Category: Industries

Categories
Australia Blockchain Industries

Australia and Singapore Border Blockchain ID Verification Trial a Success

The Australian Border Force (ABF) and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore have successfully completed a trial of blockchain technology to increase the effectiveness of trade flow between Australia and the island city-state.

According to the joint media release from the ABF, IMDA Singapore and Singapore Customs, the three institutions have been able to demonstrate trade documents can be issued and verified digitally across two independent systems.

As part of the Australia-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement, announced in November 2020, the project aimed to simplify cross-border trade. The trial successfully tested the interoperability of two digital verification systems – the ABF’s Intergovernmental Ledger (IGL) and IMDA’s TradeTrust reference implementation.

ABF commissioner Michael Outram said the positive results of the trial would help improve cross-border processes for the Australian trading community. Source: Joel Carrett/AAP

ABF is proud to pioneer cutting-edge digital verification projects in Australia. We understand this collaboration is among the first to involve multiple government agencies from two countries to achieve cross-border document interoperability.

Michael Outram, ABF commissioner

By using the blockchain-based, decentralised approach, transactions can become more cost-effective and offer scalability without the need for expensive data exchange infrastructure, lowering barriers to the adoption of paperless cross-border trade.

Digital Verification and Verifiable Documents Show Promise as a ‘Circuit-Breaker’ 

The goal of the IGL platform is to progressively remove the need for paper documents and reduce cross-border transaction costs for Australian business, as mentioned in the Simplified Trade System reform agenda.

“Digital verification and verifiable documents show promise as a ‘circuit-breaker’ to disrupt persistent paper-based evidence required by authorities,” Outram said.

A Successful First Test Case

The first test case for the project was issuing certificates of origin (COOs), which contained QR codes with unique blockchain-based proofs that verified the authenticity and integrity of the documents.

Certificates of origin are usually issued on paper and businesses usually wait days to receive the hard-copy document via courier before dispatching it to multiple parties, including customs agencies, brokers and banks. Paper trade documents are generally required by authorities to prove authenticity and integrity.

Ho Chee Pong,  director-general of Singapore Customs, stated that the Covid-19 pandemic had accelerated trade digitalisation and demonstrated the importance of cross-border paperless trade.

With these systems in place, documents can be verified much faster, allowing for seamless administration and an improved flow of information.

Categories
Australia Blockchain Industries

Fake Australian Covid Vaccine Certificates Are Growing: We Need Blockchain

With the increase of fake Covid-19 vaccine certificates circulating on the web, Australian specialists are calling for a nationwide roll-out of a blockchain-based vaccine certificate system.

According to a report published by The Australian newspaper, international fraudsters are selling fake Australian Covid-19 certificates for as little as A$120, claiming they have sold over 200 certificates to their alleged 900 interested customers.

The counterfeiters claim their certificates are so realistic, “You’ll be the only one to know you’ve not been vaccinated”. Another group of forgers claims it can convince medical doctors to enter false information straight into the Australian Immunisation Registry.

With networks spanning the globe, some providers claim they have partners in Australia, the US, Europe, and some parts of Asia. Darknet marketplaces have also been a source of fake certificates and stolen vaccines where clients can pay with cryptocurrencies. With so many sources of fraudulent certificates, a system needs to be designed to combat the criminals.

Why Use Blockchain?

According to Robert Potter of cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, it would be a good move for Australia to utilise blockchain technology to create a vaccine certificate system to ensure the current certificate system isn’t compromised.

We are able to give you a foolproof system that we solely are able to use, however we really need a worldwide system that everybody can use.

Robert Potter, Internet 2.0

However, Services Australia general manager Hank Jongen insists the current Covid-19 certificate application has “enhanced anti-fraud features” and that “where there are discrepancies […] Services Australia will contact the provider to ensure accuracy of this information and correct the record if required”.

By using blockchain technology, certificates can be digitally verified to check someone’s vaccination status, and its immutable properties mean issued certificates can’t be tampered with. However, our fallible brethren might still be persuaded to add fake certificates to the system.

Denmark’s Digital COVID-19 passport

Reforming How Health Information is Shared

Previously there has been some talk of Australia creating vaccine passports, but so far nothing has come of it. This would not be a groundbreaking endeavour, as the republic of San Marino in central Italy has already started implementing its blockchain-based vaccine passport through VeChain.

International conglomerate IBM has also developed a blockchain-powered digital health pass built-in with Amadeus, an airline reservations system utilised by more than 450 carriers around the globe.

Blockchain Australia deputy chair Karen Cohen believes a blockchain-based Covid certificate system may pave the way for the safe exchange of health information worldwide, stating: “This would be a really wonderful test case as a globally secured way of sharing health data.”

Categories
Australia Blockchain Crypto News Industries

ASX’s New CHESS Platform Set to Enter Testing Phase This Year

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is updating its broker platform with blockchain-based technology. The upgraded CHESS system has been undergoing rigorous testing to ensure it can deal with the increasingly large sharemarket in Australia.

The Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) is essentially the ASX’s system for securing, settling and clearing the Australian AU$2.5 trillion sharemarket.

The Need For Blockchain Technology

The exchange started the replacement project in 2015 and selected Digital Asset as its technology partner in January 2016 to develop a prototype based on blockchain technology. The new system improves on the previous one by creating a “single source of truth” through distributed ledger technology, where previously messages of ownership were sent back and forth leading to multiple records of share ownership.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, trading volumes had reached unprecedented levels, hitting equity volumes around 7 million trades a day in March 2020 compared to normal daily averages around 2 million. Thus, creating a scalable solution became imperative.

The New System Might Not Be Available to the Public until Mid-2022

The project has already been delayed three times. In September 2018 ASX pushed the live date to late 2020, and in July 2020 it was further extended to April 2022. The testing program will continue to the end of the 2022 calendar year before the system goes live in April 2023.

One of the reasons for this extension was 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 huge increase in trading volumes.

ASX chief executive Dominic Stevens said the synchronised ledger was being stress-tested to see if it could deal with high daily trading volumes, with about 40 market participants also testing the clearing and settlement system’s new code. By the end of July, ASX predicts it will have completed the code and will publish this into a “customer development environment” at the end of August.

The project is moving to operational implementation, as opposed to a technology build. We are reaching that turning point over the next six months.

ASX Chief Executive, Dominic Stevens

Since the ASX’s equities trading outage last November, some have questioned the necessity of such an ambitious technological endeavour that has far-reaching economic implications.

It needs a lot of testing as it’s a big ecosystem of value. But when you look at what was [designed] during the course of 2018, that is basically finished and is out there in the market.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Industries

Green Bitcoin Mining Company Bitfarms to Start Trading on the US Stockmarket

Bitfarms, a Quebecois company in charge of one of the largest crypto mining operations in North America, will be listed on NASDAQ on June 21. It will also continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) as BITF.

The company had been waiting for its DTC eligibility check to be passed but is now cleared to enter the US stock exchange.

More Than 99% Clean Energy

The company, soon to be listed as $BITF, is committed to using green energy – and more than 99% of the power it uses to run its operations comes from hydroelectric energy.

Bitfarms Fulfils Long-Range Ambition

Argentinian entrepreneur Emiliano Grodzki – founder and CEO of Bitfarms – commented on the news, stating that a NASDAQ listing had been in the company’s sights for a while. Now that it’s finally achieved this goal, he said it was proud to be largest publicly traded eco-friendly mining farm:

This belief has guided us as we worked to build one of the largest Bitcoin mining operations worldwide. When Bitfarms begins trading on the NASDAQ, it will be the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miner in North America using greater than 99% hydroelectric renewable electricity. We are proud to be a leader in the industry in setting the highest standards for ourselves and our mining operations and to be uplisting to one of the most prestigious stock exchanges in the world. Having reached this milestone we are even more excited about where it will take our company next.”

Emiliano Grodzki

The company was founded in 2017 and controls five mining facilities in Quebec. Rated as a “Rising Star” by the TSX in February, Bitfarms apparently mines nearly 1% of all Bitcoin currently in circulation.

Bitfarms is just one of several eco-friendly Bitcoin projects, with Texas crypto mining rush and El Salvador volcano Bitcoin mining, working on ways to make Bitcoin less of a problem for the environment.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News Industries

Nokia’s New Data Marketplace Runs on Blockchain Technology

The sleeping giant, Nokia recently announced its Data driven Marketplace. This will enable businesses to monetise and safely exchange data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models through a private blockchain.

According to a press release from Nokia their “Data Marketplace is designed to help enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) use data in strategic decision-making, by providing real-time access to massive trusted datasets.”

Customers Will Be Able To Sell Data to One Another

There are quite the variety of use cases ranging from electric vehicle charging, to smart cities, and healthcare. Business participants of this solution will be able to exchange data with each other through the marketplace.

For example airline participants could share important datasets with each other that could significantly aid real-time decision-making, preventative maintenance, and safety all secured by blockchain.

Use Cases for Nokia Data Marketplace: Nokia

The offering hooks into Nokia’s existing Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING), which offers global IoT connectivity for a range of markets such as logistics and healthcare.

Assisting AI Initiatives

The marketplace accelerates AI initiatives through federated learning for machine learning algorithms to gain experience from a broad range of data sets located at different locations. The approach enables multiple organizations to collaborate on the development of models, but without needing to directly share secure data with each other.

This approach, combined with orchestration capabilities, allows collaborative development of very accurate machine learning models for analytics use cases. It also meets growing demand for a platform that can efficiently apply AI and machine learning algorithms to data collected from any measuring instrument or sensor connected to the network.

Data Marketplace Infographic: Nokia

Our customers need secure and trusted access to data for effective business decision making. With Nokia Data Marketplace, enterprises and CSPs can now benefit from richer insights and predictive models to drive digital ways of working and tap into new revenue streams.

Friedrich Trawoeger, Vice President, Cloud and Cognitive Services at Nokia

The increase of in the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) by big companies such as Nokia is a good way to showcase to institutions and the public what can be done with blockchain technology.

Categories
Blockchain DeFi Industries

CEO of Shopify Shows Interest For DeFi

Shopify – an online platform that allows users to quickly build their own eCommerce store – has recently posted on Twitter about DeFi, asking for suggestions on how he can help the DeFi movement be pushed to the forefront of economic transactions.

Suggestions Requested

Although Shopify has been accepting crypto integrations since around 2014 – and an Aussie dev has been working independently on a Cardano integration, whose source code is freely available on GitHub, this tweet seems like a request for ideas to make DeFi a more official part of Shopify – which would most likely also come with support from the platform. This would in turn make investors more likely to consider supporting both Shopify and the DeFi ecosystem.

Several DeFi bigshots eagerly responded with suggestions, including Nansen’s Alex Svanevik’s suggestion to allow stablecoin payments and yields on cash stored in Shopify accounts.

ConsenSys’s Corbin Page also pointed to a project he and Jordan Lyall had made at the Ethereum Denver event a year back that would allow willing eShop owners to do just that.

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke went on to say that his ethos coincides with decentralization – and that he’s been a fan of the concept even before crypto was a thing.

“Shopify is a product of pre-crypto times and spiritually aligned with decentralizing opportunity. Over a million businesses use us around the world. Usually, companies see a market like retail and say “cool, I’ll go win that market”. Shopify did “cool, let’s make sure everyone can participate”. So, in spirit (not by your definition) we are helping push against centralization. Makes sense?”

As one of the top companies in Canada – ranked in Forbes’s top 50 Canadian companies – the adoption of blockchain by Shopify could be a major landmark for the banking industry and DeFi investors alike.

Categories
Crypto News Industries Institutions Trading

Prometheum Partnering With Anchorage To Launch Alternative Trading System for Digital Assets

The alternative trading system (ATS) is set to be a trading venue that matches buyers and sellers for both digital and traditional assets, if approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Opening Privileged Services to the Public

As announced by Anchorage, Prometheum CEO Aaron Kaplan stated that the ATS application is still pending at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Notwithstanding the approval, the company has built a system that allows brokerage firms and clearing firms to speak to each other easily in an effort to win over Wall Street companies to use a platform with which they’re familiar.

Currently this kind of service is only open to accredited and institutional investors, but Prometheum Ember ATS (“PEATS”) will be available to the public as well.

A public ATS for digital assets will allow more efficient order matching and better price discovery, bringing smaller price spreads and simplified participation for all investors,

Aaron Kaplan, Prometheum CEO

When the ATS goes live, Prometheum will be a full-service SEC and FINRA registered electronic market integrating both traditional and blockchain technology for the trading of digital asset securities, with on-chain custody and settlement provided by Anchorage Digital Bank.

It’s a Nasdaq on the blockchain

Aaron Kaplan, Prometheum CEO
Prometheum Homepage: Prometheum

Anchorage Holds the Key for Prometheum to Operate

Anchorage’s bank charter allows it to hold digital assets for broker-dealers and their clients, said Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley. ATS itself “is something that is a trading system but it’s not regulated as an exchange.”

Other ATS providers for digital securities include OpenFinance and the Public Private Execution Network. Security token firm Securitize applied for both a broker-dealer license and an ATS in October.

Adding more ATS platforms for the digital security market will give issuers more liquidity for their tokens

Nathan McCauley, Anchorage CEO

During its charting process, Anchorage got specific approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to custody security tokens on behalf of broker-dealers, McCauley added. The bank plans to offer cash loans with security tokens acting as collateral. Regulatory foundations are being set by these landmark organisations and act as support for the first public market for digital asset securities.

Categories
Crypto Debit Cards Crypto News Ethereum Industries Stablecoins

Visa Allows USD Coin (USDC) Cryptocurrency to Settle Transactions

Visa announced on Monday that it now allows partners of its network to clear fiat transactions with the USDC stablecoin using the Ethereum blockchain.

Visa Using Ethereum Blockchain

Visa’s most recent move, will allow them to utilise the Ethereum blockchain, this removes the need to convert digital currency into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled. Where this would traditionally be the case. For example, Crypto.com won’t have to go through conversions and can settle with Visa directly in USDC.

Visa said it has partnered with digital asset bank Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank, and completed the first transaction this month — with Crypto.com sending USDC to Visa’s Ethereum address at Anchorage. The (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency, and its value is directly linked to the U.S. dollar.

USDC Icon: Circle

Visa came to us in 2019 with an idea—make secure, efficient, and seamless settlement payments possible in digital currency by linking Visa’s treasury with Anchorage’s custody platform.

Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage

The credit card giant is already partnering with 35 digital currency platforms, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, BlockFi and Bitpanda, which collectively have more than 50 million active users.

We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies and we’re seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers.

Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa

“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency form factors,” said Visa chief product officer Jack Forestell. “The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency.”

The firm said it aims to make this system available to Fintech companies and neobanks dealing in cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and USDC. After further testing and additional conversations with its clients, partners, and members of the regulatory community, Visa hopes to launch the USDC settlement capability for other partners as well “in the year ahead.”

Categories
Banking Crypto News Industries

METACO Partners With IBM to Expedite its Digital Asset Management Solution

Tech conglomerate IBM has partnered with METACO a digital asset security company in order to create enterprise-level digital asset custody solutions for banks and financial service firms.

According to a press release on Thursday, METACO will use IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services for its digital asset management system and cryptocurrency custody solutions. METACO can deliver its traditional finance clients benefits including increased security and scalability as they adopt hybrid cloud strategies.

METACO Platform

Firstly, transaction-centric banks want to offer crypto assets to their customers, and secondly, firms want to tokenize traditional assets, and plug them into the DeFi.

Paul Brody, blockchain lead at EY

Financial Services Need to Ensure The Safety of Their Customers

According to SEC regulation promulgated as part of the Dodd Frank Act, institutional investors that have customer assets worth more $150,000 are required to store the holdings with a “qualified custodian”, and organisations such as METACO are filling in the services to bridge regulatory gaps.

Our multi-custodian solution allows them – with a single integration into their basic infrastructure – to transparently manage and diversify risks between multiple custodians, all within a holistic risk management and control framework.

Seamus Donaghue, vice president of strategic alliances at Metaco

Highly regulated financial service firms and banks that want to take part in the digital asset ecosystem will need proper infrastructure and security to ensure the safety of their customers. Since banking is the biggest client industry sector at IBM it’s the natural infrastructure choice for most banks and large financials looking for a foothold in the growing digital asset space.

As companies such as METACO continue to help the world’s top banks and exchanges manage their digital assets, IBM’s confidential computing capabilities help its clients ensure their data and processes are managed securely, bringing trust into the ecosystem and providing privacy assurance.

Hillery Hunter, IBM fellow, vice president and the chief technology officer of IBM Cloud

METACO has been the chosen digital asset custody provider for various financial institutions in Switzerland and other European countries. Having provided their services to megabanks such as Standard Chartered, BBVA and the Swiss-based division of Russia’s GazpromBank.

Kingdom Trust, a Kentucky-based custodian, was the largest such service for cryptocurrencies until it was purchased by BitGo, a San Francisco-based startup. Goldman Sachs and Fidelity have also recently diversified into this branch by launching ETFs. As regulation around cryptos start to clear up major financial firms and banks are getting more involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Categories
Bitcoin Industries Payments

Tesla Enables Bitcoin Payments

Earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that Bitcoin would be accepted as payment for Tesla cars – and now, the option has been made available to customers in the US.

In a follow-up tweet, Musk added that the futuristic hybrid cars would be made available for purchase in Bitcoin sometime by the end of this year.

Bitcoin Will Not Be Converted To Fiat

Elon Musk has also stated that the Bitcoin received in exchange for Tesla cars will not be converted to fiat.

“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”

Following the company’s $1.5 billion investment into Bitcoin earlier this year, it seems the top brass has decided to continue investing in Bitcoin, undeterred by prior twitter spats which resulted in tongue-in-cheek emojis directed at notorious bears.

The company has also added a FAQ for Bitcoin payments to their website. Most of the advice offered is common sense advice, such as to only send BTC to Tesla’s BTC address.

The car’s price will remain unchanged and tied to the US Dollar. As a result, the amount of BTC needed to purchase a Tesla may vary wildly from one day to another – and if a refund is requested, the amount refunded may also be substantially less than requested.

Elon’s tweet has gone viral, and the comments are full of good-hearted quips about Tesla cars being the new Lambo and the like.

Following this announcement, we may start seeing even more high-profile companies enabling cryptocurrency platforms.

Unfortunately, Dogecoin payments have not been enabled yet, and there have been no reports of Tesla plans to enable the endearing cryptocurrency.