Day: May 17, 2018

DasCoin, the global blockchain technology solutions provider, looks set to skyrocket after listing on three public cryptocurrency exchanges following its public event, DasCoin: The Evolution of Money at the O2 Arena, London attracting more than 3,000 crypto enthusiasts.

CoinFalcon is one of the first exchanges to list DasCoin, along with BTC-Alpha and EUBX. The CoinFalcon listing, which appeared live on April 27 2018, includes trading pairs DasCoin (DASC) with BTC, ETH and Euro Trading and is part of the overall plan by DasCoin, branded The Currency of Trust, to bring crypto-currency to the mainstream. Across the three new exchanges, traders will be able to buy and sell DasCoin with USD, Euro, BTC and ETH.

DasCoin, founded in 2016 by visionary Michael Mathias, draws on the strengths of both traditional currencies  and emerging digital currencies while addressing their weaknesses. Its super-fast blockchain has capacity to process up to 100,000 transactions per second and it is built upon Graphene technology and BitShares, a peer-to-peer, decentralized, distributed ledger which has been in use since the early days of cryptocurrency and is used by three of the top 10 Blockchains in the world.

The new exchange listing represents a milestone in the company’s history and is the first in a series of announcements to be made by the company. Forthcoming announcements are set to include further exchange listings, (which could include HitBTC). Up p to 10  new ICO partners, some of whom made presentations at the recent event in London, are set to utilize DasCoin blockchain. Meanwhile, NetLeaders, DasCoin’s decentralized marketing community, is gaining rapidly in popularity and has authenticated the DasCoin proposition in more than 100  countries worldwide, including Poland, UK, Nigeria, Germany and Philippines.

There has been growing interest in the DasCoin blockchain-powered ecosystem, with its vision to lay down  a global bedrock of trust that unlocks prosperity for everyone. By eliminating the problems of traditional money and adapting trust to the digital age, the team at DasCoin feels this will create a better system for holding and exchanging value and could be the best long-term currency hold as well as one of the biggest gainers in 2018. 

The products offered by DasCoin include blockchain-services for entrepreneurs, start-ups, banks, governments and enterprises. DasCoin uses a consortium blockchain to make it faster, more efficient and more secure;

• Transactions confirmed in just six seconds
• Network of users authenticated by banking standard KYC procedures
• Through DasPay, DasCoin to be accepted in millions of merchants worldwide
• Balanced by a responsive, transparent, system of governance
• Smart-chip enabled hardware wallet makes DasCoin the most secure digital currency

On April , 2018, DasCoin released its codebase onto Github to ensure that every piece of information in its’ blockchain can be shared or queried, making DasCoin’s blockchain fully transparent.

Additionally, DasCoin are not “mined” like those of Bitcoin and other “proof-of-work” coins. Instead DasCoin utilizes a “minting process” which results in a significant reduction in energy consumption, as well as a more equitable distribution of value.

Michael Mathias, CEO of DasCoin, said: “Public trading is a significant milestone in the DasCoin story, and listing on these initial exchanges is a testament to the interest in our unique blockchain solutions model. It fulfils the promise of a huge amount of work by DasCoin and continues to build upon the launch of our proprietary blockchain in March last year. 

Mathias continued: “We are pleased to be partnering with three exchanges, some established and other new innovative market entrants as we continue on this journey.  We look forward to announcing many more as we continue to expand our blockchain alliance.”

It’s a time-tested stock market strategy – snapping up stocks in the hope of earning quick gains once the stocks start trading, so now could be a good time to buy DasCoin. Crypto-currencies have attracted a lot of interest of late with  more than $400 billion of tradable crypto-assets and ICOs raising more than $13bn for blockchain-related start-ups. The first 90 days of launch often sees the biggest gains.

More information on exchanges and trading DasCoin (DASC) can be found at:

BTC Alpha – https://btc-alpha.com/exchange/

Coin Falcon – https://coinfalcon.com/

European Blockchain Exchange (EUBX) – https://eubx.io/

Contact:

Website: https://dascoin.com/

News: https://dascoin.com/news/

Email [email protected]

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

Cornell University professor Emin Gun Sirer announced a new family of consensus protocols at Token Summit on Thursday.

Bitfinex has required tax information from its users, which it “may then exchange” with the government and tax authorities of the customer’s country of residence

Messaging apps are dominating the way people communicate these days. Whereas the phone was a revolutionary invention back in the day, it preceded future developments that made it practically obsolete: Internet, SMS, VoIP services, and now messaging apps.

SuchApp is, however, much more than a simple messaging app. It is an entire ecosystem that encompasses real-time and location-based messaging, 4K broadcast video, a radar, granular security and influential community and business communications capabilities.

Monaco’s elite choose SuchApp

Such is the power and influence of its versatile set of features that SuchApp that it recently secured the support of a group of influential businessmen and millionaire society in the Monaco area, one of the most exclusive and exotics places in the world. Those people are excited to contribute to the planet’s first 5G blockchain-based instant messaging app.

After all, the Monaco group is looking to seize in the vast opportunities that the market of social media messaging industry – worth approximately $90 billion – provides. The people, 20 charter members, are very powerful themselves, with a net worth that approaches $90 billion.

The group met in Monaco to get to know SuchApp from a very close look. The app can optimize the way businesses are run. Besides communicating with other people, SuchApp provides the chance to buy, sell and trade goods and services and make payments with an associated digital currency.

For a first time, members of the society choose a blockchain project to invest. SuchApp’s business tools and model, including the design of the instant messaging app, impressed all viewers and observers so much that the Monaco millionaire society will conduct all financial operations via the SuchApp interface.

The CEO of SuchApp, Ronny Shany, welcomed the investment made by the Monaco group and stated that the enterprise as a whole was proud because such as distinguished and savvy businessmen team recognized the potential of this ambitious project.

The group of investors, meanwhile, has said that their intention is to take full advantage of SuchApp’s features and offerings, including connecting and engaging with fellow businessmen and investors in private groups. For now, only members of the billionaire society can access the group, but the plan is to broaden the selection criteria in the future.

The recipe for success

The magic of SuchApp and some of the traits that the billionaire group in question has identified is that it combines many of the most prominent messaging apps and social media outlets traits. It gathers the best of YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, and even Instagram, all in one versatile ecosystem.

It is a perfect tool for businesses as well, as it allows them to maximize earnings and investment opportunities by enhancing their online presence and exposure. SuchApp is currently the only platform that uses 5G real-time messaging to allow users to exchange and share multimedia files and take the best out of video, text, and VoIP services.

The biggest difference between SuchApp and the mentioned messaging apps is that it uses cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology to foster and promote transactions within the SuchApp environment, rewarding loyal users with a solid program.

Companies around the world can use SuchApp to manage marketing campaigns, implement geofencing to the messaging tool, create groups or chat rooms for providing customer service or marketing advice, and manage incentive and rewards projects.

To learn more how SuchApp plans to become the next generation in social media and communication, visit the SuchApp website.

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According to a new study, the Bitcoin network could be consuming as much as 0.5% of the world’s total electricity — a number comparable to the amount of power used by the entire country of Ireland. 

Bitcoin and Electricity Usage

That said, determining exactly how much electricity the Bitcoin network uses, necessary for understanding its impact and implementing policy in the future, is not straightforward.

According to blockchain specialist Alex de Vries, who works at the tax advising firm PwC in the Netherlands:

“We’ve seen a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations, but we need more scientific discussion on where this network is headed. Right now, the information available is pretty poor quality overall, so I’m hoping that people will use this paper as a foundation for more research.”

The estimates, based on de Vries’ background in economics, put the minimum current usage of the Bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts — as noted, almost as much electricity as Ireland. Another comparison puts a single transaction as using about as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in an entire month.

One of the biggest factors that contributes to the coin’s high electricity usage is also an inherent part of its design. Since its inception Bitcoin’s decentralized consensus has been enabled by its proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, and the mining machines that perform this ‘work’ need tremendous amounts of energy to do so.

According to research published in April by equity analyst Charlie Chan and his team at Morgan Stanley, the key price point for Bitcoin mining profitability is $8,600. As per their simulation, if the coin can’t stay above $8,600, many Bitcoin miners will likely find it unprofitable to keep creating the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin’s Energy Cost Moving Forward

Moving forward, the electricity needed to operate the Bitcoin network is only going to increase. By the end of  2018, de Vries predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts — as much electricity as the European country of Austria. Looking further ahead, if the price of Bitcoin continues to increase as some experts predict, de Vries believes the network could someday consume as much as 5% of the world’s total electricity, a tenfold increase from today’s 0.5%. 

“To me, half a per cent is already quite shocking. It’s an extreme difference compared to the regular financial system, and this increasing electricity demand is definitely not going to help us reach our climate goals,” he said.

Another consideration environmentally is Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. The problem is that much of the coin’s network is fueled by coal-fired power plants in China, where electricity is produced at very low rates, but the impact on the environment is more marked. 

Based on ‘conservative’ estimates from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the carbon footprint for each unique Bitcoin transaction totals almost 450 kilograms of CO2, which translates to 32,898 kilotons annually for the entire network.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Entrepreneur and investor Vladislav Martynov has joined the  World Wi-Fi team as a co-founder. His extensive experience and expertise in the blockchain industry will significantly strengthen World Wi-Fi’s position on the global market.

“The sharing economy is growing rapidly, and I believe the implementation of blockchain solutions in this area will accelerate the growth and expansion of the sharing economy market as well as the mass adoption of the blockchain technology. That is why I joined the World Wi-Fi project, “– said Vladislav Martynov.

The World Wi-Fi project is a decentralized free Wi-Fi network that aims to connect at least 20 million Wi-Fi routers to its global platform and reach an annual turnover of $1 billion within three years. The project team has already concluded several preliminary agreements with major advertising agencies and reached a number of agreements on joint testing of the World Wi-Fi platform, including the Saudi-based PolarisNet and the Japanese investment company Atma Inc (crypto media agency CoinTokyo).

World Wi-Fi’s TOKENSALE will end today, 18 May 2018. To date, World Wi-Fi has already raised more than $24 million, which is enough to implement full-scale coverage of all regions in the European Union, Asia, America and Australia, and in the future to deploy the World Wi-Fi network around the world. Vladislav Martynov believes in the future success of the project and contributed in the token sale himself.

Vladislav Martynov is well-known as a successful entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the field of digital technologies in a variety of technology projects in international markets.

Yota Devices, the developer of YotaPhone (the world’s first phone with two screens) is one of the most famous successful projects that Vladislav realized. Under his management, an international company was created from scratch, developed a unique device and organized mass production and sales in over 20 countries, ensuring its presence in the global smartphone market. Within 5 years the company achieved a capitalization of $154 million.

For the last few years, Vladislav has been actively working with young startups, investing in applied solutions based on breakthrough technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. Among his projects are BlockGeeks (the largest online service for learning blockchain technologies) and Iceberg (the largest online sports analysis service).

As the Head of Ethereum Competence Center, Vladislav is responsible for developing the ecosystem around blockchain technology and providing consulting support to entrepreneurs, large companies and government organizations about why blockchain is needed, how to apply it and what prospects the transition to this technology entails.

Details:

In 1997, Vladislav co-founded the Russian branch of Columbus IT. Subsequently, the company became the largest international partner of Microsoft in the market of corporate control systems.

From 2002 to 2005, he worked as a corporate director at the headquarters of Microsoft Corporation (USA).

In 2011, Martynov became co-founder and CEO of Yota Devices. Within five years, an international business with a capitalization of $154 million was built, two versions of YotaPhone were released, and smartphone sales unfolded in twenty countries.

In 2015, Martynov invested in ICEBERG Sports Analytics project – a hockey analytics system based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analysis.

In 2016, he joined the advisory board of Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a platform for the development of services based on blockchain technology. Later, he became the Head of the Ethereum Competence Center.

In October 2016, Martynov launched BlockGeeks (a platform for online training of professionals in the field of blockchain) as one of the investors and founded a fund that invests in blockchain startups.

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IT giant Infosys has built a blockchain-based trade finance platform involving seven Indian banks including ICICI and Axis.

JPMorgan has created a new position, head of crypto assets strategy, which will identify and lead new crypto projects at the bank

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has produced a website advertising a scam initial coin offering (ICO), in an effort to educate the populace on how to identify such fraudulent websites.

In a Wednesday press release, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton discussed the intent behind the initiative. While acknowledging the rapid growth in the number of ICOs, he explained a need to help give investors the tools they require to recognize fraudulent sites.

”We embrace new technologies, but we also want investors to see what fraud looks like, so we built this educational site with many of the classic warning signs of fraud… I encourage investors to do their diligence and ask questions,”
Clayton detailed.

Howeycoin ‘ICO’

The mock ICO website advertises the fictitious Howeycoin token, reading: ”Howeycoin is the newest and only coin offering that captures the magic of coin trading profits AND the excitement and guaranteed returns of the travel industry. Howeycoins will partner with all segments of the travel industry (air, hotel, car rental, and luxury segments), earning coins you can trade for profit instead of points.”

Information provided on the website looks much like that supplied during a genuine ICO, with statements such as “We anticipate OVER 1% daily returns, with DOUBLE 2% returns on Tier 1 investors in pre-ICO stage secured purchases.”

SEC Chief Council Owen Donley noted the ease at which scammers can utilize convoluted jargon to lure individuals into false investments, but pointed out significant red flags that can indicate fraud.

By clicking on the internal website links, visitors are directed to an SEC site that notifies them of the truthful nature of the website.

The SEC notice explains: ”Our bogus site is a mash-up of a number of different things we’ve seen – any particular fraud may be harder to spot than the red flags here. Here are some of the signs of fraud that are on the Howeycoins site – we hope reviewing these may help you recognize a real fraud in the future!”

Targetting of ICOs

There is certainly an emphasis currently placed on targetting ICOs and cryptocurrency related scams, when in fact around less than 1% of Bitcoin-related transactions have been linked to illicit activities. Although, it is true that several high-profile ICOs have been shut down due to suspected, or convicted fraudulent activity.

While it is certainly necessary to regulate ICOs to ensure they are providing the services and tokens that they are advertising, the current enforcement of numerous subpoenas by the SEC does indicate an arguably overzealous approach towards cryptocurrency start-ups when compared to how mainstream financial scams are currently handled.

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As cryptocurrency works its way toward mass adoption, one of its biggest obstacles is volatility. Markets change overnight, and we’re so desensitized to it that we don’t even blink at dips that would bring national economies to their knees. Stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that are tied to existing currencies or commodities like the US dollar or gold – are fungible, easily traded assets that bring us one step closer to mass adoption.

While promises of $1 = 1 coin make stablecoins appear simple, stablecoin projects rely on complex algorithms to do the following:

• Keep the currency’s value from inflating, (e.g., increasing over a dollar)

• Keep the currency’s value from deflating (e.g., dropping below a dollar).

• Keep the network informed of the exchange rate between the pegged asset and the stablecoin.

Writing this down as a three-step list is easy. Actually achieving it is not. It will take a truly well-structured stablecoin model to do this consistently over time, and so far, results have been experimental at best.

Today’s Stablecoins

Tether, Digix, NuBits, and BitShares offer lessons on stablecoin models, but this article is focused on four stablecoins which recently received funding and are being actively developed:

Three Models for Stablecoins

Stablecoins come in three types: cash-collateralized, on-chain collateralized, and elastic. Depending on the model, these projects can be decentralized, collateralized, and efficient at stabilizing. As of yet, there hasn’t been a stablecoin able to achieve all three aspects, and doing so may not be necessary for one to succeed at maintaining a consistent value.  

Cash Collateralized: Tether and NuBits are the classic one-to-one USD cash-collateralized stablecoins, as both earn their value from being backed by cash (though Tether appears to be headed towards an FCC audit to prove its worth).

Cash collateralized models are efficient to manage, but they’re also centralized. The advantages of cash collateralized stablecoins are their efficiency to stabilize and the fact that they are backed by concrete assets. Their centralized design makes them vulnerable to mistakes or intentional inflation by coin makers. We have to put a lot of trust in such developers, and many crypto enthusiasts point to this as being a central point of failure, bolstered by accusations of Tether inflating its value. This explains why cash collateralized models lack the trust needed to become true solutions to volatility in the crypto market.

On-Chain Collateralized: On-chain collateralized projects use a decentralized cryptocurrency to maintain a stable value. MakerDAO, for example, uses a DAO model to ensure buys and sells of the Dai fix the latter’s value at the equivalent of $1. On-chain models are vulnerable to market dips, or in extreme cases, black swan events, where currencies take a steep nosedive and all assets’ values become low.

BitShares (BTS)

BitShares is the original project from Daniel Larimer, the co-founder of Steem and the CTO of EOS. BitShares is the most successful example of an on-chain collateralized stablecoin. It was the first blockchain to scale to tens of thousands of transactions per second (TPS).

BitShares was Larimer’s response to centralized exchanges that are vulnerable to government regulatory shutdowns that interfere with the supply of cryptocurrencies. He created Bitshares, an early decentralized exchange with a cryptocurrency pegged to assets including the US dollar, gold, and the yen. While BitShares exists today, Larimer left the project because of its lack of customization to build EOS.

MakerDAO (DAI, MKR)

Today, MakerDAO, headed by Rune Christiansen, is the new leading experiment in on-chain collateralization. MakerDAO works by stabilizing pricing of its stablecoin, the Dai, with a governance coin, MKR, managing the collateralization of assets. MakerDAO has been thoroughly audited by an outside security firm, but it’s not without growing pains. In the case of a black swan event, MakerDAO would sell off MKR to restore the value of the Dai to one dollar. While its founder is confident the Dai can handle such extremes, we have yet to see this level of volatility.

Elastic: Basis (formerly Basecoin), Carbon, and Fragments all follow an elastic stability model. While both cash-collateralized and on-chain collateralized models buy and sell off either fiat cash, gold, or crypto assets to achieve a stable value, elastic coin supplies are fundamentally quite different. By increasing the supply of coins when prices are too high and shrinking it when prices go too low, elastic models reflect how modern governments control their monetary supply. Like the on-chain model, elastic models are decentralized, and like cash collateralized models, they are highly efficient at achieving stability.

Basis (Basecoin)

Basis works like the Fed, by adjusting the supply of coins over time so its stablecoin always trades for $1. Basis is formed on the basis of the Quantity Theory of Money, which states that contracting and expanding the supply of money keeps prices and values stable. According to its whitepaper, “long-run prices in an economy are proportional to the total supply of money in circulation.”

Basis is a multi-asset currency which incorporates the Basis token (its stablecoin), bond tokens, and Base shares. Basis uses aggregate demand to decide how many Basis tokens should be in circulation based on its price relative to the dollar:

demand = (coin price) * (number of coins in circulation)

Basis uses an oracle system to track its price and adjust it, based upon whether the token’s value is too high or too low. If the price is over $1, Basis distributes more Basis tokens to its holders as well as Bond and Base Shares. When the price is under $1, the protocol creates and sells bond tokens, allowing buyers to purchase them for less than a dollar each as a speculation to hold and sell at a 1:1 ratio with Basis tokens, destroying excess Basis tokens in exchange for a later potential profit on bond tokens.

There’s obviously more complexity to this process, but there still remains the question as to how quickly these price adjustments would adjust value without any currency used as a backup. The Basis protocol relies heavily on the idea that bond buyers willing to speculate on Basis’ value rising will continually create liquidity in the market.

Carbon

Carbon monitors its price much like Basis, but it determines how to adjust its token supply every 24 hours, using a distributed consensus model. Instead of running on a blockchain, Carbon has partnered with Hedera Hashgraph to run on the latter’s DAG to achieve a faster throughput compared to blockchain-based stablecoins. Carbon is using a proprietary distributed oracle model along with a graph-based platform, setting their approach apart from other elastic stablecoins.

Carbon holders act as nodes, voting on how to adjust its price weighted by collateral they supply in Carbon (CUSD) tokens. This model rewards bidders in the median with the collateral from those who voted under the 25th percentile and above the 75th percentile.

Carbon utilizes the Aztec Model to maintain the liquidity it needs to keep the Carbon stablecoin close to $1 in value. Members who help the system contract supply during periods of inflation receive a distribution of 100% of the upside profits in exchange for burning their tokens.

Carbon has a second coin called Carbon Credit that works as a cushion to absorb any volatility affecting its stablecoin, CUSD. Carbon’s model takes an adaptive, albeit more nuanced approach. Having Hashgraph as its consensus layer will give it unparalleled speed over other stablecoins, but it also leaves Carbon tethered to Hashgraph’s mainnet launch.

Fragments

Fragments uses an elastic model tied to three different assets: reserves, bond tokens, and its stablecoin, USD Fragments. Though the Fragments team considers their project a low volatility cryptocurrency rather than a stablecoin, this model is similar to Basis in its setup.

Fragments employs an algorithmic monetary supply model to carry out the balancing needed to reduce volatility, with a focus on token holders. Token holders act as market makers, buying more Fragments when its price drops below a dollar, and selling when its price exceeds it. When market makers aren’t able to make up the price gap, an algorithmic buffer kicks in, autonomously buying and selling the reserve asset to bring Fragments closer to the $1 value.

By automating the buying and selling of tokens when needed, the supply of Fragments expands and contracts, in theory by enough to achieve its targets. These automated conversions remove some autonomy from token holders, who lose or gain a portion of funds when Fragments are converted into bonds and distributed to them proportionally to reduce the Fragment supply. When the price is too low, Fragments sells off reserves and distributes more tokens to wallet holders, increasing the total supply of Fragments.

Like Basis, Fragments follows a first-in, first-out model, rewarding token holders for burning Fragments into Bonds when it needs to contract supply, and receiving newly minted Fragments in exchange when deflation is needed. Fragments manages stability autonomously, providing the advantage of quick adaptability, but also removing decision-making from token holders when prices fall too far from the market maker layer. This leaves Fragments’ chances of success dependent upon people holding onto their tokens long-term.

Where We’re Headed

Stablecoins, along with cryptocurrencies in general, remain in the early stages, focused on finding mathematical or governance models to break economic barriers to stable payments. Though the elastic model appears to be the direction in which stablecoin development is going, there aren’t many teams working on them. That’s partially because cryptocurrency itself is still making its way through growing pains. While cryptocurrency remains a speculative market that’s full of volatility, the potential for large profits remains. Now is an ideal time to put in the groundwork to address this future need for a decentralized economy. If cryptocurrency has taught us anything, it’s that many ideas and iterations are necessary to find success.  

Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), which works with government agencies, users, and private sector partners to develop public services, has announced it is studying the use of blockchain for welfare payment distribution. A prototype could be in the market come mid-2019.

Australia May Deliver Welfare Payments over Blockchain

The approved Australian 2018-19 Budget last week included a sum of AU$700,000 intended to be used by the DTA to explore distributed ledger technology for efficient government services purposes, according to Randall Brugeaud, acting CEO of the DTA, who made the announcement at the CeBIT Australia conference in Sydney.

“Our plan is to look for use cases across the Commonwealth with an initial focus on the welfare payment delivery system, then working with our digital service standard, we’ll conduct user research with a view to having a prototype by the end of next financial year,” he explained. “The potential of blockchain to securely record transactions will be investigated, drawing on the experience of other public and private sector organisations.”

The DTA is looking to instances across both government and the private sector to determine the best blockchain-based Commonwealth service delivery. The agency is looking at all possibilities, from benefits of employee buy-in to machine-learning, artificial intelligence, and security, to further business goals despite the difficulty of choosing the right fit for each case.

“We’ll also build on work done across government already, such as the CSIRO’s work on distributed ledgers. We’re looking at how these technologies might offer automated service channels that are closer to the human experience; this might include intelligent chatbots, or voice-enabled channels which are proving to be effective in other sectors. We think these have the potential to deliver significant benefits for government service delivery,” Brugeaud said.

Aiming to make its services more ‘consumable’ by other government departments, the DTA is also about to pilot a digital identity system in October 2018 in a bid to tackle the 30 different logins across government platforms and make it easier for end users to deal with public affairs.

There are 750,000 applications for tax file numbers (TFN) each year. Digital identity will shrink to minutes what is currently a month-long process. The DTA will gradually expand digital identity to grants management, business registration, and student services, which should result in around 2.8 million online transactions.

The new digital identity platform comprises of the identity provider and the exchange. The federated model is governed by the trusted digital identity framework (TDIF), which allows users to choose from a range of accredited identity providers. The Department of Human Services will operate the exchange between services and the identity provider.

Regarding digital identity, Microsoft is building its blockchain-based decentralized identity system to provide users with an easy to use self-owned identity to completely control how data is accessed and used. It seems that the team will be using the Bitcoin Lightning Network so that the system is capable of scale and performance on par with traditional systems.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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