Ripple Announces Partnership with Chinese University to Support Blockchain Research Project

Andres Chavez
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Ripple Announces Partnership with Chinese University to Support Blockchain Research Project

Blockchain technology adoption has taken off in the last year due to increased levels of awareness and familiarity. However, it still has lots of room to grow, and has to achieve its potential in that regard for us to say that it is a “normal” or “regular” element in our lives.

One of the idea’s most fervent supporters is, and has been for quite some time now, Ripple. The Ripple project is constantly looking to develop new ways to apply the blockchain technology with the intention of achieving things via streamlining process and providing a unique trust element to them.

The latest piece of news comes from China, a gigantic market for blockchain and tech-related affairs. Ripple has formed a partnership with a local university, one of the most influential and widely known, to develop a blockchain research program.

The Institute for Fintech Research at Tsinghua University in Beijing

The educational institution in question is the Institute for Fintech Research (THUIFR) at Tsinghua University in Beijing. It announced last week that the focus of the new scholarship program would shift to blockchain development and the quest for finding a universal legal and regulatory framework.

Additionally, a handful of selected students will take part in scheduled visits to diverse corporations and other blockchain-related events as part of the research program and thanks to the help of Ripple.

The research project or program is destined to offer students a “comprehensive view” of international regulatory policies regarding blockchain technology, according to Ivy Gao, who currently acts as the University’s Director of international cooperation and development. The staffer thinks that the initiative has the potential of helping those who take part with “future research or career in the field of blockchain technology.”

“The program’s goal – to provide students with opportunities in blockchain research – closely aligns with that of Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative; we’re thrilled to support THUIFR in this endeavor and look forward to its launch,” were the words of the Senior Vice President of Global Operations in the Ripple company, Eric van Miltenburg.

Ripple and other Contributions

As it is widely known by now, Ripple has made a focus on supporting blockchain-related projects and programs in distinct universities and educational institutions all over the world. For example, the protocol made public in June 2018 that it would be investing more than $50 million into academic research involving the technology through universities, forming strategic alliances with 17 of them on an international level, including some in the United States of America, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, India, and South Korea.

Fortunately, Ripple is not alone in its mission, as each passing month, more and more governmental agencies identify funding support in blockchain-related projects and researches conducted at universities as both a contribution and an opportunity for the future.

For example, at the dawn of 2019, United States’ Department of Energy announced a round of federal funding of almost $5 million for high-level educational institutions in the country currently working on research and development (R&D) projects, with a focus on those doing it with blockchain technology.

By Andres Chavez

HuCanadian Banks Could Use Blockchain Technology to Protect Its Customers’ Information

Maria Rodríguez
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HuCanadian Banks Could Use Blockchain Technology to Protect Its Customers’ Information

The Government of Canada will hold public consultations to address issues related to national banking

The Canadian banking sector is studying how to introduce blockchain technology to protect its customers’ data and optimize the handling of information in their processes. This was announced by a group of bankers, on January 15th, through a press report.

The central idea is to use a Digital Identification System in which customers can perform their operations more safely so the bank can protect this banking information, in addition to obtaining a better method to store and transport the information among the national bank.

Neil Parmenter, Executive Director of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), said, during a presentation at the Economic Club of Canada in the city of Toronto, that it is necessary to optimize, modify and adapt the procedures to new technologies, in order to project it towards a future with hundreds of possible solutions to common problems within the current banking system. This is in order to allow the digital identification system could be applied to strengthen and protect the database of each institution.

These statements were offered whilst discussing the boom that the so-called “open banking” is having, in which certain third-party companies, such as Fintech companies, can participate and share the user’s data access between institutions.

On these issues, the Canadian government itself conducted a large public consultation to guide the decisions that can be made at the administrative legal level.

During his speech, Parmenter said that “Instantly checking who is someone using multiple digital reference points is safer than relying on a photocopy of a driver’s license”. He added this system is even much safer than relying on files. In this sense, he explained: “Because this digital network is connected, but decentralized, the risk of compromising the system is reduced by eliminating the ‘honeypots’ (or traps) of data that hackers tend to attack”.

According to many members of the Canadian Bankers Association, this is an important step to link an entire information network with the data that really has value in the processes, using Distributed Accounting Technology to consolidate the Canadian financial institutions in the digital markets of the world.

Looking to the Future

It is not the first time that Canadian banks have announced major changes in their structures. In May last year, the CBA planned to develop a series of projects among which it mentioned the possible use of the Digital Identification System.

Although the use of blockchain technology was not mentioned in previous documents, it did comment on examples in different countries in which the Identification System proved to be a substantial success, and which would seek to adapt these advances to Canadian banking.

Canada is among the countries that are preparing big plans to introduce blockchain technology in sectors of public and commercial life. Some those blockchain technological services, inter alia, are the ones in the customs, agricultural and mining sector.

By María Rodríguez

Swiss Bank Creates Platform to Safeguard Cryptoactives

Maria Rodríguez
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Swiss Bank Creates Platform to Safeguard Cryptoactives

The Swiss banking giant Vontobel Bank has been developing the project “Digital Assets Vault”, during some years

The important Swiss bank Vontobel recently announced it is going to offer custody of digital assets services for all its customers, and for banks that want to introduce this option among their services. This was informed by the financial institution through local news on January 14th.

In the statement, it was mentioned that the platform is called “Digital Assets Vault” and that its function is to reserve and store cryptoactive assets as if they were fiat money. The service will be supported in turn by the institution’s Hardware Security Module (HSM) and the entire infrastructure of the prestigious bank.

With this new platform, users can freely perform their transactions of cryptoactive through traditional forms, so they can make purchases, deposits, transfers, among other movements. This service becomes Vontobel Bank the third institution in the world that offers these alternatives.

Different representatives of the bank explained that the institution will offer its clients a list of existing cryptoactives that are validated for tax returns. Therefore, the institution is projected as a bank that adapts to the different global regulations on these cryptoactives to offer its clients peace of mind when conducting their operations.

“With the new commercial solution Digital Asset Vault, Vontobel is, therefore, the first bank in the world to offer good quality standards in the industry within the established and regulated environment”, said some representatives of the bank.

With respect to security for cryptoactives in the bank, it is known that the Hardware Security Module (HSM) is a device located inside the bank and that provides, stores and safeguards the access codes through an advanced system of cryptography. The device is high-tech and contains the necessary resources to perform cryptographic operations at high speed.

Representatives of the bank mentioned the hardware reinforces the keys that are introduced within the same device, so it cannot offer complete security by means of external keys or that have been transferred. However, the Vontobel team sees this feature as positive and they comment that with the Vault of Assets “the possession of private keys is eliminated”.

About the loan of the structure to other institutions, Vontobel Bank informed that through a simple communication with this bank, asset managers and other institutions can offer their clients this solution for their digital assets.

Roger Studer, Vontobel’s Chief Investment Officer, said this solution appears in response to the need to offer their clients different options to conduct their business. According to its reports and indicators, the use of these currencies has grown to handle important business globally. He also remainds Vontobel was looking for specific solutions for these types of businesses and now it is able to offer them to its customers.

Switzerland has different blockchain projects. The company A. Favre & Fills is working in a watch that will operate as a cryptocurrency wallet. The Swiss Federal Railways Company works in a pilot to develop a digital identity, able to recognize the Swiss railway workers.

Also, two Swiss companies, Transoil International and Solaris Commodities, will use this technology to market agricultural products. This is the beginning of a path of advances, perhaps essays, errors, and successes, to achieve the development of different fields in the everyday life known so far.

By María Rodríguez

Analysts Forecast that AMD will Keep Experiencing a “Crypto Hangover”

Andres Chavez
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Analysts Forecast that AMD will Keep Experiencing a “Crypto Hangover”

As the cryptocurrency is still showing volatile tendencies, the mining business has been one of the most affected ones: the activity, once very lucrative and attractive when, say, each BTC was worth nearly $20,000, is now less enticing as the world’s leading crypto asset is still struggling in the $3,500 range. Mining can still be a very profitable activity, just not as much as a year ago.

That development has naturally affected companies that manufacture pieces of equipment for mining, like GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) producers and semiconductor firms. Such is the outlook for the market-leading (along with Intel) AMD: analysts in the industry have recently warned that the enterprise could suffer the “crypto hangover” effect for a while.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is currently awaiting the release of its Q4 report, which is coming in the next few days. The analysts say that problems could present themselves for the famous company, according to a note from business portal MarketWatch on January 25th.

Low Retail Prices

Christopher Rolland, a financial expert at Susquehanna (an international quantitative trading firm,) defended AMD, saying that the company has managed expectations in an efficient way. However, the lower retail prices for GPU items are bound to cause issues. For example, one of miner’s most popular “toys,” the AMD’s popular Radeon RX580 GPU, is now being offered at $180, which is significantly down from the $550 it cost in February, nearly a year ago.

According to analyst Matthew Ramsay, “following a messy Q3 that saw a material impact from near-term GPU channel sell-in challenges, we believe inventory impacts could linger to start the year, and model Q1 2019 slightly below consensus.”

AMD CEO Lisa Su had previously alerted the community about the situation and provided a forecast after the company released the report of the Q3: “Client and server processor sales increased significantly although graphics channel sales were lower in the quarter. We are expecting that it might take a couple quarters to completely get back to a normal channel.”

It is no secret that the cryptocurrency markets experienced a turn for the worst in 2018. Bitcoin started the year at nearly $20,000 and closed it hovering between $3,500 and $4,000, and top altcoins never quite recovered to pre-collapse levels. That outlook heavily affected GPU producers like AMD and Nvidia: because of the market’s volatility, there was a sharp decrease in profitability in the crypto mining field, and low prices resulted in a disappearance in crypto-related sales.

A little bit more about AMD

With 49 years in the market (having been founded on May 1st, 1969) AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is one of the veterans in the tech industry, being known as a semiconductor company. Its headquarters are in Santa Clara (California) and Austin (Texas,) both in the United States of America.

The firm develops computer processors and related items for consumer and business markets. Its primary offerings to the market include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors, and graphics processors. It is only surpassed by Intel in its field.

By Andres Chavez

Cybersecurity Company WISeKey and Censof will Create Malaysian Blockchain Center

Maria Rodríguez
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Cybersecurity Company WISeKey and Censof will Create Malaysian Blockchain Center

Both companies also work on blockchain projects to prevent cyber attacks and contribute to the preservation of the environment

The Swiss cybersecurity firm WISeKey and Censof, a subsidiary of the technology group originally from Malaysia, announced an alliance to expand blockchain activities, according to a January 25th press release.

WISeKey, which focuses on authentication and secure identification using a cryptographic tool called Root of Trust, has increasingly incorporated the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technologies in its portfolio.

According to what the company reported, the association will establish a “Blockchain Center of Excellence” in Malaysia, and will expand the blockchain use cases available to Censof customers through its subsidiary, Cendee.

“This strategic agreement allows Censof, and in particular Cendee, to take advantage of its experience in Cybersecurity and Blockchain by combining them with WISeKey’s broad portfolio of Cybersecurity services and also strengthening Censof’s offerings among government and business customers”, said Carlos Moreno, vice president of alliances and corporate associations of WISeKey, through a press release.

This explains that the project is the last step in a series of plans for WISeKey, which has said it will build similar blockchain sites in the United States, China, India, Africa and Latin America.

“The potential benefits of Blockchain will help boost the efficiency of our customers”, added Ameer bin Shaik Mydin, Director of the Board of Directors of Censof.

Big companies are looking for better and better strategies to guarantee the security of their information. Among the reasons to promote this idea is that the robustness of cybersecurity continues to be a pressing concern for companies, after the notorious worldwide attacks that began in 2017, in particular the attacks of the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware.

At that time, WannaCry infected hundreds of large companies and state structures, and it was discovered that many of them lacked even basic security structures to defend against such concerted attacks.

Other Initiatives

Earlier this week, WISeKey announced an identity partnership based on a blockchain with the non-profit foundation dedicated to water preservation Race for Water Foundation, with the goal of reducing ocean pollution and concentration of plastic waste.

Customers, using the Race for Water App installed on their phone, will be able to scan the product and get information about it and its ecological impact if not properly recycled.

Each product has a unique digital identity. This can generate a certain amount of Plastic Tokens, a cryptocurrency developed by WISeCoin AG, a Special Purpose Vehicle created by WISeKey.

The amount of Plastic Tokens will be proportional to and indicative of the recycling efforts made over the life of the scanned plastic product. In this way, WISeKey is looking for ways how to improve security, environment, and everyday life.

By María Rodríguez

South Korea will Reduce Taxes Payment to Blockchain Technology Companies

Maria Rodríguez
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South Korea will Reduce Taxes Payment to Blockchain Technology Companies

People who are dedicated to the investigation of Distributed Ledger Technology may ask the government for credits and tax reductions to sustain their research

As a measure of support for the development of new technologies, the South Korea’s government announced it will include in the amendment of the tax laws the reduction of some taxes to companies dedicated to the development of blockchain technology. This is in order to promote their growth and sustenance. This was announced through an official press report published on 8th January.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance reported they will include changes that had been proposed to last-year-tax-law decree. Probably, it will come into force next February of this year. Among the proposed changes, this idea also includes benefits to other types of companies dedicated to robotics, to reduce the environmental impact and the development of Artificial Intelligence.

This tax reform will benefit companies dedicated to innovate in the field of blockchain, so they can significantly reduce taxes payments causing, in this way, a higher profit rate and favoring a better private and public investment in the sector which is raising different spaces around the world.

About the payment of these new taxes, it is known that they will vary according to the company’s size, as well as their level of investment in the research area. With this, small businesses can reduce their taxes by 30 to 40% less. Medium and large companies between 20% and 30% less expenditure on taxes for their development and research fund.

It is known that at present, taxes turned out to be high and with few benefits for the innovation of these technological companies. Since large companies had a tax deduction of between 0% to 2%; medians between 8% to 15%, and small businesses up to 25% less compared with law payment.

Big Government Efforts

In June 2018, the government of South Korea announced a large investment fund that will seek to raise, by 2022, more than 200 million dollars. This money will be used for the development and research about blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and their different aspects.

This great collection will be granted to more than 100 companies and 10,000 experts in the area, who seek to promote sectors such as telecommunications for the effective exchange of information between countries and improve the system of public voting, among others.

These policies have been gestating due to the growth of the cryptoactive sector in the Asian country. Recently the cryptocurrency bag has passed the tests of government security audits. Just as the government itself, in December last year, through its various ministries, have launched various research projects on blockchain technology for implementation in different areas such as maritime and port.

The main idea is to create, through the Ministry of Science and Technology, an intensive program of training, growth, innovation, and development for experts in the area of ​​blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, in order to develop new projects.

By María Rodríguez

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