Ready for take-off: Blockchain adoption in financial services
No technology has captured the public’s imagination over the past couple of years more than blockchain. The technology entered full hype-cycle in but has begun to climb the ‘slope of engagement’ with real progress in 2017. What is the current state of blockchain adoption and what does this promise for the future?
Solidifying the Network for Distributed Ledger Technology in Capital Markets
Nearly 80 percent of financial institution executives believe that distributed ledger technology will significantly transform capital markets within the next three years. But infrastructure technology will be the lynchpin for how well DLT applications and solutions are adopted and perform in the fintech, institutional trading and security arenas.
The blockchain immutability myth
If you ask someone well-informed about the characteristics of blockchains, the word “immutable” will invariably appear in the response. In plain English, this word is used to denote something which can never be modified or changed.
Europe may become the hot-spot for Blockchain disruption
If you are interested in Blockchain, you should maybe look to north-western Europe, in particular Ireland, The Netherlands, and naturally The UK with London still being the fintech capital of the world.
Blockchain based electricity management pilot coming to Europe
Three major energy companies in Europe, including the leading central European electricity Transmission System Operator (TSO), TenneT, have announced that they are working with IBM on blockchain solutions for managing electricity.
Blockchain as a resourcebase
We all know what a database is: an organized collection of data. By analogy, then, we can think of a blockchain as an organized collection of resources, latter being defined as something that exists only in limited quantities. So, blockchain is really a resourcebase.
Ukraine and BitFury launching first ‘full-scale’ blockchain eGovernment pilot
The State Agency for eGovernment in Ukraine and Bitcoin mining manufacturer BitFury recently announced a memorandum of interaction and cooperation to create “the first full-scale Blockchain eGovernance program for Ukraine."
UK’s Royal Mint to sell digital gold
The UK’s Royal Mint (TRM) and CME Group recently announced that AlphaPoint and BitGo are helping develop a trading platform for a new blockchain based product, Royal Mint Gold.
Solving state corruption with technology
I try to generally avoid making political commentary on the blog as it’s not appropriate. This is a blog about technology and finance, not the economy and politics. Every now and again the two come together such as with Brexit and Donald Trump.
Brazil pilots Bitcoin solution for real estate registration
Ubitquity LLC recently launched to a pilot project in Brazil, recording real estate ownership on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Delaware-based startup runs a platform that secures the records using Colu colored coins.
20/20 View of 2020: 10 Trends for the Digital Future
There are two ways to look at the future: The first assumes a linear progression from past achievements and is relevant to forecasting short periods of time, where the future is a derivative of the past. The other method assumes that in the period of a decade, the law of accelerated returns applies exponentially and compounds acceleration assuming a high level of change in the period forecasted.
The future of tickets
A ticket is a type of contract. Ticket companies often have surcharges in the range of 5 percent just for issuing and managing their tickets. Can blockchain technology provide better, more secure tickets at a fraction of that cost? I think it can.
Blockchain Grows Up — The Days of Experimentation Are Over
The last six months have ushered in a sea-change in the blockchain community. In short, the days of experimentation are over. Blockchain is being implemented to work at scale in our global financial institutions and no one will be left untouched by its tidal force.
MultiChain enters beta with 15 new partners
We’re delighted to announce the first beta release of MultiChain 1.0 for Linux and Windows, after more than two years of intensive development. As we’ve said before, our definition is very specific: "beta" means that there are no known bugs or major shortcomings. So the purpose of the beta period is to ensure than any unknown issues are discovered through our own testing, as well as that of our growing user base.
GulfTech is the next big thing
I’ve just returned from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where there were a number of events. Just a few weeks ago, I was in Bahrain, talking at a conference about FinTech as usual. What struck me is the interest and excitement about FinTech in both countries. There’s also a lot of competition between different cities in the region to be a recognised Financial Centre. Bearing in mind that none of these cities were on the map fifteen years ago, it’s quite incredible that today Dubai is the 18th largest Global Financial Centre, one place higher than Frankfurt; Abu Dhabi is 32nd on the list, squeezed in between Dublin and Amsterdam; Doha is number 40, above Stockholm and Jersey; and Bahrain is 58th, above Johannesburg and Copenhagen. Ten years ago, when the first Global Financial Centres Index was produced, Dubai was at number 25 in the charts, and Abu Dhabi, Doha and Bahrain didn’t even make the list.
Ledger raises $7M to accelerate worldwide adoption of security solutions
The cryptocurrency and blockchain security pioneer Ledger has secured a $7M Series A funding led by MAIF Avenir, with the participation of Xange, Wicklow Capital, GDTRE, Libertus Capital, Digital Currency Group, The Whittemore Collection, Kima Ventures, BHB Network and Nicolas Pinto.
