Singapore Power Group, the country's energy utilities provider, has launched a blockchain-powered marketplace for renewable energy certificates (RECs).

The company announced in a press release Monday that the platform is "designed and built in-house" and enables organizations to trade in RECs – tradable certificates that represent energy generated from renewable sources such as solar. Blockchain technology, it says, bring the platform "security, integrity and traceability of each REC transaction."

When an entity purchases RECs, renewable energy is generated on their behalf by producers. The release says that buyers are automatically matched with sellers on the blockchain platform, helping companies to achieve their sustainability targets.

"Through blockchain technology, we enable companies to trade in renewable energy certificates conveniently, seamlessly and securely, helping them achieve greener business operations and meet their sustainability targets," said Samuel Tan, chief digital officer at Singapore Power.

According to the group, the first buyers to have signed up on its blockchain platform are City Developments Limited (CDL) and DBS Bank. Solar power developers such as Cleantech Solar Asia and LYS Energy Solutions have also already joined the platform as sellers. Katoen Natie Singapore, which is expected to launch a solar facility in the country soon, has also joined as an REC seller.

Earlier this month, the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, the government agency charged with supervising and regulating power utility services in the state, said it was looking to implement blockchain for its energy credit tracking system.

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Ripple Labs has secured the capture of Google’s erstwhile head of rich communications services (RCS), Amir Sarhangi. The startup confirmed to Reuters on Friday that Sarhangi will be joining the Ripple team as Vice President of Products. Prior to his move, Sarhangi led the rollout of a new wireless messaging system at Google after joining the tech giant through its 2015 acquisition of his startup Jibe Mobile, which developed technology that enabled cell service providers to adopt RCS.

SARHANGI’S BACKGROUND AND POSSIBLE GAINS FOR RIPPLE

Sarhangi brings a considerable body of experience in tech and corporate fields to Ripple, having previously spent time with Intel, Deloitte, and Vodafone, including a four-year stint as Senior Manager at Vodafone Japan between 2002 and 2006.

Alongside Steve Schroeder, he then founded Jibe Mobile, which provided an open end-to-end cloud technology solution for mobile providers to carry out IP-based communication including high-quality video calling, group chat, and large media-file sharing services which are agnostic of network, device, or region.

After raising more than $9 million in two funding rounds, the company was acquired by Alphabet’s Google in 2015 in a move that saw Sarhangi move into a new role as Director Product Management & Partnerships, Messaging. He also served a board member of the Area 120 Company, Google’s workshop for experimental products.

His departure will come as a significant blow for Google, which sees RCS as a replacement for SMS texting and has been looking to push through its vision for general cross-platform adoption of RCS in the face of resistance from Apple and Samsung.

Ripple, on the other hand, will see Sarhangi’s capture as a key part of its plan to develop the potential of RippleNet, its enterprise blockchain platform offering seamless, near-instantaneous global cross-border payment services with end-to-end tracking and transparency. RippleNet currently boasts a little over 100 members globally including banks, remittance operators, and payment providers.

Earlier this month, CCN reported that Moneytint, a UK-based corporate foreign exchange service provider, has integrated the RippleNet with its services, enabling it to pay out in Israeli New Shekels as well as euros on behalf of other RippleNet members. This came just a day after news of another successful RippleNet trial from Malaysia as central bank-approved fintech startup MoneyMatch successfully carried out a cross-border payment from Malaysia to Spain, converting Malaysian Ringitt (MYR) to euros at what it described as a “significantly lower cost” and in just a few hours, compared to a traditional bank transfer which would normally take days.

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A new survey by blockchain-oriented research firm Clovr showed that 60 percent of respondents think that cryptocurrency should be treated like fiat currency in political elections.

In the course of its research, Clovr surveyed 1,023 eligible voters registered in the U.S. for their understanding of what impact virtual currency could exert on the political process. Per the survey, almost 60 percent of the voters surveyed answered that crypto and the U.S. dollar should be treated the same, while only 21 percent of respondents said the opposite.

“60 percent of eligible voters believed that it should be legal to donate cryptocurrency in federal elections under the same rules that apply to donations in U.S. dollars.”

63 percent of the voters identifying as Republicans assumed that crypto was secure enough to be deployed for political purposes, and 52 percent of Democrats suggested the same. In regards to Independent voters, only 45 percent were reportedly comfortable with donations in crypto.

73 percent of respondents who were aware of digital currencies believed security was not an issue for political donations, while 23 percent expressed concern.

When asked about financial stability issues with crypto in politics, slightly more than half of Republicans — 52 percent — said that crypto was stable enough, while Democrats and Independents came in at 40 and 35 percent respectively.

Per the survey, 25 percent of the participants stated that they would be more likely to make a contribution to political campaigns if crypto donations were an option. More than 20 percent of Republicans expressed their wish to contribute more substantial amounts if crypto was an option. 16 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Independents stated the same, respectively.

Regarding concerns over whether crypto in political campaigns would increase foreign interference in U.S. elections, 60 percent answered in the affirmative, wherein Democrats showed more concern than the other groups.

Per the survey, 62 percent of respondents think that crypto donations could be used illegally in the U.S. political system. On this issue, all three groups showed similar results, with 64 percent of Independents, 62 percent of Republicans, and 61 percent of Democrats answering in the affirmative. 60 percent of respondents expressed concern over politician and party misuse of crypto donations.

Last year, the Campaign Finance Task Force issued released a report dubbed “Public attitudes and campaign finance,” devoted to the role of money in the political system. According to the report, the public overall is “woefully” misinformed about campaign finance law, revealing that only four percent of Americans knew that corporations cannot contribute directly to the campaigns of candidates for president and Congress.

The same survey found that “nearly 90% of respondents answered less than three of five factual questions correctly.” Respondents reportedly believed that the amounts of House of Representatives campaign contributions are $5.8 million on average, while the statistics show that average spending was $785,000.

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Bitcoin "Patient Zero" Wences Casares, the founder of Bitcoin (BTC) wallet startup Xapo, said that the seminal cryptocurrency may take years to prove successful, in an interview with Bloomberg Oct. 29.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Casares argued that BTC is an “intellectual experiment,” and it could be several years before it proves successful. “It may work, it might not work,” said Casares, noting that Bitcoin is in its early stages and that “we are in the equivalent of 1992 for the Internet.” However, Casares suggested that the probability of success is still greater than failure.

Argentina-born Casares has been called the “patient zero” of Bitcoin for serving as a catalyst for Silicon Valley’s interest in the seminal cryptocurrency. In 2014, Casares established Xapo, a company that offers a Bitcoin wallet combined with cold storage and a BTC-based debit card.

Casares forecasted that it will take at least seven years to determine whether BTC is successful, and if it does, BTC will become a non-political global standard of value and settlement. Casares stated:

“We need a nonpolitical standard of value and we don’t have one. So a world in which we [see it] is a world [in which] when you ask for the price of Turkish lira, you get a price in bits, when you ask for the price of a barrel of oil, you get a price in bits, when as for the price of the U.S. dollar you get a price in bits.”

Notably, the Bitcoin advocate said that it will not replace fiat currencies as "it does not make sense." He added that the idea that a blockchain can “change the idea of an asset, that already derives its value from a central authority [...] its really nonsensical and does not make any sense.”

Casares has previously proclaimed his vision of BTC becoming an apolitical standard of value. Last year Casares predicted that the price of BTC “will hit $1 million in 5–10 years.”

Regarding blockchain, Casares stated in January that there would eventually come about a single “robust” blockchain to move value globally. Per Casares, the future of crypto lies in the cooperation around a singular, robust blockchain, and in his opinion BTC is the most likely to be the blockchain of choice.

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Hitachi Payments has partnered with the State Bank of India (SBI) to establish a nationwide digital payments platform, according to a

press release published by Hitachi Oct. 29.
Under the aegis of the government’s “Digital India” campaign, Hitachi will provide SBI with solutions including its Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform "Lumada," which was implemented as the base platform for a major blockchain proof-of-concept (PoC) for supply chain management  undertaken with Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group last year.

Hitachi Payments is a wholly-owned subsidiary in India of multinational tech conglomerate Hitachi, which provides technology-led payment solutions for financial institutions. It reportedly has 55,000 ATMs and 850,000 point of sale (POS) devices (including mobile POS) under management in India.

Indian government-owned SBI is the largest commercial bank in the country, with 23 percent market share of assets and one quarter of the total deposits and loan market. According to the press release, it serves over 420 million customers and manages over 6,00,000 POS terminals.

The Hitachi Payments-SBI joint venture is pitched as a bid to accelerate the “digitalization” of financial services in India by harnessing Lumada and other cutting-edge technological solutions in order to expand the digital service business in the country. Hitachi Payments has reportedly been providing services for SBI’s digital payment acceptance network as of 2011.

Through the new partnership, Hitachi Payments is set to invest 26 percent in SBI’s subsidiary SBI Payments, which is described as India’s “largest merchant acquirer in the market in terms of [POS] terminals.”

As previously reported, SBI has been developing a blockchain solution for managing know-your-customer (KYC) protocols since November 2017, and was also a founding member of the blockchain for banking research consortium “BankChain.”

This summer, Hitachi partnered with telecoms giant KDDI to trial a retail coupon settlement system that combines Hitachi’s Hyperledger Fabric-powered blockchain platform with biometrics.

As of February 2017, the conglomerate has been working with blockchain development firm Tech Bureau to integrate a NEM-based platform into Hitachi’s point management system for merchants, “PointInfinity.” The latter entails a POS software solution for loyalty programs that is reportedly used by over 150 million members in Japan.

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The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) has released a new set of specifications in an effort to provide standards for developers using private iterations of the Ethereum Blockchain, according to statements shared with Cointelegraph.

At DevCon4 today in Prague, the EEA announced the release of its Enterprise Ethereum Client Specification V2 and Off-Chain Trusted Compute Specification V0.5. The former is a development of common standards, which aims to ensure that Ethereum developers will write code that “[motivates] enterprise customers to select EEA specification-based solutions over proprietary offerings.”

The Client Specification V2 will essentially offer a label of sorts, which means a product underwent third party testing in order to be sold as EEA-compliant.

The latter spec release is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that can move transactions “off-chain” for computation elsewhere, and then move a summary to the “main chain.” EEA APIs using the recently released specs would offer programmers methods of moving data off-chain independent of any one trust verification method. The APIs have been reviewed to be compatible with Trusted Execution Environments, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and Trusted Multi-Party Compute.

Executive Director Ron Resnick said that “enterprises can choose whichever trusted compute methods work best for their use case, whether it is for supply chains, banks, retail, or other large enterprise-based ecosystems.”

The EEA aims to broaden its set of standards by onboarding new firms from various industries to its list of member organizations, which numbers over 500. Speaking with Cointelegraph, Resnick stated that he sees further potential for EEAs standards in streamlining the payments process in chemical supply chains, as well as various applications in automotive, trucking, addressing music piracy, and health services.

The blockchain standards organization released the first version of its Enterprise Ethereum Client Specification in May. The first spec interaction aimed at interoperability would “basically [be] the catapult that launches the whole ecosystem,” Resnick said at the time. He told Cointelegraph:

“Without interoperability, the big players aren’t going to want to jump in, because they don’t want to be locked in to one particular vendor for a proprietary solution [...] It attracts more and more of the bigger players to come in and make a commitment, because they feel a little more safe that they’re not going to get stuck.”

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Opting to take the view ICOs are a form of fraud, speculation or gambling, the Korean government initiated a ban on the investment vehicle last September, one that sparked a strong backlash from domestic blockchain startups.

Still, some Korean lawmakers from the opposition party have piggybacked on these concerns and are advocating for the legalization of ICOs. In a situation where the incumbent government is struggling with economic issues, including a decline in employment and skyrocketing housing prices, it's perhaps natural the opposition party would rally behind an emerging technology to try to establish an innovative image for itself.

However, Min Byung-doo is one member of the ruling Minjoo Party who has spoken out in favor of ICOs through a query submitted to the government, an unusual step for a prominent figure in the ruling party in that it doesn't square with the government or Blue House line.

But not only is Min a leading figure, he is the Chairman of the National Policy Committee, considered the first hurdle to clear for those hoping to enact legislation on ICOs or cryptocurrency exchanges.

In an interview with CoinDesk Korea, Min expressed his thoughts on ICOs, cryptocurrencies and the blockchain industry, and their outlook in South Korea.

CoinDesk Korea: Why do you think ICOs should be permitted?

Min Byung-doo: There are some positive aspects to the regulations implemented by the government over the past year. A lot of the bubbles have burst and people have realized that this is not a market they should be recklessly rushing into. The laws have served as a big preventive injection, so even if the regulations on ICOs and exchanges were repealed, I don't think people would be jumping into these markets without careful consideration. I think the vaccine has succeeded, and it's now time to open up the market.

A number of countries including Switzerland, Malta, Estonia and Singapore have recently tried to bring ICOs within the boundaries of existing institutional frameworks, as well as France, who recently passed a new law. It seems that many countries have started focusing on the potential of ICOs.

Over the last two years, the total funds raised through ICOs were far higher than the figures for venture capital or angel investment. The trend is changing. All around the world, people are applying for blockchain-related patents and trying to come up with new business models. They believe that a new coin will emerge that takes things to the next level, and we have no reason to stand in the way of that possibility.

Anyone can found a unicorn (a company valued at more than $1 billion) or decacorn (a company valued at more than $10 billion) by making use of public blockchains. A dominating platform will eventually emerge in this market, and Korea shouldn't miss out on that opportunity.

The problem is that even though this opportunity exists, the government is still blocking ICOs on the grounds that they could lead to 'fraud, speculation or money laundering.'

CoinDesk Korea: The Office for Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) is expected to release the government's official position on ICOs in November, but Financial Services Commission head Choi Jong-gu remains opposed to ICOs.

Min Byung-doo: The OGPC and FSC reached agreement in a special consultative meeting, and both have a negative view of ICOs. It seems that the government is satisfied with the regulatory measures they put in place between last October and January, and believes that regulating is their duty.

Whether the government releases a new set of regulations on ICOs (in November) or not, they will need to listen to a wide range opinions from the industry and justify their decision with some solid evidence. And if Korea's blockchain industry fails to develop because of this, the government should be held accountable.

CoinDesk Korea: Some bills on blockchain have already been submitted to the National Assembly.

Min Byung-doo: Some of those bills are close to an outright ban on ICOs, while others are wholeheartedly devoted to promoting them. People have vastly different views on this issue. I think we are quickly running out of time.

Once the National Assembly's regular session finishes, lawmakers will start looking towards next year's general election and getting ready to campaign. The fact that the National Assembly is ignoring the desperate messages being sent by the industry is a big problem.

CoinDesk Korea: If the chairman of the National Policy Committee is in favor of ICOs, does that increase the chances that the committee will pass a law on this issue?

Min Byung-doo: Personally, I am strongly committed to this, and I hope that other lawmakers will bring their own expertise to the table and approach this issue with a strong sense of commitment as well. The FSC seems to be having a difficult time. The NPC is the committee in charge of this issue, so when I am speaking out in favor of ICOs and several dozen lawmakers have also made their voices heard through a series of debates, it places a lot of pressure on the government.

The government seems to feel a heavy burden when it comes to enacting laws or guidelines. I think they are afraid that enacting a law might come across as a tacit endorsement of crypto assets.

If you want to legislate, there is no need to enact a series of detailed provisions. You just need to focus on three key areas: the basic nature of the assets involved, duties and oversight. How should regulation differ depending on the nature of the asset? How can the government crack down on problems such as fraud, speculation and money laundering? How can regulations be used to guarantee the security of exchanges? How will white papers be verified? Will analysts be required to release regular reports? Which authority should be in charge of oversight? The only thing regulation needs to do is answer these questions.

An NPC-level public hearing or special meeting is expected to be held in November. The goal of this meeting is to hear what legal, financial and software experts have to say. Laws and guidelines should be as minimal as possible, but the deliberation prior to implementing such measures needs to be thorough and in-depth.

Accordingly, the National Assembly is planning to collate their views and urge the government to take action, whether that be through laws or guidelines.

CoinDesk Korea: Doesn't the FSC or the Blue House hold the key when it comes to this issue?

Min Byung-doo: At present, the OGPC is the control tower that manages task forces on cryptocurrencies across all government departments. I am aware that some officials at the Blue House are also closely following this issue. It would be great if the president could just make a decision on this, but that is far from easy.

CoinDesk Korea: Bitcoin was created in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, while blockchain is rooted in the philosophy of decentralization. Isn't it only natural that the government takes a negative view of such technology?

Min Byung-doo: I don't think that cryptocurrencies would be able to avoid financial oversight. I don't think that's the case. I think the future brought about by decentralization or disintermediation would be bad at all.

Some governments may take a very passive stance while other countries will adopt a more active approach. But if some governments are actively trying to promote blockchain technology and this leads to the creation of globally dominant platforms like Amazon or Alipay, then will passive governments be able to stand in their way? If they can't do anything in response, they will end up being colonized economically. Governments need to take action to ensure that they don't get left behind in this competition.

CoinDesk Korea: What do you think of the 'special blockchain zones' being proposed by local governments such as Jeju?

Min Byung-doo: From the government's perspective, there is no difference between permitting ICOs in special designated zones and allowing them across the whole country. Once the government has passed laws or guidelines, it will be possible for special zones to explore suitable models for development, but right now it is difficult to envision such a zone being granted special permission in advance.

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