Sirin Labs Introduces “Finney”; a Blockchain Phone. SRN’s Price Goes Through the Roof

Andres Chavez
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Sirin Labs Introduces “Finney”; a Blockchain Phone. SRN’s Price Goes Through the Roof

After months of working tirelessly, Sirin Labs announced this week the piece of news that blockchain and tech geeks have been waiting for a long time: one of the first blockchain phones of the planet will be available on the market this month. The device is named “Finney.”

The Finney smartphone features a cold storage wallet, a unique operating system, and the Safe Screen feature, which is a secret screen that will surprise more than one. The developers and creators of the device have stated that its intention is to “bridge the gap between mass adoptions of blockchain technology.”

Meet the Sirin OS

The Sirin OS is the one in charge of powering the phone. It was designed by the company itself and is based on Android, but with more than a few tweaks to make it extra secure. The smartphone comes with a Cybersecurity Suite installed: among its offerings, this is the Intrusion Prevention System, which is a physical security switch that is based on the person’s behavior and has biometric and lock pattern authentication as well. It is yet to be determined the effectiveness of those functions in real-life, but Finney’s features have raised eyebrows around the industry.

The phone has exciting features and technical specifications that may make it more palatable and attractive to the average person in need of a smartphone with excellent performance and capabilities. For instance, it has a 12 MPX primary camera, a wide-angle front camera of 8 MPX, 128 GB of internal storage, and 6 GB of RAM. The screen is 6 inches (18:9.)

The name “Finney” comes from the second person in the world to ever use Bitcoin, named Hal Finney. While the official launch date has not been yet published, we do know, thanks to the roadmap found on Sirin Labs page, that it will be sometime in the month of December.

How to Acquire the Phone

The price of the device will be $999. It will be found in brick-and-mortar stores, the first of which is under construction in London, England. Other countries hosting the mentioned establishment will be Germany, Turkey, Israel, Japan, the United States, South Korea, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam. And although people from Africa, Australia, or South America will be able to order the smartphone online, it does not look that there will be physical stores available for people to directly buy it, or at least, information is not clear.

There will be a 10 percent discount for people that preorder the phone, which will be obtainable by paying in SRN tokens. At the moment of writing this piece, each SRN token was worth $0.18, which happens to be a nearly 40 percent increase in the last day. And since the token is ERC20 standard, people can store them with ease in their Ethereum wallets.

The news about the phone launch appears to have positively affected its price in the crypto market. Whether or not Finney is the first blockchain phone ever made is up for debate and remains to be seen, given that HTC’s Exodus 1 will most likely be shipped in December.

By Andres Chavez

Residents of the Philippines Will Be Paid in ETH for Cleaning up Beaches

Andres Chavez
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Residents of the Philippines Will Be Paid in ETH for Cleaning up Beaches

The environment sure could use the help of each and every one of us, whether it is for raising awareness about pollution and its effects, promoting recycling, being more careful and thoughtful about waste management, or helping our community to clean up our beaches, streets, and surroundings. There is always a way to contribute.

That is what residents of Manila, the Philippines’ capital, will do, or at least one of the aforementioned options: it was announced this week that they will get paid in Ethereum for their contributions in cleaning the country’s polluted beaches in several locations.

The payment will be processed through a decentralized application (dApp) based on the Ethereum blockchain. The reward will be paid in ETH. According to Joseph Lubin, who is a co-founder of the Ethereum network and the CEO of ConsenSys – the most influential blockchain software development company in the planet, no less -, “in Manila, participants will be paid in ETH for spending a few hours cleaning up one of the most heavily polluted beaches in the world. Bounties Network and ConsenSys Impact are proving a new model where people fund causes directly without intermediaries.”

Speaking of the Bounties Network dApp, it is of paramount importance to state that it is a perfect way to allow users in the platform to create bounties and reward people who take part in projects with ETH tokens. In this case, the blockchain technology is applied successfully to create a mean to transparently provide compensations while using the public ledger.

Bounties for the Oceans

The project in Manila is part of a broader plan, developed from the ground by ConsenSys Impact in the chapter “Bounties for the Oceans: Philippines Pilot – Sustained, Verifiable Plastic Cleanups.”

As the program states, plastic pollution is one of the world’s most critical issues, one that threatens to affect the life and wellbeing of dozens of species in the ocean. “It, (Plastic pollution) costs the lives of 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals per year. Fish eat plastic, and we eat the fish. Plastic causes $8 billion in damage to marine ecosystems each year. With Bounties for the Ocean, we are asking people everywhere to submit verifiable proof of their direct plastic cleanup contribution as a way of fostering widespread and long-term behavioral shift. Do not depend on centralized organizations, go out there and do it yourselves,” it reads.

The project comes in handy as the country aims to protect and preserve Boracay, which is one of the nation’s most popular destinations for travelers looking for an option to dive and enjoy clear clean waters.

Why the Philippines?

One of the primary reasons why the Philippines were chosen as the country to try the initiative is because it has adopted Bitcoin as a mean of payment. In addition, the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency also has the backing of the central bank, which has recognized Bitcoin as a remittance method. Other digital assets, such as Ethereum, are also highly popular in the nation.

By Andres Chavez

World Trade Organization: Blockchain Could Add $ 3 Billion for 2030

Maria Rodríguez
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World Trade Organization: Blockchain Could Add $ 3 Billion for 2030

The entity believes that the first cryptocurrency can revolutionize the international financial world

On November 27th, the World Trade Organization (WTO) published a report about the impact of blockchain technology on international trade. One study says that the global economic value could reach almost $ 3 billion in 2030, despite the ups and downs that the digital currency Bitcoin currently faces.

“The removal of barriers due to the block of chains could result in more than a trillion dollars of a new trade in the next decade”, the report said.

The study considers the technology’s effect in industries such as trade finance, customs clearance, logistics, and transport. “Blockchain and international trade: Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for International Commercial Cooperation” is the document that analyzes the applications and challenges that blockchain has overcome —and still faces— in different fields of social organization.

According to WTO, blockchain has the potential to significantly reduce commercial costs by facilitating the automation of processes, including financial intermediation, the costs of the exchange rate and the characteristic transparency provided by blockchain technology.

BThe blockchainis expected to help manage intellectual property rights in multiple jurisdictions through greater transparency and efficiency. The objective is to improve public procurement processes, including the fight against fraud and the management of public contracts.

Another benefit of the chain of blocks is to improve food supply chains, allowing the tracking of shipments and demonstrating their authenticity and origin.

Blockchain challenges

The study also warns about the challenges that must be addressed, as well as about their impact on international trade. The researchers point out the limited scalability of the block of chains due to the predetermined size of the blocks; in addition to the high energy consumption.

In the text of the study, the World Trade Organization states: “Blockchain is highly resistant compared to traditional databases because of their decentralized and distributed nature and the use of cryptographic techniques, they are not completely immune to the challenges of traditional security”.

According to WTO, blockchain technology requires legal frameworks that guarantee the interoperability of networks and provide a clear status for transactions between jurisdictions. “Blockchain could make international trade smarter, but smart trade requires smart standardization, and smart standardization can only occur through cooperation. If we manage to create an ecosystem that leads to a broader development of blockchain, international trade could be radically different in ten or fifteen years”, the report adds.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, recalled that an inadequate application of blockchain technology in some industries leads to a “waste of time”. In his opinion, although many companies work to establish higher standards using blockchain, he considers that this technology is not applicable in all industries.

But more and more analysts say blockchain could “rationalize” the current global systems for finance. Blockchain would make it easier to trade in consumer goods and give small businesses more credibility to start trading with large corporations. Blockchain could “level the playing field globally” for corporations of all sizes and promote greater market conditions for prolific trade and greater globalization.

By María Rodríguez

TRX Unveils ‘TRON Arcade’ and Announces a $100 Million Investment

Andres Chavez
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TRX Unveils ‘TRON Arcade’ and Announces a $100 Million Investment

TRON, the decentralized Internet protocol that hosts the TRX cryptocurrency, announced this week that it will make a $100 million investment in an effort to develop a blockchain gaming fund that will be named TRON Arcade. The information was made public via a press release on Thursday, November 29th.

The $100 million that TRON will contribute to the fund will be spread over the next three years, and its primary intention is, according to the press release, to “empower developers” and create apps on TRX’s decentralized network.

The Quintessential Gaming Platform

The announcement highlights TRON’s focus on the gaming industry and shows yet another commitment for the long-term after the project acquired BitTorrent just months ago. TRON’s CEO Justin Sun explained that the Arcade will help popularize the platform in several locations in the world.

“TRON strives to tackle existing issues faced by the gaming industry by leveraging the open, transparent, and immutability of blockchain technology. The Arcade will play a crucial role in encouraging developers to join in our mission and provide the best blockchain gaming experience to users around the world,” he was quoted as saying in the press release.

As it is now common, TRON made comparisons between its own attributes and offerings and those of Ethereum (ETH) in the campaign to promote the fund and the arcade.

TRX has built its reputation around decentralization, the blockchain, and gamification. They were among the pioneers of dApps, or decentralized apps, and they are responsible for developing innovative digital gambling platforms. In general, we can say with confidence that TRON has a knack to pairing entertainment with blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

“This new initiative will revolutionize both the gaming and blockchain industries,” said Sun in his official Twitter account after the launch was official. He and TRON intend to “build the next generation of games together” with fans and developers around the world.

“TRON protocol is the blockchain entertainment content ecosystem, in which TRX, TRON’s token, is circulated. Its native economic system enables an unprecedented one-on-one interaction between providers of digital entertainment content and ordinary users,” Sun told Total Prestige Magazine.

Sun has stated that he wants TRON to eliminate the payment of channel fees to platforms and ecosystems, such as the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. “With the strengths of social network and value network, TRON is committed to ecological prosperity. In relation to any community and free market economy, an incentive system that fairly and reasonably reflects the contributions made by participants is fundamental.”

TRON’s Recent Behavior in the Crypto Market

Crypto markets have been in steady decline since last November 14th. In reality, the downward phase began in January, but Bitcoin (B TC) and most of the top altcoins had relatively stabilized until the middle of this month.

Right now, as of the moment of this writing, each TRX was trading at $0.015150, which would be a 2.33 percent gain over the last 24 hours. There is still a lot of room to grow, considering that the cryptocurrency was exchanging hands at more than $0.21 in January.

By Andres Chavez

Vakt Global’s Blockchain Platform Aims to Optimize Energy Commodities Trading

Andres Chavez
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Vakt Global’s Blockchain Platform Aims to Optimize Energy Commodities Trading

Consortium venture Vakt Global, which was set up by, inter alia, oil giants Shell and BP, announced this week that its blockchain oil trading platform is now live and will allow people to optimize energy commodities trading.

Vakt Global’s blockchain platform claims that it is the first enterprise-grade solution within the gas and oil markets. The firm tweeted in the last few hours that everything is set to make crude trading easier between commodity enterprises.

By making use of blockchain solutions and technologies, the platforms intends to serve as a facilitator for trading firms in their quest to leave behind paper documentation and replace it with smart contracts for enhanced trustworthiness and reliability. Also, stages within the trading process can be automated, which is a fantastic way of cutting costs, decrease mistakes and improve efficiency in post-trade processes.

“Our 5 investors within the BFOET market have now gone live on the VAKT platform!” the company tweeted. The aforementioned market is formed by Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk and Troll, all crude oil fields in the North Sea. The firm has expressed its intentions to further expand to other markets in its quest for more opportunities.

A Race against Time

The blockchain platform’s first line of code was written, amazingly, in the month of May, according to a Vakt Global post on LinkedIn. Thankfully, and with the help of partners such as Deloitte and ThoughtWorks, they were able to finish the project on schedule and without surpassing the established budget.

Besides Shell and BP (British Petroleum,) which are arguably the most widely known enterprises of the bunch, other oil companies backing up the blockchain initiative are Statoil from Norway, trading houses Gunvor, Koch Supply & Trading and Mercuria, and also some financial institutions: some of them are ABN Amro, ING, and Societe Generale. The consortium is now a year old.

Vakt Global’s project wants to “lead the migration of all forms of energy transaction data to the blockchain, improving data quality, further strengthening security and increasing the speed of settlements industry-wide, while reducing the cost for industry participants,” according to the company itself.

Aiming for a Revolution in the Commodities Market

The consortium and its use of the blockchain technology could “revolutionize the market,” according to a report from Reuters.

Commodities trading companies have made plans with similar schemes in the past, knowing that the blockchain approach can provide long-term solutions and has the potential to severely reduce costs in an industry in which profit margins are slim.

Vakt becomes the first of these platforms to go live. Actually, according to shareholder Gunvor Group, it was rolled out on November 28, but no trades occurred on Wednesday.

Besides trustworthiness and reliability, the implementation of smart contracts and blockchain technology has the intention of solving settlement inefficiencies, decrease fraud risk, and make processes more transparent.

Vakt digitizes and centralizes the whole paperwork that all parties share in commodities trading. “Vakt is the logistical arm…Once a deal is executed through our book of records, it gets pushed through Vakt. The next leg is the financing and the link-up with komgo (a linked platform that will provide financing, including digital letters of credit) gives access to several banks,” according to a Reuters’ quote of Eren Zekioglu, Chief Operations and IT Officer of the Gunvor Group.

By Andres Chavez

Galaxy Digital Lost $41 Million in Q3 and $136 on the Year

Andres Chavez
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Galaxy Digital Lost $41 Million in Q3 and $136 on the Year

Crypto investment bank Galaxy Digital, an initiative associated with Mike Novogratz, is said to have lost around $136 million in the year’s first three quarters, according to a Bloomberg report this Wednesday, November 28th.

Galaxy Digital’s “realized and unrealized losses” in the Q3 was a staggering $41 million, which was actually right in line with the rest of the year’s performance and a bleak offering about the potential behavior on Q4. The sum of the three quarters of 2018 makes for a grand total of $136 million. GD’s share price also collapsed, losing 55 percent in value.

$15 Million per Month Average Losses

The crypto firm is basically losing nearly $15 million per month. Galaxy Digital was founded in 2018 by Mike Novogratz, the ex-hedge fund manager formerly of the Fortress Investment Group and Goldman Sachs.

According to the company itself, the primary reason for the sustained losses are related to the price collapse of the crypto market as a whole, including the most relevant digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), and Ethereum (ETH).

Galaxy Digital emphasized that crypto trading volumes are critical to the firm’s success, and also said that Galaxy Digital “continue[s] to improve and strengthen [their] trading business.” The company also identified “increased competition for arbitrage opportunities” as another possible cause for the low trading volumes.

Novogratz reiterated his faith in the industry turn around, saying that he expects the current downturn to “flip” in 2019. He conceded, though, that 2018 has been tough on his firm in a recent interview with Financial Times. “Financial institutions will shift from investing in cryptocurrency funds to investing in cryptocurrencies proper in the first quarter of next year,” were some of his words.

The Year of Bold Predictions

Novogratz boldly predicted in the first weeks of November that the price of Bitcoin would reach $20,000 or more next year, which would be an all-time high in case of materializing. After almost reaching that number in January, the leading cryptocurrency by market cap has collapsed and is barely hanging over $4,000 at the time of this writing.

To be more precise, Bitcoin is exchanging hands at $4,177.97 at the time of writing this piece, which accounts to a 4.88 price upswing in the last day. The battered cryptocurrency started sliding on November 14th after spending weeks hovering in the $6,400-$6,500 range.

Bitcoin’s total market cap is at $72,690,937,623, while the trading volume in the last 24 hours accounts to $6,966,628,967. There are 1,668,241 BTCs in circulation.

A Little Bit More about Galaxy Digital

Galaxy Digital Holdings, Ltd. (GDH) is a holding firm known within the field as a diversified, multi-service merchant bank dedicated to the digital assets and blockchain technology industry.

The firm focuses on investing, portfolio management, capital markets, operations, and blockchain technology via trading, asset management, principal investing and advisory services.

Galaxy Digital took part on six new investments in the third quarter of 2018 and one “add-on investment,” which amounted to $19.8 million and $0.9 million of capital, respectively.

By Andres Chavez

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