The United States federal government is expected to raise its blockchain spending

to $123.5 million by 2022 — an over 1,000% increase as compared with the $10.7 million it spent in 2017. The forecast was made in a report from IDC Government Insights, published on April 18. IDC states that blockchain spending among state and local governments is also anticipated to grow, from $4.4 million in 2017 to $48.2 million in 2022 — similarly an almost 1,000% rise.

Federal civilian agencies — who reportedly spent less than $20 million on the technology in 2017 — are likely to spend over $80 million by 2022, the report continues. The Defense Department — which likewise spent less than $20 million in 2017 — could almost double this figure and hit $40 million by 2022, the IDC claims. Government investment in blockchain technology is likely to evolve and expand to include more complex areas over time, the IDC’s research director

Shawn McCarthy outlined:

"We believe asset management, identity management, and smart contracts will be the leading blockchain solutions for government. Early spending will focus on supply chain and asset management solutions, while spending in later years will expand to include more identity management and complex financial transactions."

IDC also notes that blockchain is likely to become a cornerstone technology for trade legislation, and is likely “to be implemented as a standard feature for some types of authorized international trade and also as a standard for many types of government procurement.” In terms of specific implementations of the technology, the report argues that a hybrid blockchain approach — combining aspects of private and public networks — is likely to prove the most popular among government agencies.

As reported last month, the current Republican Minority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives has recently argued that blockchain should be implemented to improve the transparency of the legislative process and bring more security and accountability to government. A separate IDC report from 2018 forecasted that worldwide blockchain spending would grow to $9.7 billion in 2021.

Article Produced By
Marie Huillet

https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-govt-blockchain-spending-expected-to-increase-1-000-between-2017-2022-study

Big Four auditing firm Ernst & Young (EY)

has released two new blockchain developments, a new version of its Blockchain Analyzer and a zero knowledge proof protocol. The company revealed the products in two separate press releases on April 16. EY has launched the second generation of its analytics tool EY Blockchain Analyzer. While the first generation of the product was available to only EY audit teams facilitating gathering companies’ entire transaction data from multiple blockchain ledgers, the upgrade made the analyzer accessible for EY teams and non-audit customers as a business application. Paul Brody, EY Global Innovation Leader for blockchain, said that the company intends to build a platform solution that can be deployed for various purposes, including audit, tax and transaction monitoring. The new version of the analyzer will support tax calculation for crypto assets from the Andy Crypto-Asset Accounting and Tax (AndyCAAT) tool that automatically calculates capital gains and losses on transactions in compliance with United States tax law.

As for EY’s zero knowledge proof protocol, the company aims to facilitate the adoption of secure, private transactions over public blockchains. Paul Brody, EY Global Innovation Leader, Blockchain, said that “making public blockchains secure and scalable is a priority for EY. The fastest way to spread this privacy-enhancing technology was to make it public.” “The main component allows for secure, private transfers and payments on the public Ethereum network. This supports fungible token payments compatible with the ERC-20 standard and unique asset transfers compatible with the ERC-721 standard.  The ERC standards are publicly accepted open standards for tokens on the Ethereum blockchain,” the release explains.

EY also notes that since the launch of the initial prototype in 2018, the company has managed to  significantly reduce transaction processing costs by more than 90%. Currently, the software code is reportedly undergoing final reviews and is scheduled to be launched into the public domain in the next four to six weeks. In March, EY launched a tool called EY Crypto-Asset Accounting and Tax (CAAT) designed for accounting and preparing taxes on cryptocurrency holdings. The product can reportedly get information about cryptocurrency transactions from “virtually all” major exchanges, consolidate data from various sources, and automatically produce reports, including cryptocurrency-related U.S. Internal Revenue Service tax returns.

Article Produced By
Ana Alexandre

https://cointelegraph.com/news/major-auditing-firm-ernst-young-releases-updates-to-two-blockchain-related-products

Indian IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

announced on April 10 that it carried out what it defines as the world's first cross-border securities settlement between two central depositories using the Quartz blockchain. The Central Securities Depositories (CSD) involved are reportedly Maroclear, the CSD of Morocco, and Kuwait Clearing Company, the CSD of Kuwait. During the test, a set of equities and fixed income securities from both markets were created on the chain along with accounts to hold them, and were instantaneously transferred.

The system reportedly used cash coins on the BaNCS Network, powered by the Quartz blockchain. The announcement explains that cash coins are a digital asset pegged to a fiat currency and maintained on the network. Per the report, the network is a private permissioned blockchain aimed to let customers in the banking, market infrastructure, custody and insurance industries collaborate by connecting to a single ledger. The post claims that 450 TCS customers have access to the BaNCS network. According to CrunchBase data, TCS has $15.4 billion in revenue annually; its parent company, Tata Group, reportedly has $100.4 billion.

As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, the Mauritius Financial Services Commission has issued a second guidance note concerning security token offering regulation. Also, at the beginning of the current month, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that it is looking to hire a crypto specialist attorney advisor for its Division of Trading and Markets tasked with establishing “a comprehensive plan to address crypto and digital asset securities.”

Article Produced By
Adrian Zmudzinski

https://cointelegraph.com/news/tata-consultancy-services-powers-blockchain-based-cross-border-securities-settlement

The European Union Blockchain Observatory and Forum

released a report entitled “Tokenization of physical assets and the impact of IoT and AI” on April 10. The report, authored by Dr. Tim Weingärtner, a professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences & Arts – School for Information Technology, features the “digital twin” concept, which refers to a digital replica of the physical world. This mirror world would be consist of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, big data, tokens representing physical objects, blockchain as a trusted ledger and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The report notes that blockchain would play a key role in this digital transformation by providing trust and allowing the identification and tokenization of physical objects. Blockchain-based smart contracts also play their part, the report argues, by providing a tamper-proof computational environment and automatic execution of financial actions through the use of cryptocurrencies. The document highlights the importance of tokens and cites the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain as currently the most important platform for the creation of tokens. According to the author, this platform is preferable due to the potential of its programming language, its large community, working implementations and existing code examples.

The report concludes that the combination of IoT with blockchain would allow for better supply chain management, increased trust that enables the sharing economy to grow, data trading and monetization, identity management and automatization. Combining AI with decentralized technology would instead democratize data, assure its authenticity, audit smart contracts and explain AI decisions. At the same time, the report claims, robots and drones would be “the actuators of the digital world,” since they would allow the intervention of the digital world in the physical world. The document expects the digital twin concept to

become increasingly important:

“Due to the exponential growth, which is described by Moore’s Law and many studies, the physical world will be exceeded by the digital world in the coming years. This means that speed, growth and complexity will increase by a multiple.”

Moore’s law refers to the observation — made by Intel’s CEO Gordon Moore in 1965 — that the number of transistors in dense integrated circuits doubles roughly every two years. However, the report fails to mention that the rate of progress in fitting more transistors in less space is slowing down. Furthermore, the scale of transistors is currently approaching an ultimate limit because of a quantum property known as quantum tunneling.

Moreover, progress is being made to continue the development of alternative processing technologies such as quantum computing, optical computing and neuromorphic computing. Such technologies could permit the continuation of the trend towards increasing available computing power. In March, a different report released by the same organization made recommendations on how to better develop blockchain technology, including the introduction of interoperability and scalability standards. Earlier, in December last year, the same group also made a case for a blockchain-based digital identity system and digital versions of national currencies.

Article Produced By
Adrian Zmudzinski