Blockchain

More bans, very exciting  As exciting as the 2013 gold crash.

Bitcoin price LIVE: BTC falls as India plans 'to make it illegal as a payment system'
By DAVID DAWKINS PUBLISHED: 14:45, Mon, Feb 5, 2018 | UPDATED: 14:52, Mon, Feb 5, 2018
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/9...redit-card

Quote:BITCOIN'S price sunk to a low of $7,362 as India moots plans to ensure cryptocurrencies are illegal within its payments system, while at the same time appointing a regulator to oversee unregulated exchanges that trade in “crypto assets”.

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Bitcoin is currently down at $7,940 on the day so far after UK high-street bank Lloyds banned all cryptocurrency payments on its credit cards.

The ban extends to other household names in the banking giant's credit card family including Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA.

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A number of US credit card firms have also banned crypto purchases on credit cards.

Bank of America began blocking cryptocurrency purchases on Friday while JPMorgan did the same on Saturday.

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China is planning to build a "firewall' to block anyone in the country from accessing websites that offer cryptocurrency trading services or initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The ban will also apply to advertisements relating to Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Although China banned ICOs and shut down domestic exchanges, wallet holders have bypassed the security and accessed foreign services from within the country.

Now, according to the South China Morning Post, China will block access to domestic and foreign services “to prevent financial risk.”

Bitcoin ads disappear from social media in China after central bank bans cryptocurrency fundraising
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 February, 2018, 8:04am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 February, 2018, 8:04am
http://www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/arti...-bank-bans

Quote:The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) last September banned fundraising through digital currencies, labelling 90 per cent of the initial coin offerings (ICOs) launched in China as fraudulent.

Searches for the Chinese terms for “bitcoin”, “cryptocurrency” and “ICO” returned news articles and links but no paid advertisements or obvious sponsored posts on China’s largest search engine Baidu and on Weibo, a Chinese-language microblog loosely modelled on Twitter.

Weibo said in an emailed reply that it currently does not allow bitcoin and cryptocurrency-related advertising. Baidu did not immediately respond to questions whether it has banned bitcoin and cryptocurrency-related advertising.

Facebook has just banned all ads that promote cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, to prevent advertisers from marketing “financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices”. The move shines a spotlight on the US social media giant as part of a broader debate about the role of social media in disseminating news and the fine line between vetting and censorship.

Warren Buffet's Railroad Firm Joins Blockchain Alliance
Wolfie Zhao Feb 6, 2018 at 15:00 UTC
https://www.coindesk.com/warren-buffets-...-alliance/

Quote:BNSF Railway, a major U.S. freight railroad network owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, has become the latest member of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

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IBM-Maersk Blockchain Project Adds Logistics Provider Agility
Annaliese Milano Feb 7, 2018 at 07:00 UTC

Quote:Agility, a global third-party logistics provider, has joined IBM and Maersk's blockchain collaboration, the companies announced Tuesday.

SIA jumping to the blockchain bandwagon? Isn't Krisflyer system already digital? Does their customers distrust SIA's system or are they taking preventive measures just in case their systems will be hacked. Or hoping for their company to be included in the blockchain ETF? Or hoping to ride on free publicity? What benefits will SIA and their customer reap? I wonder...

(08-02-2018, 08:04 AM)holymage Wrote: SIA jumping to the blockchain bandwagon? Isn't Krisflyer system already digital? Does their customers distrust SIA's system or are they taking preventive measures just in case their systems will be hacked. Or hoping for their company to be included in the blockchain ETF? Or hoping to ride on free publicity? What benefits will SIA and their customer reap? I wonder...

spot on. There is no real benefit to adopt blockchain especially one that uses private Krisflyer tokens, overall it wont improve customer experience. As a customer, I wouldn't want my Krisflyer miles stored in the app in my phone. What if I lose my phone and forgot my private key, all my miles will be gone. So now users will have to additionally backup their keys? 

It sounds like they just used it as a "proof of concept" in partnership with Microsoft.

https://www.ccn.com/singapore-airlines-w...nt-flyers/

In other use cases, Russian airline S7 began using the Ethereum blockchain to sell flight tickets last year whereas Air New Zealand confirmed its research into using the public Ethereum blockchain for “a number of potential use cases.” French insurance giant AXA also began using Ethereum’s public blockchain to automate compensation for air travelers as a part of its flight delay insurance offering.

Elsewhere, German airline giant Lufthansa invested in a Swiss blockchain startup through an ICO last year, revealing its intent to plug in to a B2B blockchain marketplace, also based on a public Ethereum blockchain.

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I think it will make more sense if they joined a public one like ethereum for their foray into crypto. But that will be a big fluctuating currency which they will have no control over, which i dont think SIA management would want, especially given the recent demonstration of crypto volatility.

Plus i think this plan was before the recent announcement of crypto ban by China(one of biggest market for airline) and more negative posture of world govs against crypto. I am sure if any more hack of crypto happen or the crash cause bitcoin back to $10 , SIA will come out and announce plan to scrap blockchain.

Just like the attractive SIA girls in the ads, its all about packaging and marketing...

Check out from 4:30 on the FITS Model:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-block...unit-kumar

Why Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies are creating headlines?

Quote:Furthermore, as explained by Dr. Adrian McCullagh, You should try to run FITS model against your environment to check if it can reap the benefits of Blockchain. FITS is an acronym for Fraud, Intermediary (middlemen or 3rd parties), Throughput(transaction/sec) and Stable data.
Using this model, the best use cases of the Blockchain implementation could be where:
1)     There is a high propensity, likelihood and/or history of fraud in various transactions involved. (This is why financial sector is the most viable candidate of using blockchain.)
2)     Multiple intermediaries involved to carry out operations and they do not truly provide value. (This is why average settlement period of assets can be reduced from few days to few minutes.)
3)     Distributed nodes can be leveraged to increase throughput
4)     Stability of data is required or you want the state of data to remain as it is for some time ( an example could include ownership of assets.)
Amazon, Bank of America, NASDAQ, IBM, Microsoft, HSBC, Barclay, Credit Suisse and many more giants have already invested heavily in utilizing blockchain. Governments of many countries have already started recognizing and backing this fabulous technology.

These are not the only areas that Blockchain is obviously better, but do cover most of the enterprise and industry application advantages of a Blockchain framework.

1. Regarding private keys, no, a private blockchain like Krisflyer would not necessarily require Bitcoin style locally stored private keys (aka cold wallet), it could just be an identification mechanism using a combination of your physical credit card/ credit card number/ password / IP address/ phone/biometric etc.

2. No, since Blockchain is a Distributed Ledger (ie. all your points, transaction history etc) will be stored on the blockchain (duplicated records across all the nodes). And all of it will be masked by cryptography for privacy, of course. Hence, instead of locally storing your transaction record in a central data repository (that could be easily hacked) or worse, on your phone (a single device), it could instead, be using a decentralised (eg. Peer-to-peer) network that is immutable unless 51% of all the nodes is hacked simultaneously.

3. I suppose there would also be an immediate improvement in cost and throughput. 

Not an expert, but that is a few ways off my head that I can think of that would be immediately advantageous over the current method (centralised intermediaries that verify transactions).

Bitcoin savaged by BIS as ‘a bubble, Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster’
David Reid | @cnbcdavy
Published 6:57 AM ET Tue, 6 Feb 2018 Updated 10:15 AM ET Tue, 6 Feb 2018

Quote:Bitcoin slammed by Augustin Carstens, general manager of the BIS.
Carstens has called into question bitcoin's efficiency and legality.
More than $550 billion (edit: market cap) has left cryptocurrencies in 2018.

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BIS: Central banks must be ready to act on bitcoin
Published: Feb 6, 2018 5:06 a.m. ET
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bis-ce...06-5485649

Quote:FRANKFURT--Central banks must be prepared to intervene to stem risks from digital currencies, as Bitcoin has become a "combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster," central banking official Agustin Carstens said Tuesday.

The warning indicates public authorities are moving toward a crackdown on digital currencies amid concerns they could undermine the broader financial system.

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BIS (Bank for International Settlements), is one of the most powerful financial institution in the world, owned by 60 central banks that represents 95% of the global GDP. BIS members (central banks) regularly meets and set global monetary "goals" and "intervene using their massive financial resources and regulatory powers to achieve monetary targets they set" (wikipedia).

The same BIS has set their eyes to clamp down on Bitcoin, this will be fun to watch. IMHO, end of the road of mindless speculation.

Case closed.

We now even have a loss making sushi restaurant chain trying to pump up share price by framing themselves as being at the forefront of blockchain technology. Even the name of their virtual currency sounds like a cheap rip-off of Bitcoin.

https://www.theedgesingapore.com/sakae-h...n-bitecoin

Quote:SINGAPORE (Feb 8): Sakae Holdings and Mobile Credit Payment (MC Payment) jointly announced that their subsidiaries, Sakai Fintech (SKF) and Ffastpay (FFP) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly develop and launch Southeast Asia’s first F&B digital token called Bitecoin.

(08-02-2018, 02:39 PM)Wildreamz Wrote: Bitcoin savaged by BIS as ‘a bubble, Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster’
David Reid | @cnbcdavy
Published 6:57 AM ET Tue, 6 Feb 2018  Updated 10:15 AM ET Tue, 6 Feb 2018

Quote:Bitcoin slammed by Augustin Carstens, general manager of the BIS.
Carstens has called into question bitcoin's efficiency and legality.
More than $550 billion has left cryptocurrencies in 2018.

While i don't have the numbers, but i definitely believe 550bil has not "left" cryptocurrencies in 2018. The liquidity pool isn't so large to start with.

The news article is misleading and maybe should say "more than 550bil of market cap has been lost in cryptocurrencies" instead.

(09-02-2018, 10:20 AM)mobo Wrote: We now even have a loss making sushi restaurant chain trying to pump up share price by framing themselves as being at the forefront of blockchain technology. Even the name of their virtual currency sounds like a cheap rip-off of Bitcoin.

https://www.theedgesingapore.com/sakae-h...n-bitecoin

Quote:SINGAPORE (Feb 8): Sakae Holdings and Mobile Credit Payment (MC Payment) jointly announced that their subsidiaries, Sakai Fintech (SKF) and Ffastpay (FFP) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly develop and launch Southeast Asia’s first F&B digital token called Bitecoin.

Followers of this thread would know they are "Blockchain Pretenders" and give them a dismissive pass that they deserve 

But this also goes to show that there is no barrier to entry here; anyone with any idea can just create a new blockchain token and trade away.

Need to dig deeper to see if there are any true novelty in their use case and business model.

ICO is the easiest way to get funding from investors yet paying zero coupon rate. It was hard to get money out of aunties and uncles into stock market because of the last GFC. With this euphoria of making easy money in cryptocurrency, they have succeeded in drawing out the safety money held in banks by aunties and uncles and even some value investors who were previously waiting for the next crash in stock market. If crypto and stock market crash together these aunties and uncles will miss the next boat again. Money all stuck.

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