The MEF Blockchain PodCast

Facebook’s blockchain project has changed again. In the third podcast episode dedicated to Libra’s story Daniele Mensi and Dario Betti discuss what is the ‘new new’ digital currency plan from Facebook. The new brand Diem will be the digital currency for digital payments – and this time it will be a simpler dollar-pegged value. The new simpler, more focused solution is limiting the claim of bringing currency stability and banking to the developing economies, and focussing instead on digital payments. 

100 million users are using cryptocurrency now, is the crypto world turning into a mass-market payment system. Daniele Mensi and Dario Betti discuss in this week issues of MEF Talks Blockchain

This week: If you are a media, sports, or art company you should probably  pay attention to the new way to encapsulate engagement and value: Fan Tokens and Non Fungible Tokens. Daniele and Dario discuss.

This week: Coinbase. Cryptocurrency broker Coinbase's listing on the NASDAQ for $76 billion was a step towards legitimacy for the world of bitcoin. However, intermediaries were exactly what blockchain was supposed to get rid of, so this week Dario and Daniele discuss the in's and out's of Coinbase and what makes it so special.

MEF’s series of Blockchain Podcasts continues with MEF CEO Dario Betti and MEF Blockchain advisor Daniele Mensi's regular discussions on the latest impact and innovations in blockchain in the ecosystem.

This week: Digital gaming and payments. There is a lot of interest in new payment systems for games on mobile, with discussion on app store charges shedding more light on some of the newer alternatives. Can Blockchain crypto-currencies become a replacement for making payments in games?

The MEF blockchain podcast looks at the recent development in the financial markets where decentralized access to the market is challenging some of the structure and flows. Interestingly there are parallels between what the world of finance is experiencing and the impact of technologies on telecom. Join Daniele Mensi, MEF Advisor on Blockchain, and Dario Betti.

This week; Daniele Mensi, MEF Advisor on & Dario Betti Blockchains discuss the impact of an experimental form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks, and instead utilizes blockchains and smart contracts. 

DeFi has the potential to disrupt the world's  financial markets, so let's jump in and try to understand more about what exactly DeFi means.

This week; an update on Facebook’s Libra. A new strategy update for Facebook’s sponsored consortium for blockchain payments. Facebook has announced it will do away with the idea of the ‘stablecoin’, rather, it will link up to currencies like the US dollar. Daniele Mensi and Dario Betti discuss what the announcement means for the industry.

This week – Paypal has announced support for the blockchain cryptocurrency – will this have an impact on people, and then on the online and mobile payment industry? Too early to say, blockchain remains a speculative asset and payments would usually require a stable currency. “The key is experimenting” says Daniele Mensi…

The regular MEF podcast on the world of Blockchain in telco this week talks about the European Commission (EC) announcement for a new blockchain "regulatory sandbox"; a 30-country pan-European initiative expected to be in place by 2022.

The India regulator TRAI and industry players are working on an anti-spam solution based on blockchain. Daniele Mensi and Dario Betti look at how this project is shaping up and how it compares to the rest of the world. 

Dario and Daniele continue their regular discussions on the status of the BlockChain industry in telecom with a look at the blockchain solution set up buy the RAG association to share information about the Wangiri fraud. Eric Priezkalns,  CEO of the Risk and Assurance Group, joins and explain the status of the initiative.

This time Dario and Daniele discuss the news that the Chinese Internet giant Tencent is investing heavily in blockchain technology: will we see another industry war after the Huawei 5G dispute between the USA and China? 

Of the 5,800 patents filed in 2019 for blockchain technologies, Tencent presented 718 - or 12.4% of all patents filed - the biggest amount of any single company. The news that the owner of WeChat and the largest video game company in the world will be spending $50 billion in R&D  over the next 5 years would usually be welcome news. Now companies are wondering if Tencent could be next in the banned list of the USA government. 

In this edition, Dario and Daniele discuss the apparent final chapter in the story of messaging powerhouse Telegram’s attempt to create a blockchain payment currency for it’s messaging app, and what its failure to get off the ground can teach the wider blockchain industry.

In this episode Daniele speaks to Anna Gussman, Senior Director Customer Products and Industry Relations at MEF Member Syniverse about how they view blockchain technology and how they expect to use it and other innovations like 5G and the IoT to enhance and evolve the mobile ecosystem, and how we will be more connected in the future.

In this episode Daniele speaks with MMD Smart’s Ira Cohen, VP of Business Development & Marketing and CTO Boris Rakhlin who explain how they are exploring the potential of using block chain and distributed ledger technology to tackle the issue of the many kinds of fraud facing A2P messaging and voice, estimated to cost the telecoms industry $20Bn annually.

In Episode 8 Daniele and Dario chat about two of hottest hyped words in the ecosystem: IoT and Blockhain.  The security challenges to IoT have made difficult to share data openly across services and devices, Blockchain can come to the rescue. Interestingly Blockchain can also help to track things and sensors in the market.

In Episode 5 Daniele and Dario chat about the first and foremost use of blockchain: cryptocurrency. What is happening to BitCoin, Ethereum and the rest? Should the world of telecoms take this seriously as a digital payment mechanism from their customers?

In Episode 6 Daniele and Dario chat about the Telegram, the messaging app, and the recently set back to launch its own digital currency, the Gram. There is plenty to learn from the Telegram story – things will take longer, but the messaging coin is still on the cards.

In Episode 5 Daniele and Dario chat about the potential applications of blockchain to support the fight against COVID19 – how governments and industry are working on potential ways to scale up virus testing by using blockchain for secure digital identities and information sharing.

In Episode 4  Daniele and Dario chat about the potential of blockchain to support a new paradigm of personal data sharing in the industry. Can blockchain helps to bring trust and transparency in this crucial part of the business. Daniele will explore how these two world could come together.

In Episode 3 Daniele & Dario discuss the potential of tokenisation. Blockchain can create a digital identity for an asset so that someone can buy a fraction of its ownership. This could have a big impact on assets heavy companies such as telecom operators: from antennas to buildings operators could get liquidity selling fractions.

In Episode 2 Daniele and Dario chat about the biggest blockchain announcement from June 2019: Facebook Libra. Some 9 months after its first announcement, Daniele reviews the promise of Facebook’s yet-to-be fulfilled crypto currency, and its impact on the industry.

MEF invites you to a new series of Podcasts to discuss the role of Blockchain in the mobile world. It is important to understand the difference between hype and the real potential of this new technology in the mobile and wireless world. Join the conversation as Daniele Mensi, MEF Advisor on Blockchain talks to Dario Betti, MEF CEO.

In the first episodes, get a straightforward first introduction to what blockchain really is, with a simple and effective explanation of DLT, Blockchain and other important buzzwords.