Chained Weekly Digest #2 - 11 - 17 June

Second post from the series Chained Weekly Digest, this time you can find summary of 6 articles, read (and published) between 11 and 17 of June 2018.

“Oxford Profs Plan Launch of World’s First Blockchain-Based, Decentralized University”

Author: Marie Huillet
Source: Oxford Professors plan to launch worlds first blockchain decentralized university
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

Joshua Broggi – Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford – who is leading Woolf Developement,said that blockchain technology can help democratize the traditional structure of higher education;
“Border-less”, “geographically agnostic”, individual tutorial-led either on- or offline modules, with adopted traditional Oxbridge course are the proposed structured for “blockchain university”;
Sky-high tuition fees for student, cumbersome bureaucracy,administration costs, and precarious and underpaid academic teaching posts are the key points that this university can address;
Blockchain will come in handy: immutability – prevent student from falsifying academic records; smart contracts – automating students attendance, credits and academic paper submissions;
It is aimed to start in fall 2018, fees are set to $400 – per tutorial, $19 200 – per year „before scholarships”;
Woolf Development Whitepaper

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Author: William Suberg
Source: BoC blockchain not more effective than central bank system at this time
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

Back of Canada has official questioned the effectiveness and security of using blockchain technology at a conference in South Korea, according to local reports;
As James Chapman, senior research director at the BoC’s funds management and banking department said – „At this time, there is no cost-saving effect compared to the existing central bank system. Hacking and other operational risks are likely to occur.”;

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Author: Ana Berman
Source: Adblock Plus to use blockchain to detect fake news
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

Adblock Plus (developed by eyeo GmbH) will use blockchain technology in its browser extension Trusted News according to TechCrunch reports;
Trusted News labels fake news media while marking trustworthy sources and stories;
Ratings provided by this extension are based on data compiled by different sources. It works with the MetaCert protocol, which uses an anti-fraud URL registry to maintain the database for the project. The database will eventually be migrated to the Ethereum blockchain;
Company director of ecosystems Ben Williams, stated that this products will include an option wherein users can provide feedback on certain ratings, even disputing them if they disagree with a certain classification;
As of now project is in its testing stages, company wants to determine if it will be useful for users;

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Author: Kristin Houser
Source: First American sell home recording it on blockchain
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

Katherine Purcell from Vermont sold her home on February 20, recording this information on a blockchain;
Transaction was recorded on the Ethereum blockchain as part of pilot program introduced in 2017 in the city of South Burlington with Propy – a real estate platform developed by San Francisco based startup;
Propy’s blockchain records each step in the transaction, starting from expressing interest in a property, through signing agreements ending on title transfers;
As noted on Propy blog post – it was one of the very first government-sanctioned uses of blockchain for a public service;

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Author: Helen Partz
Source: KFB group to lauch blockchain powered ID Verification Platform
Date of publication: June 2018

Key Points:

Korea JoongAng Daily reports that a group of South Korean commercial banks will launch a blockchain-powered customer ID verification platform in July 2018;
„BankSing” as under such name Korea Federation of Banks plans to launch identity verification system is meant to be used in both online computer-based and mobile banking;
Platform as one of its goals is aimed to replace 20-year old public verification system that is reportedly notorious for its complexity and inefficiency;
BankSign is based private enterprise transaction management tool developed by Samsung subsidiary – Samsung SDS – called Nexledger;

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Author: –
Source: Cisco Digital Transformation – Blockchain
Date of publication: –

Key Points:

According to Cisco webpage – company is joining blockchain race with a goal to „Build trust-based business networks for digital transformation.”
Pillars of Cisco Blockchain: fully decentralized permission-ed network; fine-grained information confidentiality; predictive threat analytics and collusion control; blockchain network scalability; flexible framework to compose use case optimized stack;
Cisco Whitepaper

Thanks,

Krzysiek