Real Blockchain Estate Initiative Launches By Dubai Land Department

Dubai's land registrar has revealed it is developing a system that would seek to record all local real estate contracts on a blockchain.

The project, part of a sweeping plan to secure all government documents on a blockchain by 2020, was announced this week by Dubai Land Department, the government agency tasked with overseeing land purchases and approving real estate trades.

In statements, the agency framed blockchain technology as a way to gain the confidence of global real estate investors, and as a convenience for tenants, whose leases would be recorded by the system.

Sultan Butti bin Mejren, the land department's director general, said in a statement:

"Our aim is to unite all real estate and department services on a single platform. We hope to complete our project in the year 2019–2020."

In a press release issued Saturday, the agency said, "The technology will allow investors residing in Dubai and around the world to verify property data that is backed by timestamp signatures, enhancing the accuracy of data, the credibility of investment transactions and the transparency and clarity of the market."

On the leasing side, the department said, the platform will connect renters not only to landlords, but also to other property-related billers, such as electrical, water and telecommunications utilities.

The latter will allow tenants "to make payments electronically without the need to write cheques or print any paper … within a few minutes at any time and from anywhere in the world."

Partnering with the Dubai Land Department on the initiative are Asset Management Group, one of the largest real estate developers in Dubai; Emirates NBD, one of the region's largest banks; the furniture chain IKEA; and the Emirates Identity Authority.

Dubai has also explored the technology for airport security, trade finance and immigration controls, working with IBM and rolling out the red carpet for startups in a notable effort to become a blockchain innovation hub.


Source: Coindesk

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Blockchain Startup Gives A Hand to The Indian State for Land Registry Pilot

The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is working with startup ChromaWay on a land registry pilot that uses blockchain to track the ownership of property.

The state government has been exploring a number of uses for blockchain in recent months, and in September it inked a separate partnership with startup WISekey related to identity solutions. Andhra Pradesh is one of several regional governments in India to look into applications of the tech, and land registries – systems used to keep track of who owns what property – have been highlighted by other governments worldwide as one area in which the technology could lead to improved services.

The test platform being built with Sweden-based ChromaWay is part of the Fintech ValleyVizag initiative launched by the southeast Indian state.

According to the parties involved, it utilizes a distributed ledger on the back-end and a straightforward web-app front end, which provides "radically transparent access to data," according to ChromaWay.

J. A. Chowdary, special chief secretary and IT advisor to the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, said in a statement:

"Blockchain is the technology of the future. It will not only change the way we perceive processes but it also has the potential to transform the economy. Of course, we all are yet to fully discover this technology and hence the Government of Andhra Pradesh has engaged with startups from across the globe such as Chromaway to run proofs of concept within its own departments."

The project represents the latest public sector partnership for ChromaWay. Sweden's land registry authority, the Lantmäteriet, revealed in April that it is working with the startup on a land registry initiative. Other participants in that effort include banks SBAB and Landshypotek, as well as the consultancy Kairos Future.


Source: Coindesk

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A Real Competition Between Companies to Disrupt Apps Market Using Blockchain

Accusations of “bubble” abound even as Bitcoin price surges back toward its record high of $5,000. There are also suggestions that Bitcoin’s price should be viewed in terms of the S-curve of rapid adoption.

Others say that Bitcoin will reach $50,000, or even $1 mln, in due course. Hardcore skeptics such as Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believe that the government will ultimately shut down Bitcoin and bring this grand experiment to an end.

User “dashfriend” on the Dash Nation Slack comments:

“Isn’t ease of use one of the main catalysts for a bubble? I don’t see ease of buying yet for non-tech people.”

User “foxtrot” agreed:

“In order for a bubble to exist there needs to be saturation of the market...and with the crypto market still [in] its infancy, that seems highly unlikely...Hasn’t Bitcoin supposedly been in a bubble since it was $2?”

A powerful disconnect

Many digital currency investors and traders are focusing on the presence of institutional investors: banks, pension funds, mutual funds and the like. While such mega investors would certainly help push the price up, it seems that retail investors and users are always forgotten in such discussions.

With so many working on creating ETFs, regulated futures markets and so on, who is focusing on the little guy? Who is working to make sure that digital currency gets in the hands of as many ordinary people as possible?

It’s the apps

According to TechCrunch, the apps market is expected to reach $6.3 tln by 2021. By the end of this year, there will have been a total of 268 bln apps downloaded, with revenue exceeding $77 bln.

This is a staggeringly huge market, and with Google and Apple taking over a 30 percent cut of the profits, it’s a market ripe for disruption.

While many startups are trying to find ways to profit from this enormous market, to date they have been hampered by the Blockchains they build upon. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are capable of about seven transactions per second, which is clearly not enough capacity to support a transformation of the apps market.

Competition is stiff

Among companies that aim at using Blockchain to disrupt the app market are Mobius, ChainLink and IOTA.

Cyrus Khajvandi, co-founder of Mobius, is anticipating the creation of “Smart Markets” where data from connected devices can be traded freely between other devices. According to Khajvandi, Mobius gives the example of connected appliances which contract with decentralized electricity generators to provide machine-to-machine payments. Such a system would use “smart contracts” and “smart auctions” to run appliances, using as little energy as possible at the lowest possible prices.

Mobius boasts Jed McCaleb as an early investor and advisor. McCaleb is the founder of Ripple and Stellar, and, somewhat unfortunately, the founder of doomed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.

Mobius intends to be a leader in the Internet of Things (IOT), but to do so, they will face stiff competition.

IOTA has a significant head start in this area, seeking to “[make] every technological resource a potential service to be traded on an open market.”

Even in terms of their current product for app payments, Mobius has competitors such as ChainLink. In fact, ChainLink’s services sound similar to Mobius’ product. ChainLink’s website says:

“ChainLink is Blockchain middleware that allows smart contracts to access key off-chain resources like data feeds, various web APIs, and traditional bank account payments.”

Nothing is certain

BlockTower Capital cofounder Matthew Goetz probably said it best when he compared the digital currency and Blockchain boom to the Internet boom of the late-1990s. Goetz warns:

“You could be right on the thesis that cryptocurrencies are transformative, and you could make what you think is the right bet at the time, but remember one time you had Yahoo and then this thing called Google came along.”

Mobius, IOTA, ChainLink and others all sound interesting, but the market will ultimately decide on the winners and losers. Even if you can predict the general trend, it’s much more difficult to bet on exactly the right horse.


Source: Cointelegraph

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Bridging Gaps Between the Major Cryptocurrency Paradigms

Use of cryptocurrency has become more accepted and mainstream recently, and in the last six months there have been a couple of significant developments in crypto's progress towards widespread adoption.

First, the huge investments and price increases during the "summer of Bitcoin" have put cryptocurrencies in the news and shown they can retain investment value despite shocks. Secondly, the cryptosphere at large has seen a push to address and confront major issues that could impact user adoption long-term.

In search for good enough in all respects

Among these issues are those of compatibility and interoperability. Forks, lightning networks, and atomic swaps have all come to the fore as efforts are made to make increase user experience and efficiency. If the history of technology diffusion tells us anything, it is that mainstream users want solutions that are "good enough" in all respects (rather than excellent at just one or two things).

Cryptocurrencies that are easy to use, provide versatility, and bring platforms together will succeed best, and compatibility and interoperability are the name of the game Hcash (abbreviated from HyperCash) is a Chinese/Australian cryptocurrency project aiming to provide a wide set of features that would increase adoption.

Among Hcash's features is the ability to support integration of block-based and blockless-based transactions and currencies. Currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum use conventional Blockchains, while others like IOTA operate on a blockless paradigm. There is a lot of room for different currencies to flourish, but those that offer interoperability and compatibility stand to become major players in their own right. Hcash, by aiming to allow for harmony between different paradigms and currencies, might be able to carve out a significant market share for itself.

Problem to be solved: bridging ecosystems and making user experience simple

Most people involved in investing or using cryptocurrencies will have noticed the considerable buzz behind IOTA, Byteball, and similar currencies. These use a blockless chain setup, in this case using Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) technology.

The data format used in this type of chain is fundamentally different than in Blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This raises serious issues regarding interoperability and compatibility for making transactions and swaps between these two kinds of chains.

If managing conventional cryptocurrency transactions can be cumbersome for novices (which is very much the case), then comprehending and managing transactions between Blockchain-based currencies like Bitcoin and a tangle-based currency like IOTA would be prohibitively inconvenient.

Steps towards bridging the gap

Linking tangle-based and Blockchain-based systems is, therefore, a challenge. This is the principal aim of the Hcash solution. It creates sidechains to both types of systems which allows for flow of data and value, in effect becoming an intermediary platform between both.

On top of this, the Hcash team has built several features into their solution to make usability more fluid and secure. Notable among these is the unlimited nature of transactions, allowing Hcash users to "transfer unlimited times with a limited block size, no matter the speed of transfer or amount of transfer."

They have also chosen a novel governance structure that incorporates and accommodates both Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanisms, balancing the needs of both miners and users.

Hcash also supports privacy (using Zero Knowledge Proof technology), and has been future-proofed against the rise of quantum computing with quantum resistant safeguards.

These features all tick the boxes of a technology that will help to bridge the gap between DAG and Blockchain currencies while also allowing for a straightforward user experience.

Australia's progress in crypto

Hcash is a joint project between teams in Australia, Hong Kong and China. Australia has seen some progress in terms of cryptocurrencies lately, and Hcash has capitalized on the recent interest sweeping the country. Of course, the Chinese public has already shown a great interest in mining and investing in crypto.

One thing of note about the Hcash project is that it has a strong academic foundation. The solution has been developed by computer scientists and researchers at three major universities (Monash University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and already has usage and support across the Australian third-level educational industry and mainstream markets.

The team are therefore very research-focussed and the project is open-source. The Hcash project is addressing unresolved issues in the cryptosphere, and has considerable expertise on its advisory board including one of the founding researchers of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero.

It is also worth noting that the project is sponsoring the World Blockchain Summit in Dubai, during which their CTO Khal Achkar will be speaking.

The strong academic foundations of the currency have attracted a lot of interest from investors ahead of the full launch of the network in the coming months.

Bringing systems and protocols

The crypto world is growing in every direction, solving problems for many different users. With a rapidly expanding base of solutions, many observers are turning their attention to the cohesion between players in the ecosystem.

At the same time, the increased mainstream adoption of crypto brings about a need for more user-friendly platforms.

If Hcash can address these two issues of interoperability and usability, they could cement their place in the ecosystem and benefit many users.

Source: Cointelegraph

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