Blockchain Based Security at MasterCard

Samuel Paz
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Blockchain Based Security at MasterCard

     MasterCard will be exploring the use of public blockchain to securely verify payment cards at the point of sale, according to recently published documents. The payment company has presented a transfer and recovery process to validate the payment credentials of users on a blockchain.

The document shows that the bidirectional method first encodes an image of a card and
then saves it in the blockchain after an encryption with a public and private key. After a
request for recovery when a payment is made, the system will use the acquired private
keys to solve the captcha and thus be able to verify it.

With the integration of this system at the point of sale, MasterCard affirms that the
transactions will be much safer, since it will not be necessary to physically present a card, and thus users should not worry about their payment credentials being stolen.

MasterCard issued an official statement, saying:

“The transaction can be carried out by displaying a machine-readable code on the point-of-sale device, which can also prevent fraud and data theft, since the reading of said code can be more easily controlled by means of the control of the underlying screen. It shields easily and often darkens when it’s in a pocket or purse.”

This project demonstrates an obvious effort on the part of MasterCard to use a public
blockchain to improve a common problem with their credit card business.

Around $2 billion in credit card theft is reported globally, each year. MasterCard is also exploring solutions for this issue potentially utilizing this technology to allow  consumers to transmit their travel itineraries and requests to merchants.

 

by Samuel Paz

Bank of Thailand To Issue Cryptocurrency

Samuel Paz
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Bank of Thailand To Issue Cryptocurrency

     The Bank of Thailand (BoT) is considering the issuance of their own cryptocurrency, according to the bank’s governor in a statement on June 5th.

In a speech on Thai economic development, the governor of the Bank of
Thailand, Veerathai Santiprabhop, spoke of the new project in which the central bank
and other Thai banks will join forces to create a new way to carry out interbank
settlements using a cryptocurrency, issued by the central bank.

According to the bank, the adoption of their own currency by the banking system will
reduce the time of transaction and validation, as well as the costs

“due to the lower processing of intermediaries necessary in comparison with the current systems”

Veerathai, noted that the bank is not prioritizing the adoption of the CBDC (the tentative
name of the potential cryptocurrency), but is focused on exploring the potential of technology. The governor stressed that the bank is an “innovation facilitator”, as well as a
“regulator to safeguard financial stability”.

In other news, in an annual live question and answer session, Russian President, Vladimir Putin said that neither Russia or “any other country” will have their own cryptocurrency “by
definition”, given the border-less origin of cryptocurrencies.

 

by Samuel Paz

BBVA Uses Ethereum To Recruit Staff

Samuel Paz
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BBVA Uses Ethereum To Recruit Staff

     The BBVA Financial institution started their “BBVA Campus Wallet” project, a token recruitment platform with the intent of implementing it in the future on Ethereum’s public network. For the time being, the platform does not work with blockchain technology, this model of exchange allows employees to give value in tokens to courses and workshops, online and in person, as well as to certify the hours taken and taught.

This information was released on June 7th, through their official website. Carlos  Kuchkovsky, Director of Technology for New Digital Business at BBVA, stated that

“We are pioneers worldwide in the use of tokens applied to training in the corporate environment. BBVA is exploring for the first time the economic models based on tokens”.

Their operation is based on the exchange of knowledge among professionals. Each
employee initially obtains an amount of tokens (without monetary value) to access the
offering of courses and workshops. If they take courses or give training, they can obtain
new tokens. This system involves managing supply and demand to maintain the value
of the tokens.

The head of BBVA Training, Pilar Concejo, commented:

“We are not only learning at a technological level, we are developing a decentralized model of access to training that entails the exercise of conceiving a new open system based on these ‘tokens'”

In Spain and Argentina, around four thousand employees have joined this platform,
according to BBVA. The objective is the exchange of registered tokens in a public way
and the capture agreements, are defined in smart contracts.

 

by Samuel Paz

Bitcoin Will Never Be The Global Currency – Ripple CEO

Emanuel Adrade
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Bitcoin Will Never Be The Global Currency – Ripple CEO

The CEO of Ripple affirms that BTC will never be the global currency.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, was recently interviewed by CNBC, and stated that he does not believe that Bitcoin will become the global currency. He added that it is not the “panacea” that everyone expected it to be.

The XRP token, developed by Ripple, has acquired enormous popularity by being accepted in the most popular exchanges in the world, and can claim the 3rd largest market capitalization, according to Coinmarketcap.

With a current value of $0.65 per token, Ripple has a high processing speed, which according to Garlinghouse, would be “a thousand times” faster than Bitcoin.

“While Bitcoin will have an important role in the future, it will not be the one that
solves most of the problems that we’re expecting, and will never become a global
currency. I think it will never be the panacea that people expected outside, rather, specializations of different types of ledgers and different types of blockchain
are being seen”

Garlinghouse exclaimed recently from a conference stage.

He also emphasized the slowness of processing Bitcoin transactions, stating that it
was “too slow”, with up to 42 minutes of delay per transaction as opposed to the 4
seconds that an XRP transaction would take. He also noted the high, per transaction processing costs of Bitcoin transactions.

He commented that he does not see XRP as a rival to Bitcoin, but that the market accommodates the growth of many different products and cryptocurrencies, and there will be many winners.

Finally, Garlinghouse concluded, that the lawsuit for violation of US securities laws is outrageous, and that it relies on the legal department of the company to overcome the issue.

 

by Emanuel Andrade

SAP Launches Blockchain Platform

Samuel Paz
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SAP Launches Blockchain Platform

Multinational company, SAP has launched a new blockchain platform.

Recently, SAP launched a blockchain platform as a service, known as “SAP Leonardo Blockchain”, according to company reports on Wednesday, June 6th. The official statement indicated that the new service will support Hyperledger Fabric and MultiChain, and will be built on the “SAP HANA SAP” data management system.

The vice president of products and innovation, Gil Perez, explained that SAP will not
commit to a distributed accounting technology, because they intend to be more flexible
while the blockchain market varies and grows.

In the fall of last year, SAP integrated 27 members from industries that include: retail,
pharmaceutical, logistics, public services and telecommunications to their blockchain program, with the purpose of integrating the IoT (Internet of Things) technology with manufacturing and supply chain.
In spring, Microsoft and Amazon announced new advances in their blockchain
applications, Microsoft Azure released their blockchain service application and Amazon launched blockchain frames for ETH and Hyperledger Fabric.

 

by Samuel Paz

Cryptocurrency Processing Center In New York

Samuel Paz
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Cryptocurrency Processing Center In New York

     In a recent statement, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining centers began operations in Massena, New York, which has a 435 megawatt capacity, over more than 3200 square miles.

One of the subsidiaries of the North Country processing center, Coinmint, explained that the New York facilities will be focused mainly on the most valued cryptocurrency mining on the market, such as Bitcoin, Das and Ethereum.

Kyle Carlton, a spokesperson for Coinmint, said the following:

“The citizens of the area and their hydroelectric energy, an ecological alternative to the less sustainable energy resources used in other digital asset infrastructure data processing centers, were the catalyst for our move and will be the fundamental reasons for continued expansion. Reduced electricity costs will allow us to compete in the global digital currency market that has been emerging at a high speed. “

This company would have already invested more than $50 million in their new facilities, adding another $700 million that will be distributed over the next 18 months, with the goal of creating around 150 jobs. These efforts make the new center the most avid competitor in the current market.

To start operations, Steve O’Shaughnessy, supervisor of Massaena, commented:

“The idea of 150 new jobs and the revitalization of Alcoa East Facility is exciting
and puts all the efforts we have been investing at the top. We are ready to provide
any help we can to take this project to their full potential and to change our
position in the highly competitive market.”

With the cryptocurrency community covering companies and independent consumers,
threats will be the main problem due to the attention to international legislations and, in
fact, this scenario is already being raised by the governments of different countries of
the world.

 

by Samuel Paz

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