Category: Industries

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Crypto News EOS Industries

EOS Community Revolts and Blocks $250 Million Payments to Block.one

UK-based charity the EOS Network Foundation (ENF) has stopped payments to its parent company, Block.one, for allegedly not supporting the interests of the EOS network.

EOS Community Stops Vesting

On December 8, the EOS community elected to take the action against Block.one – the company that designed the EOS blockchain (EOSIO) – for failing to provide the ongoing support that was agreed on for 100 million EOS (10 percent of total supply) over 10 years from launch date.

The top 25 block producers out of 50 have approved a decision to stop the issuance of the remaining 67 million EOS, worth an estimated US$250 million at current prices, that was to be distributed over the next six to seven years.

Through a super majority consensus, the EOS network has taken its future in its own hands by voting to fire Block.one and stop vesting tokens to them. This begins a new era for EOS and highlights the power of the blockchain to enable a community to stand up against corporate interests that don’t align with theirs.

Yves La Rose, leader, EOS Network Foundation

Community Frustrated with Block.one’s Efforts

Over the past three years since the chain’s inception, some members of the EOS community have been disappointed by Block.one’s lack of commitment to developing use cases for the network. Although Block.1 has launched a social media platform known as Voice, the reality is that Voice has turned into an NFT platform.

ENF leader Yves La Rose also mentioned that the coins given to Block.one were meant for the development of “public goods” for the blockchain, and not a social media app or exchange. The chain also lost one of its largest DApps earlier in the year to Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

As a result of the community’s discontent, in August 2021 a group was formed by existing EOS members and block producers called the EOS Network Foundation. It appointed La Rose, who formerly ran the EOS block producer EOS Nation, as its leader and since then has been at odds with Block.one.

In November, La Rose made a speech outlining his plans for the network, stating that EOS had been let down by Block.one and needed to find a new way forward. “What we are experiencing is a shift whereby the EOS community is placing itself in a position to be able to move away from Block.one, essentially forking them out,” La Rose said.

Negotiations over Intellectual Property

Over the next month and a half, the ENF engaged in dialogues with Brock Pierce, co-founder of Block.one. The primary goal was to get hold of the EOS network’s intellectual property, and the main bargaining chip on the ENF’s side was the network’s continuance of payments.

But one key problem, according to the ENF, was that the EOS intellectual property sits on Bullish’s balance sheet, meaning that Block.one would need to purchase it from the exchange. This caused a roadblock since Block.one wouldn’t publicly commit to getting the intellectual property back from Bullish.

Several major EOS block producers met to discuss the matter, and after a series of failed negotiations and disagreements over who would deliver a letter of intent, it resulted in the final vote between the block producers, and here we are. As it stands, it’s unclear if further negotiations could lead to the release of payments and the holder of the IP.

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Blockchain Industries Payments

Square Rebrands to ‘Block’ Amid Broader Push into Crypto

Jack Dorsey’s digital payments firm Square has rebranded as a symbol of its growth and continued movement into the blockchain industry.

On December 1, Square said it would be changing its name to ‘Block’. According to the announcement, the rebadge is a symbol of its continued growth and will act as an umbrella term for the various services created since its inception in 2009.

Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.

Jack Dorsey, Block CEO and co-founder

The legal name “Square, Inc” is expected to be legally changed to “Block, Inc” around December 10, once all applicable legal requirements have been satisfied.

The Square’s new name has various associated meanings for the business. According to the announcement, the name Block represents “building blocks, neighbourhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome”.

The company has already expanded its crypto services to Australia with its A$39 billion purchase of Afterpay to make bitcoin purchases on a “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) basis. 

Dorsey Moving Further into Crypto

Square’s name change follows Dorsey stepping down as Twitter CEO late last month, with many believing he now wants to spend more time working on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

The Square rebadge announcement also mentions blockchain technology and further reveals that Square’s subsidiary, Square Crypto, will also change its name.

As a result of the name change, Square Crypto, a separate initiative of the company dedicated to advancing Bitcoin, will change its name to Spiral.

Block press release

Spiral and TBD are two initiatives under the Block umbrella that focus entirely on Bitcoin. Spiral is dedicated to building and funding “open-source projects aimed at making bitcoin the planet’s preferred currency”, while TBD is currently focused on developing a decentralised bitcoin exchange to “build bridges between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds”.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Industries Regulation

ASX’s Long-Awaited Blockchain CHESS Replacement Goes Into Testing

ASX Prices Climb as Bitcoin Price Plummets On Anzac Weekend
A board displaying stock prices is seen at the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in Sydney, Australia, February 9, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray

Yesterday, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) announced the opening of the first of the Industry Test Environments (ITE1) for its blockchain post-trade replacement solution, CHESS.

The upgraded CHESS system has undergone some rigorous tests to ensure it can deal with Australia’s increasingly large share market. This is a major step towards the new CHESS equities clearing and settlement system going live in 2023.

The Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) is the core system that performs the processes of clearing, settlement, asset regulation, and other post-trade services that are critical to the orderly functioning of the market. ITE1 gives CHESS users their first exposure to ASX’s fully integrated external solution, which includes Digital Asset’s DAML smart contract development capability and VMware’s DLT platform. The solution uses Digital Asset’s DAML smart contract language and VMWare’s blockchain.

The New System Available in 2022

ITE1 will open for software providers, third-party vendors who supply software to CHESS users, and organisations developing in-house systems. The ITE2 will open in April 2022 for market participants and other CHESS users. The announcement is for developers, while end-users will be able to access another iteration (ITE2) of the test environment from the same date, while the launch date is planned for April 2023.

This is truly a step in the right direction as the project has already been delayed three times. In September 2018 ASX pushed the live date to late 2020, but it was extended to April 2022. The extension was given to allow participants and regulators to cope with the volatility of early pandemic trading, and then to allow the new system to be redesigned to accommodate a massive increase in trading volumes.

Tim Hogben, the ASX group executive for securities and payments, said in a media statement:

Today’s opening is a significant step on the journey towards the go-live for the CHESS replacement system in April 2023. Together, we’ve entered a new and exciting phase of the project.

Tim Hogben, ASX

He added that the system would generate valuable feedback for ASX on the state of the new and developing system, with software providers testing functional and non-functional workflows across all connectivity access channels.

A Keen Eye Will Be Kept on CHESS

Hogben described the CHESS replacement project as a key pillar in ASX’s strategy to “build an exchange for the future and deliver world-leading infrastructure to the Australian market”.

Given that the CHESS replacement project involves groundbreaking technology, it is sure to garner a lot of attention. As a result of the hype around CHESS, ITE1 will be closely watched by many financial markets worldwide as the world considers its own long-term technology solution upgrade.

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Blockchain Crypto News Industries Tokens

AVAX Soars on News of Partnership with Deloitte, World’s Biggest Accounting Firm

Deloitte, one of the world’s top-ranked and most valuable accounting firms, has partnered with Ava Labs, the team behind Avalanche (AVAX), to leverage blockchain technology for its new cloud-based platform.

According to its press release, the partnership will see Deloitte leveraging the Avalance blockchain to “enable a new disaster recovery platform that uses the Avalanche blockchain to help state and local governments easily demonstrate their eligibility for federal emergency funding”.

Avalanche Utilised to Provide a Secure Environment for Federal Disaster Claims

The new Close As You Go (CAYG) platform was developed with help from first responders, public works departments, finance authorities and grant-making agencies to help simplify and streamline disaster reimbursement applications to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Close As You Go features a user-friendly interface backed by the cutting edge of blockchains, helping state and local governments focus on their recovery, rather than extensive claims processes.

John Wu, president, Ava Labs

By using Avalanche’s eco-friendly blockchain technology, these critical documents can be quickly gathered, processed and authenticated. CAYG’s cloud-based platform provides state and local officials with a decentralised, transparent and cost-efficient system that empowers grant-makers and funding recipients while minimising fraud, waste and abuse.

Our new Close As You Go platform can play a critical role in helping these leaders be prepared to aggregate and validate the documentation necessary to demonstrate eligibility for funding and reduce the risk of adverse audit findings down the road.

Alex Haseley, principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP, also Deloitte’s government and public services crisis management portfolio leader

AVAX Price Soars

The Avalanche (AVAX) ecosystem has seen exponential growth during the past year, and the native currency AVAX is up 2,618 percent year-to-date. During the past week, the AVAX price reached a little over US$110 after rising 16 percent, with its circulated market cap hitting US$23.76 billion, almost 1 per cent of the total crypto market cap.

In contrast, other leading cryptos, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), fell by over 13 percent and 12.50 percent respectively week-to-date. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte, 76 per cent of people believe crypto will be a strong alternative to fiat money within the next decade.

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Ethereum Industries Loopring Markets NFTs Tokens

Loopring Token Soars Over 100% on Rumour of GameStop NFT Marketplace Collaboration

GameStop, the American video game, consumer electronics and gaming merchandise retailer, is rumoured to be working with Loopring (LRC), an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, to build an NFT marketplace, causing its native token to make sizeable gains.

As speculation about GameStop’s NFT marketplace increases, Loopring’s LRC token has climbed over 100 percent in the past seven days, following various signs pointing to an unnamed partnership to help develop blockchain technology with the gaming giant.

According to a post on GameStop Due Diligence (GMEdd), a website focused on the corporation, a leak in the Loopring GitHub public repository appears to indicate a possible collaboration with GameStop Corporation (GME) for a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace. The code posted on GitHib reveals that GameStop NFT is built on EIP-1155, which allows the creation of fungible, non-fungible, and semi-fungible tokens in one single token standard.

Additionally, the amended code in the branch “NFT-DEV” under the GitHub commit titled ‘NFT feature’ makes reference to ‘gameStopMeta’ and an IPFS URL, a well-known distributed system for storing and accessing files, websites, applications and data.

Loopring’s ‘NFT feature’ code reveals several references to GameStop.

Nobody knows for certain what GameStop’s NFT division has been working on. Loopring is keeping secrets as well, with CEO Daniel Wang disclosing that the Ethereum-based technology company is “working with a premium partner who demands they keep quiet”.

Loopring Solving the Gas Problem

According to Loopring’s official website, it boasts the industry’s most secure scaling method, which is independent of external validators, consensus, or crypto-economic assumptions.

High Ethereum gas prices make it difficult for ERC-20 projects to run any microtransaction payments, defeating the idea of using the Ethereum network for GameStop’s primary use cases – forcing it to consider Layer 2 solutions or other blockchains.

Additionally, Loopring announced it will be enabling NFT support, “allowing anyone to mint and trade NFTs instantly and gas-free”, adding that the functionality is being used as the foundation of a new NFT marketplace launching soon.

Loopring Price Skyrockets

Following breadcrumbs picked up by GMEdd, and the progress of the project, the price of Loopring has shot up. Since the beginning of October, Loopring LRC/USD has risen from US$0.36 to $0.58, and is now trading at $1.58, smashing its previous all-time high in a matter of days.

LRC/USDT price: Tradingview
Categories
Australia Crypto News Industries Regulation

Australian Cybersecurity Bill Slammed by Industry Bodies as ‘Over-Reaching’ and ‘Fast-Tracked’

A new Australian Infrastructure Bill that gives the government considerable powers in the event of a high-risk cyberattack is in the process of being passed. Yet the Bill has been criticised by a coalition of Australian and US tech companies, while the government pushes to get its new permissions “fast-tracked”.

The Australian government is in the process of introducing an enhanced regulatory framework, building on existing requirements under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has made 14 recommendations and looks to amend the SOCI Act to add three permissions. The tech coalition’s specific concerns relate to Part 3A of the Act, which allows “government assistance to relevant entities for critical infrastructure sector assets in response to significant cyberattacks that impact on Australia’s critical infrastructure assets”.

According to a report by The Australian newspaper, if the permissions are granted, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), a government agency in charge of cyber warfare and information security, would be able to take over control of critical infrastructure such as energy, communications and banking systems.

The Critical Infrastructure Bill will be introduced to parliament on October 27, with bipartisan support from the committee that examined it.

Tech Industry Doesn’t Agree

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Cybersecurity Coalition and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) are opposing the bill and stated in a letter to Karen Andrews MP, Minister for Home Affairs, that they were “disappointed” by the fact that no changes were made after they had given recommendations, and that the Bill was to be “fast-tracked and pushed through as a separate Bill, without further public consultation”.

The PJCIS recommended that emergency powers be swiftly legislated in a stand-alone bill, with a second, separate bill to be introduced following further consultation. The tech coalition stated in the joint letter that “without significant revision, the bill will create an unworkable set of obligations and set a troubling global precedent”.

While the government asserts that this power is intended only as a measure of last resort to address “cybersecurity incidents”, the Bill provides the government with unprecedented and far-reaching powers, which can impact the networks, systems and customers of domestic and international entities, and should be subject to a statutorily prescribed mechanism for judicial review and oversight.

Tech coalition letter

The group strongly urged the Australian government to consider the precedent the Bill sets for Australia’s trade partners in addressing national security risks, as well as the challenges Australian companies may face in other markets if these requirements are replicated by other governments.

The Increasing Importance of Cybersecurity

This comes after a new Ransomware Action Plan, released last week, that allows Australian authorities to seize or freeze financial transactions in cryptocurrencies that are associated with cybercrime, regardless of their country of origin.

The PJCIS has stated that the “threat of cybersecurity vulnerability and malicious cyber activity has become increasingly evident in recent years”, with about a quarter of reported cybersecurity incidents affecting critical infrastructure organisations.

According to Senator James Paterson, chair of the parliamentary committee: “While sympathetic to the concerns of industry leaders, the committee does not believe that pausing the entire Bill is in Australia’s national interests given the immediate cyber threats that our nation faces”, adding that “the committee’s recommended solution allows for urgent measures to pass now to equip the government with the emergency powers it needs, while allowing additional time for co-design to overcome the concerns of industry about the regulatory impact”.

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Banking CBDCs Crypto News Industries Institutions

French CBDC Trial Incorporating Smart Contracts Heralded a Success

Banque de France, the French central bank, has successfully completed its 10-month trial using Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) in the country’s debt market.

The trial was led by Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial services company that specialises in the settlement of securities transactions. The trial also included many of France’s largest banks, as well as the French public debt office and the central bank, which used a permissioned blockchain-based system developed by IBM on Hyperledger Fabric.

We have together successfully been able to measure the inherent benefits of this technology, concluding that the CBDC can settle central bank money safely and securely.

Isabelle Delorme, Euroclear executive

According to the report released by Euroclear, the pilot was launched in March 2020 by Banque de France to explore the uses of a digital currency issued by the central bank. The continued research and development of a CBDC for the settlement of government bonds and securities has been adjudged a success, according to Euroclear:

It showed that CBDC can be effectively used to support the settlement of securities in central bank money and that it is possible to run post-trade operations for an activity as critical for the capital markets as the management of OATs [order audit trail system].

Euroclear report

Enhancing the Traditional System

Typically, deals are reconciled between parties, recorded and assets transferred to a single centralised authority such as a central bank or securities depository. This process usually pushes out the time settlement takes and increases costs due to intermediaries.

This experiment made it possible to demonstrate the possibilities of interaction between conventional and distributed infrastructures. It also paves the way for other alliances in order to benefit from the opportunities offered by financial assets in a blockchain environment.

Nathalie Aufauvre, general director of financial stability and operations, Banque de France

The project tested use cases of a CBDC in a range of everyday activities, such as issuing new bonds, using them in repurchase agreements, as well as paying coupons and redeeming deals.

Dedicated smart contracts were developed to test the handling of coupon payments based on the holdings of securities tokens. Payments were automatically prepared at defined dates and automatically settled in CBDC at defined payment dates on the blockchain platform.

Smart contracts have the ability to provide more autonomy to capital market participants while maintaining the control imposed by regulators on a blockchain platform.

Landmark for CBDCs

According to Soren Mortensen, global director of financial markets at IBM, the project “went well beyond previous blockchain initiatives” because it successfully trialled “most central securities depository and central bank processes” while eliminating existing interim steps such as reconciliation between market intermediaries. Blockchain could therefore facilitate a reduction of the settlement cycle, leading to capital and margin cost reductions.

Veteran policymaker Benoît Cœuré warned central banks last month to act more quickly to develop official digital assets because new technologies such as decentralised finance posed a threat to banks and other depository institutions.

Due to the nature of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), it is possible to process transactions without the need for an intermediary, reducing fees and increasing speed, while transactions remain completely traceable and transparent. Policymakers are worried that private sector initiatives around payments and cryptocurrency issuance could lead to central banks losing control of monetary policy, therefore spurring the uptake of CBDCs.

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Australia Bitcoin BSV Blockchain Industries

Aussie Tech Startup ‘Tokenized’ Launches API to Help Developers with Smart Contracts

Tokenized is an Australian startup aiming to change the way capital markets work by leveraging blockchain and smart contracts. It has recently launched its API that allows anyone to plug into its service to use smart contracts and tokenised instruments.

Smart Contract API for Developers

The API for Tokenized, a smart contracting platform believed to be the “first practical step forward towards building out a smart contract-based global financial system”, has been made available. The platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will release a host of services for users who want to build “banking-grade, and feature-rich, apps with embedded smart contracts and token services”.

Building Your Business on the Blockchain

The platform fully utilises the Bitcoin SV network for its low transaction fees and high transaction throughput at 10,000 transactions per second, allowing both public and private entities as the basis for its blockchain-based applications. It joins the ranks of other Aussie companies leveraging the BSV network, such as Progressive Minerals, a mining company using the Bitcoin SV network (BSV) to build its new blockchain-based infrastructure.

The platform allows users to draft, manage, and execute smart contracts with no code. Some of the features even allow for the recovery of users’ funds if they lose their keys through an identity and authority oracle.

Users can build a business, brands, or even a front-end supported with all the associated Bitcoin, token, smart contract and compliance-related tech. There are various built-in security add-ons such as KYC, multifactor authentication systems, vaults, and lockboxes to assure the safety of future users.

Who Can Benefit From Tokenized?

Tokenized is capable of working with any organisation, or individual, around the world interested in issuing smart contracts and tokens on a distributed ledger.

The Tokenized platform’s design has been generalised to account for all of the key features required of any type of agreement and the associated legal instruments. In other words, any use case that requires entities working together can benefit from utilising the solution.

James Belding, CEO, Tokenized

Any business that would like to issue digital assets (loyalty points, coupons, tickets, etc) to improve customers’ user experience can benefit. The interoperability of an on-chain token system can open up new ways of engaging and rewarding customers on social media while lowering engagement resistance.

Example of an event ticket smart contract being drafted.

Tokenization is an increasingly useful solution for businesses to distribute digital or even real-world assets. Property in Australia has recently been tokenised in an attempt to lower barriers to entry for investors.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum Google Industries NFTs

FLOW Surges 20% on News of Google Signing Deal with NFT Giant

Dapper Labs, a leading platform for digital collectibles and games on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, has partnered with Google Cloud services to help the Canadian start-up scale. As a direct result, the FLOW token has seen an increase of nearly 20 percent.

Dapper Labs has its own blockchain, Flow, which helps users scale apps and games. Google will improve on the product by acting as a network operator, providing developers on the Flow network with digital infrastructure that can process high transaction volumes at greater speed.

With Google’s help, Dapper Labs hopes to scale NBA Top Shot and other NFT lines running on Flow to billions of users.

NFT Platforms Still Performing Well

Dapper Labs products are some of the most used platforms on the Ethereum blockchain, with between 500,000 and one million transactions per week. NBA Top Shot, its flagship invention, has recorded over US$700 million in total sales and has been the leading collectible Dapp by users and volume (US$3.05 million) for the past 30 days, according to industry data site DappRadar.

Flow USD price chart. Source: Coinmarketcap

Following news of the partnership, FLOW‘s price spiked 15.5 percent in 24 hours to highs of US$24.13, while daily transaction volume stands at US$150 million, bouncing back after this month’s major dip.

Also earlier this month, another Dapper Labs product, CryptoKitties, sold more than US$7 million worth of NFTs in 24 hours as growing interest in non-fungible artworks boosted sales.

Warner Music partnered with the company via a strategic investment deal announced the same day, while Dapper Labs further revealed that Ubisoft, known for developing games such as Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, would function as an adviser on Flow.

Blockchain technology is becoming more and more mainstream. So companies like Dapper need scalable, secure infrastructure to grow their business and, even more importantly, support their networks.

Janet Kennedy, vice-president, Google Cloud North America

Google Dabbling in Blockchain

After it recently lifted an advertising ban on cryptocurrencies, Google’s latest partnership suggests it could venture into infrastructure building for Web 3.0.

Google’s cloud services do not currently offer mining cryptocurrency, but Janet Kennedy, vice-president of Google Cloud North America, has said developers will be able to choose regions that power their platforms based on their energy consumption.

Dapper Labs CEO and co-founder Roham Gharegozlou tweeted that he was “amped to welcome Google to Flow Blockchain”.

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Blockchain Crypto News Industries Tokens

Microsoft Crypto Patent Granted, Allowing Users to Create Own Tokens

Tech giant Microsoft has had its patent granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a new system allowing users to create crypto tokens that will be interoperable with all chains.

On August 24, a US patent was granted to Microsoft for developing a “ledger-independent token service”. The end result will be a “software service that enables users (individuals, organisations, automated agents/applications, etc) to create, transact with, and manage tokens across multiple different distributed ledger networks/platforms in a common way”.

Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the US, announced earlier this month that it had received 227 patent approvals in the first half of 2021, 8 percent of which were blockchain-related.

Microsoft’s Token Creation System

In the case of the MS patent, the technology will allow the user to choose one or more token templates where each fits a type of physical or digital asset. The tokens have a set of one or more attributes and one or more control functions associated with each type.

The computer system receives from the user the selected token template and then creates the token on the distributed ledger network. In other words, it could allow anyone to create their own token without having to write smart contract code, but by using predefined and parametrisable smart contract templates available on different blockchains. 

As well as creating their own tokens, users could upload their smart contracts between different blockchains, letting the system do all the technical work. Under the MS patent, the creation of these cross-chain tokens can be managed with a single user interface, making it much more user-friendly to adopt the technology.

Will It Be Available to the Public?

Despite the patent being granted to Microsoft, it’s not a sure thing that this technology will be publicly available as it has not been explicitly stated it would be made into an actual product.

The goal is to make token development more efficient for business use cases that involve surpassing the limits of a single blockchain. Companies that wish to enter the blockchain industry or make use of blockchain technologies can use this kind of system without needing the skills and savvy to create such a technically advanced layer for a business.

Microsoft has been actively involved in blockchain-related development in recent years, filing a wide number of patent applications related to the cryptocurrency industry with Hyperledger and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. It also recently developed a blockchain-based anti-piracy system.

Microsoft may play a significant part in the future of blockchain by using this patent, perhaps becoming one of the protagonists of the cryptocurrency revolution, which for now is still in its relative infancy.