HOW AIRLINES ARE USING BLOCKCHAIN TO UNLOCK FREQUENT FLIER MILES

 ho doesn’t have a small pile of unused airline loyalty points in a frequent flyer account? If you fly occasionally for leisure, chances are you haven’t earned enough points to do anything meaningful with them, like buying an actual flight ticket.

Plus, there are the laborious redemption processes, some with convoluted restrictions.

The answer could be blockchain – the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – which operates as a “distributed ledger”. With blockchain, airlines will be able to interact instantaneously with their partners and enable passengers to do something useful with those points.

What blockchain does that current systems cannot was recently highlighted in a “Blockchain in Aviation” white paper published in August by the International Air Transport Association, which said that blockchain has the capability to “tokenise” frequent flyer miles.

Read the entire article here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airlines-blockchain-singapore-technology-bitcoin-cryptocurrency-a8692636.html?amp

Nasdaq integrates Microsoft Azure to build a blockchain for blockchains

In a press release published yesterday, Microsoft announced it would be bringing its Azure blockchain technology to Nasdaq’s Financial Framework (NFF) system.

Nasdaq’s Financial Framework will integrate with Microsoft’s Azure blockchain to build a platform that does not rely on one particular distributed ledger.

Read the full article here:
https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/10/31/microsoft-blockchain-nasdaq/

Gates Foundation Partners With Former Ripple CTO's Blockchain Project

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with blockchain startup Coil as part of its mission to provide payment services for the unbanked.

The news comes via a tweet from Miller Abel, the foundation's deputy director and principal technologist, on Oct. 17. Abel indicated that the organization and Coil will work together to implement the Interledger Protocol and explore ways to support "pro-poor payment systems."

Interledger is an interoperability protocol that allows payments across different crypto networks. The technology was initially co-developed by former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas while he was still with the distributed ledger payments firm. The same tech now being used as the basis of Coil, which Thomas founded earlier this year, as CoinDesk reported.

While further details on the new partnership are thus far sparse, Abel also mentioned Ripple in his tweets yesterday.

The Gates Foundation announced its partnership with Ripple in October last year, when the two released an open-source software called Mojaloop – also focused on payment services to the poor and unbanked.

Read the entire article here:

https://www.coindesk.com/gates-foundation-partners-with-former-ripple-ctos-blockchain-project/

Leading Auction House Christie's to Record Art Sales on a Blockchain

London-based Christie's, one of the oldest and most noted art auction houses in the world, is turning to blockchain tech to securely store sales and provenance data.

The firm, which has a history going back to 1766, announced in a press release Thursday that it is collaborating with blockchain-powered digital art registry Artory to pilot the encrypted recording of auction transactions.

The pilot program will register Christie's upcoming autumn sale of artworks from the Barney A. Ebsworth Collection, a privately-held collection of 20th century Modernist American art, which is estimated to bring in $300 million in total.

Artory's blockchain platform will store data from each sale, including the item's title, description, final price and date. The startup will also provide a digital certificate of the transaction.

Christie's will then issue each buyer a registration card to access the encrypted information about their purchased artwork.

Read the entire article here>
https://www.coindesk.com/leading-auction-house-christies-to-record-art-sales-on-a-blockchain/

Two of Blockchain's Biggest Consortiums Just Joined Forces

Seismic shifts are happening in the world of enterprise blockchain.

Announced Monday, the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) have agreed to collaborate on bringing common standards to the blockchain space and cross-pollinate a wider open-source community.

This joining of forces is notable as EEA and Hyperledger represent two of the three largest and arguably most influential enterprise blockchain communities, the third being the R3 Corda ecosystem.

If the team-up succeeds in creating common standards between the two platforms, it could sway enterprises previously on the fence to build their blockchains on one or the other, since the risk of creating new silos that don't talk to other systems is being addressed.

As EEA executive director Ron Resnick told CoinDesk:

Read the entire article here

https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-enterprise-alliance-hyperledger-blockchain-consortiums-join-forces/amp/

Walmart Tells Produce Suppliers to Use Blockchain by Next September

Walmart plans to sell leafy greens that are tracked using blockchain technology within the next year.

In a press release published Monday, the world's largest retailer both by revenue and by employee count announced that it told its suppliers for leafy green produce to integrate a blockchain-based tracking system built in collaboration with IBM by September 2019.

According to the letter sent to suppliers, any company working with Walmart must work with the IBM Food Trust network to create end-to-end traceability in two phases. The blockchain platform will make it easier for Walmart to source any food items quickly, with the release noting that tracing such items at present is "an almost insurmountable challenge."

Red the full article here:

https://www.coindesk.com/walmart-will-start-tracking-groceries-on-blockchain-in-2019/

RBS Blockchain Team Jumps Ship to Build New Startups Using R3's Corda

A blockchain team from Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has left to start a blockchain "venture studio" called Chorum.

Read the full article here:
https://www.coindesk.com/rbs-blockchain-team-jumps-ship-to-build-new-startups-using-r3s-corda/

Solving The Carbon Problem One Blockchain At A Time

 Climate change is one of the most challenging collective problems the world has faced to date. Whether we will be able to curb our carbon emissions quickly enough to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change is still very much in question.

Read the entire article here

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemmagreen/2018/09/19/solving-the-carbon-problem-one-blockchain-at-a-time/amp/

Korea Taps Samsung's Blockchain Tech to Fight Customs Fraud

South Korea's customs authority is looking to adopt Samsung's blockchain tech as the backbone of a decentralized customs clearance system.

Samsung SDS, the conglomerate's IT arm, said on Friday that the Korea Customs Service has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see Samsung's Nexledger blockchain utilized for the new platform.

Forty-eight domestic institutions, including public agencies and shipping and insurance companies, have also signed the MOU, says the firm, aiming to participate as nodes on the distributed network to bring more transparency to the customs process.

The effort seeks to share the necessary series of export documents from a number of entities, such as customs declarations and delivery forms, and is being designed to "fundamentally block document forgery," as well as make the export process more efficient.

Korea Customs Service started working with Samsung on the blockchain use case back in May, when it joined the tech giant's newly launched shipping and logistics consortium.

As CoinDesk reported in April, Samsung SDS had already started developing its blockchain platform for international shipments – one it expected to reduce costs in that sector by 20 percent.

The new customs initiative is also in line with the South Korean government's overall agenda for driving blockchain adoption in pubic services, having allocated dedicated government funding.

Currently, the Ministry of ICT is focusing on developing six pilot projects for public services, one of which is customs clearance.

Read the full article here:
https://www.coindesk.com/korea-taps-samsungs-blockchain-tech-to-fight-customs-fraud/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/blockchain-set-to-increase-global-trade-by-1-trillion

Article: HTC Exodus: The blockchain phone that could change the internet as we know i

HTC Exodus: The blockchain phone that could change the internet as we know it

Read the full article here

https://www.techradar.com/amp/news/htc-exodus-the-blockchain-phone-that-could-change-the-internet-as-we-know-it

Google Now Provides a Big Data View of the Ethereum Blockchain

Internet search giant Google has added ethereum to its big data analytics platform BigQuery.

Making the announcement in a blog post on Saturday, the company said that, while an API exists for commonly used functions such as checking transaction status or wallet balances, it's not so easy to access all of the data stored on the ethereum blockchain.

Read the full story here
https://www.coindesk.com/google-now-provides-a-big-data-view-of-the-ethereum-blockchain/

A Canadian Government Body Has Built an Ethereum Blockchain Explorer

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced Monday that it has built an ethereum blockchain explorer.

The organization wrote in a news release that its Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) is now hosting the explorer on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) through services provided by Bitaccess, a blockchain startup.

Read the entire story here
https://www.coindesk.com/a-canadian-government-body-has-built-an-ethereum-blockchain-explorer/

US Border Officials to Test Blockchain for Certificate Tracking

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to trial blockchain technology to verify North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) certificates.

CBP Division of Business Transformation and Innovation head Vincent Annunziato said the agency was beginning a "live fire testing" of a blockchain platform to certify that imported products originated where they claim during CBP's 2018 Trade Symposium in Atlanta, according to the American Shipper.

The new system, which will launch in September, is going to help CBP verify information about imported goods and check how foreign suppliers act toward American importers, he said. The system can also be used to authenticate trademarks and check on an item's physical properties.

"I can even go in and say, 'hey, I need a little information on the stitching,' or, 'I need information on what colors are viable,'" Annunziato said.

Annunziato said the blockchain system could be used in a mobile app, which would replace a paper-based manual process for verifying such information, thereby streamlining the agency's work.

He also provided an update to the agency's work with the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC). As previously reported by CoinDesk, COAC formed a special group advising the Secretaries of Treasury and Homeland Security on the agency's commercial operations last November. The body was said to focus on emerging technologies in general and on blockchain in particular.

This week, Annunziato confirmed that the committee was working to develop a proof-of-concept blockchain platform to verify intellectual property by confirming the relationship between licensees and licensors. The technology could ultimately eliminate paper processes, manuals and databases, CPB hopes.

The CBP press o

https://www.coindesk.com/us-border-officials-to-test-blockchain-for-tracking-import-certificates/

Ether Price Dropped, But Ethereum Growing Rapidly With dApp Adoption

Martin Köppelmann, the founder of Ethereum-based prediction market platform Gnosis, said that despite the decline in the price of Ether, the Ethereum network is growing rapidly.

According to Köppelmann, the most important metric to consider in analyzing the growth of Ethereum is the performance of decentralized applications (dApps) and the interconnectedness of dApps on the blockchain.

read teh entire article here:


https://cryptoslate.com/ether-price-dropped-but-ethereum-growing-rapidly-with-dapp-adoption/

Vitalik Buterin On The State Of Ethereum, The Future Of Blockchain And Google Trying To Hire Him

Cofounder of Ethereum Foundation and Bitcoin Magazine Vitalik Buterin shared his thoughts on the future of blockchain, the state of ethereum and more during a small, private event held in San Francisco last week. Hosted by the Blockchain at Berkeley student-run organization, Origin and Steve Chen, cofounder of the Modernist social club, Buterin’s fireside chat with Jason Hsu provided insights into major topics currently facing the crypto community.



Read the full article here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelwolfson/2018/08/15/vitalik-buterin-on-the-state-of-ethereum-the-future-of-blockchain-and-google-trying-to-hire-him/amp

Using blockchain technology to build India’s economy

For India to realize its goal of a $5 trillion economy by 2025, it must adopt blockchain technology for international remittances.

Remittances from non-resident Indians (NRIs) are vital to the everyday livelihood of tens of millions of people in India to pay for things like food, rent and other necessities. They also make up a huge portion of our country’s balance of payments and help to stimulate domestic consumption levels in India, which in turn, supports many different industries and businesses. And yet, the average cost of remitting money to India is 5.63% of each transaction, well above the Sustainable Development Goal target of 3%. When you consider that India is the world’s largest recipient of remittances (at about ₹4.6 trillion a year), the need for a more efficient method for inbound remittances is clear.

If the government is serious about building India’s economy and bringing prosperity to all its citizens, it needs to fix the remittance problem. It can do so by adopting blockchain technology and digital assets for faster, low-cost, efficient remittances.

read the entire article here:
https://www.livemint.com/Technology/HYeJAIqv6LEsbXtAepob4N/Using-blockchain-technology-to-build-Indias-economy.html

Microsoft’s New Ethereum Blockchain Product Gets Rid of Mining

Software giant Microsoft has debuted a new Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) product that allows businesses across industry verticals to deploy a flexible instance of Ethereum tailored specifically for enterprise environments.

Announced on Tuesday, Ethereum Proof-of-Authority on Azure allows enterprises to build applications on an Ethereum blockchain that is not secured by a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm and consequently does not require mining — features that are better suited for networks in which participants do not trust one another.

PoW “works great in anonymous, open networks where cryptocurrency promotes security on the network,” said Azure Global software engineer Cody Born. “However, in private/consortium networks the underlying ether has no value.”

Born explained that, since all participants on an enterprise blockchain network are known and reputable, governance can be separated from network operation.

Read the entire article here
https://ccn.com/microsofts-new-ethereum-blockchain-product-gets-rid-of-mining/

West Virginia to Offer Blockchain Voting for This Year’s Midterm Elections

West Virginia is rolling out a blockchain based mobile voting app so American troops overseas can cast their votes in the upcoming elections, CNN reports.

The state had previously used the mobile voting platform, called Voatz app, in a pilot for deployed troops and their dependents in two counties for the state’s primary elections. Secretary of State Mac Warner at the time said the plan was to extend the pilot to the state’s 55 counties for the midterms in November once the pilot was successful.

read the full article here:

https://www.ccn.com/west-virginia-to-offer-blockchain-voting-for-this-years-midterm-elections/

Germany's No. 2 Stock Exchange Unveils Crypto Trading App

for those of you who are into cryto in euro ------

The fintech arm of Germany's second-largest stock exchange is set to launch a cryptocurrency trading app later this year.

Sowa Labs, a subsidiary of Börse Stuttgart, unveiled the app on Friday, which it said would be available for use in September and will initially offer trading support for bitcoin, ether, XRP and litecoin. According to the app's official website, "more assets [are] coming soon."

The app, called Bison, will be free to download and, according to its developers, won't charge trading fees at launch. A prototype of the app is being demoed during a trade show in Stuttgart this week.

Read the entire article here

https://coindesk.com/germanys-no-2-stock-exchange-unveils-crypto-trading-app/