With the emergence of the coronavirus COVID-19, has also emerged the perceived need by numerous health officials that contact tracing is the only way to reopen the economy safely. Although many disagree this is clearly the position taken by most governments worldwide. To understand that COVID-19 will unfortunately not be quickly defeated, congress recently passed the bill H.R.6666, also known as THE COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contact Everyone (TRACE) act (Reuters, May 2020). The Bill will provide a $100 billion grant program for contact tracing for the remainder of 2020.
Contact tracing is not easily accomplished and will require the use of advanced technology to do it effectively for large populations. On the 29th of April 2020, Matic Network announced that Tracy would be migrating to Matic Network (Matic Blog, 2020). Tracy is the first blockchain-powered application to perform COVID 19 contact tracing. According to Nirbhik Jangid, Matic Network will empower the Tracy app to perform appropriately for mass adoption. Take note of the new bill’s name TRACE and the name of the app Tracy. Is this pure coincidence? The app also utilizes Moibit to store sensitive data (Cointelegraph, 2020). Although the app is currently voluntary this may change in the future. The app has already been introduced to several lawmakers in India and USA (Blockmanity, 2020).
What makes Tracy even more interesting is “it can also collect primary health symptom data of the citizen users from the app. Furthermore, using the authorities’ app, one can interact through QR codes with other citizens of the world to confirm their health status (Coinspeaker, 2020). In connection with the functionality of this application consider what Bill Gates is doing.
Bill Gates Cryptocurrency Patent W02020060606 (Bill Gates has called for national tracking)
Bill Gates filed a patent on the 20th of June 2019 for a “Cryptocurrency system using Body activity data” (Patentscope, 2019). This does look very similar to the functions of the Tracy app and token (Fig. 1 Source: Patenscope). The app will monitor bodily functions such as heartbeat, pulse and temperature etc.
Abstract
Human body activity associated with a task provided to a user may be used in the mining process of a cryptocurrency system. A server may provide a task to a device of a user which is communicatively coupled to the server. A sensor communicatively coupled to or comprised in the device of the user may sense body activity of the user. Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. The cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify if the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.
According to Microsoft, the new patent is about mining cryptocurrency. The patent allows for the creation of a device that tracks a human's physical activity or reactions to certain tasks using a variety of sensors and generates cryptocurrency in response (Screenrant).
Here we have another coincidence: H.R 6666 and Patent number that ends 060606.
Tracy app which will be powered by Matic Network appears to be very much like the patent filed by Microsoft Corporation and Bill Gates. The app originates in India where Bill gates successfully implemented the world’s largest biometric system “Aadhar ID System” which has successfully captured biometric data such as fingerprints, eye, and other biometric traits for 1.1 Billion residents of India.
Is it likely that Tracy will now be used for contract tracing in India and other countries? Bill Gates himself has stated that it will be necessary for individuals to obtain some sort of digital signature to show that they have been vaccinated or have immunity for the coronavirus.
During this unprecedented global epidemic, Matic Network has continued to grow rapidly as a network of choice for the majority of new blockchain projects. It has been recognised for its leading capability for mass adoption scaling, reliability and security due in part to its place on the most used blockchain in the world – Ethereum.
Tracy Token Etherscan - first transaction 525 days ago
FOR OTHER MATIC ARTICLES BY THE SAME AUTHOR GO TO BLOCKCHAIN INNOVATION
Links
Aadhar
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Heroes-in-the-Field-Nandan-Nilekani
Blockmanity
Cointelegraph
https://cointelegraph.com/news/matic-announces-a-privacy-centric-coronavirus-tracking-app
Etherscan Tracy
https://etherscan.io/token/0xb39019ab4c5e471887bb8bd2bf0e779ce439a6a2
Matic Blog
https://blog.matic.network/matic-network-project-updates-11/
Reuters
Screenrant
https://screenrant.com/coronavirus-microsoft-bill-gates-patent-666-explained/
