Digital Gold: Earn Money on the Web

Nick Spanos

For the beginning, a bit of terminology, interesting facts and history.

Terminology. Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency, the creation and control of which is based on cryptographic methods. As a rule, accounting for cryptocurrency is decentralized. That is, the cryptocurrency does not belong to any government in the world. In addition, it does not belong to one particular person. Its operation is based on technologies such as blockchain. Transaction information is usually not encrypted and is available in clear text. To ensure that the base of the transaction blockchain is unchanged, elements of cryptography are used (digital signature based on a public key system, etc.).

The term was entrenched after the publication of an article about the Bitcoin system “Crypto currency,” published in 2011 in the journal Forbes. The very author of Bitcoin, like many others, used the term “electronic cash.”

Sometimes, a new cryptocurrency appears as a fork from another cryptocurrency due to changes in parameters, which makes them incompatible. In this case, both cryptocurrencies can have a common transaction history until the split. In addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have probably already been heard, there are many other currencies. For example, on the coingecko service, information was collected on more than 3,500 coins and on the cryptocompare service, about 2000.

The emission of different cryptocurrencies can occur through mining, forging (minting) or ICO (I will discuss this later).

Discussions on the economic nature and legal status of cryptocurrency are underway. In different countries, cryptocurrencies are considered as a means of payment, a specific product may have restrictions in circulation (for example, the prohibition of operations with them for banking institutions). ³ But it is worth noting that cryptocurrency has long been used in many countries and for many purposes. In Europe, it has already been paying for real estate and other small goods, while in some countries, it is planned and implemented to accept payments for utilities in cryptocurrency. Who knows how else the cryptocurrency will be used in a few years…

Blockchain

Blockchain – built by certain rules, a continuous, sequential chain of blocks (linked list) containing information. Most often, copies of block chains are stored on many different computers independently of each other.

The term first appeared as the name of a fully replicated distributed database implemented in the Bitcoin system, which is why blockchain is often referred to as transactions in various cryptocurrencies, but the blockchain technology can be extended to any interconnected information blocks. Bitcoin became the first application of the blockchain technology in October 2008.

Imagine a digital medical history: each entry is such a block. This entry has a label: date and time of entry. Initially, it is considered mandatory to ban retroactive change of records because it is necessary that diagnostic, treatment, etc. records did not allow different interpretations and remained in their original form. Only a doctor who has one private key and a patient who has another can access the records. Then this information will only be accessed if one of these users provide their private key (for example, to the hospital or an individual specialist). This is an example of how blockchain technology can be used in a medical database.

Blockchain is decentralized, and there is no one common “command center,” hacking that will succeed in destroying all the data about the transaction and its participants or changing them. Hacking one computer will not affect the integrity of the data on the others (as well as on their change).

Blockchain will be a good help for any services where users could worry about possible fraud or data integrity:

– Micropayments

– Bank operations

– Logistics

– Jurisprudence

– Medicine

I think blockchain is really the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Money is just a number. But it must be a reliable number. Digital currencies are based on the fourth industrial revolution, called the blockchain.”

Bin Henu

Application outside the scope of cryptocurrency

Education

At present, representatives of various spheres are interested in the blockchain technology. At the same time, the degree of interest of companies in different sectors of the economy varies considerably. The financial sector is actively preparing for the widespread introduction of the blockchain, while manufacturing companies are still ignoring this technology.

So, a team of scientists from Oxford, who founded “blockchain-university” Woolf University, announced the admission of the first students in early 2019, ABC News reported.

As planned by the organizers, their educational institution will offer a “learning system of the 21st century,” and using the blockchain technology to create a decentralized management structure will reduce student spending and increase teachers’ salaries. Forbes has previously described the initiative as “Uber for students and Airbnb for academics.”

“The Woolf blockchain was created in order to remove an intermediate level of bureaucracy from the process between the audience and the regulator. The platform offers students and teachers complete control over their personal data,“said Joshua Broggie, founder and director of Woolf University. According to him, the blockchain will allow organizing the learning process directly between students and teachers, often in a one-on-one format, while avoiding the difficulties traditionally associated with a very expensive university bureaucracy. In addition, the founders are confident that their institution will be the first in the world “University without borders.”

“We literally could not have achieved this without the blockchain. I really hope that this is the education of the future. Woolf aims to solve two big problems in the higher education system: auxiliary education and ease of access for students,” Broggi added.

He also noted that training at Woolf will cost $19,200 per year, and the blockchain technology will make it possible to achieve “very substantial savings, which is very important for wide access.” ⁴

Banking, Investment and Exchange

In the Russian banking sector, companies like VTB and Sberbank are interested in blockchain technology.

VISA, Mastercard, Unionpay and SWIFT payment systems announced the development and plans for using the blockchain technology.

The London division of Deutsche Bank Innovation Lab is developing a blockchain-based investment system that accelerates, simplifies and cheapens the investment process by eliminating or reducing the role of intermediaries, lawyers (attorneys), auditors and clearing agents.

In July 2017, S7 Airlines and Alfa-Bank launched a blockchain platform for automation of trading operations with agents based on Ethereum. ⁵

On August 10, 2018, the World Bank authorized the Australian bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to issue the world’s first blockchain-based bonds. This was stated in a joint press release of the banks. The new blockchain-based debt instrument will be called “bond-i.” It will be launched after consulting with a wide range of investors who show great interest in it. The blockchain platform for bond-i was developed by the CBA Blockchain Advanced Technology Center.⁶

In early September 2018, the American company IBM, which is not only the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier of hardware and software, but also consulting services, announced the launch of the IBM Blockchain World Wire project. The payment blockchain system based on Stellar is positioned as an alternative, which is replacing a morally obsolete network for processing financial transactions that the world has been using for as long as 50 years. Integrating IBM Blockchain World Wire with existing payment systems, they said, will be able to “replace costly opacity with available transparency – and this will bring greater financial opportunities for all.” Thus, the brainchild of IBM and Stellar can compete with the traditional global payment system SWIFT. ⁷

Land registry

Sweden, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates are planning to maintain a land registry using blockchain technology.

The government of India is fighting land fraud with the help of blockchain. Andhra Pradesh was the first Indian state where the government took steps to implement blockchain solutions. For this purpose, a technology park is planned to be created in the city of Visakhapatnam with the participation of the blockchain companies Apla, Phoenix and Oasis Grace.

Identification

In 2014, Bitnation was founded, providing such services of a traditional state as ID, notary and some others.

In June 2017, Accenture and Microsoft presented the digital identity card system on the blockchain.

In August 2017, the Brazilian government began testing the identity system for the blockchain.

Finland identifies refugees with blockchain technology.

There is a blockchain e-citizenship system in Estonia. ⁵

In September 2018, New South Wales, a state in the south-east of Australia, announced that they would transfer the state database of driver licenses to the blockchain. As part of the experiment, 140,000 drivers registered in the state will be transferred to the blockchain platform. If successful, the project will be distributed throughout Australia in 2019.

Transport

In May 2018, the Government of Malta began to actively introduce modern technologies in the country, starting with the deployment of a high-tech transport and logic platform using blockchain. This was stated in a press release from the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects of Malta, Jan Borg: “We believe in Omnitude blockchain technology, its versatility and wide potential for government use. We see its potential in a number of government departments, and it will form the cornerstone of the technology platform as part of our commitment to introducing innovative technologies. This will improve the quality of life and increase access to information for Maltese citizens. Blockchain technology is a key part of our national technology strategy, which will allow us to transform various sectors.”

At the end of October 2018, the largest airline in Canada, Air Canada, announced its participation in the blockchain-based traffic distribution platform, which was developed by the Swiss startup Winding Tree. According to data released in the airline’s press release, Air Canada signed a letter of intent to participate in a decentralized platform for distributing open source traffic developed by Winding Tree. Thanks to the integration of the new blockchain platform, companies are striving to improve the distribution and sale of air transportation services. ⁸