Blockchain

[Wildreamz]

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104380170714571

Mark Zuckerberg 2018 Personal Challenge:

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There are important counter-trends to this --like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services.

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[Wildreamz]

President Maduro: Venezuela to Issue First 100 Million Petros

“I’ve ordered the issue of 100 million Petros, based on national wealth. Each Petro will have the value of a barrel of Venezuela’s oil.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/president...ion-petros

[Wildreamz]

Bitcoin, Blockchain And Private Industry: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
REINHARDT KRAUSE1/05/2018

Companies are not yet using blockchain programs to run any large-scale commercial projects. But Deutsche Bank (DB) forecasts that blockchain systems will, by 2027, record transactions for about 10% of worldwide GDP, with financial services and banking sectors likely to play key early roles.

Gartner Group forecasts an accelerating takeoff for blockchain platforms. Blockchain is estimated to have delivered $4 billion in business value-add or technology innovation in 2017, with that growing to $21 billion by 2020, $176 billion in 2025 and $3.1 trillion by 2030, says Gartner.

https://www.investors.com/research/indus...-industry/

[Wildreamz]

https://qz.com/1174091/china-wants-an-or...in-mining/

GAME OVER - China wants an “orderly exit” from bitcoin mining
Zheping Huang January 08, 2018

Bitcoin mining could be on its last legs in China.

The country’s top internet-finance regulator, the Leading Group of Internet Financial Risks Remediation, issued a notice asking local governments to “guide” bitcoin-mining operations to make an “orderly exit” from the business, according to a leaked document online. Citing government sources, Bloomberg and Reuters earlier reported that China is planning to limit electricity supply to bitcoin miners.

[Wildreamz]

Kodak stock gets a blockchain bounce — it more than doubled after the company announced a new cryptocurrency
Becky Peterson, Business Insider US January 9, 2018
http://www.businessinsider.sg/kodak-laun...?r=US&IR=T

Kodak wants photographers to register their photographs with its new blockchain platform, which will track down unlicensed images, so that the photographers can get paid for their work. Thomson Reuters
[*]Kodak’s stock more than doubled in price early Tuesday following news that the photo company will launch a new blockchain-based rights-management service.
[*]Kodak will use a blockchain, which is the technology behind bitcoin, to track the online use of photographs licensed through its system. The service is designed to help photographers get paid for use of their images. 
[*]Blockchains have shown promise in being used to track the licensing, use, and sale of artistic works.

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This is a potential game changer. Expect more big companies (eg. tech titans) to announce similar initiatives for digital media distribution. For example, digital music distribution via blockchain that pays artists automatically whenever their songs are used, distributed, sold on Youtube/Facebook/Instagram etc.

[Wildreamz]

CES 2018: Kodak soars on KodakCoin and Bitcoin mining plans
9 hours ago
By Chris Foxx & Leo Kelion
Technology reporters

Shares in photo firm Eastman Kodak soared nearly 120% after it revealed plans to mint its own crypto-currency, the KodakCoin.
The US firm said it was teaming up with London-based Wenn Media Group to carry out the initial coin offering (ICO).
It is part of a blockchain-based initiative to help photographers control their image rights.
Kodak also detailed plans to install rows of Bitcoin mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York.
Details of this second scheme - which is being branded the Kodak KashMiner - were outlined at the CES tech show in Las Vegas.
Customers will pay up-front to rent mining capacity.

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Specialised hardware? Dead on arrival if you ask me.

[the_fallen]

Blockchain is still relatively a new technology.

Regulators and law officers have yet to implement/enforce a safe yet transparent open platform for all to trade like the stock market where it's a open market with equal opportunities.

A new technology still contains a certain element of risk hence it's up to us early adopters to manage and mitigate the risk of investment in such a platform.

[Wildreamz]

Blockchain is still relatively a new technology.

Regulators and law officers have yet to implement/enforce a safe yet transparent open platform for all to trade like the stock market where it's a open market with equal opportunities.

A new technology still contains a certain element of risk hence it's up to us early adopters to manage and mitigate the risk of investment in such a platform.

Yes, as with many emerging technology over the years, much money has been made and lost. The only way to come out of this on the right side of history, is to inform and educate ourselves. Blockchain is not limited to Cryptocurrencies, but Cryptocurrencies (and related applications, like tokens and ICOs etc.) is the public face of Blockchain Technology right now. 

A similar example will be ecommerce during the Dot.com bubble, many companies that got investors' attention during that time were ecommerce companies, but today the giants (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tencent, Baidu, Salesforce, Workday, Uber, Airbnb etc.) that emerged victorious from this trend, may not be ecommerce companies at all.

[Wildreamz]

MoviePass CEO Looks to Blockchain for Business Boom (video)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/20...boom-video

MoviePass considering ICO, blockchain tech

MoviePass just hit the 1.5 million subscriber mark and is now eyeing an IPO—or an ICO.

Initial coin offerings, in which an internet company sells tokens for later use in its own ecosystem, have exploded in popularity; companies have raised nearly $4 billion in ICOs so far, according to CoinDesk.

“We look at all that stuff,” says Ted Farnsworth, CEO of Helios and Matheson, which is the majority owner of MoviePass. “We’ve been in discussions with all those type of things, with all our attorneys. The main thing is really, how do you do it within all the regulations of the SEC, and also on the blockchain side as well, make sure it’s not just the flavor of the day. But we’ve looked at that technology for well over a year now.”

MoviePass has been a hit with moviegoers happy to pay less than $10 per month for unlimited movies. Short sellers have also taken a liking to the stock, questioning its road to profitability given that it pays full-price for its members’ tickets. Helios and Matheson (HMNY) short interest on the Nasdaq is up from 522,265 in August to 3,726,178 in December.

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Hot Money Watch (approximately in chronological order):
1) "Mainstream" Cryptocurrencies - Bitcoins, Ethereum etc.
2) Alt Coins - Ripple, Litecoin, zCash, Monero etc.
3) Companies that puts "Blockchain" in their name: UBI Blockchain Internet (bedwetting company), Long Blockchain Corp (beverage company)
4) Companies that announces Blockchain/Crypto initiatives (Kodak etc.)

Interesting Note:
* No significant move to actual big players in Blockchain Tech: IBM, Microsoft, Visa, etc

[Wildreamz]

Search Giant Baidu Launches Blockchain-as-a-Service Platform
Sujha Sundararajan Jan 12, 2018 at 11:00 UTC
https://www.coindesk.com/search-giant-ba...-platform/

Chinese web search giant Baidu has launched its own blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform.

Based on technology developed by Baidu, the open platform sets out to provide the most "user-friendly" blockchain service.

According to the firm's dedicated website, "Baidu Trust" allows the conducting and tracing of transactions, and can be applied in various use cases, including digital currency, digital billing, bank credit management, insurance management financial auditing, and more.

Baidu says the technology has already been applied in asset securitization and exchange, and claims it has contributed to the "first asset-backed securities exchange products using blockchain technology in China."

With the move, Baidu follows Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent in launching its own suite of blockchain services.