This is a Charles Brett’s start-of-the-week Enterprise Times ‘blockchain catch-up’ for Week 40. Necessarily it is idiosyncratic and selective.

It is not intended to be comprehensive but does seek to highlight ‘Quick Takes’ on specific developments as well interesting pieces to read, a listing of some (not all) announcements/press releases and pointers to upcoming events.

Quick Takes – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 40

WEF/Leaders release map of blockchain standards

The World Economic Forum has released its Global Standards Mapping Initiative (GSMI), an initial attempt to assess the current state of blockchain. Based on input from over 30 technical standard-setting entities, 185 jurisdictions and nearly 400 industry groups, the reports are accessible to the public and intended to serve as a resource for the blockchain community to develop thoughtful frameworks and standards to propel the industry forward.

Quick Take: efforts to develop standards are good. Whether those standards ‘take’ is quite different. Nevertheless, enterprises interested in blockchain should – at the very least – read and understand what exists, and then determine what is missing.

AP and Everipedia to publish US election race calls on the blockchain

The Associated Press (AP), the news agency, will distribute election race calls to Everipedia which will publish these cryptographically on the blockchain through a new oracle product by Chainlink infrastructure. The Associated Press has ‘counted’ votes in US elections since 1848 – including national, state and local races in all 50 states along with key ballot measures. AP collects and verifies returns across the US. It is the AP which will declare winners in 7,000 contests.

Quick Take: In an era of notorious misinformation, the need for verifiable information has never been greater. The vision here is to bring verified real-world data and information to the public via a blockchain. Whether this will make a difference will likely depend on circumstances beyond the AP and Everipedia’s control. But, to Enterprise Times, the initiative is a worthy one.

ECB public consultation on digital euro

Quick Take: The ECB is pushing ahead with considering a digital euro (qv last week’s Blockchain Catch-up). As part of this, it has launched a public consultation (with a deadline date of 12^th January 2021. This is an opportunity for businesses and or individuals to provide commentary. (To obtain the email for contributing, go here.)

To read – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 40

• What’s a digital euro? 5 things to know
• The digital euro already exists and the ECB should back it
• Blockchain: optimising payments or disrupting them?
• Blockchain enters Polish administration
• PwC: blockchain technologies could boost the global economy US$1.76 trillion by 2030 through raising levels of tracking, tracing and trust
• ‘No single digital currency will dominate the world’ Bank of Japan now says
• CryptoBLK and CargoX establish partnership to advance global trade and supply chains
• Gemini exchange partners with licensed crypto payments processor in UK
• Breitling issues digital certificates of authenticity on the Ethereum blockchain
• Ethereum blockchain killer goes by unassuming name of Polkadot

Selected announcements/press releases – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 40

• • Germany looks to blockchain to help decentralise its energy economy
  • Cardano’s Marlowe language to write financial contracts supporting P2P lending (and) other use cases
  • House Reps. introduce Bill expanding electronic records to include blockchain
  • IBM Digital Health Pass puts privacy first
  • Christie’s first auction of blockchain related artwork sold for more than US$130,000
  • Stone Ridge reveals $115M Bitcoin investment
  • DAML for PostgreSQL

• Huobi expands fiat gateway to support AUD, GBP and EUR through Banxa
• CMA CGM and MSC complete TradeLens integration and join as foundation carriers working with the IBM and Maersk Shipping Platform to improve data sharing.

Selected upcoming events

• First Annual 6G Symposium, October 20th-21st (more information here)
• R3’s Cordacon 2020, October 20-22 (virtual – register here)
• The Rule of Law – The new consumer agenda, with the EC’s Věra Jourová; October 23^rd (register here)
• FUTR DX, November 4^th-6^th (to attend)
• Web Summit December 2-4^th (tickets)
• Paris Blockchain Week summit launches hybrid event on December 9th & 10th, 2020 (more info here)
• Crypto Finance Conference Returns to St. Moritz in January 2021.