Argentine University Creates a Study Program about Ethereum’s Blockchain

Maria Rodríguez
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Argentine University Creates a Study Program about Ethereum’s Blockchain

The program of study will include a module about the history and origin of cryptocurrencies

In a recent press review, it was announced that the University of Palermo, in Argentina, announced a new study plan oriented to blockchain technology. It was reported that the new subject will be mainly focused on the teaching of basic concepts of the world of cryptocurrencies, as well as the learning of their codes, programming language, and fundamental tools.

According to the aforementioned report, the subject called Development Program with Blockchain is now available for registration, and high demand of regular students from its Faculty of Engineering is expected. In addition, the program is based on the Ethereum’s blockchain network.

The great novelty of the blockchain program is the inclusion of a method in which it will be taught to create and design applications in Solidity, the main language used by the Ethereum network. The most relevant points about this study plan will focus on characteristics related to security and optimization of the block of chains. As well as it will tackle the unique development of private and public networks.

A Plan of Study in Five Central Modules

The study plan developed by the University of Palermo is structured in five intensive modules that will include concrete learning plans. The first module is an introductory unit that will initiate students on the main aspects of this technology, starting with the origin of cryptocurrencies and Distributed Accounting Technology, as well as the main tokens and an exhaustive account of the characteristics of the different digital coins.

The regulatory aspects, standards, and legislation to which these technologies may be subject will also be discussed. Decentralized applications and how the exchange houses work will be the closing of the first module.

The second module will focus on the characteristics and central aspects of the Ethereum network. These aspects will focus on ERC20 of the token, Ropsten, smart contracts, the Ethereum Virtual Machine, among others.

Module three will emphasize mainly on examining in detail the disadvantages, limitations, and strengths of blockchain technology in business and in everyday life. As well as the costs, execution and technical aspects of the Ethereum network will be addressed. Then, module four will be more technical and emphasize the security of the blockchain platform, as well as guiding the students to discover the possible failures and weak points of the central programming code.

And the last module will have a central point about the most innovative information of this technology. Important advances, as well as the projections of this technology in the future, are part of the program.

According to the University of Palermo, this innovative course about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will include the preparation of final projects for its students; encouraging research in the area. In the same vein, it is of paramount importance to state that this is a specialized program, which main goal is to train developers who will be able to put into practice what they have learned and innovate on this technology of the future.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Ripple will Create an Investment Fund for Video Game Developers Using Blockchain

Maria Rodríguez
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Ripple will Create an Investment Fund for Video Game Developers Using Blockchain

The main objective is to achieve the mass adoption of blockchain in the video game industry

In a recent press report, published by the chain PR Newswire Cision, on Tuesday, March 12th, it was informed that Xpring, the most important network of subsidies of Ripple, will give 100 million US dollars to the video games sustained development. This money will be managed and distributed by Forte, the famous blockchain provider linked to videogames.

It was known through the aforementioned press report that the money will come directly from Xpring, and that it will be distributed and controlled by Forte, to ensure the best way to invest and select the best budget injection point in the development.

According to the main priorities of this association, the idea is to invest directly in video game developers who work with more than 50,000 active users a day, as well as in those visionaries who seek to create new designs using blockchain technology.

It should be noted that Ripple’s Xpring will not only provide all the monetary capital in the massive investment project, it will also make available to the project the full potential of Ripple’s free software to develop open source solutions which allow a better functioning and growth of new projects. The company hopes to achieve a great adoption of blockchain technology in the growing videogame industry.

About this important association, the Director of Forte’s platform, Brett Seyler, declared that introducing blockchain technology, in a solid and billionaire industry like the video games world will avoid sudden drops and keep the blockchain technology stable.

“The game is a $ 140 billion global industry driven primarily by digital micro-transaction economies, which we believe will greatly benefit the integrity and resilience of blockchain technology. The industry needs solutions that can support these economies at scale with inter-string interoperability”, he finished.

Regarding this, Ethan Beard, Senior Vice President of Xpring at the Ripple Company, mentioned that both companies come to the same conclusion that the inclusion and development of blockchain technology in videogames is successful. Therefore, the fusion of these new technologies with the gaming industry has great commercial potential with sustained and sustainable growth.

“Both Forte and Ripple have a shared belief that blockchain technology will have a massive impact on games, and that providing tools that are easy to use, chain independent and interoperable is a necessary step to drive adoption on the part of consumers”, Beard commented.

Finally, the publication mentions that the Forte platform will take advantage of all the advantages Ripple provides, such as the open source Interledger protocol, the cryptocurrency (XRP) for liquidity in international payments and the Codius platform, for the creation of smart contracts.

The association comes after a significant drop or crisis of stability in the prices of cryptocurrencies. It is believed that they are financial moves which seek to maintain the short, medium and long term afloat, introducing them into stable economies and that; in addition, they function in dynamism and compatibility.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

The Tron Blockchain will start issuing Tether’s USDT in the Second Quarter

Andres Chavez
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The Tron Blockchain will start issuing Tether’s USDT in the Second Quarter

One of the aspects that is sure to help cryptocurrencies rise even more when it comes to popularity is the addition of new features and tokens by known protocols or networks. Inclusion will always help foster global adoption of digital assets in the world.

That is precisely what happened with the Tron (TRX) blockchain protocol. The initiative led by Justin Sun made public on Monday, March 4th, that it would begin to introduce Tether’s USDT starting in the second quarter of 2019. The new partnership will allow people in the Tron platform to trade USDT, a stablecoin pegged to the value of the US dollar.

An Interoperable Coin

The correct term to refer to USDT in the Tron network will be TRC20, which indicates the adherence to a technical token standard that will now be, starting from Q2, supported by Tron. The coin will be interoperable with every protocol and decentralized application (dApp) based on the Tron blockchain, letting traders perform transactions and exchange fiat-pegged tokens across the network.

Up to this moment, the Tether stablecoin is built on the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains, but now, a third option will appear. According to a statement published by Jean-Louis van der Velde, who is currently functioning as Tether’s CEO, “this integration underlines our commitment to furthering innovation within the cryptocurrency space as we continue to anticipate the needs and demands of the digital asset community.”

Tether has been around in since 2014, and has enabled easy, frictionless fiat on- and off- ramping to crypto markets. It lets users maintain, store, and exchange value without the usual burden of having to wait for fiat transfer-related typically slow processing times.

A Combination of Decentralized Finance Services

Thanks to the partnership, Tron continues to fight with Ethereum by combining decentralized finance services with a diversified decentralized Internet atmosphere. According to Tron’s point of view, the news further “elevate its existing decentralised applications (DApps) ecosystem, improve overall value storage, and increase Decentralised Exchange (DEX) liquidity.”

According to the press release that contains the news, the support for the dollar-pegged USDT will enable the Tron blockchain to be more compliant and receptive to institutional investors as well as partners at the corporative world.

Enhanced Stability and Confidence to TRON Users

Justin Sun, the leader of the Tron project, had announced the blockchain’s imminent hard fork, one that took place on the last day of February and that was meant to improve functionality to make it more suitable for institutions.

Sun stated, after the announcement was made, that the “collaboration with Tether to bring a USDT TRC-20 token to TRON will bring incredible stability and confidence to users.” The piece of news was greeted with joy by users of the platform at a worldwide scale.

Tether, despite speculation of not having enough dollar reserves to match the amount of tokens in circulation in recent months and having new competitors added frequently, is still dominating the stablecoin market.

By Andres Chavez

Twitter’s CEO gets a Lightning Network Node

Maria Rodríguez
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Twitter’s CEO gets a Lightning Network Node

Jack Dorsey took a new step towards financial sovereignty, when he tweeted about his new acquisition: a complete node of Casa Bitcoin

The CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, is a successful entrepreneur in the technological world and has revealed himself as a bitcoiner interested in the development of Lightning Network (LN).

On March 3rd, the executive commented on his Twitter account that he already has his own LN node, just as he published it to his followers this Sunday.

Dorsey shared the tweet with some images of the installation and synchronization of his Casa HODL company node, which took place between March 1st and 2nd. “I have one of these to play in. Thank you @CasaHODL @jeremyrwelch”, he said on Friday, March 1st.

According to the businessman, the process took about 17 hours to materialize, this is because, although this type of LN nodes is presynchronized, it is necessary to update it to the most current state of the Bitcoin chain before being able to start creating payment channels in the second layer network.

The publication, which had thousands of retweets, went beyond just giving the ad publicly and officially. Dorsey took advantage of the commotion caused by his publication to share an image of a drawing, which shows a subject on the collaborative drawing board on LN, Satoshi’s Place. In the image there is an emergency exit warning and the door to exit has a Bitcoin sign drawn.

Growing Interest

Dorsey had already been related to Bitcoin and Lightning Network, which is why he showed himself to be a faithful follower of cryptoactives. In fact, the US executive participated in the LN chain of trust, a fact for which he received the torch from the renowned bitcoiner Matt Odell.

In addition, Dorsey is one of the investors of Lightning Labs, one of the main development teams of the LN, along with Blockstream and ACINQ. “I think it has the greatest chance of being the native currency of the Internet. If you think about the Internet as you would in a country, that is huge”, said the CEO of Twitter when referring to the impact of Bitcoin now and soon.

Understanding the Process

The execution of a complete Bitcoin node allows validating the chain of blocks and verifying the transactions of the user interested in checking his/her own status. Apart from this, decentralization also increases and, therefore, the security of the network.

Lightning Network is based on interconnected nodes to route payments, so the execution of one of them increases the capacity and the use of the network; this is just another benefit. Node owners can also earn fees for routing payments, considering that these are ray payments, so the rates are very low.

The CEO of Twitter and Square has been Bitcoin’s champion for a long time, this is his favorite cryptocurrency and in May of 2018 he commented that he believes it will become the “native” Internet currency par excellence.

Users of Square’s Cash application have been able to buy and sell bitcoins instantly through the application since the beginning of last year. For the fourth quarter of 2018, Square posted a record $ 52 million in Bitcoin revenue.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

IBM Introduces another Blockchain Tool to the Market: a Security Testing Tool for Enterprise Use

Andres Chavez
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IBM Introduces another Blockchain Tool to the Market: a Security Testing Tool for Enterprise Use

The global tech giant IBM, loyal to its blockchain-friendly style, keeps finding immense success whilst experimenting with the technology. It is known for some of its ventures, such as the IBM Food Trust, that can make a true difference in several departments.

Now, IBM will release a security testing tool for blockchain takers at the enterprise level. The company’s Security team of offensive security experts, X-Force Red, announced this week, on Wednesday, March 6th, the creation of the tool, with the objective of identifying possible weaknesses and enhance the safety levels of several solutions that can incorporate blockchain.

The X-Force Red

X-Force has made itself a strong reputation for its penetration testers’ extensive security and developer expertise, and its blockchain testing service will be tasked to handle assessment of the processes used to manage blockchain networks and the ledger ecosystem per se.

The implementation of blockchain tools and services, such as the one developed by IBM’s X-Force Red, is rapidly growing at a global scale. The numbers show it: in two years from now, the projected spending worldwide in blockchain-powered solutions is almost $10 billion.

Whilst more than two thirds of blockchain solutions rely on traditional methods for authentication, Application Programming Interfaces (API) and data processing, the X-Force Red will have the ability to evaluate the entire implementation of the technology (including some elements not covered under the usual settlements, such as chain code and hyperledgers.) The tool will be able to control access and manage blockchain networks with high efficiency.

Enhancing Security and Attacking Inefficiencies

The IBM’s X-Force Red represents the operational version of the company’s internal security testing resource for blockchain solutions. The primary goal of the system is to enhance security levels and attack the inefficiencies that enterprise blockchain deployments may have.

Enterprise blockchain solutions have certainly endured its fair share of criticism, particularly from within the industry and the technology’s community. However, it has been demonstrated that it is viewed as the present and future, as it has evidenced tangible growth over the last couple of years.

However, all actors are in agreement when they say that for the blockchain model to establish itself and gain more prestige, it is absolutely necessary that security measures and methods are tight, reliable, and efficient.

“While blockchain is a breakthrough for protecting the integrity of data, that does not mean the solutions that leverage it are immune from attackers, which is why security testing is essential during development and after deployment. If we look at mobile applications, cloud computing, and even personal computers – all these innovations needed to adopt policies and techniques for security after they grew in popularity. Blockchain presents businesses with an opportunity to break that trend,” were the words of IBM X-Force Red’s global Head, Charles Henderson.

Another aspect that the product will attend is smart contract flaws. IBM continues to amaze with its wide array of blockchain related products and services, the latest development being a multi-bank implementation in Japanese soil.

By Andres Chavez

Carrefour Adds Milk to its Food Traceability Network Based on Blockchain Technology

Andres Chavez
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Carrefour Adds Milk to its Food Traceability Network Based on Blockchain Technology

The blockchain technology keeps making headlines thanks to its power to change the way processes are performed worldwide and in several industries. Food is one of the sectors that have benefited the most with the rise and popularity of blockchain services that help add trustworthiness and traceability to crucial stages in the supply chain.

Carrefour has been, for quite some time now, among the leaders in blockchain applications at a global scale. In 2018, the French company became the first one to use blockchain technology for European food tracing, most specifically for chicken and tomatoes. Now, another heavily-consumed product has joined the system to ensure the best standards of quality are met in all stages.

Carrefour’s Quality Line (CQL) fresh micro-filtered full fat milk

The newest product to be included in the retailer’s blockchain network is milk, most precisely, Carrefour’s Quality Line (CQL) fresh micro-filtered full fat milk. The information era has contributed to the birth of a brand new requirement for enterprises in the food sector: traceability and reliability.

People like to know that the item they are paying for fulfill the marketing messages that are present in advertising. And thanks to the most recent news coming from Carrefour, they can starting this month, use their smartphones to make sure everything is OK in the whole CQL milk’s supply chain.

According to a Carrefour’s press release, “consumers will be able to locate the GPS coordinates of the breeders, obtain information about the feeding of cows according to the season, know the precise date of the milk collection and the place of its packaging.”

Matching What’s Advertised: a Common Requirement

Customers of the well-known French food brand will have the ability to ensure that the milk fulfills the necessary requirements and match its advertising, namely that cows are fed non GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) food, reared on farms that have the appropriate size and under the best conditions.

Additionally, people that acquire the CQL milk can get to know at exactly which farms it was produced, the time of its packaging, and the moment in which it was placed on the shelves, ready to be sold.

“The blockchain technology will also allow them (the end customers) to identify the actors in this sector (names and photos,) and discover their trades both in terms of breeding practices and methods of preserving milk by microfiltration,” the statement read.

GPS of the Farm’s Location

Customers will also be able to find out at which farms the milk was produced, when the milk was packaged and when it was placed on the shelves. They can even see the GPS coordinates of the farm location.

The firm puts in a lot of work to guarantee food traceability and, therefore, trustworthiness and reliability. It is not a coincidence that the company joined the IBM’s Food Trust Network along with other business such as Dole, Driscoll’s, Golden State Foods, Kroger, McCormick and Company, McLane Company, Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Unilever and Walmart.

By Andres Chavez

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