NEM partners with major bank, consortium of 5000 businesses, and cloud service

[TPTB_need_war]

Perhaps it is safe route for the programmers of NEM to take. They will be assured of well paid jobs. But I don't see how these developments necessarily make NEM more attractive for investors or users of NEM?

We are trying to build a vibrant full economy on the blockchain with all kinds people, services, organizations and businesses, not just banks and big businesses, but boot strapping the NEM blockchain with services from major bank(s) and services from thousands of companies (if we get that to come to full fruition) isn't a bad way to bootstrap a chain.  If we have that as a base, then hopefully we can get all the rest of the regular people coming.

You have to ask yourself what is the advantage you bring to those businesses. And how does it scale. Is the relationship with the banks helping you bring something very enticing to them?

I don't have time to analyze this. But you need to think it out in detail.

And then you can articulate more than a vague statement to the prospective people interested in NEM how it helps them.

For example, I have thought out in detail exactly what I am going to write and how my target users are going to react at each detailed step in the way of interaction I have planned. And why I think they can't say no to the offer I am offering them.

[jabo38]

Good news.  In only a few days almost 100 companies have applied for a free 6 months trial of Mijin Cloudchains.  Is there any other chain other than Bitcoin that has 100 real businesses using it as a backbone?

-----------------

There is also a new Press Release for another company building on NEM called DragonFly Fintech, which was also the winner of an incubator sponsored by a well known group of Japanese VCs.  

http://www.reuters.com/article/dragonfly-fintech-idUSnPn1Ptv6F+91+PRN20151216

Here is an in depth PDF from DragonFly. http://dragonflyfintech.com/static/DF_Paper.pdf

[tokeweed]

Just curious, how did NEM land this partnership with a Japanese bank?

[jabo38]

Just curious, how did NEM land this partnership with a Japanese bank?

Its a good question.  How did NEM do what no other blockchain has done?

In short, it basically took a great product that is doing many things nobody else is doing, a team of people working very hard to market it, and getting lucky and getting very good connections.

Representatives of NEM were in talks with basically every major bank in Japan.  It takes a lot of meetings with different levels of people along the way, demonstrations, proposals, and then finally contracts.  All of these meetings and demonstrations were funded out of pocket, which was a risk.  In addition Makoto has spoken at over 20 major conferences in Japan (not just Bitcoin ones, but banking or government related ones) with sometimes thousands of people in attendances all wearing suits.  He has basically been working on this deal and other deals not very different from this since the launch of NEM part-time and full-time on it since he got VC funding and backing last summer for DragonFly.  Winning the a spot with one of Japan's most important incubators helped a lot too (4 out of 80 teams were accepted to continue) as important players are connected there.  

This deal wasn't like he had a good ole boy friend at a bank or bumped into somebody at a conference and drank beer with them.  It has been a coordinated full time job to make happen.  The group behind the bank is actually one of Japan's most powerful groups, and if things were to go well with this trial, there is potential for much bigger deals.  

Also, I would have to say, it isn't just Makoto.  Lon has been his partner with DragonFly pay and had this vision going back a couple of years and has been working hard and to that point long ago filed some patents that makes the tech industry look at them as an attractive partner.   Makoto also has a good partner, Asayama, the owner of the largest exchange in Japan, Zaif.  As well as people like Jimmy Homma in the Bitcoin community were very helpful in helping him to get started.  

And then there are the team (not one mind you) of talented devs working full time to bring this product to market and functioning well.  All of these devs I know well by now, and I can say that in addition to being great programmers, they are just all around bright and smart people.  The NEM development team only has 4 members, but I honestly put there capacity second only to the team at Blockstream, but luckily the NEM developers have a much easier and cleaner platform to build on.

All these factors were very important, if anyone of them wasn't there, I'm not sure these deals (or future ones) would have happened.  

[Tagcibat]

Lower market cap coins such as NEM can partner with major banks. Why cannot bitcoin, litecoin or other bigger coins do the same?

[kelsey]

Lower market cap coins such as NEM can partner with major banks. Why cannot bitcoin, litecoin or other bigger coins do the same?

why would they want to the whole point to cryptos is to be an alternative to the banks.

also pretty much across the board banks are experimenting with blockchain tech.

[tokeweed]

Just curious, how did NEM land this partnership with a Japanese bank?

Its a good question.  How did NEM do what no other blockchain has done?

In short, it basically took a great product that is doing many things nobody else is doing, a team of people working very hard to market it, and getting lucky and getting very good connections.

Representatives of NEM were in talks with basically every major bank in Japan.  It takes a lot of meetings with different levels of people along the way, demonstrations, proposals, and then finally contracts.  All of these meetings and demonstrations were funded out of pocket, which was a risk.  In addition Makoto has spoken at over 20 major conferences in Japan (not just Bitcoin ones, but banking or government related ones) with sometimes thousands of people in attendances all wearing suits.  He has basically been working on this deal and other deals not very different from this since the launch of NEM part-time and full-time on it since he got VC funding and backing last summer for DragonFly.  Winning the a spot with one of Japan's most important incubators helped a lot too (4 out of 80 teams were accepted to continue) as important players are connected there.  

This deal wasn't like he had a good ole boy friend at a bank or bumped into somebody at a conference and drank beer with them.  It has been a coordinated full time job to make happen.  The group behind the bank is actually one of Japan's most powerful groups, and if things were to go well with this trial, there is potential for much bigger deals.  

Also, I would have to say, it isn't just Makoto.  Lon has been his partner with DragonFly pay and had this vision going back a couple of years and has been working hard and to that point long ago filed some patents that makes the tech industry look at them as an attractive partner.   Makoto also has a good partner, Asayama, the owner of the largest exchange in Japan, Zaif.  As well as people like Jimmy Homma in the Bitcoin community were very helpful in helping him to get started.  

And then there are the team (not one mind you) of talented devs working full time to bring this product to market and functioning well.  All of these devs I know well by now, and I can say that in addition to being great programmers, they are just all around bright and smart people.  The NEM development team only has 4 members, but I honestly put there capacity second only to the team at Blockstream, but luckily the NEM developers have a much easier and cleaner platform to build on.

All these factors were very important, if anyone of them wasn't there, I'm not sure these deals (or future ones) would have happened.  

What is proof of importance exactly?  And how is it better (supposedly) than proof of stake?

[jabo38]

What is proof of importance exactly?  And how is it better (supposedly) than proof of stake?

PoI is so far only used by NEM.  In proof of stake a system is set up that encourages hoarding so that PoS overall incentives a rich gets richer scheme via holding.  This also isn't exactly very good for a blockchain too because that encourages a chain where people don't make transactions.  PoI seeks to encourage people to not just enter the system and hold but also spend, build on it, and use it.
 
In PoW, your actions (mining) determine who forms a block.
In PoS, how much you have determines who forms a block.  

In PoI, how much you have, your actions, and who you have those interactions with are all combined to make your importance.  The more your importance, the greater your chance of making a block.  

In PoI's case, your actions are not some randomly assigned and mostly irrelevant outside third party action of find this number or solve this random puzzle, but instead is spend and interact in the network.  

PoI is a zero sum game.  If mine goes up, then somebody else's must go down.  So your PoI is not just determined by what you do, but by also what other actors in the network are doing.  

The next big question then is, if PoI is determined by actions, well, then why shouldn't I just send all my coins around in a big circle and boost my PoI.  This is a faulty strategy for at least two reasons.  The first is that you will be spending lots of fees to make those transactions (when your goal is actually to collect fees).  In NEM there are no block rewards of bonus coins inflating the system.  Instead fees are earned from others transactions, so by doing that you are doing a good job at making others richer in the short term as they process those transactions and collect your fees.  The second reason is doing so destroys your stake part of the equation which is aged in at 10% per day.  So by send half of my XEM in a circle, even though my action score went up, I just immediately lost half of my stake.  

It is actually much more complicated than that.  But basically an active account with good transactions that are not just back and forth from itself but with other accounts not related can easily get 10% - 15% higher PoI and I imagine some accounts much more than that, and so therefore more blocks and more fees.  But definitely making a lot of transactions in the network isn't going to give you 200-300% more blocks I think.

Here is part of the formula.  I don't really claim to understand very much of it. hahahaha.  The NCDAware part of the formula is very similar to Google's Page Rank algo.  So the more pages that link to another page, the more important, likewise who you interact with and who they interact with makes clusters on the chain and will affect your PoI.  This helps to keep it from being gamed.  

[kelsey]

What is proof of importance exactly?  And how is it better (supposedly) than proof of stake?

PoI is so far only used by NEM.  In proof of stake a system is set up that encourages hoarding so that PoS overall incentives a rich gets richer scheme via holding.  This also isn't exactly very good for a blockchain too because that encourages a chain where people don't make transactions.  PoI seeks to encourage people to not just enter the system and hold but also spend, build on it, and use it.
 
In PoW, your actions (mining) determine who forms a block.
In PoS, how much you have determines who forms a block.  

In PoI, how much you have, your actions, and who you have those interactions with are all combined to make your importance.  The more your importance, the greater your chance of making a block.  

In PoI's case, your actions are not some randomly assigned and mostly irrelevant outside third party action of find this number or solve this random puzzle, but instead is spend and interact in the network.  

PoI is a zero sum game.  If mine goes up, then somebody else's must go down.  So your PoI is not just determined by what you do, but by also what other actors in the network are doing.  

The next big question then is, if PoI is determined by actions, well, then why shouldn't I just send all my coins around in a big circle and boost my PoI.  This is a faulty strategy for at least two reasons.  The first is that you will be spending lots of fees to make those transactions (when your goal is actually to collect fees).  In NEM there are no block rewards of bonus coins inflating the system.  Instead fees are earned from others transactions, so by doing that you are doing a good job at making others richer in the short term as they process those transactions and collect your fees.  The second reason is doing so destroys your stake part of the equation which is aged in at 10% per day.  So by send half of my XEM in a circle, even though my action score went up, I just immediately lost half of my stake.  

It is actually much more complicated than that.  But basically an active account with good transactions that are not just back and forth from itself but with other accounts not related can easily get 10% - 15% higher PoI and I imagine some accounts much more than that, and so therefore more blocks and more fees.  But definitely making a lot of transactions in the network isn't going to give you 200-300% more blocks I think.

Here is part of the formula.  I don't really claim to understand very much of it. hahahaha.  The NCDAware part of the formula is very similar to Google's Page Rank algo.  So the more pages that link to another page, the more important, likewise who you interact with and who they interact with makes clusters on the chain and will affect your PoI.  This helps to keep it from being gamed.  

exchanges can have alot of interactions, use members funds and yet have users pay the fees, so huge advantage to exchanges in the POI scheme?

[jabo38]

exchanges can have alot of interactions, use members funds and yet have users pay the fees, so huge advantage to exchanges in the POI scheme?

Exchanges in PoS can have lots of members funds vested towards forming blocks and still yet have users pay the fees, so it is very similar to PoS in that regards.  

Both are an improvement over PoW where exchanges have no power to affect anything and if they anger the wrong mining pools can have their transactions blocked.  Or some exchanges are suspected to collude with or be forced to partner with miners to pay them a little extra to make sure their transactions always go through.  And again, exchanges still charge their users fees on BTC transactions.  

Over all people in crypto giving all their coins to centralized third parties to do with what they want (Mt. Gox anyone?) is a problem across all major chains so far and is a reason why we really need trust minimized exchanges where people can participate in exchanges and yet still have control of their coins.  

To that end, it is very nice that there is a project being built on NEM that aims to do just that called Crypto Apex.  NEM's unique features with blockchain based multisig and mosaics is enabling this.  We hope to have more on this in the future, but we firmly believe that people should always control their own assets and coins, not exchanges.  

http://www.cryptoapex.com/

[bit1]

Interpret this formula would take some time.

[jabo38]

Interpret this formula would take some time.

I've seen it for months and still don't get it. hahahaha

It takes a math major I guess.

[bhokor]

Sorry but then which will the cloud service partnering with NEM? i am really interested about it but i have not found the info, if someone can help me with this

thanks in advance

[jabo38]

Sorry but then which will the cloud service partnering with NEM? i am really interested about it but i have not found the info, if someone can help me with this

thanks in advance

Here are a couple of links.
http://www.coindesk.com/press-releases/sakura-internet-tech-bureau-cloud-system-mijin-blockchain-free/
http://allcoinsnews.com/2015/12/18/free-mijin-cloudchain-beta-offered-by-tech-bureau-and-sakura-internet/

I'll try to some up, but it is a bit complicated.  There is a private fork of NEM that has been customized for speed and security in business settings.  That private chain is called Mijin.  There has been a lot of interest in Japan about using Mijin as a business solution chain, much in the same way R3 is being marketed in America/Europe. 

The owner of the largest Bitcoin exchange in Japan, also owns another company called Tech Bureau.  Tech Bureau is offering blockchain solutions with the Mijin chain to different companies, banks, and other internet services. 

Sakura Internet is a large cloud server service in Japan, and they have partnered with Tech Bureau.  They are offering 6 months of free Mijin blockchains for companies to test and build on.  After that 6 months, if these companies want to continue their contracts, they can pay for their plans. 

Incidentally since Sakura Internet announced that they landed the partnership with Tech Bureau and made a press release, their stock has performed really well on the Tokyo exchange. 



So the next question, is usually something like this.... "So great, Japan now has a private ledger they are all going to use, but how does that help NEM, and really how does that help me?  Aren't private ledgers owned by the companies so they won't really ever be buying in XEM, right?" 

ANd then answer is.... maybe.  But that actually isn't as bad as it sounds.  Mijin has partnered with a bank, with a enterprise business software serving 5000 companies, and now is being test by almost 100 additional companies independently.  But the beauty of the system is that Mijin and NEM actually use the same set of APIs for their feature set.  So by a company building a software to work on Mijin, they actually built a software that will work on NEM too. 

These companies are basically getting two for the price of one.  They get to use a private ledger with their select group of trusted partners or they get to use an open and decentralized chain that allows anyone to trade on it.  And likewise if somebody starts off on the free and open NEM chain, but their business grows and they want to have more control over their partners and scale to 1000 tx/s, then now they have software already ready to go for Mijin.  So it is an interesting option for a company that wants a private ledger, but maybe will someday use a public ledger a little, or likewise for somebody starting off on a public ledger but wants to keep their options open to switch to a private ledger later. 

We can assume that a lot of these companies building on Mijin will not ever touch the NEM main chain, but if even 10% of them did offer some of their services on the NEM main chain as they wanted to expand their market to anybody and everybody, then all of a sudden the NEM main chain would become a very busy chain very quickly.  This is going to take some time to scale out and up, but their is a lot of promise. 

[tokeweed]

Hows the volume of Sakura Internet?

[jabo38]

Hows the volume of Sakura Internet?

I'm not really sure, but there stock has gone up like 2 or 3 times its marketcap since this announcement.  That is like a crypto pump, not a stock on a major stock exchange. hahaha  http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3778:JP

[tyz]

Oh, great news! Congrates to Makoto and all the others who worked on this deal.

Now, I know what caused the price jump of NEM three days ago

[BlackWidow]

Perhaps it is safe route for the programmers of NEM to take. They will be assured of well paid jobs. But I don't see how these developments necessarily make NEM more attractive for investors or users of NEM?

We are trying to build a vibrant full economy on the blockchain with all kinds people, services, organizations and businesses, not just banks and big businesses, but boot strapping the NEM blockchain with services from major bank(s) and services from thousands of companies (if we get that to come to full fruition) isn't a bad way to bootstrap a chain.  If we have that as a base, then hopefully we can get all the rest of the regular people coming.

You have to ask yourself what is the advantage you bring to those businesses. And how does it scale. Is the relationship with the banks helping you bring something very enticing to them?

I don't have time to analyze this. But you need to think it out in detail.

And then you can articulate more than a vague statement to the prospective people interested in NEM how it helps them.

For example, I have thought out in detail exactly what I am going to write and how my target users are going to react at each detailed step in the way of interaction I have planned. And why I think they can't say no to the offer I am offering them.

Wouldn't banks using your project in some way be beneficial?

Not saying that's all you would want, but would you welcome their participation?

[jabo38]

Wouldn't banks using your project in some way be beneficial?

Not saying that's all you would want, but would you welcome their participation?

Its hard for me to imagine a scenerio in which NEM technology gets used by millions of people via Mijin (yes millions), but somehow the main center chain of NEM doesn't benefit and grow way beyond what it is now.

[ironbit]

in my opinion, mass adoption is an unreachable goal. We should focus to bring NEM as tech to partners like banks, payment processors and so on. They have a need of NEM's tech or the blockchain tech in common. The normal guy usually does not have.

Wouldn't banks using your project in some way be beneficial?

Not saying that's all you would want, but would you welcome their participation?

Its hard for me to imagine a scenerio in which NEM technology gets used by millions of people via Mijin (yes millions), but somehow the main center chain of NEM doesn't benefit and grow way beyond what it is now.