Development projects conduct measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) processes measure the outcome and impact of projects.

Distributed ledger technology stores data batches in blocks on the network, and the need for independent verification from the network’s users makes the records transparent, secure, verifiable, and immutable, thus improving data auditability and reducing misreporting/fraud of data.

If we must identify the precise activity of a typical development project where blockchain technology can be leveraged, then it would collect and time-stamp project-level data for monitoring purposes.

The challenge is many resource-crunched development projects, especially in developing countries, still collect field data by hand, which can lead to inaccuracies, mistakes and fraud.

Local institutions in the developing countries that implement such projects often lack the systems to ensure the data they report is verifiable.

Blockchain can

• reduce the data risks of local-level institutions,
• improve the validity of the data they report for impact, and
• instill confidence in foreign private donors/investors to fund such development projects.

What this implies is more financing flow can be committed to the local level.

With blockchain enabling local projects to report verifiable performance as part of their MRV processes, local development institutions can gain a greater supply of capital.

The Amazon in Brazil is an example.

The Rainforest project uses blockchain and the Internet of Things to record and transfer data from electrical meters, robotic appliances and emission monitors on the environmental impact. Remote sensing satellites independently verify the status of patches, upon which blockchain smart contracts directly reward the farmers who preserve their rainforest patches. The outcome data is verifiable, and the exclusion of intermediaries while transferring incentives minimizes administrative costs and the siphoning of funds.

Blockchain-enabled MRV processes help disintermediate the intermediaries in a social or sustainability bond issuance, thus reducing issuance costs and making it possible for small enterprises to access the bond market or aggregate smaller assets into bonds.

Limitations: internet capacity and technology literacy.

Summary:

Blockchain’s revolutionary role in improving the MRV processes around data can mobilize more private capital investments for development projects executed by local-level institutions in developing countries.

Excerpt from article “Blockchain tech makes sustainable development goals more achievable” by Sourajit Aiyer and Jae-Hoon Kwak published on CoinTelegraph.

The post Blockchain and Sustainable Development Goals appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

As appropriation in motion, the new normal seems to be nothing but the old normal with a new face.

Be your own bank or only the next all-time high benchmarked in fiat?

To the moon. Or better, “to Mars,” in Elon Musk style?

An interesting illustration by CT team, and a very good perspective from another angle by the article’s author. (Link below)

Reading Notes：

Headlines

• Bitcoin has become nothing but the new Che Guevara T-shirt
• Institutional investors won’t take Bitcoin mainstream — You will

Bitcoin has become nothing but the new Che Guevara T-shirt

The wonder of the universe is that
it is always in motion and,
because of this, that
everything changes over time.

So, anything can be
something completely different tomorrow,
just like that
— no guarantees.

“Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”: This phrase from The Times is even recorded forever in the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain.

In politics, there is a phrase that says that if you did something so good and so wonderful to change the world that even your opponents are applauding you, it means you did everything wrong.

“Fiat sucks,” but the more Bitcoin is worth in U.S. dollars, the better.

After all, what matters is that 1 Bitcoin will always be equivalent to 1 Bitcoin. It matters how much I bought and how much I hope to sell in order to buy more. Understanding Bitcoin or simply buy sell?

Institutional investors won’t take Bitcoin mainstream — You will

Bitcoin was not just another asset proposed as a hedge against inflation in Satoshi’s original Bitcoins white paper.

Bitcoin’s whole idea stemmed from the failed financial institutions and third parties and a possible solution that would be effective in everyday life.

With every institutional investor and the big guns of finance swinging into Bitcoin investment, Bitcoin’s popularization as an asset has become inevitable.

Some of the ideal, real-world applications that could challenge failing fiat currencies and propel Bitcoin into the mainstream:

1. Online purchases
2. Cross-border transactions and travel
3. Bitcoin ATMs – bridging two monetary worlds

• In 2014, using BitPay as its payment processor, Microsoft became one of the first tech companies to accept Bitcoin to purchase digital goods.
• In October 2020, the popular American payments company PayPal announced that it would enable cryptocurrency as a funding source for purchases in 2021.

In all fairness, the goal has never been to phase out local currencies but to create a world where Bitcoin is as relevant as any fiat currency.

There has been an increasing trend every year with an average of one ATM now being added every hour.

The post Where Have All The Revolutionist Gone? appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

The say blockchain is the internet, all over again.

Some truth in it.

Back then, nearly 20+ years ago, when we told people we develop web-based retail management system, we got questions like

“How much is a PC now ah? Which PC brand is the best to buy now?”

Vague among hardware, software, and world wide web / internet, so to speak.

Recently, the questions we got become something like

“Bitcoin (still) can buy or not ah? Any alt coins can recommend ah?”

Vague among blockchain, bitcoin, and money.

From transfer of information to transfer of value.

Few understand. And I still learning.

p/s: Thank God for the blessings to have able to write something about this few years back. (Links below).

Information are free.

It’s what we do with the knowledge we gain that matters.

God bless and all the best.

DYOR – Do Your Own Research

Chapter 1: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Money

To explore Blockchain,
you need to study Bitcoin.
To understand Bitcoin,
you need to know what is money and how it works.

Chapter 2: The Name of The Game

All things blockchain, ledger technology, and cryptocurrencies.

If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.

I don’t know the future.

I didn’t write this to tell you how this is going to end.

I write about how it all begins.

I’m going to show you a world without boundaries. A world where anything is possible.

Where we go from here is a choice I leave to you.

Chapter 3: Smart Money

What we have now is truly borderless, programmable money
backed by immutable computer systems based on pure logic & mathematics.

The post Understanding Bitcoin or Simply Buy Sell? appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Blockchain technology has the potential to boost global gross domestic product (GDP) by US$1.76 trillion over the next decade.

The top five uses driving blockchain adoption

1. Provenance (potential boost to global GDP by 2030: US$962bn)
2. Payments and Financial Instruments (US$433bn)
3. Identity (US$224bn)
4. Contracts and Dispute Resolution (US$73bn)
5. Customer Engagement (US$54bn)

Do any of the below apply to your organisation?

1. Multiple parties share and view common data
2. Multiple parties update and record data
3. Verification of records is needed
4. Intermediaries add costs and complexities
5. Interactions are time sensitive
6. Transactions depend on two or more parties

If your answer is ‘yes’ for four or more of these, blockchain could deliver for you and we can work with you on a plan to make it happen.

We’ll help you implement the plan and turn it into a reality.

And finally, we’ll be there after project delivery to support business change.

https://image.uk.info.pwc.com/lib/fe31117075640475701c74/m/2/434c46d2-a889-4fed-a030-c52964c71a64.pdf

The post PwC’s Trillion-Dollar to Rethink Blockchain appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Security Tokens – Reshaping the Future by FYHS Alumni Association in North America

Date And Time: Sun, October 11, 2020, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM +08

Location: Online Event

TechTalk Series (Mandarin and English) Session #1

Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Security Tokens – Reshaping the Future

TechTalk Series features many industry experts and their insights into the emerging, world-changing technologies, the opportunities that come with them, and ways they impact societies, governments, businesses, and individuals.

This session will provide the audience with

1. The general concept of Blockchain.
2. History and evolution – where we come from, where we are now, and where we could be heading.
3. The relationship between blockchain, bitcoin, and money.
4. Blockchain from technology and economic perspectives.
5. Real-life examples of the applications, opportunities, and impacts.

HOST: Mark Mah 馬松文

Silicon Valley Technopreneur | Venture Partner | Investor at FRACSIO, REXZ AI, ZEELY AI. Growing tech ventures in Real Estate, Digital Media, Cross-Border E-Commerce, and more with Blockchain, DApps, DeFi, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning.

GUEST SPEAKER: How Tze Koh 高浩知

Co-Founder, Crypto Valley Malaysia | Author, Blockchain Insider | Tech Advisor | Futurist

GUEST SPEAKER: Dato Dr. Kevin Cho 曹耀群博士

Founder at BBAI (Blockchain Business Alliance International) 链商国际商业联盟 | Chairman at International Fintech Foundation (Yayasan Fintech Sedunia)

Full session video: https://www.facebook.com/foonyew/videos/3465863350118515/

The post FYHS Alumni Tech Talk Series Sharing (Mandarin) appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Decentralized settlement cannot be a zero-sum game; otherwise, we have lost the plot.

The industry needs to focus on digital assets: asset definitions and templates, asset swaps, ledger and inter-ledger transactions, and more — built on a foundation of standards-based interoperability.

This summer, under the leadership of Microsoft and other tech giants in the technology and financial sectors, the InterWork Alliance was launched. Its key focus is the development and evangelization of the Token Taxonomy Framework. The Token Taxonomy Framework is an early attempt to create a lexicon and a language for digital assets.

The Token Taxonomy Framework was designed with the objective of bridging the gap between developers, business analysts and managers, and policy makers and public regulators, enabling them to work together to model, architect, design, validate and to create and deploy new business models and networks based on digital assets.

A common lexicon for digital assets provides a shared basis and a starting point for mutual understanding and enables the development of tools to support communication, collaboration and commerce.

Further Reading

https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-interoperability-the-big-picture

https://sandbox.gov.my/en/home

LETTER | Digital asset exchanges essential for Malaysia 5.0 ~ Rais Hussin

https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/539245

The post ROTD: Blockchain Interoperability appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Headlines

1) Dutch Regulator Approves Tokenized Real Estate Crowdfunding Platform

2) Cypherium to Assist China in Advancing Blockchain City Infrastructure

3) Dutch Regulator Approves Tokenized Real Estate Crowdfunding Platform

4) US Bank Regulator: Dollars on Blockchain ‘Better Than Central Bank Monopoly on the Payments System’

Reading Notes

Dutch Regulator Approves Tokenized Real Estate Crowdfunding Platform, powered by Blockchain

Max Crowdfund, a blockchain-powered real estate crowdfunding platform connecting property developers and investors, has received approval from the Financial Markets Authority in the Netherlands.

• Investors pay a one-time fee equal to 0.1% of their investment, in addition to monthly administration fees of 0.1%. The fees will be used to purchase and burn MPG’s security tokens.
• The platform seeks to democratize real estate investment, with investors able to gain exposure from as little as 100 euro ($117.50).
• Developers and investors are able to raise money from the public using the platform, and can pitch to an international audience.
• The platform is the first of its kind to be greenlit by the Dutch financial regulator, and will be available as an app on both iOS and Android.
• MPG has also commenced a security token offering that seeks to raise $4.4 million over five rounds of $880,000 that will issue 20% of the firm’s equity. The tokens will be issued by MPG directly.

Further reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/dutch-regulator-approves-tokenized-real-estate-crowdfunding-platform

The post ROTD : City Development, Fintech and Payment appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Research Suggests STOs Are Better at Financing Startups than ICOs

A security token is a digital representation of an investment product, recorded on a distributed ledger, subject to regulation under securities laws.

STOs can be issued both early in the lifetime of a firm as equity tokens or later as fund tokens. Researchers found that corporate governance is another factor for success.

South Korea Might Soon be Spending Billions on Blockchain Development

The South Korean government plans to invest over $48.2 billion in Blockchain and other Industry 4.0 technologies by 2025. The nation’s goal is to promote the digitization of all industries in the coming post-pandemic era.

“The fourth industrial revolution and digital civilization are the future of humanity that has already begun… It is possible to jump from the older economy to the leading economy…Our society has already entered the face-to-face digitization, and the society where data is competitive, AI and the network have become the food of the future.” ~ President Moon Jae-in, Korea

Japanese Banking Giant to Issue Its Own Stablecoin in Late 2020

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, or MUFGt, the fifth largest bank in the world, is reportedly planning to issue its own digital currency in the second half of 2020.

Initiated back in 2015, the digital currency project was originally designed to run on a blockchain network and facilitate instant peer-to-peer transactions. Following multiple delays, the initiative is now scheduled to be rolled out no later than 2020.

MUFG is the largest financial company in Japan. It was prospectively set to become the first Japanese bank to issue a digital currency. In September 2019, MUFG participated in a $14 million investment round for Coinbase-backed token issuance protocol, Securitize, alongside Banco Santander and Nomura Holdings.

PayPal Letter Seems to Confirm Crypto Capability Rumors

Since the project’s inception, PayPal has taken unilateral and tangible steps to further develop its capabilities in this area, and therefore — without questioning the value of the project — took the decision not to participate in the Libra Association and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities to democratize access to financial service.

… the payments giant admitted to “continuously monitoring and evaluating global developments in the crypto and blockchain/distributed ledger space,” stressing that it favors a “harmonized” regulatory approach that wouldn’t compromise innovation.

The post STO, Blockchain, PayPal and Japanese Stablecoin appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

TV Review: Open Source Money on Discovery Science

Overall humanity is at a crossroads and the future of money as we know it will be transformed by Blockchain and the new internet of Value.

The only question is, where we will be in the Space Race of our generation when the dust settles?

Open Source Money, a groundbreaking documentary series about the rise of Disney-incubated blockchain company, Dragonchain, and the global evolution of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

UNICEF Crypto Fund to Invest $100K in Humanitarian Blockchain Projects

UNICEF is looking to support early-stage startups with a blockchain prototype that can be transformed and eventually deployed in countries that need the technology the most. For example, during the last funding round, UNICEF invested in blockchain startup StaTwig, a company based in India that uses a blockchain to track the supply-chain of rice being delivered from the Indian government to low income areas.

How Bitcoin Is Becoming Both Resistance Money and a National Security Concern

The implications of a changing geopolitical landscape, where Bitcoin is set to play a role in the upcoming war for tech dominance — while at the same time acting as the key to digitally “exit” from governmental control.

Chinese Courts Use Blockchain for Property E-Sealing

By applying blockchain-powered e-sealing, courts are able to securely monitor a property in real-time with help of video surveillance.

The use of blockchain technology is intended to keep all data recorded and unmodified by involved parties. Law enforcement staff can use the platform to conduct property information queries to check the history of operations on the sealed property.

The post Open Source Money, Humanitarian, Shelter, and National Security appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Though the Chinese government is working on something called DC/EP (for “digital currency/electronic payment”), as we check out the financial inclusion in the fintech era.

In this article, let’s look at the possibilities of having a cryptocurrency as the alternative reserve currency to what we have now, and the reasons or news trending to this.

The possibilities are there.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest lender by assets, has conducted research and explored integrating blockchains with big data, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and 5G technology since 2016.

ICBC has released a white paper on blockchain technology applications in finance, which is the first of its kind in the banking sector.

It needs to be both a medium of exchange and a store of value.

Jim Bianco, CEO and president of economics and finance analysis company Bianco Research

One of Possible Reasons Behind – Devaluation of Paper Money

Unless you have your head in the sand, you’ve probably realized that governments and central banks can print money out of thin air and in unlimited amounts.

Bitcoin.com

With over $6,000,000,000,000 printed in stimulus, that large of a number becomes hard to grasp. For some perspective, as at April 2020:

A million seconds ago was 11 days.
A billion seconds ago was 31 years.
A trillion seconds ago, there was no written history.

But people are start getting the idea how things may go dwindling down.

JUST IN: US Senate passes stimulus bill equivalent of 69,660,723 bitcoin

— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) April 21, 2020

Related News (Development)

• Bianco Research CEO Says Next Reserve Currency Will Be a Cryptocurrency
• A Major Chinese Bank Unveils the Banking Sector’s First Blockchain White Paper

Related News (Possible Reasons)

• Printing Money from Thin Air – How the Fed Reduces Purchasing Power and Makes You Poorer
• Americans Are Using Their Stimulus Checks To Buy Bitcoin

The post A Cryptocurrency As The New Reserve Currency? appeared first on Blockchain Insider.