2017 will be a big year for blockchain. In this blog post, we cover the top areas of the blockchain industry and what we can expect for blockchain in 2017.

There are 7 Banks that want to go live with blockchain in 2017.

A recent CoinDesk article reveals that 7 major European banks are partnering on a new blockchain-based trade finance platform called the Digital Trade Chain (DTC).

They have a tentative plan to launch in Q3-Q4 of 2017.

Those backing the platform’s development are looking to establish a secure place to manage open account trade transactions for both domestic and international commerce. DTC utilizes a permissioned ledger, with authorized parties allowed to submit transactions on the platform.

Open account trade transactions involve products being shipped before the actual payment is due, meaning that trust among the transaction’s parties is imperative. With DTC, those plugged into the system will be able to track the progression of those transactions, from initiation to settlement.

Thus far, the banks involved – KBC, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Société Générale and UniCredit – have signed a memorandum of understanding that lays out the basic groundwork for future development. That said, the banks are looking to launch DTC sometime in 2017, with an eye to building support in markets like France, Germany and the UK.

Conferences involving blockchain in 2017

A conference that caught our eye recently is the MIT Technology Review Conference: The Business of Blockchain.

The event will be held at the MIT Media Lab on April 18, 2017. The purpose of the one-day conference is “to explore the opportunities and challenges associated with public digital ledgers, or blockchains.”

Blockchains have the power to create entirely new kinds of businesses and more people are starting to realize this everyday.

Blockchain is still relatively new. The industry is still in its infancy. We can expect a variety of new use cases to be introduced in 2017.

Bitcoin in 2017

Bitcoin is the largest and most well know blockchain project. It is currently traded all around the world and more businesses are beginning to accept Bitcoin as a means of payment.

In addition to growth and adoption, Bitcoin will focus on security and scalability. The DAO hack demonstrated the need for advanced security protocols for all blockchain projects. Scalability is also an issue.  “Today the Bitcoin network is restricted to a sustained rate of 3.3 tps (7 tps theoretical) due to the bitcoin protocol restricting block sizes to 1MB. Scalability will remain the holy grail of blockchain technology.”

Ethereum in 2017

Many people believe the public blockchain with the most attainable and impactful scalability roadmap is Ethereum.

Here are some of the Ethereum projects to look out for:

Infura is an enterprise-grade Ethereum-based blockchain infrastructure being used in IoT, and in conjunction with the public Ethereum blockchain and Inter Planetary File System (IPFS). Developers interface with Infura via Web3/RPC.

MetaMask is a bridge that allows you to visit the distributed web of tomorrow in your browser today. It allows you to run Ethereum dApps right in your browser without running a full Ethereum node.

BlockApps is an enterprise-grade Ethereum-based blockchain infrastructure solution used in banking, payments, insurance, supply chain and others. BlockApps is designed to provide a permissioned Ethereum environment which easily operates at scale, allowing applications to handle a high volume of transactions per second. Developers can build interfaces with their permissioned blockchain using a REST API.

Steemit in 2017

Steemit.com is the world’s fastest growing decentralized social media platform. Steemit connects to a robust blockchain database called Steem. This blockchain database distributes rewards in cryptocurrency to the users who bring the best content (blogs, comments, videos etc.) to the Steemit site.

On January 17th, 2017 Steemit.com was featured on Forbes.com. Author, Roger Aitken covered the 2017 comprehensive roadmap for Steemit.com.

The big news surrounds the Steemit.com migration to Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest hosting provider. Steemit has racked up over 120,000 registered users in around 6 months and they need to be able to handle more traffic as the platform grows.

Steemit Co-founder & CEO, Ned Scott is quoted several times throughout the article:

 “2017 will be our banner year and the community will see a ton of upgrades from now until the end of March. Migrating hosting to reputable third parties allows us to focus all of our time and attention on development of the site, software, and community – not on scaling or maintaining servers or hosting infrastructure.”

Follow My Vote in 2017

Follow My Vote continues to pioneer end-to-end verifiable blockchain voting software in 2017. See our Github repo for updates on our software.

In 2016, we managed to get featured on Forbes.com and successfully integrated our stake-weighted voting software with the BitShares blockchain.

It’s important to note that, when designing our stake-weighted voting system’s architecture, we designed it in such a way to ensure that our blockchain voting software was portable from one blockchain to another. (contact us if you are interested in a custom blockchain voting solution)

2016 was filled with momentous achievements for Follow My Vote. Here you can see we reached out to and networked with some of the top technology leaders and politicians. (Gary Johnson & John McAfee featured)

We anticipate that 2017 will be filled with many Follow My Vote software releases and partnerships, in an effort to bring end-to-end verifiable blockchain voting to the world.

Learn about our stake weighted blockchain voting software.

Learn about our 1 person 1 vote blockchain voting software.

About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote.

The post What’s In Store For Blockchain In 2017? appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Note* Official Follow My Vote software releases will not have modifications by people who are not Follow My Vote Developers or Code Contributors. Anyone can download, modify, and redistribute the software on their own; however, we cannot guarantee that such unofficial copies will work correctly or be compatible with the official Follow My Vote software.

Currently, Follow My Vote is developing software for both stake weighted elections and one person, one vote elections. This post was created to explain the differences between these two voting platforms.

Two Distinct Voting Systems

Recently we have encountered conversations on social media and other places online where people are confused about which style of voting Follow My Vote supports. Follow My Vote plans to build voting software for any and all use cases that the market demands. However, certain use cases will use different distributions of our software.

One Person, One Vote Voting

Our one person, one vote voting platform is designed primarily for political elections. This method of voting is based on the the principle that all citizens, regardless of where they reside in a state, are entitled to equal legislative representation.

Many countries actually have laws dictating that elections must adhere to this voting method. For example, the United States has applied an Equal Protection Clause to the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. The clause took effect in 1868 and provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “equal protection of the laws”. The main purpose of the law is to make sure legislative voting districts have the same population size, thus guaranteeing a person’s vote is equal to another person’s vote within the state.

The one person, one vote system will not have the same features and functionality as our other voting systems. There will not be code within the software to simply turn on or off, for example, a stake weighted voting function. It simply won’t be included within the one person, one vote system. However, we encourage skeptics to audit the code base that any given election is running on to verify this. This is the beauty of open source software: anyone can inspect the system and see exactly how it works, and what it does or does not do.

When our one person, one vote system is officially launched, we will offer clients the option to use a special version of our software dedicated to their election. The code and features not used by that election will be stripped out. This will reduce attack surface and eliminate possible points of confusion in the app. The code for the election will also become easier to audit because there will be less code to review.

Stake Weighted Voting

Our stake weighted voting system is meant for elections where not all voters should have the same amount of influence over the outcome of an election. A perfect use case is shareholder voting in a company. If Alice owns 60% of a company, her vote shouldn’t count equally with the other shareholders. Votes should be weighted according to the level of investment. 

There are a few instances of stake weighted voting used by governments. The two most notable are the US Electoral College and the European Council.

Voting Software Release Schedule

Follow My Vote has already released the alpha version of the stake weighted voting platform. This platform is coming out first because it is simpler: in stake weighted voting, there is no additional work necessary to protect voter anonymity as the identity of the voter determines how much weight the vote has.

After we stabilize our platform via the stake weighted voting system, we will use it as a stable and battle-tested foundation for our one person, one vote system. After development of the one person, one vote system is complete, we will prove the technology in the private sector before submitting it for consideration in government elections.
About the author: Will Long is the Marketing Manager of Follow My Vote. 

The post The Difference Between Our Stake Weighted & One Person, One Vote Voting Systems appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Scotland, whose people primarily voted to stay in the EU, has been flirting with the idea of breaking up with the UK for years now. A referendum two years ago found a narrow victory for Scotland to stay in the UK. However, with news that the UK is breaking with the EU, this will be just another reason for Scotland to want to break with the UK and stay in the EU.

This decision will influence politics and economics for years to come, and our team at Follow My Vote is dedicated in giving you the lastest news!

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post BREXIT: THE AFTERMATH appeared first on Follow My Vote.

On the democratic side of things, it’s getting a bit interesting. An article by Phillip Bump of the Washington Post  published earlier this month shows that Bernie Sanders would need over 90.8% of the vote in the upcoming primaries for him to win the Democratic nomination without the help of Clinton’s super-delegates. Even with her super-delegates split proportionally, Bernie Sanders would need 67.6% of the vote in the future primaries to win the nomination. Luckily,  the Washington primary provided him with a landslide of a win, earning him 74 of the 101 available delegates. He was able to garner over 72.7% of the vote in the state. Even though Bernie is unlikely to win the nomination simply due to the Democrat’s process of proportional delegation, he still has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.

Today, the Washington Post was able to get a glimpse of the Inspector General’s report on the legality of Hillary Clinton’s email servers.

The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the “security risks in doing so.”

Rosalind S. Helderman – Washington Post

Keeping this in mind, when the FBI finishes their investigation they might choose to indict her. This may be Bernie’s best chance for winning the nomination but only time can tell.

Backtracking to the primaries before the Washington primary

Oregon

Donald Trump won with 66% of the vote (18 Delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 56% of the vote (34 Delegates)

Kentucky

Donald Trump won with 35.9% of the vote (17 Delegates)

Hillary Clinton Won with 46.8% of the vote compared to Bernie Sanders 46.3% of the vote (each got 27 Delegates)

Breaking News: Bernie Sanders has requested a Kentucky Primary recanvass. (This is not the same as a recall)  In his filing this Tuesday, Sanders requested a full check and recanvass of every voting machine. This includes absentee ballots and machines from all precincts in the counties. A Sanders aide was quoted in the Huffington Post saying:

“I think the point is just transparency, it’s not just about Kentucky,” Sanders aide Larry Cohen said on CNN. “It’s about trying to create a context, now and at the (Democratic) convention, that these primaries and caucuses need transparency, they need to be authentic, they need to build confidence among voters, particularly younger voters, that this is not rigged.”

We completely support the pursuit of transparency, however Sanders and his campaign will likely be sorely disappointed. Current voting machines are extremely faulty and can be easily hacked. They are not built to be transparent like a blockchain voting system. 

West Virginia

Donald Trump won with 77% of the vote (30 delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 51% of the vote (18 delegates)

Nebraska

Donald Trump won with 61% of the vote  (36 delegates)

Bernie Sanders won with 57.1% of the vote (15 delegates)

Make sure you are signed up to vote in our parallel election! We are demonstrating the security and transparency of our blockchain voting software. You don’t want to miss out!

About the author: David Brock is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote.

The post May Primary Synopsis And An Extensive Analysis Of The Washington Primary Results appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Bernie Sanders criticized the voting process of the New York primary (which he lost big) on Wednesday https://t.co/iUVsqRBwMp

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 20, 2016

“Calls began flooding in early this morning to New York-based ABC affiliate WGRZ with reports of voting machines across the state switching votes entered for Democrat Bernie Sanders to his establishment counterpart Hillary Clinton. The station has spoken with multiple witnesses and is in the process of verifying statements from voters Upstate (districts 20, 21, 22 and 24) as well as two of the five boroughs (Bronx and Manhattan).”

– PoliticsForum

“Meanwhile, the state Attorney General’s office said its voter hotline received the most calls in its history Tuesday.

The hotline received 562 calls and about 140 emails from voters as of 5 p.m. The most common complaints were from voters who were told they weren’t registered to vote or that they couldn’t participate in a party’s presidential primaries. Other complaints ranged from lack of privacy, unclear instructions and accessibility issues.”

– Stefan Holt, NBC New York

Reports of voter fraud and purged voter rolls have led to an audit of New York City’s Board of Elections. More than 100,000 Democratic voters in Brooklyn (New York holds closed primaries) were purged from the voting roll. On top of that, some New Yorkers reported that poll workers attempted to coerce them into voting for Clinton over Sanders. Others simply complained of long lines and broken voting machines.

The New York Post reported similar issues in Brooklyn where thousands of people experienced trouble at their polling location. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Bertha Lewis, director of the Black Institute, have both called for an investigation. However, the Board of Elections Executive said this vanishing act is easily explained…

“Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said the mystery is easily explained: Because of retirements and staff illness, the voting list was not properly maintained in Brooklyn for six to eight months.”

– Yoav Gonen and Carl Campanile, New York Post

Regardless of what the investigation reveals, we can do so much better. In a city as vast and bustling as New York, citizens could reap the benefits of blockchain voting. New Yorkers could enjoy complete anonymity and follow the election in real-time. If the Democratic Party of New York would have used blockchain voting, any concerned voter could audit election results to ensure election fraud was eliminated.

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. If you believe that blockchain voting can eliminate voter fraud and bring honest elections to the world, check out our crowdfunding campaign going on right now! Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Election Fraud in New York Primary? appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Democratic Party

There were 247 new delegates up for grabs last night. Since New York is Clinton’s home territory, she unsurprisingly did very well. Clinton won 58 percent of the vote and collected 139 new delegates. Clinton’s pledged delegate total increased to 1,446 and her superdelegate count pushes her to a grand total of 1,948. Sanders did collect 106 new delegates and his total (including superdelegates) increased to 1,238. Increasingly, it appears that Clinton will go on to win the nomination as she has shown broad support throughout the country.

“Clinton, like Trump, should have a very good next few weeks with polling in Pennsylvania and Maryland showing her comfortably ahead. That’s not to say that Sanders won’t continue to win states here and there. He will. But with every large state that comes off the map, Sanders’s math to overcome Clinton in pledged delegates becomes that much more difficult.”

– Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

Republican Party

There were 95 new delegates at stake for Republican candidates last night, and Trump dominated his home state. Trump won 60 percent of the vote and collected 89 new delegates. His delegate total now sits at 844. Kasich picked up the remaining 4 delegates and Cruz took home none. This was a big blow for Cruz who in recent weeks appeared to be slowing Trump’s momentum. However, a contested convention is still a very real possibility for Republicans this summer.

“On Tuesday, Trump came close to sweeping New York’s 95 delegates — a development that could help the Manhattan real estate mogul win the GOP nomination outright and avoid what would be an explosive and messy contested convention in July.”

– MJ Lee, CNN

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post New York Primaries Love the Front-Runners in the 2016 Election appeared first on Follow My Vote.

“The Millennial generation continues to grow as young immigrants expand their ranks. Boomers – a generation defined by the boom in U.S. births following World War II — are older and shrinking in size as the number of deaths exceed the number of older immigrants arriving in the country.”

– Richard Fry, Pew Research Center

What does this mean for voting?

In 2012, Baby Boomers accounted for 36 percent of the electorate. They consistently vote in large numbers. But as Boomers continue to shrink in size, will Millennials take the reigns?

According to a 2015 Boston Globe article, that does not appear to be the case. Less than 20 percent of 18-29 year olds voted in the 2014 midterm election. Millennials simply do not believe that exercising their vote is an effective medium for change.

“How did we get from fighting for the vote to dismissing it as meaningless?”

– Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe

It is not that Millennials don’t care about societal issues. In fact, they are more educated and more inclined to volunteer than previous generations. At Follow My Vote, we believe that we have found a way to boost Millennial participation and confidence in the voting process that will more accurately reflect their volunteerism. Millennials are disenfranchised with the traditional two-party system. By moving the election online, the platform allows third-party candidates to have a greater voice. Further, Millennials will already be more willing to participate because of their familiarity with the technology that accompanies an online election. Making the election blockhain-based assures citizens that their votes were counted correctly with end-to-end verifiability. Lastly, by making the vote trackable in real-time, elections will be much more exciting and dynamic.

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Millennial Generation Continues to Grow, While Their Voter Participation Remains Stagnant appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Democratic Party

There were 86 new delegates up for grabs on Tuesday night. Sanders took 47 of them and won 56 percent of the vote. This pushes his total delegate count to 1097. Breaking that number down, however, reveals that 1066 are pledged delegates (cannot change their vote), and only 31 are superdelegates. And that takes us to Clinton, who took home 36 new delegates, pushing her total to 1778. However, when breaking down her delegate count, only 1295 are pledged, while 483 are superdelegates. Taking away the superdelegate count, which can change their allegiance at any time, the race is becoming increasingly closer than many ever imagined. The candidates will head to Wyoming and then back east to New York in the coming weeks.

Republican Party

The biggest story of the night came out of the Republican primary. Once thought to be a long shot, a contested convention is no longer just an idea. If no candidate reaches the 1,237 delegate mark, that is exactly what will happen at the Republican convention in July. Cruz took Wisconsin with 48 percent of the vote, and gained 36 new delegates. Cruz’s delegate total is now at 510.  Trump did take home 6 new delegates, pushing his total to 743. Kasich still sits at 145 delegates, and faces a nearly impossible mathematical chance of picking up enough delegates. The candidates head east to New York, Trump’s home state, in the coming weeks.

“Trump needs to win 55 percent of the delegates that remain to be awarded. Cruz needs to win more than 80 percent of the remaining delegates up for grabs to secure the nomination – a difficult task even with momentum.”

– Steve Holland, Reuters

At Follow My Vote, we envision an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Wisconsin Primary: Brokered Convention on the Horizon? appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Consider: 2012 primary had 300,000 voters and 200 polling places. 2016 primary has estimated 800,000 voters at 60 polling places. #12News

— JOE DANA (@JoeDanaReports) March 23, 2016

At PHX polling site. 7:30pm: line is 3K+ long. Voters at front been waiting for 4+ hrs. #AZPrimary #WesternTuesday pic.twitter.com/hVXUKhNmgo

— Dylan Roberts (@DRobCO) March 23, 2016

“We the people ask for a revote of the Arizona primary due to voter suppression. Many registered voters who registered Democrat/Republican before the cut off or who have been registered Democrat/Republican for many years are being turned down due to the mislabeling of their registered party for the primary. We ask that this immediately be corrected and fixed and allow the residents of Arizona to participate in a revote for honest Arizona primary voting results.”

– petitions.whitehouse.gov 

A recent article from IVN details the 1.2 million registered voters in Arizona who were not able to participate. These voters were barred from participating simply due to being registering as Independent. This bloc represents more than a third of all Arizona voters. Some Independent voters were not even aware of the participation ban, only to be turned away after hours of waiting in line. Others reported that they were registered as Democrats, only to be told that they were listed as ‘Independent’ or ‘No Party Listed’ in the voter database. There has even been a White House petition calling for a revote in the state due to the voter database discrepancies. At the time of writing this, the petition has 96,000 signatures.

The Arizona voting disaster is the most recent of a long list of voting discrepancies this election cycle. We should end the craziness and move to transparent, blockchain voting. At Follow My Vote, we are developing an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post Outcry Over Arizona Voter Suppression appeared first on Follow My Vote.

Follow My Vote’s CEO, Adam Ernest, recently met with Gary Johnson at the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. Johnson said he would be willing to give his support to what Follow My Vote is doing in the days ahead.

Unsurprisingly, it is rather difficult to find many major media publications discussing it. It is important to remember that Americans DO have alternative choices in the 2016 presidential election. We will certainly be tuning in tonight to see what all of the candidates have to say. Matt Welch from Reason will also be holding a post-debate critique.

At Follow My Vote, we are developing an open source, end-to-end verifiable voting system. Vote where you count, and sign up below for the 2016 Parallel Presidential Election. Help us make history in 2016.

UPDATE: Check out all the clips and highlights from the debate!

About the author: Tyler Molihan is a Marketing Intern at Follow My Vote. He hopes to increase awareness about the benefits of online voting systems.

The post TONIGHT: First Nationally Televised Libertarian Debate appeared first on Follow My Vote.