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Singapore Central Bank Clarifies ICO Regulations | Bitcoin News
The document defines ‘digital tokens’ as a “cryptographically-secured representation of a token-holder’s rights to receive a benefit or to perform specified functions.” Virtual currencies are defined as “one particular type of digital token, which typically functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account or a store of value.”
Source: Singapore Central Bank Clarifies ICO Regulations
Read More20+ New ICOs Announced Despite SEC Warnings | Bitcoin News
These tokens actually have utility or use cases in order to bootstrap a project, whereas a security represents ownership or stake in a particular company.
Source: 20+ New ICOs Announced Despite SEC Warnings – Bitcoin News
Read MoreThe End of the ICO Wild West? Blockchain Advocates Weigh In On SEC Report – Bitcoin News
“It is now clear that some digital currencies will be viewed as securities, depending on how the tokens or coins are structured,” Spencer details. “Secondly, and more importantly, it is now clear that the regulators and law enforcement in the United States will be enforcing these laws. The pipeline for ICO’s just got a lot smaller.”
Source: The End of the ICO Wild West? Blockchain Advocates Weigh In On SEC Report – Bitcoin News
Read MoreHow Retail Can Thrive in a World Without Stores | HBR
In the last twenty years, the internet has become the front door to every retail store. Now, that entry point is briskly shifting to mobile devices, and even further with voice-activated personal assistants and other connected devices. New technologies are helping innovative brands to ease the transition as consumers forgo the shopping mall in favor of bringing the store experience into their homes. Retailers that don’t find a way to create a happy marriage between the showroom experience you’d expect in a store and the convenience of personal shopping at home will be left behind.
Source: How Retail Can Thrive in a World Without Stores
Read MoreChatbots for customer service will help businesses save $8 billion per year – Watson
A new study released this week estimates that that chatbots will help businesses save more than $8 billion per year by 2022, which is a huge increase from the $20 million estimated for this year. In 2022, the success rate of bot interactions in healthcare sector will increase from the current 12% to over 75%, and in the banking sector this will climb to 90%.
Source: Chatbots for customer service will help businesses save $8 billion per year – Watson
Read MoreHow cognitive computing will revolutionize the retail industry – Watson
Cognitive computing is already redefining the retail industry worldwide. 91% of retail executives familiar with cognitive computing believe it will play a disruptive role in their organization. Opportunities for cognitive insights in the retail industry will continue to grow in the near future.
Source: How cognitive computing will revolutionize the retail industry – Watson
Read MoreBubble? So What? Token Summit Marks Cryptocurrency’s Revitalization | Forbes
Chris Burniske, blockchain products lead at ARK Investment Management, the first public fund manager to invest in bitcoin, explained, “It’s important for us to figure out what’s utility and what’s speculative, because, in times of correction, we will likely compress through speculative value until we hit utility value.”
… fielding an audience question about why a startup would go for an ICO in which it would raise a lot of money but also give away much of the company with a low probability of being able to get more funding, Wilson responded, “If you think about it as just a way to finance your company, you’re not thinking about it properly. The way to think about it is that the token is also the native monetization model for your business, and if you execute your business well, the value of that token should rise as the utility of the product you ship goes up in value.” Then, he said, though you’re giving away a lot of the tokens right away, the value of the tokens you keep should rise substantially and net you a tidy profit. For example, he and Mougayar speculated that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin had a half percent of all Ethers, which at that moment was about $90 million.
Source: Bubble? So What? Token Summit Marks Cryptocurrency’s Revitalization
Read MoreDisrupting the trust business | The Economist
Will the centre hold?
These efforts give a taste of what will be possible, says Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures (USV), a venture-capital firm. He thinks that such decentralised organisations could one day disrupt the tech giants. At their heart, he argues, those tech titans are gigantic centralised databases, keeping track of products and purchase histories (Amazon), users and their friends (Facebook), and web content and past search queries (Google). “Their value derives from the fact that they control the entire database and get to decide who sees which part of it and when,” he says.
In some areas the blockchain may even make life easier for governments. Last year Dubai announced that it wants all government documents secured on a blockchain by 2020, a prerequisite for agencies to become completely paperless. The technology could also be used as a cheap platform to generate what poor countries lack most: more efficient government and trust in contracts. And some hope that the blockchain could make the United Nations work better by helping it keep track of all its programmes, creating transparency and reducing waste.
Source: Disrupting the trust business | The Economist
Read MoreThe Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology, by William Mougayar (Examples)
A sampling of Blockchain implementations sited in
Mougayar, William. The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology. Wiley
Read MoreBITNATION: Governance 2.0
Otonomos your instant company incorporation| Manage your companies online with Otonomos | Otonomos BCC Pte. Ltd.
BoardRoom | Blockchain Governance Suite
Guardtime secures over a million Estonian healthcare records on the blockchain
La’Zooz – A value system designed for sustainibility
MaidSafe – The New Decentralized Internet
The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology, by William Mougayar
Read MoreInnovators Dilemma
It is difficult to innovate within your business model, because you will typically attempt to tie everything back to it, resulting in a shortsighted and limited view of what is possible. This is especially true if your business has a trust-related function (such as a clearinghouse). Current intermediaries will encounter the hardest change, because the blockchain hits at the core of their value proposition. They will need to be creative, and dare disrupting themselves while folding some blockchain capabilities under their offerings, and creatively developing new value proposition elements. They will need to realize that it is better to shoot yourself in the foot, rather than to have someone else shoot you in the head. This will not be an easy transition, because changing business models could be difficult to achieve in large organizations for a variety of factors.