This week on the show we welcome our first guest! Nelson Wei Tan is a professor at San Jose State University. We discuss his idea for higher education smart contracts on the blockchain, the recent exploitation of the DAO, the Australian Flux party, as well as the cryptocurrencies around the world.
Nelson Wei Tan email: nelson at nelsonweitan Dot com
- HealthDataManagement posted a recent article asking, “Does blockchain have a role in healthcare?” According to the article, there’s a growing realization that blockchain technology could help answer many of the vexing questions in healthcare regarding keeping better track of patients’ electronic records and improving the security with which they’re shared.http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/06/14/haobtc-plays-cupid/
- One new service is hoping to prevent ticket fraud with EthereumSmart tickets. Lava Movement uses blockchain and ethereum technology to sell tickets that can’t be duplicated, controlling the face value of the ticket price.
- Brian Forde of the MIT Media Lab said that Blockchain presents “an opportunity to reinstill the trust that’s been lost in banking and finance” in his recent keynote address Singularity University’s Exponential Finance conference.
- Eventually he realized that if he wrote a version of Bitcoin that had a Turing-complete programming language, the network could deliver every imaginable digital service, right out of the box. It didn’t even have to stop at financial applications. You could replicate Facebook, reassemble the stock market, or even build completely digital corporations and run them beyond the jurisdiction of any government entity. Once placed on a blockchain, they would exist in an environment where software, data, and financial assets interact without friction.
- One couple decided to immortalize their love via a distributed ledger. According to Newsbtc – Today’s Bitcoin News, the proposal over Bitcoin network was mined by the Chinese Bitcoin mining company Haobtc. While there are speculations about whether the whole thing is just a publicity stunt by the Bitcoin company or someone really did send a marriage proposal over the blockchain, it can still be considered as a milestone for the digital currency platform.
- Quartz posted an article this week about how blockchain technology can prevent the next financial crisis, disrupt Uber, and give us control of our data. The article features an interview with Blockchain Revolution authors Alex and Don Tapsctott.
- BraveNewCoin reported on June 14 that Cybersecurity expert, libertarian presidential candidate, and founder of McAfee antivirus, John McAfee is taking over as CEO at publicly-traded MGT Capital Investments, Inc. In his new role, McAfee is already focusing on how to secure cryptocurrencies. The company previously invested in and developed a wide array of intellectual property.
- According to Colu CEO Amos Meiri in a recent Wired article, widespread use of blockchain technology could help local economies stay local and support small and medium-sized businesses. Colu offers a toolbox for building blockchain-based applications.
- A new whitepaper proposes ending homeless hunger with the blockchain. The paper, drafted by BlockCrushr founder Scott Burke, descrbies a mechanism to revolutionize person-to-person street giving using the Ethereum blockchain in co-operation with community organizations and food retailers to increase market efficiency by tapping into cashless payment methods and to ensure that the giver’s value is spent for the intended purpose: feeding the receiver.
- Microsoft director of blockchain business development and strategy Marley Gray authored a whitepaper released this week about Project Bletchley, Microsoft’s architectural approach to building an Enterprise Consortium Blockchain Ecosystem. Bletchly is not a new blockchain stack; it is Microsoft’s approach to bringing distributed ledger platforms into the enterprise to build real solutions addressing real business problems while keeping the platform open.
- Financial Times reported this week that Canada is experimenting with putting a digital version of its currency called CAD-Coin on the blockchain. The initiative will involve issuing, transferring and settling central bank assets on a distributed ledger.
- Finally, big news this week in the world of The DAO. Last week there was an exploitation in the DAO’s contract code that allowed one user to acquire around $50 million USD of Ether using a recursive attack. Ethereum developers stopped the attack and are now faced with the choice of letting the thief withdraw the money in 27 days or attempting to stop the withdrawal, which would require a solution called a hard fork that would change the Ethereum protocol. The crypto-community remains divided and the DAO’s very existence is in jeopardy.
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