On September 5th, the IOTA Foundation published a new report that takes a look at smart cities from a new perspective, highlighting the benefits of a new smart ecosystem compared to traditional cities. The study “Towards Open & Transparent Cities” comprises a total of 19 pages and delves deeper into the concept of smart city projects. The report shows the real challenges that can arise and how IOTA can address them in detail.

IOTA is critical and gives a detailed description of how previous systems are sluggish. By using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) and the Internet of Things (IoT), however, a whole series of routine tasks can be handled faster and completely automatically and error-free. Above all, this can save valuable capital, which can be better invested in other areas where the capital is urgently needed.

The IOTA Tangle can solve many problems

IOTA’s Tangle technology offers many advantages which, in comparison to centralized databases, can ensure significantly faster and more effective processing and preparation of the data flood. The authors explain this in more detail in the report:

The IOTA Tangle offers all the benefits of a DLT with the underlying principles of a blockchain, but it has a different underlying infrastructure, which allows the network itself to determine transaction approvals. Its interoperability and speed thus make it ideal for devices that need to talk to each other in a wide variety of situations.

The Tangle technology can therefore be used in the following areas in particular:

• Transport systems,
• Regulation of heating and lighting systems,
• Waste and recycling systems of cities,
• Governments and other public institutions

Another large field of applications are Peer-to-Peer networks, where IoT sensors are used to supply the controllers with data. These can be controlled decentralized via the IOTA Tangle. According to current estimates in the report, more than 50 billion IoT sensors will be used worldwide by 2020, and the Tangle could be used to operate them.

Will all cities of the future use the IOTA Tangle?

As IOTA describes it, other real-world applications include energy and building management as well as urban infrastructure. Since the beginning of 2018, IOTA has been working with Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to realize the vision of a Smart City.

Among other solutions, a digital citizen ID card is being developed to reduce the risk of election fraud and prevent identity theft with the help of the TangleID card. In addition, the TangleID will store citizens’ health data and other important information. Furthermore, IOTA is a participant in the “+CityxChange” project, funded by the European Commission, which aims to further explore smart cities and their links with innovative technologies such as the Tangle.

All in all, however, IOTA has hardly any real use cases yet. It remains to be seen how the IOTA Tangle technology will succeed and what results IOTA can achieve in the coming months.

IOTA’s price has been moving sideways for quite a few months now and is currently at USD 0.24 at the time of writing.

Bitmain, the world’s leading manufacturer of Bitcoin miners, will release the world’s first big data report on the global mining industry at the World Digital Mining Summit (WDMS) in Frankfurt, Germany, October 8-10.2019.

The report, entitled “Big Data Analysis Report of Global Mining Farms”, is intended to provide in-depth analysis and insight into the cryptocurrency mining industry that has never existed before. Reports and rankings on different websites appear again and again, which estimate how expensive the mining is on average in a country. However, these are only estimates and not substantiated data, as there is no central database on how many miners are actually connected to the Bitcoin network and how much power they actually consume.

According to the official press release, the report is intended to provide insights into the world’s active mining farms, their electricity costs and the background to the location of mining farms and construction costs. The aim is to provide “decision makers with a more complete and comprehensive understanding of market opportunities, risks and hurdles”. Matthew Wang, Director of Bitmain said:

Bitmain is proud to be leading research and development efforts in the cryptocurrency mining industry and this comprehensive big data analysis report is a successful outcome of it, thanks to our strength and experience accumulated in this industry

At the World Digital Mining Summit, Jihan Wu (Bitmain co-founder), John Ge (Matrixport CEO), Marco Streng (Genesis Mining CEO) and other industry leaders will be present to share their knowledge and insights about the industry.

Key topics will include distributed mining, mining and power generation, increased mining efficiency, new trends in digital mining, development of miner firmware, and modular design and construction of a data center. Furthermore, a panel discussion about the Bitcoin Block Reward Halving will take place.

Will the Bitcoin price rise to USD 31,000 by 2021?

The Bitcoin Halving in May 2020 is a major reason that the Bitcoin community is still bullish despite the currently stagnating Bitcoin price of around USD 10,000. But not only the Bitcoin Halving could be a bullish signal for Bitcoin, but also the Bitcoin Mining Difficulty. Compared to the Bitcoin all-time high of USD 20,000 in December 2017, this is now 8 times as high. While this was around 1.8 T in mid-December, it has currently risen to over 10.77 T, as the following graph from bitinfocharts.com shows:

According to PlanB, a well-known crypto expert on Twitter, the Bitcoin price could rise significantly until 2021. Using a model to study the Bitcoin mining difficulty cycle, PlanB has calculated that the BTC price will exceed $30,000 by 2021.

As PlanB explains, there have been several cycles in the past in which the Bitcoin Mining Difficulty has moved. The Bitcoin Prize has always followed the Bitcoin Mining Difficulty. This is directly related to the hash rate, which indicates the total computing power of all miners and the Bitcoin network. In recent months, the hash rate of the Bitcoin network has repeatedly reached new records. Compared to December 2017, when the hash rate was around 15 TH/s (terra hashes per second), it is currently at over 95 TH/s. The hash rate of the Bitcoin network has reached new record levels in recent months.

This clearly shows that Miner is investing heavily in new hardware. This in turn means that there is a growing interest in Bitcoin. This could lead to a rising Bitcoin price in the long run. The increased mining activity is probably also due to the Reward Halving in May 2020, when the remuneration of the miners is reduced from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

When and whether the Bitcoin price will react to the positive signals and break out of the current consolidation remains uncertain.

The US startup Ripple offers various payment solutions to both large and small corporations. These solutions are designed to save banks and payment service-providers transaction costs and increase transaction speed significantly. Ripple now wants to expand the range of applications for its technology and has announced the company’s next goals in an interview.

Both Ripple and Stellar have set themselves the goal of revolutionizing cross-border payments. The focus is on faster transfers at the lowest possible cost. Ripple has developed and launched various payment solutions such as xRapid and xCurrent. Ripple’s expansion is in full swing and the Ripple network already has more than 200 active members.

Ripple’s blockchain has a transaction throughput of 1,500 transactions per second, making it one of the “fastest” blockchains in the world of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin can currently process about 7 transactions per second. There are ambitious projects on the cryptographic market, such as TON from Telegram, which aims to achieve 60,000 tps and thus compete with Visa and Mastercard.

In order to explore further business areas, Ripple has strengthened its staff team and now wants to enter the credit market. The company is particularly interested in emerging markets where microcredits of 10 USD or less are in demand. Senior Vice President for Product Management, Asheesh Birla, told “Change the Wave” in a podcast that Ripple is currently reviewing market entry conditions in the fast-growing world of microcredits

As a product person, I’m thinking about what’s next. And so while we think about payments as the initial use case for Ripple, I’m thinking about what other cool products can you build that we can take back to our customers – one of them being microloans.

So if you go into parts of the emerging world, a $10 loan is a big deal. It’s called a microloan. I think you could do that blockchain in a way that you couldn’t do [with other technology].

However, Ripple is holding back on further details, so it can only be speculated at this point whether Ripple will participate in an existing platform or launch a new product in this area itself. Furthermore, it is not clear whether Ripple’s native token, XRP, or another software solution will be used.

Ripple plans expansion

Birla further describes that Ripple has hired new employees from various parts of the world, Africa, Southeast Asia or the Middle East to explore new perspectives and to understand and exploit the problems and potential there. There are also discussions about opening another office in another major metropolis:

I have a strong passion for bringing more kinds of diverse talent into Ripple. One thing that I’m focused on is [whether]there is an opportunity to open up another development center for Ripple in another part of America that we can bring job opportunities to and also tap into a resource that’s not fully exhausted like the Bay Area’s engineering talent.

Especially outside the United States of America, in countries like Latin America and many emerging markets, financial services are desperately needed to improve local conditions and give people a real chance to change their lives. A bank account is a service that many people around the world are deprived of due to high financial demands. Ripple wants to solve this problem.

How fast Ripple can make progress in this area remains to be seen. The price of XRP is still in a downtrend and stands at 0.25 USD at the time of writing.