I have written earlier about problems in banking security and credit card security issues. But what about some other banking issues?
Banking is Broken: A Financial Revolution is Coming article tells that a trio of startups are seeking to change the way we manage our money, by focusing on the customers traditional banks are ignoring. Banks have been slow to embrace new technology.
Finland’s Holvi, Sweden’s iZettle and Estonias TransferWise all took the stage at the Slush startup conference in Helsinki last week, and while they all offer completely different services, they are share a similar goal – to empower the customers that they believe traditional banks are ignoring.
Holvi offers customers an alternative type of current account, integrating bookkeeping and money management in a clean, simple online interface. TransferWise, founded by the first ever Skype employee Taavet Hinrikus, is looking to bring the essence of Skype’s ethos of offering cut rate international phone calls to the money exchange market. Speaking at Slush last week de Geer said that iZettle was “effectively about democratising card payments.”
Keep in mind that Holvi, TransferWise and iZettle are just three of the hundreds of companies looking to cash-in on the revolution that is coming to the banking industry.
What made the article really interesting to me is that I happen to know one of the Kristoffer Lawson, Founder and CEO of Holvi. I have personally heard the story of how the company was put up, that they were applying the needed license and when they got it. But the article includes some a bold new statement: traditional banks are ignoring 80% of their customers.
Lawson believes that Holvi’s new type of account is “the future of banking” and his company is rethinking what it means to be a bank: Holvi offers customers an alternative type of current account, integrating bookkeeping and money management in a clean, simple online interface. It is designed for use by groups and organisations so they can collaborate, making it ideal for events such as Slush, which used the Holvi system for all its budgeting and ticketing operations this year.
And I have also heard of some other events in Finland do the same. The reason why such events have actively started to use the system is that Lawson had been earlier active on organizing different computer events, so he knows the needs of this type of organizations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg Business:
VC investments in bitcoin-related startups slow to $85M in Q3 2015, a 41% drop from Q2 — The Bitcoin Startup Boom Comes Back Down to Earth — Growth in venture capital flowing to bitcoin startups slowed substantially last quarter, and startups are feeling the pinch.
The Bitcoin Startup Boom Comes Back Down to Earth
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-26/the-bitcoin-startup-boom-comes-back-down-to-earth
Growth in venture capital flowing to bitcoin startups slowed substantially last quarter, and startups are feeling the pinch.
A chill in bitcoin-related investments is not just affecting bizarre satellite-launching ventures. After an aggressive start to 2015 that entailed venture capitalists kicking $373 million into bitcoin startups in the first half of the year, growth slowed substantially in the third quarter, according to data from researcher CoinDesk. The $85 million in investments last quarter represents a relatively modest growth rate of 15 percent from a year earlier and a 41 percent drop from the previous quarter.
On Nov. 2, dozens of the most influential contributors to bitcoin’s development will convene virtually on Bitcoin.com’s Web forums as part of an event designed to answer questions about the digital currency’s future. They’ll have much to discuss.
The total amount of venture capital invested in bitcoin companies is expected to surpass $1 billion by the end of October, according to Barry Silbert, a bitcoin bull and co-founder of SecondMarket, which is being acquired by Nasdaq. But the next milestone may come slower as investors tread cautiously.
Some of the early bets have not panned out. Buttercoin, a bitcoin marketplace that went through Y Combinator’s tech incubator, closed its doors this year, along with several other startups, while many survivors have merged so they can continue operating. BitPay, a bitcoin payment processor backed by Founders Fund and other venture firms, cut staff in September
Bitcoin believers can be found among some of the highest-profile venture capitalists.
Andreessen Horowitz backed 21, which makes bitcoin computers.
A big source of the hard times for bitcoin startups is bitcoin itself. The price of the digital currency has declined 9.5 percent since the beginning of this year. Bitcoin Investment Trust, a publicly traded bitcoin fund created by Silbert, is down 35 percent since it listed in May. The hype has died down at online stores as well. After seeing huge growth in bitcoin sales last year, Web retailer Overstock.com said bitcoin transactions account for about 0.02 percent of sales this year, which is half of what they were in 2014.
Investors are now more interested in bitcoin’s underlying technology, called the blockchain. It’s a mechanism for quickly and accurately recording transactions in an online ledger, and it could have important applications in banking and e-commerce to facilitate faster bank transfers or international transactions. On Oct. 14, bitcoin startup Bitreserve changed its name to Uphold and switched its focus to letting people transact in any form of money or commodity they choose, using the blockchain. “There’s a lot of pivoting of companies saying we want to build things for companies on the blockchain,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Applications for the Bitcoin Blockchain
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/27/applications-for-the-bitcoin-blockchain/
Bitcoin, the libertarian’s dream currency, is far past the heady days of late 2013. When one Bitcoin was worth $1000 USD, there was no end to what could be done; new, gigantic mining rigs were being created, every online store jumped onto the bandwagon, and the price of Bitcoin inevitably crashed. Right now, the exchange rate sits at about $280 USD per coin, valuing all the Bitcoins ever mined somewhere around $4 Billion USD. That’s a lot of coins out there, and a lot of miners constantly verifying the integrity of the greatest thing to come from the Bitcoin community: the blockchain.
The bitcoin is just a record, or the ledger, of every transaction that has ever occurred on the Bitcoin network. It’s distributed, and the act of mining coins creates new blocks, or another set of data committed to the blockchain for eternity. While magical Internet money™ is by far the most visible product of the blockchain, developers, investors, and other people in the know are gushing about the possibilities of what can be done with a distributed record that can’t practically be altered and can’t be deleted.
[Jon Matonis], a figurehead for the entire cryptocurrency movement, recently said Bitcoin has become the strongest computer in the world, and stronger than all of the top 500 supercomputers combined. All of this computational power is effectively funneled in to verifying the integrity of the blockchain.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not just a completely anonymous payment system; that’s only a side effect of the blockchain. The blockchain is the only inherently valuable part of a bitcoin; each transaction is logged in the blockchain, providing incredible security over how every coin is spent. No currency in the history of mankind has ever had a record of how every dollar or denarius is spent, and at the very least makes for very interesting economics research. Now, thousands of researchers across the globe are wondering what else the blockchain can do; tapping the power of the most powerful computer on the planet must have some interesting applications, and in the last few months, a few ideas have popped up.
The idea of secure, immutable transactions recorded for all time has obvious applications for contracts and any other legally binding agreement. Already, a few companies are on the case: Stampery is basically a blockchain-based notary public, capable of verifying ownership of files, certifying that emails have not been tampered with, and can do so without an in-house database. It’s directly tied to the Bitcoin blockchain.
Every bitcoin transaction means a little money changed hands, and in the case of Bitcoin, this makes for a perfect substitute for money transfer services like Western Union. With incredible volatility, Bitcoin is not for everyone, so what if real money could be transferred via the Bitcoin blockchain. That’s the idea of Uphold, and while this basic idea doesn’t have the security of a pure Bitcoin transaction, it is somewhat interesting.
Blockcast is an open source effort for simply storing data on the Bitcoin blockchain. In storing data on the blockchain, the data are embedded on up to 16 Bitcoin transactions. It doesn’t allow for storing large amounts of data. The total compressed size of a document is no larger than 1277 bytes
By any measure Blockcast is useful in a way similar to Twitter; just something that allows anyone to broadcast information to anyone else. Unlike Twitter, it’s doing so in a cryptographically signed, verifiable format that can never be deleted.
That’s where Ethereum comes in; it’s a decentralized platform to build applications that run on the blockchain. Any developer can create an application like distributed crowdfunding, a democratic organization, or literally anything else you can do on the Internet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Deutsche Bank to axe ‘excessively complex’ IT, slash 9,000 jobs
Guys, do we really need 45 operating systems?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/30/deutsche_bank_overhauls_45_operating_systems/
Deutsche Bank is re-engineering its “excessively complex” IT – including slashing its number operating systems from 45 down to four – as part of a sweeping strategic overhaul.
Under its major rationalisation plans the bank will also pull out of 10 countries and cut 9,000 jobs globally.
Part of that will also include slashing 6,000 of its 30,000 external consultants it uses in areas such as IT.
Part of that move will also include moving from having 46 per cent of its infrastructure “virtualised” to 95 per cent – and a 20 per cent private cloud adoption to 80 per cent by 2020.
Peter Roe, analyst at TechMarketView, said: “The management envisage a total overhaul of IT infrastructure; re-engineering the architecture, industrialising and automating processes and digitalising customer experience.”
As such, “run the bank” costs are expected to fall by €800m (£574m) and a further cut of 6,000 contractors will provide €1bn (£717m) in total savings.
“To succeed, DB will need to be bold and clinical with respect to its IT transformation, which may well prove counter-cultural. Greater reliance on big vendors, including significant outsourcing, such as evidenced in the HP deal, see here, should be a major part of their plans. There is much to do,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
What happens to your branch offices altogether? – OP from rattling the bank’s vision
Services will be more and more clients to create and banking matters are dealt with at home. Banks’ employees could also do some work from home.
In past years, could be the smallest in the square around the four bank branches. Customer’s task was only to choose from.
Then came the early 1990s banking crisis, and the former branch offices became the flea markets and restaurants. Year of ten the number of bank branches fell by half.
Now, more and more of their banking either a home computer or a mobile phone. Consumers’ Association in a recent survey, online banking services were relatively satisfied. Loan negotiations and investment banking still want to talk to the lady.
OP has envisioned, what is the 2030 banking. An outline published on the group’s website, the then almost all bank transactions can be treated at home, which will also load money on the card.
If necessary, the customer service is handled 3D-image transfer machines with “camera gets exercise of both parties to each other creates a three-dimensional image”.
Bank of buildings is no longer needed at all. Bank employees work in their homes the bank’s own machines.
In early March, the person serving the customers in bank branches in Finland was 1 109. The next year the number of branches may fall below one thousand.
The Financial Supervisory Authority is concerned that basic banking services also remain available to those who are not familiar with the online services.
- There are people who do not have the capability of conducting business online, or at least the high threshold. Especially in the elderly can be found in these kinds of customers
Nordea’s Group CEO Casper von Koskull recently said that the bank offices disappearing from Finland to nowhere.
He stressed that Nordea continues to build the new branches, for example, in shopping centers.
Source: http://www.taloussanomat.fi/rahoitus/2015/11/04/katoavatko-konttorit-kokonaan-oplta-hurja-pankkivisio/201514407/12?rss=4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Gandel / Fortune:
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says Bitcoin, or any virtual currency not controlled by governments will be stopped, but believes in future of block chain technolgy — Jamie Dimon: Virtual Currency Will Be Stopped — Jamie Dimon isn’t on board with bitcoin. — Speaking on Wednesday …
Jamie Dimon: Virtual Currency Will Be Stopped
http://fortune.com/2015/11/04/jamie-dimon-virtual-currency-bitcoin/
The JPMorgan CEO explains why he thinks the government will crack down on bitcoin and other virtual currencies before they get big.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Fortune Global Forum, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase JPM 1.08% said that the market for the virtual currency isn’t large and it would be stopped by the government before it ever got to that point. Dimon said despite the fact that bitcoin was getting some lip service in Washington, as politicians try to say they support Silicon Valley innovation, he thinks eventually there will be a crackdown.
“Virtual currency, where it’s called a bitcoin vs. a U.S. dollar, that’s going to be stopped,” said Dimon. “No government will ever support a virtual currency that goes around borders and doesn’t have the same controls. It’s not going to happen.”
Just the same, Dimon said JPMorgan had established a study group to examine the blockchain technology used to record bitcoin transactions.
“Block chain is like any other technology,” said Dimon. “If it is cheaper, effective, works, and secure, then we are going to use it.”
Right now, the verdict on blockchain tech is mixed, Dimon said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin Inventor Satoshi Nakamoto Nominated For Nobel Prize
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/11/08/1732220/bitcoin-inventor-satoshi-nakamoto-nominated-for-nobel-prize
Nobel Prizes are given for making important — preferably fundamental — breakthroughs in the realm of ideas. That’s just what Satoshi Nakamoto has done, according to Bhagwan Chowdhry, a professor of finance at UCLA. Chowdhry has nominated Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, for a Nobel prize in economics.
I (Shall Happily) Accept the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics on Behalf of Satoshi Nakamoto
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bhagwan-chowdry/i-shall-happily-accept-th_b_8462028.html
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? We don’t really know.
Where does he work and which country does he live in? We don’t know.
Which scholarly journals in the field of Economics or Finance has he published his research in? Not in any of the reputed journals that one would look for — American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Econometrica.
Has he published anything? Yes, a nine-page white paper titled, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” that he posted on the Internet on May 24, 2009.
I am completely serious in suggesting Satoshi Nakamoto for the Prize. The invention of bitcoin — a digital currency — is nothing short of revolutionary.
Bitcoin, the currency, sometimes referred to as Digital Gold, on the other hand is digital and exists purely as a mathematical object. It offers many advantages over both physical and paper currencies. It is secure, relying on almost unbreakable cryptographic code, can be divided into millions of smaller sub-units, and can be transferred securely and nearly instantaneously from one person to any other person in the world with access to internet bypassing governments, central banks and financial intermediaries such as Visa, Mastercard, Paypal or commercial banks eliminating time delays and transactions costs.
But beyond demonstrating the possibility of creating a reliable digital currency, Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Protocol has spawned exciting innovations in the FinTech space by showing how many financial contracts — not just currencies — can be digitized, securely verified and stored, and transferred instantaneously from one party to another. The implications of this are immense. This will likely create an open, decentralized, public infrastructure for moving both money — as Stellar.org is trying to create – as well as other smart contracts — as Ethereum.org is attempting to foster — as easily as email but with security and nearly zero transactions costs.
Not only will Satoshi Nakamoto’s contribution change the way we think about money, it is likely to upend the role central banks play in conducting monetary policy, destroy high-cost money transfer services such as Western Union, eliminate the 2-4% transactions tax imposed by intermediaries such as Visa, MasterCard and Paypal, eliminate the time-consuming and expensive notary and escrow services and indeed transform the landscape of legal contracts completely. Many industries such as Banking, Finance, Law will see a big upheaval.
Suppose that the Nobel Committee is convinced that Satoshi Nakamoto deserves the Prize. Now the problem it will face is how to contact him to announce that he has won the Prize. The usual protocol is that the committee obtains the awardee’s telephone number and calls the person to announce that he or she has won. But in this case, no one really knows who is, where he lives or what his phone number is. But that does not mean he does not exist. He does. He exists online.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jamie Dimon: You’re Wasting Your Time With Bitcoin
http://fortune.com/video/2015/11/04/jamie-dimon-youre-wasting-your-time-with-bitcoin/
The JPMorgan Chase CEO explains why he doesn’t believe the digital currency will become a major player.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robin Sidel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple in talks with US banks to develop a mobile person-to-person payment service, to rival PayPal’s Venmo platform, could launch in 2016
Apple, Banks in Talks on Mobile Person-to-Person Payment Service
Service would be a rival to PayPal’s Venmo platform
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/apple-in-talks-with-u-s-banks-to-develop-mobile-person-to-person-payment-service-1447274074-lMyQjAxMTA1NTE0MTAxNzE0Wj
Apple Inc. is in discussions with U.S. banks to develop a payment service that would let users zap money to one another from their phones rather than relying on cash or checks, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move would put the tech giant in competition with an increasing number of Silicon Valley firms trying to persuade Americans to ditch their wallets in favor of digital options.
The talks with banks are continuing and it is unclear if any of the firms have struck an agreement with Apple, these people said.
If Apple’s plans go forward, the service would likely be similar to PayPal Holdings Inc. ’s Venmo platform, which is popular among younger consumers to do things such as pitch in on gifts and share rent payments with roommates.
It also represents the latest attempt by banks and other providers to shift Americans away from cash and checks, which can be more costly and less efficient for the banks and less convenient for customers. Those methods are still the most popular ways people send money to friends and pay service providers such as handymen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Kar / Quartz:
Sources: Apple partnering with banks for peer-to-peer payment program to avoid money transmitter licenses, company may use iMessage for money transfer
Apple is making a grab for Venmo’s turf and might use iMessage to do it
http://qz.com/547502/apple-is-making-a-grab-for-venmos-turf-and-might-use-imessage-to-do-it/
Apple is wading into Venmo’s main business, betting that letting users easily send money to each other will make its Apple Pay service more appealing.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 11 that Apple has been talking about the program with US banks, including JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo, and Citi. The Journal says Apple and the banks are haggling over technical issues, and suggests that Apple may not be looking to make money off peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. The economics of money transfer are still being figured out, and some tech giants like Facebook offer the service at a loss.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft launches cloud-based blockchain platform with Brooklyn start-up
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/10/us-microsoft-tech-blockchain-idUSKCN0SZ2ER20151110
Microsoft launched a cloud-based blockchain platform on Tuesday with Brooklyn-based start-up ConsensYs, which will allow financial institutions to experiment cheaply and easily with the technology underpinning bitcoin.
The blockchain works as a huge, decentralized ledger of every bitcoin transaction, which is verified and shared by a global computer network and therefore is virtually tamper-proof.
The financial industry is increasingly investing in the technology, betting it will reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Blockchain technology is not limited to bitcoin — it can be used to secure and validate the exchange of any data. And other companies are now building their own blockchains that provide additional features to the original bitcoin one.
One such company is Ethereum, which has built a fully programmable blockchain. Technology giant Microsoft is using it for the blockchain platform launched on Tuesday.
The platform will be available to banks and insurance companies that are already using Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure platform. Microsoft said four large global financial institutions had already signed up to the service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Visa uses bitcoin’s blockchain technology to cut paperwork out of car leasing
A new proof-of-concept lets you lease a car in a matter of minutes thanks to a combination of Visa, DocuSign and blockchain technology
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11961296/Visa-uses-bitcoins-blockchain-technology-to-cut-paperwork-out-of-car-rental.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mining (And Learning) With The 21 Bitcoin Computer
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/18/mining-and-learning-with-the-21-bitcoin-computer/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_-7931639259169836000#.ojwuxm:g4kX
A few days ago a $400 charge hit my credit card and Amazon notified me that my 21.co bitcoin computer was on its way.
Essentially a Raspberry Pi connected with a custom bitcoin-mining ASIC and a heatsink, the computer is one of the most interesting MVPs in modern memory. While you could easily recreate it yourself, the fact that 21 is building and selling these for a few hundred dollars is a testament to the future widespread adoption of BTC systems.
Is it worth it? First, I doubt this 50 Gigahash per second machine will ever earn back the cost associated with buying and running it. Second, it’s very cool but I suspect that this isn’t quite the bitcoin droid we’re all looking for. That said, I would argue that it’s a fascinating proof of concept.
The 21 computer is essentially a version of previously-built Raspberry Pi miners. I’ve run something similar to it under my desk for about two years now and it’s been a fun if impoverishing experience. Heck, you can buy this monstrosity for $60 and heat your bedroom while you mine pennies a week.
Ultimately the 21’s goal is to put something like this bitcoin system into every phone and computer. This move would change the way the blockchain is processed in a very real way and could result in some interesting changes in the entire ecosystem. As it stands, however, this computer is akin to Baby’s First Bitcoin miner, a plug and play device that is accessible and understandable and a great way to get into mining without going crazy.
What this device is really designed to do is offer a test bed for bitcoin-based activity like sale of signed digital goods, the ability to rent out system time for bitcoin, and accept bitcoin on a commerce site.
So why run this other than a testbed? In the words of one Reddit user, Tequila13, “There’s vision of a future where every phone will have a mining chip, and people out the goodness of their heart will pay for the mining chip and will mine at a loss for the greater good. A future where millions of people will buy the phone with the lower battery life, because they believe in bitcoin.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacker predicts AMEX card numbers, bypasses chip and PIN
Easy algorithm and US$10 bork-box mean fun for fraudsters
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/25/kamkar_credit_card/
Brainiac hacker Samy Kamkar has developed a US$10 gadget that can predict and store hundreds of American Express credit cards and use them for wireless transactions, even at non-wireless payment terminals.
The mind-blowing feat is the result of Kamkar cracking how the card issuer picks replacement numbers, and in dissecting the functionality of magnetic stripe data.
It means criminals could use the tiny gadget to keep pillaging cash after cards have been cancelled at businesses that do not require the three or four -digit CVV numbers on the back of cards.
American Express has been notified and says it is working on a fix.
“Magspoof is a device that can spoof any mag stripe or credit card entirely wirelessly, can disable chip and PIN (EMV) protection, switch between different credit cards, and accurately predict the card number and expiration on American Express credit cards,” Kamkar says.
MagSpoof – “wireless” credit card/magstripe spoofer
http://samy.pl/magspoof/
MagSpoof is a device that can spoof/emulate any magnetic stripe or credit card. It can work “wirelessly”, even on standard magstripe/credit card readers, by generating a strong electromagnetic field that emulates a traditional magnetic stripe card.
Note: MagSpoof does not enable you to use credit cards that you are not legally authorized to use.
MagSpoof can be used as a traditional credit card and simply store all of your credit cards (and with modification, can technically disable chip requirements) in various impressive and exciting form factors, or can be used for security research in any area that would traditionally require a magstripe, such as readers for credit cards, drivers licenses, hotel room keys, automated parking lot tickets, etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
UK mobile-only Atom Bank picks up $128M at roughly a $230M valuation, led by Spanish-based banking giant BBVA, owner of Simple in the US
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/24/uk-mobile-only-atom-bank-picks-up-128m-led-by-bbva-owner-of-simple-in-the-u-s/
All major banks today offer a way for customers to bank online, but this is not stopping a rush of startups emerging to build new, mobile and online-only banks from the ground up. In one of the latest developments, Atom Bank, a UK mobile banking startup and app aimed at hip, youthful consumers that has yet to launch its commercial service, is today announcing that it has closed an £82 million ($128 million) round of funding.
The round is being led by strategic investor BBVA — the Spanish-based banking giant that last year acquired U.S. online banking startup Simple for $117 million. BBVA is taking a 29.5% stake in Atom Bank for £45 million ($68 million), working out to a post-money valuation for the startup of £152.5 million (just under $230 million).
Fin-tech entrepreneurs have seized on the wide proliferation of smartphones and broadband connectivity to build a number of online and mobile banking startups across Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.
The idea behind these startups is to disrupt the current banking regime by doing away with the extra costs of running brick and mortar operations, and passing on the savings to their digital-savvy consumers. (Developing markets like Brazil, in fact, are particularly interesting in this vein, given their high proportion of unbanked consumers who own and use smartphones.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
My phone is finally replacing my wallet… and it’s brilliant
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/11/28/my-phone-is-finally-replacing-my-wallet-and-its-brilliant/
At some point in the past year, my phone went from ‘useful communications tool that I mainly use for email and Twitter’ to ‘truly viable wallet replacement.’
For years we’ve been promised a ‘mobile-first’ future of payments, where just about any transaction you need to do can be done most easily on a mobile phone. For me, it feels like that future has arrived.
At no point here did I open my wallet to pull out cash or a card (although I really should have given a tip to the food delivery guy). I’m getting to the point where I really can use my phone for at least 50 percent of my day-to-day transactions, and my phone suddenly feels 100 percent more useful.
Of course, the future isn’t evenly distributed. A lot of these transactions relied on me having a recent iOS device and living in the UK, where payments tech is pretty well advanced (even if there’s no Android Pay here yet). There are plenty of places where I couldn’t have done a lot of these things, but we’re slowly getting there in developed countries around the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Swatch teams up with Visa to let you pay with a flick of the wrist in 2016
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/11/30/swatch-teams-up-with-visa-to-let-you-pay-with-a-flick-of-the-wrist-in-2016/
Swatch has announced that it has partnered with Visa to enable contactless payments in the US, Switzerland and Brazil using the Swiss watchmaker’s upcoming Bellamy timepiece when it launches early next year.
The company showed off the NFC-equipped Bellamy wristwatch in China back in October, with a sticker price of 580 yuan (US$91). It’s also set to roll out in China in the coming months.
Swatch says that ‘pay-by-the-wrist’ transactions require absolutely no energy from the watch itself, so the Bellamy will offer the same battery life as the company’s other products.
That sounds like an exciting proposition for watch wearers. Of the current crop of smartwatches, Android Wear-based devices don’t support NFC-based payment functionality. The Apple Watch and Samsung’s Tizen OS-based Gear S2 are exceptions; however, they all suffer from poor battery life.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Angela Moscaritolo / PC Magazine:
Swatch partners with Visa to let cardholders in US, Brazil, and Switzerland “tap and pay” with upcoming NFC enabled Bellamy smartwatch — Swatch, Visa Make it Easy to Pay With Your Watch — The world’s largest watch maker will soon give those in the U.S. the opportunity to pay for items with a tap of their wrist.
Swatch, Visa Make it Easy to Pay With Your Watch
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495803,00.asp
The world’s largest watch maker will soon give those in the U.S. the opportunity to pay for items with a tap of their wrist.
Swatch on Monday announced it has partnered with Visa to let cardholders in the U.S. as well as Switzerland and Brazil “tap and pay” for items with its upcoming Bellamy smartwatch. Slated to launch early next year, Swatch Bellamy can be used globally, in any location where contactless, near-field communication (NFC)-based payments are accepted.
First announced last month, the Swatch Bellamy features a built-in NFC chip beneath the dial that uses high-frequency radio waves to let you pay for items at compatible terminals with a simple swipe of the watch. It will be priced at about 91 Swiss Franc, “or more or less $100 USD,” a Swatch spokesman said last month.
“Pay-by-the-wrist transactions require absolutely no energy at all from the watch itself, meaning customers can expect the usual battery life of a Swatch,” the company said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
Walmart announces its mobile payment service, Walmart Pay, will be introduced in select US stores on Thursday and nationwide by the first half of 2016
Wal-Mart adds to mobile wallet frenzy with ‘Walmart Pay’
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-wal-mart-mobilepayment-idUSKBN0TT0E620151210#wvoOpDgAGeQR6p5w.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Ruddock / Android Police:
Google Wallet Will Now Let You Send Money To Anyone With A Phone Number Via SMS (US Only) — In an upcoming update to the Google Wallet app for Android, Google will let you send money to anyone in your contacts list with a valid phone number. The new feature was announced on Google’s Commerce Blog …
Google Wallet Will Now Let You Send Money To Anyone With A Phone Number Via SMS (US Only)
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/12/10/google-wallet-will-now-let-you-send-money-to-anyone-with-a-phone-number-via-sms-probably-us-only/
In an upcoming update to the Google Wallet app for Android, Google will let you send money to anyone in your contacts list with a valid phone number. The new feature was announced on Google’s Commerce Blog, and for now is US-only, which we have since confirmed with Google.
The new feature works by sending a secure link over SMS to the contact you select, which leads to a web page where your contact can enter their debit card details to claim the money. Google says, once transferred, funds should be available in the recipient’s account “within minutes.”
Send money to anyone in your contact list with Google Wallet
http://googlecommerce.blogspot.fi/2015/12/send-money-to-anyone-in-your-contact-list.html
Rachna Chaudhary says:
You are doing a great job .. Do it with more hard work
https://happynewyear967.wordpress.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple Pay remains an interim technique
Every second consumer to use a couple of years to get a smartphone or wearable device purchases to pay. This is the forecast research institute Gartner. Pay-Apple, Samsung and Android Pay-Pay services is displayed Research Institute does not predict a long life.
Mobile payments are finally taking the momentum in North America, Japan and some European countries. According to Gartner, mobile payers is growing at the end of 2017 to 50 per cent in these countries.
According to the Institute currently offers three types of mobile payment technology. The smartphone is a device promising, but alongside it is a mobile wallet offered by banks and credit card companies. In addition, many retailers -like Starbucks – offering customers their own mobile wallets.
The must not service must not be connected to any devices, Gartner estimates. Instead, a cloud-based mobile payment services have the potential to reach a much larger user base.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3756:apple-pay-jaa-valivaiheen-tekniikaksi&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cade Metz / Wired:
SEC approves Overstock’s plan to sell public securities using blockchain technology — SEC Approves Plan to Issue Stock Via Bitcoin’s Blockchain — The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a plan from online retailer Overstock.com to issue company stock via the Internet …
SEC Approves Plan to Issue Stock Via Bitcoin’s Blockchain
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/sec-approves-plan-to-issue-company-stock-via-the-bitcoin-blockchain/
The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a plan from online retailer Overstock.com to issue company stock via the Internet, signaling a significant shift in the way financial securities will be distributed and traded in the years to come.
Over the past year, Overstock and its freethinking CEO, Patrick Byrne, have developed technology for issuing financial securities by way of the blockchain, the vast online ledger underpinning the bitcoin digital currency. The blockchain is essentially an enormous database that runs across a global network of independent computers. With bitcoin, this ledger tracks the exchange of money. But it can also track the exchange of anything else that holds value, including stocks, bonds, and other financial securities. Overstock has already used the blockchain to issue private bonds, which did not require explicit regulatory approval. Now, the SEC has told the company it can issue public securities in much the same way.
Overstock built its technology under the aegis of a subsidiary called TØ.com, and it plans to offer this “cryptosecurity” tech as a service to other businesses, so that they too can issue stock via the blockchain
Byrne believes the technology “can do for the capital market what the Internet has done for consumers.” It’s designed to provide a secure, transparent, reliable, and largely automatic way of tracking who owns a given security at any given time. And in Byrne’s mind, it could replace systems run by the New York and Nasdaq stock exchanges. Such a system could eliminate many of the middlemen who have traditionally controlled the market, and thanks to its technological precision, it could close certain market loopholes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Pollack / Bloomberg Business:
Apple and Samsung ink separate agreements with China’s UnionPay to introduce their competing mobile payments systems in the country, expect early 2016 launch
Apple, Samsung to Enter China Payments Market With UnionPay
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/unionpay-apple-agree-to-bring-apple-pay-to-china-in-2016
Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. reached separate agreements with China UnionPay Co. to introduce their competing mobile payments systems in the country next year.
Customers of UnionPay, China’s largest payment and clearing network, will be able to add their bank cards to iPhones, iPads and the Apple Watch for purchases through Apple Pay, the companies said in a statement. Users of Samsung Galaxy and Note devices will have similar options.
While the deals allow the two biggest smartphone makers to take their nascent payments systems to the world’s largest market with the backing of state-backed UnionPay, they will face entrenched competition. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Tenpay have already built large customer bases for payments on their e-commerce and other business platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cade Metz / Wired:
IBM, JP Morgan, and others build the Open Ledger Project, a blockchain for business services, overseen by the Linux Foundation
Tech and Banking Giants Ditch Bitcoin for Their Own Blockchain
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/big-tech-joins-big-banks-to-create-alternative-to-bitcoins-blockchain/
Several major companies from across both the technology and financial industries—including IBM, Intel, and Cisco as well as the London Stock Exchange Group and big-name banks JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and State Street—have joined forces to create an alternative to the blockchain, the global online ledger that underpins the bitcoin digital currency.
Overseen by the not-for-profit Linux Foundation, this open source project aims to build blockchain-like technology that can bring a new level of automation and transparency to a wide range of services in the business world, including stock exchanges and other financial markets.
“The current blockchain is a great design pattern,” says Jerry Cuomo, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM’s software group. “Now, how do we make that real for business? What are the key attributes needed to make that happen? That’s what this organization is about.”
These companies are creating a new distributed ledger—rather than embracing the blockchain itself.
Dubbed the Open Ledger Project, this effort is a re-imagining of several big ideas. The blockchain is essentially a database that runs across a worldwide network of independent machines—a database that’s controlled by no single entity but can still reliably track the exchange of assets, thanks to some nifty mathematics. With bitcoin, the blockchain tracks the exchange of money. But it can also track the exchange of anything else that carries value—including stocks, bonds, and other financial securities, as well as assets like houses and car titles. And in recent months, several projects have seized on many of these possibilities.
Nasdaq OMX—the company behind the Nasdaq stock exchange—is using the blockchain to oversee the exchange of private stock, while online retailer Overstock—through a subsidiary called TØ—has built a system that will allow businesses to issue and even borrow securities via the blockchain. Just last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved Overstock’s blockchain stock plan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux Foundation forms banking alliance to look for the next bitcoin technology
Blockchain is great but it could be better
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2439773/linux-foundation-forms-banking-alliance-to-look-for-the-next-bitcoin-technology
THE LINUX FOUNDATION has announced another collaborative effort, this time dedicated to the advance of blockchain technology.
The Foundation already manages groups from across the industry dedicated to areas such as security and containerisation.
Blockchain is the database technology that powers crypto-currencies such as bitcoin. With partners from technology and banking, the company will look at ways to ensure best practice and stronger blockchain methodology than that used by the non-banking sector crypto-currencies.
Initial contributors include Accenture, ANZ Bank, Cisco, CLS, Credits, Deutsche Börse, Digital Asset Holdings, DTCC, Fujitsu, IC3, IBM, Intel, JP Morgan, London Stock Exchange Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, R3, State Street, Swift, VMware and Wells Fargo.
“Distributed ledgers are poised to transform a wide range of industries from banking and shipping to the Internet of Things, among others,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation.
“As with any early-stage, highly-complex technology that demonstrates the ability to change the way we live our lives and conduct business, blockchain demands a cross-industry, open source collaboration to advance the technology for all.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reluctance To Go Mobile Inhibiting Innovation In Financial Services
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/12/28/197253/reluctance-to-go-mobile-inhibiting-innovation-in-financial-services
Compliance concerns have long prevented financial services businesses from adopting mobile capabilities as quickly as other industries. But Yvette Jackson of Thomson Reuters argues that technology advancements have made compliance worries of the past now obsolete, and financial services companies are running out of excuses for not going mobile.
Financial Services needs to get over its reluctance and go mobile
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2015/12/financial-services-needs-get-over-its-reluctance-and-go-mobile
pari says:
niceeee article
Tomi Engdahl says:
It seems that Bitcoin is broken:
Big Trouble for Bitcoin
http://news.slashdot.org/story/16/01/15/1310214/big-trouble-for-bitcoin
A blog post by ex-Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn has highlighted dysfunctional management right at the top of Bitcoin development. He says it is clear Bitcoin is on the verge of collapse, and lays out several compelling reasons why. Quoting: “What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked ‘systemically important institutions’ and ‘too big to fail’ has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people. Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse.”
The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment
https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.3f9qnqoi6
I’ve spent more than 5 years being a Bitcoin developer. The software I’ve written has been used by millions of users, hundreds of developers, and the talks I’ve given have led directly to the creation of several startups. I’ve talked about Bitcoin on Sky TV and BBC News. I have been repeatedly cited by the Economist as a Bitcoin expert and prominent developer. I have explained Bitcoin to the SEC, to bankers and to ordinary people I met at cafes.
From the start, I’ve always said the same thing: Bitcoin is an experiment and like all experiments, it can fail. So don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. I’ve said this in interviews, on stage at conferences, and over email. So have other well known developers like Gavin Andresen and Jeff Garzik.
But despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly. The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards. I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins.
Why has Bitcoin failed? It has failed because the community has failed.
Deadlock on the blocks
In case you haven’t been keeping up with Bitcoin, here is how the network looks as of January 2016.
The block chain is full. You may wonder how it is possible for what is essentially a series of files to be “full”. The answer is that an entirely artificial capacity cap of one megabyte per block, put in place as a temporary kludge a long time ago, has not been removed and as a result the network’s capacity is now almost completely exhausted.
The peak level in July was reached during a denial-of-service attack in which someone flooded the network with transactions in an attempt to break things, calling it a “stress test”. So that level, about 700 kilobytes of transactions (or less than 3 payments per second), is probably about the limit of what Bitcoin can actually achieve in practice
So the average is nearly at the peak of what can be done. Not surprisingly then, there are frequent periods in which Bitcoin can’t keep up with the transaction load being placed upon it
When networks run out of capacity, they get really unreliable. That’s why so many online attacks are based around simply flooding a target computer with traffic. Sure enough, just before Christmas payments started to become unreliable and at peak times backlogs are now becoming common.
Bitcoin is supposed to respond to this situation with automatic fee rises to try and get rid of some users, and although the mechanisms behind it are barely functional that’s still sort of happening: it is rapidly becoming more and more expensive to use the Bitcoin network. Once upon a time, Bitcoin had the killer advantage of low and even zero fees, but it’s now common to be asked to pay more to miners than a credit card would charge.
Why has the capacity limit not been raised? Because the block chain is controlled by Chinese miners, just two of whom control more than 50% of the hash power. At a recent conference over 95% of hashing power was controlled by a handful of guys sitting on a single stage. The miners are not allowing the block chain to grow.
Why are they not allowing it to grow? Several reasons. One is that the developers of the “Bitcoin Core” software that they run have refused to implement the necessary changes.
And the final reason is that the Chinese internet is so broken by their government’s firewall that moving data across the border barely works at all, with speeds routinely worse than what mobile phones provide.
Many Bitcoin users and observers have been assuming up until very recently that somehow these problems would all sort themselves out
Nobody knows what’s going on
If you haven’t heard much about this, you aren’t alone. One of the most disturbing things that took place over the course of 2015 is that the flow of information to investors and users has dried up.
Bitcoin is not intended to be an investment and has always been advertised pretty accurately: as an experimental currency which you shouldn’t buy more of than you can afford to lose.
Most people who own Bitcoin learn about it through the mainstream media. Whenever a story goes mainstream the Bitcoin price goes crazy, then the media report on the price rises and a bubble happens.
Stories about Bitcoin reach newspapers and magazines through a simple process: the news starts in a community forum, then it’s picked up by a more specialised community/tech news website, then journalists at general media outlets see the story on those sites and write their own versions. I’ve seen this happen over and over again, and frequently taken part in it by discussing stories with journalists.
In August 2015 it became clear that due to severe mismanagement, the “Bitcoin Core” project that maintains the program that runs the peer-to-peer network wasn’t going to release a version that raised the block size limit.
Why is Bitcoin Core keeping the limit?
People problems.
When Satoshi left, he handed over the reins of the program we now call Bitcoin Core to Gavin Andresen, an early contributor. Gavin is a solid and experienced leader who can see the big picture.
Only one tiny problem: Satoshi never actually asked Gavin if he wanted the job, and in fact he didn’t. So the first thing Gavin did was grant four other developers access to the code as well. These developers were chosen quickly
Tomi Engdahl says:
Old banking is largely broken, but it seems that Bitcoin that was designed as alternative to it is also pretty much broken as well:
Bitcoin mainstay withdraws funds and knowhow from ‘failed experiment’
Wait till they see our genetically engineered waspadillo
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2442261/bitcoin-mainstay-withdraws-funds-and-knowhow-from-failed-experiment
A MAJOR PROPONENT of the bitcoin cryptocurrency has labelled it a “failed project” and withdrawn his support.
Zurich-based developer and ex-Googler Mike Hearn published a blog post this weekend in which he announced that he had sold all his bitcoins and retired from developing for the virtual currency.
The currency has increased hugely in popularity since its inception, but this has created a whole host of problems, ranging from its rapid (and, let’s face it, predictable) adoption as the currency of criminals, to its increasing complexity on the technical side which is making transactions slow down or fail entirely. Some even predict that the infrastructure will actually grind to a complete halt one day.
The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment
https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.lmfvt09zg
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Blockchain the Most Important IT Invention of Our Age?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/16/01/25/0134243/is-blockchain-the-most-important-it-invention-of-our-age
This article makes a fairly persuasive argument for the utility of the blockchain. It discusses a wide variety of companies and government exploring blockchain to maintain secure records which cannot be altered. One interesting application is to use blockchain to maintain property records in many countries where these records are often incomplete and are easily corrupted (intentionally or unintentionally).
Is Blockchain the most important IT invention of our age?
John Naughton
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/24/blockchain-bitcoin-technology-most-important-tech-invention-of-our-age-sir-mark-walport
The technology behind Bitcoin could revolutionise the way governments provide healthcare, deliver benefits, collect taxes – you name it…
There are not many occasions when one can give an unqualified thumbs-up to something the government does, but this is one such occasion. Last week, Sir Mark Walport, the government’s chief scientific adviser, published a report with the forbidding title Distributed Ledger Technology: Beyond Block Chain. The report sets out the findings of an official study that explores how the aforementioned technology “can revolutionise services, both in government and the private sector”. Since this is the kind of talk one normally hears from loopy startup founders pitching to venture capitalists rather than from sober Whitehall mandarins, it made this columnist choke on his muesli – especially given that, in so far as Joe Public thinks about distributed ledgers at all, it is in the context of Bitcoin, money laundering and online drug dealing. So what, one is tempted to ask, has the chief scientific adviser been smoking?
Before we get to that, however, some background might be useful. A distributed ledger is a special kind of database that is spread across multiple sites, countries or institutions, and is typically public in the sense that anyone can view it. Entries in the database are configured in “blocks” which are then chained together using digital, cryptographic signatures – hence the term blockchain, which is really just a techie name for a distributed ledger that can be shared and corroborated by anyone who has the appropriate permissions.
Most of the early examples of distributed ledgers have no “owner”. Instead anyone can contribute data to the ledger and everybody who has access to the ledger has an identical copy of it at any given time. This means that no individual can prevent someone from adding data to the ledger, and so it can constantly be updated. But it also means that all those in possession of copies of the ledger have to agree that the updates have happened.
Blockchain technology appeared first as the cryptographic engine that powered Bitcoin.
After all, a blockchain is essentially an incorruptible ledger of blocks of data, and that data can be records of just about anything.
Like records of land ownership. Creating and maintaining incorruptible registers of land titles is a huge – and mostly unsolved – problem for developing countries.
The unmistakable message was that this technology could be much more useful than merely securing cryptocurrencies. It might actually turn out to be one of the biggest IT inventions of our time.
The report makes eight recommendations on how to turn enthusiasm for blockchain technology into reality. There needs to be serious ministerial buy-in, for example, which – given our current collection of technologically illiterate tribunes – might be a bit of a stretch. We need working pilot schemes at local and national level. Academia and industry should be co-opted to address the security and other challenges that large-scale deployment will throw up. And of course there is a “need to build capability and skills within government”, not to mention “a cross-government community of interest… to generate and develop potential ‘use cases’ and create a body of knowledge and expertise within the civil service”.
All good stuff. The problem is that the supertanker that is the British state takes a long time to change course. Which is why small countries with techno-savvy administrations like Estonia are already experimenting with blockchain technology. They can turn on a sixpence, or even a Bitcoin.
Research and analysis
Distributed ledger technology: Blackett review
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/distributed-ledger-technology-blackett-review
The great chain of being sure about things
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21677228-technology-behind-bitcoin-lets-people-who-do-not-know-or-trust-each-other-build-dependable
The technology behind bitcoin lets people who do not know or trust each other build a dependable ledger. This has implications far beyond the cryptocurrency
A place in the past
Other applications for blockchain and similar “distributed ledgers” range from thwarting diamond thieves to streamlining stockmarkets: the NASDAQ exchange will soon start using a blockchain-based system to record trades in privately held companies. The Bank of England, not known for technological flights of fancy, seems electrified: distributed ledgers, it concluded in a research note late last year, are a “significant innovation” that could have “far-reaching implications” in the financial industry.
The politically minded see the blockchain reaching further than that. When co-operatives and left-wingers gathered for this year’s OuiShare Fest in Paris to discuss ways that grass-roots organisations could undermine giant repositories of data like Facebook, the blockchain made it into almost every speech. Libertarians dream of a world where more and more state regulations are replaced with private contracts between individuals—contracts which blockchain-based programming would make self-enforcing.
The blockchain began life in the mind of Satoshi Nakamoto, the brilliant, pseudonymous and so far unidentified creator of bitcoin—a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash”, as he put it in a paper published in 2008. To work as cash, bitcoin had to be able to change hands without being diverted into the wrong account and to be incapable of being spent twice by the same person. To fulfil Mr Nakamoto’s dream of a decentralised system the avoidance of such abuses had to be achieved without recourse to any trusted third party, such as the banks which stand behind conventional payment systems.
It is the blockchain that replaces this trusted third party. A database that contains the payment history of every bitcoin in circulation, the blockchain provides proof of who owns what at any given juncture. This distributed ledger is replicated on thousands of computers—bitcoin’s “nodes”—around the world and is publicly available. But for all its openness it is also trustworthy and secure. This is guaranteed by the mixture of mathematical subtlety and computational brute force built into its “consensus mechanism”—the process by which the nodes agree on how to update the blockchain in the light of bitcoin transfers from one person to another.
Running in the shadows
That hash is put, along with some other data, into the header of the proposed block. This header then becomes the basis for an exacting mathematical puzzle which involves using the hash function yet again. This puzzle can only be solved by trial and error. Across the network, miners grind through trillions and trillions of possibilities looking for the answer. When a miner finally comes up with a solution other nodes quickly check it (that’s the one-way street again: solving is hard but checking is easy), and each node that confirms the solution updates the blockchain accordingly. The hash of the header becomes the new block’s identifying string, and that block is now part of the ledger. Alice’s payment to Bob, and all the other transactions the block contains, are confirmed.
This puzzle stage introduces three things that add hugely to bitcoin’s security. One is chance. You cannot predict which miner will solve a puzzle, and so you cannot predict who will get to update the blockchain at any given time, except in so far as it has to be one of the hard working miners, not some random interloper. This makes cheating hard.
The second addition is history. Each new header contains a hash of the previous block’s header, which in turn contains a hash of the header before that, and so on and so on all the way back to the beginning. It is this concatenation that makes the blocks into a chain.
Make a change anywhere, though—even back in one of the earliest blocks—and that changed block’s header will come out different.
And nodes always work on the longest version of the blockchain there is. This rule stops the occasions when two miners find the solution almost simultaneously from causing anything more than a temporary fork in the chain. It also stops cheating.
Energy is contagious
The advent of distributed ledgers opens up an “entirely new quadrant of possibilities”, in the words of Albert Wenger of USV, a New York venture firm that has invested in startups such as OpenBazaar, a middleman-free peer-to-peer marketplace. But for all that the blockchain is open and exciting, sceptics argue that its security may yet be fallible and its procedures may not scale. What works for bitcoin and a few niche applications may be unable to support thousands of different services with millions of users.
Though Mr Nakamoto’s subtle design has so far proved impregnable, academic researchers have identified tactics that might allow a sneaky and well financed miner to compromise the block chain without direct control of 51% of it.
Because miners keep details of their hardware secret, nobody really knows how much power the network consumes. If everyone were using the most efficient hardware, its annual electricity usage might be about two terawatt-hours—a bit more than the amount used by the 150,000 inhabitants of King’s County in California’s Central Valley. Make really pessimistic assumptions about the miners’ efficiency, though, and you can get the figure up to 40 terawatt-hours, almost two-thirds of what the 10m people in Los Angeles County get through. That surely overstates the problem; still, the more widely people use bitcoin, the worse the waste could get.
Yet for all this profligacy bitcoin remains limited. Because Mr Nakamoto decided to cap the size of a block at one megabyte, or about 1,400 transactions, it can handle only around seven transactions per second, compared to the 1,736 a second Visa handles in America. Blocks could be made bigger; but bigger blocks would take longer to propagate through the network, worsening the risks of forking.
The problem is not so much a lack of fixes. It is that the network’s “bitcoin improvement process” makes it hard to choose one. Change requires community-wide agreement, and these are not people to whom consensus comes easily.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg Business:
Transitioning to digital, banks file more patents and educate USPTO about their operations so examiners won’t issue new bad patentsFind
Wall Street Is Trying to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
Banks race to beat the patent trolls—and Silicon Valley.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-11/disrupting-banks-go-see-what-they-re-doing-at-the-patent-office
Banks and Silicon Valley are on a collision course, the future of finance may be at stake, and one side is brandishing its most dreaded weapon: the PowerPoint presentation.
In January dozens of government patent examiners gathered in a suburban Washington lecture hall to listen to Bank of America employees go through a slideshow. Hundreds more tuned in for a webcast. The presentation detailed 25 ways banks digitally authenticate such things as a customer depositing checks. It may sound agonizingly technical, but for banks, documenting every detail of what they do has become critical. As Silicon Valley entrepreneurs dream up ways to disrupt the financial-services business, bankers and Wall Street companies are taking patents very seriously.
“There is so much innovation in finance right now that if you want to stay ahead and maintain an edge, you have to patent it,” says Linda Coven, a banking and payments analyst at research firm Aite Group.
The biggest U.S. banks, including Bank of America, and payments networks such as MasterCard are applying for more patents than ever before on everything from mobile wallets to blockchain ledgers similar to those used for the digital currency bitcoin. Banks and payments companies were awarded 1,192 patents over the past three years, 36 percent more than the prior three-year period, according to researcher Envision IP.
They’re also hosting seminars for the U.S. patent office to head off what the industry sees as bad patents that cover age-old banking practices. By showing the examiners how the industry already operates, the banks hope the office won’t grant patents to applicants with similar ideas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Banking are broken, but it seem that also Bitcoin is broken now because it ha become too popular:
Bitcoin’s Nightmare Scenario Has Come To Pass
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/03/04/057207/bitcoins-nightmare-scenario-has-come-to-pass
Ben Popper writes at The Verge that bitcoin’s nightmare scenario has come to pass as the bitcoin network reached its capacity, causing transactions around the world to be massively delayed, and in some cases to fail completely. The average time to confirm a transaction has ballooned from 10 minutes to 43 minutes. Users are left confused and shops that once accepted Bitcoin are dropping out. For those who want the Bitcoin system to continue to grow and thrive, this is troubling. Merchants can’t rely on digital transactions that can take minutes or hours to validate.
Bitcoin’s nightmare scenario has come to pass
The network’s capacity to process transactions has maxed out
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11146584/bitcoin-core-classic-debate-transaction-limit-crisis
Over the last year and a half a number of prominent voices in the Bitcoin community have been warning that the system needed to make fundamental changes to its core software code to avoid being overwhelmed by the continued growth of Bitcoin transactions. There was strong disagreement within the community, however, about how to solve this problem, or if the problem would ever materialize.
This week the dire predictions came to pass, as the network reached its capacity, causing transactions around the world to be massively delayed, and in some cases to fail completely. The average time to confirm a transaction has ballooned from 10 minutes to 43 minutes. Users are left confused and shops that once accepted Bitcoin are dropping out.
Bitcoin transactions are confirmed every time miners create a new block on the networks chain. Each block takes about ten minutes to mine, and can hold 1MB of information. At current volumes, there are more than 1MB worth of transactions asking to be confirmed in that time. To solve this bottleneck, many in the Bitcoin community have called for increasing the block size to 2MB.
This sounds simple, but has proven to be a highly contentious issue. A schism has developed between the team in charge of the original codebase for Bitcoin, known as Core, and a rival faction pushing its own version of that open source code with a block size increase added in, known as Classic.
The Looming Problem That Could Kill Bitcoin
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/540921/the-looming-problem-that-could-kill-bitcoin/
The way things are going, the digital currency Bitcoin will start to malfunction early next year. Transactions will become increasingly delayed, and the system of money now worth $3.3 billion will begin to die as its flakiness drives people away. So says Gavin Andresen, who in 2010 was designated chief caretaker of the code that powers Bitcoin by its shadowy creator. Andresen held the role of “core maintainer” during most of Bitcoin’s improbable rise; he stepped down last year but still remains heavily involved with the currency (see “The Man Who Really Built Bitcoin”).
Andresen’s gloomy prediction stems from the fact that Bitcoin can’t process more than seven transactions a second. That’s a tiny volume compared to the tens of thousands per second that payment systems like Visa can handle—and a limit he expects to start crippling Bitcoin early in 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brian Armstrong:
Coinbase CEO: Core team is a systemic risk that can lead to Bitcoin collapse this year; switch to Bitcoin Classic now, then look for more scalable solutions — What Happened At The Satoshi Roundtable — Last weekend I attended the Satoshi Roundtable conference along with Charlie Lee …
What Happened At The Satoshi Roundtable
https://medium.com/@barmstrong/what-happened-at-the-satoshi-roundtable-6c11a10d8cdf#.6qkxxidxz
A number of meetings took place between core developers, miners, and CEOs of Bitcoin companies. As you’re aware, there is a large disagreement about how bitcoin should scale right now. On one side you have the core developers who have concerns about how on-chain scaling will impact decentralization. On the other side you have most bitcoin companies who want growth. The miners are sort of caught in between and are split.
The core team contains some very high IQ people, but there are some things which I find very concerning about them as a team after spending some time with them last weekend.
1. Some of them show very poor communication skills or a lack of maturity — this has hurt bitcoin’s ability to bring new protocol developers into the space.
2. They prefer ‘perfect’ solutions to ‘good enough’. And if no perfect solution exists they seem ok with inaction, even if that puts bitcoin at risk.
3. They seem to have a strong belief that bitcoin will not be able to scale long term, and any block size increase is a slippery slope to a future that they are unwilling to allow.
Even though core says they are ok with a hard fork to 2MB (they have it on their own roadmap, just very far in the future), they refuse to prioritize it.
Being high IQ is not enough for a team to succeed. You need to make reasonable trade offs, collaborate, be welcoming, communicate, and be easy to work with. Any team that doesn’t have this will be unable to attract top talent and will struggle long term. In my opinion, perhaps the biggest risk in bitcoin right now is, ironically, one of the things that has helped it the most in the past: the bitcoin core developers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stan Higgins / CoinDesk:
As Bitcoin approaches its 1MB block size limit, transaction processing takes 10+ hours for some, while transaction fees rise several times — Bitcoin’s Capacity Issues No ‘Nightmare’, But Higher Fees May Be New Reality — While bitcoin may not be facing a “nightmare” scenario as indicated by the media …
Bitcoin’s Capacity Issues No ‘Nightmare’, But Higher Fees May Be New Reality
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-capacity-nightmare-fees-reality/
While bitcoin may not be facing a “nightmare” scenario as indicated by the media, digital currency users are now paying higher-than-average fees and waiting longer for transactions to confirm due to an unknown disruptive network user.
The incident has sparked a flurry of questions about the nature of the increased transaction load on the network as it comes amid the ongoing debate over scaling the bitcoin network.
Known as the “block size debate”, the issue has fragmented the bitcoin community into two camps: Bitcoin Core, the network’s volunteer developers, who are seeking to change to how signatures are stored, thus increasing capacity as early as April of this year; and Bitcoin Classic, a contingent of developers and enthusiasts who have launched software that would more quickly force an update to the 1 MB cap on transactions they believe is an impediment to user adoption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Pay is expanding in Europe: now works in the UK
Google starts to offer Android Pay -maksupalvelua England. Competition with Apple Pay is expanding, writes the Financial Times .
Android Pay is a working Android smart mobile NFC payment application that allows you to pay by touching the phone payment terminal. The money is transferred payment application is connected from a bank account or credit card.
The service supports MasterCard and Visa cards, as well as a number of operating banks in the UK.
Google announced the Android Pay in the United States last September.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/android-pay-laajenee-eurooppaan-toimii-nyt-britanniassa-6535538
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Sources: Apple Pay coming to mobile websites, will be available to Safari users on iPad and iPhone with Touch ID this year — Apple Pay Coming to Mobile Websites Before Holiday Shopping Season — Apple Pay is finally ready to move beyond apps. — Apple has been telling potential partners …
Apple Pay Coming to Mobile Websites Before Holiday Shopping Season
http://recode.net/2016/03/23/apple-pay-coming-to-mobile-websites-before-holiday-shopping-season/
Apple Pay is finally ready to move beyond apps.
Apple has been telling potential partners that its payment service, which lets shoppers complete a purchase on mobile apps with their fingerprint rather than by entering credit card details, is expanding to websites later this year, multiple sources told Re/code.
The service will be available to shoppers using the Safari browser on models of iPhones and iPads that possess Apple’s TouchID fingerprint technology, these people said. Apple has also considered making the service available on Apple laptops and desktops, too, though it’s not clear if the company will launch that capability.
The move would pit Apple more directly against PayPal, which is a popular alternative payment method on countless retail websites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
With Privacy, you can create virtual debit cards to protect your online payments
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/25/with-privacy-you-can-create-virtual-debit-cards-to-protect-your-online-payments/
Meet Privacy, a new startup with a confusing name but an interesting product. Privacy lets you generate a virtual burner card every time you need to enter your credit card number on the web. Your actual credit card number stays safe, and you get more control over your online subscriptions.
Privacy works with a Google Chrome browser extension. After installing the extension, a tiny Privacy icon will appear next to a credit card form when it’s time to pay. When you click the button, the extension automatically generates a new virtual Visa debit card specifically for this website.
Behind the scene, Privacy connects with your bank account so it can withdraw money from your bank account. Right now, Privacy works with the big American banks (Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, Wells Fargo), as well as a handful of others. Privacy also has an iOS app in case you’re not in front of your computer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft partners with the R3 banking consortium to develop and deploy blockchain technologies on the Azure Blockchain-as-a-Service cloud platform — Microsoft solidifies its blockchain-as-a-service work with new banking partnership — Microsoft is making its Azure blockchain …
Microsoft solidifies its blockchain-as-a-service work with new banking partnership
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-solidifies-its-blockchain-as-a-service-work-with-new-banking-partnership/
Microsoft is making its Azure blockchain-as-a-service offering the backbone of a new partnership with the R3 banking consortium.
Microsoft has formed a “strategic partnership” with the R3 banking consortium to develop, test and deploy blockchain technologies.
azureblockchain.jpg
Microsoft officials announced the new arrangement on April 4, the first day of the company’s Envision 2016 business-decisionmaker conference in New Orleans. Envision is focused on the digital transformation of existing businesses using Microsoft technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon mulls fintech acquisitions as valuations fall
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/05/amazon-eyes-fintech-acquisitions-as-valuations-fall.html
Amazon’s payments business is beginning to look for acquisitions as the value of financial technology – or fintech – start-ups “comes back to earth”, a top executive at the e-commerce giant told CNBC on Tuesday.
Global investment in fintech firms hit $20 billion in 2015, a 66 percent increase on 2014, according to KPMG. The interest in the sector has seen a number of start-ups snag high valuations. But amid concerns of an overheated market, recent valuations have been more conservative, something Gauthier is hoping to take advantage of.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Patrick Howell O’Neill / The Daily Dot:
OpenBazaar, a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace that uses Bitcoin, launches version 1.0
OpenBazaar, Bitcoin’s answer to Amazon and eBay, launches version 1.0
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/openbazaar-official-release-darkmarket/
What started two years ago as a free and “dark” online market meant to be “untouchable” by police has evolved into one of Bitcoin’s most highly-anticipated and well-funded projects of all time.
Today, OpenBazaar officially launched version 1.0, bringing to rest years of speculation about the high-profile venture.
OpenBazaar’s debut follows two years of development and beta testing that has produced something markedly different than what began as an effort to build the heir to the famous Dark Net market Silk Road.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not Bitcoin, but close: Red Hat and Microsoft bite into blockchain tech
Come to OpenShift, poke and prod it, see if it’s useful
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/red_hat_blockchain_experiments/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Jeong / The Atlantic:
How a cashless society enables more financial surveillance and censorship through choke points run by corporate intermediaries
How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother
When money becomes information, it can inform on you.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/
In 2014, Cass Sunstein—one-time “regulatory czar” for the Obama administration—wrote an op-ed advocating for a cashless society, on the grounds that it would reduce street crime. His reasoning? A new study had found an apparent causal relationship between the implementation of the Electronic Benefit Transfer system for welfare benefits, and a drop in crime.
there was less cash circulating in poor neighborhoods. And the less cash there was on the streets, the study’s authors concluded, the less crime there was.
The year after Sunstein’s op-ed was published, in a seemingly unrelated incident, a student at Columbia University was arrested and charged with five drug-related offenses, including possession with the intent to sell. Supposedly, his fellow students and customers had paid him through the Paypal-owned smartphone app Venmo.
Venmo makes every transaction public by default. The app features a social-network-like feed where you can see your friends sending each other varying sums of money, often accompanied with cute descriptions and emoji. The alleged dealer asked his customers to write a funny description for every transaction, and in doing so, turned his feed (and others’) into an open record of drug trafficking.
In a cashless society, the cash has been converted into numbers, into signals, into electronic currents. In short: Information replaces cash.
Information is lightning-quick. It crosses cities, states, and national borders in the twinkle of an eye. It passes through many kinds of devices, flowing from phone to phone, and computer to computer, rather than being sealed away in those silent marble temples we used to call banks. Information never jangles uncomfortably in your pocket.
But wherever information gathers and flows, two predators follow closely behind it: censorship and surveillance. The case of digital money is no exception. Where money becomes a series of signals, it can be censored; where money becomes information, it will inform on you.
At various points in the chain, all transactions squeeze through bottlenecks created by big players like Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal.
Transactions route through several tangled layers of vendors, processors, and banks. At various points in the chain, all transactions squeeze through bottlenecks created by big players like Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal: These are the choke points for which Operation Choke Point is named.
The choke points are private corporations that are not only subject to government regulation on the books, but have shown a disturbing willingness to bend to extralegal requests—whether it is enforcing financial blockades against the controversial whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks or the website Backpage, which hosts classified ads by sex workers, and allegedly ads from sex traffickers as well. A little bit of pressure, and the whole financial system closes off to the government’s latest pariah. Operation Choke Point exploited this tendency on a wide scale.
A cashless society promises a world of limitation, control, and surveillance, which the poorest Americans already have in abundance
Cryptocurrency isn’t really a federal priority, and as long as that’s the case, it can be a viable backchannel when payment processors institute blockades.
Financial censorship could become pervasive, unbarred by any meaningful legal rights or guarantees.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The CEO of a $2.3 billion payment startup says the unicorn craze ‘has driven irresponsible behaviour’
http://www.businessinsider.in/The-CEO-of-a-2-3-billion-payment-startup-says-the-unicorn-craze-has-driven-irresponsible-behaviour/articleshow/51797013.cms?utm_source=ten_minutes_with&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=Content_Patnership&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral
The CEO of a $2.3 billion (£1.6 billion) Dutch payments business says the craze for so-called unicorn valuations of $1 billion or more in the tech sector has “driven irresponsible behaviour of founders.”
The term unicorn was coined to refer to the rare startups that would one day be worth over $1 billion.
Venture capitalists look for these when investing: if seven out of the 10 businesses they backed fail, as the stats predict, the one unicorn would make up for those failures and make sure the VC fund came out on top.
While by definition they’re meant to be rare, the idea of “unicorns” captured the imagination of entrepreneurs and investors in 2015, with a huge number of new unicorns being “born.”
Startups that joined the unicorn club last year include TransferWise, Lyft, Zenefits, SoFi, Hellofresh, Prosper, Oscar, and Farfetch, according to venture-capital-data tracker CB Insights. There were many more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
India debuts Unified Payment Interface, a system built on top of its existing biometric-backed ID project to simplify digital banking for its 1.2B+ citizens
India’s Audacious Plan to Bring Digital Banking to 1.2 Billion People
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-10/india-s-audacious-plan-to-bring-digital-banking-to-1-2-billion-people
A biometrics-backed ID system will make it easier for everyone—from rural villagers to urban dwellers—to ditch cash.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sam Shead / Business Insider:
Accenture: investments in fintech startups in Q1 2016 grew 67% YoY to $5.3B, with 62% going to companies in Europe and Asia
Investors have backed fintech startups with a whopping $5.3 billion since January
http://uk.businessinsider.com/accenture-report-investors-backed-fintech-with-56-billion-2016-4?op=1?r=US&IR=T
Fintech startups received $5.3 billion (£3.7 billion) in funding in the first quarter of 2016, according to a new report from Accenture.
The vast majority (62%) of fintech investments in Q1 2016 (between January 1 and March 31) went to businesses based in Europe and Asia, according to the report, which found that investment into fintech startups in these regions has nearly doubled since the same period last year.
“The proportion of competitive fintech ventures in Europe and Asia is much higher than in North America, which largely reflects the earlier stages of maturity of fintech markets, particularly outside of London,”
“London’s welcoming regulatory environment has made a preferred market for competitive fintech ventures to test their propositions,” added Skan. “Banks too stand to benefit from this, as it drives momentum to re-imagine their own capabilities.”
Funding for collaborative fintech ventures, which accounted for 38% of all fintech investment in 2010, grew to 44% of funding in 2015, with the remaining investments made in ventures that compete with financial institutions.
Consumer-facing fintech products offered by the likes of money transfer service TransferWise and peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle have raised hundreds of millions of pounds in the last couple of years as they look to take on the banks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security
Cash, fear and uncertainty: The Holy Trinity of Bitcoin and blockchain
The Snowden factor unnerving your bank
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/12/bitcoin_blockchain/
Writing anything about Bitcoin or blockchains is a challenge. It’s not the easiest technology to understand – not because it’s particularly complex, but because it’s grown into something of a confused mess of different technologies and applications. It also “looks” strange compared to most technologies that we’re used to.
Plus, it tends to be quite emotive because although it’s all open source and open standards, it’s all about “money,” and that gets everyone excited.
Stuck in the middle
The point of the blockchain is that it looks to “disintermediate trust.”
Disintermediation is about removing intermediaries, and we generally like to remove middlemen because although they provide value, they also take our money for their profit. Take the intermediary out of a system, and others in the chain have a little bit more money.
Risk
To a bank, Bitcoin is a tremendously scary thing. Most of what a bank does is designed to keep them sitting in the middle, adding some value, and taking a cut for providing that value. A considerable amount of the value they provide comes from helping people store and move money around. For the “end user,” having money in some digital form is a lot easier than dealing with cash, hence why we pay the banks to reward them for provisioning that value.
Bitcoin is digital cash. It can be stored and exchanged without having to have an intermediary involved, because at its core it is a disintermediated system. You can buy a miner, refine electricity into Bitcoin, and send those Bitcoins to anyone in the world – all without needing a bank account or asking a bank to transfer the money for you. It’s this disruption that banks fear.
This is why we see banks talking so much about blockchain and Bitcoin, although most of them are talking about blockchain rather than Bitcoin. (Which is fair, because Bitcoin itself is a bit of a basket case.)
What we see is the banks making a huge investment in blockchain because rather than burying their heads in the sand, they see a huge risk to their position as intermediaries.
Reality
If you’re not a bank, the blockchain is unlikely to present such a specifically clear threat.
The blockchain is a very specific type of database. Right now, however, most people get very excited about it and run around with a hammer thinking everything they see is a nail. In reality, it’s hard to find good use cases for it.
Blockchains allow an application developer to create a distributed database that can be read by anyone, but can only be written to by consensus.
This consensus isn’t done by voting. Writing to a blockchain takes a considerable amount of processing time, and this is a deliberate design requirement. Running a computer takes real money, because you have to buy electricity. Therefore, if you want to write data into a blockchain, you have to be motivated to put your hand in your pocket and pay for that electricity. This approach grounds the whole system in real-world economics. It’s this part that makes Bitcoin as a system make sense – it has refined electricity the same way that the “normal” money that we use at some point maps down to some refined scarce resource.
I’m melting, I’m melting
The hype around blockchain comes from the fact that it looks to disintermediate banks. Fundamentally, a non-fiat currency that behaves like cash – whether that’s Bitcoin or something else – is terrifying to a bank. So they’re investing in understanding the risk. And we listen, because when banks invest, it attracts attention because it tweaks our nerves around fear or around greed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
There’s really only one dominant company in financial tech
http://uk.businessinsider.com/financial-tech-companies-by-market-cap-2016-4?r=US&IR=T
There’s a lot of hype around the new crop of financial tech companies aiming to disrupt how we save, invest, buy, and move money around.
But the company that kicked off the first financial tech revolution is still around, and it’s much bigger than all the newcomers. PayPal was founded in 1998 and quickly became the dominant way to pay for things on eBay — so much so that eBay bought the company in 2002. It spun back out again as an independent public company last year, and now has a market cap around $47 billion. That makes it worth more than all the other financial tech startups on this chart from Statista, combined.
Then again, if you expand the definition of “financial tech” to include traditional players like banks and credit card companies, PayPal once again looks like a small fish.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laura Shin / Forbes:
Bitstamp bitcoin exchange gets licensed by Luxembourg, license will apply in 28 EU countries
Bitstamp Becomes First Nationally Licensed Bitcoin Exchange; License Applies In 28 EU Countries
http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2016/04/25/7886/#2d14fa9518de
On Monday, Bitstamp announced that Luxembourg has granted it a payment institution license, making the company the first nationally licensed Bitcoin exchange in the world.
Under the European Union’s “passport” program, which allows financial services providers legally established in one member state to operate in others, Bitstamp, the third-largest Bitcoin exchange, will also be licensed across all 28 European Union countries. The license goes into effect July 1, when Bitstamp will be operational in Luxembourg.
Bitstamp also announced the launch of euro-Bitcoin trading. Now, consumers in all EU countries wanting to exchange euros for Bitcoin and vice versa will be able to do so on a fully licensed Bitcoin exchange. (Bitcoin-euro trading is currently offered on a few exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken, among others.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brooklyn Microgrid World’s First Peer-to-Peer, Blockchain Energy Transaction
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2027695-worlds-first-peer-to-peer-energy-transaction-on-the-blockchain-has-arrived/?sidebar=morein
NEW YORK—The future in peer-to-peer consumer energy exchange is here. The world’s first small-scale power grid, a microgrid, to use consumer blockchain transaction (think Bitcoin) has begun in New York.
The first paid energy transaction between two individuals happened on April 11, on President Street, Brooklyn, where long-term resident and social justice activist Eric Fruman sold excess renewable energy from his solar rooftop installation to ex-Energy Star National Director Bob Sauchelli. This was the beginning of a relationship between five homes on one side of Presidents St., producing energy and selling their excess, to five homes on the other side.
The Brooklyn microgrid is a small-scale solar venture in the Gowanus and Park Slope neighborhoods. It enables residents to trade and sell solar energy locally, via rooftop solar setups without the involvement of national utility companies. Instead they rely on a New York startup called TransActive grid.
Blockchains are programs that make it possible to create digital ledgers. They are favored by the financial market due to their security, transparency, and ability to run in real time.
Blockchains are commonly known for their association with Bitcoin. As Orsini puts it, “Bitcoin is to blockchain like Kleenex is to tissue.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bangladesh Bank hackers compromised SWIFT software, warning issued
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nyfed-bangladesh-malware-exclusiv-idUSKCN0XM0DR
The attackers who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank probably hacked into software from the SWIFT financial platform that is at the heart of the global financial system, said security researchers at British defense contractor BAE Systems.
SWIFT, a cooperative owned by 3,000 financial institutions, confirmed to Reuters that it was aware of malware targeting its client software. Its spokeswoman Natasha Deteran said SWIFT on Monday released a software update to thwart the malware, along with a special warning for financial institutions to scrutinize their security procedures.