Category: Hi-tech News

The latest hi-tech news is very important for investors and traders. In order to have valuable information visit the Latest Fintech news category and Traders-Paradise. Here you’ll find relevant information about fintech companies, their stocks, current prices. But also, trading volume, market capitalization, prospects.

Hi-tech companies become a very profitable investment, especially startups. But our focus is on publically traded companies that belong to this industry.

For the visitors, it’s easy to find valuable information about the hottest hi-tech companies today.  Traders-Paradise writes about companies’ plans for the future, management, current stock price. Visitors will also get suggestions where it can go in the future.

In the Hi-tech News, readers will find the latest fintech news reports of new technologies, for example, 5G networks. Innovative technologies in the industry of carmakers, biotech stocks, artificial intelligence. They aren’t randomly here.

Traders-Paradise pays a lot of attention to the quality of the companies.
Hi-tech companies are currently the hottest investments but not all have great prospects.

Moreover, visitors may get an idea of where to invest, which of these companies may generate great returns, which hi-tech stocks are dividend-paying.

In the Hi-tech news section, you’ll find all about new trends. Visitors can read a fresh and comprehensive analysis. All stock and trading related information are covered in the Hi-tech News category.

It is easier to make the decision about investing and trading armed with this knowledge, data, reports, trends, and analysis. Here is Traders-Paradise to provide you them all.

  • Grid Computing | The Powers of Distributed Cloud Computing

    Grid Computing | The Powers of Distributed Cloud Computing

    Grid Computing | The Powers of Distributed Cloud Computing
    Grid computing, a descendant of the cloud and big brother to distributed computing.

    Think of grid computing as the intersection of two core systems of organization: cloud computing and public utilities like electricity. At this intersection, grid computing is enabling you to tap into computational resources, centralized and not. Just like you would tap into the nearby energy lines for some of those glorious electrons that we rely on.

    A modern power grid will have many sources of input. Power plants, for example, contribute a lot to the power grid but burgeoning technologies, such as solar panels and windmills, are democratizing power production.

    Independent and artisanal power producers can contribute to the power grid and receive compensation. In some cases, this is excess energy.

    Farmers, for example, may have solar panels to generate cheaper electricity locally. However, the farmer cannot store any unused electrons for future use, so they may choose to route that surplus energy back to the energy grid, where others can use it. One person’s wasted electrons are another’s fully charged Tesla.

    Grid computing is much like the electricity grid. Contributors, big and small, can add to the grid. Users can tap into the computational grid and access services independent of the contributor.

    The Cloud, Grid, and Distributed Computing

    To better understand what grid computing is and its nuanced differences from distributed computing, it will be easier to first understand the barrier and limitations that grid computing is able to overcome. In other words, seeing the problems grid computing can solve will help us better understand what grid computing is.

    The Limits of Cloud Computing Is Where the Grid Shines

    Grid computing is a subset or extension of cloud computing. In a nutshell, cloud computing is the outsourcing of computational functions. A common cloud service, like cloud data storage from Google Drive or Dropbox, lets a customer store their data with those companies.

    Someone looking to use cloud data storage chooses between providers like Google Drive, Dropbox and iCloud. The company they go with would then be their provider of cloud storage. Customer support, troubleshooting, billing, networking infrastructure, and all aspects to providing the cloud service to the customer would then come directly and solely from the company they choose.

    Pretty straightforward, right? One customer, one provider. However, we are looking for the limitations of cloud computing. Where do the perks of cloud computing fall short and leave room for other organizational structures like grid computing?

    Common Criticisms of Cloud Computing:
    1. User resources are committed to a single symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) system.
    2. Unused computing resources sit idle and are locked into a single task until it is complete.
    3. Relatively limited scalability.

    Grid Computing | The Powers of Distributed Cloud Computing 1

    Evolving Cloud Limitations with Grid Computing

    Keeping in mind the parallels that grid computing has with a public utility grid, this type of computational organization can alleviate some of the common criticisms limiting cloud computing.

    Let’s look over each of these claims and examine how a grid system could be more beneficial for a user over a traditional cloud service.

    Cloud Limitation #1: User resources are committed to a single symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) system.

    I’ll use a really basic example to showcase this pain point. There is a neural scientist looking to crunch two data sets (Set A and Set B). These data sets are huge and she’ll need to outsource the task to a cloud service.

    The cloud service will have no problem running these data sets and she happily rents one machine from them to process her datasets. Remember that her datasets are exclusive to each other and need to be processed separately.

    This means that the single SMP machine she leased will run Set A followed by Set B. Her single machine is unable to process both data sets simultaneously.

    No big deal though, the cloud machines she leased are heavy duty and tear through the massive data sets in less than a few hours each. Processing the data will take less time than a full nights sleep for the scientist.

    Now, what happens if she needs to do the same processing but for 100 data sets. Her budget still only gives her enough funding to access one cloud SMP machine. Being a person of science, she quickly does the math and discovers that it will take nearly two weeks to process all that data!

    This article was originally posted on https://coincentral.com/grid-computing-the-powers-of-distributed-cloud-computing/

     

  • Automatic Trading – What Is It

    Automatic Trading – What Is It

    3 min read

    Automatic trading - what is it
    Automatic trading, also known as Algo/Algorithm trading is a somehow new field in the financial markets. 

    It’s there since the 90′, but it started to get much more popular in the past few years, for 2 main reasons:

    1.       The technologies are way better to handle that kind of challenges – Dealing with a lot of data:
    2.        Save it (it’s millions of giga-bytes so you need special server farms around the world, and that’s something that only available in the past few years)
    3.      Analyze it – Create an algorithm to go over that amount of data and also issue insights out of the data. This can take millions of years.
    4.       Find a way to keep adjusting the algorithm. In the financial markets – what happened yesterday IS NOT a guarantee that it will act the same today. So, we need to know what happened yesterday, but also find a way to give it the appropriate weight in our calculations
    5.       Many non-legit bodies got into the industry to try and take money from innocent customers, claiming they succeeded to figure it out.

    Our aim, here in Traders Paradise, is to help you, our visitor, in understanding the risks in automatic trading.

    Important to know (and I’m full of hope you’ve learned it by far in life): There’s no profit without the risk.

    We will talk about how automatic trading systems work, under what circumstances you change / diverse strategies, what’s available in the market and why you probably won’t have access to the automatic trading platforms that truly works.

    Let’s start from the beginning – Why is it so difficult to create an automatic trading software.

    The short version of the answer is – the financial markets keep changing on a minute basis.

    What I mean-

    1    In an asset (like stocks) level:

    Say we’re talking on Apple, and they issued an announcement that iPhone sales are going higher than predictions – The price will rise. Now, studies show that in a matter of a few seconds the price will already include the latest news.

    From this point there are 2 options – Either the price keeps going up or it will drop lower. If it’s rising anymore – we definitely know that some people will sell their holdings, as it reached their strategy profit point of exit. So if they’re more than the ones who want to but – price will drop. So it’s kind of a gamble.

    Ways to avoid this – invest in two companies that are competitors, so that when one is dropping the other is rising. This called hedging the investment. 

    2    In an industry (such as technology) level:

    In this level, it’s more tricky, because if an entire industry is dropping (regardless of a specific company) then it can affect our whole portfolio. Several things can trigger it, such as a big player comes with an announcement that affects the whole industry. Like, if IBM (that creates chips for most of the big companies in the world) will announce that we reached a “no way to overcome” scenario. Then all the industry can lose some points. Until someone else will come with some better news.
    Ways to avoid – Diverse your portfolio with serval industries like motor, pharma, and technology.

    3    In a market level:

    This can happen when an announcement or new policy comes out of the main bank or the government, or when a global incident is occurring – The whole financial markets can drop, and then ALL portfolios will lose (except the ones who bought ‘short’ position).
     

    Ways to avoid – VERY DIFFICULT. It happens in surprise and there’s no way to predict it. But you can still avoid some if you add short positions to your portfolio.

    So, those are, in general, the major points we need to look on when creating a portfolio.

    This created an environment that is impossible for short-term predictions.

    Next question is – How do we choose our assets? Or how we create a good portfolio?

    Let’s think about it for a second:

    If I read on the finance news about an asset that is going high. I must think – yes, this is the asset I was waiting to buy. Right?
    Wrong.

    Because there are many other people who read the same news like me.

    Automatic trading - what is it 1
    And if we all buy now, at the top, we’ll all be the “stupid top”, just like the people who bought bitcoin at a price of $15,000 and saw it drops to $5,000. Someone made money in these actions, but some lost a lot! (Never forget the simple rule of – when someone is buying it means there’s someone who’s selling)

    So,

    Do we need to go short on that asset?

    Nope. Short is a VERY dangerous position. Why? Because only in short you can lose MORE than you initially invested

    How’s that possible: When going long – it means you believe that price will rise,

    For the easy example, we say there’s an asset cost $1 per share, and we decide to buy only 1, so it costs us $1.

    Now, this company had been acquired by another company and overnight the asset is now worth $20. Pretty nice huh?

    And if overnight the company bankrupted – then we’d lose that $1.

    Now let’s say we went short on that asset –

    If it bankrupted we doubled our money, but in case the price jumped to $20 – we, then, lost $19 on a $1 investment.

    That’s brutal!

    So, shorts are something we try as hard as we can to avoid, but sometimes it’s the best strategy. We’ll talk about it later in another article.

    Back to the asset we just read is exploding and rising up. What are we doing?

    NOTHING!

    If it’s already on the news – we missed the train.

    So what’s the asset we should buy? It doesn’t matter. Why you probably wondering… And that brings me to the next question:

    So what is automatic trading software trying to do?

    Most people think the purpose is to find either an asset is before or during an explosion and recommend that asset to the user, right?

    But wait…

    I got into a position. When do I get out?!?

    That is the real question.

    See, a good asset position is built on 3 things:

    1.       When to get in
    2.       When to get out
    3.       Which direction we choose (long/short)

    That’s it.

    But, when we start to break it, we see that there’s one of them that is the most important.

    Yes, I know you already know which one it is!

    It’s “When to get out”.

    This is the most important thing in every single trade you will ever do, and what sucks about it is that you’d know if you got it right only on in retrospective look. Never at the same time of action.

    THIS is what good automatic trading algorithm supposed to do, and this is what our algo trade software does. It doesn’t matter which asset you choose nor when you get into a position or which direction you go – It’s ALL a question of when you got out!

    If you were wrong about the direction – you need to get out ASAP, but with a minor loss as you can.

    If you got the direction right – you want to optimize the profit you can, before price bounces back. 

    That’s the whole idea, and that’s what we created.

    How is Automatic trading even work?

    Well, it’s kind of a secret… But we’ll tell you what we can and we’ll let you use it to see for yourself (for free of course).

    But basically how it works is we have many supercomputers that work together on sets of data, to create the most optimized exit strategies for every asset we choose.

    It’s working according to historical data, but it gives the right weight to every piece of data.

    In other words, we, as people, could never understand why the software does what it does.

    We know how the math was created, but this algorithm is an unsupervised algorithm (read more in the previous article)

    It had only one rule to follow: “The more profit you gain, the better this strategy”.

    That’s it. Like when you plant seeds in your backyard, water it, and then you wait for the fruits? Same thing, but way better fruits…

    Want to get access to our software once it’s ready for outside users? Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll let you know when it’s ready. Also, you’ll get more interesting articles on how we solved this almost-impossible technology and math problem. You can ALWAYS unsubscribe.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • ASIC Miner the Best Crypto Mining

    ASIC Miner the Best Crypto Mining

     

    3 min read

    ASIC Miner the Best Crypto Mining
    To introduce ASIC miner, we have to know what crypto mining is. The mining is not just a way to make money but an essential and fundamental piece of any cryptocurrency. Mining is the mechanism that secures the cryptocurrency blockchain and continuously enlarge it. Cryptocurrency Mining is important like it is an important central bank in any economy. The main difference is that mining is costly and is regulated by the network rules.

    In economies, printing new money is cheap and happens by the will of politicians and bank officials.

    Cryptocurrency mining was originally designed to be something everyone could do with their home computer, but those days are long away behind us. Today, whether you’re mining Bitcoin, Litecoin, DASH, or some other cryptocurrencies, the most effective way to do so is with a piece of hardware known as an ASIC miner.

    It’s not a desktop PC or a dedicated graphics card mining rig. It’s something else. Full name is Application specific integrated circuits. That are chips that are designed with a singular purpose, ranging from audio processing to managing a cellphone call.

    In the case of cryptocurrency mining, these chips are built into specifically-designed motherboards and power supplies. All constructed into a single unit. It is an intentionally designed and developed hardware right down to the chip level.

    What ASIC miner does

    In short, mining is the process of running complicated calculations in the search for a specific number. Mining hardware has to run through many calculations before finding that number. In proof of work systems like Bitcoin, the first one to find that number gets a reward in Bitcoins.

    Miners also try and find that number and tend to earn more if they have faster hardware. That’s why people who can afford it opt for ASIC miners because it gives them the greatest chance of earning cryptocurrency in exchange for their investment.

    ASIC Miner the Best Crypto Mining 1
    Each cryptocurrency has its own cryptographic hash algorithm. ASIC miners are designed to mine using that specific algorithm.

    Bitcoin ASIC miners are actually designed to calculate the SHA-256 hash algorithm. In the case of Litecoin, it is Scrypt.

    Technically they could mine any other coin based on the same algorithm. But people who buy ASIC hardware designed with one particular coin in mind, mine that coin.

    Why is ASIC miner better?

    ASIC miners differ from CPU mining system in more general pieces of hardware which are designed to do more than one thing.

    While mining cryptocurrencies, the most important thing is that the cryptocurrency you mine is worth more than what you spend on hardware and electricity. Those margins are closer than you can imagine. Mining cryptocurrency can be very expensive.

    Hardware can be expensive, and you can spend thousands of dollars a year in electricity to run.

    That’s why the mining hardware you choose, have to have more efficient systems. This is incredibly important. That’s where ASIC miners come in. They are designed from the ground up to perform the calculations required by a specific cryptographic hash algorithm used by an individual.

    They are unbelievably efficient at doing so. They’re powerful, they are offering a high “hashrate”, and energy efficient, using far less power than a more general piece of hardware might do for the same task.

    This combination of performance and low-power usage are the reasons why they are much more economical than other hardware.

    In the case of Bitcoin and Litecoin, ASIC mining is just about the only way anyone mines those cryptocurrencies any more.

    How to choose the best ASIC Miner

    The main factors that will help you to determine the best Bitcoin ASIC miner for your personal needs are:

    1 Hash rate. Hash rate is measured in hashes per second. The more powerful your miner is, the bigger the block reward you get.

    2. Efficiency. Hash rate is not the only nor final factor when it comes to picking the best Bitcoin miner. It also has to make the best use of the amount of electricity you spend. Your mining profitability highly depends on your electricity expenses, because you want to get the maximum amount of Bitcoin.

    3. Price. At early stages of Bitcoin mining, it is all about counterbalance with your initial investment. You have to calculate the mining profitability and decide whether it’s worth purchasing a leading miner. Also, you can simply stick around with less expensive one that will give you more efficiency. Not always the most expensive is the most efficient.

    5 the biggest ASIC chip producers

    Bitmain. The Beijing-based company still controls 85% despite the reports that are losing its monopoly status due to the cutthroat competition in this niche of the cryptocurrency industry. Bitmain managed to grow so quickly because of the enormous success of their Antminer line. That includes the legendary miner Antminer S9. Bitmain operates numerous mining pools that are responsible for more than 51 percent of the Bitcoin hashrate.  

    Canaan Creative. Canaan Creative is the second biggest Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer the world after Bitmain. Apart from plenty of its miners, the company has introduced the first mining TV.

    Halong Mining. There is competition. Back in November 2017, another Chinese manufacturer introduced the world’s most efficient miner Halong DragonMint 16T, continuing an intense ASIC mining hardware race.

    The best ASIC miner on the market

    There is some dilemma Antminer S9, or Antminer S9 Hydro.

    Antminer S9 has already become a legend among ASIC miners, but is this still good enough? You can buy 14 TH/s for less than $700. One of the drawbacks of this miner is that it is very sensitive to high temperature.

    If you want to use it, your primal task is to ensure that it gets good cooling. Let’s say, the best choice is to have one specific room for mining. Bitmain’s previous hit product Antminer S7 has drastically dropped in price after they release Antminer S9.

    Maybe purchasing a couple of used S7 miners is a good idea.

    At the end of August this year, a brand-new ASIC miner appeared on Bitmain’s official website named S9 Hydro. Basically, it is the good old Antminer S9, but they added a new hashing board that increases the total hashrate up to 18 THS. Also S9 Hydro produces is not as noisy as other ASIC miners but the other fundamental technological characteristics are almost the same.

    Halong Mining made Halong Mining DragonMint T1 in November 2017. This ASIC miner managed to pull off up to 16 TH/s, which is a visible improvement from 14 TH/s offered by Antminer S9s. DragonMint T1 has a bit higher efficiency compared to older Antminer S9s, but it didn’t even come close to the previously declared numbers. But, it’s up to you to consider whether you want to pay $300 more for this miner.

    The advantage

    One of the evident advantages of DragonMint T1  as a type of ASIC miner is its cooling solution. It is presented in the form of dual nine blade variable fans which keep the temperature at 25 degrees. This miner was developed with Samsung. After landing a deal with the South Korean tech giant, Halong Mining poses as a viable competitor to Bitmain.

    ASIC Miner the Best Crypto Mining 2
    AvalonMiner 821 was officially revealed by Canaan Creative last December after the success of its previous-generation AvalonMiner 741. This miner has a hashrate of 11TH/s. Unlike DragonMint T1, AvalonMiner 821 only has one cooler, but it still provides the owner with a substantial level of cooling. Furthermore, the miner is resistant to different temperatures.

    This ASIC miner is absolutely compatible with huge mining pools like Nicehash.com, Slushpool.com.

    AvalonMiner 821 trails Antminer S9s by 10 percent in terms of mining efficiency. It is still a viable option for those who want to save some cash. It currently costs around $700. While you still have to buy a $200 PSU for this miner, a total of roughly $900 is still less than Antminer S9.

    The bottom line

    Where is this ASIC race going?

    In this article, we are focusing on the developments in Bitcoin (SHA256) mining ASICs but the mining race is much bigger. All the companies that have entered the Bitcoin mining race will expand to other hashing algorithms to maximize their profit and market share.

    A lot of cash is investing in this race. All because of the expectation that the number of mining hardware companies will only grow. Some of the large semiconductor companies may enter the race too. It won’t be a surprise if they direct some of their teams’ design capabilities to design and fabricate ASIC mining chips. And it is quite likely that every major ASIC manufacturer already has a new 7nm ASIC up its sleeve.

    ASIC mining is a huge global industry, so large mining farms are willing to pay millions in order to have a sneak peek of exclusive miners.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Mining with GPU versus CPU

    Mining with GPU versus CPUBoth CPUs and GPUs are inventions made from billions of microscopic transistors packed on a small piece of silicon. But they have some differences.

    By Traders-Paradise Team

    To find the answer, we must first look into how mining works. A computer guesses a string of characters and puts them through a hash function to try to reach an expected hash output. However, the computer has no way of knowing how to get to that output. Let’s say the output needed is “6”. The computer doesn’t know what calculations are used to generate the output; it could be 3+3, 5+1, 6+0, 3×2, and a nearly limitless number of other functions. Once the computer has found an input string that works, it can be easily verified by the other computers.

    Go back to CPU and GPU!

    A CPU is great for multitasking, such as saving documents, editing video, deciphering instructions, running the OS, and much more. However, because it needs to figure out what to do each time, it is a lot slower than a GPU. Think of a Swiss knife. The knife itself may not be very useful, but it has a lot of different tools attached.

    What is CPU

    The CPU, or central processing unit, is the part of the computer that performs the will of the software loaded on the computer. It’s the main executive for the entire machine. It is the master that tells all the parts of the computer what to do – in accordance with the program code of the software, and, hopefully, the will of the user. They are designed to perform very complexly, and often changing in the mid-stride, operations. Most computers have multi-core CPUs nowadays (which is almost the same thing as having multiple CPUs in a single physical package), and some computers even have multiple CPUs.

    The CPU is usually a removable component that plugs into the computer’s main circuit board, or motherboard and sits underneath a large, metallic heat sink which usually has a fan, and few are cooled by water.

    What is GPU

    The GPU, or graphics processing unit, is a part of the computer for the video rendering system. The typical function of a GPU is to assist with the rendering of 3D graphics and visual effects so that the CPU doesn’t have to. Powerful GPUs are needed mostly for graphics-intensive tasks such as gaming or video editing.

    These days, miners are moving quickly to GPU because when GPU was discovered it was said that, it could offer more hash power compared to CPUs, its cost is lower and can save electricity.

    Why mining with GPU

    A CPU is designed primarily to be an executive and make decisions, as directed by the software. For example, if you type a document and save it, it is the CPUs job to turn your document into the appropriate file type and direct the hard disk to write it as a file.

    CPUs can also do all kinds of math, as inside every CPU is one or more “Arithmetic/Logic Units” (ALUs). CPUs are also highly capable of following instructions of the “if this, do that, otherwise, do something else”. A large bulk of the structures inside a CPU are concerned with making sure that the CPU is ready to deal with having to switch to a different task on a moment’s notice when needed.

    Differences

    A GPU is very different. Yes, a GPU can do the math, and can also do “this” and “that” based on specific conditions. However, GPUs have been designed so they are very good at doing video processing, and less executive work. They are designed to do a high number of simpler operations than CPU and to do them quickly.

    GPUs have large numbers of ALUs, more so than CPUs. While CPUs can have up to a handful, modern GPUs have between 1.500 and 2.800 ALU. As a result, they can do large amounts of bulky mathematical labor in a greater quantity than CPUs.

    That, in a nutshell, is why GPUs can mine Bitcoins so much faster than CPUs. Bitcoin mining requires no decision making, it is repetitive mathematical work for a computer. While CPU can do these calculations one or a few at the time, GPU can do more than a thousand at the same time. The only decision making that must be made in Bitcoin mining is, “do I have a valid block” or “do I not”. That’s an excellent workload to run on a GPU.

    GPU can mine much faster than CPU. In order to mine Bitcoin, you must have at least one GPU installed on your computer.
    Also, GPU has the ability to mine different coins such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Gold, and many others besides Bitcoin.

    Why mining with GPU?

    GPU is very good at complex computation, is easily sourced, is standardized hardware, has high resale value.and is easily upgradeable. A GPU is great at doing the same thing over and over again: producing graphics. Normally, this involves performing a mathematical equation with two or more numbers that give an output that is rendered as a pixel. Sounds familiar?

    That’s because it is. This task is exactly like mining – putting a set of inputs through the same function. Because of GPUs when mining has to do this one thing, they can do it very fast. And can do a high volume of these operations, just like drawing a high number of pixels on your screen.

    The choice of CPU in a crypto mining setup doesn’t matter that much because it is only doing telling everything what to do, which isn’t that much of a workload.

     

    The GPUs are the ones doing the heavy lifting. The choice of which GPUs to use is important because you want the best hashing performance.  And you are limited as to how many GPUs you can connect in a rig as each GPU requires at least a single PCIe slot.

    Thus it is important to choose the motherboard carefully as they can come equipped with between one and six PCIe slots.

    Luckily, those slots do not have to be of the x16/x8 kind, and x1 suffice well enough. Hashing performance is often rated at hashes per watt given that electricity is your largest cost after the initial investment in a mining rig.

    Why mine with CPU?

    At the point when Bitcoin was begun, the only way to mine was utilizing Central Processing Unit (CPU) on PC and Bitcoin core wallet. Intel and AMD were the famous names in CPUs. When bitcoin was released you could dig only 100 coins a day using CPU. But it is impossible today to CPU mine bitcoin because of much higher difficulty which gave rise to ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). Specially designed chips just for mining of a one or the other cryptocurrency.

    CPU was designed to switch between different complex tasks. Hash required proof of work in not very complex mathematical calculations.  And CPU has less arithmetic logical units. So, when it comes to performance in the large calculation CPU is relatively slow. CPU has the ability to mine different coins such as Zcash, Nexus, Hold coin, Reicoin.

    Advantages of CPU mining: there is no specialized hardware required, a very good starting point to enter mining, invaluable educational experience. And it is fun to mine with CPU.

    The bitcoin network hash rate is really high, so in CPU mining there is no longer a guarantee for profit. During the mining process, the miners use fast running hardware to try to solve blocks. And slow CPU hardware can only make a certain amount of hashes in a given time frame. You need very good and fastest hardware for faster hashes.

    Both CPUs and GPUs are creations made from billions of microscopic transistors crammed on a small piece of silicon.
    Trying different hashes repeatedly is a very repetitive task suitable for a GPU. Each attempt varying only by the changing of one number (called a “nonce”) in the data being hashed.

    That is why GPUs can mine Bitcoins so much faster than CPUs. Bitcoin mining requires no complex decision making because it is repetitive mathematical work on the same set of numbers. The only decision making that must be made in Bitcoin mining is, “do I have a valid block” or “do I not”. That’s an excellent workload to run on a GPU which can do a high number of these calculations at the same time.

  • LinkedIn breaks the rules

    LinkedIn breaks the rules

    2 min read

    LinkedIn breaks the rules

    Some of LinkedIn’s practices were uncanny and violated data protection rules, shows a report published Friday by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner. The Report is covering activities in the first six months of this calendar year.

    The details were revealed in this report. In a list of investigations are Facebook, WhatsApp and the Yahoo data breach. The DPC revealed one investigation that had not been reported before. The DPC had concluded an investigation of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, originally prompted by a complaint from a user in 2017, over LinkedIn’s practices regarding people who were not members of the social network.

    What is it all about?

    In a bid to get more people to sign up to the service, LinkedIn admitted that it was using people’s email addresses. About 18 million in all, in a way that was not transparent. LinkedIn has since ceased the practice as a result of the investigation. LinkedIn has been called out a number of times for how it is able to suggest uncanny connections to you. It’s not even clear how or why LinkedIn would know enough to make those suggestions in the first place.

    The DPC found that LinkedIn in the US had emails addresses for 18 million people who were not members of the social network. LinkedIn used these in a hashed form for targeted advertisements on the Facebook platform, “with the absence of instruction from the data controller”.

    There is the story behind this. After the EU was implementing of GDPR, LinkedIn, Facebook and others moved data processing that had been going through Ireland to the US. May 25 was the date that GDPR came into force.

    The claim was that this was to “streamline” operations. Critics have said that the moves could help to shield companies a bit more from any GDPR liability over how they use to process data for non-EU users.

    “The complaint was ultimately amicably resolved,” the DPC said, “with LinkedIn implementing a number of immediate actions to cease the processing of user data for the purposes that gave rise to the complaint.”

    But there was more

    The DPC then decided to conduct a further audit after it became “concerned with the wider systemic issues identified” in the initial investigation. There, it found that LinkedIn was also applying its social graph-building algorithms to build networks to suggest professional networks for users, or “undertaking pre-computation,” as the DPC describes it.

    Their idea was to build up suggested networks of compatible professional connections. In order to help users overcome the hurdle of having to build networks from scratch. This may be one of the hurdles in social networks for some people.

    Excerpt from the report

    “As a result of the findings of our audit, LinkedIn Corp was instructed by LinkedIn Ireland, as data controller of EU user data, to cease pre-compute processing and to delete all personal data associated with such processing prior to 25 May 2018,” the DPC writes in their report.

    Denis Kelleher, Head of Privacy, EMEA, for LinkedIn, said:

    “We appreciate the DPC’s 2017 investigation of a complaint about an advertising campaign and fully cooperated. Unfortunately, the strong processes and procedures we have in place were not followed and for that we are sorry. We’ve taken appropriate action, and have improved the way we work to ensure that this will not happen again. During the audit, we also identified one further area where we could improve data privacy for non-members. And we have voluntarily changed our practices as a result.”

    LinkedIn’s reaction

    It would seem that the company is trying to show that it is acting in good faith. They go one step further than simply modifying what has been identified by the DPC. They are changing practices voluntarily before some get to call them out. 

    LinkedIn would not be the first company to “ask for forgiveness, not permission.”

    What they do when breaking the lines of what is permissible behavior? The very first step is to ask for forgiveness. Don’t you think that asking permission is the right way? Before everything.

    LinkedIn was not punished in this process because the regulator had no power to enforce fines.

    The main question is, where LinkedIn obtained those 18 million email addresses, and any other related data? We would like to know the answer.

    More in the report

    There are other cases reviewed in this report. The inquiry into Facial Recognition usage by Facebook, or how WhatsApp and Facebook share user data between each other, are still ongoing. Others are now trickling down into the companies modifying their practices. Such as the investigation Yahoo security breach that affected 500 million users.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

    Image Credit: LinkedIn

  • Artificial intelligence and machine learning we can apply on the financial markets

    Artificial intelligence and machine learning we can apply on the financial markets

    What is artificial intelligence and machine learning and can we apply it on the financial markets?How can we apply artificial intelligence to the financial markets

    By Guy Avtalyon

    What is artificial intelligence and machine learning and can we apply it to the financial markets?
    It took us 3 and a half years of research and development until we finally reached a point we can trust our software.

    Obviously you can find all sort of information on the internet about machine learning and AI, like these articles on Wikipedia for example, but the concept is quite simple: You run an algorithm (there are many) on the set of data, and once the algorithm is finished, the software will know how to run by itself on new sets of data, even if it’s never been seen.

    There are 2 types of algorithm methods –

    1.       Supervised – Similar to training a dog: if it does good you pet them, if it does wrong you scold at them. After a while, they will learn how to behave
    2.       Unsupervised – This is the most interesting algorithm out there. This means you give the algorithm a set of data but you DO NOT tell it what is wrong and what is good. It does it by itself.

    So, can you apply those algorithms in the financial markets?

    First, let’s start by learning a bit about how ML (Machine Learning) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) work and its purposes.

    To create simple computer software, we need to insert some scenarios we want it to handle, we add the way we’d like the software to act, and let it run.

    A “stupid” software will ONLY KNOW HOW TO WORK according to the scenarios we entered and taught it.

    An AI software will take the same scenarios we entered and ways to behave we told it to, and will be able to do it NOT only on the ones we told it to but also on SIMILAR scenarios.

    This is basically why AI and ML are the future in any way you can imagine – Because it’s not limited to what the programmer writes in the code, but also it can adjust and act to things that aren’t inside its code and also, over time, will be smarter in handling situations only by itself.

    OK let’s go back a bit

    Scenarios? Ways to behave? WHAT??

    Say we got a lifetime doctor’s records of some people. They are anonymous, of course, because we don’t care who they are. We only care about their DATA.

    Now we want to find something, like, maybe, can we find cancer disease BEFORE the person knows it’s happening – or in other words – Can we predict cancer?

    We can check – are they the cigarette smokers? If yes, how many had cancer?

    This has been the way until now.

    You probably can already guess why it’s not merely enough.

    If they don’t smoke – does that mean they won’t have cancer? We already know it’s not true.

    And sadly there’s a variety of cancers to almost every organ in the human body (cancer is when some cells of our own body stop dying unlike the other cells and the body starts to attack them. Basically, nature makes our body suicide from inside).
    So what can we do if we want to predict cancer?

    It’s simple – We take into consideration as many parameters we can. Like:

    Age, gender, place of living, place of working, family history, doctors’ appointments, and medical record, food and drink habits, etc.

    Those are the objective data.

    We need also subjective data such as happiness in life, the scale of pressure, type of person, etc.

    Once we have ALL this data for every person, we need to do 3 things:

    1.       Check which one of the parameters can, in fact, be some kind of prediction to cancer
    2.       Run a statistics machine learning algorithm (like Naïve Base)
    3.       Use the results to solve a worldwide problem  

    We wish, right?

    Now we get on to the problems of artificial intelligence (AI) and ML:

    1.  Data

    Data is extremely difficult to collect, and then to manipulate. In our example to get these data, we need to cooperate with medical services to get their clients’ data, create a questioner, and send it to all the clients and analyze the data. Though there is such cooperation around the world, it’s still not easy to also get subjective data.

    1. Analyzing big data

    Big data has become a known word around the world.

    There was a time companies said they work with big data and clients threw the money at them.

    But it’s not that simple. Every data you add for the algorithm to learn from – increases exponentially the time for the software to analyze…

     

    Inefficient software may take a very LONG period of time to run.

    Funny personal anecdote, our first AI software we developed to learn how to predict price changes in the stock market looked so genius at first, but after we started running that artificial intelligence and measuring the time it will take to finish, we saw it will take no less than 27,000,000,000,000,000 years from now(!!) Obviously, we couldn’t wait, and in future articles, I will explain how we lowered it to only a few hours running time.

    Let me give you an example of the difference between Big Data and just simple data with a game:

    I chose a number between 1-1000. You have to guess which one is it. But there’s a catch – you need to find the number in as little time possible. How would you do it?

    Think about it for a second.

    Got a solution?

    If you guessed that you should ask me “Is it higher than 500?” and then according to my answer (If I chose the number “990”), the answer is yes. Then your next question will be “Is it higher than 750″… You get the point.

     

    That’s easy, right?

    What if you got a number with 80 digits? Then it might take a long long time until we break this number, maybe even months. And that’s only one running time. What if we need it to create strategies for trading and investing and we need it to go over millions of possible strategies?

    It will take a lot of time.

    As humans, we can’t really comprehend really big (or small) numbers. Like these two questions, I like to ask people once I talk about large numbers.

    1.       If 1 million seconds is 12 days, how much time is 1 billion seconds?
    2.       And, if your salary is $100,000 each month, how long will it take until you reach 1 billion dollars (say you can save all of it each month)?

    You can easily calculate it, but it’s an intuition question, not a math one. Think for yourself, what’s your intuition answers are? The answers will be later on in this article.

    So we’ve talked about what’s machine learning algorithm and a bit on big data problems.

    Now, can we apply artificial intelligence to the financial markets?

    In short, yes.

    But it’s easier said than done.

    It took us 3 and a half years of research and development until we finally reached a point we can trust our software.

    Because other than the ML and big data problems, we face a whole different problem in the field of financial markets, since they act like in a chaotic environment it makes predicting a lot harder.

    And, (and it’s the most important and) because of the spread whenever you enter a position you face an average of 56% against you.

    That’s probably the time to say there are two kinds of players in the financial markets:

    1.       Investors – They invest their money for years ahead and they gain the average rate the market makes (around 8% a year). By the way, according to decades of studies, there’s one stock that if you’re an investor you should put all your money on, and that’s the S&P500 stock (Symbol SPY). In another post, I’ll prove this fact.
    2.       Traders – They usually use time limit (options) or profit/loss lines (if it reaches +X get out with a profit and if it reaches -Y get out in a loss)

    We are on the traders’ side.

    We want to gain more money, faster, and more chances of getting out in time.

    But unlike investors who buy now and then forget about it, as traders we must beat not only the commissions our broker offers us but also the spread (the difference between the lowest price a seller is willing to sell and the highest price a buyer is willing to buy). The spread is usually set by the broker and it’s one of the best ways for a broker to gain profits.

    So, we also know that like in gambling the house always wins, so as in the financial markets – the broker’s always gaining profits.

    Back to our financial algorithm – we found a broker service that lets us collect the financial data, and we’re saving it. Now, we need to analyze it to find patterns. But how?

    In an everyday changing environment, how can we rely on anything? 

    We solved that problem by relying on our algorithm on behavior analysis. We figure that even though the market can change, the forces that control it (the investors and traders) will stay the same (Obviously, they change too, but way slower).

    So we’re talking about collecting on average millions of data and parameters a day for each stock. Once we try to collect 1000 stocks for a few years time you can imagine how much data is inside, so it’s just a matter of creating a super-fast unsupervised machine learning algorithm with only one rule: The most money you can make is the better – and let it run and find the best way to trade by itself.

    Creating artificial intelligence

    In conclusion, it is possible to create an automatic software or some artificial intelligence to trade for you in the financial markets, but it’s EXTREMELY difficult. You need to overcome many problems in serval fields in order to do it. And after you do it, it’s unlikely that you will let anyone use it.

    But we’re different. We will let our subscribers use our algorithm for free, just to have a sense of how it works.

    Subscribe now to get more information about artificial intelligence in the financial markets and to get informed once our algorithm is ready for outside users.

    Our software will let you choose which assets you want to buy, and when – and it will tell you when to get out. Simple, yet important.

    By the way, the answers to the question before are:

    1.       One billion seconds are 32 years
    2.       It will take 830 years to gain one billion dollars if your salary is 100K per month

    Was that your intuition?

    Sign up below to our newsletter for a free test drive on our trading algorithm! Find more about artificial intelligence.

    Top Image Credit: Photo : iStock/MF3d



  • Thailand SEC Warns On ICOs

    Thailand SEC Warns On ICOs

    1 min read

    Thailand SEC Warns On ICOs

    • The SEC of Thailand released a report about the legality of certain initial coin offerings (ICOs) and other cryptocurrencies.
    • SEC warned that some of them have not met regulatory standards and may put investors at risk.

    Thailand has slowly warmed to cryptocurrencies from the beginning of this year. Initially, the government intended to impose crippling taxes on buying and trading them. And ban ICOs which would have been the end of the developing industry in the Kingdom.

    Thailand SEC warns on ICOs

    The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand developed a regulatory framework. The ICO projects have to apply for approval to operate within the country. As reported by the Bangkok Post over the weekend, those outside of that group, have been on the end of a warning. Because they are without prior SEC approval.

    Reasons for warning

    Apart from the fact that the nine ICOs have not sought approval, there are several other reasons for Thailand SEC to warns on ICOs. These ICOs have not been evaluated by any SEC-approved ICO portal. They have not provided enough disclosure for investors. Moreover, the issuers and promoters didn’t have the license to carry out digital asset-related activities.

    An inspection has found that unregulated ICOs had promotions on social media in Thailand. Hence, that set off red flags for the Thai SEC. They identified nine cryptocurrencies and ICOs in total. These include Every Coin, Orientum Coin (ORT Coin), OneCoin and OFC Coin, Tripxchain Coin (TXC Coin), TUC Coin, G2S Expert ICO, Singhcom Enterprise ICO, Adventure hostel Bangkok ICO, and Kidstocurrency ICO according to the report. 

    They do not have permission

    After all, the regulator warned against investing in them since they have not been approved. Overmore, they don’t meet the necessary qualifications and have not had their smart contracts assessed by ICO portals.
    Securities and Exchange Commission went on to add:

    ‘Information disclosure for investment decision-making is also inadequate, while these digital assets might not have sufficient liquidity to trade and cannot be converted into cash.’

    The Monetary Authority confirmed this caution. Furthermore, they are warning that one particular crypto is in online media from other countries. They stated it is OneCoin and businesses related to it are not under supervision. The organization, widely believed to be a Ponzi scheme, has received scrutiny online. And they were operating as a “private blockchain”. Some see it as little more than a scheme. Especially after countries like China, India, and Italy issue warnings about OneCoin.

    ‘There are opportunists who persuade individuals to invest in digital assets by assuring investment returns generated from digital tokens that are structured like pyramid schemes. These schemes encourage individuals to seek more partners in the investment network. But there are no details available on business plans, product, platform or credible management team,’ the SEC added.

    Who is looking for the license?

    Currently, six businesses are seeking licenses to operate as crypto exchanges in Thailand. And these are Bitcoin Co, Bitkub Online Co Ltd, Cash2Coins Co Ltd, Satang Corporation Co Ltd, Coin Asset Co Ltd, and Southeast Asia Digital Exchange Co Ltd.

    On Friday, the Thai SEC warned the public against nine ICOs that have not applied for approval. But has been attempting to promote and solicit investors on social media platforms. Probably Facebook and YouTube.  

    Later, the SEC warned prospective investors stating, ‘Currently, no digital asset issuer has been approved. And no one has filed an application for a license with the SEC. Therefore, investors to take caution when being solicited or receiving information about investments in digital assets.’

    Additionally, there are two seeking to open as digital asset dealers. It looks, they are Coins TH Co and Digital Coin Co Ltd. 

    The SEC is still evaluating their applications and those companies can continue operating for now. Yes, Thailand has opened up to crypto. But they clearly have zero tolerance for those that do not abide by the rules laid down by the SEC.

    It looks that this new financial instrument doesn’t fit under any one regulatory body, and confuses many regulatory bodies.

    But well, they have time to learn.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Blockchain Technology – Is There Future For It

    Blockchain Technology – Is There Future For It

    2 min read

    What is Blockchain Technology?

    Blockchain technology provides transactions and transfers online without the use of an intermediary.

    The Blockchain is a new name in the world of technologies but it is definitely the one to last. Even in the early stages, the technology has gained huge popularity starting with their very first application of cryptocurrencies. More areas of applications are being discovered and tested with each passing day. Once the technology is adopted and accepted on a global level, it’ll transform the way we live today.

    Blockchain technology simply means a decentralized trusty network. It works by having a native asset, a decentralized ledger and some algorithms based around a game theory model. It allows everyone on the network to reach consensus.

    Let me try to explain what blockchain technology is 

    The traditional way of sharing documents with collaboration is to send a Microsoft Word document to another recipient and ask them to make revisions to it.

    The problem with that scenario is that you need to wait until receiving a return copy before you can see or make other changes. This because you are locked out of editing it until the other person is done with it. That’s how databases work today. Two owners can’t be messing with the same record at once.

    That’s how banks maintain money balances and transfers. They briefly lock access (or decrease the balance) while they make a transfer. Then update the other side, then re-open access (or update again).

    With Google Docs (or Google Sheets), both parties have access to the same document at the same time. And the single version of that document is always visible to both of them. It is like a shared ledger, but it is a shared document. The distributed part comes into play when sharing involves a number of people.

    Efficiency and effectiveness

    Imagine the number of legal documents that you can use that way. Instead of passing them to each other, losing track of versions. And also not being in sync with the other version. So, why can’t *all* business documents become shared instead of transferred back and forth? So many types of legal contracts would be ideal for that kind of workflow.

    You don’t need a blockchain technology to share documents, but the shared documents analogy is a powerful example.

    Far from a short-term trend, blockchain technology is revolutionary. It is a new approach to transactions that major companies are beginning to implement. 

    In a market saturated with new and innovative business strategies, it can be difficult to decide which to adopt. On one side you don’t want to fall behind when it comes to the latest technology.

    On the other, you don’t want to waste your money on a “cutting-edge” fluke. If you’re looking for a new, efficient way to carry out transactions, blockchain is a technology that your company might find helpful.

    What is Blockchain Technology? 1

    What Blockchain technology requires

    You might ask why blockchain technology seems so cryptic. The challenge is that it used to be almost exclusively connected to tech circles.  And was not widely used by the general public and non-tech businesses. This history is part of why it seems so mysterious today.  Because it’s relatively new to most of us, and the way it works can be difficult to explain without going into confusing and complex concepts.

    Blockchain technology was originally developed for bitcoin, the base of other cryptocurrencies. But the blocks in a blockchain might contain information about identity, dates, or most anything.

    Marc Andreessen from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer called Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology a “breakthrough in computer science”.

    “The practical consequence (…is…) for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate.”

    Comparisons

    In a 2014 New York Times op-ed, Marc Andreessen, likened Bitcoin to personal computers and the Internet in their early days. Each of which depended on the high expectations of their success to make them actually successful.

    “This is the classic ‘chicken and egg’ problem with new technology: new technology is not worth much until it’s worth a lot,” he wrote about blockchain technology.

    By allowing digital information to be distributed but not copied, blockchain technology created the backbone of a new type of internet. It is originally developed for the digital currency, Bitcoin. But the tech community is now finding other potential uses for the technology.

    The short version of it:

    Blockchain technology provides a way to make transactions and transfers online without the use of an intermediary. Instead of trusting a third party to keep the transaction history safe and accurate, blockchain technology lets you seal “pages” of transactions with a key code for security.

    With blockchain technology, many people can write entries into a record of information. And a community of users can control how the record of information is amended and updated. Likewise, Wikipedia entries are not the product of a single publisher. No one person controls the information.

    But a feature that Wikipedia does not share with the classical blockchain is encryption. Because ownership and anonymity is an important feature of blockchain technology. Encryption of information is necessary so that no one can steal data or duplicate them.

    Individuals and businesses use blockchain technology for a variety of reasons. Though some “shady businesses” might use blockchain technology to avoid leaving a paper trail, it’s more often employed to gain improved assurance and privacy. It also allows users to exchange money without the backing of physical currency. This is one of the qualities that has made Bitcoin famous and makes it sometimes controversial.

    How To Make Money With Blockchain Technology? 2

    Bottom line

    There’s a wide variety of blockchain technology-based services on the market.

    One of the most relevant reasons that many companies are adopting blockchain technology is efficiency. We can all realize how exchanges can become quicker. And simpler too, when they don’t have to go through a third party. It’s also beginning to move document authentication toward obsolescence, removing a step in the transactional process.

    Blockchain technology can also make companies feel like their information is safer and more secure. In an age where hacking banks cannot always resist off attempts to attack people’s financial privacy. Therefore, blockchain technology is a way to feel a greater sense of control over transactions.

    Major companies are adopting blockchain technology because they don’t want to miss out on what could become. And it is already extremely popular and efficiently.

    “In the mid-to-late 2000’s, big companies missed the social media train,” marketing and business strategist Clay Hebert said. “They couldn’t see how Twitter or Facebook would immediately impact their business, so they were slow to adopt these technologies. They don’t want to play catch-up again.”

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

  • Blockchain ‘Interesting’ But Hyped

    Blockchain ‘Interesting’ But Hyped

    Blockchain not the best technology for every considered use, says Australian government report.

    2 min read

    Australia: Blockchain 'Interesting' But Hyped
    What a change!

    In May, Australia’s Department of Home Affairs revealed a plan to investigate blockchain’s potential to bring secure and transparent international trade and supply chain management.

    The chief digital officer of Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), Peter Alexander said: “Blockchain: Interesting technology but early on in its development, it’s kind of at the top of a hype cycle.”  Alexander said at a parliamentary committee meeting on Tuesday, as reported by ZDNet.

    He was further quoted as saying that most of the hype comes from companies seeking to make profits in this area.

    “It’s not that we don’t trust any of the vendors – that would be an unfair characterization – we trust the vendors, but note that the motivation is general sales and making revenue.”

    He said standardization of blockchain might open up more opportunities for its use in providing government services.

    “We’re not saying that blockchain doesn’t have potential but today, without standardization, there is the challenge of blockchain becoming a little fragmented. When we get to the standardized blockchain then the opportunities for it will grow.”

    There is better technology?

    Alexander continued, saying that, “for every use of blockchain you would consider today, there is a better technology.”
    According to InnovationAus.com. Alexander said that one of the defining features of the blockchain, the potential for anonymity, is among the biggest stumbling blocks.

    “Generally speaking when the government is engaging with someone, we want to have a trusted relationship with them. We want to know who they are and give them a personalized service,” he said. “Blockchain is good for low-trust engagement. You don’t know who you’re dealing with but have a series of ledgers that can give some validation and support.”

    Peter Alexander, the CDO at DTA said the technology is worth keeping an eye on but is not yet mature enough.

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

    “It would be fair to say that a lot of the big vendors are pushing blockchain very hard. And internationally most of the hype around blockchain is coming from vendors and companies. Not from governments and users and deliverers of services,” he said.

    Interesting timing 

    It is indicated to this opinion was arrived at after the Australian government’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) received  AU$700,000 (about US$500,000) from the government in May. That amount came to explore blockchain applications within government services. 

    The Australian government’s DTA has cast doubts over the validity of blockchains for governmental purposes. The agency has been working with a number of government agencies. They wanted to develop prototypes for the use of blockchain to deliver services. Including with the Department of Human Services for welfare payments and cargo settlement.

    On the other side is Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison. He is a fan of fintech, open banking and technologies such as blockchain that will drive Australia’s future.

    As treasurer,  Morrison urged attendees at the Australian Fintech Awards in early August 2018. He wanted to take advantage of the disruption wave sweeping through the global economy.

    “I am frankly counting on you not to stuff this up. You need to make this work…In today’s global economy, the ability for economies to become more productive is not being done the old way: the biggest transformer of productivity [will be] innovation,” he told attendees at the awards, as reported by the Australian Financial Review.

    Unfortunately, Australia is not an isolated case.

    China is another nation that finds blockchain’s anonymity a problem. Earlier this year Chinese students encoded allegations of sexual harassment against a prominent professor on the Ethereum blockchain. They wanted to evade the country’s censors. All social media posts on the issue having been blocked. The same technique was used to spread the news about low quality and counterfeit vaccines, another scandal the government sought to cover up.

    China banned crypto

    But the Chinese government has drafted a new regulation. That ordinance would require users to provide their real names and national ID card numbers when registering for a blockchain service. The policy would also demand that blockchain services remove ‘illegal information’. And before it can be spread among users. Also under the proposed legislation. Service providers would also have obligation to retain backups of user data for six months.  Of course, and to hand it over to the police on request.

    China also banned cryptocurrency trading earlier this year, although. Apparently, this has been less than effective. The Ethereum Hotel recently opened in the country, accepting payment in cryptocurrencies.

    One note to remember. Without the possibility of anonymity, a permanent ledger could also be a powerful tool in the authoritarian regime’s surveillance and control systems.
    Australia: Blockchain 'Interesting' But Hyped 1

    Unlike Australia and China, UK leads the way in blockchain deployments for the supply chain.

    There is some survey conducted by consultancy Capgemini. They researched 450 organizations implementing blockchain in their supply chain. And the result wasn’t surprising.  Only three percent so far took initial experiments into production at scale. Well, the adoption and the technology itself are at an early stage. The Capgemini report identifies a number of current use cases. They are in the range from low complexity/high adoption scenarios. Like the prevention of counterfeits and tracking asset maintenance, for instance. But also more ambitious and complex uses. Like customer loyalty programs, contract labor procurement, and regulatory compliance, for example.

    United Kingdom example

    The UK currently leads the way with production and pilot implementations of blockchain projects in the supply chain. At the same time, the USA leads in terms of funding blockchain initiatives.

    In the UK specifically, the consumer products vertical is the biggest adopter among those surveyed. It is followed by manufacturing and then retail. However, globally manufacturing is in the leads in adopting this technology.

    Capgemini has been working with blockchain technology since 2016. Then it began developing solutions for the financial services industry. The report predicts that experimenting with blockchain will peak in 2020. But it will enter mainstream supply chain usage by 2025.

    While throughout the history there were numerous cases of unfounded fears of new technology. For many potential uses, the blockchain is not mature enough. Or lacks the functionality. Or there is the issue of the anonymity of users.

    On the other hand, this anonymity could inhibit the nefarious motives and actions of less savory governments against their own citizens.

    We will see in which direction the further development of blockchain will go. There is one solid fact: blockchain will survive.

    Risk Disclosure (read carefully!)

     

  • How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World

    How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World

    1 min read

    How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World

    When we think about industries set for disruption by blockchain, construction probably isn’t top of the list. After all, the traditional image of a building site seems far removed from crypto, coding, and hackathons. But there are potentially enormous benefits for putting blockchain and construction together.

    This article will round up some of the possible use cases for blockchain in the construction industry.

    Blockchain and Construction Supply Chains

    A bad workman blames his tools, right? Maybe that’s a bit harsh, though. After all, the construction industry is dependent on the availability of quality supplies and tools, at the right time and in the right place. Given that the sector is highly fragmented with many different players, big and small, supply chains are a big deal.

    How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World 1

    Purchase orders, delivery notes, and invoices are often still paper-based. Firms frequently don’t know if the supplies they need are in stock when they start a project, which leads to delays and incurs costs.

    These aren’t even the worst consequences. UK government contract Carillion collapsed at the start of 2018, affecting the jobs of around 43,000 people as a result. Sources pointed to its poor supply chain management as being a critical factor in the collapse, through lousy credit management and a lack of visibility over projects and required supplies.

    The blockchain is already proving its ability to transform supply chains, in one instance through the partnership between Walmart and IBM. Using blockchain to manage construction supply chains could create a single source of truth regarding the availability and provenance of construction supplies, as well as tracking payments.

    The industry is taking notice of this use case for blockchain and construction. Recent announcements have now confirmed that Probuild, one of Australia’s largest building firms, has partnered with US blockchain construction innovator Brickschain for managing its global supply chain. The announcement confirms that “Probuild has the vision that Blockchain, IoT and Big Data can revolutionize the construction supply chain.”

    Blockchain and Construction Project Management

    Construction projects rely on various parties to work together to complete a building based on pre-defined specifications. Each party expects payment based on work done. Therefore, the peer-to-peer connectivity of blockchain, combined with smart contract functionality, brings excellent opportunities to streamline construction project management.

    One study into the potential of blockchain in construction project management found that “[o]n the construction site blockchain can improve the reliability and trustworthiness of construction logbooks, works performed and material quantities recorded.”

    Industry publication Construction Manager (they don’t mess around with fluffy, ambiguous names in this business) also reported on the development of two prototype applications combining blockchain and construction.

    TraderTransferTrust is a payment system built on blockchain that triggers payment only on the completion of work done. Physical proof of work, if you will. ConstructCoin is another project from the same development team. It aims to create a marketplace of information about the construction industry.

    Reduce Litigation

    The Construction Blockchain Consortium (CBC) is an industry group set up by its members to investigate the potential for how blockchain and construction could play together. While the above use cases are transformational, the CBC outlines some cultural shifts that may occur in the industry as a result of using blockchain.

    The building industry has become highly litigious. The CBC highlights how using blockchain to foster a culture of collaboration and ownership could help to reduce incidences of parties suing one another for shoddy work or delays in project completion. Further, the consortium believes that a less litigious environment “should encourage a less ‘defensive’ approach to decision making and thereby encourage innovation.”

    Digitized Land Acquisition and Building Rights

    In their paper about the future of smart cities, McKinsey points to the current bureaucracy involved in land acquisition and building rights as a barrier to agile construction. The paper goes on to explain how digitized solutions will speed up the process of obtaining land and building approvals.

    Blockchain-based land registries provide a vast improvement over today’s paper-laden processes. Blockchain allows for speedier approvals with no loss of paperwork or waiting for multi-party signatures on physical documents.

    Additionally, in countries, land disputes are all too common. A permanent, unalterable record of ownership has distinct advantages in proving ownership. India is among the countries that have been trialing the use of blockchain in land registrations.

    Building Inspections
    Most buildings are subject to inspections at some point or another. Structures used by the public need checks to ensure adherence to safety standards. Building surveys often feature in sales of real estate, as they reveal any structural faults that may impact the valuation.

    These inspections are often conducted in a fragmented way. An inspector or surveyor may have limited or no visibility of records from previous checks. This makes the process heavily dependent on the specific inspector, and errors or oversights may happen.

    How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World 2

    Blockchain offers the opportunity for a piece of real estate to come with its own permanent record of past inspections. Blockchain data is immune to tampering by any party who may have an interest in ensuring structure passes muster. Similarly, blockchain could also record any structural or maintenance work undertaken on the property over its life cycle.

    More Agile Planning

    Currently, there is a lengthy process to procure public funds for investment in infrastructure. Governments must justify the need to spend taxpayer funds on a particular initiative. This means that new infrastructure investment can take months or even years to come to fruition.

    As we move towards the smart cities of the future, increased connectivity and availability of information could significantly speed approvals for new infrastructure investment. For example, a government body may quickly build a case showing increased traffic flows in a particular area, using sensor data from a blockchain. This enables faster construction investment in road improvements, traffic calming measures or other means.

    How Blockchain and Construction Will Build a New World 3

    Final Word

    Blockchain and construction may seem unlikely partners at first. However, like so many other sectors, construction depends on trust-based interactions with other parties along with solid record keeping. Therefore, assuming the industry can adapt, blockchain could provide significant value to the builders of the future.

    Author of this article is SARAH ROTHRIE and article was originally posted on  CoinCenral.com

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