Blockchain

Vermont is Close to Passing a Law That Would Make Blockchain Records Admissible in Court 

A legislative effort in the state of Vermont to recognize blockchain data in the court system is inching closer to completion, and only needs a governor’s signature to become enshrined in law.

Buried inside an economic development bill recently passed by both the Vermont House and Senate is legislative language that, if approved, would make it so that “a fact or record” verified through blockchain technology is “authentic”.

Put more simply, a document notarized using a network like the bitcoin blockchain will have more legal bearing in court. This use case has emerged as one of the more notable applications of the technology, being used to certify physical objects like artworks, precious stones and even high-value footwear.

Source: Vermont is Close to Passing a Law That Would Make Blockchain Records Admissible in Court – CoinDesk

Startup Touts Blockchain Exchange That’s as Simple as E-Mail

screen-shot-2016-04-14-at-3-50-59-am-1200x921Virtual-currency trading startup ANX International is opening up its know-how so that people can issue their own digital assets using blockchain, the underlying technology behind bitcoin, the digital money that has become a popular method of paying for goods and services and trading over the Internet.

.ANX says its new service lets anyone make a blockchain account in minutes and choose how many digital assets to create. Ken Lo, ANX’s chief executive officer, said the technology for issuing blockchain-based assets has been in development for the past three years. It has been used internally for some of ANX’s biggest clients, he said, including an e-commerce company that wanted to run a loyalty program. By doing so, companies are able to set up reward programs without complicated back-office processes and reduce the risk of fraud.

Source: Startup Touts Blockchain Exchange That’s as Simple as E-Mail – Bloomberg

Blockchain open sources Thunder network, paving the way for instant bitcoin transactions

Blockchain, the company behind the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet, has been quietly working on an interesting project called Thunder.

The Thunder network is an alternative network of nodes that lets you make off-chain bitcoin payments in seconds and settle back to the bitcoin blockchain every now and then.

This sounds complicated but it’s quite neat and could be a powerful innovation for bitcoin transactions.

Source: Blockchain open sources Thunder network, paving the way for instant bitcoin transactions | TechCrunch

Blockchain: Music Without the Middlemen?

Music Ally’s ‘Blockchain: Music Without the Middlemen?’ event tonight tried to get beyond the hype to understand what blockchain technology really means for musicians and the music industry.

Our panel comprised: Simon Edhouse, MD of one of the world’s first bitcoin music platforms, Bittunes; Maria Forte, an independent consultant who’s worked on everything from EMI’s sampling department to Radiohead’s In Rainbows campaign; Benji Rogers, founder and chief strategy officer at PledgeMusic; Alex Amsel, blockchain consultant and co-founder of Ownage; Mark Douglas, CTO of music-licensing body PPL.

Source: Blockchain: Music Without the Middlemen?

Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, eBay: How Blockchain Can Break Data Monopolists

Blockchains can be extended beyond the database paradigm towards a general application platform. These platforms work very differently. For example, they have shared virtualized databases, micropayments and consensus mechanisms, from common on-premise or on-cloud platforms that they have the potential to re-implement the named examples while not allowing one party to monopolize the platform.

The main Blockchains like Bitcoin are an example for a distributed autonomous organization. These are organizations centered around code as their ‘constitution’ and have as its main players users, developers, miners (those that render the infrastructure) and evangelists.

Source: Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, eBay: How Blockchain Can Break Data Monopolists

France’s State-run Public Investment Bank Invests in Blockchain Art Project at Artprice 

Artprice plans to use the funds to invest further in its IT strategy and particularly their Art Market Blockchain – a distributed database containing specifications of years of complaints and lawsuits between the different segments of the Art Market chain and, notably, their relations with tax authorities and State judicial and customs services.

In the longer term the Blockchain will allow a considerable improvement in the payment of reproduction rights and other related rights to recognised copyright companies like the ADAGP in France which collects copyright duties in 43 countries.

Source: France’s State-run Public Investment Bank Invests in Blockchain Art Project at Artprice – Blockchain News

The Impact of the Blockchain Goes Beyond Financial Services

During the first generation of the internet, many creators of intellectual property were not properly compensated. Musicians, playwrights, journalists, photographers, artists, fashion designers, scientists, architects, and engineers were not only beholden to record labels, publishers, galleries, film studios, universities, and large corporations (vestiges of the pre-digital age) —these inventors now also had to deal with digital piracy that became possible on the web.

Blockchain technology provides a new platform for creators of intellectual property to get the value they create. Consider the digital registry of artwork, including the certificates of authenticity, condition, and ownership. A new startup, Ascribe, which runs on the blockchain, lets artists themselves upload digital art, watermark it as the definitive version, and transfer it, so similar to bitcoin, it moves from one person’s collection to another’s. The technology solves the intellectual property world’s equivalent of the double-spend problem better than existing digital rights management systems; and artists could decide whether, when, and where they wanted to deploy it.

Source: The Impact of the Blockchain Goes Beyond Financial Services

Looking To Integrate Blockchain Into Your Business? Here’s How 

Companies in financial services, healthcare, energy and other industries are sprinting to begin adopting blockchain — the technology behind Bitcoin that promises to improve efficiency in numerous processes, plus create new business opportunities. But many are doing so simply because of fear of missing out, without a clear understanding of how it can be useful and when it should be applied.

As executives scramble to educate themselves while also leading their companies into what many acknowledge will be a blockchain future, one place to start could be “The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and the Application of the Next Internet Technology,” (Wiley, April 26, 2016) by William Mougayar, a venture capitalist at Virtual Capital Ventures and advisor to some of the more well-known blockchain organizations such as the Ethereum Foundation, which supports the development of a Bitcoin competitor, and peer-to-peer marketplace OpenBazaar.

Source: Looking To Integrate Blockchain Into Your Business? Here’s How – Forbes

Is Blockchain the Key to User-Controlled Social Media? 

New social media platforms are starting to emerge that utilize blockchain and distributed ledger technology in an effort to build platforms where users are in control on of their data and more expressive choices are available.

The development in the industry’s startup ecosystem coincides with a growing disillusionment with the traditional social media platforms. But will security, control and less exploitive content be enough to compel people to start over?

Source: Is Blockchain the Key to User-Controlled Social Media? – CoinDesk

How To Integrate Blockchain Into Existing Businesses

The Emer platform claims to offer Digital proof-of-ownership to merchants who are looking for both scalably and to transparently store records of both digital and physical assets on the blockchain.

From a resolution of land title disputes between law offices to licensing associated with anything from streaming video services to anti-virus software subscription, the Emer platform claims the ability to manage these processes. In addition, the verification of these records is much simpler to access and complete using the Emer platform as all records are kept securely and accurately on the blockchain. This can lower costs and the time spent both from a customer perspective and from a lawyer’s perspective, removing the need to deal with physical documents to complete routine transactions.

Source: How To Integrate Blockchain Into Existing Businesses

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