Category: Blockchain
The Lost Records of Shantou: A Case for Blockchain Tokenization
In the Guangdong Province of China, Shantou was once a flourishing port city where European traders had their businesses and homes. In the early 1900s, they built a brand new central district near the river in Shantou with consulate buildings, apartments, bars and restaurants. It was a spectacular mix of Victorian English and classical Chinese styles and soon became a mainstay and provincial destination.
The Old Central District in Shantou
Over the years, however, Shantou lost its status as a top commercial hub, as bigger ports emerged in nearby Shenzhen and Guangzhou. As foreign traders left the city, the central district fell into a state of disrepair. Without the once thriving businesses, the local Chinese owners couldn’t maintain their own buildings and, as generations passed, descendants of the owners moved to newer parts of town.
Today, Shantou’s old central district is a dismal, rundown slum. You can still see the charm in the vintage architecture, but facades are falling to the ground and walls are crumbling. As random tourists stroll the lanes taking photographs, they wonder why the owners haven’t paid for renovations or sold the buildings to new owners who could fix them up.
Now Just an Empty Street of Crumbling Buildings
With No Ownership Rights, Nothing Can Be Restored
Once a Popular Hotel in Old Shantou
Meanwhile, just north of Shantou, Chaozhou has a newly restored and booming old city, with shops, guesthouses, restaurants and people spending money. In other parts of China, old villages and districts like this one have been restored, drawing business owners, locals and domestic tourists.
Gates To The Restored Old City of Chaozhou, Shantou’s Neighbor to the North
Because Chaozhou is a prefecture-level city, the government intervened to restore the streets and buildings. But in Shantou, there have been no renovations because no one in the city knows who owns the hopeless buildings: the deeds to the properties are nowhere to be found. If the deeds still existed, the buildings would be fixed, business owners would move in, and again it would become a busy district of the city. Eventually, just like in Chaozhou, the government will have to intervene with public funds.
But today, with the advent of the blockchain, technology can solve this age-old problem in Shantou. With the digitization (or tokenization) of assets, there will never be a need to keep a deed or piece of paper as records can be safely kept forever on the blockchain.
A Homegrown Solution
Based in Shanghai, Antshares is a Chinese blockchain led by developer Erik Zhang, who has studied Bitcoin and Ethereum, and believes China needs its own, homegrown blockchain solution. Having built Antshares as an open-source protocol, Zhang hopes that people in his country will soon be building apps and digitizing their assets with his technology. And by tokenizing real-world assets such as stock certificates, cars, homes and even people, Zhang believes he can help prevent what happened in old Shantou from happening again in the future.
Bitcoin Magazine interviewed Mr. Zhang about his plans for the tokenization of assets on the Antshares blockchain to find out how it works and what major changes it will bring to the world around us.
Bitcoin Magazine: How will the digitization or tokenization of assets work?
Erik Zhang: We usually divide digital assets into two categories, one for voucher assets and the other for credit assets. Digitizing a voucher asset means that we digitize contracts or licenses, such as the transfer agreement of a company’s equity, stock certificates, a real estate license and so on.
A credit asset refers to the creation of a new digital asset and guaranteeing it as redeemable for a real physical asset in real terms. This can be done with an ounce of gold (or any quantity), a car, a Picasso painting, or as you mentioned, a home. It means creating a digital token that represents ownership of a physical asset, which can be bought, sold, transferred or stored in a secure manner.
BM: How is a digital token created?
EZ: Well, the answer is rather technical and perhaps boring for the average reader. But to do so on Antshares, for example, we would:
-
Create a numeric identity on the blockchain which can be implemented through a digital certificate. The digital certificate exists on the blockchain with a public key or address;
-
Use a private key of the digital certificate to register the commitment of the asset;
-
Safeguard the digital certificate and digital signature on the blockchain;
-
Allow other people to verify a digital identity through the digital certificate, and confirm the issuer/owner of the asset.
Once an asset is digitized, it can be transferred and traded on the blockchain, and there will be advanced operations that can be performed using smart contracts.
BM: So, in essence, what does this do?
EZ: Basically it records and protects data in a way that can’t be altered or transferred without the owner’s explicit consent. Consent, in these cases, will require a digital signature that can be verified on the blockchain. So if you have tokenized your home, for example, then your legal ownership of the home will be recorded by a digital “token,” and the fact of your ownership can only be changed or transferred when you have provided your private key (password).
In the case of Shantou, or anywhere else for that matter, this will also make it so that lost deeds will never result in such a public dilemma. Records of property ownership will never be lost, destroyed, falsely altered or transferred without consent.
BM: And what will we do with the tokens?
EZ: As far as securing our digital assets, advancements are being made in digital wallet technology so that we can safely store our digital assets. When you want to sell your property, then to complete the sale, you can transfer your token to the new owner digitally on the blockchain.
BM: So, in theory, anything can be tokenized. Do you think that someday we will tokenize ourselves?
EZ: (Laughs) Sure. I believe we will see birth certificates, marriage certificates, diplomas… and entire digital identities on the blockchain. In fact, digital identities are necessary for this whole ecosystem to work. Today, we use so many different types of personal identification: passports, ID cards, driver’s licenses, credit scores. With digital ID’s, people can build a single, comprehensive reputation on the blockchain which can be securely protected and used in any digital transaction. Tokenizing ourselves is a very important part of the future of blockchain technology.
BM: What kind of changes will this bring to the world?
EZ: Well, that is a big question with many implications. But in the case we see here, it will preserve the integrity of data and prevent the loss of ownership rights, such as we see in the case of Shantou. It will also have an impact on the environment as it will almost entirely eliminate the need for paperwork. But again, the implications of blockchain technology are so far-reaching that no one really knows of all the changes it will bring. We have many exciting ideas about it, but for the answer, we will have to wait and see.
BM: When will Antshares begin doing this?
EZ: Over the last year, we have made great progress with our core technology. This can be seen with the recent upgrades to our Antshares core wallet and our code updates on Github. We are a small, dedicated and talented team, and we will be working hard to build a community around our open-source platform. You will be seeing a lot of exciting news from Antshares in the near future.
Read more about other blockchain solutions for land and title registry around the world:
The post The Lost Records of Shantou: A Case for Blockchain Tokenization appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
The Lost Records of Shantou: A Case for Blockchain Tokenization
In the Guangdong Province of China, Shantou was once a flourishing port city where European traders had their businesses and homes. In the early 1900s, they built a brand new central district near the river in Shantou with consulate buildings, apartments, bars and restaurants. It was a spectacular mix of Victorian English and classical Chinese styles and soon became a mainstay and provincial destination.
The Old Central District in Shantou
Over the years, however, Shantou lost its status as a top commercial hub, as bigger ports emerged in nearby Shenzhen and Guangzhou. As foreign traders left the city, the central district fell into a state of disrepair. Without the once thriving businesses, the local Chinese owners couldn’t maintain their own buildings and, as generations passed, descendants of the owners moved to newer parts of town.
Today, Shantou’s old central district is a dismal, rundown slum. You can still see the charm in the vintage architecture, but facades are falling to the ground and walls are crumbling. As random tourists stroll the lanes taking photographs, they wonder why the owners haven’t paid for renovations or sold the buildings to new owners who could fix them up.
Now Just an Empty Street of Crumbling Buildings
With No Ownership Rights, Nothing Can Be Restored
Once a Popular Hotel in Old Shantou
Meanwhile, just north of Shantou, Chaozhou has a newly restored and booming old city, with shops, guesthouses, restaurants and people spending money. In other parts of China, old villages and districts like this one have been restored, drawing business owners, locals and domestic tourists.
Gates To The Restored Old City of Chaozhou, Shantou’s Neighbor to the North
Because Chaozhou is a prefecture-level city, the government intervened to restore the streets and buildings. But in Shantou, there have been no renovations because no one in the city knows who owns the hopeless buildings: the deeds to the properties are nowhere to be found. If the deeds still existed, the buildings would be fixed, business owners would move in, and again it would become a busy district of the city. Eventually, just like in Chaozhou, the government will have to intervene with public funds.
But today, with the advent of the blockchain, technology can solve this age-old problem in Shantou. With the digitization (or tokenization) of assets, there will never be a need to keep a deed or piece of paper as records can be safely kept forever on the blockchain.
A Homegrown Solution
Based in Shanghai, Antshares is a Chinese blockchain led by developer Erik Zhang, who has studied Bitcoin and Ethereum, and believes China needs its own, homegrown blockchain solution. Having built Antshares as an open-source protocol, Zhang hopes that people in his country will soon be building apps and digitizing their assets with his technology. And by tokenizing real-world assets such as stock certificates, cars, homes and even people, Zhang believes he can help prevent what happened in old Shantou from happening again in the future.
Bitcoin Magazine interviewed Mr. Zhang about his plans for the tokenization of assets on the Antshares blockchain to find out how it works and what major changes it will bring to the world around us.
Bitcoin Magazine: How will the digitization or tokenization of assets work?
Erik Zhang: We usually divide digital assets into two categories, one for voucher assets and the other for credit assets. Digitizing a voucher asset means that we digitize contracts or licenses, such as the transfer agreement of a company’s equity, stock certificates, a real estate license and so on.
A credit asset refers to the creation of a new digital asset and guaranteeing it as redeemable for a real physical asset in real terms. This can be done with an ounce of gold (or any quantity), a car, a Picasso painting, or as you mentioned, a home. It means creating a digital token that represents ownership of a physical asset, which can be bought, sold, transferred or stored in a secure manner.
BM: How is a digital token created?
EZ: Well, the answer is rather technical and perhaps boring for the average reader. But to do so on Antshares, for example, we would:
-
Create a numeric identity on the blockchain which can be implemented through a digital certificate. The digital certificate exists on the blockchain with a public key or address;
-
Use a private key of the digital certificate to register the commitment of the asset;
-
Safeguard the digital certificate and digital signature on the blockchain;
-
Allow other people to verify a digital identity through the digital certificate, and confirm the issuer/owner of the asset.
Once an asset is digitized, it can be transferred and traded on the blockchain, and there will be advanced operations that can be performed using smart contracts.
BM: So, in essence, what does this do?
EZ: Basically it records and protects data in a way that can’t be altered or transferred without the owner’s explicit consent. Consent, in these cases, will require a digital signature that can be verified on the blockchain. So if you have tokenized your home, for example, then your legal ownership of the home will be recorded by a digital “token,” and the fact of your ownership can only be changed or transferred when you have provided your private key (password).
In the case of Shantou, or anywhere else for that matter, this will also make it so that lost deeds will never result in such a public dilemma. Records of property ownership will never be lost, destroyed, falsely altered or transferred without consent.
BM: And what will we do with the tokens?
EZ: As far as securing our digital assets, advancements are being made in digital wallet technology so that we can safely store our digital assets. When you want to sell your property, then to complete the sale, you can transfer your token to the new owner digitally on the blockchain.
BM: So, in theory, anything can be tokenized. Do you think that someday we will tokenize ourselves?
EZ: (Laughs) Sure. I believe we will see birth certificates, marriage certificates, diplomas… and entire digital identities on the blockchain. In fact, digital identities are necessary for this whole ecosystem to work. Today, we use so many different types of personal identification: passports, ID cards, driver’s licenses, credit scores. With digital ID’s, people can build a single, comprehensive reputation on the blockchain which can be securely protected and used in any digital transaction. Tokenizing ourselves is a very important part of the future of blockchain technology.
BM: What kind of changes will this bring to the world?
EZ: Well, that is a big question with many implications. But in the case we see here, it will preserve the integrity of data and prevent the loss of ownership rights, such as we see in the case of Shantou. It will also have an impact on the environment as it will almost entirely eliminate the need for paperwork. But again, the implications of blockchain technology are so far-reaching that no one really knows of all the changes it will bring. We have many exciting ideas about it, but for the answer, we will have to wait and see.
BM: When will Antshares begin doing this?
EZ: Over the last year, we have made great progress with our core technology. This can be seen with the recent upgrades to our Antshares core wallet and our code updates on Github. We are a small, dedicated and talented team, and we will be working hard to build a community around our open-source platform. You will be seeing a lot of exciting news from Antshares in the near future.
Read more about other blockchain solutions for land and title registry around the world:
The post The Lost Records of Shantou: A Case for Blockchain Tokenization appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Blockchain Commercialization: Real World Applications Get Real
As blockchain technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, questions remain about whether it will hit the mark in terms of commercial value. Despite a number of promising use cases in the financial industry as well as clear application for sectors like healthcare, utilities and transportation, among many others, blockchain’s potential is a long way from being fully realized.
EY (formerly Ernst & Young), a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services believes that the time is ripe for blockchain to move deep into the world of commercialized solutions. In support of this endeavor, it recently announced the launch of EY Ops Chain, a set of applications and services that support efforts on the part of organizations to boost the commercial integration of blockchain technology across diverse industries — not just finance.
Developed jointly by EY and a host of other industry collaborators, EY Ops works integratively with EY’s broad swath of consulting, tax and audit expertise to bring real world solutions to the enterprise and supply chain management space.
Through the use of EY Ops, supply chain systems can be simplified and seamlessly integrated into digital contracts, inventory systems, logistics protocols, pricing, inventory and payments. This can lead to enhanced forecast accuracy and performance outcomes while ensuring a reduction of working capital requirements. Through this new development, EY will begin with offering financial services and supply chain management solutions across a number of different industries, including oil and gas, media and entertainment and automotive, among others.
Advancing Blockchain Technology
As further indication of EY’s investment in blockchain technology, the organization also recently launched its Blockchain Lab in New York, coalescing financial services work with blockchain solutions in a single locale centered in New York’s Union Square. This lab is the third for EY, joining their two other key blockchain centers in London and Trivandrum, part of EY’s global research ecosystem, EY wavespace™.
To fuel the launch of EY Ops Chain, EY is pouring money into research while attracting top talent in areas like cryptography, physics, math and software development — all with the goal of building momentum around the mature and scalable design of blockchain services. These professionals will be charged with assisting clients in applying blockchain and distributed ledger technology amid a rapidly evolving blockchain environment.
In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Paul Brody, EY’s Global Innovation Leader, said that EY is strongly invested in putting blockchain technology to work in the commercial realm. “We believe that while most companies are much more focused on being part of large scale ecosystems, their IT capabilities haven’t kept up. Using blockchains, EY can give companies visibility to supply chains, billing and payments across their ecosystem in a way that’s far more reliable and accurate than in the past. We think we can have a significant impact on working capital and operating costs as well as time-to-market.”
Multi-enterprise collaboration, said Brody, is at the heart of EY’s vision for taking blockchains into the enterprise. He noted that historically, companies have managed collaboration by sending messages to each other on a one-to-one basis resulting in many islands of information. “Blockchain and supply chain management are an especially good fit because of the distributed and multi-party nature of the business. With blockchain, we can get universal visibility and synchronization of data without having to compromise on security and privacy.”
Putting the Blockchain to Work
Brody says that EY is currently working with a manufacturing company that has been struggling to manage its complex procurement process with multiple contract manufacturers and suppliers. At present, he says, the company’s collaborations on everything from pricing to purchase orders is managed on a point-to-point basis using emailed Excel spreadsheets. However, with the new blockchain solution, notes Brody, every supplier and participant in the network will maintain a single integrated view of purchasing, payments and pricing.
“The cost savings just from reduced auditing will pay for the entire investment, but the real gains come from [the integration of] suppliers to payments and invoicing and operations. Our client will have accurate system-wide visibility to inventory and need significantly less working capital to run the network when this system goes to full production,” said Brody.
Looking Ahead
“Supply chain management, procurement and order to cash processes are probably the hottest areas right now outside of finance,” said Brody. “Related to that, we think there will be a big push around tax, audit and cybersecurity as enterprises embrace the immutable and distributed nature of blockchain technology.”
Even in the short term, Brody expects that many companies will embrace private blockchains to replace point-to-point EDI and XML systems in the supply chain. In the days ahead, he points to three significant evolutions: “First, we believe there will be a move toward operating work involving billing and payments to drive gains in working capital. Second, we see an extension of the private networks in both directions — further back across multiple tiers of the supply chain and forward to customers. Finally, we believe that companies will gradually migrate from proprietary private blockchains to public networks where they can capture the full network effects of the technology.”
The post Blockchain Commercialization: Real World Applications Get Real appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.
Blockchain Commercialization: Real World Applications Get Real
As blockchain technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, questions remain about whether it will hit the mark in terms of commercial value. Despite a number of promising use cases in the financial industry as well as clear application for sectors like healthcare, utilities and transportation, among many others, blockchain’s potential is a long way from being fully realized.
EY (formerly Ernst & Young), a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services believes that the time is ripe for blockchain to move deep into the world of commercialized solutions. In support of this endeavor, it recently announced the launch of EY Ops Chain, a set of applications and services that support efforts on the part of organizations to boost the commercial integration of blockchain technology across diverse industries — not just finance.
Developed jointly by EY and a host of other industry collaborators, EY Ops works integratively with EY’s broad swath of consulting, tax and audit expertise to bring real world solutions to the enterprise and supply chain management space.
Through the use of EY Ops, supply chain systems can be simplified and seamlessly integrated into digital contracts, inventory systems, logistics protocols, pricing, inventory and payments. This can lead to enhanced forecast accuracy and performance outcomes while ensuring a reduction of working capital requirements. Through this new development, EY will begin with offering financial services and supply chain management solutions across a number of different industries, including oil and gas, media and entertainment and automotive, among others.
Advancing Blockchain Technology
As further indication of EY’s investment in blockchain technology, the organization also recently launched its Blockchain Lab in New York, coalescing financial services work with blockchain solutions in a single locale centered in New York’s Union Square. This lab is the third for EY, joining their two other key blockchain centers in London and Trivandrum, part of EY’s global research ecosystem, EY wavespace™.
To fuel the launch of EY Ops Chain, EY is pouring money into research while attracting top talent in areas like cryptography, physics, math and software development — all with the goal of building momentum around the mature and scalable design of blockchain services. These professionals will be charged with assisting clients in applying blockchain and distributed ledger technology amid a rapidly evolving blockchain environment.
In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Paul Brody, EY’s Global Innovation Leader, said that EY is strongly invested in putting blockchain technology to work in the commercial realm. “We believe that while most companies are much more focused on being part of large scale ecosystems, their IT capabilities haven’t kept up. Using blockchains, EY can give companies visibility to supply chains, billing and payments across their ecosystem in a way that’s far more reliable and accurate than in the past. We think we can have a significant impact on working capital and operating costs as well as time-to-market.”
Multi-enterprise collaboration, said Brody, is at the heart of EY’s vision for taking blockchains into the enterprise. He noted that historically, companies have managed collaboration by sending messages to each other on a one-to-one basis resulting in many islands of information. “Blockchain and supply chain management are an especially good fit because of the distributed and multi-party nature of the business. With blockchain, we can get universal visibility and synchronization of data without having to compromise on security and privacy.”
Putting the Blockchain to Work
Brody says that EY is currently working with a manufacturing company that has been struggling to manage its complex procurement process with multiple contract manufacturers and suppliers. At present, he says, the company’s collaborations on everything from pricing to purchase orders is managed on a point-to-point basis using emailed Excel spreadsheets. However, with the new blockchain solution, notes Brody, every supplier and participant in the network will maintain a single integrated view of purchasing, payments and pricing.
“The cost savings just from reduced auditing will pay for the entire investment, but the real gains come from [the integration of] suppliers to payments and invoicing and operations. Our client will have accurate system-wide visibility to inventory and need significantly less working capital to run the network when this system goes to full production,” said Brody.
Looking Ahead
“Supply chain management, procurement and order to cash processes are probably the hottest areas right now outside of finance,” said Brody. “Related to that, we think there will be a big push around tax, audit and cybersecurity as enterprises embrace the immutable and distributed nature of blockchain technology.”
Even in the short term, Brody expects that many companies will embrace private blockchains to replace point-to-point EDI and XML systems in the supply chain. In the days ahead, he points to three significant evolutions: “First, we believe there will be a move toward operating work involving billing and payments to drive gains in working capital. Second, we see an extension of the private networks in both directions — further back across multiple tiers of the supply chain and forward to customers. Finally, we believe that companies will gradually migrate from proprietary private blockchains to public networks where they can capture the full network effects of the technology.”
The post Blockchain Commercialization: Real World Applications Get Real appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.