Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency?

There are many things in the world of decentralized networks and not just in the daily roller coaster ride of the cryptocurrency markets. A decade after the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto unleashed Bitcoin for the first time in an unsuspecting world, the blockchain has grown and branched out and now a thousand flowers bloom, some of which are quite peculiar.

Look around and you'll see that blockchains are apparently the answer to every problem. From the replacement of the global banking system to the guarantee of the origin of the diamonds to the payment to the dentist, there is a blockchain for this.

They can be overhyped, but blockchains are actually a big problem and will get bigger. Their potential for a secure "trustless" exchange is too great to ignore and once the stupidity has subsided, some cases of serious use will inevitably emerge.

In fact it is already starting to happen, so this blog. We will update this page every few days to reflect the series of innovations that are emerging in this most interesting and unstable space. (Also check our rolling 5G coverage.)

12/18/2018 Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency?

According to a report by Cheddar.com, Facebook has quietly assembled a group of experts, academics, cryptographers and engineers with experience in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

The group was inaugurated in April of this year and, as reported, now has 30 or 40 individuals. It is directed by David Marcus, vice president of Facebook Messenger and former president of PayPal. Many of his latest hires are also former employees of PayPal, while others have online payments background from companies like Google and Samsung. Some are former members of cryptocurrency startups – fueling the long term that Facebook is developing its own currency.

Facebook has spoken little about cryptocurrencies, except to prohibit the publication of ICO ads some time ago, and it remains typically tight-lipped about its plans.

"Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to harness the power of blockchain technology," a spokesperson said. "This new small team is exploring many different applications and we have nothing else to share".

It could be that Facebook is trying to emulate the Chinese WeChat – a sort of Facebook plus that includes an app for appointments along with a native payment system that has become so popular that small traders and even beggars are starting to refuse cash – while at the same time working to keep up with the competition of less centralized models across the board.

13/12/2018 Hyperledger adds 12 new members

Hyperledger, the blockchain project authorized by the Open Source, has announced 12 new general members including some major banks, consortia and cloud companies. The general members have some marketing and hiring opportunities and can participate in commissions reserved for members.

The last general members show a strong presence from China. They are: Alibaba Cloud, BlockDao (Hangzhou) Information Technology, Citi, Deutsche Telekom, Guangzhishu (Beijing) Technology Co. Ltd, Guangzhou Technology Innovation Space Information Technology Co. Ltd, KEB Hana Bank, HealthVerity, MediConCen, Techrock, we.trade and Xooa. These additions bring the total number of general members to 256.

Four new associate members joined Hyperledger this month: Blockchain Developer Association in St. Petersburg, Hunan University Business School, Sun Yat-sun University and Wall Street Blockchain Alliance.

Associated membership is limited to non-profit organizations, open source projects and pre-approved government agencies. There are now 16 associated members.

The new members were announced at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Basel, Switzerland.

"The growing community of Hyperledger reflects the growing importance of open source efforts to build corporate blockchain technologies in all sectors and markets," said Executive Director Brian Behlendorf. "The latest members show the growing interest and impact of DLT and Hyperledger".

A number of blockchain projects are based on Hyperledger; some of them like we.trade and the Walmart food supply chain system are featured elsewhere in this blog.

10/23/2018 Blockchain too immature for government use, finds the Australian DTA

The Australian government's digital transformation agency has raised doubts about the validity of blockchains for government purposes.

The DTA, which has been allocated 700,000 Australian dollars to investigate the technology, concluded after an initial research that in almost all cases the existing technologies are more suitable than the blockchain.

The agency worked with a number of government agencies to develop prototypes for the use of blockchains to provide services, including the Department of Human Services for welfare payments and commodity regulation.

Peter Alexander, CDO of the DTA said that it is worth keeping the technology eye, but that it is still too immature.

"Our position today, and this is an initial review, is that blockchain is an interesting technology that would be worth observing, but without standardization and much more work, for every use of blockchain you would consider today is a technology better, "Alexander said Tuesday at a Senate hearing, as reported by InnovationAus.com.

Alexander said that one of the main characteristics of blockchain, the potential for anonymity, is among the biggest obstacles.

"In general, when the government is busy with someone, we want to have a relationship of trust with them, we want to know who they are and give them personalized service," he said. "Blockchain is good for low trust involvement, you do not know who you are dealing with but you have a series of books that can give you some confirmation and support."

According to Alexander, the blockchain is the "top of the hype cycle", with the demand driven by industry.

"It would be fair to say that many of the big sellers are pushing the blockchain very strongly and that most of the blockchain advertising on the international level comes from sellers and companies, not governments, users and service distributors," he said.

10/23/2018 China bans the ban on anonymity

China is another country that finds the anonymity of the blockchain a problem. At the beginning of this year, Chinese students have coded sexual harassment charges against a prominent Ethereum blockchain professor to escape censorship in the country, having been blocked all posts on social media on the issue. The same technique was used to spread news about fake and low-quality vaccines, another scandal that the government tried to hide.

But the Chinese government has developed a new regulation that would require users to provide their real names and national identity card numbers when registering for a blockchain service, reports The Verge. The policy would also require that blockchain services remove "illegal information" before it can be disseminated among users. And according to the proposed legislation, service providers should also maintain backups of user data for six months and deliver them to the police on request.

China has been bullish on blockchain in recent months, with a commentator who recently said that it is worth ten times as much as the Internet. The technological giants of the countries are pouring significant resources into its development, citing the easiest trade and the anti-fraud possibilities. But without the possibility of anonymity, a permanent ledger could also be a powerful tool in the systems of surveillance and control of the authoritarian regime.

China has also banned cryptocurrency trading at the start of this year, although apparently it has not been effective. The Ethereum Hotel has recently been opened in the country, accepting payments in cryptocurrencies.

Next page: UK leaders in blockchain distributions say Capgemini; Microsoft's strategy for decentralized identity; Gary Cohn joins the fintech startup Spring Labs; The Horizen privacy platform; Zones and Icons launch the registry to authenticate and track sports objects; Nick Szabo, inventor of the intelligent contract, on its evolution; Cases of use in the real world emerge; Driving license test based on blockchain issued by the Australian state