Tuesday, February 11, 2020

ConsenSys Quorum

To view this email as a web page, go here.
February 11, 2020
LETTING GO: Banking giant JPMorgan Chase may soon merge its Quorum blockchain project with ConsenSys, the ethereum-focused software developer and investor. Anonymous Reuters sources said while the terms of the deal are still not agreed, the merger might happen within the next six months. Full story

MINERS AT WAR: Just four years ago, two lifelong friends turned a small investment into what's thought to be North America's largest crypto miner. Now the former friends are warring over the company's future, with one founder seeking dissolution of the firm and liquidation of its assets. Full story

SPINOFF BENEFITS: Enterprise blockchain is a catalyst for further spending at Big Blue, according to Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s vice president of blockchain technologies. “When you look at the direct attribution of the actual dollars spent on blockchain, we are seeing that for every dollar spent, $15 is spent on other cloud services,” said Cuomo. Full story

BLOCKCHAIN PLUNGE: One of the oldest banks in Europe, Munich-based Bank von der Heydt, is developing a special-purpose euro stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain to facilitate private placements in tokenized securities. Full story

FEELING OPTIMISTIC: Optimism, a startup previously known as Plasma, is creating a transaction layer similar to bitcoin’s Lightning Network to increase the number of people who can use smart contracts on ethereum. Full story
FALL FIRST? Bitcoin's broader uptrend is still valid despite Monday's sudden fall from $10,200. Though prices rebounded past the five-figure mark, short duration charts are indicating buyer exhaustion. A move below $9,075 would invalidate the bullish setup. Full story
 
SETTING PRECEDENT? Last week, Blockstack announced a proposal to reward node operators in bitcoin. In the latest episode of The Breakdown, Muneeb Ali, the firm's chief executive, discusses how this move may influence how the crypto industry looks at security and incentives. Listen in

CORRECTION: Yesterday's edition of BlockchainBites erroneously referred to Andy Bromberg as CEO of CoinList. Bromberg's correct title is Cofounder and President.

WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER
 

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn

Copyright © 2020 CoinDesk, All rights reserved. 

Our mailing address is: 
250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US 

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list  

 

[Issue #5] ICON Newsletter: The #broof is in the Pudding

It was another big week for the ICON Project as we announced several initiatives to grow the ecosyste
[Issue #5] ICON Newsletter: The #broof is in the Pudding
By ICON Newsletter • Issue #5 • View online
It was another big week for the ICON Project as we announced several initiatives to grow the ecosystem and improve enterprise adoption. 2020 is going to be a huge year for the project and we're off to a fast start! This week we're going to take a deeper dive into #broof but first, let's review all the action from last week.
Key Highlights
  • One of Korea's top universities, POSTECH, issued #broof for diplomas and Saramin, Korea's #1 HR recruiting company, signed a MoU with ICONLOOP to begin using #broof to verify and authenticate work and education certificates such as POSTECH diplomas. Expect more and more enterprise case studies to come.
  • The number of validators ("P-reps") grew to 98, just 2 short of our initial target, and up 15% over the past two weeks. +31% year-to-date. We expect to have over 100 P-Reps very soon!
  • Wallet growth remained consistent in the 4-5% range week over week, which is a great sign for our growing ecosystem.
  • Despite the significant price increase over the past several weeks, ~41% of circulating ICX supply remains staked providing approximately 18% annualized interest showing strong confidence from the community.
  • ICX Station launched the beta version of ICON Vote to facilitate better communication with voters and P-Reps.
  • Additionally, we released a stability upgrade to our protocol. Please be on the lookout for our updated 2020 roadmap in the coming days
ICON is growing by the day and there are a lot of exciting things in the pipeline. Stay tuned. 
 
Thank you,
Min Kim, ICON Foundation Council


#broof v1.0 is on FIRE
In 2020, we set out to increase enterprise adoption of our public blockchain and so far so good. We've had extremely positive feedback on our recently revamped product suite. Including national media coverage
Bongtoshi
1) Last Thursday, our time, Moneytoday, one of the famous media in Korea has highlighted #Broof. It is a very good signal. Now anyone can create an encrypted digital certificate on the
ICON Network using Broof. Mass adoption is underway!
#ICON #ICX

https://t.co/PedPkWWYGg https://t.co/obQWM3Ab6f
1:17 PM - 10 Feb 2020
Launched in January, #broof v1.0 is already making waves across the Korean market. Its first major use case came from POSTECH last week. The MIT of Korea issued #broofs for its 828 new graduates on our public blockchain. Full coverage from TheBlock below:
South Korean university issues blockchain-stored diplomas amid the spread of the coronavirus - The Block
Improving upon our BETA #broof launch last year
POSTECH previously used #broof's beta technology in June 2019 when it issued blockchain certificates to graduates of its blockchain CEO course.
Additionally, in August 2019, ICONLOOP signed a deal with Yeolmae Company to provide #broofs for the company's ARTnGUIDE platform, which acts as an intermediary site for the joint ownership of art.
Under the terms of that deal, ICONLOOP's #broof service recorded the ownership of the artwork, along with the image of that work, in a manner that prevents falsification of the record.
ICONLOOP Signs Deal With Art Site to Create Record of Ownership - CoinDesk
MoU with #1 HR Company in Korea
To realize the potential of #broof and its many applications you also need verifiers of the information. Thankfully, we just onboarded one of the largest in Korea, Saramin.
Saramin is the overwhelming number one player in the job recruitment market. With its enormous user base and the cost synergies created by our #broof product, we expect our collaboration to drive real-world adoption of the ICON Project and our digital ID product suite.
Saramin has more than 3 million unique visitors every month!
Saramin has more than 3 million unique visitors every month!
But the most important takeaway from this news is that we're using blockchain to solve real-world problems. The first is eliminating forgery and fraudulent certifications. The second is lowering costs for issuers of paper-based documents. And lastly, lowering the cost of verifying these documents (e.g. background checks, etc). When we add in our myID service, we'll increase the security and ensure each certificate is tied to a verified digital personal ID. 
Min
Now your digital college diploma issued by #broof is verified by Saramin, saving both job applicants' and employers' time and money. Saramin wins b/c employers (paying clients) now trust Saramin over competitors since it verifies job candidate credentials. #ICONproject https://t.co/mRAuB4RQcv
1:17 PM - 10 Feb 2020
#broof mechanics
Whenever a #broof certificate is issued, we invoke two transactions on the public blockchain (using $ICX). One transaction to store the image of the certificate on the blockchain and the other to verify that no changes have been made to the content.
Here is an actual POSTECH digital diploma!
Sample transaction of POSTECH diploma on #broof
Sample transaction of POSTECH diploma on #broof
In POSTECH's case, their wallet ID was "whitelisted" so you know that it's the only authenticate issuer of this certificate.
Whitelisted wallet address
Whitelisted wallet address
From there, the recent graduates are given a transaction that corresponds to a copy of their digital diploma.
Ricky Dodds
ICONLOOP is not just our tech partner, it's our ecosystem expansion partner as well - driving adoption of #ICONProject $ICX.

Excited to see the continued momentum with #broof #POSTECH #graduates https://t.co/sPPEMQd87X
1:17 PM - 10 Feb 2020
ICON Vote Beta Launch
Another exciting release was the beta launch of ICON Vote. Like ICX_Station, we believe there is a need for active contribution and participation from both P-Reps and $ICX delegators for the ICON ecosystem to thrive; and voting is a key feature of governance.

Here are some takeaways from their launch announcement on 2/3:
  • Currently, there are limited communication channels between P-Reps and delegators such as Telegram or Twitter
  • It's hard to keep up with the entire discussion because they weren't designed for a long-form discussion such as governance or financing
  • ICON Vote enables P-Reps to interact directly with their supporters through on-chain votes accessible only to their voter base
  • P-Reps utilizing ICON Vote will offer their supporters a greater voice in governance, funding decisions, and other deliverables

Check it out here.
ICON Vote Introduction
ICON Vote Introduction
In case you missed it:
Visualizing Public Blockchain: Finance, Oracles, and Interchain
ICONLOOP signs MoU with Saramin HR to build a Blockchain-based HR recruitment ecosystem
MainNet Update - Network Enhancement
Did you enjoy this issue?
ICON Newsletter

Building one of the largest blockchain networks in the world

If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue