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Joe_Maz – Page 2 – We'll change the world

Typical market specifications

Tantalite on the international market generally contains a minimum of 30% Ta2O5, while lower grade material with a minimum of 20% Ta2O5 may also be of interest. The commercial payable value is based on the Ta2O5 content alone, any Nb2O5 is generally ignored.

Should material contain mainly Nb2O5 and only little Ta2O5, then it would be sold as columbite and should contain a minimum of 50% Nb2O5. The payable value is based on the Nb2O5+Ta2O5 content payable entirely as Nb2O5; the Ta2O5 content is not paid a higher rate.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

Tantalum and niobium raw materials often contain somewhat elevated levels of naturally occurring thorium and uranium, usually high enough for them to be classified as radioactive for handling and transport.  Such raw materials are then also known as Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM).

It is incumbent on any producer or trader to also analyse for Th and U in order to demonstrate whether the material is radioactive or not.  This is reflected in the T.I.C.’s Transport Policy.  As a guide, these elements are of concern for the purpose of mining and handling at levels above 1 Bq/g, a level obtained from e.g. 0.013% ThO2 plus 0.0048% U3O8, whereas for transport alone the levels of concern are an order of magnitude higher, i.e.10 Bq/g or 0.13% ThO2 plus 0.048% U3O8.

January 31, 2018 – latest news from ICE

31st January 2018

ETHIOPIA- AS TANTALUM MINE PRIVATIZED, PUSH IS MADE FOR VALUE ADDED PRODUCTION

The Ministry of Public Enterprises (MoPE) is attempting to partially privatize the country’s tantalum mining facility at Kenticha.

In its latest bid notice MoPE invited experienced partners to mine for the rare metal.However experts are criticizing the bid document claiming that it should focus on making value added products from the mineral as opposed to mining raw tantalum. They say a value addition factory at Kenticha will cost a minimum of USD 120 million and a maximum of a quarter billion USD. “However, this would establish an industry that would boost the country’s hard currency from exporting end products as opposed to raw production.

The bid document that MoPE issued indicated it is looking for a partner to manage and expand lithium-tantalum mining at Kenticha. The government has attempted to expand the 25 year old Kenticha mine, located 550km south of Addis Ababa at Adola, many times.

However the facility is still the property of the state owned Ethiopian Minerals Development Enterprise, which is now under the Ethiopian Minerals, Petroleum and Bio Fuel Corporation. Experts said that tantalum mining, which is exported as a concentrate, has several related products that can be produced locally. Lithium demand has been growing because the battery is used in various industries so the global market is huge.

For instance the lithium-ion battery automobile industry is now on the rise and is searching for lithium, according to experts. Tantalum is a major input for the production of electronics, aircraft parts and medical equipment.

“A factory that would make value added products would really help the economy,” experts in the industry added. Tantalum is used to make mobile phones and other electronic gadgets, aircraft parts and medical equipment.

The PM has also followed the issue and the government plans to expand the mining plant as opposed to including partners just to produce and export the concentrated mineral. A pilot tantalum production project began in 1990, during the Derg era. Tantalum concentrate exports for the first six months of the current budget year has earned Ethiopia over USD four million. Oromia’s regional administration wants to have the youth in the area to take part in producing tantalum as opposed to transferring it to a third party.

However, experts say that if the factory produces value added products it will be capital and skilled labor intensive as opposed to just mining which would use unskilled labor.”The sector is a dangerous business since tantalum concentrate consists of uranium,” an expert said. The regional administration has already drafted a bill that would allow the region to administer natural resources.

Currently the federal government manages or licenses natural resources in all regions. However, Oromia argues that this goes against their constitutional rights. “We do not have any mechanism to control the operation, provide licensing, and enforce the law,” an expert at the region told Capital recently.Different social, health and environmental issues have arisen at the area.

Capital has confirmation from the Oromia Water, Mining and Energy Bureau that experts from environmental, social and health professions have been at the area recently to assess the effect of the mining sites including Lege Dembi Gold Mining, which is close to Kenticha.Lege Dembi has also already completed its 20 years production license.

This license is awaiting renewal. The company has submitted a request for a ten year extension to the Federal Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas. This is based on their original agreement that states the two parties would extend the production for ten years which is a common practice in the mining sector.

Based on that the upcoming mining proclamation that will be ratified by the ‘Chefe’ (regional council) will give the right to the region to administer the mining resources, develop, provide licenses, terminate the license or close the mine when the agreement ends, penalize and even support the regional mining operation. (ICE ADDIS ABEBA)

Major world producers

An updated picture of where it is produced most of tantalum in the world. Africa is the main protagonist, as always.

Tantalum is an important component for many modern technologies. It is in fact used to build capacitors that are present almost everywhere, from computers to mobile phones.
But this metal has occupied the pages of newspapers for issues related to the so-called conflict minerals, or bloody minerals, since most of the production comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).As with other rare metals, production is concentrated in a few areas of the world and the countries that are the largest producers or consumers of electronics do not extract even a kilogram of the necessary minerals. This is the case, for example, of the United States that have not produced tantalum since 1959.Above all, Africa is the continent that feeds the rest of the world with tantalum, as is evident from the five countries in the world which, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) statistics, produced the largest amount in 2015.1) RUArwandaNDA  (mining production: 600 tons). It turns out to be the largest producer of tantalum in the world, despite being a position full of controversy. In fact, much of Rwanda’s mineral production comes from other countries, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the head. US regulations regarding the origin of minerals from war zones, which force large electronics companies to communicate their use, has led the Congo to sell its production to neighboring countries to render US law ineffective.

 

repubblica democratica del congo2) DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (mining production: 200 tons). It is one of the largest producers of tantalum in the world and this metal is only a small part of the precious mineral resources of the country. According to National Geographic, the Congo produces up to 50% of the world tantalum but its mining activities have the sad reputation of being immoral and corrupt.

3) BRAZIL brasile (mining production: 150 tons). Brazil is the largest producing nation of tantalum outside Africa and has reserves estimated at 36,000 tons. The largest tantalum mine in the country is Mibra, owned by the Advanced Metallurgical Group NV. In light of the problems of Rwanda and Congo, it is foreseeable that in the coming years Brazil will become one of the main sources of tantalum for companies all over the world.

4) CHINA cina(mining production: 60 tons). The country is a major provider of tantalum for Western countries. In the United States, 30% of the imported metal comes from China.

5) AUSTRALIA australia (mining production: 50 tons). With estimated reserves of 67,000 tons, it extracts tantalum mainly from the Greenbushes mine, best known for its lithium deposits.

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Kenticha mine, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): 5° 31′ North , 39° 2′ East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal): 5.51667,39.03333
Köppen climate type: Aw : Tropical savanna, wet

Active tantalite mine in the Main Kenticha pegmatite sheet (thickness 40-100 m; exposed over 2 km). Annual production of about 120 tons of tantalum concentrate grading at 50-70% Ta2O5.
Mining is presently (Küster et al., 2009) restricted to the upper zone in the eastern and northern parts of the pegmatite.

Amazonite

Kenticha mine, Kenticha pegmatite field, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Global Tantalum Market 2017-2021- from TechNavio report Jan. 2017

This market research study identifies Advanced Metallurgical, China Minmetals, Global Advanced Metals, H.C. Starck, and Ningxia Orient Tantalum Industry as the leading players in the global tantalum market. A comprehensive analysis of this market is also presented by the intermediates, end-product, end-markets, and geography.

Overview of the global tantalum market
The global tantalum market is anticipated to grow at a steady rate and will post a CAGR of more than 3% during the forecast period. The increasing penetration of smartphones is triggering the demand for capacitors, which will drive the growth prospects for the global tantalum market for the next four years. According to the industry research report, the growing telecommunication sector will drive the growth prospects of the tantalum market because a majority of demand for low voltage capacitors comes from the telecommunication sector. Moreover, one of the major factors responsible for the growing telecom sector is the increasing demand for smartphones in the developing economies. For instance, the shipment for smartphones are likely to increase by 1.3 billion units in the next few years, which will boost the demand for capacitors, and subsequently positively affecting the global tantalum market.

In terms of geography, the Americas accounted for the maximum market share during 2016 and will continue to dominate the market in the forthcoming years. One of the major countries contributing to the maximum revenue in the region is Brazil, which is also the largest tantalum producing country in the Americas. Brazil is expected to become one of the largest exporters of tantalum worldwide because no conflict minerals have been found to be mined from this region so far. Furthermore, it has been observed that the Americas is increasingly focusing on recycling and other secondary production processes by finding out newer and better ways to reduce the gap between demand and supply and address the gap issues.

Competitive landscape and key vendors
The global tantalum market is highly competitive and diversified due to the presence of a large number of regional and international vendors across the globe. Some of the major factors responsible for the increasing competition in the market is the physical nature of the ore and low cost of production. Furthermore, these vendors are increasingly focusing on research and developmental activities, nanoscale labs and process management capabilities, chemical and metallurgical process capabilities, and customer interface to serve their customers effectively.

Key vendors in this market are –

Advanced Metallurgical
China Minmetals
Global Advanced Metals
H.C. Starck
Ningxia Orient Tantalum Industry

Other prominent vendors in the market include Ethiopian Mineral Development Share Company, Jiangxi KING-TAN Tantalum Industry, and Mineração Taboca.

Segmentation by end-markets and analysis of the tantalum market
Capacitors
Turbine and aircraft structure parts
Optical coatings
Medical implants
Thin-film resistors
Carbide cutting tools and wear parts
The capacitor segment accounted for the largest market share during 2016 and will continue to lead the market until the end of 2021. One of the major factors responsible for the market segment’s growth is the rapid industrialization occurring in the emerging economies of APAC and the presence of the electronics industry in countries like Japan and China.

Segmentation by end user and analysis of the tantalum market
Anode powder and wire
Superalloys
Carbides
Chemicals
Sputtering agents
The anode powder and wire segment accounted for the maximum market share during 2016 and will continue to dominate the market for the next four years. One of the major applications of tantalum powder is its use in the capacitor industry, which has a unique property and ability to provide the highest capacitance value in the smallest physical component size.

Tantalum: how the market will grow in the next 4 years

The tantalum market is expected to grow over the next four years. Not without, however, risking dramatic price peaks if supplies were to be interrupted.

We have often dealt with tantalum, a rare metal that, for a whole series of reasons we will see, has also attracted the attention of many readers.

It will therefore please many to know that, according to a recent study, tantalum could be the protagonist of a strong rise in the coming years. In fact, according to Technavio, a London market research company, the global market for this metal, between 2017 and 2021, is destined to grow with an annual growth rate of over 3%.

For those who have never heard of tantalum, it will be enough to know that it was discovered in 1802 by the Swedish chemist Anders Gustaf Ekeberg. It is a highly corrosion-resistant metal of acids, which boasts a high melting point, as well as being a good conductor of heat and electricity. But, what is certainly more interesting are its uses, barely visible but under the eyes of all …

No tantalum … no smartphone!
Tantalum is in fact the key component of the capacitors, those gadgets that fill any miniaturized electronic device, from smartphones to personal computers.

According to the Technavio study, following the growth of 1.3 billion smartphones in the coming years, tantalum will benefit from such robust demand. A demand fueled mainly by the spread of the Internet and new technologies in developing countries.

If we look at the supply front from the point of view of Western countries, the picture is worrying. No country has a mining industry and, for Europe and North America, the only possibility is that of imports from the few countries in the world that produce it.

Offer at risk
Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil, China and Australia are the main producers of tantalum. Tantalum is therefore mainly concentrated in an area of ​​Africa that is very unstable politically and marked by the exploitation of child labor, in inhumane conditions, for the extraction of the mineral.

Under such conditions, the risk of sudden supply disruptions is concrete and, in a context of increasing demand, this would have a disruptive effect on prices.

At this point, analysts can only add: “warned man … half saved!”

The Technological Convergence of Blockchain and AI to power the 4th Industrial Revolution

Gilbert Verdian

He’s actively working to advance technology in the areas of AI, Cybersecurity, Blockchain and Fintech.

Gilbert has lived and worked all around the world in the UK, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the US. Throughout his career he has been working extensively within Financial Services and Government. He has an MBA from the University of Technology, Sydney.

The more data Artificial Intelligence has the more accurate are the outcomes and predictions. Due to the foundations of internet architecture and underlying nature of the Internet, we are limiting the type of data algorithms have access to and how they access them.

The centralised approach of the Internet limits how we transfer, authorise and access data across networks. It is very difficult to duplicate multiple copies of terabytes/petabytes of data across internet networks to access and process data.

The decentralised interconnectedness of blockchains provides a new way to connect data without the overheads of trust, security and controls. Blockchains provide human-to-human or machine-to-machine trust without any of the parties needing to know or trust each other.

The consequences of existing Internet architectures is fundamentally going to change. For the first time, we can honour the original vision of the internet but based on blockchain technology, for all peers to trust each other.

For the first time we can honour the original vision of the Internet to create an open trusted network for people, machines and data to operate, but without the original flaw of having to know everyone in the network.

For the first time we can trust the network without the need to know and trust each other.

The original vision of ARPANET was a closed network where every member (node) knew exactly who the other party was. With the immense expansion of the internet, more and more networks and people started connecting, naturally everyone no longer knew everyone else. The internet became and stayed untrusted.

We had to build firewalls, harden operating systems, create internal networks that sat behind external facing gateways just to protect internal users and data. We had to build controls on top of controls to detect, protect, respond to threats.

The history of two technologies of the core of the next human advancement have take their own paths and evolution to reach the next stage. I foresee the evolution of technological and human evolution converged.

Up until now we have been working in advancing and evolving our current technology in silos. The advancement of machine learning and AI has stemmed in the various Bayesian, Symbolists, Connectionists and Evolutionaries tribes working almost in isolation to advance their particular areas of work.

Artificial intelligence was borne out of the need to win a war. Computing in principle was not developed to break code, computing was simple and calculations were made to solve mathematical and computational challenges.

In trying times, such as war, the motivations and incentives became a catalyst to make the evolutionary step such as nature when animals became amphibious

We foresaw the thinking computer. The Turing test was developed to validate the ultimate goal and progress in people not knowing the difference between man and machine.

That has been the holy grail that has been sought by computer scientists to accomplish what was envisaged all those years ago and we’ve made progress.

Today we have developed mechanisms and machines that are capable of accomplishing such complex transactional calculations which were impossible to achieve.

The advancement in field of machine learning stemmed through a rapid progress of statistics, data science and analysis fuelled by the gush of big data collected for anything

We have collected zettabytes of data by observing the interactions of the natural and logical worlds. Data is everywhere and we have woken up to understanding how we collect and now make use of it.

Think of all the intricate interactions in nature, every single movement, motion, action, reaction creates a data point that we’ve only just started to learn to catalogue and collect.

Topped with the advancement in data analysis methods we have created new ways to wholly analyse vast amounts of data in a simplified and accurate way. The idea of machine learning was only recently exploded using an evolution of pre-existing methods.

We have identified ways in which data can be analysed using the evolution of Bayesian statistics, fuzzy logic etc and developed into new ways such as Neural networks, recurring and convoluted NN, regression, clustering and segregation

This has lead to new ways in doing analysis that can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised in the fields of machine learning and deep learning

Our technology and approach has resulted in new technology such a vision, autonomous driving, prediction and even learning (Go). We’re just at the beginning of what we can accomplish.

BLOCKCHAIN

The technology behind Blockchain stemmed from cryptography and security. The mechanisms of private key infrastructure have long been used in security for authentication and authorisation.

Blockchain provides us the map and ability to map and understand data, transfer of data without the need to trust or know the other parties.

The technology provides immutable proof that transactions or data stored in a ledger are valid and can be trusted as truth between parties. This validation is done through mass computing power, called miners, used to calculate and validate the cryptography within in block is secure and the integrity of it linked to previous blocks – creating a chain. This is the consensus algorithm used to accept the validity of the data and crypto.

CONVERGENCE

For AI to be effective, it needs a constant stream of data to process to improve its algorithms, accuracy and outputs.

For the first time, we are opening up and providing unrestricted access to huge datasets for processing without the limitations and restrictions of internet architectures.

We can create new AI agents that are no longer restricted to closed internal networks or clouds but able to openly and autonomously traverse blockchain networks to identify and access data.

We’ve seen a few early attempts of this in the DAO and Ethereum smart contracts that attempted to run autonomous code backed with crypto currency to perform tasks and potentially accumulate further currency. They failed not only to the immaturity of its application and code, but due to the limitations of its environment. The code was not truly free in the sense of the word but it was bound and restricted to its surrounding environment

But the true Turing test of Autonomous AI on Blockchain is the ability for the agent to live entirely autonomously on a decentralised internet.

In order to achieve this fundamental change in our architecture, we have to tackle the challenge one piece at a time. We can’t make a complete change to the internet overnight without disrupting the nature of the networks.

Our unique approach has been to overlay on top of existing and future blockchains, that themselves sit on traditional internet foundations. We need a virtual decentralised internet that works on top of the existing architecture and provides a new way to connect and interact.

We have the same issues in the blockchain space as we did with the early internet networks. We have independent closed networks that don’t connect to each. As soon as the internet networks connected, thanks to the adoption of TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) as the Standard to enable flows between networks created the modern internet of today.

We are experiencing the same challenges today with blockchain. As soon as we connect the various closed blockchain networks to each other we will see the emergence of a new blockchain internet.

It was this idea that I used to create the genesis of the blockchain ISO Standard TC307.

What we have done in Quant is create a blockchain operating system called Overledger which sites on top of existing and future blockchains. The system allows for the ability to reach and write of data between various blockchains respecting the rules of each blockchain, such as consensus.

We’re excited to be able to shape the evolution of the two foundational technologies of AI and Blockchain and help foster innovation to develop new and revolutionary.

Fintech (according Wikipedia)

Financial technology (FinTech or fintech) is the new technology and innovation that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services.[1] The use of smartphones for mobile banking and investing services[2] are examples of technologies aiming to make financial services more accessible to the general public. Financial technology companies consist of both startups and established financial and technology companies trying to replace or enhance the usage of financial services existing financial companies.

Definition

After reviewing more than 200 scientific papers citing the term “fintech,” the most comprehensive scientific study on the definition of fintech concludes that “fintech is a new financial industry that applies technology to improve financial activities.”[3]

FinTech is the new applications, processes, products, or business models in the financial services industry, composed of one or more complementary financial services and provided as an end-to-end process via the Internet.[2]

Key areas

Financial technology has been used to automate insurance, trading, and risk management.[4]

The services may originate from various independent service providers including at least one licensed bank or insurer. The interconnection is enabled through open APIs and supported by regulations such as the European Payment Services Directive.[5]

Global investment in financial technology increased more than twelvefold from $930 million in 2008 to more than $12 billion in 2014.[6] The nascent financial technology industry has seen rapid growth over the last few years, according to the office of the Mayor of London. Forty percent of the City of London‘s workforce is employed in financial and technology services.[7]

In Europe, $1.5 billion was invested in financial technology companies in 2014, with London-based companies receiving $539 million, Amsterdam-based companies $306 million, and Stockholm-based companies receiving $266 million in investment. After London, Stockholm is the second highest funded city in Europe in the past 10 years. Europe’s FinTech deals reached a five-quarter high, rising from 37 in Q4 2015 to 47 in Q1 2016.[8][9]

In the Asia Pacific region, the growth will see a new financial technology hub to be opened in Sydney, in April 2015.[10] According to KPMG, Sydney’s financial services sector in 2017 creates 9 per cent of national GDP and is bigger than the financial services sector in either Hong Kong or Singapore.[11] A financial technology innovation lab was launched in Hong Kong in 2015.[12] In 2015, the Monetary Authority of Singapore launched an initiative named Fintech and Information Group to draw in start-ups from around the world. It pledged to spend $225 million in the fintech sector over the next five years.[13]

2016 fin_invest

Awards and recognition

Financial magazine Forbes created a list of the leading disrupters in financial technology for its Forbes 2016 global Fintech 50.[14]

A report published in February 2016 by EY commissioned by the UK Treasury compared seven leading FinTech hubs. It ranked California first for ‘talent’ and ‘capital’, the United Kingdom first for ‘government policy’ and New York City first for ‘demand’.[15]

Outlook

Finance is seen as one of the industries most vulnerable to disruption by software because financial services, much like publishing, are made of information rather than concrete goods. In particular blockchains have the potential to reduce the cost of transacting in a financial system.[16] While finance has been shielded by regulation until now, and weathered the dot-com boom without major upheaval, a new wave of startups is increasingly “disaggregating” global banks.[17] However, aggressive enforcement of the Bank Secrecy Act and money transmission regulations represents an ongoing threat to FinTech companies.[18]

In addition to established competitors, FinTech companies often face doubts from financial regulators like issuing banks and the Federal Government.[19]

Data security is another issue regulators are concerned about because of the threat of hacking as well as the need to protect sensitive consumer and corporate financial data.[20][21] Leading global Fintech companies are proactively turning to cloud technology to meet increasingly stringent compliance regulations.[22]

The Federal Trade Commission provides free resources for corporations of all sizes to meet their legal obligations of protecting sensitive data.[23] Several private initiatives suggest that multiple layers of defense can help isolate and secure financial data.[24]

Any data breach, no matter how small, can result in direct liability to a company (see the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act)[25] and ruin a FinTech company’s reputation.[26]

The online financial sector is also an increasing target of distributed denial of service extortion attacks.[27][28]

Marketing is another challenge for most FinTech companies as they are often outspent by larger rivals.[29]

This security challenge is also faced by historical bank companies since they do offer Internet connected customer services.[30]