Blockchain: not only Bitcoin, this is how it has changed our life for the better, really

A stunning year for BTC

He has gained up to 40% more since the beginning of the year and it was (also) driven by the words of none other than Fed Governor Jerome Powell. "All the big central banks are looking with interest at digital currencies," he said, confirming that the United States is also considering the hypothesis of such a currency, that is, a digital native dollar. Thus, bitcoin has flown above ten thousand dollars. It's not so good for the cryptocurrency chat signed by Facebook, Libra: it seemed ready to launch, instead it is stuck at the stake and losing pieces, after the recent goodbyes of illustrious partners such as Vodafone and Mastercard. What is clear, is that even in 2020 the eyes of analysts and investors will be firmly focused here, on disruptive (and in some ways still mysterious) technology par excellence: the blockchain, which is the basis of both Libra and bitcoins, the cryptocurrency mother, invented in 2008 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. But blockchain, or the special register of linked information to which it is possible to add information but not delete it, also means supply chain and food chain management, applications in logistics, document and payment management. In Italy it is a 30 million euro market, it grows 100% year on year and the number of projects presented in Europe is second only to Great Britain. Investments are concentrated in the financial and insurance sectors, with a share of over 40%.

Decentralize finance

These are the starting points for the new series of «Real Intelligences», the path of L'Economia with the Polytechnic of Milan which investigates where the wind of digital innovation is going, concretely, of course, also that of our home, to understand the ecosystem in which we live and its evolutions. "Blockchain is a technology that can potentially redefine the way we think about value and trust, in the social and economic context - explains Francesco Bruschi, co-director of the Blockchain Observatory and Distributed ledger of the Politecnico di Milano -. Today it is still difficult to imagine which applications will be more revolutionary. I am thinking of inclusive or decentralized finance, accessible by a much larger portion of the world population and in which intermediaries are greatly scaled down and their power redefined. A still embryonic but booming sector ».

Barriers and limits

Zuckerberg's Libra was born along this path: it wants to reach the so-called "unbanked", people who have no current accounts and cannot take out a mortgage, for example, and who however use the social network (2.5 billion users): the exchange of money would be enabled through the network. Telegram, the equally discussed Russian entrepreneur Durov's messaging app, is also developing a blockchain. His name is Ton and he has already attracted the attention of the American Consob for the alleged illegality of the $ 1.7 billion IPO. Still nothing done, but the attention among developers, companies, big tech, public administrations and governments remains high. The market so far has focused on building new platforms that take months or years to move to the operational project, rather than developing applications and projects. But beyond this, according to Bruschi "there exists and resists, in Italy, a cultural problem that blocks the development of technology, while the blockchain name is mistakenly considered synonymous with digitization and often also used for marketing". From a survey by the Polytechnic Observatory on 75 large tricolor companies with experience in these technologies, it emerges that if as many as 52% have developed a strategic vision on the blockchain, only 9% have already defined people and resources to implement it. The main barriers are the difficulties in identifying the benefits, developing skills and allocating resources. "For the full development of these technologies, and to unlock the Internet of Value (a world in which the transfer of value becomes infinitely simpler and more versatile, even without the presence of a central body) it will first be necessary to clarify the regulatory context, today fragmented and uneven - continues Bruschi -. Then, many possibilities open up: I am thinking of creating, thanks to smart contracts, incentive systems that can create new social and economic phenomena, such as for example directing energy consumption towards sustainable forms ».

The audience is moving

Meanwhile, institutions have also moved, as in the case of the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure, an infrastructure promoted by 28 EU countries to support public services at European level, including data notarization, qualifications management and for the Self sovereign identity, a digital identity manageable and controllable by citizens. The Polytechnic is directly involved in the project. "The nodes that will validate the blockchain will be taken over by the different nations - concludes Bruschi -. At the moment the Polytechnic will host a validator node in Italy for the test network, together with Infratel Italia, at the Ministry of Economic Development, and INPS. But the blockchain is also entering the training aspects of the university: for example, in the master in Fintech of the MIP, the School of Management of the Polytechnic, there is a dedicated module ". It is also fundamental to create awareness among professionals, increasingly in contact with this technology. The Politecnico has dedicated a five-stage route to them. The next one, scheduled for March 19, investigates the potential and limits of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance.

Eggs, oranges, chicken: the chain can be read on the QR Code

Chicken outdoors: more 126%. Tarot oranges: plus 16.7%. Sales in Carrefour Italia supermarkets of these products have grown so much, the first tracks with blockchain technology by the French chain, a pioneer in introducing this technology in our country. The process began more than a year ago and at the moment this technology is active on three supply chains; soon it will also involve eggs from hens raised outdoors without the use of antibiotics and microfiltered milk, all products of the Quality Supply Chain line. "The commitment to ensure transparency and traceability of the supply chain is part of the Act for Food program and of our strategic plan for 2022, with which we push towards responsible and sustainable nutrition, with a reliable offer and affordable prices and information", he says Giovanni Panzeri, Private Label director of Carrefour Italia. Carrefour sees blockchain as the evolution of the supply chain guarantee instrument, "with which technology goes into the hands of the consumer", continues Panzeri. By reading the QR Code on the product label, the customer can view the production data on the mobile phone, provided by the various players in the supply chain. In the case of Tarocco oranges, for example, the consumer can know the citrus grove in which they were grown, the name of the producing farm, the date of collection and that of packaging. The manager explains: «In part it is a question of digitizing and making available to customers the mass of information on the development and control work that we were already doing. At the moment we are tracking the products of the Quality Sector line. For 2025, the goal is to certify the entire line in a 4.0 key, about 200 references and over eight thousand producers ". But how much does the new certification model weigh on the manufacturer? "There are no extra costs: training for the digitization of data is borne by Carrefour - explains Panzeri -. Manufacturers are responsible for entering production data. "

The engagement of the fan passes through the token

What does blockchain have to do with football? Help fans purchase original and "safe" merchandising of their favorite team. Fiorentina uses it to certify the shirts worn by the players. «The macth worn market (clothing worn by athletes) is thriving but the consumer cannot be sure of what he is buying», says Gabriele Bernasconi, co-founder of Genuino Blockchain, a startup that is equipping all the jerseys of the Italian-American team Rocco Commission of a special chip that confirms its authenticity. How does it work? "The heat-printed label - continues the entrepreneur - contains a QR code that allows you to recover the traceability of the object and an RFID, associated only with that code: thus each shirt is unique. Then we create the digital representation of the physical object: a token on the Ethereum blockchain. We have chosen a public blockchain so that anyone can consult it. All traceability information is entered as attributes of the physical product. The user buys the shirt, but also the token which is the certificate of ownership of the authentic shirt ". The system also allows the development of a second-hand market of certified products and is applicable to all sports and collectibles: from props to the baseball bat, but also to the collection wine bottle. To focus on the blockchain, in the football field, there is not only Fiorentina. Juventus, for example, has a partnership with the blockchain platform for "fan engagement" Socios.com. This allows fans to interact through a Juventus Official Fan Token: JUV. The more tokens a fan has, the more they will have access to the team's life. With the JUV token, for example, fans were able to vote to choose which song should be launched at the stadium after each goal.

A digi-highway for bank exchanges

Blockchain enters the world of Italian credit. From next week the Italian banks will in fact start to use the technology based on distributed ledgers (DLT, the acronym that stands for distributed ledger technology) for the maintenance of mutual accounts between institutions regarding the so-called interbank check, i.e. the procedure which verifies the correspondence of the activities involving two different banks, for example transactions carried out between two customers of two institutions, and concerns the reconciliation of flows and transactions that generate entries on mutual accounts in Italy and the management of suspended accounts. This is the last stage of an experiment, coordinated by Abi Lab in collaboration with the technical partners of NttData and Sia in addition to R3 with the Corda platform, which in recent months has involved 18 banks (78% of the Italian credit scene) verifying the possibility, they explain from Abi Lab, "to have complete visibility of the movements of one's own and of the counterpart, without geographical limits and with greater transparency and speed". To date, interbank checkout operations have been based on bilateral registers, "with a low level of   standardization and non-advanced operating methods". In practice, a sort of digital highway able to connect many stations - the agreement is voluntary but by the end of the year all the credit institutions in the country will be connected - which if today can be used to guarantee security and transparency in the ticking operations, in the future it could be used as an infrastructure for other forms of communication between the various institutions, such as the exchange of documents or values.