Author: George Naylor

George is a seasoned creative freelancer from the UK, and has specialised in both teaching and writing about Music and Technology subjects. Foolishly ignoring Bitcoin after hearing about it in 2012, he is now making up for lost time and absolutely doesn’t regret buying any. If you have any interesting cryptocurrency or blockchain projects - please get in touch.

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Global Blockchain Investor Statement – Laser, XLM and Government Projects

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Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. (CSE:BLOC) a Vancouver based British Colombia Investment Company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (“CSE”) have released their Q2 performance update to investors. Within the report are details of blockchain projects that involve ‘major corporations’ and ‘government entities’.

‘BLOC is presently undertaking several projects – a number of which remain under confidentiality due to the involvement of major corporations as well as government entities.’

Of particular note is their Tokenized Forex Trading Network project, federated on the Stellar Network. This will facilitate the trading of foreign currencies, tokenising fiat on Stellar’s decentralised exchange. Several leading remittance and exchange partners are reportedly involved with this project, with the exchange set to launch early Q3 of 2018.

Other key projects include Global Blockchain’s upcoming use cases for Laser – a hard fork of Ethereum. It features anonymity, blockchain interoperability and almost instant transactions, with BLOC having received ‘significant interest’ in Laser. The token launches early in Q3 this year. Their Trade Finance Solutions suite is also underway, utilising blockchain-based technology to optimise trading and finance processes are currently in development, with government, port authorities and banks all involved.

The authenticity and exposure that a publicly trading technologies and investment company brings to both Stellar and Laser will almost certainly boost both of their profiles, solidifying their use cases. With general market sentiment currently hovering around ‘almost’ positive, it seems like only a matter of time before industry good news stories are accompanied by a confirmed downtrend reversal. Whether Stellar and Laser and linked to the NDA government and major corporation projects remains to be seen.

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BAC Partners with Poseidon – built on Stellar (XLM) – in World First

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The Poseidon Foundation, a carbon credit and market blockchain NGO initiative built on the Stellar network, has partnered with BAC (Briggs Automotive Company) to become the world’s first car manufacturer to become ‘climate positive’.

In partnering with the Poseidon Foundation, BAC will be able to utilise their revolutionary blockchain carbon credit infrastructure and point-of-sale donation technology to rebalance their carbon footprint, removing more CO2 than the company emits from car production, servicing and delivery. BAC is the manufacturer of the world’s only single-seater, road-legal supercar, and have featured on prime-time programs such as Top Gear. This blockchain carbon credit partnership will help contribute to forest conservation projects, such as Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park.

Ian Briggs, Co-Founder of BAC, gave this statement regarding the new venture:

‘We are absolutely delighted to team up with Poseidon and take this important step to becoming a climate-positive manufacturer…. At BAC, we are totally committed to embracing new technology and are devoted to designing and developing more and more carbon-friendly products’

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson even recognised the significance of this milestone, celebrating the ‘cutting-edge technology’ being used by the Liverpool car company to become carbon positive. This marks the second major partnership that Poseidon has announced, having only recently launched a pilot with Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream in London. Negative market sentiment seems to be doing little to blunt cross-market partnerships and innovation within the DLT and cryptocurrency space, with this breaking news demonstrating further validation of the Stellar Lumen’s protocol and its competitive advantage for major industry applications.

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Codius (XRP) in Opening Keynote at Crypto Valley Conference

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Stefan Thomas, ex-CTO and founder of Coil – a new blockchain payments and smart contracts layer built on the Interledger protocol and backed by Ripple – gave the opening keynote on Ripple’s ‘Codius’ just yesterday at the Crypto Valley Conference, Switzerland.

The Crypto Valley conference boasts over 650 attendees, with industry heavy hitters and sponsors such as Microsoft and Capgemini present. Ending today, the event, held in the Zug Casino in Switzerland, attracted attention not just for its high price-tag (CHF 1,300 per ticket) but also for the combination of speakers and potential industry partners. It would have been of particular interest to those present to have heard about the progression and potential applications of Ripple’s smart contract and ‘smart programs’ functionality.

Codius’ protracted launch as the smart contract layer for Ripple’s ledger technology has meant that a ‘re-launch’ of the technology occurred this May, despite originally being coded  and developed in 2014 by Ripple labs. One criticism of Ripple’s XRP and Interledger functionality has been the lack of easy access open-source development tools for blockchain and payment applications – something which has been celebrated on rival platforms such as Ethereum.

General market conditions and sentiment remain stubborn for such a conference announcement, with Bitcoin down nearly 6% this morning, and XRP trading at $0.51. However, with the recent limelight of Codius’ re-launch, and industry veteran Stefan Thomas commercialising the software with Coil, it will be very interesting to watch how this development for Ripple and XRP progresses, especially in a more positive market climate.

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Stellar and Lightyear in Potential Acquisition of Chain

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With an exciting and potentially game-changing industry update, the cryptocurrency race of company acquisition seems to have truly kicked off, with the Stellar Lumen’s Foundation – and its for-profit arm Lightyear – looking to acquire San Francisco start-up ‘Chain’.

A tweet just yesterday from Lumenauts.com, a community news and ‘unofficial Stellar guide’ outlet, quotes a Fortune article detailing this rumoured takeover. In what appears to be a confirmation of the rumour, Anthony Barker – CTO at Tempo.EU (a remittance company and Stellar anchor) corrects the Fortune article title, stating ‘I think they must mean Lightyear’ (Stellar’s for-profit arm).

Chain, with CEO Adam Ludwin, currently engages in developing high net worth cryptocurrency and blockchain projects and research, building cryptographic ledgers that ‘underpin breakthrough financial products and services’. Founded in 2014, Chain has raised in excess of $40 million with venture funding from notable names including Nasdaq, Citi Ventures, Pantera Capital and even Visa themselves. Links to industry heavy-hitters will only serve as further confirmation of the company’s pedigree, connections and Stellar’s acquisition motives.

This would mark a very interesting development for both the Stellar protocol and the cryptocurrency space as a whole. Acquiring a serious cryptocurrency engineering and research company would signal a challenge to the rest of the blockchain industry, and be seen as serious future intent from both the SDF and Lightyear. With Stripe amongst the first investors in the Stellar Protocol itself, it seems that the financial and future pieces of the secret jigsaw may be finally coming together – especially with IBM’s Universal Payment system just weeks away. Exactly what the deal between Chain and Stellar will entail remains to be seen.

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EOS Sports Bets Beta Launch

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With the EOS network now live, DApp creators are practically falling over themselves to launch their products. With the recent inaugural global hackathon sponsored by Block.one in Hong Kong, it seems that new projects are appearing on the new protocol almost daily. One industry ripe for technological disruption from blockchain is Sports betting.

Being able to facilitate the security and transparency of a blockchain, as well as the potential for larger free-market dynamics and liquidity sportsbooks, could certainly attract new and experienced punters.

EOS Sports Bets is aiming to do just that, with a Beta launch of its platform this July. Currently under NDA, they are conducting a 1,000 Token per user Airdrop to interested participants.  Goals from the company include allowing customers to set their own odds by participating in an ‘advanced sportsbook market’. By creating a decentralised community and market for sports-betting, EOS Sports Bets and the underlying EOS protocol promise to help shift the balance of power away from more centralised and controlling betting organisations. EOS’ fee-free structure will certainly go some way in securing the business viability of such a project.

Recently updating their whitepaper, EOS Sports Bets aims to begin expanding support for sports by August and live in-game betting by late-September. It will be interesting to watch how EOS Sports Bets and the EOS ecosystem progresses into Q3 and Q4. For more information on the project, readers can visit their twitter page and for anyone looking for some gambling sites that accept cryptocurrencies in the meantime check out our dedicated page with the latest offers from a range of bookmakers and casinos.

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Stellar Lumens Decentralised Exchange Updates and Launch (XLM)

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The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) are in the final stages of preparing their own decentralised exchange (SDEX), rumoured to be this July, and have announced plans to make an alteration to the core protocol.

This protocol alteration would change how buy and sell orders are executed on all Stellar based exchanges, such as their own SDEX, or a third-party exchange like Stellarterm. At the moment it’s possible to create multiple ‘shadow’ offers, which add up to more than the total holdings of the wallet. These offers can then disappear, leading to potential manipulation of the order books. Whilst users of exchanges such as Binance are used to ‘fake’ buy and sell walls, these exchanges at least require the buyer or seller to hold the correct amount of the underlying asset, with users unable to bid/sell with greater amounts than their wallets contain.

The proposed update would change how the Stellar protocol functions, and also therefore the related decentralised exchanges, bringing it in line with how centralised exchanges operate. Users would only be able to sell or buy with what they hold in their wallet. By introducing a ‘liabilities’ function, both outbound and inbound liabilities would be vetted, keeping track of what an account is selling and buying, preventing this particular style of order book manipulation.

“So what are those changes in plain English?

Short version: you can only sell what you have (shout out to captain obvious).

Longer version: we are making this happen by introducing the notion of “liabilities” that are enforced across the board.

Outbound liabilities keep track of what an account is selling via offers.

Keeping track of those liabilities stops people from:

creating offers that would sell an asset more than once

paying people with assets that they are also selling (if they really want to do that, they need to remove the offer from the order book first to free up those liabilities)” –Nicolas (SDF)

Although the above may seem like a relatively small change, it is a clear signal from the SDF on how seriously they are taking the potential liquidity boost that their protocol and revamped exchange will experience in the coming months. With final touches to their ‘professional’ updated trading user interface only weeks away from public eyes, and native currency Lumens (XLM) being approved by financial regulators in New York for trading on the itBit exchange, it seems that this particular protocl and cryptocurrency is readying itself for some serious industry attention.

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Ask the EU About its Plans for Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

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The EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum will be hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the subject of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, at 6PM (CEST) on June 18th.

The organisation will devote 90 minutes to discussing and answering some of the most important issues within the digital space. Subjects included in the Observatories agenda are:

What are blockchain technologies?

What are they used for?

Let’s ask the hard questions

What to expect in the years ahead?

Launched in February this year, the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum is part of an EU-wide effort to accelerate the development of the European blockchain ecosystem. It was Established by the European Commission and Parliament as part of an initiative to invest €340 million into blockchain technology by 2020.

The formation of the Observatory comes as an interesting, albeit quiet development from one of the world’s largest trading blocs and markets. Despite increasing negative sentiment within the speculative markets of cryptocurrency, industry investment and confidence seems to be growing. The AMA will provide a unique and important insight into the direction of the EU and blockchain technology, and will help to inform investors and market makers of the legislative direction that the bloc will take.

The public can ask questions through Twitter, by using the @EUBlockchain handle and hashtag #AMAblockchain. There will also be a YouTube livestream of the event.

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Breaking News – First USD Anchor on the Stellar (XLM) Network

Stellar coin trading chart for monitoring XLM

In an incredibly exciting development for Stellar Lumen’s holders and cryptocurrency supporters, Stronghold – an exchange utilising the Stellar network’s inbuilt decentralised exchange mechanism and protocol – is launching the networks first USD anchor. Uncovered by members of the Reddit community, and hinted at by the company, a USD anchor can clearly be seen on Stellarterm.

Stronghold’s hint, on 8th May

Unlike stablecoin swap mechanisms such as Tether, real USD will be deposited or withdrawn through the anchor, and then digitised and exchanged for any digital asset on a platform built upon the Stellar protocol’s decentralised exchange (DEX). Furthermore, because of the vastly reduced operation costs of transactions on the network (currently 1 XLM powers roughly 100,000 transactions), the USD anchor will provide a much cheaper mode of exchange than current market options.

Stronghold has long been a supporter of the Stellar protocol, and involved with the founders since 2014. After initially launching a USD anchor in 2014, the company decided to close that particular functionality due to general lack of interest from the space. However, their expertise and experience within the field have clearly paid off, as they will (again) be the first to launch a fiat anchor onto the network.

A complaint often levelled against both centralised and decentralised exchanges is that funds can still be hard to deposit and withdraw, attracting large fees in doing so. Coinbases’ dominance as arguably the main gateway to the cryptocurrency space is mostly attributed to its user-friendly interface and easy deposit mechanism. High fees and delays are often a complaint.

The 7th most valuable cryptocurrency having a direct fiat on-and-off ramp will certainly be a game-changer, and may go some way towards decoupling its native asset and network from Bitcoin’s volatility. Whether this news will attract new speculators to Stronghold’s DEX is another matter. However – with the foundation’s announcement of its own SDEX being launched in July and receiving a professional-grade trading platform makeover, to rival the UI and functionality of Binance, and almost daily news of projects built on Stellar – it seems that this particular protocol and digital currency will continue going from strength to strength.

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World’s First Cryptocurrency Mobile Phone Network YOVO Chooses Stellar (XLM) and Malta

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Despite a tumultuous and volatile market, infrastructure investment within the blockchain space sees no signs of slowing down. In another coup for the Maltese government, YOVO – the world’s ‘first’ cryptocurrency-based mobile phone network, has relocated its global headquarters to Malta.

Utilising the Stellar network, YOVO and its native ‘YO token’ can be bought, earned and spent on over 500 mobile network partners, across 130+ countries at launch. Promising to be the first international mobile network powered by its own currency, YO tokens can be purchased or earned directly on a mobile phone. Tasks such as downloading and trying new apps/DApps, shopping, micro-tasks, receiving a call or text through the Virtual SIM, signing up to a new cryptocurrency exchange and more all earn the digital currency.

Richard Skaife, CEO and Co-founder of YOVO, commented on their relocation to Malta:

The world’s most innovative mobile network is proud to call Malta, the global leader in blockchain, its home. We shall serve millions of digital money customers with mobile service from our Malta HQ and be an active part of the broader blockchain community that’s growing daily on blockchain island. We are particularly grateful for the support of the Maltese Government through Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation Silvio Schembri as we launch YOVO”

The Stellar protocol was also praised in the announcement, described by the YOVO team as ‘the fastest protocol for building financial products that connect people everywhere’.

In what promises to be an exciting business development to watch –  cryptocurrency, and the Stellar network in particular, seem ripe for industry application and disruption. Whilst it’s too early to tell whether the large telecommunications players are worried, YOVO and their blockchain solution will certainly capture the attention of professionals and the public alike. The company have secured an initial €20m of funding for their venture.

Despite the unpredictability of the current market, one thing is for certain – finance ministers across the world will be growing increasingly impatient at their own government’s inability to capitalise on the speed of development, and potential tax revenues from the blockchain space – and envious of Malta’s attractive legislation and growing digital global dominance.

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New ‘Unhackable’ Cryptocurrency Wallet

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Cryptocurrency hacks and lost funds are a constant worry amongst cryptocurrency investors and users. Stories of untold riches and wealth being lost or stolen seem to crop up every year, and with investment and usability only increasing, third party vendors are striving to catch up with the demand and opportunity.

Layer – a design studio run by Benjamin Hubert, has collaborated with a fintech startup to launch ‘Trove’ – a digital wallet and app which can store cryptocurrency in a completely unhackable medium. The ecosystem consists of four parts: Coin, Keep, Safe, and the Trove app itself. The Coin element of the wallet is a small wearable device with an inbuilt electrocardiogram (heart) sensor. This means that the wallet can only be opened biometrically, similar to fingerprint detection. It registers the user’s unique heartbeat and verifies the transfer via a Bluetooth connection with the app. Available in either black aerated aluminium or silver anodised aluminium, Coin can be attached to three different accessories – a necklace, wristband or brooch.

Coin certainly seems to provide a novel way to validate on-the-go transactions, and provides a much-needed alternative to encryption keys and pin combinations. Wearable cryptocurrency wallet tech is still its infancy, and any usable consumer products will help increase adoption.

Other elements of the wallet – Keep and Safe – are used to charge the coin via induction (Keep) and act as a personal home bank (Safe). Providing easy access to an individual’s offline wallet through the app means that sensitive data is kept separate from potential vulnerabilities.

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