Amsterdam

Blockchain tech driving institutional-grade solutions: Blockchain Expo Europe

Blockchain Expo Europe 2022 in Amsterdam highlights meaningful strides in enterprise-grade blockchain solutions driven by mainstream institutions.

Blockchain is no longer a buzzword being thrown around by mainstream institutions as meaningful and fully-working pilots and programs come to the fore at Blockchain Expo Europe 2022 in Amsterdam.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of mainstream companies from various industries started to explore ways blockchain technology could be used to improve processes and products.

After two years of social distancing and working from home, the time to harvest the fruits of sewn seeds has arrived, as evidenced by some intriguing updates from major corporations utilizing blockchain technology.

The world of business consulting, healthcare and pharmaceuticals and the energy sector are all delivering working, blockchain-powered solutions that have seemingly proved the broad spectrum of utility promised by the burgeoning technology.

Cointelegraph was on the ground for the event and managed to touch base with a number of speakers who showcased how their firms were using the technology to drive innovation.

EY, the global business consulting firm, has been working hard to build enterprise-grade blockchain capabilities over the past three years. Federico De Poli, who heads up the global development of the EY OpsChain functionality, outlined how the firm had spent over $100 million over the past three years building a fulling working product solution.

*Federico de Poli at Blockchain Expo Amsterdam*.

Driving enterprise adoption has been key, helping clients navigate a new environment, building privacy tools focused on safety and helping companies run business processes on the Ethereum blockchain.

As De Poli explained, the company’s proprietary EY Opschain and EY Blockchain Analyzer are two main tools using blockchain technology:

“Opschain products is our business suite of products. We have traceability which is our most used tool which is being used in production by several clients in different industries. We have a contract manager which is being used in a first trial — it’s a tool which helps us do digital contracting between parties.”

EY’s public finance manager also allows governments to track the expenditure of funds, proving the widespread useability of blockchain solutions.

Healthcare and pharmaceutical firms also attended the RAI Amsterdam Convention center. Alex Popa, associate director of Blockchain for Pharma Supply Excellence, MSD (Merck), outlined a pilot that was aimed at addressing problems with multifaceted healthcare networks.

*Alex Popa at Blockchain Expo Amsterdam*.

Plagued by expensive, inefficient and vulnerable systems, blockchain technology provides practical solutions to these problems. MSD has operated a pilot to combat a vexing industry issue and counterfeit drugs using Hyperledger Fabric, which allowed patients in Hong Kong to verify medicines’ authenticity from their source.

Jessica Lee, head of Blockchain for Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Commercial North America, also showcased a piloted use case for a value-based healthcare system to share data privately, securely and transparently using blockchain technology.

Sabine Brink, blockchain lead at Shell, gave a compelling presentation focused on digital innovation in the energy sector. A key takeaway was the growing use of blockchain technology to drive transparency in energy.

*Sabine Brink at Blockchain Expo Amsterdam.*

The firm is engaged in several blockchain-powered projects deployed on public blockchains to address a long-standing propensity for the energy sector to work in silos. A key highlight was Shell’s work supporting Avelia, a sustainable, blockchain-powered aviation fuel tracing aimed at decarbonizing air travel.

Outlining that 90 percent of airline emissions are attributable to business travel, Avelia acts as sustainability as a service product for corporate flyers and airlines to book and claim sustainable aviation fuel:

“Energy is becoming distributed and decentralized, and it‘s hard to imagine it’s being orchestrated in a centralized way. There is no other way to get it done on a global scale, and blockchain has a huge role.”

Conversations with conference delegates and speakers highlighted the apparent strides made in developing working blockchain solutions across industries. The technology has driven innovation across industries, and mainstream companies are doing their part to drive new use cases and solutions for blockchain-based systems.

New spot Bitcoin ETF launches at Euronext Amsterdam Exchange

The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF will start trading on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange under the ticker BCOIN in July.

Major Dutch stock exchange Euronext Amsterdam, a part of the pan-European marketplace Euronext, is debuting its first Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Jacobi Asset Management, a London-based digital asset management platform, is preparing to launch its Jacobi Bitcoin ETF on Euronext Amsterdam next month, the firm announced on Thursday. The spot Bitcoin ETF will start trading on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange under the ticker BCOIN.

The Jacobi Bitcoin ETF is positioned as the first spot Bitcoin ETF launched in Europe, Jacobi founder and CEO Jamie Khurshid told Cointelegraph.

“Our product is the first spot or physical-backed Bitcoin fund, and the fund is not allowed to lend, stake or leverage any of the assets it owns. For the first time in Europe, investors buying an exchange-traded Bitcoin product will own the units that own the Bitcoin,” Khurshid said. “There are other exchange-traded products in Europe but no other spot BTC ETF,” he added.

A spokesperson for Euronext confirmed that BCOIN will be the first spot Bitcoin ETF ever listed on Euronext. “This will be the first Bitcoin ETF on Euronext, or the first fund directly investing in Bitcoin. All other currently existing products on our segment are exchange-traded notes, or legally structured as debt instruments,” he said in a statement. While the ETF will arrive in July, Euronext did not provide a specific date for the launch.

As previously reported, Jacobi received approval from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission to launch the Bitcoin ETF in October 2021.

Custodial services for the Jacobi Bitcoin ETF will be provided by Fidelity’s crypto arm Fidelity Digital Assets while Flow Traders and DRW would serve as market makers to facilitate trading. Institutional and professional investors in Europe will be able to have access to the ETF for a 1.5% annual management fee, the announcement notes.

A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Khurshid believes that the new Bitcoin ETF launch will help bring more stability to the crypto market amid a massive sell-off. He said:

“We believe this will now remove the barrier to entry for those investment firms that have mandates to invest in regulated products only and will therefore increase adoption of digital assets bringing more stability and less influence from the whales, which is nothing short of a necessity for the crypto industry.”

Jacobi’s Bitcoin ETF launch in the Netherlands is a significant milestone in the global spot crypto ETF market as Amsterdam is associated with Europe’s top sharing trading venue, reportedly outstripping London in 2021.

As previously reported, Canada was one of the first countries in the world to debut a spot Bitcoin ETF with the launch of the Purpose Bitcoin ETF in February 2021. Australia debuted its first crypto ETFs in mid-May 2022.

While the global adoption of spot crypto ETFs has been growing in recent years, the United States is yet to approve a physical-backed Bitcoin ETF. On June 29, crypto investment giant Grayscale launched a legal challenge against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after being denied its application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a spot-based Bitcoin ETF.