Decentralized Journalism: Empowering the Future of News

20

September

2024

5/5 (1)

A week ago, I was scrolling through Nu.nl, which is one of the most popular sites in the Netherlands for news. Just like other news sites, they have collections of articles which are popular about a certain overarching subject. One of those collections was about the presidential elections in the USA (nu.nl, 2024). The coverage appeared to favour Kamala Harris while portraying Donald Trump in a less favourable light and out of context. Even though I don’t support the Trump campaign, it shouldn’t be the case that a news source is so clearly in favour or against certain political standpoints as it should be objective and let the readers make their standpoints. After digging deeper I found out that Nu.nl is owned by a news company called DPG Media (dpgmediagroup, 2024), which mentioned that their political orientation is leftist (eurotopics, 2024). They also own several other major news sources. Thus having a large influence on the opinions the readers have, especially when news articles are slightly biased but are being masqueraded as objective.

This experience made me question the objectivity of mainstream media and wonder if there’s an alternative that offers unbiased news. That’s when I came across decentralized journalism. By using blockchain technology and peer-to-peer networks, it aims to distribute news without central control, reducing corporate influence and potential biases.

In decentralized journalism, journalists can publish their findings directly to readers, and content is stored across a network, making it resistant to censorship and manipulation. Readers can support journalists through micro-payments, improving transparency and independence from large media conglomerates.

This should be done in a way that journalists publish their findings and the readers can see an overview of these findings to take in multiple perspectives when forming their image of the subject. This is different from traditional news where the findings that are relevant to the story are chosen by potentially biased journalists to assemble an article in line with the perspective of the news outlet.

While challenges like verifying credibility exist, this model offers a promising path toward a more objective media landscape by empowering both journalists and readers.

References

DPG Media. (2024).  https://www.dpgmediagroup.com/nl-NL/adverteren/merken?page=2&configure%5BhitsPerPage%5D=12&configure%5Bfilters%5D=contentType:brandPage%20AND%20($metadata.tags.sys.id:NLCONTENT)&configure%5BmaxValuesPerFacet%5D=15

Nu.nl verkiezinngen VS (2024). https://www.nu.nl/verkiezingen-vs

The Netherlands: diversity despite media concentration. (2024). eurotopics.net. https://www.eurotopics.net/en/149418/the-netherlands-diversity-despite-media-concentration

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Can Blockchain revolutionize the Insurance Industry? A Non-Profit’s Perspective

16

September

2024

5/5 (1)

Just as card collections are being implemented on the blockchain as NFTs, there are also other industries that can capitalize from the adoption of blockchain, such as insurance, especially in developing countries.

Imagine you are a farmer in rural Africa, and you want to protect your crops against drought. Your options will be very limited as there are no or just a few local insurance companies operating in your area. Even if you buy one of the available policies and the drought occurs, the claim process is cumbersome and linked to tight reporting deadlines. Worst case scenario, you might even lose the documentation needed to submit for settlement (Adam-Kalfon et al., 2017).

To tackle this problem, insurance companies can use smart contracts via an underlying blockchain, which are also used to create NFTs, and offer blockchain-based insurance products to its customers. The smart contract automatically triggers the payout when the event encoded in the contract occurs. For instance, the insurance company sets a rain threshold of 3 months and if that threshold is surpassed, the smart contract triggers a pay-out event.

The Lemonade Foundation, one crucial stakeholder in the industry, already launched their blockchain-based crop protection in Kenya which allows farmers for as low as $0.83 to get their plot of land insured with a few clicks on their phone (Wininger, 2023).

When Prof. Ting Li asked the class who bought NFTs before, only three people raised their hand. Why is that and will the same happen to blockchain-based insurance products? There is a multitude of reasons which might explain the lack of adoption. For example, a lot of NFTs have to be bought via cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, older users tend to be less tech-savvy which creates a certain scepticism towards blockchain-based solutions. Nevertheless, I do not believe this applies to blockchain-based insurance products as users can pay in their local currency and the whole user experience runs on an app while having the blockchain-based infrastructure under the hood.

The figure below shows the types of architecture in a blockchain-based insurance industry.

References

Adam-Kalfon, P., PwC France, & El Moutaouakil, S. (2017). Blockchain, a catalyst for new approaches in insurance. https://www.pwc.ch/en/publications/2017/Xlos_Etude_Blockchain_UK_2017_Web.pdf

Smart Contracts in Insurance: A Complete Guide | ScienceSoft 🌐⛓️. (n.d.). https://www.scnsoft.com/insurance/smart-contracts

Wininger, S. (2023). Fighting World Hunger with Blockchain – Lemonade Blog. Lemonade Blog. https://www.lemonade.com/blog/lccc-world-hunger/

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The Rise and Fall of NFTs: A Never Ending Story?

16

September

2024

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In 2020 and 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) took the digital world by storm, bringing with them innovative technology for digital ownership. Verifiable ownership of digital goods such as music, art, and collectibles was made possible by these indivisible, blockchain-based assets (Malik et al., 2023). High-profile sales of digital artwork, such Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days, which sold for an incredible $69.3 million at a Christie’s auction in 2021, helped bring attention to NFTs (BBC News, 2021). The idea that NFTs would revolutionize the digital economy and the art world was further strengthened by this sale.

The popularity of NFTs spread to the cryptocurrency markets, where certain tokens—like Ethereum and Bitcoin—saw rapid rises in value. Virtual real estate, meme-based NFTs, and digital art have all attained astonishing valuations; two such instances are CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club, whose values have surged into the millions. In June 2021, a CryptoPunk NFT at Sotheby’s sold for $11.8 million, demonstrating the speculative frenzy that was driving the market (Howcraft, 2021).

The NFT market’s expansion was not without difficulties, either. Because NFTs and cryptocurrencies are speculative in nature, there was a bubble-like situation where values were frequently not in line with the inherent worth of the digital assets. The NFT market started to fall significantly by the middle of 2022. The value of many investors who had entered the market early on suffered a sharp decline in their money. For instance, in a 2022 auction, Jack Dorsey’s first tweet—which was originally auctioned for $2.9 million—failed to draw bids beyond $10,000 (Handagama, 2023).

NFTs are still useful, but the market drop has made clear how erratic speculative digital assets can be. The rise and fall of NFTs serve as a warning about the dangers of making speculative investments, especially in developing markets. Nevertheless, will the NFT hype rise again like it did in 2021? In my opinion, the bubble in 2021 has shown the potential and the essence of what the NFT market could bring. So in this case, if the bull market cycle for the crypto space rebounds, then the possibility of pixelated art and collectibles hitting the millions will re-emerge.

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References:

BBC News. (2021, March 11). Beeple’s NFT digital art nets £50m at Christie’s auction. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56362174

Handagama, S. (2023, May 11). ‘Jack Dorsey’s first tweet’ NFT went on sale for $48M. It ended with a top bid of just $280. CoinDesk. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/13/jack-dorseys-first-tweet-nft-went-on-sale-for-48m-it-ended-with-a-top-bid-of-just-280/

Howcraft, E. (2021, June 10). ‘CryptoPunk’ NFT sells for $11.8 million at Sotheby’s. Yahoo Finance. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/cryptopunk-nft-sells-11-8-154742975.html

Malik, N., Wei, Y. “., Appel, G., & Luo, L. (2023). Blockchain technology for creative industries: Current state and research opportunities. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 40(1), 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2022.07.004



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Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) – The Organization Of The Future?

14

October

2022

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written by Robin Fieseler, 14th of October 2022, 5min read

Table of content:

  1. The $50M ‘The DAO’ hack
  2. What is a DAO?
  3. Opportunities and Threats of a DAO
  4. Key Take aways
  5. References

1. The $50M ‘The DAO’ hack

Spring 2016, the world’s first decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on Ethereum, ‘The DAO’, was created on a P2P network to be the first decentralized venture capital fund. The DAO raised $168M of individual investors. In June 2016, headlines all over the news stated that The DAO was hacked by $50M (Mehar et al. 2019).
Before the threats are unveiled, let’s start with a simple explanation and dive deeper into the crypto space. Afterwards you will learn what areas DAOs could affect and what opportunities a Dao can create. Finally, the threats of DAOs are discussed by unveiling what caused the hack.

2. What is a DAO?

A decentralized autonomous organization is internet-based globally operating collectives using resources together for a common and predefined goal (creating products or services). Everyone who invests in a DAO benefits from governance, i.e. reciprocal voting rights. This leads to a dehierarchisation. The DAO is a company with programmed rules, e.g. how to use the money or what happens with the money if the project fails. These rules are programmed as Smart Contracts resulting in an action as soon as the needed votes are reached. Everyone can raise new topics on which the DAO investors/members will reconcile (Welpe 2022).

What is DAO, Source: https://cryptooa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/DAO.png

Furthermore, it is stated that it could be a legal organization to acquire goods or art, to focus on a social goal or crowdfunding, functioning as an investment vehicle like The DAO or being a whole decentralized business. The last point could mainly focus on new businesses like start-ups. This example would look like: if a start-up wants to create a decentralized app, the DAO would be the company making the decisions with smart contracts about for example raising the money needed to pay salaries and decisions about the allocation of salaries (Welpe 2022).

3. Opportunities and Threats of a DAO

After understanding what a DAO is and in which area a DAO could operate, the following focus is on opportunities and threats. On the one hand, DAOs are part of the decentralized movement leading to the abolition of the intermediary. This leads to reduction in costs for not needing lawyers, banks etc. Focusing on investments, individuals might not be able to participate in funding due to minimal amount of money to invest (Wang et al. 2019). For example, a DAO called ConstitutionDao was founded and raised $3.5M to buy a rare copy of the U.S. constitution. Not having or wanting to invest that much money would mean there is no possibility to participate in the auction (Rachel Lerman 2021).

The threats incorporate security and privacy issues, and an unclear legal status. For this post the focus lies on the security. How does it come that in a decentralized (more secure) world, security is such a big issue. It comes by the nature of the blockchain itself. The blockchain stores the data openly accessible for everyone. But, if everyone can read the code of the contracts and the organization, then also everyone is able to find bugs. In the case of The DAO, a bug was identified in 2016 and immediately tried to be solved. However, everyone has the same amount of knowledge due to open access to the data. So, in this specific case an anonymous hacker group stole $50M due to a bug in the code. Moreover, a company is succeeding due to it’s unique selling proposition. Now imagine if the data is openly accessible for anyone. Anyone can just copy and paste the data and create a similar company. In reality, it is not as easy as juts pressing ctrl + c, but the threat still exists. Lastly, there is no legal status on DAOs meaning there is a lot of risks of new laws regulating or banning (Liu et al. 2021; Mehar et al. 2019; Wang et al. 2019).

4. Key Takeaways

To conclude, a DAO is the best way to eliminate the intermediary and invest collaboratively with
anonymous others with the same goal into projects. While the opportunities show that it economical
to reduce the intermediaries and gives opportunities to compete with hedge funds, the risks explain
why DAOs are more used as investment vehicles than actual companies. If you invest and use a DAO
as the vehicle, make sure the programmers who created the company know what they do.
For those of you who want to learn more about the hack now, click on the link to learn what a hard fork is, how The DAO programmers made sure people didn’t lose all their money and why we have Ethereum Classic today.

5. References

Liu, L., Zhou, S., Huang, H. et al. (2021), ‘From Technology to Society: An Overview of Blockchain-Based DAO’, IEEE Open J. Comput. Soc., 2: 204–215.

Mehar, M. I., Shier, C. L., Giambattista, A. et al. (2019), ‘Understanding a Revolutionary and Flawed Grand Experiment in Blockchain’, Journal of Cases on Information Technology, 21/1: 19–32, accessed 13 Oct 2022.

Rachel Lerman (2021), ‘A group of crypto enthusiasts lost out on the auction to buy a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution’, The Washington Post, 19 Nov <https://​www.washingtonpost.com​/​technology/​2021/​11/​18/​crypto-​dao-​constitution-​auction/​>, accessed 14 Oct 2022.

Wang, S., Ding, W., Li, J. et al. (2019), ‘Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Concept, Model, and Applications’, IEEE Trans. Comput. Soc. Syst., 6/5: 870–878.

Welpe, I. (2022), ‘#323: DAO – Modell der Zukunft?’, Podcast, Trends: NFT, Krypto, Web3 & Social Media, 14 Oct.

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Investments in web3 and the Metaverse. Risk, opportunities and managerial implications

9

October

2022

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Let’s begin with what really drives choices in the business world: numbers. The annual  “Follow the Money” report, published by Bocconi’s Digital Enterprise Value and Organization Lab, showcases that the two concepts underlying the new evolution of the internet, the Metaverse and the web3, are able to attract not only media attention, but also substantial financial investments. 

Globally, companies and start-ups operating on Metaverse technologies attracted over $430 million in investments in the last quarter of 2021 alone, compared to a total of 11 million in 2020. 83 percent of investments in 2021 concentrate starting from the month of October, in conjunction with the rebranding of Facebook in Meta. At the same time, since the two issues are often linked in the managerial discussion, an investment trend has started in companies specialised in web3 technologies which has seen a growth of 142 percent between the whole of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, reaching over 380 million of dollars from January to March 2022, against the total 157 million of the previous year.

But where are these investments headed? Capturing the attention of investors in the Early Stage, Seed and ICO (Initial Coin Offering) phases are Metaverse companies such as NAVER Z, a platform for designing 3D worlds, filling them with virtual objects and launching live streams to interact between users; or Inworld AI, a platform for the creation of avatars and characters driven by artificial intelligence; or Space, a platform that combines digital commerce and socialisation according to the immersive experiential paradigms of the Metaverse. On the web3 front, interest shifts to a more infrastructural layer of technologies, with companies such as Mina, The Graph and QuickNode committed to building scalable protocols to lay the foundations for the new web.

Dwelling on the current managerial debate, an obvious problem is that the concepts of Metaverse and web3 now tend to be superimposed and used interchangeably to characterise the current evolutionary phase of the internet. Seeing the web3 as a new phase of the web – after the birth and growth of the internet (eighties and nineties) and the affirmation of web 2.0 paradigms (from 2004 to today) and placing the immersive virtual worlds of the Metaverse in the new meaning – represents however, an oversimplification, which can lead companies to overestimate some opportunities, as well as underestimate some risks. Opening an immersive virtual space on Roblox, the reference platform for the Alpha generation, does not necessarily mean entering the web3, just as buying an NFT does not make us citizens of the Metaverse. To better understand how the two technological concepts are linked and can be exploited, individually or in association, as well as what risks can derive from them, it is good to focus on their respective definitions and, above all, on the value that each can bring.

The term Metaverse was coined by Neal Stephenson in the novel Snow Crash in 1992 to indicate a three-dimensional space within which individuals can move, share experiences and interact through personalised avatars. To date, the term Metaverse is used to indicate, in a broader sense, an interactive, advanced and immersive experience, in which users can socialise, receive professional training, play, take lessons, participate in meetings, have cultural experiences and much more. other. There are many technologies that enable this type of experience – for example, advanced virtual graphics, computer vision, and data analytics. Of all, without a doubt, a fundamental role is played by virtual reality (or VR) which enables immersive accessibility to these new virtual worlds.

The term web3 was coined in 2014 by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and developer of Polkadot. The web3 aims to become a new decentralised internet network thanks to the use of the blockchain, the technological infrastructure on which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are based. In the web3 the data would no longer reside on a network of centralised servers, but would be spread evenly throughout the network. This need arises from very pragmatic evidence.

Currently, the information exchanged via the internet is tracked by some well known tech-giants (especially by the famous GAFA-Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) and the levels of privacy guaranteed to users are very limited. Having a more open and democratic web available is the driving force that pushes many techno-utopians to focus on the web3. A cyberspace that should restore to the internet that nature of an open, uncontrollable and accessible to all environment, dusting off the initial promises of the nineties, then broken in an oligarchic structure controlled by well-known actors.

The implications of these initial reflections for companies and managers facing these issues are many. Above all, it is necessary that the initial evaluations of new use cases linked to these paradigms take place precisely on the guidelines of the decentralisation level of the infrastructure (web3) and the level of immersion of the experience (Metaverso), weighing these characteristics on the basis of company objectives and the needs of target users. There is currently no prevailing approach, it will be quite interesting to see which logics will assert themselves in the coming years.

However, it must be said that the benefits of an immersive experience or a decentralised infrastructure correspond to risks. In the case of decentralisation, the risks arise mainly from limited scalability and the absence of governance and control. For immersion, it should not be forgotten that the level of maturity of the enabling technologies, VR above all, is still evolving and not completely adequate to support the long-term vision of many use cases.

These considerations must help us to avoid a repetition of what happened in the 2000s with the Second Life experiment, which, after an initial moment of euphoria, was greatly reduced due to the lack of a strong purpose of the project capable of intercept real needs of users.

References

Minevich, M. (2022) The metaverse and WEB3 creating value in the future Digital Economy, Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markminevich/2022/06/17/the-metaverse-and-web3-creating-value-in-the-future-digital-economy/?sh=4a5bf51f7785 (Accessed: October 9, 2022). 

Blockchain and the Metaverse Boost Startup Investments (2022) SDAB. Available at: https://www.sdabocconi.it/en/news/blockchain-and-the-metaverse-boost-startup-investments (Accessed: October 9, 2022).

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Web 3.0 Looks Good On You

3

October

2022

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Can the Metaverse change fashion as we know it?

The emergence of immersive interaction spaces is transforming digital environments into outstandingly collaborative and sensorial virtual worlds. Such potential levels of engagement presented by the future Metaverse are opening the door to a new era of fashion. Brands and designers are accordingly making out the opportunity to take their engagement with consumers to the next level and to unlock completely new revenue streams.
This new digital world brings the concept of virtual fashion to life in multiple shapes and disciplines where the industry can reach new cohorts.
In this regard, gaming is currently a major target for fashion brands, as it gradually turns into a near substitute of the real world where clothes are becoming a sign of in-game status (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Several brands are already partnering with immersive games such as Fortnite or Roblox by offering exclusive digital garments or ‘skins’ in the shape of in-game merchandise. In June 2021, a player acquired a Gucci bag on the game Roblox for more than $4,000, an amount that overly exceeded the price of the equivalent real-world physical bag (Gonzalez, 2020). And this is just an example of the new fashion wave in videogames, which is creating a new revenue stream for brands.
A considerable part of the enthusiasm about the Metaverse points in the direction of NFTs, as they can bring value in several ways that the fashion industry can utilize to their benefit. For instance, and more importantly, by utilizing blockchain, NFTs have undeniable proof attached to them of both the creator and the owner of the item (Joy, et al., 2022). This can solve the everlasting problem of authentication in the fashion industry, but now in the digital paradigm. Blockchain provides uniqueness and traceability, so brands’ identity is protected, together with their revenue streams (Gonzalez, 2020).
The rise of digital fashion in immersive platforms is also setting the scene for an emerging business model in the industry that plays a crucial role in the inevitable disruption process. Direct to Avatar (D2A) consists of the sale of items to game avatars or characters through the digital environment, and thus omitting all types of supply chain management steps needed to deliver physical products to a consumer (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Multinational brand American Eagle was one of the first to step into this disruptive initiative in July 2021, when it released a fully digital collection for Bitmoji, an avatar creation platform (Adams, 2021).
These and more advantages offered by the coming Metaverse is turning the fashion industry towards fully digital offerings and creating infinite opportunities for new revenue streams. This is especially shocking in an industry which has traditionally been sustained on physical interactions with consumers.

References

Adams, P., 2021. American Eagle debuts digital clothing on Bitmoji in creator-focused push. Marketing Dive, 5 August, pp. Retrieved from: www.marketingdive.com/news/american-eagle-debuts-digital-clothing-on-bitmoji-in-creator-focused-push/604402/.

Gonzalez, P., 2020. Digital Fashion In The Metaverse, Milano: Politecnico di Milano, School of Design. Retrieved from: https://www.politesi.polimi.it/handle/10589/188809

Joy, A., Zhu, Y., Peña, C. & Brouard, M., 2022. Digital Future of Luxury Brands: Metaverse, Digital Fashion and Non-Fungible Tokens. Strategic Change, 31(3), pp. 337-343. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jsc.2502

McKinsey & Company, 2022. The State Of Fashion 2022, Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/state%20of%20fashion/2022/the-state-of-fashion-2022.pdf?shouldIndex=false: McKinsey & Company

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The “Merge” killed Ethereum mining, what does this mean for other blockchains?

17

September

2022

5/5 (1)

Ethereum is a popular cryptocurrency and is the second largest blockchain network after bitcoin. It distinguishes itself from bitcoin by being open source. In other words, anyone can use it to program a blockchain-based digital technology, several examples of the use of Ethereum are NFTs, decentralised finance and smart contracts.

Before the “Merge” Ethereum used a proof-of-work (PoW) concept, i.e. a group of participants would run software to prove that the encrypted number was valid – this process is called mining. For their contribution, these miners were rewarded in a cryptocurrency called Ether. The mining process required a large quantity of processing power from GPU, which intern, required large amounts of electricity. This process was, however, very profitable at the cost of the environment. One main criticism of blockchain was the huge amount of electricity required to keep up the network. In Ethereum’s case, it was 78 Terawatt hours each year, for comparison that is equivalent to the power consumption of Chile. Not always is this electricity sourced from green energy, often it comes from fossil fuel power plants (Howson, 2022).

To address the sustainability concern Ethereum moved to a proof-of-sake (PoS) model. This differs from mining in that the block creators previously known as miners now become validators. In short, the validators record the transactions, verify activity, and get paid with transaction fees. The cost of equipment and electricity is not a barrier to entry anymore and anyone with sufficient funds can become a validator. Energy-hungry GPU mining rigs have become obsolete as the new model does not require as complex decryption calculations as previously needed, this will cut emissions by 99% according to the conversation.

The move toward sustainability has pleased environmentalists and has sparked a movement to switch all blockchains from PoW to PoS to reduce their energy consumption. The Merge, however, left many crypto-miners disgruntled, with useless hardware. Second-hand GPU prices have dropped drastically since the “Merge” and Nvidia has announced to its investors, that they will hold back production of their newest GPU to avoid further GPU price crashes.

Reference:

Howson, P., 2022. Ethereum: second biggest cryptocurrency to cut energy use by over 99%, but the industry still has a long way to go. [online] The Conversation. Available at: <https://theconversation.com/ethereum-second-biggest-cryptocurrency-to-cut-energy-use-by-over-99-but-the-industry-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-189907#:~:text=Ethereum%2C%20the%20world’s%20second%2Dlargest,the%20power%20consumption%20of%20Chile.> [Accessed 17 September 2022].

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From Game-Fi to Social-Fi: new business opportunities in Web 3.0

14

September

2022

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GameFi, also known as Play-to-Earn games essentially combine Gaming and Finance using Blockchain technology. Similarly, SocialFi, also known as Move-to-Earn apps combine social activities and Finance. Web 3.0 players are no strangers to these concepts as they have existed since the popularity of cryptocurrencies. However, 2022 was a big year for Game-Fi and Soci-fi with more and more traditional industries pouring investments into these emerging activities. In this article, I will discuss how the two business models contribute to the growth of blockchain and NFTs, with a focus on StepN, a Web 3.0 lifestyle app.

The attractiveness of Social-Fi comes from the “earning” perspective. By playing games and being active on the app, users are able to receive income either from in-app token rewards, staking, or minting NFTs from the platform marketplaces. When users receive tokens, they will be able to trade these tokens or derivatives on supported crypto exchanges. The games are normally simple and easy to play, with a twist of NFT integration. For example, in StepN, users first need the NFT sneakers to start earning STEPN, the native token of the platform. After getting a pair of the sneakers, users will be able to earn STEPN by exercising, such as walking, HITT, etc. You now may ask: How do you buy the NFT sneakers? The answer is it all happens on Solana’s NFT marketplace. Solana Blockchain also powers the Social-Fi app StepN so it ensures all users can figure out all activities in one ecosystem.

According to Cointelegraph, by September 2022, over half of the blockchain industry are being used for Gaming (Fortis, 2022). The crypto industry has definitely shifted from simple token and derivatives exchanges to a more beginner-friendly society. However, hackers are targeting these platform with the increasing amount of less crypto-educated users joining the projects. Axie Infinity is one of the biggest GameFi project, but AXIE holders have become easy phishing tagets on telegram because they are relatively new to the industry. Additionally, it has suffer multiple security breaches where users lose millions worth of tokens (NBCUniversal News Group, 2022). Therefore, more educations are definitely necessary for GameFi to penetrated in a broader audience. Meanwhile, projects need to enhance security operations to prevent such events from happening.

References:

Fortis, S. (2022, September 2). Gaming makes up over half of blockchain industry usage, DappRadar. Cointelegraph. Retrieved September 14, 2022, from https://cointelegraph.com/news/gaming-makes-up-over-half-of-blockchain-industry-usage-dappradar

NBCUniversal News Group. (2022, April 10). Axie Infinity Hack leaves players shaken – but still loyal. NBCNews.com. Retrieved September 14, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/crypto/axie-infinity-hack-leaves-players-shaken-still-loyal-rcna23379

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‘Blockchain Impact On Real Estate Brokerage’

7

October

2021

5/5 (1)

The real estate brokerage process


According to Nitin Gaur, the former Director of IBM Blockchain Labs, “we live in the age of

disintermediation,” or the removal of middlemen. On a worldwide basis, individuals appear to be wary

of intermediaries and prefer to engage directly with one another. Currently, most purchasers and

sellers of real estate use escrow and title firms for third-party verification, which serves as a safety net

to ensure that both parties maintain their end of the bargain and reduces the danger of fraud.

However, the real estate brokerage model has many inefficiencies.

Among these are a requirement for a great deal of paperwork, a need for face-to-face interaction among the parties

to most transactions, and a lack of technological capability to legally bind property purchase with complete

documentation and security (Cheng-Shorland & Alishahi, 2019). Furthermore, the present real estate brokerage

process is not transparent or verifiable. These problems are also closely related to

the non-transparency of its data (Deloitte Centre for Financial Services, 2017). The information

asymmetry relating to real estate assets contributes to the real estate market’s transaction costs. In

addition, a complicated structure of interrelationships between participants also accounts for a large

portion of the transaction costs in the price of real estate (Kalyuzhnova, 2018).

Blockchain technology could potentially improve some of the current shortcomings in the real

estate brokerage process. The blockchain is a peer-to-peer network that does not require any

centralized authority or trusted third party. It only adds information to the database after it has

collectively verified the accuracy of the data (Tapscott, 2016). If the assets are digital, they can

contain any sort of value.

Blockchain

The innovative power of this technology makes it possible for companies to use a computer network to do business

with other companies they do not trust. A ‘smart contract’ powers the blockchain. The smart contract’s

programmability allows registered peers to validate transactions automatically and anonymously and

decide whether a new block can be added to the chain in chronological sequence (Baliga, 2017).

Moreover, any valuta, any contract, any tangible or intangible good can be traded using a system like

blockchain. Transactions are not the only thing that can be used for blockchain. Blockchain can also play

a role in the system of record and inventory to record, track, monitor, and trade assets. Hence,

blockchain could be applied for any form of recording, inventorying, and exchanging assets, including

all areas of finance, economics and currency, tangible assets, and intangible assets. According to

Spielman (2016), blockchain technology provides greater security and makes fraud impossible

because blockchain is immutable. Aside from security, another significant feature of blockchain

technology is transparency, as all parties involved have access to the data. So, the four primary

characteristics of blockchain are transparency, immutability, programmability, and decentralization.


The change

Blockchain represents a total shift away from the traditional ways of doing things, even

for industries that have already seen the significant transformation from digital technologies. It places

trust and authority in a decentralized network rather than in a powerful central institution. And for

most, this loss of control can be deeply unsettling (Deloitte, 2018). According to the theory, the blockchain digital

ledger’s transparency and traceability will dramatically lower the cost of verifying trading partners (Catalini and

Gans, 2016). Blockchain technology and a smart contract can overcome the problems associated with the real

estate sector. A decentralized system can allow buying as well as selling properties without a third party. The

document is also verified and validated digitally. All the documents are stored in a digital ledger

distributed database where everyone can see them (Mohanta, Panda & Jena, 2018). As a result, the

amount of time and money it takes to collect the information needed for a transaction will be lowered.

Real estate agents currently gather the information manually in multiple databases and verify the

stakeholders through slow protocols. Many of these documents must be bought. In addition, a real

estate agent charges fees for services such as enhancing reliability and reducing the risk of trading

with unknown partners. The transaction costs would be reduced if this procedure was carried out using

smart contracts. Furthermore, if the majority of this transaction were handled via smart contracts, most

of the labor of real estate agents would be eliminated, resulting in the brokerage fee being eliminated

or significantly reduced. The primary reason blockchain is not being utilized in this procedure is

because it is not yet legal. Public authorities have rules and standards regarding privacy when people

conduct a real estate transaction, that prohibit blockchain real estate transactions and registrations.

As long as human factors play a prominent role in the process of buying or selling real estate

objects, information asymmetry, goal incongruence, and high transaction costs will not disappear. In

the future, there should be blockchain alternatives to support or completely provide this process for the

involved parties in a real estate transaction.


References

Baliga, A. (2017). Understanding Blockchain Consensus Models.

Catalini, C., & Gans, J. (2016). Some Simple Economics of the Blockchain.

CHENG-SHORLAND, C., & ALISHAHI, A. (2019). BLOCKCHAIN-POWERED REAL ESTATE

SALES AND RENTAL SYSTEM.

Deloitte Centre for Financial Services. (2017). Blockchain in commercial real estate – The future is

here!

Kalyuzhnova, N. (2018). Transformation of the real estate market on the basis of use of the blockchain

technologies: opportunities and problems.

Mohanta, B.K., Panda, S.S., and Jena, D., (2018), “An Overview of Smart Contract and Use Cases in

Blockchain Technology.”

Spielman, A. (2016). Digitally rebuilding the real estate industry.

Tapscott, D., & Tapscott, A. (2016). Blockchain revolution : how the technology behind bitcoin is

changing money, business, and the world .




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How can Blockchain change the legal industry?

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October

2021

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Blockchain is an example of a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), in short this means a distribution of independent computers which are also referred to as nodes. These nodes are responsible for recording, sharing, and synchronizing transactions in the ledger. A great advantage of this is that the transactions are decentralized instead of being centralized in one local ledger. These ledgers can be used to distribute digital assets without the need of copying or transferring, to facilitate access to the ledger from anywhere due to the decentralized form, and it generates trust in the asset due to the prevention of changes created by the transparency of the ledger.

Learn How To Integrate Blockchain In Legal Industry | by Robert Smith | Medium

The legal industry will be affected by the Blockchain ledger in multiple ways. Firstly, cost reduction and automation due the introduction of smart contracts. Smart contracts provide a way to change the way of working in the legal industry, traditional static documentation will be otiose in the future since smart contracts can automate the process of terms and conditions application. Smart contracts can automatically detect if terms and conditions are met or not, after this it can automatically execute the effects of this contract. This results in a less labor intensive more effective process for both parties which means a cost reduction.

Another interesting area where blockchain can affect the legal industry is in transactions of ownership of digital and physical assets. Legal firms often need to supervise big transactions to secure a secure and fair transaction for both the buying and selling parties. Human errors can be minimized if legal firms would use blockchain technology to settle transactions. Agreements and restrictions can be automatically followed since they are integrated in the protocol code of the blockchain.

Lastly, Blockchain will bring an extra layer of integrity and transparency in the legal industry. Legal documents which are transferred or stored in an insecure way are a big target for hackers with bad intentions, information shared and created by lawyers can be valuable and publicizing this information can have many negative effects for the owner of the information. Legal offices can decide to store sensitive legal documents in private append-only ledgers where information is immutable this results in more integrity. Hash values will not match if data is changed or tampered which warns the legal firm for any violations.

Summarizing from the above, blockchain can change the legal industry in a positive way. Automation and smart contracts will result in cost reductions for all parties, and Blockchain data storage will result in integrity and transparency of legal information.

Sources:

Evans, J. (2018). Curb your Enthusiasm: the real implications of blockchain in the legal industry. J. Bus. Entrepreneurship & L., 11, 273.

Goldenfein, J., & Leiter, A. (2018). Legal engineering on the blockchain:‘Smart contracts’ as legal conduct. Law and Critique, 29(2), 141-149.

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