MOBI – Blockchain Solutions for the Mobility Industry

Samuel Larreal
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MOBI – Blockchain Solutions for the Mobility Industry

The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) is a new investigative group founded by more than 30 companies, that promises to change the mobility industry. There are some big names from both the technology and mobility sectors involved in the initiative such as:  BMW, Ford, General Motors and IBM.

“Blockchain and related trust enhancing technologies are poised to redefine the automotive industry and how consumers purchase, insure and use vehicles,”

says Chris Ballinger, MOBI’s first chairman and CEO.

Announced this April 2, this international investigative group has as main goal of making transportation

“Safer, more affordable and more widely accessible, using blockchain technology”,

with a particular focus on fields like: payments, data tracking, supply management, customer financing and pricing. The group will also focus on innovation in areas such as autonomous vehicles and ride sharing systems.

Blockchain technology has an incredible potential in a wide range of businesses and the transportation industry is no exception. Tech Journalist Jon Russell says,

“The distributed ledger component, and smart contacts in particular, could reshape the way organization and products use and consume data”.

This isn’t something unknown for companies like Toyota, which started their own independent investigative program or Renault that recently joined the R3 research consortium.

“By bringing together automakers, suppliers, startups, and government agencies, we can accelerate adoption for the benefit of businesses, consumers and communities,” added Ballinger, who was formerly the CFO and director of mobility services at the Toyota Research Institute.

See MOBI´s official web page here: https://www.dlt.mobi

 

by Samuel Larreal

Iran Announces State Cryptocurrency Project

Samuel Larreal
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Iran Announces State Cryptocurrency Project

The Iranian Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, announced recently that the Islamic Republic of Iran is working on a state cryptocurrency project. The ICT Minister, Iran’s youngest minister, says the the local project would not be affected by last week’s prohibition of local banks dealing in cryptocurrencies.

The Iranian Central Bank banned the trading of digital currency, including Bitcoin, to all banks in the region, due to concerns of money laundering and trying to avoid future sanctions for the county.

In response to this action taken by the central bank, the ICT Minister said to the news agency IRNA

“The central bank’s (ban) does not mean the prohibition or restriction of the use of the digital currency in domestic development” also added “Last week, at a joint meeting to review the progress of the (local cryptocurrency) project, it was announced that the experimental model was ready”

Azhari-Jahromi first revealed efforts toward developing a blockchain-based state cryptocurrency in February. The state crypto initiative is being led by the Post Bank of Iran, a state-owned bank based in Tehran.

“In a meeting with the board of directors of the Post Bank of Iran on digital currency based on blockchain, the necessary measures for the pilot implementation of the country’s first digital currency were set out by using the country’s elite capacity,”

Details regarding this cryptocurrency project are not available. This project follows the trend first demonstrated by Venezuela, as the bolivar (Venezuelan local currency) falls in an inflationary cycle. A similar situation is happening with the Iranian rial which recently plummeted to an all-time low. Cryptocurrency seems like a tool for countries with non-democratic tendencies to dodge financial sanctions.

 

by Samuel Larrael

Japanese Bank Cryptocurrency Exchange

Samuel Larreal
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Japanese Bank Cryptocurrency Exchange

    The first Japanese, bank-owned cryptocurrency exchange will be launched this summer. Yoshitaka Kitao, president of SBI group, announced on April 26, that the banking giant is launching the SBI Virtual Currencies, Japan´s first fully bank-owned, cryptocurrency exchange. The president also confirmed the bank’s plans to launch the platform sometime between June and September.

According to Yoshitaka, SBI Virtual Currencies will support Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and other cryptocurrencies. Yoshitaka also added that new platform would rapidly surpass its competition and “be number one” in the growing Japanese crypto-space.

“When we launch the service, it will be number one in the blink of an eye. So, even if a tremendous number of customers come, we will have a system that can bear the influx of users. We also have to pursue safety norms and standards thoroughly.”

The long-awaited launch has been delayed several times since the first announcement from the company on November 1, 2016 with a ¥300 million working capital.

Despite being completely registered as a cryptocurrency exchange operator with Japan’s Financial Services Agency (the country´s financial regulatory commission), this February the launch was delayed once again, with the goal of strengthening security measures and give better customer service. No date has been issued as of this announcement.

This platform promises to be one of the biggest Japanese market changers of 2018, with interesting alliances, like the one announced in March with the wallet developer, CoolBitx. It’s important to add this isn’t SBI`s first investment in the crypto-market as shown in previous investments in BitFlyer, Japan’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

 

by Samuel Larreal

Sony Patent Stores Digital Rights on the Blockchain

Samuel Larreal
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Sony Patent Stores Digital Rights on the Blockchain

     On April 26, Sony, the company responsible for the marvels of entertainment technology such as the Walkman and PlayStation, registered its first patent related to blockchain technology. Published by the US Patent & Trademark Office, it is titled as Blockchain-Based Digital Rights Management or DRM. It was registered both by Tokyo-based Sony Corp and Culver City, Calif-based Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Based on distributed ledger technology, this system is capable of managing and storing users’ digital entitlement data on the blockchain. According to the patent application, the new DRM has several possible applications. It can receive public-key fueled enrollment requests and make sure the user has the private key to match the public key, inclusively DRM can generate a unique user ID, generated via public key. It is also capable of “generating and delivering the rights blockchain having a genesis block including the user identifier to the use”

In the image bellow is the explanation of the blockchain based DRM:

In the patent application, Sony warns

“However, these conventional solutions may not be very reliable and rely on one unique point of failure. If the rights locker provider or system goes out of business or otherwise fails, the user loses all the acquired content.”

Blockchain-fueled DRM would remove the need for a third-party service provider and create a host of possibilities, erasing the friction in the process and giving Sony and its customers more control of data. Sony describes in one scenario how “content data can be for various types of content or other data, such as movies, television, video, music, audio, games, scientific data, medical data, etc.” The other application proposed by Sony is that the user ID would then determine the rights of the customer, “such as one user having the same or different rights on different devices, users sharing rights (e.g., family accounts or primary/subordinate accounts), temporary sharing of rights (e.g., lending, demo models),”

 

by Samuel Larreal

Easier to Patent Fintech in Singapore

Samuel Larreal
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Easier to Patent Fintech in Singapore

     It’s now is easier than ever to patent financial technology in Singapore. This new, Singapore initiative is part of the Republic’s, “Smart Nation” agenda which seeks to encourage start-ups and enterprises to find innovative solutions and fulfill the growing demand for fintech in Singapore.

The program announced at the 2018 World Intellectual Property Day event by Low Yen Ling, Sr. Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Education, will allow fintech companies to have a much faster patent application process, reducing to six month a process that that took an average of two years previously.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced via its website, according to Daren Tang, chief executive of IPOS, that

“By significantly reducing the time needed for grant of a fintech patent, our innovative enterprises will be able to compete effectively through their intellectual property and use these intellectual assets to scale up and enter the world’s market … we hope to see the emergence of more fintech innovations that will improve the way we transact in our daily lives, bringing greater value and convenience to our people, and paving the way to achieve our national goal of becoming a smart nation.”

Singapore is considered along with London, one of the top fintech hubs in the world, with $225 million in Financial Sector Technology and Innovation. Funding initiatives like this makes Singapore a perfect place for entrepreneurship in the blockhian and cryptocurrency area.

“The Singapore fintech sector is growing rapidly, with innovation at its heart, a swifter patent application process will help companies come to market faster.”

Said Chia Hock Lai, president of the Singapore FinTech Association.

 

by Samuel Larreal

$40 Trillion Cryptocurrency Market Cap – Pantera CEO

Samuel Larreal
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0
$40 Trillion Cryptocurrency Market Cap – Pantera CEO

     Pantera’s CEO and founder, Dan Morehead, says $40 trillion cryptocurrency market capital is “Definitely Possible”.  Since its start in 2011, the cryptocurrency hedge fund, Pantera has close to $1billion in assets under management.

This Tuesday Pantera´s CEO said in an interview with Bloomberg that in his opinion, the “fair value of blockchain” and the cryptocurrency market cap is an order of magnitude or two above where it currently sits.

“Obviously, we’re very bullish on the space. We think we’re way below, maybe an order of magnitude — or two — below the real fundamental fair value of blockchain,”

Later in the interview he added that, “the industry as a whole is $400 billion. It easily could go to $4 trillion, and $40 trillion is definitely possible.”

For this to happen it would have to increase an approximate of 10,000 percent of its current level and Bitcoin price would reach $1 million if share distribution held constant. Morehead also added that BTC remained a “screaming buy” even after its moderate recovery. This is the second of Pantera´s recommendations for Bitcoin this year. After dipping below its 200-day moving average, this recommendation has led to a profit of 29%, approximately $2000. This is highly beneficial for Pantera, as about 10% of its assets are based on BTC.

Watch the complete interview here: https://www.bloomberg.com/crypto

 

by Samuel Larreal

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