First full week of July brings a lot of news into Chained Weekly Digest #5. Below you can find summary of 6 articles, looking forward to your opinion about any of the information provided, enjoy the read!
„Cars on the Blockchain? Six Ways Automakers Could Employ the New Technology”
Author: Kristin Houser
Date of publication: March 2018
Key points:
- Berlin-based startup XAIN and Porsche teamed up to work on using blockchain technology in automotive industry. One of the use cases – help drivers unlock their vehicles;
- Unlocking car with prototype mechanism with blockchain technology proved to be 6 times faster then previous communication with third party server;
- Other possible use cases: unlock vehicle remotely, grant third-party like delivery company possibility to open the car;
- Car eWallet is working on automatic payments for electricity to charge electric cars and other possibilities among others: monthly parking cost, insurance and other financial transactions;
- Train autonomous driving systems by sharing everyone data with help of a blockchain network;
- Ensuring that materials are ethically sources – whole supply chain tracking process;
- Daimler AG (Mercedes Benz’s parent company) is using a car blockchain to encourage eco-friendly driving. Daimler introduces their own cryptocurrency mobiCOINS, that are deposited into the driver’s account for levering ECO friendly driving;
- In August 2017, consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY) announced the launch of Tesseract. This blockchain-based system facilitates the sharing of vehicle ownership. By using this product people can share ownership of vehicles.
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„IBM Signs $740 Million Deal With Australian Gov’t to Use Blockchain for Data Security”
Author: Marie Huillet
Date of publication: July 2018
Key points:
- IBM has signed a 5 year deal with the Australian government to use blockchain and other new technologies to improve data security – $740 million US deal amount;
- This partnership will give access to the „world’s greatest technologies” across many government agencies.
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„Thai Regulator Confirms July Start Date for Regulated ICOs”
Author: William Suberg
Date of publication: July 2018
Key points:
- ICO in Thailan will be regulated in the form of a two-tier vetting procedure, with accredited „ICO portals” in charge of selecting applicants to pass to the SEC for a final screening;
- Due to this regulation Thailand will become one of the first jurisdictions in the world to permit ICOs to function in a fully-regulated environment.
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„Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and IBM are testing blockchain-powered bank transfers”
Author: David Canellis
Date of publication: July 2018
Key points:
- First cross-border, commercial transactions have been conducted on the we.trade blockchain platform;
- This action was a cross-country, multi-bank, interoperability remittance fest;
- we.trade is powered by an Linux Foundation Hyperledger project;
- In the span of a whole business week, 10 companies conducted trades on the we.trade platform, 4 different banks across 5 countries were involved.
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„Zug’s Head of Comms Calls City Blockchain Voting Test a ‘Success’, Despite Low Turnout”
Author: Molly Jane Zuckerman
Date of publication: July 2018
Key points:
- Swiss News Agency reported that first local blockchain-based municipal vote has been successfully completed in Zug;
- Dieter Müller – head of communication for the city of Zug – explained Swiss News Agency, that technical details will be examined over the next few months for privacy, voting secrecy, and verifiability of the results;
- 72 out of the 240 citizens with access to the online voting system took part in the voting process.
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„The Synergies Gained from Building on Ethereum’s Decentralized App Ecosystem”
Author: Preethi Kasireddy
Date of publication: September 2017
Key points:
- Network effect – combining more and more parties into one network – every new customer present in the network increases the overall value of the product;
- Direct network effect – increase in usage lead to direct increases in value;
- Indirect network effect – increase in usage of the product creates more value for „complementary products”, which creates an ecosystem of sorts that increases the value of the original product.
- „Ethereum is a blockchain with a built-in Turing-complete programming language and state-management capabilities that make it simple to write smart contracts and decentralized applications.”;
- In Ethereum blockchain everything is built around a single shared standard (smart contracts, accounts, transactions, gas price etc.);
- As a con here in regards to indirect network effect of Ethereum – it becomes much harder to build giant businesses off direct network effects.