VeChain Weekly Update (July 3rd)

VeChain Weekly Update (July 3rd)

After last week got shortened by the Dragon Boat Festival, the VeChain team was back at it again. The first week in Q3 saw VeChain celebrate the two year anniversary of launching the mainnet and gave us a chance to reflect on how far the project has come. It coincided with the release of the latest executive report and we also saw some community projects announce major breakthroughs and progress.

VeChain Financial Executive Report #11 Published, Buyback re-started

The quarterly financial report was published, and with it contained some interesting news. Added to the usual token supply overview was the Ecosystem Reserves, which signifies the restart of the token buyback plan. The buyback was originally announced last year, and shows the VeChain Foundation has faith in the longterm value of the VET token. The Ecosystem Reserve already holds 445 million tokens, or about $4.5 million USD at current prices.

**The ecosystem reserve was acquired by the VeChain Foundation on the open markets. This reserve will be used to facilitate the long term growth of the VeChain ecosystem. VeChain Foundation is evaluating institution level custody service, and the reserve will be deposited into the custody and disclosed when the custody service is available.

The full report can be read here.

VeChain’s official video contest deadline passes

After nearly a month of submissions, the window finally shut to submit new videos. There were over 80 different videos received, including dozens of well-made, professional explainers and introductions to the technology. The team must now pick between all of them and will announce 10 finalists on July 5th.

CEO Sunny Lu set to join the China-Singapore Dialogue

The event is hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and the Singapore Blockchain Association. The event will take place on June 4th at 9:30 am (UTC +8) and will be streamed live on Singapore University of Social Science’s YouTube Channel.

Cointelegraph Consulting & VeChain publish a joint food safety report

This report, entitled When Blockchain Meets IoT: Ensuring Food Safety in the 2020s, discusses how better food traceability has a lot to offer an industry plagued by a low rate of digitalization. According to the report, the benefits of IoT and blockchain are spread across three value drivers: cost reduction, revenue enhancement, and risk mitigation. Cointelegraph Consulting estimates that these savings can add up to $155 billion per year globally.

The report identifies five areas which will undergo tumultuous changes in the next ten years, including supply chain, global trade, food processing, stakeholder mindset, and food production. Blockchain and IoT are the keys to increasing transparency, trust and collaboration within the industry, empowering producers and retailers to deliver safer products for consumption around the world.

Check out the report here.

 

Sunny Lu interviewed by Digital Asset Investor (YouTube)

This week well-known cryptocurrency influencer known as Digital Asset Investor spent an hour chatting with Sunny Lu about the development of the platform. The pair touched on a few key topics including:

  • Why VeChain doesn’t use the Proof of Work consensus algorithm
  • The importance of the combining business mindsets and technical mindsets. Enterprises care about solutions, rather than just technology.
  • The misunderstandings about China “banning” blockchain and how VeChain is working on upscaling the business development in North America.
  • The busy travel life of Sunny and the importance of spending time with his family.
  • The implementation of the My Care solution in the biggest hotel from Intercontinental Group in Shanghai which is a dedicated hotel for the China International Import Expo (CIIE).

At the time of writing, the video had nearly 17k views.

DNV GL announces ArcelorMittal verified with MyCare

This massive steel conglomerate is now using MyCare to verify a UK office is compliant with infection risk management standards. DNV GL uses the blockchain to create a transparent record of their testing processes. ArcelorMittal is a global company with 191,248 employees in 18 different countries. They are one of the biggest steel companies in the world and supplies industries such as construction, automotive, energy, and transportation.

VeChainStats.com plans new site upgrades

Trusted community website vechainstats.com is planning to re-launch with a complete new website in fall 2020. According to their  Twitter post, they plan to partner with Zoomcharts to give even more visualizations and interactive analytics to the community.

Sunny Lu scheduled to speak at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on July 10th

We reported this previously, but this is a reminder that the event will happen next weekend. The event is hosted by a group of government agencies including the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economics and Information Technology alongside strategic partners like Microsoft, AWS, China Mobile, and ICBC.

Third-Party Progress & Community Progress

OceanEx performs Q2 token burn

156,137,147 OCE were removed from the total market supply for this quarter. Each quarter, OCE tokens used to pay transaction and withdrawal fees are collected and burned. In total, over a billion have been burned since the beginning of this program four quarters ago. That’s over $2 million USD at today’s prices. Link

8 Hours announces upcoming VIMworld launch

The VIMworld gaming ecosystem is set to kick off soon, and early participants are eligible for rewards, tokens, and playable VIM characters. Read more about this here.

Jur completes upgrade and Connex integration

Legaltech solution Jur launched a new blog, and took the opportunity to announce they had upgraded their Jur Beta Platform to support Connex integration. The benefit is that the platform now runs smoothly in VeChain Sync. If you haven’t tried it, jump in and make your first legal contract today on the blockchain.

Safe Haven deploy Digital Inheritance smart contracts

Long-time VeChain project Safe Haven appears close to deploying a solution that would let users split their private key among appointed beneficiaries should they pass away. Their solution, called Inheriti, should make it easier for people to justify holding large sums of cryptocurrency without risking their family’s financial future.

Real Items holding webinar

On July 8th, Real Items will be sharing how they verify PPE products during this COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar will be held with Penrose Partners

Sign up for this free event here.

There wasn’t any announcement, but it seems Real Items has been updating their website

The VThorium rocket is here

A simple dApp that burns VTHO on the way to the moon is now collecting prizes from the community. Anyone can add a prize, which so far includes things like Veriarti tokens, NFTs, and other digital assets. Find out more or just try it out at vthorium.com

Reminder: DApps on the VeChain platform are eligible for subsidies

COO Kevin Feng tweeted this week about the VTHO subsidy program.

If you run a dapp on the VeChainThor blockchain, don’t forget to apply for our ongoing VTHO subsidy program. It helps you reduce the operational cost, acquire more users and more tx. vechain.org/bounty-program/

Kevin Feng’s Twitter

Follow our new Twitter account for the latest in news, opinions, metrics, and other wholesome information on the world of VeChain. Special thanks to @VeChainStats and @Martijncvv for help in compiling this summary.

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VIMworld launching a new world of digital collectibles

VIMworld launching a new world of digital collectibles

  • 8 Hours announces bonus rewards and giveaways for early adopters
  • Users can earn these by moving EHrT off Bitrue 
  • Users can earn more multiple times by creating multiple wallets
Evolution of digital collectibles 

The 1990’s was an era of massive growth for digital pets. Giga pets, Tamagotchi, and Furbies were among the must have toys for people in that era. Still, these toys were limited by the technology of the time, and their respective crazes faded quickly from the mainstream, to the point where people born after the 90’s might not have even heard of them.

Fast forward to 2020, where Playtable and 8 Hours are recreating this toy genre. They are doing that by using the latest in internet, IoT, and blockchain technology, and calling it VIM-world. The internet makes them playable from all over the world, IoT lets you attach them to physical toys, and blockchain gives them value.  

These 90’s toys sparked a buying frenzy

Instead of being cased in plastic with black-and-white LCD screens, the VIMs will be a cryptocurrency “wallet” on the VeChain mainnet with a digital appearance. Owners logging into the VIM world website will be able to feed, care for, and battle their VIMs against other VIM owners. Owners can keep them in their digital-only form or order physical toy representations off the website, which can then be bonded to the VIM using an NFC chip. Users with a DIY attitude will be able to bond an NFC chip to their own creation, like a hand-carved statue, a 3D printed figure, or an old sock. There’s really no limits to what you could do. 

But regardless of what the VIM looks like, the question remains: will users be attracted to this style of toy? Nintendo’s Amiibo figurines and cards were successful, and sold between 15-20 million a year while they were being produced, despite being restricted to consoles such as the Wii U and suffering major shortages of popular characters. 8 Hours is hoping to build the same relationship with their Playtable gaming consoles, while unlike Nintendo, also making their VIMs playable without the hardware. VIMworld will be accessible from any computer (via Vechain Sync) or mobile device (through the VeChain Thor App) making it easy to get started. This opens up VIM ownership to wide swaths of gaming fans, blockchain fans, and fans of digital toys and collectibles. And while VIM might not be launching with popular IPs like Mario and Zelda, the 8 Hours Foundation has long hinted that certain mainstream IPs would be coming to VIMworld. That in itself is something to look forward to as the prospect of battling characters from different game universes has always been appealing. If VIMworld is able to attract some major IPs, combined with community and in-house models, the ecosystem could be an eclectic mixture of popular and unusual digital characters. 

VIMs: Giving value to dedicated gamers 

A key feature of VIMs are their ability to record character progression on the blockchain. VIMs can be progressed by playing, or by storing the EHrT token within the VIM itself. Naturally, higher level VIMs will be more difficult to defeat in battle, making them more valuable on the secondhand market. 

Blok Party is the company behind the Playtable and 8 Hours. Their Co-founder Shane Zhu has a lot of excitement when talking about the upcoming launch of VIMworld, and believes that once players begin to understand the rules behind leveling up the different tiers and types of VIM, they will also be incentivized to take part. He told VeChain101 that the VIM was unique by being not just playable and usable, but also tradable. Once players put that much time and energy into building up a gaming character, they deserve to be able to sell it. 

In their latest announcement on Medium, 8 Hours explained how users could earn rewards for getting involved early. The announcement was far from straightforward, and newcomers might be confused by the constant use of terminology and abbreviations. Here’s a quick rundown:

  • VIMs – The digital character itself, existing on the blockchain
  • VIMworld – The game itself, including a dashboard, marketplace, and battle arena
  • EHrTs – The digital currency used in the 8 Hours gaming ecosystem
  • EGGs – A reward for highest level VIMs, such as companions or other rewards
  • Treasures – A  reward for early adopters, that will be used in future events

The main idea is that by staking or “feeding” EHrT tokens into VIMs, these digital pets will increase in rank and be harder to defeat in battle (and have higher resale value). High-ranking VIMs will hatch EGGs, which can give the VIM owner more rewards or simply distinguish the VIM from other lower-ranked VIMs. Treasures seem to be a form of consumable reward that can be used to enter events, presumably such as tournaments or other activities. 

Got it all? This might be one of those things that are easier understood once the VIMworld game goes online later this summer.

So what should we do now?

People looking to get a head start on the competition can earn the first batch of VIMs by putting EHrT tokens into a VeChain wallet, such as the official mobile wallet, the Sync wallet, or via a Ledger hardware device. The key here is not which wallet you use, just as long as it’s not on an exchange or a centralized custodial service, because then they’d be getting the VIM, not you. Sync is my personal recommendation, because users will eventually be able to access the VIMworld game directly in the Sync browser. 

As you can see from the chart above, holding 10,000 EHrT in a wallet is enough to earn the lowest tier VIM as well as some Treasures. As the rewards go up, it’s also possible to earn free EHrT, giving users even more incentive to take part. However, each wallet can only get 1 VIM, so if someone held 20,000 EHrT, they’d be better off creating a second VeChain wallet (in Sync, for example) and splitting the EHrT equally between them. Anyone holding over 500,000 EHrT should definitely look into splitting up their funds into additional wallets, so as to maximize their rewards.

The deadline to create these wallets is on July 8, when the snapshot will take place.

So will the future be bright for VIMworld? Shane from Blok Party thinks it will be. He recognizes that the community is anxious to get started, but said that he wants everything to be perfect. “We just want to show people what we can do. I don’t want a substandard product, so we are going to get it right.” For the VeChain community and blockchain gaming fans in general,  we hope that you do, Shane. 

Be sure to share your opinions on our official VeChain101 Twitter.

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VeChain X Footwear – Shoes on the blockchain [in photos]

VeChain X Footwear – Shoes on the blockchain [in photos]

VeChain’s ToolChain is quickly making a name for itself in the fashion industry, with big partners such as H&M’s COS, Arket, LVMH, and Givenchy. However, ToolChain goes far beyond just being a platform for major fashion houses. Custom designers and independent artists can take advantage of ToolChain’s IoT chips to make their creations come to life in the digital world while simultaneously verifying the authenticity of the product. Here’s a quick rundown:

Chase Shiel X The Kickz Stand – Air Max 1 ‘Cherry’ 

Well, it’s only fair that we start with this one. Announced this week, the limited custom design will drop on Chaseshiel.com on Sunday, 29th of June at 12AM (Singapore). Check out this article from The Kickz Stand to get the full scoop.

Custom shoe Designs Air Max 1 ‘Cherry

Air Max 1 ‘Cherry

Chase Shiel X The Kickz Stand X Street Superior – AM1 Travis Scott

The original Chase Shiel design on ToolChain – this was released in November of 2019 at Street Superior in Singapore. You can read more here.

Chase Shiel X The Kickstand Custom Shoe Design authentication

Chase Shiel X The Kickstand Shoe design

Grailcrew Customs – Legends of Hip Hop

Another shoe that was on display at Street Superior in November of 2019, you can follow more from Australian designer Jeffrey Martinez here on his Instagram.

Grailcrew Customs

Grailcrew Custom shoe Design

CLOT X Air Jordan 13 Low – “Terracotta”

This special edition release was the focus of 2018 INNERSECT exhibition in Shanghai. They were tagged for the event in collaboration with VeChain partner Swell. 

Air Jordan 13 Low

Air Jordan 13 Low Shoe design

SBTG X VECHAIN – Golden Tiger

The original ToolChain custom shoe design – These debuted at the 2018 Street Superior exhibition in Singapore. Local artist Mark Ong AKA Sabotage was at the VeChain summit a year later to talk about the collaboration. The official VeChain announcement is here.

Golden Tiger

Golden Tiger

SBTG X HBO ASIA X Game of Thrones – Adidas

We wrap up this rundown with a hard to find gem. In celebration of the eighth and final season of Game Of Thrones, HBO Asia commissioned Singaporean designer Mark Ong and his home-grown label SBTG to create four sneaker designs paying homage to the series. The designs were quite stark, but are probably remembered much more fondly than that season finale. 

Game of Thrones - Adidas

Game of Thrones - Adidas

For more stories and content, follow VeChain101 on Twitter.

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VeChain Weekly Update June 20th

VeChain Weekly Update June 20th

DNV GL announced that Viking Line received a My Care verification

Viking Line’s 7 ships and 6 terminals in cities like Helsinki and Stockholm all received a third-party verification from DNV GL on their infection risk management. Passengers on Viking Line ships can scan a QR code to review the results of the verification process. More info here.

AByteAhead releases Python Dev Kit for VeChain

The Python3 developer kit helps coders create tools that involve wallet creation and management, assembling and signing transactions, and a host of VeChain’s finest features, including fee delegation. More info here.

Chief Scientist Peter Zhou holds a Bootcamp webinar with Ken Woodruff

In the 7th VeChain Bootcamp session, Ken Woodruff – CTO of Real Items – explained the story behind Real Items, its vision and what drove them to move away to VeChain from Ethereum. He also gave us a quick run down about the projects they have been working on; including, a Shopify plugin, a WeChat Mini App and Hubspot integration. The full webinar recording can be found here:

Deloitte’s blockchain trends reports discusses VeChain

In the report entitled 5 Blockchain Trends for 2020, Deloitte compared various protocols including VeChain, Ethereum and Corda, three platforms that Deloitte’s Blockchain Lab works with on a regular basis. However, the report also mentioned that most enterprise use cases are suited for a private network, something the VeChain community will strongly disagree with. 

Deloitte also released their 2020 Blockchain Survey, which interviewed 1488 executives from 14 different countries on their organization’s strategy towards blockchain. The results showed that many of the barriers from previous years still exist, but that more and more companies were actively integrating blockchain into production processes. The report cautions against complacency towards regulations and risk, but does seem confident that companies experimenting with “blockchain tourism” is a thing of the past. This bodes well for VeChain, especially as some of the numbers were favorable towards primary VeChain use cases. For example, 27% of the companies revealed that track-and-trace solutions were already receiving attention, with another 23% of companies exploring blockchain for certification. These are VeChain’s bread-and-butter solutions, and both have relatively no impact from potential regulatory hangups regarding digital assets and taxation. 

There are more substantive examples in the marketplace of how both startups and mature businesses are deploying blockchain. Organizations appear to be more committed than ever to blockchain and are demonstrating this by implementing it as part of their normal course of business.  Deloitte’s 2020 Blockchain Survey

More tagged products turn up in Sam’s Club

Community member and Chengdu resident @vetblack19 stopped into the local Sam’s Club and saw a number of products tagged in their Food Traceability Program. In addition to the Tyson Chicken we’ve seen before, they als

o had a wide selection of fresh produce, including nearly all of the item’s in the cold produce section. @vetblack19 shared images of multiple types of mushrooms, leaf vegetables, chives, and more. Most of them originated from a supplier called Dongsheng, with farms located over Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Hebei, Beijing, Ningxia, Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou provinces. 

Also tagged were these 20-pack of eggs pictured on the right. The producer, Beijing-based Deqingyuan, claims to be the largest egg producer in the world. Also found online were some pork products from Huarun Wufeng, that were posted by community member Fatiebomba, an admin in the Dutch Telegram Channel.

Events this week

COO Kevin Feng took part in a digital presentation on June 18th

Kevin Feng at an offline event in Shanghai

CEO Sunny Lu will take part in a conference about Supply Chain at an offline event in Shanghai

Other updates

 VeChain community artist Dr. H. Quinzel launched his own website this week. His trademark daily postings can be found at drhquinzel.com or on his twitter account. The community appreciates his colorful contributions!

Ecosystem Manager Dimitris Neocleous was featured in the Humans of Blockchain series here on VeChain101.com. His story talks about how he defied his father’s wishes and dropped his promising legal career to pursue a job in the blockchain industry. You can read the full story here.

 

 

Did I miss anything? Let us know at our new Twitter account @VeChain_101.

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VeChain Weekly Update (July 3rd)

VeChain Weekly Update June 13th

It was an exciting week for the VeChain community that saw the price of VET skyrocket over 1 cent for the first time since 2019. The mainnet maintained its busier than usual approach with an average of 103k data clauses per day over the 7 day period. A slew of announcements, news, and positivity has pushed June off to a very positive start.

Weekly chart courtesy of LunarCRUSH

German Federal Office for IT Security Compliments VeChain

In a study published by Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), VeChain is recognized among 300 blockchains for its intelligent supply chain management. The study aimed to examine and evaluate the security of 300 blockchains as part of a market analysis.

Source: Crypto News Flash

The full study in German can be read here.

VeChain announces their second official video contest

Submissions between June 8th 2020, 22:00 and June 30th 2020 will be eligible for up to 1 million VET in prizes. Click here for more details.

DNV GL holds event with Marsh on hotel infection management

The community will be keen to follow developments surrounding DNV GL’s new My Care business infection management certification service. We featured an article on the topic earlier this week, looking at how high-risk businesses in the hospitality industry would respond in the wake of COVID-19. Being able to build trust through third-party inspection and auditing services is an important step, and DNV GL can provide these services with public visibility by writing auditing and testing results on the blockchain. Already, at least three major hotels in China have been certified. While nothing is confirmed regarding DNV GL’s co-host and partner Marsh, it’s worth pointing out that they are a global leader in insurance and risk management, and will be an interesting company to keep an eye on.

Norway in a Box take part in livestream for Oceans Day

VeChain and DNV GL partner Norway in a Box talked about how they use blockchain to improve their supply chain processes and contribute to a cleaner ocean. The livestream reached a wide audience and was covered by many major Chinese media platforms. VeChain project manager Tang Min was there to give a presentation on VeChain’s marine traceability products.

Coinbase teases potential VET listing

The USA’s largest exchange by volume announced that they were looking to add a range of new assets to their trading platform. This is often seen as a major obstacle to adoption, as most North American cryptocurrency users start by linking their accounts to Coinbase.

We will continue to evaluate prospective assets against our Digital Asset Framework to assess factors like security, compliance, and the project’s alignment with our mission of creating an open financial system for the world. To apply for listing, fill out an application here.

Today we’re announcing that we are exploring the addition of a range of new assets. As part of the exploratory process customers may see public-facing APIs and other signs that we are conducting engineering work to potentially support these assets.

Source: Coinbase

VeChain CEO Sunny Lu to speak with DNV GL’s Renato Grottola and Deloitte’s Antonio Senatore at World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on July 10th

Arguably the biggest news of the week, the WAIC is a major event on the China technology scene. This is the first year that blockchain will be included in the multi-day summit, that will take place in a hybrid online & offline format. The event is hosted by a group of government agencies including the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economics and Information Technology alongside strategic partners like Microsoft, AWS, China Mobile, and ICBC. The signs are still there that China is pushing forward with their mission to take a global lead in technologies like AI, Big Data, and of course blockchain.

Shanghai TECOM Conference 2020

COO Kevin Feng will attend the TECOM Conference on June 20th to cultivate a more innovative startup ecosystem in Shanghai. Other participants will include startups, incubators, and representatives of corporate innovation departments.

Vulcan Forged gives a first look at new dApps

Community NFT and gaming incubator Vulcan Forged announced 10 NFT dApps coming to VeChain’s mainnet in 2020. The first one, a simple game that involves burning VTHO to send a rocket to the moon in exchange for potential NFT prizes was shown off on Twitter.

VeChain’s Chief Scientist Peter Zhou hosts Bootcamp with Senior Research Scientist Ren Zhijie

The two PhD holders broke down Proof of Authority and the new VeChain consensus algorithm currently being developed. VeChain101 will post a complete recap soon, so stay tuned for that.

 

Follow our new Twitter account for the latest in news, opinions, metrics, and other wholesome information on the world of VeChain.

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