Blockchain This Week: Indian Coffee Runs on Blockchain; Founder Of Dutch Blockchain Startup Arrested And More

Blockchain has the potential to transform several cogs of the economy, including BFSI, healthcare, real estate, public sector services, retail, utilities, governance and more.

Interestingly, after the ban of cryptocurrency in the country, the blockchain space has seen great impetus and encouragement from government, service providers, enterprises and startups. However, the slow-moving regulatory environment in India will need to become more agile to tap this technology effectively.

According to “India Blockchain Report 2019” by the Indian IT-ITeS industry body NASSCOM, nearly half the states in India have initiated blockchain projects to address different elements of citizen service delivery. While most projects are in the pilot stage, the state governments have taken a progressive approach to ensure startups have a conducive framework to participate in these initiatives. Besides public sector, private enterprises are also identifying blockchain applications with BFSI having the highest adoption, followed by sectors like retail, healthcare, and logistics. The report emphasised that the use of blockchain in public sector in land registry maintenance, medical record maintenance among other use-cases is changing things on the ground level.

While it looks like the public sector is making use of this technology optimally, private enterprises are also joining the blockchain brigade.

Indian Coffee Sells On Blockchain

The Coffee Board of India (CBoI) recently announced that it has over 30K businesses on its blockchain-based electronic-market platform for coffee producers, which includes exporters, curers, roasters, and international buyers.

Launched in March this year, the platform has been developed by Bengaluru-based Eka Software Solutions. At that time, it had 23 registered farmers making up 100 tonnes of India’s 320,000 tonnes of coffee.

The Founder of Blockchain Startup Arrested

The Netherland police recently arrested Sam Narain, the founder of blockchain game development startup Komodore64. The startup had allegedly raised $86 Mn from investors, by falsely claiming to have previously raised funds from a ‘well-known investment company.’

The issue came to light after a group of individuals from the alleged investor impersonated a delegation from the investment firm. After this fraudulent scheme was brought to light, the company declared bankruptcy. Komodore64 was launched in June 2019, and the company was set up to build game platforms where transactions are tracked on the blockchain platform.

Singapore To Use Blockchain To Boost Investment Transparency

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced decentralised data platform to improve transparency and boost investor confidence in the country. MAS said that it had developed a blockchain-based platform that enables multi-currency payments on the same network, in partnership with Temasek Holdings and J.P. Morgan. Also, the platform was being tested by industry players to check its ability to integrate with commercial blockchain applications.

The regulatory body in partnership with Deloitte and S&P Global Market Intelligence plans to build a prototype for a ‘fintech research platform,’ with the agenda to help investors and financial institutions connect and collaborate with startups for strategic investment or partnership.

Blockchain In Healthcare Has Bright Future

Noida-based P&S Intelligence, a market research firm recently published a report on the global blockchain technology in the healthcare market, where it claimed that the blockchain market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 67.1% till 2023.

This transformation is directly linked to the implementation of blockchain in pharmaceuticals supply, growing funding and investments in the technology, and the increasing number of regulations for safeguarding consumer data. In healthcare, blockchain is said to bring together clinical data across multiple healthcare entities, be it clinics, hospitals and diagnostic centres.

Bengaluru To Host Blockchain Developer Conference

One of India’s largest blockchain developer conferences will be held on November 24-25, 2019 at NSSC, IISc, Bengaluru. The event will feature proactive interaction and discussions between developers, researchers, industry leaders, startup founders and innovators with over five panel discussions and over 30 speakers.

The event will be hosted by IBC Media in collaboration with Genesis DevCon, and aims to create a learning environment for budding blockchain developers. With blockchain experts, community and academia in attendance, the event will also witness the official launch of the Aeternity Global Starfleet programme, alongside the announcement of the winners of the Genesis blockchain developer programme.