A basic understanding of a blockchain is that it’s a network of computers verifying transactions. However, for anyone interested in digging a little deeper, wondering how key encryption works, or finding out about distributed computing can lead to a better understanding of blockchain technology. Understanding how technology works isn’t just for the scientifically curious. It can also help you make more informed investment decisions by focusing on projects with a solid technological basis.

This article is in two parts.

The first covers what distributed computing is, how it’s used, and the pros and cons.

In the second part, we look further at the different architectures of distributed systems and deep-dive into the peer-to-peer architecture of blockchain.

What Is Distributed Computing?

At the simplest level, distributed computing is merely a network of computers working together as one system. The machines can be located in close proximity to one another and connected physically as part of a local network. Or, as in blockchain-based networks like Bitcoin, the computers can be geographically dispersed.

Distributed computing has been around for far longer than blockchain itself. As the use of computers in universities and research labs grew during the 1960s, the need arose for computers to start talking to one another, sharing hardware like storage and printers. The 1970s saw the establishment of the first local area networks. The first distributed computing systems were local area networks such as Ethernet, a family of networking technologies developed by Xerox. Now they are everywhere. Each time you join a new Wifi connection, you’re entering a new computer network.

Computers in distributed networks don’t need to be in any specific format or hardware configuration. They could be laptops or mainframes, PCs or Macs. In blockchains, they may be PCs running a CPU or GPU, or dedicated hardware like an ASIC miner.

However, regardless of the type of machine on the network, they must all work as a single computer. The end user should be unable to identify that there is a distributed computing network behind the interface.

Why Use Distributed Computing?

To illustrate the basics of what distributed computing is, think about a company that owns and runs a web application, let’s say a job board site. As the application gains more and more users, both candidates and recruiters, the company needs more and more computing resources to continue running the site.

At the start, the company can upgrade its server infrastructure to accommodate new users, adding more memory and bandwidth. We call this type of expansion vertical scaling. However, at a critical level, this becomes impractical both physically and economically.

At this critical point, distributed computing provides a solution, in the form of horizontal scaling. Rather than upgrading the existing computer infrastructure, the company adds more computers to the system to accommodate the increased workload.

In our job board site example, the company knows that most of the traffic is people browsing the job boards. So it can add a slave server to take the weight of the browsing activity. The slave server receives information from a master server, which updates the database with new candidate and job records.

A blockchain is a peer-to-peer network, which is a different kind of distributed system than illustrated in this example. We’ll dive into the different types of distributed systems in part two, covering distributed computing architectures.

Pros of Distributed Computing

When answering the question, “What is distributed computing,” it’s also relevant to look at the pros and cons. When we look at these pros and cons, consider that distributed computing is more than just blockchain. A company implementing a distributed computing system may have issues that don’t affect public blockchains and vice versa.

Fault Tolerance and Redundancy

One of the most significant advantages of distributed computing is that it doesn’t matter if one or more machines on the network go down because the rest can pick up the slack. This means that a network can be always on. This enables 24/7 trading in crypto, however, in a blockchain context it also has other advantages. For example, companies like Walmart that use blockchain in their supply chain systems, experience no downtime. This is a massive bonus for a global supply chain operation.

Cost Effectiveness and Overall Efficiency

Distributed systems offer better efficiencies regarding both cost and overall efficiency compared to centralized systems. Centralized systems are efficient up to a point. However, our job board example shows that once computing needs reach a certain size, it makes more sense to scale horizontally than vertically. Adding more machines to a network is more efficient both technologically and economically.

Scalability

Concerning pure computing power, distributed computing offers easier scalability than centralized computing. It’s relatively easy to add more machines to gain more computing power and reduce them when power needs are lower.

However, blockchain has different scalability issues. In a blockchain, the number of transactions processed in a fixed period limits transaction speed. Therefore, the scalability issue is one of transaction speed. This scalability limitation is due to the need for the nodes in a blockchain to reach consensus on the transactions taking place. Therefore, while distributed computing itself offers a high degree of scalability, the game theory element of blockchain is generally what hampers scalability on transaction speeds.

Cons of Distributed Computing

Distributed computing offers many benefits. However, it comes with some drawbacks.

Complexity – How complicated is setting up a decentralized, distributed computing system?

Distributed systems are more complex and difficult to troubleshoot than a centralized system. In a blockchain context, managing the community of developers, node operators, and investors can be challenging without any centralized entity in control. Therefore, a large part of the complexity of running a blockchain comes from the need for decentralized governance at scale.

How secure is distributed computing?

Companies implementing distributed systems need to ensure the security of each device on the network, as well as assure consistency of data between different machines.

Blockchain gets around this using consensus protocols, which ensure that the entire network agrees on a single source of truth. The consensus protocol also helps to protect against malicious actors. As long as 51 percent of the network is acting in the interests of the group, the network remains secure. This becomes a challenge if mining pools aggregate sufficient hashing power to launch a 51 percent attack. This risk is why so many in the blockchain community push for full decentralization, railing against companies like Bitmain, which dominates the mining of major cryptos.

How much does distributed computing cost?

An organization implementing a distributed computing system will incur a higher initial setup cost than a centralized system. This is simply because distributed systems need more hardware.

In blockchain, the costs hit in a slightly different way. In a decentralized blockchain, the project needs to establish an initial base of node operators running the blockchain software on their machines. Although a blockchain project isn’t buying those machines, they do need to attract the node operators into running their blockchain software over the software of other projects. For this reason, many ICOs put aside a portion of the initial funds raised for marketing and promotional purposes, part of which is around building a user base of node operators to run the network.

Summary

This article has covered all the main points to answer the bulk of distributed computing questions.  We’ve also looked at the pros and cons of distributed computing in the context of blockchain. The next part of this article focuses on the peer-to-peer distributed computing architecture of blockchain, and how it works by comparison to other distributed computing architectures.

The post What Is Distributed Computing? Examining Blockchain’s Backbone appeared first on CoinCentral.

Blockchain Utilities in Energy Markets – Electricity and Gas

The growth forecasts for the blockchain utilities market are significant. ResearchandMarkets recently added the “Blockchain in Energy Markets” to its report offering, which estimates the sector to increase by a mind-blowing 59 percent CAGR to over $3 billion by 2024.

Electricity and Renewable Energy

The potential of blockchain as an enabler of peer-to-peer energy marketplaces is well-documented. Projects like Powerledger are creating a decentralized network of entities generating and trading their own energy from renewable sources. By opening up the markets in this way, we could see drastic reductions in energy costs.

However, such an approach comes with inherent infrastructure challenges. Electricity travels through wires and poles, so for a P2P energy marketplace to become a reality, the entire system needs a physical overhaul. Therefore, although P2P energy marketplaces are a compelling use case, it may be some time before they reach their full potential.

Renewable Energy Certificates

There are more immediate use cases for blockchain utilities though. Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are a commodity, traded separately from electricity. They certify that the buyer has purchased energy from a renewable source. Currently, RECs are issued based solely on forecasts and estimates because currently, there’s no way to trace exactly which energy in any given power grid came from a renewable source.

Now, companies are deploying blockchain to help track renewable energy contributions, so that RECs can be issued based on accurate information. So, a particular solar panel or wind turbine will become linked into a blockchain. Each megawatt hour (MWh) of renewable electricity that it generates is recorded immutably on the blockchain and receives its own REC.

Spain is already using blockchain for the issuance of RECs, with its national electricity provider Iberdrola using the blockchain platform provided by the Energy Web Foundation. The EWF has developed the Energy Web, a custom platform for use by the energy industry. The foundation is also looking at other possibilities in the area of blockchain utilities.

Oil and Gas

The extraction process probably doesn’t stand to gain much from the emergence of blockchain utilities. However, both oil and gas are traded as commodities, and trade finance is a huge challenge in the commodities sector.

The main issue is that there are generally various parties involved in each transaction, including banks and brokers. All parties have to agree to the trade, which involves the issuance and authentication of letters of credit before a funds transfer can take place.

Using a blockchain solution allows the issuance of letters of credit and financing, with full transparency between the parties to the trade. Whereas in today’s landscape, settlements can take days or longer, blockchain enables real-time settlements. This significantly reduces the time that commodities spend sitting in ports, which in turn also costs money for the owner.

Water

Blockchain utilities have broader applications beyond the energy sector. Although the developed world tends to take the availability of water for granted, we are in the midst of a global water crisis.

According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of the world’s population – 4.5 billion people – lack access to basic sanitation services. And people in the developing world needn’t think this will never affect them. The WEF also forecasts a 40 percent gap in the global supply and demand of water by the year 2050.

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One of the biggest challenges in the water sector is of managing supply. Water systems often depend on aged infrastructure, which is leaky and inefficient. 

Furthermore, a small number of big players who operate within black boxes control much of the water supply. For this reason, we have no idea if water is distributed equitably.

Blockchain has the power to reverse the world water crisis. By using an interconnected network of IoT sensors, it’s possible that water supply can be better managed on a micro or macro level. Recording the sensor data on the blockchain provides transparency far beyond what’s available in today’s water industry.

This is the goal of a project called Blockchain Water. It’s bringing together other blockchain projects including Golem, IOTA, Filecoin, and Siacoin to manage the worlds water infrastructure. Blockchain Water will also integrate artificial intelligence. AI can quickly analyze different simulations to try and ensure the use of optimal water management solutions.

A further water blockchain project exists, called Waterchain. However, this one is leveraging the crowdfunding features of blockchain. Funding is for startups and projects which aim to address the challenges in water management.

Summary

Energy and water are fundamental to our lives, but both are in the throes of a crisis. The energy sector needs to make better use of renewable energy sources if we are to avert climate change. Anything that threatens the availability of water puts human life at risk.

Blockchain can help to reduce water inequality and ensure water supplies are managed sustainably and transparently. It can also create new avenues for delivering and tracing renewable energy.  Blockchain utilities are still very much in the early days of adoption, but there is great potential in this area to help safeguard the planet for future generations.

Featured image courtesy of Pixabay

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Satoshi’s Vision (Not the Bitcoin Cash one)

Before we get started, in light of recent news, let’s take a second to disambiguate the term “Satoshi’s Vision.” Long before Craig Wright reignited his war with practically the entire cryptoverse by sending cease-and-desist letters to anyone who dared to question the authenticity of his “I am Satoshi” claims, the actual Satoshi (as in, the one we know invented Bitcoin) had a simple vision. It was nothing to do with Bitcoin Cash hard forks, and it’s stated right there in the first line of the Bitcoin white paper:

“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

Although Bitcoin largely continues true to this vision, the blockchain and crypto landscape has diverged. The financial sector in particular quickly noticed the potential of the underlying technology.

Unsurprisingly for a sector which makes its bread and butter from being the middleman, the banks, along with many governments weren’t keen on Satoshi’s original vision. However, blockchain offers vast potential to the financial sector. So the banks and financial institutions together with governments and big companies such as IBM started to investigate what blockchain can do.

Now, consortia exist to explore the potential of blockchain in almost every industry. Along with finance, blockchain is making waves in supply chain and logistics, insurance, advertising, aerospace, healthcare, and so many, many other sectors. However, many of these developments have taken place on private distributed ledgers, which don’t fully exploit the benefits of decentralization. For this reason, many crypto purists decry the departure from Satoshi’s original vision.

Enter decentralized finance.

About Decentralized Finance

The Decentralized Finance (#DeFi) movement launched towards the back end of last year, as a network of fifteen Ethereum-based projects with the unified goal of creating a more open financial system. Initial member projects included MakerDAO, Origin Protocol, and Paradigm. Later entrants included Kyber Network and Compound.

The network also solidified some guidelines for joining. These explicitly state that to participate in #DeFi, the project is building on or building a service for a decentralized blockchain, within the finance industry, adhering to common standards and pushing for interoperability, and must align with the core principles of #DeFi. The principles talk about financial inclusion, accessibility, and transparency.

Currently, members of #DeFi include decentralized exchanges, wallets, stable coins, prediction markets, liquidity protocols, and many others.

What Does #DeFi Mean for Ethereum?

Most of the first movers in the decentralized finance movement are based on Ethereum. Therefore, DeFi amounts to pretty good news for Vitalik’s baby.

Let’s break it down. MakerDAO is far and away the biggest Ethereum project involved in #DeFi if we use staked ETH as the measure. At the time of writing, over 2 million ETH are staked in Maker.

The next biggest are Compound and Uniswap, with 55k and 27k respectively.

Not to mention Bancor, which isn’t a pure Ethereum project but acts as a liquidity network for Ethereum-based tokens. A recent blog post from Bancor announced it now has $12.8m worth of Ethereum and EOS staked in its network.

The more ETH staked in these kinds of decentralized finance projects, the scarcer that ETH becomes. Increased scarcity of ETH pushes up demand from traders and investors, which increases its market value. Therefore, the growth of the #DeFi movement spells great news for anyone speculating on ETH.

What Does Decentralized Finance Mean for Blockchain?

The initial group of projects within #DeFi are mostly based on Ethereum. But this doesn’t mean that a decentralized finance ecosystem can’t flourish across all blockchains. In fact, doing so would return the convergence of blockchain and finance back to Satoshi’s original vision.

Since the prolonged bear market turned into the crypto winter, there has been plenty of criticism and naysaying directed at blockchain and cryptocurrency. Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately, if you’re a decentralization purist,) this is also leading many to speculate that blockchain as a technology has had its moment.

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Even self-styled “former believers” have used high-profile platforms to state their “we tried it, it didn’t work” position. The fact that US regulators haven’t approved a Bitcoin ETF doesn’t help sell the idea of crypto as a success in the financial world. Neither does the fact that regulated futures offering Bakkt is on indefinite hold. 

This seems vastly unfair. The price of Bitcoin at its 2018 low was still four times higher than two years prior, before the boom. Furthermore, no corporate implementation of blockchain for any use case has been operational for more than a year or two at most. That’s hardly enough time to declare it a success or failure either way. Especially considering the speed at which corporate gears grind.

Making It On Our Own

In any case, decentralized finance moves away from the need for external validation of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. #DeFi doesn’t require banks and financial institutions to incorporate the technology.

Rather, it shows that the crypto world is flourishing on its own, without the need for external validation or regulation. #DeFi is creating new channels for adopting crypto. It’s encouraging a new wave of financial entrepreneurship which would be stifled in the world of traditional banking.

Furthermore, #DeFi is based on peers exchanging digital currency online. Aside from the obvious need to onboard to crypto from fiat, it doesn’t require the intermediation of a financial institution. It’s so close to Satoshi’s vision it’s as if the man himself came up with the idea. Which, when you think about it, he sort of did.

For anyone interested in exploring decentralized finance projects in more detail, some kindly souls have been curating a pretty comprehensive list on GitHub. #DeFi is also on Telegram and Reddit.

Featured image: Pixabay

The post Deconstructing #DeFi – What Does Decentralized Finance Mean for Crypto’s Future? appeared first on CoinCentral.

Recap – What is IOST?

IOST stands for the Internet of Services token. The name reflects the vision of the project. It aims to overcome the trilemma that plagues other blockchains, namely scalability, security, and decentralization.

However, these are not the only challenges. Blockchain still suffers from barriers to adoption due to the fact many remain difficult to use for non-technical folk. IOST recognizes that ease of use is critical to achieving mainstream adoption. The project is technically complex under the hood, as our guide to IOST explains. However, the front-end is designed to be as user-friendly as possible.

IOST uses its own consensus method called “proof of believability” and a sharding mechanims to enable fast throughput of thousands of transactions per second. At the same time, it doesn’t place any limit on the number of nodes participating in block production. 

The IOST website details the commitment to upholding the principles of decentralization and developing a trustless network that’s open to all, making it an attractive project for blockchain purists. Furthermore, the project’s CEO and co-founder Jimmy Zhong is something of a wunderkind.

Hailing from Beijing, he’s founded tech startups in Silicon Valley, Manhatten, Beijing and now IOST which is based in Singapore. He sold his first company for a cool $40m before he even finished college. Last year, the Economist featured him in a piece about Chinese students who return home to build startups after studying abroad. 

IOST Interview with Jimmy Zhong

IOST launched the mainnet on Feb 25, and since then, we understand you’ve made some pretty impressive achievements in terms of transaction and user numbers. Can you give us some more details?

Since IOST launched its application-ready mainnet on Feb 25, we have launched a total of 12 DApps, drawing over 200,000 registered accounts and over 26 million transactions processed. We have also managed to surpass Ethereum’s total daily transactions by 20,000 on Apr 6, demonstrating our ability to contest and even exceed some of the most established protocols today. This serves as a strong indication of IOST’s potential and growth to come, and we are confident that these figures will continue to rise in the months ahead.

What’s the secret sauce for attracting so many new users to the platform during this first month? Do you know anything about your users, e.g. are they from a particular geography or targeting the use of any particular dapp?

Designed to be the most application-friendly mainnet today, IOST targets everyday users with its suite of DApps in gaming, entertainment, and finance that users can interact with easily. Underpinning this seamless experience is our unique Proof-of-Believability Consensus Mechanism (PoB) which allows for the network to support a high throughput and support DApps, ensuring scalability at up to 8,000 transactions per second while retaining significant decentralization and security. We believe that this is key to building a blockchain ecosystem that is fit for mainstream adoption, and our successful start is a testament to this.

Of course, users are important but a flourishing blockchain ecosystem also needs to attract developers. How is IOST working to attract and nurture developer talent?

IOST is constantly working to bring the very best developers onboard to grow the ecosystem, by providing support for the community and incentivizing them to contribute to the network. Particularly, the IOST Partner Program and Bounty Developer Program rewards and encourages developers and teams to play an active role in developing quality DApps on the IOST network. We also support the growth of DApps on the platform through incubation projects such as Theseus, dedicated to pushing the envelope in blockchain technology and paving the way for skilled developers to build on the network. Through such programs, we aim to support and inspire more developers, in turn promoting the growth of the IOST blockchain developer community.

IOST also recently established a partnership with Ehang, a drone company. Can you tell us more about the partnership and what each party brings to the other?

The partnership with Ehang comes as part of a new exciting aerospace project for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to test the value that digital signatures and blockchain will bring to flight operating system data. Ehang can count on secure and reliable data management delivered through the IOST platform, and receive accurate flight data and analytics of each flight.

This marks a major milestone for IOST and validates our technology in serving established B2B enterprise projects through practical real-world use cases. Such partnerships are a catalyst for further collaboration with governments and enterprises to build a collective future where blockchain is more accessible and tangible to the public.

The IOST blog recently made an official announcement about the launch of OASIS, a “secret weapon.” What is OASIS and why is it a secret weapon for IOST.

OASIS will connect blockchain with wider users by reducing current barriers to DApp access, ensuring that users who do not understand wallets and blockchain technology can actively participate in the IOST ecosystem. This is done by enabling the exemption of account registration and keeping of private keys, elimination of resource consumption, providing fair, transparent and non-temperable transactions, allowing verifiable game fairness and facilitating easy and smooth DApp transfer. More will be announced in the months to come, so keep a lookout!

The traditional trilemma of blockchain is scalability, security, and decentralization. Some blockchains such as EOS seem to place a lower priority on the decentralization element whereas IOST appears to have solved this trilemma. How many nodes are currently operating the IOST network? And in your view, just how important is decentralization in the whole blockchain trilemma debate?

Many of the second generation blockchain protocols favor scalability alone, which leaves a small number of supernodes in control and allow them to dictate the future of the ecosystem.  However, decentralization and security are as equally important as scalability. IOST’s PoB consensus mechanism is designed to retain all three.

We have over 200 nodes on our network each participating in block production each day. 17 of these nodes form a block production committee to process transactions each round, then rotate between other nodes every 10 minutes to produce blocks and claim rewards. Under this mechanism, there may be hundreds of different nodes selected for the committee each day. This offers a degree of decentralization and security that is much higher than other second generation public blockchains today.

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You have an impressive resumé as a company founder, having been involved in five other companies prior to IOST. In your experience, if you had to choose one factor that differentiates a successful startup from an unsuccessful one, what would that be?

A strong, talented team is a differentiating factor that separates successful businesses from the less successful ones. In a relatively nascent industry such as blockchain, technical excellence and experienced leadership teams are key to ensuring the sustained growth of projects and businesses.

You recently tweeted your belief that “technology is meaningless without adoption.” In your opinion, what is the biggest barrier to blockchain adoption right now? What needs to happen to overcome it?

The biggest barrier to mainstream adoption right now is usability of the technology and the DApps that come with it. With a huge amount of technical knowledge required to interact with the technology and understand the use of blockchain through wallets, exchanges, and smart contracts, users can often be overwhelmed and deterred from adopting blockchain platforms.

Blockchains, developers, and communities need to break down and eliminate these barriers by building more DApps that are meaningful and able to introduce blockchain and cryptocurrencies to users in simple and accessible ways. One example of this is Bermi, a social network that  rewards users for watching and interacting with viral videos online. This allows users to earn cryptocurrencies in a way that is familiar to them, while getting a chance to learn about smart contracts.

Our upcoming feature, OASIS, will also connect blockchain with wider users by reducing current barriers to DApp access, ensuring that users who do not understand wallets and blockchain technology can actively participate in the IOST ecosystem.

What’s up next for IOST? What can we expect from the rest of 2019 and beyond?

Our priority for now is to grow the IOST ecosystem exponentially by bringing the best developers, exchanges, companies onboard. Through these partnerships, we aim to build on our early success and work with our partners to introduce more real-world use cases for blockchain to the wider public, ultimately building a future where the technology is accessible and tangible to everyone. Stay tuned as we work towards this goal!

Thanks for your time, Jimmy!

The post IOST: Interview with CEO Jimmy Zhong appeared first on CoinCentral.

However, when Ethereum launched back in 2015, it had the advantage of being the first of its kind. This is no longer the case. Vitalik Buterin’s creation is now jostling for space between up-and-coming dapp platforms such as Tron, EOS, and Zilliqa. Pretty much every new launch claims to knock spots off Ethereum in terms of scalability and ease of use.

We’ve been out trawling Twitter, Reddit, and the crypto news-scape to round up some of the current thinking on Ethereum predictions – bulls and bears alike.

Ethereum Predictions: The Bulls

Nick Cannon of Ethereumprice.org makes a pretty credible bull case for the price of Ethereum, based on increasing scarcity. The Constantinople upgrade reduced the block reward for miners from three to two Ether. The next significant update is Serenity, currently set for implementation in 2020. At that time, Ethereum will move to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus model, and the block reward will be removed altogether.

Cannon also points to the high value of ETH staked in decentralized finance projects such as Maker, creating further scarcity in the supply. His Ethereum predictions state that while the bull run may not happen this year, the increasingly scarce supply means it will happen eventually.

$2500 by Year’s End?

Adam Todd of soon-to-launch futures exchange Digitex is even more bullish. His Ethereum predictions for 2019 include the price going up to around $2000-$2500. Of course, Digitex is developed on Ethereum so that would be great news for his company if it proves to be the case.

Todd argues that the current low price of ETH is due to manipulation and points to EOS as being part of the problem. He claims that because the $4 billion EOS ICO was held on Ethereum, it drove the price down once the EOS main net went live. Now that it has a chance to recover, he believes it could skyrocket.

Wall Street appears to be backing up Todd’s view. Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisers reportedly told his clients late last year, “We believe Ethereum is about to stage a trend reversal and rally strongly.”

Nigel Green of the deVere Group also threw his hat in the ring of Ethereum predictions. He too believes that the price will go up to $2500, driven by more platforms using Ethereum and the rise of cloud computing. He also predicted further regulation is on the way, leading to greater protection for investors, which would increase confidence in the markets.

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Ethereum Predictions: The Bear Case

Crypto journalist Matthew Da Silva leads the bears. He’s an outspoken critic of Vitalik Buterin, stating that “it’s hard to see how his invention has made any difference, beyond inflating the crypto bubble.” His Ethereum prediction is that the ETH value is approaching its rightful price: zero. Harsh.

For context, here is what I wrote: pic.twitter.com/nTaY7FAuAZ

— Matthew de Silva (@matthewde_silva) September 12, 2018

Crypto website Wallet Investor is a little more generous, although less than reassuring for anyone all-in on ETH. Their analysis is that the price will more than halve from its current value of around $140 to about $63. It doesn’t explain why this is though, just stating that their predictions are based on “smart technical analysis.”

Blockgeeks founder Ameer Rosic is similarly bearish, stating his belief on Twitter that we can expect another “80% haircut” for the crypto market overall. He’s also pretty scathing about Ethereum’s dapp user base. Presumably, this is the reason for his bearish outlook.

If you think the bear market is bad now, just wait…

Prediction: We will see another 80% haircut.

Reality will soon set in.

Ethereum. $20B MCap. Really? only 1200 Dapp users lol

EOS: $4B Mcap. Based on what? zero adoption.
Tron $1.8B Mcap. Where do I even begin!! pic.twitter.com/2cCOOMpP4e

— Ameer Rosic (@AmeerRosic) October 18, 2018

What Do the Ethereum Experts Think?

Buterin himself has been famously uninterested in price hype, preferring instead to focus on the potential of blockchain technology. However, in a recent episode of the Unchained podcast, he conceded that the ETH price does matter. He elaborated that if it goes to zero, network security inevitably becomes compromised.

He also admitted that Ethereum has lost some of its market share to newer entrants. However, as always, he didn’t make any specific price predictions.

If Ethereum has lost out on market share, Joe Lubin appears to be less than concerned. Back in December, the founder of ConsenSys unleashed an epic tweetstorm of facts and statistics to back up his view that blockchain is “more than a market. It’s a movement.”

Market cap doesn’t reflect activity. Decentralized networks are growing.

-10B+ daily API requests served by @infura_io
-1M+ @trufflesuite downloads
-1M+ @metamask_io downloads
-12K+ live @Ethereum nodes
-48M+ unique #Ethereum addresses
-3x @LinkedIn #blockchain job openings

— Joseph Lubin (@ethereumJoseph) December 1, 2018

Our Two Cents

For what it’s worth, here are our two cents. Ethereum’s biggest weakness has always been scalability. That mattered less when it was still the dominant platform; however, there are new kids in town now. If the Plasma protocol achieves what it aims to, and Ethereum can compete with rivals like EOS on transaction speed, then it could retain its position as the developer platform of choice.

The Serenity upgrade and the decentralized finance movement also make the bull case a fairly credible one. Plus, crypto markets overall have been showing more positive movements of late. Although $2500 may be a tad ambitious, our overall prediction is that Ethereum still shows plenty of potential for a bright and bullish future.

Featured image courtesy of Pixabay

The post Ethereum Predictions for 2019: Will the Bulls or the Bears Win Out? appeared first on CoinCentral.

A consultant is someone who saves his client almost enough to pay his fee.

– Arnold H. Glasow, American author and businessman

If you do a Google search for “blockchain consulting,” it will turn up nearly 50,000 results. A large number of them appear as ads; Google puts paid placements at the top of the page. Therefore, it’s clear that there’s some pretty hot competition in a crowded market.

Blockchain consulting is a very broad term. What does a blockchain consultant actually do? Well, because the term is so vague, we’ve done some digging to try and find out.

What we’ve discovered is that a blockchain consulting firm can perform a wide variety of tasks. Here, we dive into the world of blockchain consultancy to see the kind of value they bring to the space.

1. Marketing and PR

Marketing and PR is by far the most common service offered by blockchain consulting firms. For a blockchain startup, the value of a powerful marketing strategy cannot be underestimated. After all, an ICO or STO depends on attracting enough people to your platform who believe in your project and are willing to part with their cash to support you in bringing your product to the market.

A blockchain consulting firm specializing in marketing and PR could provide a range of services, starting with developing a marketing and branding strategy, down to managing the day to day marketing activities for an ICO/STO. These tasks include:

• Writing a white paper
• Designing and building a website
• Managing social media campaigns
• Writing press releases and finding publications willing to cover them
• Organizing airdrops
• And many, many more

Within the blockchain space, marketing has almost become a dirty word due to the number of scams such as CTR coin or USI Tech. For that reason, channels such as Facebook and Google banned advertising of crypto projects, making it that much harder for blockchain startups. This has only made the marketing role all the more critical. Decent blockchain marketing firms will have established networks of media contacts, which helps to justify the value of their services.

2. Navigating the Regulatory Minefield

Back in early 2017, this part of the blockchain consulting role didn’t exist. However, fast-forward to 2019, which has been touted as the year of the STO, and the regulatory piece has become critical. Particularly for companies running a token generation event in the US, the requirements for avoiding the wrath of the SEC are stringent, to say the least.

Therefore, one of the services offered by many blockchain consulting firms is legal and regulatory compliance. Legal consultancy services cover things like:

• Analyzing the legal landscape of the jurisdictions in which  you plan to offer your tokens
• Helping to organize the necessary know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) processes
• Creating legal agreements for the rights of token holders
• Making sure all the project documentation, such as white papers or technical papers, contain the necessary disclaimers and caveats

3. Technical Services

Sometimes it may be that someone has a stellar idea for a blockchain solution, but absolutely zero technical understanding of how to develop it. They could try and find a blockchain developer to work with them or alternatively hire a blockchain consulting firm for their technical services.

Many blockchain consultancies employ technical specialists who know programming languages. They can develop a customized blockchain solution or a decentralized application on an existing platform such as Ethereum or EOS. They can configure smart contracts, carry out all testing and debugging, and get the project up and running as a live product.

4. Knowledge and Education

Because blockchain is still a nascent technology, many people know very little about it. A large number of existing businesses could benefit from incorporating blockchain but don’t understand the technology or how they would go about implementing it. Therefore, some blockchain consultancies put a heavy focus on training and education.

This might include offering online courses, but it may also mean they send a representative into a company to conduct training. They could also help a company to understand if a particular blockchain solution would be beneficial. This includes offering to oversee a project that implements the solution.

5. Post-ICO Services

Once a blockchain project is up and running, it needs to run itself as a legally compliant company. This means employing and paying team members and keeping the finances in good shape. It also requires ongoing marketing and long-term business planning.

Some blockchain consulting firms will offer services that help a startup to transition from the ICO stage to the steady-state business phase. They may even offer services such as financial reporting, human resources management or marketing support.

6. Crowdfunding for Existing Companies

Now that we’re in the age of the security token, where digital assets can be underpinned by real-world ones, new possibilities are opening up for existing companies. For example, a company wanting to venture into a new business or product could sell shares in the company itself via an STO. Aspen coin is a real-life example of a hotel in Colorado that sold shares in itself to investors, in order to fund the building of new hotels.

Blockchain consulting firms can help existing business to understand their options and opportunities for using blockchain as a means of crowdfunding for raising capital.

Blockchain Consulting: A Jack of All Trades?

It would be very difficult for a single individual or small blockchain consulting firm to perform all of these services, despite what they may say. Many smaller firms focus on a single niche area. They may partner up with firms offering services in other niches to provide a more complete service. So a blockchain marketing consultancy may partner with a technical consultancy, for example. Only the biggest firms have sufficient personnel with expertise covering all of the above services.

Blockchain consulting may be a new role, but it’s certainly growing fast. It provides opportunities for those who have blockchain knowledge to share their expertise and get paid for it. A blockchain consultant can also help provide some welcome relief to tech founders who may be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work involved in bringing their creation to the market.

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According to a 2018 Upwork report, the demand for blockchain developers increased 6,000 percent compared to the previous year. Blockchain developers can now command salaries upwards of $100,000 per year, depending on where they’re working. While the price of crypto has evened out since its 2017/20018 peak, the need for developers hasn’t waned. Gartner predicts that for many sectors, blockchain won’t reach peak maturity for another 5-10 years.

Therefore, if you’ve been considering whether or not blockchain development is for you, now is the time to get in. You’ll still have time to get a few years experience under your belt before peak hype hits sectors such as supply chain, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and transportation.

The exact toolset you’ll need may depend on the specific blockchain. Therefore, we’ve selected Ethereum as being one of the oldest and most well-established platforms for building a decentralized application (dapp). So all these blockchain development tools are compatible with Ethereum. 

Blockchain Development Tools

1. Solidity

Solidity is the programming language of Ethereum’s smart contracts. It was designed to be slimmed down and easy to learn for developers who are already familiar with other contemporary programming languages. It uses concepts similar to languages like C, with syntax comparable to Javascript.

However, as it’s still a relatively new language, you’ll find there are fewer resources for learning Solidity compared to other, more established languages. Solidity has its own documentation available, or you could take a course such as the ones provided by Blockgeeks or Ethacademy.

2. Remix

Remix is a compiler and debugging tool. A compiler takes the Solidity code for the smart contract and formats it so it can be read by the Ethereum Virtual Machine. It’s one of the best blockchain development tools for beginners, as it allows you to debug your code as you go. The interface is set up so you can type your code on one side of the screen while viewing its deployment on the blockchain on the other side.

You can install it onto your machine or use it in your browser. Once you’re up and running with bug-free code in a test environment, you can move onto using the Truffle framework for putting your code live.

3. Truffle

Truffle is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) — a framework for the development and deployment of Ethereum dapps. It offers many features for developers, including:

• Automated contract code testing
• An interactive console for working with your built contracts
• Contract compilation and deployment
• An external script runner that works with your contracts included

Truffle is one of the most well-used blockchain development tools and is used by many familiar names, including Shapeshift and BitGo.

4. Ganache

Ganache is another tool from the Truffle suite. It lets you create your own private Ethereum blockchain for testing your dapp. If you put a dapp live on Ethereum straight away, then you’ll have to pay all the gas costs for your test transactions. Using Ganache lets you do as much testing as you need without paying any gas costs.

It also allows you to manipulate the gas costs and mining speed within the test environment to play out different scenarios for your smart contract transactions.

5. Metamask

Metamask is a wallet that works as a browser extension. It effectively acts as a bridge between browsers such as Chrome or Firefox and the Ethereum blockchain. You can use Metamask to store keys for Ether and ERC20 tokens. It also links in directly with Coinbase and Shapeshift for buying and selling ETH and ERC20 tokens.

Additionally, Metamask interacts with various Ethereum test networks, making it an ideal wallet of choice for developers.

6. Ethers.js

Ethers.js is a front to back end library and an alternative to web3.js, which is the most common library for Ethereum dapps. However, Ethers.js offers features that go beyond those offered by web3.js, including:

• Separation of key management and blockchain interaction, giving far more flexibility to developers
• Instead of a contract address, you can enter an ENS name, which is in a simpler format with less room for typing errors
• Compressed size of only 77kb
• Licensed by MIT

Ethers.js was originally developed for use with Ethers.io however it’s now grown and is far more general purpose in scope.

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7. Geth

Geth is an implementation of an Ethereum node in the Go programming language. The default configuration connects onto the Ethereum main net; although it’s also possible to use Geth for configuring a private blockchain.

You can use Geth to mine ETH, to transfer tokens between addresses, explore the blockchain, and create and execute smart contracts.

Because using Geth requires downloading the entire Ethereum blockchain, you’ll most likely need an external hard drive. While Geth is a handy tool, it’s not particularly user-friendly. Therefore, it’s easiest to use it together with Mist. 

8. Mist

Mist is the last on our list of blockchain development tools. It’s a user-friendly browser interface that communicates with Geth. It’s also a wallet. It’s possible to download just the wallet functionality of Mist, but from a developer perspective, you’d miss out on all the features of Geth. The team behind Ethereum developed Mist. 

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Mist is now deprecated. But the functionality will still be available as separate components. You can learn more about it here.

Final Thoughts

And that rounds up our list of the best blockchain development tools. It’s not intended to be exhaustive. However, anyone new to dapp development is sure to find that their life has been made easier by having one or more of these tools in their kit.

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Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency, where transactions are recorded on a distributed ledger. Don’t get scared by all the term because we’ll break it down a step at a time.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Bitcoin for Dummies

“Fiat” is the name of the currencies we use every day, the ones like US dollars, Mexican pesos, or Japanese yen, issued by central banks. These currencies evolved out of a need to create stored value. Their value derives from the faith we have in central banks to honor that value. So, if Alice gives cash to Bob in the form of say, a dollar bill, it’s dependent on the US government to honor the value of that dollar bill.

Let’s say Alice wants to make an electronic money transfer to Bob. She has to go via a bank or another financial institution to do this. She can’t just email him the money. That would be insane, right? Because as an email attachment, you could copy the money an infinite number of times. Alice could just duplicate all her money and send the same funds over and over again to Charlie, Debbie, Eric, and all the other letters of the alphabet.

The Double-Spend Problem

The risk of duplication in digital money is what’s known as “the double spend” problem. Solving it is what makes Bitcoin such an ingenious invention. When Alice sends Bob a money transfer via a bank, the banks accounting ledgers update the balances of both accounts to reflect that Alice now has less money and Bob has more.

With Bitcoin, there is one digital ledger of all the Bitcoin transactions that have ever taken place. It means Alice can send bitcoin to Bob directly without ever needing to go through a bank or other third party. When the transfer of bitcoins happens, the Bitcoin ledger updates to show that Alice’s digital wallet now has less bitcoin (or BTC, as it’s also known) and Bob’s has more.

Note: We use a lower-case “b” for bitcoin, the currency, and an upper-case “B” for Bitcoin, the network.

The “digital” part of digital currency means that bitcoins don’t physically exist. They are digital representations of currency. This is a little bit like the numbers that show your bank balance until you spend the money.

So, we know the peer-to-peer part, and we know the digital currency part. Next up in Bitcoin for dummies – distributed ledgers.

What’s a Distributed Ledger and Who Updates the Bitcoin Ledger?

A distributed ledger is a log of transactions stored on multiple computers. In Bitcoin, these computers are called nodes. The nodes all work together to update and store the ledger with all the transactions that take place.

Many Bitcoin for dummies guides use the analogy of a Google Doc versus a Microsoft Word document. If many people are working on an MS Word document, you end up needing one person to keep a “master” copy to control who’s updating what. Otherwise, you end up with many copies all with different changes. The role of this person is comparable to the role a bank plays in intermediating money transfers.

With a Google doc, many people can work on the same document. Google updates it in real time, so no “master controller” role is needed.

Under the Hood of a Distributed Ledger

Ok, we know we said “Bitcoin for dummies,” but we need to get a little more detailed now. With a distributed ledger, what happens behind the scenes is more complex than just saving a document into the cloud. In Bitcoin, transactions are grouped in blocks. And, each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the others in a race to mine the next block. To successfully win the race, they have to expend a vast amount of computing power to solve a cryptographic puzzle. In Bitcoin, we call this “proof of work.”

This expenditure of power plays on the principles of game theory. The power expenditure means the miners have some skin in the game. In return, they receive some newly minted bitcoins when they successfully mine the next block.

Once a miner successfully mines the block, all the other computers (nodes) on the network have to agree that it’s valid. While the process of mining a block is complex, the process of verifying it is relatively easy.

Hashing

Each block has its own cryptographic hash, which is like a kind of unique description of a fixed length. Each new block contains a reference to the unique hash of its immediate predecessor. This creates a chain, which is where the word blockchain comes from. 

If you’re still keeping up, then well done. You’re graduating from Bitcoin for dummies to someone who knows a little more than the average Joe.

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One further point to note is about the way a hash function works. When you create a hash, you always need to provide exactly the same inputs to get the same hash output. A tiny change in the input will result in a different hash output.

Therefore, if someone tries to change a transaction from the past, they’d have to replicate that change across every subsequent block. This makes tampering with a blockchain computationally unfeasible unless you control a majority of the computing power of the whole network.

Due to their unalterable nature, we call Bitcoin transactions immutable. We call the scenario where someone gains majority control of the computing power a 51% attack because 51% represents a majority.

Thus, mining not only creates new bitcoins, but it also serves as the way that the entire network achieves consensus on the overall state of the ledger. Each player has an incentive to act for the good of the network. They ensure the integrity of transactions, for which they earn bitcoins. 

Who Came Up With All This?

That is one of the biggest mysteries in the world of cryptocurrencies. Nobody knows who came up with Bitcoin. We know that it was someone, or multiple people, operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. However, the elusive Satoshi has declined to ever reveal his identity. Whoever he is, he owns a lot of bitcoins, and due to the appreciation in value, he’s now a very wealthy man.

Bitcoin is undoubtedly the work of a genius, creating a financial revolution all by itself. A single bitcoin reached $20k in value at the end of 2017. However, the real genius is in the invention of the blockchain. The technology underpinning Bitcoin is proving its value in areas including supply chain, finance and even helping fight climate change.

While there’s a lot more going on under the hood, this guide to Bitcoin for dummies should give any total newcomers enough necessary information to sound like they know a little of what they’re talking about. And of course, if you want to learn more, then there are more than enough informative articles from the stellar team of crypto writers here on CoinCentral.

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As well as an investment vehicle, blockchain also has the potential to shake up the administration of traditional mutual funds. Additionally, the introduction of blockchain-based digital identities could reduce the KYC/AML burden on fund managers.

Here, we look at all the ways that blockchain converges with mutual funds, and what may be possible in the future.

Blockchain Mutual Funds and ETFs – Investing in the Growth Potential of Blockchain

While many have a strong belief in the future of blockchain technology, investing in cryptocurrencies can be a risky business due to the volatility of the markets. Furthermore, the risks of investing in individual cryptocurrencies are comparable to investing in individual stocks – it’s like putting all your eggs into one basket. Most financial advisers recommend diversification as a means of reducing risk exposure.

Therefore, blockchain mutual funds or ETFs are another way of investing in the future of the technology, and both offer potentially lower risk exposure than investing in individual cryptocurrencies, but still is one of the most popular investment opportunities people take among others like investing in the stock since there are resources which help with this.

There are several funds that hold blockchain or related tech stocks as part of their portfolio. Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (ticker BLOK) is one of the biggest with $110m of assets under management. It’s an actively managed fund that commits to having 80 percent of its assets invested in equity securities of companies involved with blockchain. These aren’t blockchain startups through – the fund holds stock in companies such as Overstock, IBM, and Intel.

A similar fund is the Reality Shares NASDAQ NextGen Economy ETF (BLCN), which is more like an index fund and not actively managed. Another one is First Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (LEGR). Both take a similar approach to the Amplify fund, investing in equities of companies that are focusing on blockchain use and development.

Of course, none of this is investment advice. However, it’s worth noting that the stocks of blockchain companies can fluctuate along with hype about the price of BTC so, as always, do your own research.

Current Model of Mutual Fund Administration

Like so many other financial processes, the administration of mutual funds currently relies on many parties and process steps.

Distribution agents are third parties, not linked to the fund itself. They work to bring investors into the fund. Transfer agents may be a bank or other financial institution assigned to keep records of investors and their accounts. This role also includes overseeing the payments of dividends and the issuance of statements to investors. Any party who invests in the mutual fund must undergo KYC and AML checks, also performed by transfer agents.

Inevitably, with so many different parties involved in the process of signing up a new investor, there are lengthy transaction times. It usually takes around three to four working days from the point of a new subscription to the point of settlement.

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A Blockchain-Enabled Mutual Fund

Deloitte has previously done some research into the impact of blockchain on mutual fund administration. The firm’s Luxembourg branch subsequently published a paper detailing how a blockchain mutual fund can eliminate many of the intermediate steps involved in fund subscription. In turn, this substantially reduces processing times.

In the first instance, an investor would need to have a digital wallet. This wallet would hold their digital identity and the digital currency they want to invest in the blockchain mutual fund.

Everyone who subscribes to a mutual fund must undergo a “know your customer” (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) check. With a blockchain-based digital identity, there is no need for an external third party to perform these checks. Smart contracts on a blockchain can conduct an electronic KYC/AML check, and then automatically subscribe those investors who successfully pass the check.

The rest of the sign-up can then happen virtually in real-time. The blockchain mutual fund smart contract can also compute the net asset value (NAV) of the investment and process the transfer of digital money in exchange for the fund investment. Customer account balances can be recorded on the blockchain, communicating with the smart contract as needed. 

With a user interface via a smartphone app, the investor can watch their fund balance go up or down. When the time comes to pay out dividends, the smart contract executes the payment automatically, depositing proceeds into the customer’s digital wallet. There is no need for a third party to oversee or intermediate any of these processes because all actions take place automatically through the law of code.

Taking It Further

In a further step, the entire fund management process could eventually become automated using blockchain. The move to security and asset-backed tokens means that, soon, we could see a blockchain-based index fund that rebalances its portfolio all by itself. The blockchain fund could hold digital tokens backed by real-life equities. It would rebalance its portfolio of assets according to rules programmed into a smart contract.

Of course, there are some trade-offs in eliminating humans from the process. Black swan events can happen. Without human intervention, a machine will simply carry on executing regardless of whether markets are behaving unexpectedly.

However, automated fund management offers several potential benefits including very low-fee investing. Passive management of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has become more prevalent with the evolution of technology.

ETFs have become an attractive investment vehicle precisely because they don’t involve paying a fund management team. This means they offer the potential for greater returns through lower fees. Calastone, a mutual fund transaction network, estimates that implementing blockchain could save over $1.9 billion in the global funds market.

Fully automated blockchain mutual funds are still a long way off. To get there, we need a significantly higher level of adoption than we see right now. However, the financial services industry is rightly excited about the potential that blockchain brings. Blockchain mutual funds are just one possible way in which the technology will transform the investment landscape.

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The Climate Change Problem Is Getting Worse

In October last year, the UN issued its starkest warning on climate change yet. We have only twelve years left to restrict global warming to a maximum of 1.5 C (2.7 F) compared to pre-industrial levels. Even half a degree beyond this will bring far worse risks of extreme heat, drought, and floods. Furthermore, the damage caused by climate change is expected to displace more than 143 million people over the next three decades, who will be forced to flee their homes to escape climate-related issues.

The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit the increase to less than 2 C. Therefore, achieving the 1.5 C rise is at the ambitious end of the existing commitment. The Paris Agreement requires each country to define its own contributions to the efforts to restrict climate change. The contribution of each country is called a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Each nation must ensure its targets become progressively more ambitious over time.

It’s important to note that the Paris Agreement has no legal enforceability and each country participates through consensus. If countries start to leave, the agreement could fall apart and leave the world with no solution to the problem of increasing global temperatures.

Can Blockchain Help?

Measurement and tracking are the core challenges in tackling climate change. This doesn’t just apply at the macro level necessary to verifying how nations are progressing in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Business and people also have to participate. In the words of management expert Peter Drucker: “What gets measured, gets managed.”

Blockchain provides a means of establishing a single point of truth between entities through the application of consensus methods. Real-world assets can become tokenized on the blockchain, including carbon credits or green energy. These assets are tradable, creating value and incentivizing climate change efforts within nations and enterprises.

In January 2018, the United Nations announced the formation of the Climate Chain Coalition. The announcement outlined the mission of the group in “advancing collaboration among members working on issues of common interest, and to help enhance the environmental integrity and results of DLT applications for climate.” The coalition now has more than one hundred members, including NGOs, consulting firms, and various blockchain companies and associations.

Blockchain Climate Change Groups

Given the UN efforts, it seems inevitable that blockchain has a role to play in the future of managing climate change. However, the UN initiative isn’t the only one. Several other blockchain climate change groups and projects are working to further the effort. Here are just a few.

Blockchain Climate Institute

The Blockchain Climate Institute is an international, non-profit, volunteer-led entity. It acts as a think-tank as well as an advocacy group for blockchain climate change initiatives. The mission statement of the Institute is “to raise awareness among the international climate change policy community of the tremendous potential of Blockchain technology to considerably enhance climate actions.”

It aims to achieve this mission in three areas:

• Addressing climate finance flows, namely helping to fill the funding gap between investment needed for climate change and the amount that countries have already committed to paying under the Paris agreement
• Increasing transparency in climate funding
• Helping developing countries access climate financing

There’s an impressive line-up of experts from the climate change and blockchain sectors sitting on the Institute’s advisory board. They include the former Director of Climate Change from the World Bank and a former MD of the Canadian Blockchain Research Institute (the professional body co-founded by Don and Alex Tapscott).

Blockchain for Climate Foundation

The Blockchain for Climate Foundation has a single, clear goal: put the Paris Agreement on the blockchain. It’s an ambitious project, involving each country joining a single blockchain ledger and transparently recording their own investments and contributions to climate change. If it’s pulled off, it will be an all-encompassing near-global blockchain climate change record.

Obviously, such a global ledger would be a powerful tool in measuring and managing the impact of climate-related initiatives. However, it would also represent an impressive demonstration of the potential for blockchain technology used internationally for good.

The Blockchain for Climate Foundation is based in Canada. As such, it’s starting with putting the Canadian National Carbon Account on the blockchain. This will work as a proof of concept, demonstrating to other countries what’s possible with blockchain climate change tools. The Foundation is also convening a working group of government representatives to help guide and develop the tool.

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Climate Ledger Initiative

The Climate Ledger Initiative is another group dedicated to the research and development of blockchain climate change solutions. It’s stated mission is “to accelerate climate action in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through blockchain-based innovation applicable to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance.”

CleanTech21, a sustainable development foundation based in Zurich, is behind the Initiative. The Governments of Switzerland and Liechtenstein both provide funding to the Climate Ledger Initiative.

In December last year, the Initiative published a comprehensive paper detailing various ways in which blockchain climate change initiatives could help further the cause. These included using blockchain in carbon pricing and taxation as well as token-based crowdfunding for climate change initiatives. Another example is blockchain in renewable energy development.

Conclusion

Like the technology itself, blockchain climate change initiatives are still very much in their infancy. The fact that there is a multitude of research-based groups and think-tanks is reflective of this. At this early stage, many of them are working separately but towards the same goals. 

As blockchain matures, and governments and enterprises gain trust in the new technology, it’s likely that many of these disparate groups will consolidate into broader and more powerful initiatives. When that happens, we will see the true potential of the impact of blockchain in reversing climate change.

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