Blockchain in The Fashion Industry

When glamour meets tech, the corollary is very widely accepted by people over the world even though tech-enabled fabric would cost a little extra. Most of the big brands today are changing the course of conventional fashion towards a more outré fashion. Recently Levis launched a SUPER DOPE smart jacket in collaboration with Google specially for people who commute on a bike. It costs $350 yet it is gaining a lot of popularity. You can listen to music, enable google maps, answer phone calls and enable text on your jacket while on-go.

As I see it, the entire culture is shifting its pace and methods to infuse technology and related trends with it. The new way to survive is to adopt technology. Probably this is why most sports gear brand (like Nike) endorse themselves as more of a tech company than an apparel company. Nike is constantly coming up with radical solutions with state-of-the-art sensors to measure heart rate, speed, calories burnt, distance run while performing any activity.

The above case study was a typical example of Internet of Things (IoT) in fashion. Let’s see how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can revolutionise fashion. When I walk into Marks & Spencer, I see a myriad of options not knowing where to go. Also, FOMO clouds my judgment. What would it be like if M&S installs a kiosk in every section where customer can choose the type of fabric they want, the colour, the size et al — and the kiosk tells the customer what the store currently holds! It is like shopping on a mobile app but being physically in the store.

Blockchain critics love to replace blockchain with a regular database even in the most perfect of usecases. What makes blockchain unique is that the data once written onto the ledger can’t ever be changed. It won’t change even if God wants it to change. This means, nobody is more powerful than the other in a blockchain world. Only truth will triumph. Secondly, it is truly decentralised and distributed in nature so everyone can see what exactly is going on. There is NO centralised authority responsible to share the data. This means nobody owns the data. This concept is super powerful when people with dirty hands try to change “facts” just because they can.

Blockchain’s novelty engenders from its unique ability to bridge the gap between physical world and digital world (tokenisation) to create a REAL digital identity on the blockchain. Often, a cryptographic hash or “serial number” is the primary physical identifier which can be traced back to the product. This concept precludes manufacturing of counterfeit items because a “fake” hash can’t be generated.

There are so many social activist groups lambasting big fashion brands for harming animals, environment, or for unethical practices. A lot of consumers are also chary of buying anything that is made of animal skin. So, how about a concept where users know where exactly is the product they are purchasing coming from? Imagine the information about history of provenance is just a QR code scan away?

So many talented people dwell in remote places making intricate fabrics of great value. Most of the times, large fashion brands hire these poor people at a very low wage. This is practically exploiting people in an oppressive way.

In 2017, London designer Martine Jarlgaard, in collaboration with the blockchain company Provenance, took the initiative to produce the unprecedented “smart labels”. The consumer can scan the clothing item to see every step in the production process ranging from raw material to final product. This kind of transparency will likely be a selling point for consumers who increasingly want to know how and where their clothes are made.

At the end of the tunnel, there’s light. Likewise, the end result of blockchain is to integrate and include people in the economy who have been neglected till now. A dApp can be created for the people who are living in a deplorable condition to give them a livelihood. Since blockchain enables P2P trade inherently, there is no need for middlemen in the middle. People can directly buy from people rather than the brands. This would certainly take production back to the local, distributed hubs.

Legality and effectiveness of Digital Fingerprinting

Legality-

As you’ve probably figured out by this point, digital fingerprinting can be a powerful — perhaps even invasive — technology. Do you like the thought of your every online move being tracked, even if it’s only for the purpose of targeted advertising? Here’s a better question: Is it even legal?

Identity tracking fingerprinting treads on shaky ethical ground that may be deemed overly invasive and unlawful in the future. But because it’s a developing technology, those legal issues are still being sorted out. And with the Internet being a global network, laws regarding digital fingerprinting may develop completely differently from one country to another.

According to Canada’s guidelines, a digital fingerprint likely constitutes personal information, so usage of that information could be in violation of Canadian privacy laws. Canadian organizations are required to exhaust every possible non-invasive method of personal identification before resorting to methods like fingerprinting. Because fingerprinting “may collect more information than is necessary to identify fraudulent and duplicate respondents in online research,” Canadian organizations could get in trouble for tracking people unless they’ve received permission or exhausted all other opportunities.

The first form of digital fingerprinting we covered — matching identifying characteristics of copyrighted media to a database — doesn’t suffer from the same ethical challenges as identity tracking. License holders have the right to protect their content, and nothing about this form of fingerprinting invades the user’s privacy. Ideally, fingerprinting will actually decrease the number of copyright infringement lawsuits by stopping the illegal dissemination of licensed media. Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube was thrown out of court in 2010 because Google was found to be in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Because the site took down illegal videos when notified, it was protected under the DMCA and wasn’t held liable for the actions of its users. With better fingerprinting technology, the lawsuit may never have arisen at all. That statement puts a lot of faith into fingerprinting technology.

Effectiveness-

Digital fingerprinting sounds like the perfect technology to combat Internet piracy. It prevents users from spreading copyrighted content and potentially bypasses the hassle and expense of lawsuits. Once implemented by an organization, digital fingerprinting is a largely automated system, which means less work for content providers and media sites alike. Of course, all that convenience assumes one critical thing: that digital fingerprinting actually works.

Digital fingerprinting must be able to identify thousands or millions of pieces of content — content that can be disseminated in many media formats, cropped or edited in unexpected ways, or even recorded off a movie theater screen. Video elements like color, bitrate and even resolution can vary from video to video. With all those variables, can digital fingerprinting really work?

In 2007, Audible Magic’s Copysense fingerprinting technology was put to the test in an online video site called Soapbox. Soapbox was a Microsoft project that allowed users to upload videos a la YouTube. Even with Audible Magic’s fingerprinting technology at work, tech site Gigaom was easily able to upload a copyrighted video from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”. It took days for the clip to be taken down from Soapbox — even after Gigaom contacted Microsoft and Audible Magic for comment. Thinking the clip would then be indexed and protected against illicit sharing, Gigaom tried to upload it again. It worked. They had similar success on Myspace, which also employs Audible Magic’s fingerprinting.

Audible Magic protects against 11 million songs, movies and television shows. But with decades of media at our fingertips in digital form, the software obviously can’t safeguard against all illegal uploads. Digital fingerprinting also can’t stop most peer-to-peer file sharing, which distributes material directly between users. The effectiveness of digital fingerprinting in the future is entirely up in the air. If companies like Audible Magic continue to improve their recognition systems and expand their fingerprint databases, sites with user-generated content will be easier to maintain and the technology that identifies media will be more powerful than ever. Who knows? In 20 years, apps like Shazam may be able to differentiate between two live concert versions of “Free Bird” based on the length of a guitar solo.

Digital Fingerprinting Explained

Digital fingerprinting is the identification of large data files or structures using truncated information. A fingerprinting algorithm is one that reduces a larger data set to a very small data set, sometimes called a bit string, to promote efficient identification and search protocols.

One type of common fingerprint algorithm is called a hash function. These functions change a larger data set, sometimes known as a key, into a shorter data set, which may be called a hash. These altered pieces of data help make search techniques more agile.

One type of digital fingerprinting application is related to new digital media files. Experts note that digital fingerprinting helps a user locate a specific file to verify whether a file has been altered, while actually facilitating copyright protection. This involves using a fingerprint identifier to conduct protected file searches for other online file instances. Digital fingerprinting plays other roles for average end users, such as verifying whether particular file instances have been altered.

Digital fingerprinting technology relies on complex computer-driven analysis to identify a piece of media like a song or video clip. Here’s where the fingerprint analogy is born: Just like every person has a unique fingerprint, every piece of media has identifying features that can be spotted by smart software. But what good does this kind of identification really do? Sites like YouTube can scan files and match their fingerprints against a database of copyrighted material and stop users from uploading copyrighted files. Sounds simple, right? Surprisingly, people often confuse digital fingerprinting with watermarking or don’t have a clear picture of what the technology entails.

Part of the problem is that the term “digital fingerprinting” can actually refer to two entirely different things. The first meaning we’ve already covered, but the second works from a more traditional fingerprint analogy, equating your personal computer to an online fingerprint that can be used to track your online activity. Both concepts refer to a unique identifier, but with completely different functionalities — this second meaning has nothing to do with spotting copyrighted songs or videos. Neither one involves scanning real fingerprints, but they’re pretty cool technologies anyway. Let’s take a look at how they work.

Reasons for Digital Fingerprinting

The last two pages established that the term “digital fingerprinting” applies to two entirely different technologies. The thing they have in common, of course, is a computerized form of identification. Now that we’ve established how each technology works, let’s examine how each is used. YouTube presents an easy starting point. Copyright infringement constantly threatens the video site, and in 2007 Viacom sued Google for $1 billion over clips available on YouTube [source: CNET]. Google didn’t upload the clips itself, but it didn’t stop users from uploading the clips, either. Policing a site as large as YouTube is a huge challenge — how can Google keep unlicensed content out?

With digital fingerprinting. Google uses software it calls YouTube Video Identification to sort through uploaded videos and recognize copyrighted content. It also gives copyright owners the control to deny uploads or even monetize their content [source: YouTube] . This form of digital fingerprinting actually serves two purposes: It protects Google from harmful lawsuits and limits the unlicensed spread of copyrighted material. Ideally, this means both the companies that own the copyright and the companies who host that content online are protected by fingerprinting. The content isn’t spread illegally, and sites like YouTube avoid nasty lawsuits.

Of course, digital fingerprinting doesn’t have to be a restrictive technology. Another excellent example of fingerprinting at work is Shazam, the music identification app that can match a song’s audio sample to a musical database [source: Everything Else Matters Too]. On smart phones, Shazam uses a microphone to pick up audio from a song, analyzes it, and uses that data to find a match. Shazam then pulls up a page of information on the song and artist and provides quick access to a music store where an MP3 of the song can be purchased.

We’ve described how digital fingerprinting can be used to track PCs across the Internet based on various characteristics that make up a digital fingerprint. That same tracking technology can be used for security, as well. Pirates and Internet users who upload and download illicit material can be identified, tracked and even arrested using the power of digital fingerprinting. And because identification doesn’t rely on an IP address alone, pirates who access the Internet from different places on the same device can still be pinned down.

Obviously, tracking criminals is a noble use of digital fingerprinting — but if this is starting to sound like an invasion of privacy to you, you might be onto something.

What are Trendlines?

A trendline is a line drawn over pivot highs or under pivot lows to show the prevailing direction of price. Trendlines are a visual representation of support and resistance in any time frame. They show direction and speed of price, and also describe patterns during periods of price contraction.

The trendline is among the most important tools used by technical analysts. Instead of looking at past business performance or other fundamentals, technical analysts look for trends in price action. A trendline helps technical analysts determine the current direction in market prices. Technical analysts believe the trend is your friend, and identifying this trend is the first step in the process of making a good trade.

To create a trendline, an analyst must have at least two points on a price chart. Some analysts like to use different time frames such as one minute or five minutes. Others look at daily charts or weekly charts. Some analysts put aside time altogether, choosing to view trends based on tick intervals rather than intervals of time. What makes trendlines so universal in usage and appeal is they can be used to help identify trends regardless of the time period, time frame or interval used.

A similar strategy involves something called a moving average. This involves tracking the typical prices of a crypto asset over a set period of time — and whether it’s a week, 10 days, 30 days or more is up to you. Comparing moving averages over a shorter time frame with a longer one can uncover new trends and enable you to pick up on significant levels of recent growth and decline that a more long-term statistical breakdown wouldn’t reflect too clearly.

Use Trendlines to predict the price movements of your cryptocurrencies or XcelToken Plus on an Exchange site of your choice.

Hard Fork Vs. Soft Fork

A “fork,” in programming terms, is an open-source code modification. Usually the forked code is similar to the original, but with important modifications, and the two “prongs” comfortably co-exist. Sometimes a fork is used to test a process, but with cryptocurrencies, it is more often used to implement a fundamental change, or to create a new asset with similar (but not equal) characteristics as the original.

Not all forks are intentional. With a widely distributed open-source codebase, a fork can happen accidentally when not all nodes are replicating the same information. Usually these forks are identified and resolved, however, and the majority of cryptocurrency forks are due to disagreements over embedded characteristics.

There are two main types of programming fork: hard and soft.

Hard forks

A hard fork is a change to a protocol that renders older versions invalid. If older versions continue running, they will end up with a different protocol and with different data than the newer version. This can lead to significant confusion and possible error.

With bitcoin, a hard fork would be necessary to change defining parameters such as the block size, the difficulty of the cryptographic puzzle that needs to be solved, limits to additional information that can be added, etc. A change to any of these rules would cause blocks to be accepted by the new protocol but rejected by older versions and could lead to serious problems – possibly even a loss of funds.

For instance, if the block size limit were to be increased from 1MB to 4MB, a 2MB block would be accepted by nodes running the new version, but rejected by nodes running the older version.

Let’s say that this 2MB block is validated by an updated node and added on to the blockchain. What if the next block is validated by a node running an older version of the protocol? It will try to add its block to the blockchain, but it will detect that the latest block is not valid. So, it will ignore that block and attach its new validation to the previous one. Suddenly you have two blockchains, one with both older and newer version blocks, and another with only older version blocks. Which chain grows faster will depend on which nodes get the next blocks validated, and there could end up being additional splits. It is feasible that the two (or more) chains could grow in parallel indefinitely.

This is a hard fork, and it’s potentially messy. It’s also risky, as it’s possible that bitcoins spent in a new block could then be spent again on an old block (since merchants, wallets and users running the previous code would not detect the spending on the new code, which they deem invalid).

The only solution is for one branch to be abandoned in favor of the other, which involves some miners losing out (the transactions themselves would not be lost, they’d just be re-allocated). Or, all nodes would need to switch to the newer version at the same time, which is difficult to achieve in a decentralized, widely spread system.

Soft fork

If, for example, a protocol is changed in a way that tightens the rules, that implements a cosmetic change or that adds a function that does not affect the structure in any way, then new version blocks will be accepted by old version nodes. Not the other way around, though: the newer, “tighter” version would reject old version blocks.

In bitcoin, ideally old-version miners would realize that their blocks were rejected, and would upgrade. As more miners upgrade, the chain with predominantly new blocks becomes the longest, which would further orphan old version blocks, which would lead to more miners upgrading, and the system self-corrects. Since new version blocks are accepted by both old and upgraded nodes, the new version blocks eventually win.

For instance, say the community decided to reduce the block size to 0.5MB from the current limit of 1MB. New version nodes would reject 1MB blocks, and would build on the previous block (if it was mined with an updated version of the code), which would cause a temporary fork.

This is a soft fork, and it’s already happened several times. Initially, Bitcoin didn’t have a block size limit. Introducing the limit of 1MB was done through a soft fork, since the new rule was “stricter” than the old one. The pay-to-script-hash function, which enhances the code without changing the structure, was also successfully added through a soft fork. This type of amendment generally requires only the majority of miners to upgrade, which makes it more feasible and less disruptive.

Soft forks do not carry the double-spend risk that plagues hard forks, since merchants and users running old nodes will read both new and old version blocks.

What is Digital Signature

A digital signature is a mathematical technique used to validate the authenticity and integrity of a message, software or digital document. As the digital equivalent of a handwritten signature or stamped seal, a digital signature offers far more inherent security, and it is intended to solve the problem of tampering and impersonation in digital communications. Digital signatures can provide the added assurances of evidence of origin, identity and status of an electronic document, transaction or message and can acknowledge informed consent by the signer.

In many countries, including the United States, digital signatures are considered legally binding in the same way as traditional document signatures.

How digital signatures work

Digital signatures are based on public key cryptography, also known as asymmetric cryptography. Using a public key algorithm, such as RSA, one can generate two keys that are mathematically linked: one private and one public. (for more on Digital signatures work because public key cryptography depends on two mutually authenticating cryptographic keys. The individual who is creating the digital signature uses their own private key to encrypt signature-related data; the only way to decrypt that data is with the signer’s public key. This is how digital signatures are authenticated.

Digital signature technology requires all the parties to trust that the individual creating the signature has been able to keep their own private key secret. If someone else has access to the signer’s private key, that party could create fraudulent digital signatures in the name of the private key holder.

How to create a digital signature

To create a digital signature, signing software — such as an email program — creates a one-way hash of the electronic data to be signed. The private key is then used to encrypt the hash. The encrypted hash — along with other information, such as the hashing algorithm — is the digital signature.

The reason for encrypting the hash instead of the entire message or document is that a hash function can convert an arbitrary input into a fixed length value, which is usually much shorter. This saves time as hashing is much faster than signing. The value of a hash is unique to the hashed data. Any change in the data, even a change in a single character, will result in a different value. This attribute enables others to validate the integrity of the data by using the signer’s public key to decrypt the hash.

If the decrypted hash matches a second computed hash of the same data, it proves that the data hasn’t changed since it was signed. If the two hashes don’t match, the data has either been tampered with in some way — integrity — or the signature was created with a private key that doesn’t correspond to the public key presented by the signer — authentication.

A digital signature can be used with any kind of message — whether it is encrypted or not — simply so the receiver can be sure of the sender’s identity and that the message arrived intact. Digital signatures make it difficult for the signer to deny having signed something — assuming their private key has not been compromised — as the digital signature is unique to both the document and the signer and it binds them together. This property is called nonrepudiation.

Digital signatures are not to be confused with digital certificates. A digital certificate, an electronic document that contains the digital signature of the issuing certificate authority, binds together a public key with an identity and can be used to verify that a public key belongs to a particular person or entity.

Most modern email programs support the use of digital signatures and digital certificates, making it easy to sign any outgoing emails and validate digitally signed incoming messages. Digital signatures are also used extensively to provide proof of authenticity, data integrity and nonrepudiation of communications and transactions conducted over the internet.

Classes of digital signatures

There are three different classes of Digital Signature Certificates:

Class 1: Cannot be used for legal business documents as they are validated based only on an email ID and username. Class 1 signatures provide a basic level of security and are used in environments with a low risk of data compromise.
Class 2: Often used for e-filing of tax documents, including income tax returns and Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns. Class 2 digital signatures authenticate a signee’s identity against a pre-verified database. Class 2 digital signatures are used in environments where the risks and consequences of data compromise are moderate.
Class 3: The highest level of digital signatures. Class 3 signatures require a person or organization to present in front of a certifying authority to prove their identity before signing. Class 3 digital signatures are used for e-auctions, e-tendering, e-ticketing, court filings and in other environments where threats to data or the consequences of a security failure are high.

Uses of digital signatures

Industries use digital signature technology to streamline processes and improve document integrity. Industries that use digital signatures include:

Government – The U.S. Government Publishing Office publishes electronic versions of budgets, public and private laws and congressional bills with digital signatures. Digital signatures are used by governments worldwide for a variety of uses, including processing tax returns, verifying business-to-government (B2G) transactions, ratifying laws and managing contracts. Most government entities must adhere to strict laws, regulations and standards when using digital signatures.

Healthcare – Digital signatures are used in the healthcare industry to improve the efficiency of treatment and administrative processes, to strengthen data security, for e-prescribing and hospital admissions. The use of digital signatures in healthcare must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Manufacturing – Manufacturing companies use digital signatures to speed up processes, including product design, quality assurance (QA), manufacturing enhancements, marketing and sales. The use of digital signatures in manufacturing is governed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Digital Manufacturing Certificate (DMC).

Financial services – The U.S. financial sector uses digital signatures for contracts, paperless banking, loan processing, insurance documentation, mortgages, and more. This heavily regulated sector uses digital signatures with careful attention to the regulations and guidance put forth by the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign Act), state UETA regulations, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC).

What is Mimblewimble?

Tested for decades, Mimblewimble uses elliptic-curve cryptography that requires smaller keys than other cryptography types. In a network that is using the Mimblewimble protocol, there are no addresses on the blockchain, and the network’s data storage is highly efficient. Mimblewimble needs about 10% of the data storage requirements of the Bitcoin network. This makes Mimblewimble highly scalable for storing the blockchain, significantly faster, and less centralized. Furthermore, the nature of the protocol allows for private transactions that are highly anonymous (more about this later).

The birth of Mimblewimble

Rejoice, Harry Potter fans! Another reference is coming from the movie fan world. The Mimblewimble Whitepaper was first published on July 2016 in the Bitcoin research channel under the anonymous author name of Tom Elvis Judisor – the French name for Voldemort. Soon after the whitepaper was published – at the end of 2016 -, another anonymous user with the pseudo name “Ignotus Peverell” (the original owner of the invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter universe) started a Github project with the application of the Mimblewimble protocol. This project is called Grin, which released its mainnet on January 15, 2019. There’s also another implementation of Mimblewimble, Beam, that has been already released. We will talk about Grin and Beam later in this article.

Confidential Transactions

This is the point where Mimblewimble comes into the picture. As mentioned before, the protocol proposes a much more efficient system, eliminating inputs and outputs. The UTXO model is replaced by one multisignature for all inputs and outputs which are called Confidential Transactions. If Alice wants to send Bob a coin, both Alice and Bob create a multisignature key that is used to verify the transaction. Confidential Transactions use the Pedersen Commitment scheme; there are no addresses. Instead, the parties share a “blinding factor”. The blinding factor encrypts the inputs and outputs of the transaction along with both parties’ public and private keys. This blinding factor is shared as a secret between the two parties who were engaged in the transaction. Due to the blinding factor replacing addresses, only the two parties know that they were involved in a transaction. This keeps the privacy of the network at a high level. The Pedersen Commitment scheme works as follows. Full nodes deduct the encrypted amounts from both the inputs and outputs, creating a balanced equation that proves that no coins were produced out of thin air. And during the whole process, the node does not know the actual amount of the transaction.

4 Top-Rated Attractions & Things to Do in Ålesund

Famous for its magnificent Art Nouveau architecture, the city of Ålesund is one of Norway’s most popular tourist destinations. Not only is it blessed with one of those picture-perfect Norwegian settings, surrounded by fjords and the high peaks of the Sunnmøre Alps, it has also benefited from the addition of many new cultural and entertainment attractions, byproducts of the incredible increase in wealth the nation has experienced in recent years.

Explore Art Nouveau Ålesund

The picture-perfect Art Nouveau heart of Ålesund, with its stunning architecture, towers, turrets, and other imaginative ornamentation, really needs to be explored on foot. For a fascinating insight into the city’s architecture, the top things to do here include tagging along with an organized walking tour or picking up an informative guide from a tourist office or bookstore.

Ålesund Harbor

Ålesund’s harbor lies between the islands of Nørvøy and Aspøy, and is sheltered by the Skansen peninsula. As wonderful as it is wandering around and admiring the architecture-the picturesque harbor includes many older buildings once used by fishermen-you’ll be tempted to sit awhile and simply watch the boat traffic come and go in this busy port area.

Atlantic Sea-Park

A great place to learn about Norway’s diverse marine life, the Atlantic Sea-Park (Atlanterhavsparken)-one of the largest saltwater aquariums in northern Europe-is just a short shuttle bus ride form the town centre and provides a fascinating look at life under the sea. Established in 1951 and built into the coastline, this spectacular family attraction is crisscrossed with numerous scenic walking trails allowing many great vistas of its fishy inhabitants.

The Ivar Aasen Center

The Ivar Aasen Centre (Ivar Aasen-tunet) is located on the very farm where the famous poet/playwright/philosopher was born in 1813. Revered as the creator of Nynorsk-a language based on Norwegian dialects-Aasen’s home is now the country’s national Nynorsk documentation and experience centre. Designed by architect Sverre Fehn, the building is an attraction in itself, and hosts the annual Festival of New Norwegian Literature, Art, and Music held in the last week of June every year.

Use XcelToken Plus on XcelTrip to visit Ålesund This summer and receive 15% off on your vacation.

Options Contract Explained

An options contract is an agreement between two parties to facilitate a potential transaction on the underlying security at a preset price, referred to as the strike price, prior to the expiration date.

The two types of contracts are put and call options, both of which can be purchased to speculate on the direction of stocks or stock indices, or sold to generate income. For stock options, a single contract covers 100 shares of the underlying stock.

The Basics of an Options Contract

In general, call options can be purchased as a leveraged bet on the appreciation of a stock or index, while put options are purchased to profit from price declines. The buyer of a call option has the right but not the obligation to buy the number of shares covered in the contract at the strike price.

Put buyers have the right but not the obligation to sell shares at the strike price in the contract. Option sellers, on the other hand, are obligated to transact their side of the trade if a buyer decides to execute a call option to buy the underlying security or execute a put option to sell.

Options are generally used for hedging purposes but can be used for speculation. That is, options generally cost a fraction of what the underlying shares would. Using options is a form of leverage, allowing an investor to make a bet on a stock without having to purchase or sell the shares outright.

Call Option Contracts

The terms of an option contract specify the underlying security, the price at which that security can be transacted (strike price) and the expiration date of the contract. A standard contract covers 100 shares, but the share amount may be adjusted for stock splits, special dividends or mergers.

In a call option transaction, a position is opened when a contract or contracts are purchased from the seller, also referred to as a writer. In the transaction, the seller is paid a premium to assume the obligation of selling shares at the strike price. If the seller holds the shares to be sold, the position is referred to as a covered call.

Put Options

Buyers of put options are speculating on price declines of the underlying stock or index and own the right to sell shares at the strike price of the contract. If the share price drops below the strike price prior to expiration, the buyer can either assign shares to the seller for purchase at the strike price or sell the contract if shares are not held in the portfolio.

Blockchain and Digital Identity

Technological advancements in the digital space has revolutionized every aspect of our lives, from shopping to collaborating with colleagues to keeping in touch with friends to entertainment to managing our finances. Since the dawn of the Internet, identity management has been a key concern, with billions of dollars being spent on usability, security and privacy.

The identity and access management market is expected to grow from $8.09 billion in 2016 to $14.82 billion by 2021, representing a 12.9% CAGR. Despite this huge investment, managing digital identities continues to be plagued by three Cs – Cumbersome, Costly and Challenging.

With data driving the world today, digital identity is critical to most business and social transactions. This governs the interaction of users in the digital world. But traditional identity systems continue to be highly vulnerable, with single points of failure, attracting continuous attempts to gain access to the complete repository of high value data.

And, with companies prioritizing cybersecurity, identity protection and compliance management, while customer experience is significantly compromised. As individuals, we shoulder the burden of managing multiple online IDs and passwords, while also handling a host of documents, including passports, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and medical insurance cards.

Blockchain has evolved significantly from the distributed ledger technology created to track bitcoin ownership. This technology can replace traditional systems with a highly trusted mechanism of managing identities. Blockchain can empower users to have greater control over their own identity. Organizations can use the information only with customers’ consent and no central entity would be able to compromise a consumer’s identity.

Blockchain has facilitated the so-called self-sovereign identity, which is inherently unalterable and more secure than traditional identity systems.

This has the potential to completely change the way we use identities to connect to different online services. Individuals would use their self-sovereign ID to verify their identity, removing the need for passwords. As with every lifechanging innovation, there’s been an extended period of evolution, with experts exchanging ideas and little consensus on what self-sovereign ID means!

It’s a concept that stems from the belief that an individual must have control over the administration of his identity. The ID cannot be locked into one site and there needs to be interoperability of the ID across multiple platforms, with user consent. Experts have been contemplating the summation of various identifying information like demographic and employment related data and even information about the individual revealed by other people.