Blockchain Documentary Released In New York

A theatrical release of a documentary film that profiles distributed ledger technology has been released in New York a little less than a week ago.

It was written and directed by Alex Winter and titled “Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain.”

The movie run 84 minutes long and covers the history of bitcoin as well as the different use cases of distributed ledger technology.

One of the executive producer of the film is Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum and blockchain software technology firm Consensys.

The documentary reveals that the 2008 global financial crisis was the reason that triggered the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto to develop an open, decentralized ledger for transactions.

The movie also reveals that, due to its inherent properties which enable users to exchange value peer-to-peer without intermediaries, has attracted the attention of people who wants to utilize it for illicit deals.

This has given the revolutionary financial mechanism a bad reputation particularly with the authorities.

10 years down the road Bitcoin is still struggling to shake-off such negative perception and reputation.

Aside from tackling the history of blockchain and its fist application, Bitcoin, it also illustrates some of the contributions blockchain technology can make to the world.

These includes use cases in combating identity theft or transforming power distribution by empowering micro-producers of power such as households who are able to generate solar power could sell their excess back to the grid.

According to film critics, the documentary is good for people who are unfamiliar with blockchain technology and does a decent job of explaining the basic concept about blockchain and its possible use cases.

French Business College Now Accepting Cryptocurrencies

A college based in France, Paris has announced that they will be accepting tuition fees paid in Bitcoins.

Financia Business School offers post-graduate courses in financial and blockchain technology and has started allowing their students to pay their tuition fee via cryptocurrencies.

Since this initiative there had been a couple of students who opted to pay with digital assets.

The acceptance of cryptocurrencies as a method of payment has allowed foreign students to circumvent the excessively high cost associated with the use of fiat currencies.

Students who want to use this method of payment must do so through Coin Capital, a startup company that specializes in digital assets and blockchain technology.

The said company has entered into a partnership with the French business school.

According to one of the early users of this new payment method, Adam Hasib, he relishes that fact that he will be able to register with the school using his cryptocurrencies.

The school reveals that it is committed to embrace emerging technologies within the financial sector and will continue to develop its curriculum to reflect the fast changing landscape of crypto sphere.

The acceptance of crypto as tuition fee payments is one of this which will be complemented by several blockchain-inspired administrative innovations.

These will include the creation of a token for the payment of services within the school and partner institutions, the launch of proof of concept around blockchain projects by and for students and the reinforcement of courses on blockchain, initial coin offerings and other related subjects.

Blockchain Will Surge In 2019 According Fidelity Digital Assets Lead

The whole cryptocurrency community is brimming with excitement upon the news that one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. and perhaps in the world, with a clientele of more than 13,000 institutional clients will be entering the Cryptocurrency Market.

Fidelity Investment, a Boston-based multinational investment services corporation with more than $6.9 trillion assets under its care, has began its foray into cryptocurrency market through a subsidiary called Fidelity Digital Asset Services (FDAS).

The subsidiary will be headed by Tom Jessop, who plans to offer top-of-the-line cryptocurrency custody for FDAS customers.

It will also offer to handle trade executions for it clients, aggregating data on exchanges to comply with what they call “Fidelity Standard” before transacting on behalf of its clients.

According to Jessop, Fidelity interest in cryptocurrencies and its underlying technology, blockchain, started way back in 2014 and in fact has been experimented on by the Fidelity research lab.

This had Fidelity to experiment with bitcoin mining as well as using it internally to purchase in-company cafeteria items using BTC.

This eventually, after years of experimentation, led to the decision of the creation of FDAS.

Jessop explains that FDAS’ mission is to provide institutional brokerage capabilities for family offices, hedge funds, and other institutions that are or want to invest in digital assets.

These services include top-notch custodial solutions and price discovery support by giving FDAS’ clients access to interrogate a number of liquidity providers and market venues.

The entry of Fidelity as well as other financial giants in the crypto industry marks an interesting time for cryptocurrency in general and widely seen as raising the bar of legitimacy in the space and helps accelerate the growth of the crypto/blockchain market.

Bank Of Canada Official: Fiat and Crypto Co-Existing Could Work

The Senior Deputy of the Bank of Canada (BoC), Carolyn Wilkins have provided a refreshing open-minded view on cryptocurrency in her recent presentation on distributed ledger technologies (DLT).

The scope of her talk revolved around how DLT is affecting or could affect the BoC’s ability to discharge its duties as a socially-minded lender of last resort and developer of monetary policy.

She also proposed of a possibility of a central bank-issued digital asset.

She points out the ironies that abound in the crypto-asset industry saying with all its hype of being decentralization, Bitcoin mining, an important aspect in securing the bitcoin network is very concentrated due to the limited number of mining pools.

She explains that it only shifts the need to trust to programmers which she describes as having too much power without the accompanying responsibility.

She also reveals that that the lack of money-creating faculty harm cryptocurrencies as it is a very complex academic subject with regards to money supply and inflation.

According to her, there are three critical criteria of DLT: decentralized, efficient and having correct ledger.

With all her concerns about distributed ledger technology she revealed that she is still excited about what the future will hold for DLT and the jury is still out on whether or not the BoC could be interested in issuing its own token in the future.

This is one of the biggest questions that her organization have faced in a while, because it has implication for financial inclusion, privacy access, to asset safety and at the same time there are some major commercial interest at stake.

Berlin Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Hotspot

For the past several years, Berlin has become one of the go-to places for cryptocurrency and blockchain project initiatives and has been a leader across Europe in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

It has become a melting pot of a range of developers, entrepreneurs and those who are generally interested in cutting-edge technology have put Berlin as one of the top crypto places to be in.

This has enticed a growing number of companies and talents to consider moving in the German capital, especially in light of Brexit.

One of the lead developers of Ethereum, Fabian Vogelsteller, have mentioned in the past that Berilin is the crypto capital of Europe, if not the world.

Aside from the concentration of talent and companies related to blockchain and crypto in the city its low cost of living and number of co-working spaces have drawn people to start working in the area.

Jazmine Zhang of LongHash Germany, a blockchain accelerator, noted that the diversity of talent coming into Berlin has engendered a very open ecosystem where people have the desire to work together and partner with each other since they share excitement about cutting edge-technology.

The immense growth of the industry inside Berlin and across Germany has led to a more harmonious and willingness to collaborate with governments authorities.

A blockchain trade association dubbed as Bundesblog has been created to help facilitate collaboration between the industry and the government as well has to promote the technology.

This proactive interaction between the government and industry will ensure the continuous growth of the nascent sector as well as accelerate its efforts for mass adoption with the help of the government.

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