June is coming to an end, on the contrary Chained Weekly Digest is bringing you another update, below You can find summary for week #3, 18th – 24th of June.

„EOS Block Producers Reportedly ‘Ordered’ to Freeze 27 Accounts, ‘Reasoning’ to Follow”

Author: Molly Jane Zuckerman
Source: EOS Block Producers Reportedly 'Ordered’ to Freeze 27 Accounts
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• According to a tweet posted at 22 June EOS block producers, have received an emergency order to refuse to process transactions for 27 accounts;
• Further official notice and instruction should follow from EOS Core Arbitration Forum (ECAF)
• Sam Sapoznick has signed this letter in the capacity of ECAF Interim Emergency Arbitrator – tweet was shared by a Twitter user @ferdousbhai.

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„Do Banks Even Want to Go Blockchain”

Author: Stephen O’Neal
Source: Do Banks Even Want to Go Blockchain
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• During the past couple of months blockchain’s effectiveness and maturity was questioned by couple of big banks on the market among others, Spanish bank BBVA, Bank of CAna, Russian Central Bank;
• It may be hard for banks to give up margin fees in favor of improvement in the effectiveness of cross-border payments and cutting costs of being „trusted third party”;
• Ripple is working with mainstream financial players, instead of what can be popular in crypto community world, trying to overthrow banks. Company reported positive results for its xRapid pilot – tool for easing cross-border fiat transfers between financial institutions. Platform has proven to save transaction costs by 40 – 70 percent by not having to use foreign exchange providers and has increased transaction speed;
• Santader (Spanish-based international bank), Woori Bank (South Korean bank) are both had positive results of their pilots with Ripple based projects;
• Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon said „One of the potentially strongest use cases of crypto tokens is to facilitate cross-border payments in traditional currencies.”
• SWIFT – 45-year-old Belgium-based – interbank messaging service which is a co-operative owned by about 11,000 member banks, concluded (based on the results of theirs Proof-of-Concept) that blockchain is not ready for mainstream use, naming scalability as one of the primary issues.

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„Walmart Awarded Patent for Blockchain-Based Medical Records System”

Author: Ana Alexandre
Source: Walmart Awarded Patent for Blockchain-Based Medical Records System
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• Retail giant – Walmart, has been awarded a patent for an IT system that would be able to store medical records on a blockchain network from a wearable device;
• According to a patent document, system will allow medical professionals to retrieve medical data from a patient that is unable to communicate;
• Obtained medical information may be also shared with hospitals and other healthcare entities, for instance if patient is transported from one medical care point to another, data will be available to medical care personnel before the patient’s arrival;
• It’s not a first blockchain-related patent filled by Walmart, other documents includes a marketplace for reselling purchased products, „Smart Package” system to track package contents, environmental conditions, location, and other details, and an electrical grid that will be powered by a digital currency.

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„Bahamas Central Bank to Launch Pilot Digital Currency”

Author: Ana Alexandre
Source: Bahamas Central Bank to Launch Pilot Digital Currency
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• The Central Bank of the Bahamas is planning to introduce a government-backed pilot digital currency;
• Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance – K Peter Turnquest, said that the development of a fully digital payment service is „the way forward for this era of governance”;
• Another valid point stated by Minister Turnquest is that they have seen many commercial banks downsize and pull out of their communities located on the islands of Bahamas leaving people without banking services;
• Other ways that Bahamas are evaluating or will be evaluating blockchain is a pilot program of issuing blockchain-based education certificates for graduates of the National Training Agency, and applying blockchain for business licences, passports, and national insurance.

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„The current status of blockchain technologies”

Author: Marta Piekarska
Source: The current status of blockchain technologies
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• According to Marta Piekarska, Director of Developer Ecosystem at Hyperledger Project there are 203 different initiatives around the world implementing solutions in different governments;
• Hyperledger has reached almost 250 members;
• „Blockchain is a Peer-to-Peer network. To scale and make use of its full benefits peers, or nodes should come from different parties.”;
• Consortia are being created, examples: we.trade, developed by 9 different banks; TReDS, similar platform in India;
• „Blockchain will not solve all our problems and will not be valuable in all industries.”
• The market is maturing and is starting to ask the right questions regarding blockchain technology – „the demand is there but supply remains scarce”.

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„CEO of UBS: Blockchain Will Transform Cost Base of Financial Services Industry”

Author: Aaron Wood
Source: CEO of UBS: Blockchain Will Transform Cost Base of Financial Services Industry
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• Sergio Ermotti CEO of UBS Group said that blockchain will be essential for the financial services industry;
• „Freeing up of resources to become more efficient” and „is a great way to allow us to … reduce costs” as the key points in favor of blockchain technology;
• Last fall UBS joined a blockchain partnership – Batavia – together with IBM, CaixaBank, Commerzbank, Erste Group and Bank of Montreal;
• Batavia group ran first pilot transactions in April this year, pilot involved sending cars from Germany to Spain and furniture production textiles from Austria to Spain.

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„Uh Oh: Blockchain May Not Be as Secure as We Thought”

Author: Kristin Houser
Source: Blockchain Security Smart Contracts
Date of publication: March 2018

Key points:

• 34,200 out of 1 million analyzed smart contracts had security vulnerabilities;
• Custom-built tool called MAIAN was used by a team of experts from National University of Singapore and University College London to analyze roughly one million smart contracts;
• Locking funds indefinitely, forcing to leak funds randomly or killing contracts were the top vulnerabilities found by Team.

Thanks,

Krzysiek