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Crypto

Blockchain Technology To Be Applied By Walmart For Its Online Stores

Walmart has registered a patent for an online purchase and payment service that uses blockchain technology. The document, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office defines the various methods by which a buyer can acquire Walmart products, either in person or through the Internet.

Particularly, when buying from the Internet, some possibilities are reduced to select products according to more specific demands or with certain conditions.

The new system is designed to tackle some issues

The present concept provides a system for buyers who should order products online while still being able to select products provided by the physical purchase in the store using a guide system.

As part of this system, these concepts include a shared system of payments to the seller. This system and method, coordinated with some other features, allows a user to make the payment, which is encrypted and shared with the other vendors who worked together to complete the buyer’s order.

In this way, it is explained that the integrated payment system helps the buyer to choose their products and once the payment is made, it is automatically distributed among Walmart employees or sellers who worked in that work. This would be possible through blockchain.

Walmart has been involved in blockchain technology for a long time, now

It is likely that Walmart will create a purchase history for each client until a more accurate profile is developed about their interests, although the blockchain technology proposed in this patent includes reciprocity and communication with the customer.

The system would record the information in the blockchain, giving it the known benefits of distributed blockchain technology, such as security, immutability, and transparency, among others.

Regarding automation in the payment distribution, it is not specified if Walmart would use a mechanism such as smart contracts or it will create their own blockchain.

Walmart has been involved in blockchain technology for some years, although this time the patent aims to integrate the system in its physical and online stores, which if materialized would represent a milestone in the industry.

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Crypto

Cryptocurrencies Regulations In EU Are Against Tax Fraud, Not Against Cryptos, Themselves, According To Officials

The European Union wants to tighten the regulation on Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. For several months now, the possibility of tightening cryptocurrencies regulations on the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies in the EU has been raised, accused of being a real bargain for money laundering and financial crime.

Now, finally, the member countries have managed to reach an agreement. Regulations have been through the European Parliament, where it has been voted and approved by an overwhelming majority – 574 votes in favor and 13 against.

The proposal includes a whole battery of measures to combat tax fraud through cryptocurrency. It is nothing new under the sky since there are several governments that work in this direction. One of them is the Spanish government, which through the Tax Agency already put on the table the future regulation of Bitcoin (BTC) just a few months ago.

Cryptocurrencies regulations in EU are similar to South Korean ones, lately

However, beyond measures to reduce fraud, there is one that can be very controversial. The European Parliament has given the green light to the creation of a register of users of cryptocurrency websites, the well-known cryptocurrencies exchanges in which you can buy and sell virtual currency freely.

It is a measure quite similar to that implemented recently by South Korea, one of the countries in which the fever of cryptocurrencies has hit hardest. In this Asian country, all cryptocurrencies exchanges are obliged to identify their users, thus ending the legendary anonymity of cryptos.

The European Union openly talks about financial crimes in relation to the Bitcoin (BTC) since it does not bode a bright future for this currency in its territory. In fact, this is the first step for a greater cryptocurrencies regulations in the future. Bitcoin (BTC) mining has been kept safe in almost the entire world, except in China. However, the energy consumption of mining is exaggeratedly high, an environmental problem that surely will not go unnoticed for much longer.

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Crypto

JP Morgan And The National Bank Of Canada To Run Blockchain Technology

JPMorgan Chase & Co and the National Bank of Canada (NBC), together with other firms, tested a blockchain platform for the issuance of debt certificates, in order to make the different stages of the process more efficient. In a press release issued by the National Bank of Canada on Friday, the issuance of a one-year deposit certificate of $150 million, was reported, and this process was accompanied by a simulation of the issue in parallel, through the use of a blockchain platform.

Other participants in this test, were Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Pfizer, and Western Asset. According to Investopedia.

The platform that was tested in conjunction with the National Bank of Canada was the blockchain Quorum, which is an open-source variant of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, adapted to security and privacy requirements of corporate applications. JP Morgan defines Quorum as Ethereum’s version focused on companies.

Among the benefits of Quorum, according to JP Morgan, the bank stresses that it is designed for applications “that require high speed and high processing capacity of private transactions within a permissible group of known participants”.

The technologies related to blockchain have the potential to bring great changes in the financial services industry

“The National Bank of Canada is proud to join forces with JP Morgan to test blockchain technology in the context of the issuance of a certificate of deposit. This is a unique opportunity to expand our knowledge in the blockchain. The National Bank of Canada will continue to innovate in the following years in the search for new ways to offer our partners more added value,” said David Furlong.

It should be noted that JP Morgan is the largest bank in the United States and has maintained a strong reserve attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Recently it was among the banks that prohibited the use of their credit cards for the purchase of cryptocurrencies.

Despite this, JP Morgan has been open to the potential of blockchain technology, which supports them. In general, the National Bank of Canada has shown a lot of interest in blockchain technology, despite its multiple reserves against cryptocurrencies, with which the financial world could manage the opportunities and challenges that the adoption of the blockchain.

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News

Pokémon Z Release Date Takes Longer Than Anticipated

The universe of Pokémon and its immersive role-playing features has taken the world by storm for a decade already. This is why back in 2013 Game Freak decided to work on Pokémon X and Pokémon Y as installments in the popular game series. These games were to be distributed by Nintendo and they were under the publishing right of The Pokémon Company.

The success of Pokémon X and Y

It seems like these two games took Japan by storm, selling over a million copies before the game was even released.  After the game got released, the sales total came up to more than 2 million copies in Japan alone and over 4 million copies on a worldwide scale.

With this amount of success, it is safe to say that people have high standards for Pokémon Z.

With little to no announcement being made on this particular game series fans worldwide fear that this game will be skipped completely by the game developers. However, there are a number of reasons why we may not have heard the big news yet.

The reasons

The biggest fear of Nintendo could be the fact that this game will not bring in a lot of sales. As they have seen with past first generation games, these usually sell the most while sequels or second generation games that follow up on the story do not do so well.

Another problem that we have to address is the fact that Nintendo may be simply afraid to start working on this game and release it as not that much time after the terrorist attack in France passed. Why is this relevant? Well, the game is set in one of France’s geographical locations and some may see attacks and fights going on in a virtual environment as a reflection of reality which may hurt them.

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Crypto Finance News

Bitcoin and the Banking System – What’s Next?

For a time, some people have thought that cryptocurrencies are amazing and the state of the art and that the fact that the financial system is wary of them and in some cases is even rejecting them show shows how little the financial system knows about trying to adapt and including other forms of payment. However, it now looks like the financial system knew more about the matter and that cryptocurrencies were only suffering from a form of arrogance.

Claims against Lightning

Lightning is a second-layer network that will hopefully bring Bitcoin to the mainstream level. Now we are not exaggerating when we are saying that Lightning is a very complex system that is difficult to explain both to someone with little experience that is trying to understand it and also to someone within the community. However, a claim is going around that states that Lightning is not an IOU. The argument around this issue ill-based and easy to deconstruct, it all fixates on linking this statement with a hefty discussion about how banks employ an IOU system.

There is also talk going around that Lightning has only been created so that the banking industry could have a way to get their hands on Bitcoin and operate it remotely. Yet again, this argument is flawed and far away from the truth. Have we mentioned by now that these two arguments come from an article written by Cryptoconomy where he states his opinions about Lightning? If not, it is only right that we do so because it is not fair that we do not.

One of the last argument of this discussion about Lightning that we would like to state is that Lightning does have the potential to become a worthy competitor to VISA, but that will only happen in the future with the condition that Lightning will be set on a path of constant growth and evolution.

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