Venezuelan state-owned cryptocurrency Petro has apparently plagiarized parts of its white paper from the GitHub repository of Dash. Core developer of Ethereum Joey Zhou pointed this out in a tweet posted Tuesday, Oct. 2.

Zhou has tweeted that Petro, which has just been officially launched by president Nicolas Maduro, is "a blatant Dash clone." To illustrate this, he posted a link to the Venezuelan coin’s white paper, which had an exact copy of an image from Dash's repository on Github.



The "clone" image is not the only thing that Petro apparently borrowed from Dash. The technical description of the coin says that it will use the X11 Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining algorithm, the same that is used by Dash.

While many cryptocurrencies use common cryptographic algorithms – such as Bitcoin’s SHA-256 – Petro also uses "nodos maestros," or masternodes – a well-known mechanism used by Dash to regulate its ecosystem.

The last but not least of the coincidences is Instant Send – Dash's mechanism for fast transactions and also one of the most important characteristics of Petro, as per its white paper:

"One of the most important characteristics of Petro is instant send (less than 5 seconds) of the transactions, which represents an innovative approach and Petro's significant impact in comparison with existing cryptocurrencies."

The news comes shortly after Venezuela’s president announced the official sale of Petro, which is slated to start November 5.

Maduro has also stated that the oil-backed cryptocurrency is about to begin trading on six major crypto exchanges. However, as of press time, it has not yet been listed on any of the largest trading platforms such as Binance, OKEx and Huobi, according to CoinMarketCap.

Earlier in August, Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group, has said that Venezuela had become the second largest market for Dash. According to Taylor, almost one hundred merchants in Venezuela begin to accept the coin each week, partly caused by the fast devaluation of bolivar – the nation’s official currency.

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Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba has filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a blockchain-based system that allows a third-party administrator to intervene in a smart contract in case of illegal activities. The USPTO published the patent application on Oct. 4.

A smart contract is a computer protocol designed to digitally verify or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts are self-executing, with the terms of the agreement between the parties being directly written into lines of code.

The patent document, which was initially filed in March, describes a blockchain-powered transaction method that enables authorized parties to freeze or halt user accounts associated with illegal transactions, or intervene in a blockchain network.

The authors of the document emphasize that while blockchain technology has a number of advantageous features like openness, unchangeability, and decentralization, it still does not provide conditions applied to specific cases in a real life environment. The patent explains:

“In real life, however, there is a type of administrative intervention activities in the category of special transactions. For example, when a user performs illegal activities, a court order may be executed to freeze the user's account. However, this operation activity conflicts with smart contracts in existing blockchains and cannot be carried out.”

The patent seeks to develop a system for effective administrative supervision of all accounts in a blockchain network, although the scope of supervision will be limited, which means it will not restrict normal transactions in the blockchain network. “The issuing account recorded in the various embodiments may be an account owned by a government agency or a trustful institution,” the patent reads. It further states:

“[...] upon receiving an operation instruction sent from a designated account, a node in a blockchain network can invoke a corresponding smart contract when determining that the operation instruction is issued legally, to execute corresponding operations on an account corresponding to the to-be-operated account information, which achieves a goal of supervision on accounts in the blockchain and solves the problem of processing special transactions like administrative intervention in a blockchain.”

On the Ethereum blockchain, upgradeable contracts can be issued, wherein logic and data are separated into different contracts. One will call the other using a command and a proxy contract, giving developers some control over the contract after it has been issued.

However, upgradeable contracts are far more complex than usual smart contracts, which can make them more susceptible to bugs. The new Alibaba technology would purportedly expand the ability of administrators across an entire network, in addition to simplifying the amending a smart contract.

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The U.K.'s national land registry is moving into the second phase of its ongoing blockchain research effort.

The HM Land Registry announced Tuesday it was partnering with blockchain company Methods, which plans to build on R3's Corda framework to develop a platform able to store land registration information and streamline the process for buying or selling properties, according to a press release.

Dubbed Digital Street, the HM Land Registry's research began last year when it first announced the project. In addition for its desire to streamline the buy-sell process, the agency said it hoped to store more "granular information" using a blockchain platform.

In a statement Tuesday, HM Land Registry Chief Executive Graham Farrant said the agency aims to become "the world's leading land registry," citing "speed, ease of use and an open approach to data" as areas he wants to excel at.

Farrant added:

"By working with Methods on Digital Street we are taking another step toward that goal, as we explore how new technologies like blockchain can help us to develop a faster, simpler and cheaper land registration process."

R3 CEO David Rutter said the company "looks forward to working with the world's most well-recognized land registry."

Like Farrant, he noted the technology's potential to make transactions more efficient, and said R3 would be "working closely" with the Land Registry to "turn this potential into reality."
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