Starbucks is likely to utilize blockchain technology as part of a new payments app, executive chairman Howard Shultz said Tuesday.
Speaking with Maria Bartiromo during a Fox Business segment, Schultz discussed the use of a "proprietary digital currency" in conjunction with the payments app. When asked whether the coffee retailer would use blockchain in conjunction with the initiative - as opposed to a more centralized system of accounting - Schultz said that the company "probably" would move in that direction.
"I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of," he commented.
His comments come roughly a month after the former chief executive spoke broadly during an earnings call about the chain's plans to utilize the tech, especially on the payments front (although he dismissed the idea that the company would use bitcoin in some way).
At the time, Schultz suggested that the tech may play a role in how Starbucks works to "expand digital customer relationships," though it remains to be seen how blockchain is ultimately used in practice by the company.
"I believe that we are heading into a new age, in which blockchain technology is going to provide a significant level of a digital currency that is going to have a consumer application," he remarked during the earnings call.
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Blockchain is approaching major buzzword status, joining the ranks of technologies like artificial intelligence that promise to change the world. That’s because blockchain underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin—it's distributed ledger software used to transfer information securely and quickly. Every day, it seems that a different company announces a new blockchain initiative. But for anyone interested in getting a job in the space, what cities hold the most promise?
Boston-based analytics firm Burning Glass scoured the web to find the top cities for blockchain-related jobs. It scanned millions of job postings from 2017 and searched for words like blockchain, distributed ledger and bitcoin, applying natural language processing algorithms to interpret the listings and create the ranking.
New York ranks first, with 1,316 blockchain job openings. Stephen Robinson, founder of blockchain-focused IT consulting firm East Rock Software and website cryptocurrencyjobs, wasn’t surprised by this result. “New York is the financial hub of the world, and it’s very aware of the needs of this technology,” he says. “Blockchain is a potential way to streamline many financial processes.” According to Burning Glass, most of the open blockchain jobs in America are technical, such as software developer, product manager and security engineer.
San Francisco has the second most blockchain job openings, with 651. Boston, Chicago and Palo Alto make up the rest of the top five, with about 100 to 200 openings apiece. To see the full list of cities in the top 15 and the number of open jobs, view the end of this article.
Burning Glass’ software only tracks English-language job postings, so it doesn’t capture other crypto-hub countries like Switzerland or South Korea. But outside the U.S., London has 423 openings and Singapore has 357, followed by Toronto and Sydney, with 149 and 97.
Many of the open blockchain jobs fall under the “enterprise” category—they’re at big companies using blockchain technology to improve their own efficiency or better serve their customers. Large consulting firms like Accenture, IBM and Deloitte are hiring for these roles. The positions may involve working with public blockchains like Bitcoin—Microsoft recently announced such an effort—or building private blockchains only accessible to certain people. For anyone interested in working with Ethereum, the second-largest public blockchain by market value, Stephen Robinson suggests learning the programming language Solidity. It allows developers to build applications that run on top of Ethereum, in the same way iPhone app developers would do for an iPhone. Robinson thinks many job opportunities will pop up in this segment.
“Core development” is another category of blockchain job. Core developers work on the cryptocurrency platforms themselves, like Bitcoin, Ethereum and EOS.IO. There will be fewer opportunities in this niche, Robinson says. Many experts expect the crypto industry to consolidate to a small number of platforms in the long run, so the demand for developers who can build applications on top of core platforms will likely be far greater than the need for people who can build the platforms themselves.
Full List: The Top 15 Cities for Blockchain Jobs in America
China's billionaire population is on the rise.
Today, the country is home to 10 percent of the world's almost 2,400 billionaires, according to the latest report from Wealth-X. But, perhaps more notably, a massive 94 percent of them are self-made. Growth in China's technology, consumer retail and real estate sectors over the past five to 10 years have made it easier for entrepreneurs to build their fortune, marking a massive surge in the country's self-made billionaire population. Just 2 percent of China's 249 billionaires are the product of inheritance, according to the report. Meanwhile, 4 percent have reached the 10-figure milestone through a combination of entrepreneurship and inheritance. The rest have earned it through grit and hard work.
The figure stands in stark contrast to the global average. Overall, just 55 percent of the world's billionaires are self-made, according to the intelligence agency's figures. Thirteen percent of the world's billionaires have gained their wealth through inheritance, while 32 percent have built it through a combination of inheritance and entrepreneurship.
What's more, China's billionaires are relatively younger than the global mean, with one-third aged under 50, compared to 14 percent globally. The average billionaire in China is 53-years-old while the average billionaire globally is aged 64.
China's billionaires include those responsible for some of the world's biggest companies. Here's a look at the top 10 wealthiest:
China's top 10 billionaires
10. Yan Jiehe Yan Jiehe, founder of China Pacific Construction Group
Net worth: $14.1 billion
Founder, China Pacific Construction Group Born the youngest of nine children, Yan's earliest memory is of going hungry, he told Fortune magazine in 2014. Like his parents, he began his career as a schoolteacher, before moving into the construction industry and launching China Pacific Construction Group in 1995.
9. Zhang Zhidong
A microphone displays the Tencent Holdings logo during a news conference in Hong Kong. Net worth: $15 billion Co-founder, Tencent Holdings Also known as Tony Zhang, Zhang was born in 1971 and met fellow Tencent co-founder Pony Ma while studying at Shenzen University. The duo, alongside three other co-founders, set up the internet company in 1998.
8. Lei Jun
Lei Jun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Xiaomi Inc., delivers a speech during a launch event at Beijing University of Technology on September 11, 2017 in Beijing, China. Net worth: $15.1 billion Chairman, Xiaomi Born in 1969, Lei studied computer science at Wuhan University and worked as an engineer before taking on senior positions in several technology companies. Then, in 2010, he co-founded smartphone manufacturer and software company Xiaomi.
7. Li Hejun
Li Hejun, Net worth: $15.5 billion Chairman, Hanergy Holding Group A mechanical engineering graduate, Li founded Hanergy in 1991 with 50,000 Yuan (around $8,000) borrowed from his college teacher, according to the company's website. Today, Hanergy is a world-leading renewable energy company.
6. Ding Lei (William Ding)
Ding Lei, founder and CEO of netease.com, at the China Internet Conference 2011 Net worth: $17.2 billion CEO, NetEase Ding is the founder of Chinese internet technology company NetEase, which provides online content, communications and commerce services. He launched the business in 1997 after studying electronic science and technology and working for a short time as an engineer.
5. Wang Jainlin
Wang Jianlin, Chairman and President of Dalian Wanda Group Co., speaks during Suning smart retail development strategy press release and partnership agreement signing ceremony on December 19, 2017 in Nanjing, China.
Net worth: $18.1 billion
Chairman, Dalian Wanda Group Born in 1954, Wang served for sixteen years in China's People's Liberation Army before founding Dalian Wanda Group in 1988. Today, it is China's largest real estate development company. Wang also owns 20 percent of the Spanish football club Atletico Madrid.
4. Yang Huiyan
Signage for the Forest City development is displayed at the reception of the Country Garden Holdings Co. property showroom in Iskandar Malaysia zone of Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia Net worth: $20.7 billion Vice Chairman, Country Garden Holdings Chinese property developer Yang is the majority shareholder of Country Garden Holdings, a property development company set up by her father, Guoqiang Yang in 1992. She was named the richest woman in Asia in a 2015 Wealth-X report.
3. Hui Ka Yan
Hui Ka Yan, chairman of China Evergrande Group, speaks during a news conference in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 Net worth: $27.5 billion Chairman, Evergrande Real Estate Group Hui Ka Yan, also known as Xu Jiayin, was born in a rural village in Henan province in 1958. After graduating from college, he worked as a technician in a steel factory for a decade before becoming chairman of Chinese real estate developer Evergrande Group.
2. Jack Ma
Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Net worth: $40.2 billion
Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group Jack Ma was born in 1964 in Hangzhou, Zheijang province. He began his career as a teacher and famously suffered dozens of job rejections before launching Alibaba Group. Today, the company is the world's largest retailer and one of the largest technology companies globally.
1. Huateng Ma
Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive officer of Tencent Holdings Ltd., speaks during the 2017 China International Big Data Industry Expo at Guiyang International Eco-Conference Center on May 28, 2017 in Guiyang, China. Net worth: $41.8 billion Chairman, Tencent Holdings The son of a port manager, Ma studied computer science at Shenzen University before starting his career in telecommunications. Known as Pony Ma, he launched Tencent alongside four college classmates in 1998, and now serves as its chairman and CEO. Tencent is one of the largest internet companies in the world and counts social networks, e-commerce, payment systems and games among its services.
Michael Poteat, an engineering student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., decided to start mining bitcoin four months ago.
Using some of his bitcoin holdings, he purchased 20 “mining rigs,” computing boxes that solve complex equations to generate new coins. But while running one rig, he kept tripping the circuit breaker in his home. So the 20-year-old looked into leasing commercial space but struggled to find a large-enough place without neighbors who would mind the noise.
As the dramatic surge in bitcoin’s price lures both individuals and corporations to try their hand at mining cryptocurrencies, many people are facing similar problems to Mr. Poteat. That’s giving rise to “hosting” or “colocation” services that make mining easier for the masses by providing ready infrastructure, security and electricity.
In February, Mr. Poteat moved his equipment into a data center run by Bcause, a five-year-old company that is laying out plans to build the largest bitcoin mining operation in North America. “It’s just difficult as an individual to handle all the logistics,” Mr. Poteat said.
Bitcoin mining can be expensive and cumbersome, requiring specialized hardware and massive amounts of power. Such challenges have long prompted miners to share space and resources. Now, companies that harbor mining equipment are fielding more requests than ever.
Even as bitcoin prices have tumbled about 40% from a December peak, the amount of computing effort expended by miners, also known as the hash rate, has continued climbing. That likely indicates more miners are jumping into the network, according to market observers. Miners are rewarded with new coins and transaction fees for performing the calculations that make the bitcoin network tick. The more valuable a bitcoin is, the greater the incentive to start mining. But the more miners who participate, the more computations are needed to earn rewards.
Bcause is one of the firms that have sprung up to cater to aspiring bitcoin miners. In an old beverage warehouse in Virginia, the startup is running thousands of rigs for clients from the U.S. to Asia. It has received $5 million in Series A funding, led by Japanese financial services firm SBI Holdings Inc., and plans to raise more.
Bcause has contracts with wholesale clients to house about 60,000 mining rigs, and will serve retail clients by renting out spare machines, a process known as “cloud mining.” It has about 5,000 machines up and running and plans to outfit another site in eastern Pennsylvania. The company was initially founded to provide bitcoin options contracts for investors trying to hedge their cryptocurrency investments. But the team decided to incorporate hosting services last year as bitcoin surged and mining became profitable again.
“The demand is overwhelming,” said Fred Grede, chief executive officer of Bcause and a former executive at the Hong Kong Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade. “That’s where the revenue is.”
One of the most popular mining machines, known as the Antminer S9 and manufactured by Chinese firm Bitmain, is frequently sold out, forcing customers to wait months for delivery. Each rig costs about $2,300 but can go for as much as $5,000 on the secondary market. Bcause’s retail clients can rent a Antminer S9 for about $4,800 for one year. The company declined to provide prices for institutional clients, who purchase their own machines. Traditionally, the world’s biggest bitcoin miners have set up shop in places with low-cost electricity and cool climates to accommodate the heat given off by the mining rigs. However, the spectacular rise in bitcoin has afforded more location flexibility, miners say. China’s crackdown on domestic mining could also lead many in the country to consider alternative areas to run their operations. “A lot of people don’t trust going to China and putting all that investment into China,“ said Michael Adolphi, chief operating officer at Bcause. “We’ve made it economically feasible for them to bring it here.” Still, the extreme volatility of bitcoin has some questioning how long the mining boom will last.
In mid-2014, when bitcoin fell more than 50% from the end of 2013 to about $500, mining operations were forced to consolidate, said Garrick Hileman, chief executive of research firm Mosaic.io.
“A combination of inefficient hardware and declining bitcoin price led a lot of them to close up shop,” Mr. Hileman said. The industry could experience a similar shakeout if prices start to drop again, he said. The bitcoin price at which miners can still profitably run rigs varies depending on electricity costs, scale and the difficulty of mining. Some miners estimated the cutoff to be around $1,000 per bitcoin, though one small-scale miner pinned his exit level around $4,000. At about $11,700 late Tuesday, miners point out bitcoin prices are still 10 times their value versus a year earlier. “Mining is still insanely profitable at the moment,“ said a spokesman for Genesis Mining, a cloud mining company that rents computing power to customers. ”One of the biggest challenges in the space is just building out the mining capacity to meet the demand.”
As a hosting service, Bcause says it is insulated from major price shocks, since it doesn’t invest in the mining equipment or the cryptocurrency itself.
It plans to build out a one-stop shop for trading bitcoin, with spot and derivatives exchanges, as well as a clearing house, pending regulatory approval. David Bowman, who operates a small mining facility in Plattsburgh, N.Y., said he started selling contracts for cloud mining for the steadier revenue. However, he acknowledged the risks. “The difficult part is the price,” said Mr. Bowman, who has 30 machines running in an office space. “The price is anyone’s guess. It’s kind of a shot in the dark sometimes.”
People all across Malaysia are earning easy money every week
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A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper with 90 percent of the building made of wood.
Sumitomo Forestry says its wooden high-rise — dubbed the W350 — will be 350 meters tall and the planned structure will be a hybrid of mostly wood and steel.
The 70-storey building, expected to be built in Tokyo, will comprise of stores, offices, hotels and private homes, the company noted in plans released earlier in February. Sumitomo Forestry, which notes on its website that "happiness grows from trees," said it aimed to create environmentally-friendly, timber-utilizing cities which "become forests through increased use of wooden architecture for high-rise buildings." Building with wood is still not cheap, however.
Using 185,000 cubic meters of timber, the building is expected to cost around 600 billion Japanese yen ($5.6 billion) which is twice the amount of a conventional high-rise building constructed with current technology.
However, the company believed that those costs would come down as timber became a more-frequently used material: "Going forward, the economic feasibility of the project will be enhanced by reducing costs through technological development." Currently the tallest wooden building is 18-storeys high (53 meters) and serves as accommodation for students at the University of British Colombia. Greenery will feature heavily in the building from Sumitomo Forestry with foliage connecting from the ground to top floors offering "a view of biodiversity in an urban setting."
The building plans show balconies that continue around all four sides of the building, giving a space "in which people can enjoy fresh outside air, rich natural elements and sunshine filtering through foliage."
With earthquakes not unusual in Japan, the building will incorporate a structural system composed of braced tubes made from columns, beams and braces "to prevent deformation of the building due to lateral forces such as earthquakes or wind."
Wooden cities
The concept for the building has been prepared primarily at Tsukuba Research Institute, Sumitomo Forestry's research and development facility. The institute is looking at the "expanding possibilities for wooden buildings as a road map for future technology, such as the development of building methods, environmentally-friendly technologies, and trees that become resources and building materials," the company said. Sumitomo Forestry can trace its origins in the timber industry back to 1691 and the W350 building is planned to mark the company's 350th anniversary in 2041.
The company notes that forests cover approximately two thirds (68.5 percent) of Japan's land area. This puts it at second place among OECD member countries, behind Finland.
However, the self-supply rate for domestically-produced timber is only at around 30 percent, the company states, and Japan's forests are at risk due to insufficient maintenance. "Although the large amounts of Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress planted after the Second World War have now reached the time for harvesting, they are being left in an un-maintained state as devastation of our domestic forests continues. It is crucial to use these trees and replant them after harvesting to encourage sustainability of forests," the company said. Malaysia maintained its leadership as the world's largest sukuk issuer in 2017, accounting for US$36.5 billion (RM142.7 billion) of global sukuk issuance. It was followed by Saudi Arabia (US$31.7 billion), Indonesia (US$6.9 billion) and Qatar (US$5.6 billion), RAM Rating Services Bhd (RAM Ratings) said in a statement today. The volume of global sukuk issuance last year exceeded RAM Ratings' projection of US$85 billion-US$90 billion, having swelled 33.6% year-on-year to US$97.3 billion (2016: US$72.9 billion). This was bolstered by a 144.5% or US$46.6 billion spike in issuances from Gulf Cooperation Council countries, it said. In 2016, Malaysia also topped the global sukuk arena with US$29.9 billion (RM116.9 billion) of total global issuance. Meanwhile, quasi-government heavyweights, led by DanaInfra Nasional Bhd, Public Sector Home Financing Board (LPPSA) and Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, supported Malaysia’s local-currency (LCY) sukuk issuance in 2017. RAM Ratings Head of Islamic Finance Ruslena Ramli said LCY sukuk issuance amounted to RM168.7 billion last year, also surpassing RAM’s full-year projection of RM100 billion-RM120 billion.
“We anticipate DanaInfra’s sukuk issuance to increase significantly in 2018, driven by the funding requirements for the MRT Line 2 and the Pan Borneo Highway,” she added.
DUBAI: Gulf metropolis Dubai, on its never-ending quest to break records, announced the opening of the "world's new tallest hotel" Sunday, pipping another towering landmark in the city for the title.
The gleaming gold 75-storey Gevora Hotel stands 356 metres, or nearly a quarter of a mile, tall.
The new record-holder is within view of its predecessor, Dubai's JW Mariott Marquis -- just one metre shorter. The Gevora's first guests are expected on Monday, according to Emirati daily The National.
Dubai is also home to the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which pierces the city skyline at 828 metres (half a mile) high.
The city-state, one of seven sheikhdoms that make up the energy-rich United Arab Emirates, aims to attract 20 million visitors annually by 2020 when it hosts the global trade fair Expo 2020. The desert emirate boasts opulent shopping malls, numerous luxury resorts and even an indoor ski resort. A major transit hub situated on transcontinental air routes, Dubai airport was the world's busiest for international passengers in 2017 for the fourth year running, with 88.2 million travellers. - AFP
Airbus completed its first flight demonstration of an air vehicle which will eventually deliver parcels to stations around a university campus in Singapore.
Unmanned drones will begin flying between parcel stations on campus by the middle of the year. The drones will land on roofs of stations, where a robotic arm will retrieve a package and place it in an individual locker. Customers can then pick up their package at any hour from the lockers.
CNBC attended the initial flight demonstration at the National University of Singapore campus where the drone appeared quite large and carried a packaged shirt inside.
The drone can carry between 2 to 4 kilograms, under 9 pounds. The machine weighs approximately 25 kilograms, which is about 55 pounds.
A representative from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said the eventual plan is to roll out the drone parcel delivery system across the city-state, so long as it's done in phases.
Airbus is joining the race to dominate the highways of the sky against competition from tech giants Google and Amazon.
LONDON: Wall Street bank Citigroup Inc
will set up an innovation centre in London in one of the first investments by a big U.S. bank since Brexit, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Citi will initially hire 60 technologists for the centre, James Cowles, chief executive Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), told the FT. The company could not be immediately reached for comment. The centre in London will also house the EMEA unit of Citi ventures and employees from across the company's businesses, in a boost for UK's financial services sector ahead of Brexit, the FT reported. (http://on.ft.com/2BREJUO)
European Commission officials rejected the City of London's proposal to strike a post-Brexit free-trade deal on financial services, a major blow to Britain's hopes of keeping full access to EU markets for one of the world's top two financial centres.
Britain is currently home to the world's largest number of banks and hosts the largest commercial insurance market. About 6 trillion euros ($7.35 trillion), or 37 percent, of Europe's financial assets are managed in the UK capital, almost twice the amount of its nearest rival, Paris.
JPMorgan Chase & Co said earlier this month that it could move more than 4,000 jobs out of Britain if Brexit talks result in a divergence of regulations and trade agreements between Britain and the European Union.
In the short term the bank will move between 500 and 1,000 jobs after Britain's formal exit from the EU, scheduled for March 29, 2019.
About 10,000 finance jobs will be shifted out of Britain or created overseas in the next few years if it is denied access to Europe's single market, a Reuters survey in September found. - Reuters |
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