5 Years Ago

Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
How decentralised are Blockchains?


Ethereum, which has been used by 4953 of the 5576 tokens issued i.e. 87%, but over 25% of all Ethereum’s nodes are operating using cloud servers relying on Amazon Web Services.
 
One of the strengths about Blockchains, often touted, is that they are independent of governments and corporations. However, as shown above, it would seem Ethereum is very dependent on Amazon! Furthermore, 61% of Ethereum nodes are run using cloud providers and, as at 20th September 2019, only ten cloud providers (shown on the graph) accounted for  57.5% of all of Ethereum’s nodes. In terms of geographic concentration,...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
SEC ‘shows its teeth’

Block.One, according to a Security Exchange Commission (SEC) press statement, has been obligated to pay $24 million in penalties for conducting an unregistered securities sale by carrying out its Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Block.One is the creator of EOS, which has issued over $4.1 billion of tokens, making it the largest ICO ever. Being fined $24 million (only 0.0058%) to get a SEC waiver looks like a stunning deal for Block.One, so it is of no surprise that within hours of this announcement EOS’s token price was up by 9%.
“Block.one did not provide ICO investors the information...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
How to decide if an ICO issued a security or not


Is it any coincidence that almost the same day as the SEC’s press announcement about Block.One, a ‘posse’ of Crypto exchanges – Anchorage, Circle, Kraken, Bittrex, Greyscale, Genesis, Greyscale, DRW Cumberland and Coinbase launched an ICO rating service to help determine if an ICO is a security or not? They have set up a Crypto Rating Council (CRC) and intend to publish ratings on ICOs on a 1 to 5 scale - 1 signifying a ‘Utility token’ has few or no characteristics consistent with a traditional regulated security i.e. Bitcoin...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Why banks are digitising


It has been reported that banks are potentially going to lose $280 billionto Fintech and payment start-ups by 2025. McKinsey estimates that the global payments market is set to exceed $2 trillion by 2020.We have seen a number of challenger banks grow incredibly fast in the UK, with firms like Monzo and OakNorth. OakNorth has seen its income grow from £77 million to £177.6 million in just 12 months : a year-on-year growth of 268%, according to Innovative Finance.
More institutions are starting to offer digital versions of their existing assets (equities, bonds, property, mutual funds etc) notto...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Coffee, ‘grinding’ out how to use Blockchain technology

The market for coffee is huge and is set to grow over the next few years. According to the International Coffee Organisation, Honduras is the world’s sixth largest producer of coffee.

GrainChain, which is based in Texas in the USA, uses Blockchain technology and describes its platform as being able to “facilitate prompt payment to suppliers and farmers, and the immediate availability of tradeable commodities to buyers. It attacks fraud and corruption through certification and accountability...” GrainChain has signed up 12,000 Honduran coffee farmers onto its platform, enabling the farmers to get access to capital from banks,...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Apple increasingly moves into financial services

Click here for a two-minute video summary that explain Apple’s foray into financial services and the possible launch of ‘elppay’ — Apple’s Digital Currency

Up to June 2019, Apple has made a EBIDTA (Earnings Before Interest Depreciation Tax and Amortization) of $76.5 billion(which has been a decline of 5.24% on the previous year) as its sales of the iconic iPhone start to face stiff competition and mobile phones reach saturation. Indeed, according to GSM Intelligence(which monitors 1,400 telecom networks globally), there are 5.1 billion mobile subscriptions and 9.2 billion connections — yet the United Nations states...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Banks continue to invest time and money in Blockchain projects and trust still remains so important


Germany’s Deutsche Bank is rumoured to have disbanded its team, in London UK, which was itself researching how Blockchain could help the bank and then, in time, offer its clients low cost and more efficient products and services. However, it has not stopped Deutsche Bank from joining the JPMorgan project, which uses Blockchain technology - this being recently reported bythe FT. Deutsche bank will join 320 banks, and is by far the largest to sign up to theInterbank Information Network(IIN). The INN aims to cut...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Crypto payments to help the environment


According to a report by local news organization, Welt, on Sept. 2, the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) has proposed creating a new digital currency called Arbil, along with the motto: "Put CO2 on the digital chain.” The FDP believes that, as well as reducing carbon globally, we need to find ways to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHG) that have already been created. FDP wants to pay Cryptocurrency to anyone who removes carbon dioxide or other GHG from the atmosphere.
 
 
 
Source:http://woodsmoke.3sc.net/greenhouse
 
The value of each Arbil-token will be pegged to one ton of carbon dioxide, which is currently valued at...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Access to and adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow

This week, 7- Eleven Stores in the Philippinesannounced that all its stores would start selling Bitcoins (BTC) , thus making it easier for the general public to be exposed to and get access to this cryptocurrency. This high street access to BTC is nothing new as, back in January 2019, Reutersreported that a French firm called Keplerk was launching a service in France with its tabac outlets to enable its customers to purchase BTC.Added to this, BTC can be used as a form of payment including buying Mircosoftproducts. Certainly, if you are...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
                                   Blockchain aiming to minimise counterfeit goods market
A new token run on the Ethereum Blockchain, called CRU8 (which is designed for the fashion industry) is being launched by Curate. In effect, Curate has created a Blockchain- powered platform for fashion companies to showcase their latest designs, promote their brands and get feedback, as well as get sales. Brands and retailers such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Zara are all looking to use Curate’s platform as it is designed to protect their brands against people buying fraudulent items. Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), items will have ‘smart tags’ attached which...


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Jonny Fry Posted

5 Years Ago |
Agriculture increasingly using Blockchains to drive greater efficiencies
The use of Blockchain technology in the agriculture and food supply chain sectors is currently estimated to be $61+ million and, according to ReportLinker, is projected to grow by 47% p.a.to reach $429+ million by 2025. This growth is being driven by customers demanding greater transparency as to where the food they buy is coming from, how sustainable it is and the environmental impacts of what they are consuming. Blockchain technology is ideal in tracking and tracing the provenance of goods whilst creating a secure data base which, in effect, enables people to...


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Joined 7th February 2019