variants such as the difficulty of mining, the cost of electricity, the temperature of the equipment’s location, among others, must also be considered. In this sense, the 2miners web portal assessed the profitability of cryptocurrency mining with the most commonly used graphic cards.

Profitability of Nvidia and AMD GPU Cryptocurrency Mining

The results shown by 2miners indicate mining in pools with Nvidia graphic cards can provide greater benefit from working in cryptocurrencies such as Aeternity (AE), Grin (GRIN29) and Bitcoin (B2G). These altcoins topped the list of GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, 1070ti and 1080 models, which can generate between USD 1.32 and USD 2.08 daily.

As GTX 1080ti and RTX 2080ti models have a RAM memory of 11 GB, they can mine the Grin algorithm for ASIC equipment (Cuckatoo31). Therefore, the top 3 cryptocurrencies with the highest GPU mining performance include Grin (in its two versions: GRIN29 and GRIN31) and Aeternity. In this case, because they are more powerful cards, they can generate profits ranging from USD 2.97 to USD 3.94.

As for the GPU models with AMD processors, only the performance of three of them was evaluated. The Radeon RX570 and RX580 cards showed higher profitability in the mining of Bitcoin (B2G), Ether (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). For its part, the RX Vega 56 model, which only has a RAM memory of 8 GB, achieved a good performance to mine Grin’s Cuckatoo31 algorithm.

Contrasts in Performance of Graphic Cards

The results described above are only based on data from the 2miners mining pools. Different commission percentages are imposed to miners, as well as different payment systems, which can influence the performance of certain cryptocurrencies. Therefore, it seems reasonable to compare the previous figures with those presented by the WhatToMine website, which can be used to measure mining profitability with different types of GPUs and ASIC devices.

WhatToMine and 2miners show similarities between the performance of Nvidia GPUs, mainly in the appearance of Grin (GRIN31) as the cryptocurrency with the best profitability in the GTX 1080ti and RTX 2080ti models. There are also altcoins in the top 10 of 2miners, such as Ether (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Aeternity (AE) and Zcoin (XZC), which rank differently in this platform. XZC was most often considered as the best option to be mined, according to the profits generated.

WhatToMine and 2miners present similar results regarding mining profitability with GPUs using AMD chips. Radeon RX570 and RX580 cards show Ethereum Classic and Ether as the best-performing cryptocurrencies and the third place is held by a not very popular crypto asset called Ethergem (EGEM).

The profitability of cryptocurrency mining, with ASIC or GPU, is probably as fluctuating as the crypto market itself. The creation of 7 nanometer chips for ASIC equipment greatly optimizes the mining of crypto assets such as Bitcoin, since their power increases despite consuming less energy.

By Willmen Blanco

Businesses to Love Public Ethereum

Willmen Blanco
-
0
Businesses to Love Public Ethereum

In 2015 the Ethereum public mainnet was launched, and private blockchain offerings started. This allowed the entrance of companies focused on collaboration, funding long-overdue digitization efforts, and extending business processes across corporate borders.

Today, efforts to make blockchain technology enterprise-friendly divide the community into public networks and private networks. The dichotomy was wrong from the start, since it was believed that public blockchain networks were not to be used in confidential business operations and that private networks were safe.

A Wrong Belief and a Dangerous One

A private blockchain’s consensus mechanism can make it difficult to manipulate information, unless the companies maintaining the ledger agree to do so. However, these networks are not really safe against data breaches because they need to protect many identical copies.

Despite hacking, not everyone in a consortium should know about every transaction or agreement operated in that network, even among a restricted number of permissioned partners. Private platforms like Hyperledger Fabric try to compartmentalize information inside a permissioned network, but blockchain technology was not designed for that purpose.

Consequently, an immense amount of complexity is added, which hinders security. Fortunately, blockchain technology can reduce system integration complexity, increase security, and improve both resilience and interoperability. Besides, companies are not required to replace internal systems or build “consortium blockchains.”

Enterprise blockchain must face these problems: the need for information transparency across business networks to improve outcomes like food safety and reduce fraud, and the need for information compartmentalization to ensure privacy and encourage companies to participate.

A Common Challenge

If a company stored all its private information on a blockchain, anyone would see it and would have access to the code for business agreements between different companies. That would allow them to reveal sensitive strategies, tactics and relationships to other network participants, even if the information is encrypted.

It is necessary to pass messages between functions running on separate systems, so that underlying data or business logic are not exposed indiscriminately. Publishing messages to a common bulletin board, a magic message bus, is a classic pattern for making system integration more manageable and resilient.

The Ethereum mainnet is used as a global integration axis serving systems that work together without revealing private information, even to partners. Paul Brody, global blockchain leader of Ernst & Young, explains that joining a company’s private blockchain involves linking to its wholesalers, suppliers, shippers, insurance company, and even its bank.

A mainnet like Ethereum 2.0 will enable creating, combining and recombining business integrations, just like workgroups and channels on Slack. An SAP inventory management system, a supplier’s ERP system, and a fintech partner’s blockchain can work together consistently and repeatedly without having to establish a new infrastructure to accommodate each set of partners.

Those Working on It

Firms like Microsoft and Ernst & Young, and projects like Chainlink and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance’s Trusted Compute working group, are already in the lead.

The recently released Trusted Compute specification will allow querying a manufacturer, identifying a problem with a production cycle, and being confident that answers are based on information generated by systems free from manipulation – without exposing private data.

The Nightfall project, developed by Ernst & Young, uses the mainnet to post cryptographic proofs for system integration and compliance. This firm uses the public mainnet, which is reflected in its volumes and confirms that the mainnet can be used in business.

By Willmen Blanco

1...1,5191,5201,521...1,654Page 1,520 of 1,654