Beijing Reveals 145-Page Blueprint To Be Blockchain Hub / JP Morgan Debuts Singapore Payment Network / No-Code Blockchain Integration


July 17, 2020

This week in the landscape…major news out of Beijing quietly was released as the Beijing Municipal Government released a 145-page blueprint (EN translation) detailing its plan to become a global hub for blockchain technology by 2022…According to multiple reports, Beijing is the first of 11 cities across China to release official strategies around blockchain just shortly following the government’s announcement of the Beijing Blockchain Innovation Development Action Plan (2020–2022. This is similar to the country’s five-year plan which layouts out focus areas (cities, technologies, industries, etc.) and economic plans the country has. In the most recent and 13th five-year plan (2016–2020), blockchain had made an appearance but over the last year has become a centerpiece of the country’s technology efforts. As a reminder last week we mentioned DiDi’s trialing the country’s CBDC and earlier in the year we saw the release of the Blockchain Service Network (BSN) which has been deployed globally with active nodes.

If that wasn’t enough activity for one week, I breakdown what’s just happened in the Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) sector following JP Morgan, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Temasek’s commercial ready now launched, Project Ubin, a multi-currency network. Mercedes and Daimler are testing blockchain for supply-chain data sharing as Volvo invests trace cobalt in its batteries. JM Smucker 1850 Coffee to be traced on IBM’s Food Trust Blockchain. Vodafone, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom trialing blockchain-based settlement for roaming data. Consensys’s Codefi provides us with a Q2 2020 report on Ethereum DeFi. Messari shares emerging trends and narratives in Web3. We get a well-drawn map of the Bitcoin Network and learn why anyone would turn themselves into a non-fungible token (NFT).

Plus trends & insights from investors, an interview with ChainLink, funding reports, production deployed enterprise use cases, tons of research, and more! Enjoy!


🏦 JP Morgan’s Singapore blockchain payment network ready for roll-out

JP Morgan, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Temasek’s Project Ubin, the multi-currency network, is ready for its commercialized rollout after five years in making. According to a report by Bloomberg, Project Ubin has already been put to the test in various commercial areas. The report notes that the prototype used to provide salary payments to Adecco Group AG — a recruitment agency…(Takeaway below)

Related: 📖 Singapore’s Blockchain Landscape Has Grown More than 50% Since Last Year

🚘 Mercedes Maker Daimler Tests Blockchain for Supply-Chain Data Sharing

Singapore-based Ocean Protocol has announced a partnership with Automotive manufacturer Daimler to examine the decentralized sharing of internal sales and financial data among the multinational’s production hubs, and externally between some of its supply chain procurement partners.…read more

Related: 📖 Volvo Invests in Blockchain Startup to Trace Cobalt in Its Batteries

📖 Visa Seeks Ethereum Developer for New ‘Distributed Application’

Visa, the payment giant, has recently unveiled in a job posting that the company is looking for a blockchain engineer with at least two years experience with blockchain architecture, and decentralized applications. The incumbent will join its blockchain-based cross border payments platform and work as part of a team building a new distributed application…read more

Related: 📖 Microsoft Partners with Waves to Tokenize Industrial Assets


Digital Currencies/CBDCs:

As with China’s big reveal this week, we also received numerous updates and insights on the many currently active country-driven Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) initiatives. Many of what we heard came right as the G20 stated its plan to begin a framework for global acceptance of digital payments. In response, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a report on enhancing cross border payments.

Without skipping a beat, JP Morgan announces to the world the launch of their commercial-ready, ‘Project Ubin,’ a multi-currency payment network that has been in development for the past five years in partnerships with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and sovereign wealth fund Temasek. The success has led the Singapore government the ability to skip over worrying about the development of a CBDC, unlike many of their respect counterparties.

Continuing the region’s trend, the Japanese banking giant, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is planning to issue its own stablecoin in the second half of 2020 along with the Bank of Thailand who’s digital currency moves into its third phase extending use to large enterprise.

The Takeaway: These efforts are not just headlines, but action towards much-needed digitization of both financial systems and digital payments. As we’re learning progress in some regions are much further developed and closer to consumer use than previously thought. This is just a small sample, keep a close eye on this sector and expect MAJOR deployments and integration into societies before the end of 2020 — even if only at a limited capacity.


More For Your Week:

👩‍🏫 C-Suite Embraces Blockchain as Business Priority — Deloitte’s 2020 Global Blockchain Survey

📖 JM Smucker 1850 Coffee to be traced on IBM Food Trust Blockchain

📖 US FDA Considers Blockchain for Food Security

📖 Why Enterprises Love Blockchain Technology — CfC St. Moritz

📖 The Twitter Account Hacks: A Comprehensive Timeline of Events — The Block

📖 Samsung Doubles Down On Crypto With Support For Payments Blockchain Stellar

💸 Dragonfly Capital’s Request For Crypto Startups — Tom Schmidt

📖 Vodafone, Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom trials blockchain-based settlement for Roaming data

📖 Why Ethereum is better than AWS

📖 The Ownership Economy: Crypto & The Next Frontier of Consumer Software — Jesse Walden

📖 South Korea Central Bank to deploy Samsung backed Blockchain Authentication Certificate System

📖 [Report] Q2 2020 Ethereum DeFi Report — ConsenSys Codefi, ConsenSys

📖 [Report] Bankless Q2 Token Report


DApps (Decentralized Apps) Watch:

📖 Q2’20 Review: The emerging trends and narratives in Web3— Messari

Source: Messari

Recognizing long term trends in technology is vital for developers, product creators, and of course, investors. Web3 is a broad multi-decadal that encompasses various technologies including, crypto, VR/AR, IoT, and more. As time passes, the nuances and breakdowns of these trends become more defined and actionable. While some trends may take years to play out, others are becoming clear across areas like blockchain infrastructure, data, and gaming. Trend 1: The rise of blockchain querying…read more

Related: 📖 Introduction to Building on DeFi with Ethereum and USDC — Part 1 — Pete Jihoon Kim, Coinbase

📖 No-Code Blockchain Integration: The Future of Business-to-Blockchain?

The Unibright.io Framework enables you to create a workflow on a blockchain without having to write a single line of code!. This could be a particularly useful solution for charity institutions or businesses in the supply-chain industry. Rather than offering whitepaper dreams, the company focuses on solving real-world business problems with real-world business solutions on the blockchain…read more

📖 China: Chainlink-adoptee national blockchain project goes live; 135 public nodes running

Chinese District of Zhejiang has launched the Blockchain Service Network (BSN). BSN has established public city nodes in more than 100 cities across China and is the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure network, in terms of a government-backed project.…read more

📖 Map of the Bitcoin Network — Gloria Zhao

📖 Why I Turned Myself into an NFT — Marguerite deCourcelle

📖 Ethereum 2.0 Economic Review — Tom Borgers

📖 Smart Contracts — The Blockchain Running Applications — Jonas Rubel

📖 FLETA Blockchain, a Blockchain Platform for DApps

📖 Liquid Network Gets Its First General-Purpose Javascript Library — Blockstream


📺 Knowledge Drop on The Baseline & #VCTV:

This week I had the chance to co-host with John Wolpert a new weekly show titled, The Baseline. We’re going to be talking more about mainnet, The Baseline Protocol, blockchain in the enterprise, AND interviewing celebrity guests to share insights on their enterprise efforts. This week we brought on ChainLink to share with us. Turn in weekly, Wednesday, 12:00 PM ET, live on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/7Jnhp86mfwg?t=136
Source: YouTube

If that’s not enough for you, here’s my panel discussion on VCTV this week with VCs spread throughout the world giving their take and insights on the current state of FinTech and Blockchain along with where the industries go from here in the next 12-months.

Source: YouTube / LATOKEN

🎙️ Research: State of the Blockchain & DApps 2020:

Available now, for free is my latest research on Decentralized Applications or DApp “Stack” Landscape Map— the Q2 2020 edition. This map provides a full overview and taxonomy of the emerging DApps industry highlighting over 400 global companies teaching playing a vital role in building next-generation applications. As a bonus, I’ve included some of the ecosystem players and groups you need to be familiar with as you prepare to release your applications. If this is the first version you’ve seen of the landscape, consider it your guiding roadmap to further understanding not only the industry but all the core technology required to build a full or partial Decentralized Application (DApp).

Additionally, you can find my Q1 2020 research on the entire Blockchain Landscape. This is now the fifth edition of the landscape. You’ll find over the map includes 747 companies (900+ total unique + broader key Ecosystem players) that have seen $22 bn+ USD in funding raised from 2010–2020 — over $18 bn invested alone since 2017!


📣 Want to stay up-to-date with all the headlines, investments, in-depth research, and latest landscapes on the Blockchain, DApps, DeFi, and FinTech industries? Subscribe and follow me on Twitter for weekly updates and more!