IBM combines AI and blockchain to turn your phone into a counterfeit detector

IBM Research today unveiled its Crypto Anchor Verifier, an AI-powered counterfeit detector that verifies an item’s authenticity using your phone’s camera and blockchain technology.

How it works: You pull out your phone, open an app, and take a pic of, for example, a diamond. IBM’s AI determines what is unique about this particular diamond, and then compares it to a database of gems contained within a blockchain ledger. If it’s found, the AI can verify the authenticity of the diamond.

Donna Dillenberger, IBM Fellow, IBM Research told TNW:

What it means: IBM says this tech can be adapted to detect the authenticity of just about anything from wine to paper money. It relies on image processing, and the fact that machines can see things people can’t.

Blockchain, at its core, is a technology designed to eliminate the need for trust. Unfortunately it’s not possible to put a physical object on “the blockchain.” The next best thing is using computer vision to put an object’s unique appearance on it.

But don’t expect an all-seeing, all-knowing eye to sprout from our smart phones anytime soon. In order for this to protect consumers from purchasing, let’s say, a counterfeit Fantastic Four #4, Marvel would have to register each one in a blockchain ledger. The AI has to have a previously verified version of an individual object in order to verify it later – essentially companies have to opt-in before products reach the market.

Considering counterfeiting costs US companies more than $600 billion per year , this technology might just catch on.

Thailand imposes extra fees on blockchain-powered p2p energy producers

New regulations drafted by Thailand officials demand that electricity producers using blockchain be charged additional fees. Government regulators fear an explosion in independent power generation will lead to a reduction in revenue.

Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) has demanded the fees be paid as a subsidy for potentially destabilizing effects blockchain technology brings, Nikkei Asian Review reports .

“The number of household solar rooftop power generators is increasing rapidly. That’s why the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) needs to develop regulation that is fair for everybody,” declared ERC member Viraphol Jirapraditkul.

There is a growing number of Thai companies leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT) to help homeowners profit from rooftop solar systems. A new generation of blockchain-savvy consumers is muscling the state-owned utilities out of profits by buying and selling surplus solar energy on decentralized peer-to-peer (p2p) energy markets.

As the markets grow bigger, less electricity is being purchased directly from the state-run utilities, meaning less profits for the traditional power industry.

Here, we are witnessing the decentralization of the energy sector, in Thailand at least. Andreas Antonopolous thinks that this is one of the “most important trends in human history.” Despite the benefits of p2p energy markets, the fact that governments can just impose additional fees to compensate puts a real dampener on things.

It was only a year ago that Thailand rolled back strict restrictions on non-government solar power generation. Bangkok Post reported that the Thai government allowed households and businesses to sell surplus energy generated by solar panels back to EGAT last September, but I guess it didn’t count on blockchain being adopted by the p2p energy community so quickly.

Here is why Ripple ‘dropped’ $20B in market share on CoinMarketCap

Concerned Ripple (XRP) hodlers were terrified to wake up to news that their coin of choice not only dropped to third place on CoinMarketCap, but also dipped a staggering $20 billion from its total market share.

While the price and total market cap of Ripple did indeed take significant dips around 5AM UTC on January 8, the unexpected drops were purportedly the result of CoinMarketCap’s decision to remove XRP prices from Korean exchange desks from the total average – and not people pulling their investments en masse.

For the record, taking Korean prices out of the equation caused Ripple’s overall market share to drop from over $123 billion to $103 billion on CoinMarketCap; its price registered a decrease from $3.19 to $2.67.

Responding to the waves of worried crypto-traders, Ripple chief cryptographer David Schwartz took to Twitter to clarify the reason for the sudden plunge, noting that the data displayed on CoinMarketCap is somewhat misleading.

While the cryptographer agreed that factoring out Korean exchange prices from the average “makes sense” so long as CoinMarketCap provides a “notice” to explain away the cause for the sudden drop in price and market cap. This is exactly how the site handles volume corrections.

Indeed, alternative cryptocurrency price tracking solutions like Live Coin Watch continue to show Ripple as the second largest currency by market share, boasting a market cap of $121 billion and a price of $3.16 at the time of writing.

Unlike such trackers though, CoinMarketCap has opted to exclude XRP prices from Korean-based exchanges Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit, where the price of Ripple was more than a dollar higher than on any other exchange.

While unusual, some currencies trade higher on local exchange desks than on international ones. The dynamic behind this phenomenon is not easily explainable, but it ultimately comes down to higher demand for certain coins locally than internationally. Just ask Nigerian and Indian Bitcoin-traders about this.

The problem in factoring in locally-pumped prices in global charts, though, is that it makes things especially confusing for users trading on international exchanges.