Large Japanese Company testing out Bitcoin

A large consumer electronics company in Japan has announced that they will be working with one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, to allow users to pay with Bitcoin in two of their consumer facing locations. The company, Yamada Denki, will be working with Bitflyer to conduct this initial process and will be rolling out this service in two of their locations, most likely as a test, before rolling it out to their other locations.

The company noted in their press release, that the first store will be located in the Shinjuku area of the larger city, Tokyo. This is an area that is usually visited by many tourists for the many attractions present there, according to wikitravel, the area is a hub of activity with huge business, commercial, and entertainment centers located atop the world’s busiest railway station complex.

Placing the first implementation of accepting Bitcoin at this location makes strategic sense for the company, as it will surely have exposure to more people within the city and the many travellers that frequent the city. The other location that they will be deploying this new service to, will be a location in the primary business district of the large city of Tokyo.

The company is seeking to add more to their services and have a further focus on Bitcoin in its operations.

Causes for Yamada Denki’s move 

The company can use this opportunity to stay relevant and adapt to changes that are taking place in the country while catering to consumer sentiment and tastes. Furthermore, with integration of Bitcoin, they may be able to serve customers at home and abroad in a better way.

This is not the first company to have conducted such a move, accepting Bitcoin or having it as a part of it’s operations. Last year, we noted companies like GMO Internet, who have paid a portion of the salaries in the cryptocurrency.

Then, another example of using Bitcoin was put forth by Bic Camera, who has worked with bitFlyer to implement the acceptance of Bitcoin and has also noted that they will be seeking to roll out the service to more of its locations across the nation.

There are, of course, more companies that are rolling these programs out and accepting Bitcoin as payment or using it as payment because of the regulatory conditions in Japan.  Bitcoin is accepted as legal tender and is looked upon in a more favorable manner by the government, so that it is not a concern for business to roll out and experiment with the currency in this blatant manner. The government of Japan has been quite clear in how they see the cryptocurrency and has backed up these statements with the proper legislation, thus taking out fear and concern of the regulatory nature among consumers and businesses in that region.

About Yamada Denko

The Yamada Denki Group originated as a private electric goods store established in 1973. Under “Creation and Challenge” and “Appreciation and Trust” as our management philosophy, we have constantly facilitated innovation for the sustainable growth and development of the company. We consider the time when we commenced business as the first start-up period, and the time when we changed ourselves from a community-based general shop to a mass merchandiser as the second start-up period. We are now in the third start-up period. With such awareness, we are adopting a proactive business approach while envisaging future development.

We aim to be an IoT* company with the largest service network in Japan through the cultivation of various solution businesses and other innovative business development, from the viewpoint of customers and based on a downstream perspective, as well as through proactive initiatives for continuously enhancing corporate value from the medium- and longterm perspectives.

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Zebpay adds Litecoin for trading

It was recently announced by Zebpay, a cryptocurrency exchange in India, that it is going to add Litecoin to its growing list of offered cryptocurrencies. This makes Litecoin the second Bitcoin fork to make it to Zepbay recently, as the Indian cryptocurrency exchange had added Bitcoin Cash to its platform earlier this month. Litecoin will be available for buying, selling and trading through the platform.

What is zebpay?

Launched in 2012, Zebpay is one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges in India. In addition to being considered one of the largest exchanges in the country, it is one of the foremost exchanges in terms of popularity when it comes to the Indian community – backed by the fact that it currently holds over 2 million users.

Only Bitcoin was offered through its platform until late 2017, Zebpay has since started adding more cryptocurrencies to its offerings. The company states that it might add more cryptocurrencies in the near future – specifically, Ethereum and Ripple.

One of the most apparent reasons for this move is business expansion for the exchange. However, another reason that alludes to it expanding its once Bitcoin-exclusive portfolio could be the struggles that it faced during the last two months of 2017 in order to meet the growing demand for Bitcoin trading. By adding more cryptocurrencies to its portfolio, it seems that the exchange wants to provide its users with the option to go with other cryptocurrencies in case the prime cryptocurrency trading is causing delays at the time.

Some functions that need to be resolved by zebpay

With this announcement, Zebpay also updated its mobile wallet app – its primary service – to have the new options regarding Litecoin available to its users.

It is prudent to note, however, that while Zebpay now offers its users the ability to “trade” in 3 different cryptocurrencies, said cryptocurrencies cannot be traded directly with each other. In case any user wants to trade between their cryptocurrencies, then they need to do so by first converting their held cryptocurrency into fiat, and then “buy” the new cryptocurrency that they want to hold in their wallet. Needless to say, this move causes market volatility in addition to having Zebpay users going through additional steps to execute simple actions.

With growing competition from its counterparts within the country along with the  tax moves by the government that have caused new users to be skeptical about cryptocurrency trading, Zebpay needs to work on, not only finding more cryptocurrencies to add to its platform, but also to add a trading feature so its users could experience cryptocurrency trading the way that it is practiced in most territories around the world.

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Uphold gets more than $50 million to add XRP

It will not be news for anyone involved with the cryptocurrency industry that XRP, Ripple’s cryptocurrency, gets to be perceived with a particular sense of dislike among most members of this community. One of the major reasons for this is suggested to be Ripple’s association with banks – as to some people, that comes off as Ripple is going against the very notion of cryptocurrencies and their idea of keeping away from centralized financial institutions.

Therefore, while Ripple gets to be lauded for its various business deals across the globe, its cryptocurrency, XRP, gets dragged down due to not being an “actual cryptocurrency” (although still returning investors a nice profit).

However, this attitude only fuels the intentions of Ripple’s supporters to make it available to the public in a wider capacity so they could prove Ripple’s mettle in the real world. The latest update to this approach comes in the form of Uphold’s cryptocurrency exchange receiving an investment of $57.5 million in exchange for ensuring trading services for XRP.

Details of the investment

The investment comes from Greg Kidd, who is known for his various investments throughout different industries, most notable of which include his early decisions of financial support for Twitter and Coinbase way before the companies grew to be at their current stature. Starting in 2013, Kidd also served Ripple as a chief risk officer for two years. He currently runs GlobaliD as its CEO, which is an organization that provides digital ID services.

As part of the arrangement, Uphold, which has been in operations for almost half a decade, will receive 20% of the investment as a cash deal for funding its own research operations regarding cryptocurrencies and their integration with its own and various other platforms. The research facility will be called Uphold Labs.

Among its defined functionalities, one of the initial objectives for Uphold Labs will be to have “platform integrations with the Ripple ecosystem”.

As per Kidd, Uphold will also add XRP to its trading platform soon. This will be a major development for the cryptocurrency since it is currently not available on major U.S. exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini.

Kidd mentioned that, for an exchange, the decisions to determine which cryptocurrencies it should trade would serve as crucial facts in the future.

“Out of all the thousands of coins, someone’s going to have to decide which ones are worth making markets in, which ones are going to be compliant enough,” Kidd stated. “Market interests make it worth their while.”

In addition to this, Kidd’s investment also holds certain other notable aspects, such as his warrant to have a 10 percent stake in Uphold. One more significant part of the investment is Kidd’s requirement to have an insurance fund for the users of Uphold, which could be utilized in case of a cyberattack on the exchange that results in a loss of funds.

This is being done to provide users with the assurance of investing their funds without the fear of losing them to unforeseen events, preventing infamous instances such as Mt. Gox which left its users stranded.

Kidd, who also served in the Federal Reserve System and is a former regulator, holds this in very high regard and believes that it could help Uphold stand against larger exchanges since this would provide potential users with peace of mind.

“It’s to level the playing field,” Kidd said. “People just assume Coinbase has enough money and can withstand a hack. But if you’re a smaller exchange, people are like, ‘What kind of assurance do I have if something bad happens?’”

It seems beneficial for both Uphold and Ripple

With the investment and the company’s plans to utilize it in these various aspects, it certainly seems that Uphold could emerge as one of the major players in the U.S. market in the near future. All in all, it would be a good step towards the establishment of cryptocurrency trading as a valid segment of financial institutions.

Needless to say, it is also great news for Ripple, which is currently making rounds in UAE for not just partnering with one of the regional banks for instant blockchain payments, but also for having XRP listed in BitOasis, the top cryptocurrency exchange in Dubai.

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This Company Wants To Bring Compliance and Transparency To The Crypto Market

There’s certainly no denying that cryptocurrency has become rather popular lately. And that’s with good reason — it offers ordinary buyers a chance to make enormous amounts of money in a short space of time.

It’s also an extremely effective way to send money across international borders, and to trade on a peer-to-peer basis. Those with an interest in cryptocurrency are generally pretty keen to shout from the rooftops about its potential to change the way we do commerce.

Until now, though, the cryptocurrency market has been a bit like the Wild West. Because of cryptocurrency’s anonymous, decentralized nature, it’s hard to track exactly what’s going on.

Some countries have taken steps to regulate crypto — one of the most notorious examples of this is China, who shut down all their exchanges last year. But this kind of forceful approach doesn’t really work with an internet-based technology, and it’s still relatively easy to buy and sell cryptocurrencies anywhere in the world.

The result is that cryptocurrency exchanges are still the main avenue for anyone looking to get involved in the market. And that’s an issue, because these exchanges are often riddled with problems.

The problems with crypto

Currently, crypto exchanges are kind of a law unto themselves. They exist outside of any official regulation or compliance rules, and are often anything but transparent about what goes on behind their doors.

One of the major issues facing users of these exchanges is the possibility of hacks. Cyber attacks targeted at exchanges are nothing new, and often have disastrous results. The Mt. Gox hack of 2014 resulted in the theft of $350 million. Often, users simply have to accept that their coins are gone.

There are no bodies holding exchanges to account for poor security, and protections for users are often not good enough.

Another common issue in the crypto exchange space is that of front running. This is a shady financial practice where brokers find out about a large planned trade that is sure to increase the value of stock, and then get in beforehand and buy some, knowing it will surge in price.

In the world of traditional, regulated finance, this behaviour is usually detected and punished. In cryptocurrency, however, it’s harder to track. Since all transactions are kept anonymous, it’s possible for exchanges to jump the line and buy crypto ahead of upcoming trades.

That increases the price for the next buyer, and increases the commission the exchange can charge. Not good for genuine traders.

All of this is bad for exchange users in the short term, but it’s also bad for the reputation of cryptocurrency in the long term. This market has suffered more than its fair share of negative press over the years, with links to crime and money laundering. Allowing dishonest behaviour to go unchecked just makes the whole industry look bad and can deter serious investors.

So what’s the solution?

Legolas’ answer

A company called Legolas believes it can change the way crypto is traded by making the process more transparent.

The team behind Legolas will do this by using blockchain — the very technology that underpins cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is a way of storing data that’s extremely transparent by nature, because it’s a decentralized ledger of information with no central party in control. It’s shared between a pool of users, all of whom can see every change that is made in real time.

If anybody makes a change to the blockchain which is considered fraudulent, the entire network can see and take action to stop it.

Legolas is a new, centralized cryptocurrency exchange that wants to leverage this technology to make cryptocurrency trading fairer and more transparent. To achieve this, they’ll use blockchain to stop front running.

Essentially, every planned transaction will be recorded on their blockchain, and it’ll be impossible to alter the sequence of those transactions. That means anyone who wants to get ahead of a planned trade will not be able to do so.

Legolas will also work closely with regulator firms like Makor Securities and real, brick-and-mortar global banks to increase their credibility. They’ll allow users to store their fiat deposits safely in actual banks and offer protections that other exchanges have failed to offer.

Impressive credentials

Legolas is headed by Frédéric Montagnon, who sold his previous company, Teads, for almost $400 million last year. There’s also Elie Galam, a Harvard graduate who manages a hedge fund with more than 70 traders in the U.S. and Asia. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; Legolas’ team contains many more highly experienced and qualified members of the finance industry.

They’ll use their expertise to blend traditional, regulated finance with the world of cryptocurrency to create a safer, more transparent, and more rewarding experience for all crypto traders.

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One Of South Korea’s Largest Ecommerce Platforms Announces They’ll Soon Be Accepting Payments in Cryptocurrency!

A major ecommerce player in the country of South Korea has announced that they will be implementing twelve cryptocurrencies into their ecommerce platform. This basket of digital currencies that they will be adding to their platform will have currencies like Litecoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum. The, ecommerce platform, Wemakeprice, will be working with a large cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, to do so. Payments in cryptocurrency could lead to an even greater demand in South Korea where they’re already one of the biggest players.

Big move for the integration of cryptocurrencies

Local publications in the country of South Korea have noted that the ecommerce platform is seeking to work the south korean cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb, to allow for more ways to pay when purchasing on their site. After this implementation is done, customers of the website will be able to enjoy making payments, for their different purchases, through some of the more prominent cryptocurrencies on the market.

As a way to remove less friction from the buying process, the WeMakePrice is making certain that users do not have to members of the Bithumb platform to be able to make purchases through their cryptocurrencies on the shopping site. The WeMakePrice and Bithumb collaborations seems to taking place solely on the implementation level.

A representative from WeMakePrice has confirmed that they will be taking this actions as part of bigger picture of making their platform better and easier to use for a wider audience. The representative stated

“Integrating cryptocurrencies is a part of our initiative to make payments more convenient for our consumers and clients. We consider mobile fintech apps, points, and cryptocurrencies as efficient payment methods.”

Significance

The significance of this move stems from the fact that the cryptocurrency industry continues to grow and is extending its application and use cases. Another important fact is that this could be a signal that the digital currencies are here to stay in the South Korean nation and across the world.

 

How will consumers react?

Consumer reaction will be interesting, at the moment, many are looking at these assets, as just that, assets, they speculate and buy and sell as needed to profit from the price movements. There might be more instances of individuals using these cryptocurrencies in daily transactions as the industry develops and more stability comes into the picture. The innovations of TenX and players like BitPay help to convert your crypto into fiat for transactions thus helping to make way for consumers to purchase with Bitcoin at the current moment, but in a time of potential value increase, who wants to sell?

Overstock, an ecommerce player integrated payments in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin into their platform a while back and saw a slight jump in use initially, but afterwards, they only saw a small percentage of their revenues coming from payments in cryptocurrency. But in South Korea where the public are more popular, maybe this comes at the perfect time!

Other points of interest would be, which cryptocurrency will be in large use primarily for general payments across the board? Will it be a cryptocurrency that only serves that purpose and nothing more? Like say a verge or dogecoin, which, unlike, QTUM or Ethereum, isn’t seeking to serve as a platform but more of a currency? Will it be Bitcoin, after it’s fixes, a currency that is currently, being considered as more of a long term asset like gold?

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Ripple Update & The Year Ahead

What’s going on with Ripple?

The pressing matter of how many companies are truly set to use Ripple is a concern that is on the minds of many who are watching the controversial cryptocurrency.

Ripple has a had a flurry of activity in signing up banks to work with them and provide them with  services such as xCurrent, and bringing them to the new payment processing era. Yet, this flurry of activity might have been widely confused by many to imply that the company was partnering with these various banks to provide them the incentive and ability to use XRP in their day to operations for its several use cases. This was certainly not the case. As a matter of fact, in reality, only a few have expressed their intent in using XRP, an even those few are using XRP in a pilot or test setting in an internal manner. Who are these few? Moneygram, and a financial institution based in Mexico, called Cualix. These two firms plus, Mercury FX and the telecom service company called IDT, have signed up to test out their xRapid product to tap into Ripple’s offering of liquidity.

These firms signing up to test XRP and it’s utility may serve as an initial good sign in that, at the very least, Ripple is trying to work with companies to get them to sample the potential benefits of using their cryptocurrency XRP, giving XRP investors hope and renewing their faith in the bankers coin.

But of course, one question does now linger. Will these companies that are testing out XRP internally, be deploying them in their day to day operations?

The Chief Executive Officer of Ripple Comments

Garlinghouse, the chief executive officer of Ripple has been quite vocal on his thoughts on the lack of faith in XRP.

Just the other day he’s tweeted out what xRapid could do for financial institutions, and how it could truly help alleviate pains in the cross-border payment process.

“Curious how xRapid alleviates the pain of cross-border payments?

“Rather than MoneyGram putting millions in cash into a country and then exposing that cash to price volatility, they would be able to exchange money in real time and on the fly.”

Yet, the fact does remain that at the present moment, the institutions that are using xRapid are using it solely for internal purposes and are testing out before it can be deployed elsewhere. This is not troubling news in and of itself, this simply means that the institutions are doing their due diligence and are in the checking stages, looking to see if the product can live up to its expectations and can help them meet their current needs.

A representative of Mercury FX told Coindesk that ““I imagine we will be able to begin using XRP for customer payments in the coming months.”

The next question

The next questions that will continue to linger the in minds of current and potential investors is, when will institutions that are piloting xRapid, confirm its utility and roll it out to for regular use? How many will eventually deploy it this year?

2018 will be an interesting year to look forward to as projects like Ripple take more action to live up to their promises and road maps.

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Coincheck Seeks To Reimburse Customers After Recent $530 Million Hack!

Cyberattacks against cryptocurrency exchanges are unfortunately, somewhat common now. Such exchanges are finding out that they need to continue to pay attention to security on a regular basis. If not, hackers are become more evolved than the exchanges’ defense mechanism,  and this results in hacks and loss of funds.

Another common instance is for the customers to lose those funds altogether – which might just have reminded you of Mt Gox, an incident that is still painful for people associated with it.

However, what is not so common in these situations, is the news of such exchanges, actually reimbursing a large portion of the amount of stolen funds back to their customers. Which may be why the news of a recently hacked exchange giving the affected customers most of their money back, was a breeze of fresh air.

What makes the effect more profound is the fact that the incident in which the funds were lost is being reported as one of the biggest thefts of cryptocurrencies ever.

Details about the incident

Two days ago, the cryptocurrency industry was shaken when Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Coincheck, reported that it had fallen prey to a massive cyberattack. The Coincheck Hack caused the exchange to lose over $530 million in NEM coins.

After the last couple of days in which the exchange’s users went through grief, anger and frustration, the exchange announced that it would reimburse around 90 percent of the amount that it lost to the hacking incident.

In an official statement released after the hack, the Tokyo based exchange explained that it would be reimbursing around 260,000 customers that had been affected by the hack.

A timeline or complete method was not defined by the exchange for the reimbursement process at the time, but the statement did explain that customers will be repaid in Japanese Yen through their Coincheck wallet.

It was also mentioned that the capital will be “derived from company funds.”

In the statement, the exchange also offered its apologies to its customers for the distress that the situation had caused them with the hack and the subsequent suspension of services faced by the exchange.

However, the exchange assured its users that its staff, is doing all it can, to determine the details of the transfer that took place with the hack. It also stated that it is currently working on revamping and restructuring its security functions in order to ensure that such an instance does not happen again.

The exchange also mentioned that it is also deploying efforts to register with the Financial Service Agency (FSA) – which is a financial regulatory authority in Japan – as a “Virtual Currency Exchange Service Provider.”

 

Order from the FSA

Soon after the incident, Coincheck received an official order from the FSA, that asked the exchange to put its affairs in check.

The exchange explained to its customers that it has accepted the terms of the order and is looking into its business practices while also working to clarify the details of the case in order to ensure that it could determine a cause of the breach and strengthen its security definitions further.

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Litecoin and Monero Joining Forces To Make Them ‘interoperable’?

Charlie Lee, founder of Litecoin, has been in the news for reportedly selling all of his Litecoin – a move which earned him phrases such as “abandoning his own coin” and “putting his financial interests above Litecoin” – but he recently made himself noticeable for a completely different reason by expressing his intent to merge Litecoin and Monero.

Where did it all start?

The news initiated by a tweet from Monero’s project lead, Riccardo Spagni, in which he had posted his picture with Lee and had mentioned a merger playfully.

“Such a productive few days, finally got to sit down with @SatoshiLite [Lee’s Twitter handle] and talk about a possible merger between the Litecoin Enterprise Alliance and the Monero Enterprise Alliance, which we’d obviously call the LAMEA. #blessed #justblockchainthings”

While Spagni might have been kidding, the comments struck a chord with Lee, who immediately came forward with his own series of tweets to consider the idea seriously.

Commenting on the idea in a tweet of his own, Lee was quick to mention that even though he knew that Spagni was joking, he did consider the idea and thought that “it would be good” for Monero and Litecoin to “work together”.

In his next tweet, Lee mentioned that it would be a “win-win” for both Monero and Litecoin since it would make them “interoperable.”

He further mentioned that by working together, Monero will have access to Litecoin’s liquidity since the latter is “close to all exchanges,” while Litecoin would be able to benefit from the anonymity and fungibility that Monero would bring to the table with the collaboration.

He also mentioned that he had spoken to Spagni earlier about the possibility of enabling on-chain atomic swaps between the two cryptocurrencies.

However, he was quick to point out that this functionality will take some time to work properly on Monero and it was up to the Monero community to decide if moving forward with such a functionality would be a “good idea” or not.

 

So…is this a “good idea?”

A Litecoin Monero partnership would be a good idea, as before the recent drop in value after reports of Lee selling off his personal Litecoin reserve, Litecoin has been one of the most stable cryptocurrencies with access to multiple exchanges around the world. The cryptocurrency – unlike Bitcoin – is not that high in value, but also unlike Bitcoin, has been able to be stable even through the recent drop in Bitcoin’s value.

While Litecoin offers faster transactions and stability in value, Monero offers functions in terms of anonymity.

If the merger or even collaboration on atomic swaps takes place, it will be beneficial for these cryptocurrencies from the perspective of functionality. However, the long term effects of this will have to be considered by the community belonging to each of these coins.

 

About atomic swaps

Atomic swaps allow inter-currency transfers between blockchains without having an intermediary such as a cryptocurrency exchange between them.

It is akin to how someone from the U.S. can use the Visa network to use an ATM in another country to get cash from their account, but in the destination country’s native currency. The currencies get exchanged internally without the customer having to go to a third party.

Due to the benefits that atomic swaps could provide, implementing them is being considered by a lot of new blockchains, and the latest one to boast of them is the Bitcoin Atom hard fork that was announced earlier this month.

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Oil and Gas Giants Planning To Tap Into Blockchain Technology

Due to the possibilities that it offers with its immense potential, blockchain technology is being adopted by institutions and industries left, right and center.

Therefore, it was no surprise when a company from the oil and gas industry announced its plans to tap into blockchain technology, in order to improve the business’ order-to-cash processes – a move that is being lauded by members of both the business and technological communities, due to its logical approach.

The venture, dubbed as Ondiflo, is being launched by Amalto SA, a provider of business solutions such as field data management, logistics and order-to-cash.  The company has joined hands with ConsenSys, a blockchain solutions provider, in order to lead the venture optimally from a joint perspective of business and technology. The venture is also being joined by Sandro Giannetti, a startup investor, who will also be Ondiflo’s CEO.

With Ondiflo, the companies aim to target various steps pertaining to the order-to-cash process in the oil and gas industry in order to improve them further and to have the whole process executed and completed in a timely manner.

Ondiflo is being described as a ticket-based blockchain platform that will be utilizing previous methods and programs developed by Amalto and ConsenSys to its advantage, where it will combine them and improve upon them to deliver industry-level solutions that could be applied to an array of situations.

The venture will be built upon the Ethereum blockchain infrastructure. It was also mentioned by the companies that it will be a consortium that brings together relevant parties from related segments of the industry. Two notable examples of such segments are, suppliers and financial organizations that play key roles in executing order-to-cash processes.

It was also mentioned that the approach to adopt the solution on an industry-wide level will be derived from existing standards such as the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX).

 

The companies are excited about this joint venture

Speaking about Ondiflo, Amalto’s CEO, Jean-Pierre Foehn, stated that by streamlining the integral steps with the order-to-cash process, the platform will redefine how the industry approaches core functions in this day and age.

“By seamlessly managing data from IoT sensors at the well site or the storage terminal to the fulfillment stage” Foehn stated. “And, eventually, to the payment stage, and by bringing all stakeholders and trading partners to the Blockchain, Ondiflo is going to radically change how the industry manages its back-office. It will increase the level of trust between operators and suppliers, and also improve regulatory compliance.”

Giannetti shared similar thoughts and explained that the usage of solutions such as smart contracts will help in making the process easier to execute while also cutting costs of how the current processes are performed.

“The visibility and efficiency afforded by Blockchain and smart contracts will allow us to offer a low-cost payment and supplier financing solution that will dramatically reduce transaction times to oil and gas service providers.” He said.

It was further mentioned that an initial meeting of stakeholders of the consortium will take place on February 15 at Ondiflo headquarters in Houston, Texas.

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Bitcoin Blockchain To Be Used To Validate Academic Credentials

The blockchain technology is expanding from its once-conventional setting in financial markets. Due to its offered capabilities, the technology is being tested and adopted by some of the biggest business firms and shipping corporations in the world, and one of the most recent initiatives in this regard now comes in the form of an academic verification system.

The UCL Center for Blockchain Technologies at the University College London (UCL CBT) recently announced a blockchain based pilot project that will be used to verify academic credentials.

With this initiative, the UCL CBT intends to streamline the verification process that is integral to major companies’ hiring process. Since that process sometimes requires additional steps and time from the end of the university staff, this initiative aims to improve it.

The project is being launched in partnership with Gradbase, a technology company that leverages the Bitcoin blockchain.

Gradbase will utilize its functions in order to implement comprehensive yet timely processes for verification, while aiming to cut costs and time involved with the conventional execution of such procedures.

By executing the project, the stakeholders aim to demonstrate how effectively the blockchain technology can be used in various sectors.

The scientific director of the UCL CBT, Professor Tomaso Aste, shared similar thoughts.

“The pilot will show that blockchain technology can be used outside of the financial sector,” Aste said. “It will boost the CVs of students, providing proof of concept for the future potential to reduce universities’ burden processing verification requests and cut down the cost and time to verify qualifications for employers.”

 

How will the procedure work?

Academic Credentials are too easy to fake at the moment. Anyone with a printer and the ability to tell a lie could fake certification and get a job they’re not really qualified for. The blockchain is the perfect solution.

Since blockchain works through a distributed ledger technology (DLT), it ensures that any data which is updated to the blockchain remains transparent and accessible while also being secure and tamper proof.

These functionalities ensure that any verification which is being performed by the system is accurate at all times and has not been changed by any party without recorded information.

Building upon this concept, the pilot project will focus on providing almost-instant verification to users of the system.

During the initial steps of this project, MSc Financial Risk Management graduates will get the ability to provide a QR code to potential employers and relevant parties that might want to verify their academic credentials.

The QR code can then be utilized by the verifying parties through relevant systems, and that will result in them obtaining verification information through the Bitcoin blockchain. This is not just provided instantly, but will also come with the assurance of being completely authentic.

While definitely a great step, this initiative is not the only one of its kind to be introduced in recent times.

It had been announced earlier this month by GRNET, Greece’s national research and education network, that it has partnered with IOHK to utilize the Cardano blockchain in order to develop and implement an academic verification system.

 

 Great news for blockchain

Initiatives like this only go on to show that the blockchain technology is not limited to be used in cryptocurrencies or even simply in financial institutions. While it might take some time for these solutions to be adopted by institutions on a massive level, it would not be incorrect to state that these initial steps will be leading blockchain towards something greater in the future.

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