John Oliver Tackles Cryptocurrency on Last Week Tonight – Bitcoin News

Crypto heads will have learned nothing from Sunday’s edition of Last Week Tonight, though the show’s four million viewers should have gleaned a few insights amidst all the jokes. There have certainly been worse attempts at summarizing the world of cryptocurrency, even if Oliver’s efforts are unlikely to trigger a renewed bitcoin frenzy. The episode felt as if Oliver had just learned of cryptocurrency 10 minutes before going on air, and felt obliged to bring his audience up to speed on its history and technology post-haste.

Source: John Oliver Tackles Cryptocurrency on Last Week Tonight – Bitcoin News, Kai Sedgwick, March 13, 2018

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Shipping: IBM, Maersk Are Creating a New Blockchain Company | Fortune

Presently, many shipping supply chains are bogged down by a morass of paperwork shuffled between a glut of middlemen, Wieck says. Documentation, which when lost or delayed causes perishable goods lying in wait to spoil, can end up costing as much as a fifth of the total expense of physical transportation.

According to a 2013 study by the World Economic Forum, reducing the friction around information-sharing and border administration when it comes to international trade “could increase GDP by nearly 5% and trade by 15%”—a boost that amounts to trillions of dollars.

Source: Shipping: IBM, Maersk Are Creating a New Blockchain Company | Fortune, Robert Hackett, January 16, 2018

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Bitcoin Ethereum: How Blockchain Tech Is Revolutionizing Business | Fortune

One day last December, Frank Yiannas went to a Walmart store near company headquarters in Fayetteville, Ark., and picked up a package of sliced mangoes. Yiannas is Walmart’s vice president of food safety, and the fruit was part of a crucial experiment. He brought the mangoes back to his office, placed the container on a…

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Bitcoin’s Blockchain Tech Could Bring Sweeping Innovation to Legal Industry | The Legal Intelligencer

While the days of full-scale adoption may be well off, it would certainly behoove attorneys to stay abreast of developments in both blockchain and cryptocurrencies. As this technology breaks further into the mainstream, attorneys should be prepared not only to counsel clients, but to implement these new tools in a way that elevates the quality and value of our professional services.

See estate planning and land title records use cases.

Source: Bitcoin’s Blockchain Tech Could Bring Sweeping Innovation to Legal Industry | The Legal Intelligencer, Matthew Decker, January 24, 2018

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Don Tapscott: “We Need Microsurgery on This New Economy” | News | Cointelegraph

But you know, if you’re doing an ICO and the token represents a share in the company that’s called a security, it should fall under securities legislation. But we need microsurgery on this new economy. We don’t need to bring a chainsaw to it. This would be one of the three most important rate determining factors in terms of what countries emerge not just with the Blockchain industry, but with the whole new innovation economy. Do governments do the right thing and implement sensible legislation or did they mess it up?

The supply chain industry globally is a $64 trillion industry and supply chains are going to move to Blockchain. You can see that with Foxconn doing this now, we’ve done a case on that. On the Walmart food sale they use Blockchain for food safety. The biggest supply chain in the world ever is the ‘One Belt One Road’ project linking Hong Kong and Rotterdam. All the trade and finance and a lot of the supply apps on that are being done via Blockchain.

Blockchain is perfect for situations where you have a buyer and a seller and escrow agent, and governments, and various shippers, and tax authorities and so on. Instead of passing pieces of paper and faxing, and emails and so on, they have a single shared network state where they can all instantly see what’s going on. It turns that supply chain into something we call an asset chain. And ultimately, this thing becomes cognitive. It really becomes a new cognitive computer. That’s where the supply chain will be.

Source: Don Tapscott: “We Need Microsurgery on This New Economy” | News | Cointelegraph | News | Cointelegraph, January 29, 2018

Thanks, Ahmed!

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Canada testing ‘digital ID’ system that uses blockchain, biometrics to screen travellers – National | Globalnews.ca

Over time, travellers can build up their credibility as “Known Travellers,” giving them access to special screening lanes in airports, and allowing border officials to devote more time and resources towards screening lesser known, higher-risk travellers.

Source: Canada testing ‘digital ID’ system that uses blockchain, biometrics to screen travellers – National | Globalnews.ca, Rahul Kalvapalle, January 27, 2018

Thanks, Massimo!

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Smart Contracts: Should you? Can you? Will you? Imagine the possibilities (the easy part). Don’t let the behind the scene complexities discourage you | IBM | LinkedIn

What should be in a CIO’s IT strategic plan?

Bitcoin emerged in 2009 as a revolutionary way to transfer value without a third-party intermediary like a bank. Blockchain technology, in turn, is gaining attention for its promise to enable value and asset transfer across a wide range of industries and use cases — and its potential to disintermediate financial institutions, remittance companies and lots of other transactional middleman businesses. Smart contracts, meanwhile, work hand-in-hand with blockchain technology and have the potential to automate — and also disrupt — processes in many industries. 

Source: Smart Contracts: Should you? Can you?Will you? Imagine the possibilities (the easy part). Don’t let the behind the scene complexities discourage you | IBM | LinkedIn, Hans Casteels, January 24, 2018

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Smart Contracts: Blockchain is the thing that enables the thing | IBM | LinkedIn

Blockchain is not a technology that will enable one organisation to come up with a new category killer product or process that will give it an advantage over its rivals. Rather, its success “will require co-operation among market participants, regulators and technologists”. The greater the number of businesses around the table, the greater blockchains impact will be.

Source: Smart Contracts: Blockchain is the thing that enables the thing | IBM | LinkedIn, Hans Casteels, January 22, 2018

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