On September 27, the EU Competitiveness Council met in Brussels to discuss how to support Europe’s digitization, particularly with regard to artificial intelligence — an area that has tremendous potential, but also faces extreme global competition. AI, of course, runs on data. The unfortunate reality is that U.S. tech companies control and exploit large amounts of European data, in turn monopolizing our digital economy.

That’s why I, among 16 other executives, signed a letter to the council’s ministers—who engaged in a public policy debate and “competitiveness check-up” at Thursday’s meeting—urging a focus on these monopolies and the unfair business practices they get away with, from the exclusion of third parties to spontaneous changes to terms and conditions to unjustified interference, to name a few. There are alternatives to giving away the data, and thus, sovereignty,—something I emphasized as part of the National Digital Council in France and as the leader of numerous working groups focused on AI and privacy.

France, for one, has worked hard to attract major foreign investment in this space, opening AI hubs while seemingly ignoring the fact that Google, Apple, Facebook and the like don’t pay taxes in the country, yet still extract significant wealth from it. This hurts innovation and many local startups working hard to improve the region. London, Paris, Berlin, and Zug are popular tech destinations, yet they often get overshadowed or pushed out of the market because of the dominant U.S. players. Google, of course, dominates web search market, conducting 77% of all internet searches and processing 400,000 every second—gathering significant amounts of data in the process. Such dominance means, as AI specialist Cedric Villani aptly put it, that large foreign companies threaten Europe with “cybercolonization.”

Online platforms that mediate buying and selling account for a whopping 60% of the private consumption of digital goods and services. Europe cannot be lax and blindly open its market to foreign platforms who are only creating monopolies. Their goal is to lock both buyers and sellers into their ecosystem—to be the central point of the majority of digital transactions. This level of centralization has become synonymous with a dependency on tech oligopolies, and a lack of country sovereignty. Even the “local” companies we think we have working in AI are often very dependent on U.S. tech.

The good news is that every problem that exists with closed, proprietary marketplaces and platforms can be solved easily with blockchain. Through the GDPR, Europe and France have already been the first to regulate data privacy, protecting both individual rights and digital sovereignty from foreign tech giants. Blockchain—which in fact has developed faster in Europe than in Silicon Valley—can take this a step further, and can transform Europe in to the next Crypto Valley. Decentralized AI means that algorithms run directly on end-user devices, preventing sensitive data from being sent to the cloud at all.

Also, rather than having an intermediary between people buying and offering digital goods and services, blockchain allows peer-to-peer marketplaces. These marketplaces often have no fees, meaning all of the value can be captured by buyers and sellers. On the other hand, when U.S. tech giants hold a monopoly they can charge significant fees, force certain types of payments, and coerce end-users in a myriad of other ways. With a decentralized approach, no single person or company controls the content. The suppliers and buyers decide for themselves what should be included in the marketplace.

It can be tempting to want to make Europe attractive to some of the biggest names in tech and AI, but we must recognize what we are sacrificing by doing so. Many local startups can’t compete because having a monopoly means you can, more or less, do whatever you want—even if that means engaging in unfair business practices or doing things that are good for your bottom line but bad for actual users. One way to avoid such cybercolonization, though, is to embrace decentralized technologies. They’re the key to both innovation and sovereignty.

Article Produced By
Dr. Rand Hindi

https://cointelegraph.com/news/opinion-europe-must-embrace-blockchain-to-avoid-cybercolonization

Big Four audit and consultancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

is conducting a trial of its new blockchain-powered platform for ensuring the integrity of employee credentials. The trial, launched in partnership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), was announced in a PwC press release published on Feb. 28. PwC’s “Smart Credentials” platform, earlier unveiled on Feb. 13, implements blockchain to issue, store and securely share digital certificates for employees’ professional qualifications. For the trial with ICAS, PwC employees, who have qualified as chartered accountants at the Institute within the past two years, are being issued with a blockchain-based certificate from ICAS that becomes part of their unique digital wallet.

PwC contends that blockchain’s decentralized and tamper-proof architecture can significantly mitigate exposure to fraud. The firm argues that this reduces the risks and costs of screening qualifications when on-boarding employees, as well as simplifies the process of certificate issuance for regulators and institutions. It also provides a secure alternative to paper credentials, which are susceptible to loss and can be costly to replace.

For certificate issuers, using the blockchain platform places no requirements on them to store credentials on their in-house systems, lessening the burden on their infrastructure. With certificates stored on owners’ digital wallets, professionals can update them in accordance with personal development and may provide or revoke their visibility to reviewers. For employers, PwC proposes, the system bolsters confidence in the authenticity of employee documents. Smart Credentials is being pitched as a blockchain solution that can provide “verified, trusted and irrefutable [digital] identities” across multiple fields; Steve Davies, global blockchain leader at PwC, has

stated that:

“Blockchain was designed to allow participants to share data without needing intermediaries. No one party has central ownership, so individuals get more control over their personal data. […] You can also see the potential in any case where credentials are earned and continually updated – such as medical professionals, pilots or safety engineers.”

As reported this week, Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony and IT equipment services firm Fujitsu are to trial blockchain for enhancing the integrity of educational course records and students’ grade data. PwC continues to make multiple inroads into the blockchain and crypto sector worldwide, with investments — notably in China-based Internet-of-Things blockchain network VeChain — and an in-house blockchain and crypto accelerator program for over 1,000 PwC employees.

German automobile brand Mercedes-Benz Car has developed a platform

based on blockchain technology to increase transparency and sustainability in complex supply chains, according to press release published on Feb. 25. Mercedes-Benz, a division of Daimler AG, a German multinational automotive corporation, has partnered with United States-based software company Icertis for cooperating in the development of blockchain tech for supply chain use.

Mercedes-Benz has announced that that they have jointly developed and programmed a prototype with Icertis based on blockchain technology that allows for the storage of documentations and contracts in complex supply chains. The project allows for the creation of a transparent and sustainable mapping of sorted documents across the entire supply chain, the press release notes. The parties have now entered the testing phase of the pilot project. Underlining the complexity of the modern supply chains, Wilko Stark, a member of the divisional board of Management Mercedes-Benz, states that blockchain tech could affect “nearly the entire value chain,”

adding:

"Blockchain technology has the potential to fundamentally revolutionize our procurement processes […] With our Blockchain-prototype, we are in the first step testing one of diverse possible applications with the aim of increasing transparency beyond our direct suppliers."

As Cointelegraph wrote on Sep. 26, Porsche AG, another major German automobile manufacturer, announced their plans to increase investments in blockchain-related startups in order to “gain access to trends, new technologies and business models.” Earlier this month, one of largest general trading company in Japan, Itochu Corporation, officially announced the start of a proof-of-concept aimed at developing a blockchain-backed traceability system that would allow buyers and sellers to record transaction details about supply chains through a smartphone app, as Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 1.

Article Produced By
Max Yakubowski

https://cointelegraph.com/news/mercedes-benz-to-use-blockchain-tech-for-sustainable-transaction-book-supply-chains

Vakt, a blockchain-based post-trade platform

for oil, has signed up four new clients, according to a statement published on the platform’s website on Feb. 25. As per Etienne Amic, Vakt’s recently appointed CEO, the company has partnered with four new clients prior to its official launch at International Petroleum Week, which starts in London today, Feb. 26. The new users of the platform join major industry players that initially backed Vakt, including BP, Shell and Total, along with traders Gunvor and Mercuria, the press release notes. Other Vakt investors reportedly include industry giants Chevron, Equinor and Reliance Industries. The new contracts mean that Vakt will be used in about two-thirds of all oil deals in the North Sea region. According to Amic, the significant level of adoption in the energy sector could motivate others to

examine blockchain solutions:

“We felt that we needed about 60 to 70 per cent of a market to reach ignition point [that would] incentivise other people to join.”

According to the announcement, the platform is planning to expand its blockchain services to barges of oil products in northern Europe and United States crude pipelines. Vakt, whose main goal is to improve the routine of commodity trading and eliminate unnecessary paperwork and contracts, was launched back in November 2018, boasting major oil firms and banks as partners. Earlier this month, Amic — formerly a JPMorgan Chase executive — was appointed as Vakt’s new CEO. As Cointelegraph reported, he will be responsible for commodities trading. A similar platform was launched last year in Switzerland by a group of major global banks, trading firms and a leading energy company. The venture, dubbed Komgo SA, oversees a blockchain-based platform for commodity trading financing.

Article Produced By
Ana Berman

https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-post-trade-platform-vakt-partners-with-majority-of-north-sea-oil-market

Recently the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) 

granted statewide virtual currency licenses to two applicants: stock trading service Robinhood and cryptocurrency ATM operator LibertyX. The state’s regulatory regime, commonly known as BitLicense, imposes a set of strict disclosure and consumer-protection requirements on any business that offers cryptocurrency-related services to New York residents. Since the framework was introduced in 2015, only a handful of companies had their applications approved by the NYDFS: The elite club of BitLicense holders now counts just 16 entities, the two newcomers included.

The state has also demonstrated that it keeps close tabs on those who might be in violation of the compliance procedures: In September last year, the New York state attorney general's office published a report that raised concerns over price manipulations that were possibly taking place on cryptocurrency exchanges, and referred three of them to the state’s financial regulator.

While many American states strive to appeal to crypto businesses by implementing lenient policies and easing red-tape pressures on industry startups, New York has championed a regulatory approach more rigorous than that of most nation-states. Many influential figures in crypto community are cross with what they perceive as a vast governmental overreach, yet there seems to be no shortage of firms still ready to take on the pains of obtaining the license. But in the big picture, is this type of regulatory climate that exists in the world’s financial capital beneficial for the crypto industry, mainstream adoption and the Empire State itself?

Reasons to comply

For any company somehow related to finance, the benefits of doing business in New York and with New York residents are obvious. The number of powerful financial institutions per square foot is staggering, the Wall Street money is just a glance away, and a consumer market of almost 20 million people is no small deal, either. This is especially true if you are a prominent player in the nascent fintech industry longing for mainstream adoption.

New York legislators in Albany are well aware of their jurisdiction’s unique position as a major financial hub, and have been long acting accordingly. Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Research and Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings, explained that the tendency for strict state-level regulation has a

long history:

“Traditionally, Albany has been tougher than many other states in regulating — insurance, for example. They are the toughest state in regulating financial markets, too. They see themselves responsible for keeping the financial center.”

In the case of crypto, Weiss argued, New York’s centrality to the world’s financial system is a powerful enough factor to overcome the logic of crypto regulation applicable to almost

any other territory:

“Cryptocurrencies are, in essence, borderless. Regulation, in order to catch up, would also have to be borderless, crossing not only state boundaries but also national boundaries. New York is in a unique situation because it regulates a major financial center, the largest in the world. So as long as all those corporations want to remain domiciled in New York, legislators in Albany do have a jurisdictional reach that sticks. In most places in the world, if you try to regulate cryptocurrencies, they’ll just move to another jurisdiction. That is bound to happen with most of cryptocurrency institutions. But that’s not the case with New York.”

Vigilant New York state authorities became concerned with Bitcoin regulation fairly early: Ben Lawsky, the state’s Superintendent of Financial Services, first sketched the contours of what would become BitLicense in July 2014. Regulations came into full effect almost a year after, forcing both existing and incoming players to either comply or quit.

Backlash

Hardly surprisingly, not everyone took the news well. During the summer of 2015, big names such as BitFinex and ShapeShift pulled out of the New York market; crypto exchange Kraken announced cessation of services to New York residents in a blog post that called BitLicense “a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth.” Erik Voorhees and Jesse Powell, the bosses of ShapeShift and Kraken, respectively, remained BitLicense’s staunch critics, calling for the regulation’s repeal ever since.

Aside from decrying the redundancy of regulation, opponents often point out how the pace at which licenses get approved is dismally slow — it is not uncommon for a company to wait for three years to be approved, as it happened with Genesis Global Trading. This part of the process alone can put smaller companies at a disadvantage. As Kevin Hobbs, CEO of the blockchain consultancy Vanbex Group,

told Cointelegraph:

“We believe that these strict regulations hinders cryptocurrency innovation in the Empire State. BitLicense is particularly restrictive for small companies to bear. Since only the largest companies possessing ample resources able to comply with the strict regulations. The BitLicense became effective in New York on June 24, 2015 but in the three years since then, only five crypto-related companies have been approved for a BitLicense in the state. Indeed, these one-size-fits-all regulations ultimately stifles innovation.”

Pushback from the more regulation-averse flank of crypto community has also received some political support: Larry Sharpe, a Libertarian Party candidate in the 2018 New York gubernatorial election, argued that the BitLicense regime serves to entrench the incumbent’s dominance in the market, and proposed to eliminate the licensing process. His bid in the November 2018 election, however, was unsuccessful.

Maybe it’s not that bad?

Those who are on board with the New York authorities’ rigorous policies toward cryptocurrency usually speak in the language of benefits to institutional and mainstream adoption. The idea is that the robust, large-scale crypto enterprises that prove capable of complying with the licensing requirements could draw the whole ecosystem closer to the core of the incumbent financial system that New York embodies. Robinhood, the recent addition to the pool of BitLicense holders, could definitely play this role. As Sky Guo, CEO of smart contract platform Cypherium,

put it:

“A great part of Robinhood’s value to our space will be as a leader in quasi-institutional compliance. New York is the center of traditional finance, and the state's licensing process — for good reason — prioritizes the integrity of its complex systems. For these reasons, Robinhood will be a great bridge between the two communities. Because Robinhood aims to open public access to traditional finance mechanisms, the company has a natural affinity for crypto projects and the DLT space in general.”

In addition to institutional-level shifts, Robinhood is poised to help the cause by adding a share of its regular stock users to the ranks of crypto community, notes

Eric Ervin, CEO of Blockforce Capital:

“Long-time cryptocurrency believers may not be migrating over to the Robinhood crypto platform anytime soon due to its lack of certain features that are available on other crypto trading platforms. However, the increased trust instilled by the issuance of the BitLicense may be enough to convince current Robinhood users who are on the fence to give the service a try. Robinhood’s significant user base in the state of New York will open the door to new crypto investors.”

Finally, there are signs that the Empire State’s regulatory framework is evolving into something more flexible and dynamic. More companies have seen their applications for a crypto license approved in the last year than in the previous three.  A seemingly lighter version of the approval process is now applied to companies seeking permission to offer crypto custody. According to reports from inside the state legislature, a task force is being assembled to focus entirely on digital currency. Guy Hirsch, Managing Director of trading platform eToro US,

told Cointelegraph:

“We think that New York regulators are making a genuine effort to make the state competitive for the blockchain era. BitLicenses have been approved on a more regular basis recently. NYDFS have issued several novel approvals for crypto custody. They also have put together a very clear Q&A on their website that provides a coherent framework for companies to buy, sell, hold, and transmit cryptoassets in a compliant manner.

“A lot of us think that the financial services industry will run on a blockchain. If this assumption turns out to be true then New York, being the financial capital of the world, has a vested interest in making sure it remains as such in decades to come.”

New York has gravitated toward a tight regulatory model that, at least according to the majority of state representatives, fits its status of the global financial center the best. In the years to follow, this model will enter a competition with alternative conceptions of how to do it. Martin Weiss hopes that this competition will ultimately yield a uniform, globally enforced

regulation:

“What you’ll find is various jurisdictions experimenting with regulation: Malta, UK, Russia, Belarus — some taking a much more liberal attitude, some taking stricter attitudes — and over time, the model that works the best will become the predominant model globally. We’ll hopefully see a global regulatory regime enforced by supranational organizations like the IMF [International Monetary Fund] or the BIS [Bank for International Settlements] or something like that. New York is establishing a tough model.”