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The Talibans rapid advance through northern Afghanistan continued on Sunday with more than a dozen districts falling to the militants, as Britain entered the final days of its two-decade deployment to Afghanistan.

More than 300 members of the Afghan security forces fled across the border into Tajikistan to escape the militants, and Badakhshan and Takhar provinces are now largely under Taliban control, beyond the respective regional capitals.

There have been no public announcements about when the last British troops will fly out. Senior sources had recently said the US and British missions would end on 4 July, but after Joe Biden backed away from that date at a weekend press conference, London appeared to follow suit.

On Friday the US handed over Bagram airbase, the heart of its campaign in Afghanistan, meaning it can no longer carry out significant operations in the country. The few hundred soldiers left are in effect on guard duty for the embassy.

But at a press conference soon afterwards, Biden brushed off questions about the end of the US deployment, saying it was a holiday weekend and I want to talk about happy things, man. Since then his press secretary, Jen Psaki, has reset expectations, saying the last troops would probably be out by the end of August.

On Sunday Britains Ministry of Defence said a few British troops remained in Afghanistan, blaming a fast-changing situation and mixed messaging for earlier reports of a 4 July departure.

Britains plans are expected to become clearer when Boris Johnson makes a statement to parliament early this week, most likely on Tuesday, after a meeting of the national security council (NSC) that will determine the shape of the UKs future diplomatic and any residual military presence in Afghanistan. But one defence source cautioned that the NSC meeting had been postponed before and it could happen again.

Most of Britains 750-strong contribution to what is officially a train and assist stabilisation mission in Afghanistan has already left. The NSC meeting is expected to discuss whether any SAS or other special forces will remain in the country although that decision will not be made public and whether some troops might be required to guard the British embassy in Kabul, currently protected by contractors. Defence sources said the current arrangement was likely to be continued.

In common with other Nato countries that have ended their missions in recent weeks, the UK appears to be planning a very low-key military departure. Few politicians want to highlight that a military project launched to destroy the Taliban is ending with the group resurgent across the country.

In Kabul, Bidens holiday weekend remarks prompted outrage, as observers tracked the rapid spread of Taliban control, including in areas such as Badakhshan that 20 years ago had been strongholds of resistance against the militant group.

As an Afghan woman, I dont have that option to talk about happy things. I have to worry about a looming gender apartheid, Shaharzad Akbar, the head of the Afghanistan International Human Rights Commission, said on Twitter.

The Taliban now control about a third of Afghanistans nearly 400 districts and threaten many more. Although they have not yet taken any provincial capitals, they now surround several of them, from Ghazni City in the east to Maimana in northern Faryab province.

In many areas, security forces have surrendered without a fight, sometimes under deals brokered by local elders. Videos showing Taliban embracing surrendering soldiers and providing them with money to travel home may have given government forces confidence that they could abandon their posts without losing their lives.

In Badakhshan, Mohib-ul Rahman, a provincial council member, blamed Taliban successes on the poor morale of troops who are mostly outnumbered and have been left without vital supplies or the possibility of reinforcement.

Unfortunately, the majority of the districts were left to Taliban without any fight, Rahman told the Associated Press.

The rapid advance left Badakhshans capital at risk, and on Saturday television images showed politicians and government officials crowding on to planes for an evacuation to Kabul.

On Sunday special forces arrived by helicopter to secure the city and potentially try to reclaim some districts. But Afghan security forces have managed to push the Taliban out of only a handful of the places they have seized over the last few months.

Link:
Hundreds of Afghan security forces flee as districts fall to Taliban - The Guardian

The bacteria, archaebacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in the human gut collectively known as the gut microbiota have a profound effect on both physical and mental well-being.

Research suggests that by feeding the beneficial members of this community, dietary plant fibers can help stave off chronic health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

However, Western-style diets are often high in fat and deficient in these plant fibers.

The idea of supplementing otherwise unhealthy snacks, such as cookies and chips, with fiber might seem straightforward, but the relationship between diet, the microbiota, and individual health is highly complex.

Scientists at the Center for Gut Microbiome and Nutrition Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, MO, are investigating this relationship with a view to developing prebiotic snack products.

In previous work, they identified sources of fiber that are not only cheap and readily available such as typically discarded peels, rinds, and husks but also boost the gut microbes that adults with obesity tend to lack.

In their new research, which appears in Nature, they tested how snacks supplemented with some of these fibers affected the gut microbiota of mice and humans, looking at their possible physiological effects.

Since snacks are a popular part of Western diets, we are working to help develop a new generation of snack food formulations that people will like to eat and that will support a healthy gut microbiome that affects many aspects of wellness, says senior author Prof. Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., who directs the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine.

The snack food manufacturer Mondelz International, which owns brands such as belVita, Cadbury, and Oreo, partly funded the work.

In the first phase of their research, the scientists used gnotobiotic mice, which are raised in sterile conditions so that they lack any gut microbes of their own.

They colonized the guts of these mice with microbes from people with obesity, then fed the animals the type of high fat, low fiber diet that is associated with overweight and obesity.

Next, they consecutively introduced snacks to the mices diet that were supplemented with pea fiber, orange fiber, or barley bran. Between each type of snack were washout periods during which the mice only ate the high fat, low fiber diet.

This approach allowed the researchers to track the effects of each fiber type on the gene pool of the animals gut microbiota, which they did through analyses of microbial DNA in fecal samples.

They discovered that each snack led to an increased abundance of the genes necessary to make enzymes for digesting that particular fiber. Presumably, this was because the fiber gave bacteria with the right genes a competitive edge over the others.

In the second phase of the research, the researchers carried out similar experiments involving 12 human volunteers who were overweight or had obesity.

To avoid any changes arising from differences in their diets, the volunteers ate a strictly controlled diet that was high in saturated fat and low in fiber.

The researchers then monitored genetic changes in their microbiota before, during, and after a 2-week period, during which they also ate snack bars supplemented with pea fiber.

The team observed similar changes in the volunteers gut microbiota to those that they had seen in the mice, with an increased abundance of the genes needed to digest this fiber.

Finally, the scientists investigated whether eating snacks containing several different types of fiber would lead to more significant changes in the microbiota than eating pea fiber alone.

A group of 14 volunteers first ate a snack containing a combination of two fibers: pea fiber and inulin, which occurs naturally in onions, bananas, asparagus, artichokes, and chicory root. Later, after a washout period, they ate a snack containing four fibers: inulin, pea fiber, orange fiber, and barley bran.

This part of the study showed that the more types of fiber in the diet, the greater the abundance of bacterial genes that play a role in fiber metabolism.

These genetic changes were closely correlated with changes in the levels of proteins in the blood that contribute to a wide range of key physiological processes.

For example, there were significant changes in the levels of proteins involved in glucose metabolism, immunity, blood coagulation, blood vessel function, and the biology of bone and nerve cells.

Overall, the experiments reveal how responsive the gut microbiota is to changes in dietary fiber, even in individuals who are accustomed to eating a low fiber diet.

In principle, the fibers can be incorporated into a variety of snack formats familiar to consumers chips, bars, biscuits, etc., Prof. Gordon told Medical News Today.

One of the limitations of the study was that the volunteers ate a tightly controlled diet in addition to the fiber-supplemented snacks. In the real world, diets are much more complicated.

However, the researchers are already exploring whether their preliminary findings hold up when people can eat what they like.

Follow-on studies involve administering the snack food prototypes to participants who are consuming their normal diets, said Prof. Gordon.

This approach can provide insights about the robustness of the effects, and dose dependency, of fiber snack formulations on the gut microbiome and host physiology under more realistic consumer settings, he added.

The study identified protein biomarkers of possible physiological changes in participants blood. However, it is currently unknown whether such changes would reflect genuine health benefits.

Only clinical trials can reveal whether such snacks might help prevent type 2 diabetes or obesity, for example.

In an accompanying article, Avner Leshem and Eran Elinav from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, conclude:

[These] findings provide valuable mechanistic insights into the microbial contributions to human dietary responses. This will probably lead to long-term, randomized clinical trials that assess causal links between distinct food ingredients, microbiome modulation, and downstream health-related outcomes for humans.

Originally posted here:
Could adding prebiotics to snacks improve gut health? - Medical News Today

Members of the Peoples Defense Force in Kayah State's Demoso in May. / Demoso Peoples Defense Force / Facebook

By Tin Htar Swe 5 July 2021

The recent pictures of the charred bodies of an elderly couple in their 80s in a village in central Myanmar have shocked the world. They were found by their family when they returned to their village of Kin Ma in Magway Region. Villagers had been chased out of their homes when fighting broke out nearby between the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) and local resistance fighters who are supporters of the parallel civilian National Unity Government (NUG).

The family of the elderly couple told local media they decided to leave their parents in the village because they were too frail to take with them. After three days hiding in the jungle, the villagers returned and were dismayed to find their entire village razed to the ground.

Eyewitnesses said the security forces ransacked the houses before setting them on fire. The blaze was so large it was recorded by NASAs satellite fire-tracking system at 15:22 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on Tuesday June 15, according to Reuters. A total of 200 houses out of 240 in the village were burned down.

This shocking incident happened a few days after more than a dozen unidentified bodies were found in a village in Demoso Township in Kayah State in eastern Myanmar.

The corpses were found in Ngwe Taung when the villagers returned. They had fled in fear of their lives when intense fighting broke out between the army and the combined forces of the ethnic Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) and a newly organized militia, the Peoples Defence Force (PDF).

The KNDF is a combined force of civilian fighters from the Karenni territories and other ethnic armed organizations.

Most of the corpses found were barely recognizable and some had been partially eaten by dogs, according to those who helped cremate the bodies. Some of the victims had their hands tied behind their backs and some had headshot wounds.

Kayah State has experienced violent clashes between the military and local militias, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, especially for the Myanmar military. According to the KNDF, the Tatmadaw lost nearly 200 troops. The military retaliated by using helicopters and heavy artillery to strike the resistance forces in the Karenni area.

Myanmar is witnessing attacks on innocent civilians by the military on an unprecedented scale. They are not restricted to areas where the army and the militias clash, but are also occurring in towns and cities.

Attacks on individuals are escalating across the country. In recent weeks, local administrators appointed by the military have been killed by unidentified assailants. They were accused of passing on information to the authorities about local residents suspected of opposing military rule. According to local media, in the month of June alone, more than two dozen local administrators were either gunned down or stabbed by assailants.

The coup makers claim the violent attacks were spearheaded by members of the PDF, a citizens militia formed by young protesters collectively known as Gen Z.

On June 22, a lieutenant colonel and another military officer were killed when security forces raided the hideout of PDF members in Mandalay. This was the first time a senior officer had been killed in an armed clash between the two forces. The security forces responded with heavy weapons in a bid to capture the PDF members holed up in the building. State media claimed four militia members died and eight were captured. This figure was hotly disputed by the PDF, which claimed it lost two of their fighters with six being captured.

Following the arrests of the PDF members in Mandalay, the military confiscated a large cache of arms and ammunition on a truck bound for Mandalay in Thabeikkyin Township. The weapons seizure indicates that the PDF, who have received military training in areas controlled by ethnic non-state armies, are better armed than previously thought. This could be a sign that more deadly armed resistance from the militias is to be expected.

The NUG has endorsed the PDF, but does not command or control it. Such loosely formed, shadowy armed groups are emerging in several areas of the country and appear to be actively involved in clandestine attacks on local administrators suspected of being military informants, and related facilities across the country.

The most spectacular attack took place on June 18 when a parked military truck with soldiers on board was bombed in east central Yangon. The truck was parked in front of an office of the juntas proxy political party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party. State media have yet to report on the incident.

Myanmar Now reported that PDF fighters claimed these daring assaults on military facilities were only possible because of the support and help they got from army soldiers. Major Hein Thaw Oo, a Myanmar military officer who broke ranks and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), insisted there were many people like him who would like to join the CDM if given the chance.

Some may argue that using the tactics of assassinations and bombings to achieve political ends will put militias at risk of engaging in terrorism, but to most citizens, resorting to violence is the only option left as the international community has failed to intervene to stop the atrocities committed by the regime. This notion is shared by the NUG.

However, the International Crisis Group in a June 28 report, Taking Aim at the Tatmadaw: The New Armed Resistance to Myanmars Coup, urged the NUG to strengthen its military code of conduct.

The NUG, even if it does not have command and control of these groups, should continue strengthening its military code of conduct, ensure that this code is widely disseminated, carry on publicly signaling the priority it gives to the document and use its influence to press all resistance elements to adhere to the provisions, the group said in the report.

The report also pointed out that the diverse nature of the militias and communication problems present significant challenges to putting in place a unified chain of command.

Confronting the new citizen militias in many different locations, especially in towns and cities, will be a major challenge for the Tatmadaw, even as it faces a renewed escalation of fighting with non-state armies along the border.

With the overwhelming support the militias are receiving from within the country and abroad, it is highly likely that they will become much stronger, better armed and more structured. Evidence shows that the resistance force members are ready to give their lives to bring down the military dictatorship.

Tin Htar Swe OBE is the former editor of BBC South Asia Region and the BBC Burmese Service.

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The rest is here:
Emergence of Peoples Militias in Myanmar: What Does It Mean? - The Irrawaddy News Magazine

One can argue that everything yes, everything consists of data. Sensor data in the industry. Social media profiles. Health care operations. Any type of value exchange. The contexture of a surface just to name a few. Hence it quickly becomes evident why data is the most valuable and crucial good of our time. Often we do not even realize that we (or IoT devices) produce data constantly, and even less do we realize that others quite often make money off of this data or leverage it to influence elections (e.g. Cambridge Analytica). Therefore we need changes within this industry. This article aims to educate as to what this disruptive journey will look like and is intended to raise awareness for the need of democratization in this industry.

Data

The data industry has emerged as one of the most diverse and influential industries on our planet. Communication, marketing, politics, finance, technology, health care, law etc. are more or less constructs of data which are produced, analyzed, leveraged and recycled. An ever growing sector, it is poised to become one of the most valuable assets, thus converging finance and technology seamlessly when tokenized. According to a Wall Street Journal report of April 7, 2021 global IT spending is expected to rise by 8.4%, therefore further emphasizing a digital trend with continuously increasing data usage. Nevertheless, our contemporary economy data is often lacking privacy, tangibility and accessibility since centralized conglomerates are in control, so it has not yet reached its full potential. A 2020 report on The Big Data Industry to 2025 by Research and Markets perfectly demonstrates the level of diversification data provides as an asset:

Blockchain generally is a data-based technology, so building a data tokenomy on top of the infrastructure does seem like a low-hanging fruit at least when connecting the dots. However, this is not the only functionality data can inherit here: allowing real-time data utility for various segments of application is another tool specifically attractive in linking data with IoT infrastructure, for instance. Also, from the regulatory perspective of data residency laws, tokenizing data and leveraging the transparency features of blockchain come in handy for providing data sovereignty and compliance. As an asset class on blockchain, data can be integrated into DeFi applications. Additionally, by staking an asset such as OCEAN or securitized data, liquidity to data pools can be provided. This leads to a significant differentiation in how data is tokenized:

If you can obtain all the relevant data, analyze it quickly, surface actionable insights, and drive them back into operational systems, then you can affect events as theyre still unfolding. The ability to catch people or things in the act, and affect the outcome, can be extraordinarily important. Paul Maritz, Chairman of Pivotal Software

Paul Maritz perfectly describes the potential of data when efficiently leveraged. Tokenization of any asset tends to inherit a large amount of benefits such as making the respective asset tangible, and the same goes for data. The core benefits can be split up into the following: 1) Security 2) Privacy 3) Democratization 4) Monetization, 5) Decentralization and 6) Transparency. Moreover, once data is an established asset class available to retail investors (e.g. security tokens), more regulatory scrutiny is expected to arise due to compliance procedures of the respective jurisdiction (e.g. prospectus filing) on how the data is utilized.

When analyzing the time between 2011 and 2020 in the so-called datasphere (or ocean of data), the overall volume has risen from approximately 1.8 to 59 zettabytes. For 2025, the goal is 175 zettabytes according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report. Since data has become ubiquitous, progress is required in areas such as management, privacy and storage. While the Big Data Market is steadily growing (see Figure 1 below), the amount of data industry employees and data-related service providers has skyrocketed, according to a report by the Big Data Value Association.

Figure 1: Big data market size revenue forecast worldwide from 2011 to 2027 (source: Statista)

Despite the promising indicators and datas considerably increasing market share, it is at times difficult to value data transparently because of the manifold domains where data is generated. Besides, this process can be standardized much easier. As mentioned in a PwC report on Putting value on data there are thus far no final indicators on how to value data as an asset. The key drivers of value for data (see Figure 2 below) are defined by the authors as the following: Exclusivity, Liabilities and Risk, Accuracy, Interoperability/Accessibility, Completeness, Usage, Restrictions, Timeliness, and Consistency. Additionally, the three common principles for valuing any asset can be applied: the income, market and cost approach.

Figure 2: Data value drivers (source: PwC)

Generally, there are various methods as to how data can be monetized:

Figure 3: Data valuation: Understanding the value of your data assets (source: Deloitte)

Data has continuously increased as a force to reckon with in the global economy. On par with the growing influence, the problems associated with it have become more evident. On the one hand, the control and storage of data is ever more centralized: over 50% of data is stored in the public cloud according to a Gartner report. The clear market dominance in the cloud space comes from the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. Moreover, there is an omnipresent lack of privacy and access to valuable data. It rarely happens that a normal person surfing the internet has any control over the data they produce and the privacy thereof, or has any say in who can access it (unless they use privacy tools or avoid cookies). These pain points are compounded by the fact that it is very hard to monetize your own data.

Additionally, reports by PieSync and Solvexia list the following bottlenecks when analyzing the contemporary data-economy:

While maybe not too obvious at first glance, data-related assets can actually be integrated into the DeFi space quite seamlessly (when legally compliant) through leveraging the fungibility of for example ERC-20 tokens. This paves the way for an effective data on/off ramp in the form of a data utility (e.g. granting access) or security token (e.g. participation in profit). Since tokenizing data allows you to assign value for data as an asset, it can then for instance be used as collateral for lending. Conversely, lenders receive more relevant data tokens in the form of interest payments.

In alignment with this merge between data and the crypto markets, typical wallets like Metamask can be used to store the data. There are many benefits when merging data with DeFi:

Another auspicious use case, apart from directly integrating tokenized data into DeFi, is utilizing efficient and adjusted data analysis of essential data for the optimization of decision-making in DeFi (e.g. yields, insurance, DEX-trading).. Consequently, aspects like price data feeds, risk models, high-order instruments (e.g. stablecoins) and margin trading are becoming significantly more accurate. As a result, integrating this data through oracles into the DeFi ecosystem will become far more useful.

In the current data economy, consumers and businesses dont feel comfortable sharing data, partially due to prominent instances of data abuse (e.g. Cambridge Analytica). The consumer perception is that they have limited say over how their data gets used as they are typically presented with a binary choice when it comes to sharing their data: in return for getting access to valuable online services, often presented as a free service, they either sign away most of the rights to their data in the Terms & Conditions, or they decide to forego digital services that might be essential.

It is also challenging for consumers to assess the value of their data. While big tech has developed tools and methods to assess and extract value from data, the average consumer cannot accurately assess the price of e.g. their browsing habits or shopping preferences. Data incumbents routinely collect massive amounts of data that stays within the walls of the company, thus becoming silod; the value that is extracted from user data is usu. not shared with the data subjects. By design, this means that massive amounts of data are locked up and only utilized by a small number of big players; only 3% companies say that they have access to sufficient quality data, according to Forbes. Even if companies do have access to enough quality data, many lack the ability to monetize/utilize their data due to concerns with privacy, regulation, and losing their competitive advantage.

History has led to data silos: theres a lot of data, but most of it is siloed in the hands of data monopolies, and its latent potential is underutilized. As a consequence, the lack of access to quality data hampers innovation. Without access to quality data, industry and academia cannot develop new innovations and solve pressing problems facing business and society. Although we generate more and more data every day (the amount of data being generated has increased 10-fold in the past 10 years), 97% of that data is underutilized. In the current construct there is insufficient incentive to share data. Unless these data silos are broken down, and the various sources of data are integrated to provide a holistic, enterprise-wide view, companies will be limited to functional-level projects rather than digital transformation.

One potential solution to the problem of data silos is to turn data into an asset class that can easily be traded and owned on blockchain. This would open up the Data Economy, enable data sovereignty, break down data silos, enable access to more quality data, and allow individuals to monetize their data. More and higher-quality data would enable businesses to innovate and create new value and new markets. ays crypto could power the Data Economy in a new report detailing a bright future for blockchains. Blockchains and cryptocurrencies are predicted to be a key infrastructure for the data economy, according to Goldman Sachs.

Ocean Protocol is working on this solution by incentivizing data sharing and by building an ecosystem where data, including consumer data, is an asset class that is priced according to market mechanisms. This would enable anyone to publish, share, and monetize data on granular, customizable terms. Ocean Protocols solution consists of 4 key elements to enable and incentivize data sharing:

The above elements enable the incentivization of data sharing:

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are a form of governance that characterize tokenized ecosystems: holders of a particular token make decisions collectively about the direction and future of the system.

OceanDAO grants funds towards projects creating positive ROI for the Ocean ecosystem. OCEAN holders can decide by vote which project proposals receive funding, i.e. which are most likely to lead to growth. At the time of writing, OceanDAO has distributed funding worth 435,500 OCEAN in 49 investments, all by vote. Long-term goals include improved voting & funding mechanisms, incentivizing engagement, and streamlining processes. Anyone is able to submit proposals, which typically further the following goals

1 OCEAN token equates to 1 vote. Ocean is planning to eventually transition all of its (currently) centrally organized plans and features to the self-governing DAO. Proposals and strategy are discussed weekly in Town Halls.

Tokenizing data brings some legal challenges. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance is essential, and patent law, trademark law, as well as domestic civil law have to be considered. Most of these, however, shouldnt present bottlenecks'.

Rather more complicated is financial regulation. Looking at tokenization of data from a European regulatory perspective, we have to pay attention to the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) which will come into force in late 2022. Under MiCAR, all crypto assets are regulated, unless they are already regulated by a different regime (e.g. Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, MiFID). Crypto assets under MiCAR are digital representations of value or rights which may be transferred and stored electronically, using distributed ledger technology or similar technology. This is a very wide definition, covering also tokenized data. Once the token is a crypto asset under MiCAR, the issuer shall publish a Whitepaper and notify it with the respective National Competent Authority. A crypto assets service provider (literally anyone providing crypto asset services to others) has to be regulated. With respect to the Whitepaper requirements, MiCAR generally exempts NFTs. MiCAR says that crypto assets which are unique and non-fungible with other crypto assets shall not require a Whitepaper. So, MiCAR also leaves the door open for tokenized NFTs but the crypto service providers would require a license under the soon to be effective MiCAR. It is assumed that MiCAR will come into effect in Q2 2022 with an 18-month transition period.

Until then, domestic regulatory law within the EEA remains very diverse. Some EEA member states regulate crypto assets service providers (e.g. Germany and France) whilst others only require a self-obligatory registration (e.g. the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein). When it comes to documentation requirements, a securities prospectus for the issuance of securities (including tokenized securities sui generis) is rather harmonized within the EEA. The issuer may tokenize data, ask for regulatory approval of the respective securities prospectus and passport it for fundraising purposes to other EEA member states.

In January 2020, new blockchain laws came into force in Liechtenstein with the TVTG. With this step, Liechtenstein has taken into account the development of the age of digital transformation based on blockchain. The Liechtenstein Token Act allows rights and assets to be tokenized in a legally compliant manner by applying the Token Container Model. As discussed before, you can generally divide data tokenization into two sectors: utility tokens and security tokens. Lets take a look at how one can legally tokenize data as a security by leveraging the Liechtenstein Token Act, and how to passport it subsequently (with prospectus).

Firstly, an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) mostly in the form of an AG (german: Aktiengesellschaft) has to be established in Liechtenstein. This can be done with crypto as initial capital contribution for instance and without a bank account. Once the legal process of establishment is conducted, the data which is to be monetized will be packaged into the SPV as the sole asset which allows the subsequent tokenization thereof in line with the TVTG. Private placements of this securitized data can now already be made. However, since it is considered a normal security from a foreign perspective, offering it to retail investors requires that a prospectus be filed and afterwards passported to the EU seamlessly from Liechtenstein thanks to its membership in the European Economic Area (EEA).

The passporting process goes as follows: Due to Liechtenstein's membership of the EEA, it is possible to tokenize rights and passport them as securities sui generis via an approved prospectus with the Liechtenstein supervisory authority (Financial Market Authority, FMA) to other EEA states and thus also to Germany. This is based on the regulatory requirements of the Prospectus Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading on a regulated market and repealing Directive 2003/71/EC), which are harmonized under European law. What is special about this is that here the Liechtenstein advantages under civil and company law of the TVTG can be combined with the regulatory single market approach.

For EU passporting, it is necessary that the tokenized rights are first approved with a prospectus at the FMA. In addition to the classic securities prospectus, a so-called EU growth prospectus can also be considered as a prospectus type, which allows for certain facilitations in prospectus approval for small and medium-sized companies and thus especially for startups. The approval procedure is standardized throughout Europe thanks to the Prospectus Regulation. The content, scope and approval procedure are uniformly specified. The approval period is also specified, which provides a certain degree of planning certainty. If there are no reasons why the approval should not be granted, the passporting can be applied for at the same time as the approval. This is done in the same procedure and takes only two working days. As soon as the approval and the passporting have been confirmed by the FMA, the distribution of the issuer in the German market and in other European markets is possible.

To conclude, it has to be noted that while the tools and knowledge are there to foster the democratization of data, we still have a long way to go before this becomes mainstream. For that to happen, a lot of education has to be made and intuitive tools offered, allowing users to seamlessly migrate to the tools of data democratization. Applying blockchain technology to this sector does not only lead to more efficient and decentralized access, but also gives users the opportunity to apply DeFi tools to monetize the data you produce and share. In a nutshell, we receive back the control of our data and can decide how/if we want to monetize it. This can turn an industry that everyone contributes to (but very few actually gain from) into a truly decentralized and auspicious passive income stream. This valuable but also intransparent sector could become tangible, transparent and democratized.

Daniel Tth (Ocean Protocol), Alireza Siadat (Partner at Annerton) and Nicolas Weber (Head of Business Development at Amazing Blocks) also contributed to this article.

Read the original:
Data Tokenization: Morphing The Most Valuable Good Of Our Time Into A Democratized Asset - Forbes

Indian commuters drives past an advertisement poster of Google in Bangalore on April 6, 2018. / ... [+] AFP PHOTO / MANJUNATH KIRAN (Photo credit should read MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Estragon: I cant go on like this.

Vladimir: Thats what you think.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Googles recently-announced delay of the end of digital ad cookies until at least year-end 2023 still leaves much of the multi-billion-dollar industry as uncertain of the future as the characters in Waiting for Godot, Becketts archetypal masterpiece of forward-looking angst. If you think you were pained as a parent by Barney the Dinosaurs ditty Who took the cookies from the cookie jar? wait until the entire cookie jar is gone from the digital advertising business.

Advertising in media prior to the digital age was often a big guessing game for buyers and sellers, summed up by the famous adage of department store magnate John Wanamaker: I know Im wasting half of my advertising dollars; I just dont know which half. The digital age has made it exponentially easier for advertisers to find their targeted audience and deliver specifically-focused messages that they want them to receive. Rather than spray and pray advertising to a mass audience, with demographics as your sole guide, you could focus heavily on just those folks most likely to be interested in your products.

Cookies have been the horse to draw targeted audiences to the advertisers desired well. Advertisers place cookies digital files on websites to gather information on users and their interests by digitally clinging to the user in their journey to other websites. When youve bought a pair of socks and cant stop seeing sock ads everywhere you go after that, its cookies that help make that happen. And when the website isnt owned by the advertiser (usually the case), the cookies are thus third party, placed with permission of the website owner/publisher.

To address at least in part concerns about the undermining of consumer privacy from often unknown cookie-tracking, Google announced in January 2020 that it would by year-end 2021 phase out support for cookies through its Chrome browser. Great news, right! Ummits a little complicated.

Googles Privacy Sandbox initiative, as well as Apples very public campaign highlighting its intent to eliminate cookie-equivalents in its controlled operating system, wont mean the end of consumer tracking online hardly. It would just mean that the power of who could track in the absence of alternatives would be more centralized with the digital giants who control the key online gateways. And there is the small problem that the entire ecosystem of digital publishing depends overwhelmingly on revenues from advertising, so you pull out that thread, and what does that business look like? As David Cohen, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said to me this past week, One of the only things that people could actually count on and kept them connected during the pandemic was the digital ecosystem. If cookies are gone and cookie-fueled targeted advertising still propels the whole system, what does the post-cookies world look like?

OK, so then Googles announcement that the end of cookies will now be delayed until at least the end of 2023 is unambiguously good news for the digital advertising industry, right? Ummits complicated. Cohen acknowledged there is a need to develop the vision of the post-cookies world and shared his concern that the industry is not ready for that today. He cited an IAB industry survey from earlier this year in which 67% of respondents said they were prepared for cookies to end, but only 45% had concerns about their ability to target audiences without cookies. How can you be prepared for the end of cookies if you dont even realize that without them there is no clear approach to targeting your audience?

This uncertainty is bolstered by the advertising data firm Captify, which reported from its recent industry survey that 69% of advertisers expect their ad performance to decline once cookies are gone. Thats a pretty grim view of the future if the system isnt even prepared to tell you what the future looks like.

The challenge for industry leaders like Cohen is a lessened sense of urgency about the need for a post-cookies future. He notes that it takes a long time to turn around an aircraft carrier and much work must be done in educating the industry about potential alternatives, creating an agreed upon set of principles for what comes next, and most importantly testing alternatives to see what really works and what doesnt. He also acknowledged the need for the industry to be more forthright with consumers about the trade-off between enjoying the ease of access and breadth of diversity in free digital content that demands revenues to support it. Will consumers agree with Cohen and the great Joni Mitchell - You dont know what youve got til its gone?

Fundamental in all of this is that Cohen doesnt see a cookie-less future with one meta framework, but rather expects a portfolio of solutions to emerge. Part of it will certainly involve marketers making greater use of their first-party data from consumers coming directly to their content and then joining together with other marketers to share each others data. But balancing the need for consumer buy-in isnt going to be less complicated with this type of data than it is today.

A number of companies are developing their own identity solutions and visions of a cookie-less future. Giants of todays digital ad ecosystem such as The Trade Desk, LiveRamp and Lotame are developing means of identifying consumers according to their permission parameters. Other alternatives include that from ID5, whose CEO and Founder Mathieu Roche (and a fellow Executive in Residence at Progress Partners) told me he has been working at this for the last 4 years. Roche wants to buck the digital advertising industrys all-too-often temptation of overpromising and underdelivering by focusing solely on perfecting a consumer-compatible solution for identifying target audiences. He advocates for a neutral identity system which isnt driven to sell you data or other advertising services.

About the only thing we know for sure right now is that the digital advertising business is in for a lot more testing and learning in this space. In Waiting for Godot, the titular character never actually arrives (should I have called spoiler alert?). With at least two years of waiting until the exit of cookies, the digital advertising industry is hoping for a lot more certainty whenever this play actually ends.

Originally posted here:
Google Moves Cookies End To 2023 As Digital Ad Biz Awaits Alternatives - Forbes