The operator of Europe’s largest shipping port is taking part in a new blockchain consortium focused on logistics.

Announced earlier this month, the Netherlands-based effort includes support from a number of local and regional institutions, including the Port of Rotterdam, ABN Amro, Delft University and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research. Also taking part in the initiative are Royal FloraHolland, a major floral auction house, and the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, among others.

Over the next two years, consortium members will test applications for sharing logistical and contractual information between parties. According to Delft University, the project will move forward in conjunction with a separate blockchain initiative pursued by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Delft said that it would create an open-source infrastructure to serve as the basis for testing among the other companies and institutions involved.

The inclusion of the Port of Rotterdam – a major shipping point in Europe and once the world’s largest – is a notable one. The port reported that 466m tonnes worth of commodity shipments had passed through it in 2015.

Those involved aren’t alone in exploring the technology for logistics use, and the project’s organizers say the work being done will focus on real-world applications and uses.

Johan Pouwelse, an associate professor at Delft who is acting as project manager, said in a statement:

“This project involves more than just talking about possibilities – we're really going to apply the technology.”

The Port of Rotterdam did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative for ABN Amro wasn’t available when reached.

Image via Shutterstock

Port of RotterdamThe Netherlands

While momentum for bitcoin as a consumer payment method has waned, Bitcoin Black Friday is still attracting attention from merchants its fifth year on.

The event, a bitcoin version of the usually aggressive, post-Thanksgiving shopping spree, started in 2012 as what its founder Jon Holmquist calls "a half-baked idea". But that impromptu first year has blossomed into a steady stream of demand from merchants catering to bitcoin-holding enthusiasts.

This year, more than 150 merchants participated in the event, a figure that was down sharply from 2013, when roughly 600 businesses sold goods.

However, there was a notable difference in its target audience in 2016. Rather than going after more mainstream merchants, Holmquist has shifted focus, positioning the event to attract businesses more likely to win heavy users of the digital currency.

This has meant targeting adult entertainment sites and bitcoin product providers to promote their Black Friday deals.

He told CoinDesk:

"The bitcoin community as a whole has come to the realization that bitcoin won't be a currency used for consumers transactions. Mainstream consumers won't be using it for online shopping. They use credit cards and they're fine with that method."

But while merchant numbers are down, Holmquist saw an increase in traffic to the site, which in his mind means the slump since 2013 is over.

"At least in bitcoin consumer spending, from this point onwards it's healthy, use case based growth," he said. "The growth and attention is no longer smoke and mirrors hype, it is real spending."

Power users

Holmquist thinks the pick-up this year is due to the bitcoin-first merchants, many of which offered unique products only found on the Bitcoin Black Friday website as part of the promotion.

Focusing on products and services that bitcoin enthusiasts are interested in will be the focus going forward, he said, and merchants involved agree.

"We are doing more and more sales every year, and most those sales are driven by the bitcoin community … which is growing," says Eric Larchevȇque, co-founder and CEO of French startup, Ledger. The firm, which sells hardware wallets specialized for cryptocurrencies, sponsors the event's official website.

"From our point of view, bitcoin usage isn't shrinking in any way," he continued.

For instance, Ledger sees spikes whenever the price of bitcoin rises or there's a hack at any of the mainstream bitcoin exchange providers.

As far as Bitcoin Black Friday, Ledger has been participating for three years, stretching the event throughout the weekend. In 2014, the impact wasn’t huge, Larchevȇque says. But the first version of the hardware wallet, Ledger Nano had just been launched.

The second year was more interesting. Ledger sold about $5,200 in sales in one day, about ten times more than it had ever sold in a 24-hour span, Larchevȇque says.

And those were sales on traffic Ledger wouldn't have been able to pull in on its own.

"Last year I don't think that our brand was that well known to drive the people to the [Bitcoin Black Friday] site,” he said. "It was more opportunistic sales. A lot of the traffic we got was enthusiasts just wanting to spend their bitcoin."

This year, Ledger sold almost 1,000 units for total sales a little south of $100,000, which according to Larchevȇque is an order magnitude more than last year. Plus the company had five times the traffic this year as compared to last Black Friday.

And the event is a good time to spend bitcoin, since all the merchants, similar to the traditional event, offer discounts and deals. For instance, Ledger gives 21% off on all its products Friday through Sunday.

Ledger even launched its new product, Ledger Blue, a Bluetooth- and NFC-capable touchscreen hardware wallet during the event.

Niche appeal

But there are also merchants involved for ideological reasons.

Néstor Romeral Andrés, the founder of NESTORGAMES, uses the event to sell unique board games he creates to bitcoin users. During the year, he might not get a bitcoin transactions for months, but during Bitcoin Black Friday he secures a number of sales.

Andrés learned about bitcoin through Max Keiser, an American broadcaster known for his heterodox economic theories. To him, decreasing bitcoin transactions is a sign of people understanding bitcoin is "good money" (as opposed to government-backed fiat currencies).

But Andrés's sentiment is a dying one. "A lot of the interest has shifted away from bitcoin and into blockchain," Holmquist acknowledged.

Which makes the Back Friday event one by and for bitcoiners.

This ebb has made the event much less work for Holmquist. (Not as many merchants are enthusiastic about accepting bitcoin and he doesn’t get as many media requests).

But there are signs the event could continue to serve a purpose for a smaller market.

Because of possible legal repercussions, Holmquist hasn’t allowed online gambling sites or legal marijuana sellers to promote, although Mary Jane merchants will likely get a shot on the site in 2017.

Those industries, Holmquist said, could be ripe for expansion.

"[They] need alternatives to credit cards and that’s where bitcoin can really shine, what it was designed for and what it’s good at."

Black Friday image via Shutterstock

Bitcoin Black FridayE-commerceMerchantsPayments

At over 1,000-years-old, The Royal Mint – the only institution licensed to provide coins in the UK – isn't the type of business you might expect to be launching a blockchain.

However, in the face of new "technological and competitive" challenges, The Royal Mint is doing just that, announcing today that results of an investigation into how it could digitize its processes for the benefit for partners and customers.

As part of this larger drive, The Royal Mint has teamed with derivatives marketplace provider CME Group to build and launch a digital gold offering, one that could find it offering its users the ability to execute, settle and trade gold using a blockchain-based system.

David Janczewski, director of new business at The Royal Mint, explained that the product launch will see the company vaulting 400-oz gold bars, assigning ownership of these assets and allowing users to trade them peer to peer on a blockchain run by CME Group as a way to cut costs.

Janczewski told CoinDesk:

"There are costs associated with vaulting and storing gold and physical assets. It's for this reason gold is often referred to as a negative return investment. We intend to address the issue and offer a better value way to invest in physical gold."

CME digitization lead Sandra Ro added that the announcement represents the fruition of a collaboration between the two firms that has lasted for the larger part of a year.

The Royal Mint indicated it could end up issuing as much as $1bn in what it is calling Royal Mint Gold (RMG) as part of the offering, though it will first seek market feedback in assessing demand.

As for how The Royal Mint blockchain will be designed, CME Group was less clear, stating only that details about the platform, as well as the industry partners that are supporting the effort, will be forthcoming.

Still, Janczewski was adamant in stressing that The Royal Mint has "serious intentions" of bringing the technology to market, adding that it's "not a proof-of-concept".

CME Group further hinted that the project, like its existing products, will be accessible online 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while also enabling users to see the blockchain history of RMG digital assets.

"This is a departure from traditional asset trading, but there's a lot of changes that would make this interesting to current and new investors," Ro told CoinDesk.

The product would complement existing offerings, such as its 'Sovereign' and 'Britannia' gold bullion coins, as well as its Royal Mint Refinery Bars, weighted from 1 to 1,000 grams.

Cost cutting

As for how the product will reduce fees, Vin Wijeratne, CFO of The Royal Mint, said that the product will remove traditional frictions that have occurred every time the exchange of its physical gold assets is recorded in a traditional ledger.

"Now, blockchain technology provides an efficient way, not a huge difference of registering the ownership, but in maintaining an accurate register of who owns what piece of gold, which is potentially very labor attentive," Wijeratne said.

Ro noted that she believes the project would bring more accountability and transparency to over-the-counter trading in the physical gold market, thereby reducing costs for investors.

"There's a price discovery element happening on the trading platform as well as the transparency of the ownership records," she said.

The efficiencies, those involved said, will enable The Royal Mint to offer ownership of the underlying gold, "with the option for conversion to physical gold" with zero storage cost.

For investors

In interview, those involved with the project also hinted that it will provide a continuation of history for an organization that is so storied it has its own museum.

Wijeratne, for example noted that The Royal Mint has "centuries" of expertise in trading gold, and that the digital gold product envisions how the organization intends to ensure its services continue well into the age of blockchain.

The Royal Mint said it now intends to engage with groups such as retail broker-dealer community and investment advisors on how it might ensure the service's quality at launch.

Ro further sought to differentiate between this effort and those launched by other gold industry players to harness blockchain efficiencies in post-trade, framing it as unique among what has so far been tried by traditional financial institutions.

"This is a digital asset, a digitized gold product, being put out to the market for traders," she emphasized:

"We're talking about an investment product."

UK gold coins image via Shutterstock

CME GroupGoldUK

Financial technology firm Calypso has inked a deal with blockchain consortium R3 to develop applications for its Corda platform.

Calypso, founded in the 1990s, develops software for capital markets. It is working with R3 to build a trade confirmation app to function on top of Corda, a distributed ledger platform for managing financial contracts. Corda, formally unveiled in April, is expected to be released open-source later this week.

In statements, the firms suggested that the trade confirmation app would be the first of a number of products developed by Calypso for the Corda platform.

“Our current matching solution is only the beginning,” Calypso CEO Pascal Xatart said of the deal.

The news comes as R3 moves to close a multi-party funding deal with members of the blockchain consortium. Though some member banks, including Goldman Sachs and Banco Santander, have moved to exit the initiative, many members are reportedly backing the funding effort.

Image via Shutterstock

Calypso TechnologyCordaR3

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has published four applications filed by MasterCard related to its work with blockchain and distributed ledger tech.

The four applications, all published on 24th November, focus specifically on payments and transacting. Steven Charles Davis is listed as the sole inventor on three of the four applications, while the last also names Ashish Raghavendra Tetali as an inventor.

In sum, the proposed patents suggest that MasterCard is at least weighing the question of how blockchain-based digital currencies could be integrated into its own systems. The applications focus on methods and systems for authorizing, processing and securing blockchain-based transactions, with MasterCard arguing that a combination of blockchain and its existing payment technology could be a boon for those making digital payments.

The company wrote in one of its applications:

"Accordingly, the use of traditional payment networks and payment systems technologies in combination with blockchain currencies may provide consumers and merchants the benefits of the decentralized blockchain while still maintaining security of account information and provide a strong defense against fraud and theft."

Publication of the applications comes weeks after the credit card firm released a set of experimental blockchain APIs. Last year, MasterCard gained exposure to the industry by taking part in the funding round for investment firm Digital Currency Group.

MasterCard is far from alone in its pursuit of patents related to digital currencies or blockchain.

Patent application releases over the past few months have suggested a flurry of activity on the patent front among both emerging and established businesses. In recent weeks, the USPTO has published applications from startups including 21 Inc, Blockstream and Digital Asset Holdings, as well as major firms like AT&T and Nasdaq.

Disclosure: MasterCard is an investor in CoinDesk's parent company, Digital Currency Group.

Image Credit: Atstock Productions / Shutterstock.com

MasterCardPatents

The price of bitcoin reached a new milestone on 28th November, as the day marked six consecutive months that the digital currency's price has traded above $500.

According to the CoinDesk USD Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), the digital currency first reached the six-month mark at 20:30 UTC, as it rose above $500 on 28th May. At press time, bitcoin was trading above $730 on the BPI.

This time frame represents the longest stretch in history where bitcoin has remained above $500. Even though the cryptocurrency surged to more than $1,100 in late 2013, reaching $1,165.13 on 30th November, it quickly fell back, declining below $500 on 18th December, 2013.

Even discounting this one-day dip in price demand, that period above $500 came to an end in mid-March, marking a sustained value above this market for just over four months.

Putting this in perspective, the digital currency has repeatedly displayed significant volatility, so its ability to remain above this crucial level of $500 for a sustained period might prove promising to those advocating the digital currency.

Some market observers have repeatedly criticized bitcoin's volatility, using it as evidence that bitcoin is not a "real" currency or sound investment opportunity.

This piece is not intended to provide, and should not be interpretted as offering, investment advice.

Hurdle image via Shutterstock

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