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.

Looking at the headlines:

• World Bank Digs Deeper Into DLT and FinTech for Financial Inclusion
• The Suzhou trial – Digital Yuan Being Tested for a Workers’ Subsidies Scheme
• Aussie Crypto Unicorn Raises $160M With ‘Big Four’ Bank Backing
• The launch of 3iQ’s BTC Fund on TSX
• Berlin Real Estate Worth $12M Tokenized for Everyday Investors
• Akon City, a ‘sustainable eco-tourism smart city’ powered by Blockchain technology in Senegal.

Connecting the dots, the Blockchain’s shift from niche financial tool for techies to the mass adoption of digital currencies is happening into the conventional financial sphere. The interaction (blending or convergence?) of the two monetary worlds seems to be progressing positively.

The recent report by World Bank Group and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) further complement the previous report by BIS as CBDC (Central Bank-Issued Digital Currency) Is Well On Its Way.

Payment Aspects of Financial Inclusion Fintech Wheel by World Bank Group

Worth noting is the PAFI Fintech Wheel in the report.

Jolted below notes related to above mentioned headlines, the power to relate is important in getting the bigger picture.

Click on the respective headline to read the original report.

World Bank Digs Deeper Into DLT and FinTech for Financial Inclusion

The World Bank’s fintech-focused report on financial inclusion is not the organization’s first foray into blockchain and associated emerging technologies.

Among major PAFI tools, the World Bank listed distributed ledger technology (DLT), stablecoins, CBDCs and payment tokenization systems, placing them in line with other fintechs like big data analytics and cloud computing.

Combining several technologies, products and access models, the World Bank drew up the so-called “PAFI fintech wheel” to identify fintech developments that are potentially relevant to the payment aspects of financial inclusion.

In the 70-page report, the bank provided a detailed overview of selected advances in technology that are considered to be the most relevant to payments as well as described their applications and associated risks.

The Suzhou trial – Digital Yuan Being Tested for a Workers’ Subsidies Scheme

This month, agencies and enterprises in the Xiangcheng District of Suzhou will reportedly be paying 50% of local workers’ transport subsidies in the new digital currency (also referred to as DC/EP, for “digital currency/electronic payment”).

These patents indicate that the DC/EP adopts a two-layer architecture and two-tier delivery system, which enables licensed third-party payment institutions or banks to participate in secondary issuance of the digital currency.

… the report notes that the currency’s blockchain structure will ensure “traceability, encryption and supervisability.”

Aussie Crypto Unicorn Raises $160M With ‘Big Four’ Bank Backing

In March 2019, Airwallex received a $1 billion valuation — ranking it as Australia’s second unicorn alongside graphic design firm, Canva. Australia is currently home to three unicorns, with aerial imagery company, Nearmap, recently joining the list.

The launch of 3iQ’s BTC Fund on TSX

The launch of 3iQ’s BTC Fund on TSX was a historic event, to say the least.

The listing of a publicly-traded Bitcoin fund on a major stock exchange will serve as an important milestone for the industry as a whole — especially in regard to crypto being viewed as a legitimate asset class by the global investment community.

Currently trading under the name, “The Bitcoin Fund,” the offering has around 1.5 million Class A “QBTC.U” shares available on the Toronto Stock Exchange, or TSX.

At press time, each share is trading for around $12. The price indexes being used by the fund are from crypto data company CryptoCompare and VanEck Europe subsidiary MV Index Solutions.

3iQ is serving as the fund’s investment and portfolio manager.

The Bitcoin Fund is under the custody of the Winklevoss’ exchange Gemini, and thus Tyler and his brother Cameron are invested in the fund’s success.

TSX is Canada’s premier stock exchange, facilitating more than $97 billion worth of monthly trade.

• customer demand for regulated crypto products has been strong across the investing spectrum — be it the retail or institutional investor market.
• as time goes on, market demand for crypto offerings will increase.
• the demand for an easily accessible, securities-based product delivered through traditional channels.

Berlin Real Estate Worth $12M Tokenized for Everyday Investors

Germany’s Black Manta Capital Partners has launched a security token offering (STO) for Berlin real estate worth more than $12 million.

The project is a collaboration with the German real estate firm Tigris Immobilien and includes around 2000 square metres of real estate in total, mostly comprising individual apartments from 40 to 60 square meters in size. Construction is expected to be complete by 2022 and units will be sold to investors and owner-occupiers.

Token holders will share 20% of the sale profits through securitized participation rights. The company said the tokens will enable ordinary investors “to participate in a profitable real estate project normally reserved for professional investors.”

Minimum investment is just €500 (Fractionization / Fractional Ownership)

Blockchain technology is gaining steam in the real estate market with real estate security tokens now representing half of active security token markets and 15% of total volume.

• new “tokenization services” industry to emerge and the crypto custodian market to grow.
• institutional investors require regulated custodians

Akon City, a ‘sustainable eco-tourism smart city’ powered by Blockchain technology in Senegal

Blockchain’s shift from niche financial tool for techies to the mass adoption of digital currencies.

The celebrity singer famous for his “Lonely” song, is not only embark on lighting a million homes project, but also developing Akon City, a ‘sustainable eco-tourism smart city’ in Senegal.

While those listed above are quite a number of positive progress, some news shouldn’t be overlooked, especially when it concerns custodian services and legistration.

Where on the planet is KuCoin?

Unlike Binance, Coinbase and Ripple, KuCoin did not file with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to request a deferral of the requirement to operate without a payments license. Such deferrals allow those companies to operate as payments service providers without a license through July.

Without a license or a deferral, KuCoin cannot legally operate in Singapore. It remains unclear whether KuCoin is nonetheless operating in Singapore or if the exchange is in fact now operating elsewhere.

The post Financial Inclusion in The Fintech Era appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

“BRI reaches as much as 65% of the world’s population, while covering half of world gross domestic product (GDP), 75% of all known energy reserves, and a quarter of all cross-border goods and services trade.” ~ Deutsche Bank

The digital yuan could be weaponized as a tactical or strategic weapon. As it expands across the new Silk Road, China would be able to implement total surveillance over the economic activity of more than half the world’s population, tracking everyone’s spending habits and relationships. By holding authorization keys, China could freeze transactions it doesn’t like or seize digital assets by locking customers’ mobile wallets at will. Precursor systems are already rolling out in China, where a “social credit” system punishes or rewards individual behavior. It has already blocked millions from buying airline tickets.

Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ca5720/chinas_social_credit_system/

Quantum Computing & Cryptography

If blockchain can be broken by quantum, all cryptography can be broken. And that’s a much bigger societal risk. Think about your bank, your browser, your smartphone or your laptop — computing has been integrated into all levels of our life. All those levels rely on existing cryptographic algorithms and are vulnerable in one way or another.

One of the promising aspects here is that quantum actually makes excellent cryptography. There’s a thing called quantum cryptography, and it’s very different from our understanding of how classical cryptography works. Quantum cryptography is used today in a small amount of applications. Some interesting research in this field shows that while quantum can break existing cryptography and make it useless, it actually introduces a different forum which could be used to fix the problem. I think it’s fascinating that the very thing that breaks cryptography also fixes it.

“…We could see quantum cryptography be the answer and even be actually integrated into future versions of blockchain, making blockchain a quantum-based system itself…Humans are awesome. We will come up with other ideas. It won’t just be quantum fixing the same problems it creates. And I’m also very confident that blockchain will evolve in the decades ahead.” ~ Dr. Jonathan Reichental, CEO of Human Future, a global business and technology education, advisory and investment firm.

Akoin

What to do after lighting a million homes in Africa?

One Africa. One Koin.

Akoin is a cryptocurrency powered by a marketplace of tools and services fueling the dreams of entrepreneurs, business owners, and social activists as they connect and engage across the rising economies of Africa and beyond; created by visionary global artist, change-maker, innovator and humanitarian, Akon.

Read the Akoin whitepaper.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Further Reading:

(1) China’s Digital Yuan Is an Economic Cyberweapon, and the US Is Disarming

(2) Talking Digital Future: Quantum Computing and Cryptography

(3) AKoin

The post Digital Yuan, Quantum Computing & Cryptography, AKoin appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Let alone the debatable argument of whether a city is legally being allowed or going to issue its own cryptocurrency (in other words, ‘print’ and circulate its own money in the digital form) as we going through the three phases of cryptocurrency, keep in mind that what we have now is truly borderless, programmable money backed by immutable computer systems based on pure logic & mathematics.

Good news is, we do have cities issuing their own cryptocurrency. For instance, the Belfast Coin – the fourth in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project. In contrast to Colu’s coins in London, Liverpool and Israel, Belfast Coin will contain an incentive element, rewarding participants for performing tasks such as civic volunteering.

City Currency

As such, City Currency – a city-wide digital currency – can be used to motivate residents towards impactful positive behaviors, including increased local spending, healthy living, recycling, civic activity and beyond. Stated by Dan Kosky in his article:

“City Currency provides a rewards mechanism, which follows a similar economic logic to frequent-flier miles programs. However, unlike these programs, it promotes city interests, according to their specific needs. The incentives offered through City Currency can be tailored and purpose-built to meet the particular needs of each city. It allows cities to engage residents, local businesses and institutions through their everyday transactions, empowering them to achieve specific goals.”

The experience in drafting the Blueprint for The Development of SDG Progress Monitoring System for Department of Statistics Malaysia was a great one as I worked along with great people from both the government agency and the technical team. The key concept planted in the blueprint is that data is the new oil. It is possible to bring that economic value out of vast data we have today in a better connected world, as we reach out to the edges of the network through better technologies.

Rewarding citizens for good behaviors and contributive actions to solving global issues is not an isolated move nor something new. Besides Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project, the United Nation, through its Climate Neutral Now initiative is working with W-Foundation, a global relief and conservation organization to promote sustainability and climate action through a gamified mobile social network application. Completion of the missions on the app generate “mission points”, which are used to competitively rank the users on a monthly basis. As an incentive to encourage enthusiastic participation and voluntary generation of useful greenhouse gas emissions reduction data, the top 20% are rewarded each month with WGP (W Green Pay), a blockchain currency.

Exerpt from the Blockchain Insider book project, Chapter 3: Smart Money.

Completed Chapters:
Chapter 1: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Money
Chapter 2: The Name of The Game

The post City Currency appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Tokenization is the process by which the real asset value of the property is represented digitally on the blockchain in token form.

What problem is Tokenization trying to solve?
Fractional ownership and Liquidity, some over priced and over supply issues perhaps.

How?

Create and mobilize new form of capitals.

Challenges?

Trust. Circulation. Legal.

Bringing Down Borders

If I were to develop a city, and I issue a token which has these 4 characteristic or functions:

1) Security
Token holders entitled to earn certain income or profit sharing for x number of tokens hold over y amount of time.

2) Privileges
For upcoming or in-house projects, token holders entitled to special price or privileges.

3) Utility
Token holders can use their token to pay for services or products under internal environment, such as inter-city spendings.

4) Currency
This token is acceptable by other cities or entity other than the issuer.

Now, tell me what breed of “money” shall we identify this token?

The key is programmable money.

It is good that we have the direction of coming up with technical and policy framework for programmable money first.

Implementation wise, it is do-able technically due to its programmable nature.

Take the analogy of a simplified illustration of daily life of a working male adult:

Early morning as he steps into the office, he will play the role as an employee of the company, where his action will be bound by company rules and (common) work culture.

After office hour, as he transits back from company to home, he would be bound by social etiquette and city rules along the way.

At home, he could be playing the role of a husband, and a father to his children, where family values play the major factor defining the activities he could be carrying.

Condition of a situation may define the role and characteristic of an entity, thus resulting in the activities and produce the consequences.

Quantum elements exist in the thought process.

Presentation slides used:

Follow up news:

It is interesting to note that one of Malaysia’s initiative is featured in one of Coin Telegraphs report on Municipal Crypto.

A Mechanism To Fund Certain Projects

States, provinces and municipalities could use cryptocurrencies to fund projects and programs. Municipal cryptocurrencies — that is, cryptocurrencies launched by cities — could offer citizens a new way to invest in a certain location and even buy goods while helping governments to fund projects.

The minimum bond investment is $1,000, although they are usually sold in batches of $5,000. People who want to invest less simply cannot do it. Cryptocurrencies and tokens could be used for assets under $5 million and enable investments under $5,000.

The main mechanism for municipal cryptocurrency is the securitization of assets.

* Securitization is the process of establishing a financial instrument that merged from various financial assets into one group.

The post Tokenizing Real Estates appeared first on Blockchain Insider.

Without transparency there won’t be shared prosperity. ~ Frederik Bussler, CEO BitGrit Inc

Imagine a smart city powered by data, artificial intelligence, and IoT.

If the city controls these means of production, then they control the value generation as well

If the city decides what to do with the data, AI, and IoT in an opaque system, then the citizens may not be helping good causes.

This is an authoritative system.

If we instead have citizens build the systems and set directions, then we have democracy.

Blockchain can be a way to account for contributions to AI systems, including data, computing power, and talent (code) provisions, while incentivizing good behavior

Blockchain In Smart Cities

How does blockchain play its role when it comes to smart city development?

There are at least 4 areas that blockchain can be used as part of the backbone technology for smart cities:

Reputation

One thing good about a well designed blockchain is its immutability instance. This makes it suitable to log things that could be useful in providing reputation, such as the ID of a person, a certification for education or quality assurance, and even asset ownership acknowledgement or devices identification as we are connecting more smart machines (big or small) through IoT.

We need to ensure that the other party we are interacting with are of good reputation and is genuine. For example, when we talk about connected vehicles or autonomous cars, or even the existing Firmware Over The Air (FOTA) updates, how can we ensure that hackers do not intercept in between and the firmware we are updating to our vehicles are originated from a genuine source?

Finance

Needless to say, the success of bitcoin and most of the alt-coins is a living example of how the blockchain technology can be used as a currency. The challenge now is to make it more stable so it fits the purpose as a medium of exchange as what most fiat money do well now.

Democracy

Another good use case leveraging the immutability of the blockchain is about the true democracy in our society or the city. We don’t need to have periodic votings and select our policy makers when it comes to matters related to the development or things that need to be done collaboratively through a democratic process.

Public voting can be executed via blockchain based system to decide on certain issues that affect certain communities in a certain area, if not the city as a whole. Every decision making process will become more transparent, real time, and theoretically, fair.

Energy

There has never been problem with resources, the problem lies within distribution. That was a good old saying pending a solution. With blockchain technology, a more liberalized energy market could be created. Peer to peer energy network can make the current centralized energy distribution model looks a bit autocratic and outdated in today’s world. The more efficient we transfer and distribute our energy sources, the closer we will be in reaching our greener goals.

From the successful implementation of smart grids starting with energy distribution, we could be finding more possibilities and opportunities to utilities and environmental related industry.

As such, I enclose this article for now. For further reading, check out

Blockchain Technologies: The Next Frontier of Smart Cities – Part 2  by Lily Maxwell posted in Bee Smart City on 20th August, 2018

Smart Cities and Blockchain: Four Countries Where AI and DLT Exist Hand-in-Hand by Julia Magas posted in Coin Telegraph on 17th June, 2018

Related Updates as at February 2019:

Finance and economic

Liberstad — a private, anarcho-capitalist city in Norway — has adopted a cryptocurrency native to its blockchain-powered smart city platform as its official medium of exchange, according to a press release published on Feb. 12.

South Korea’s leading telecommunications company, KT Corporation, has been selected to develop a local cryptocurrency in the South Korean city of Gimpo. The city plans to issue 11 billion won (over $9.7 million) worth of the currency per year, which includes budgets for various social services and development projects.

The Institute of Decentralized Economics (IDE) has opened in London, the United Kingdom on Feb. 14, 2019. The idea behind the IDE is to “help organizations better understand the economics that underlie the blockchain industry.” The IDE will also study the design and viability of stablecoins and how government policy and “crypto-economic” technologies interact.

Luxembourg lawmakers have passed bill 7363 into law, facilitating the use of blockchain technology in financial services, according to an official announcement published by the country’s parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, on Feb. 14.

The new law aims provide financial market participants with more transparency and legal certainty in regard to the circulation of securities with blockchain technology. The bill is also geared to make the transfer of securities more efficient by reducing the number of intermediaries.

Energy and Utilities

Dutch technology company ElaadNL has developed a Proof of Concept (PoC) for a smart power grid for electric vehicles using internet of things (IoT)-focused IOTA Tangle technology, according to the company’s announcement on Feb. 14, 2019.

Per the announcement, the PoC shows the ability of smart grids to not only consume power, but also generate it and autonomously redistribute it amongst community members. The initiative was based on IOTA’s Tangle technology, which purportedly lets the charging devices autonomously decide whether there is need to help balance grid load.

The global blockchain in energy utilities market was assessed to be $210.4 million in 2018, and is expected to reach $3.4 billion by 2024. Infoholic Research thus predicts the growth at a compound annual growth rate of 59.4 percent during the period from 2018 to 2024.

Tokenization of physical assets and the impact of IoT and AI

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