JioCoin: Reliance planning own cryptocurrency, Akash Ambani to lead project

The company aspires to get into the Internet-of-things business and blockchain will help its foray

Reliance Jio is planning to create a cryptocurrency of its own called ‘JioCoin’, and will put together a young team of 50-odd professionals under Akash Ambani to kickstart the project, a Livemint report claims. The Ambani scion is reportedly interested in developing blockchain technology to aid the development of smart contacts and cryptocurrency payment-enabled supply chains.

Blockchain is a digital ledger that works as a book-keeper for cryptocurrencies.

‘Jio’ a leap into Reliance’s future?

Reliance Jio has disrupted India’s telecom sector in the past year-and-a-half by offering services at hyper-competitive prices, forcing other telcos to follow suit.

Reliance Industries, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate that holds Jio is reportedly mulling an IPO in late 2018 or early 2019. The group has already pumped in $31 billion worth of investment in Jio.

The Livemint report quoted a Jio official as saying that the company aspires to get into the Internet-of-things business and blockchain technology is supposed to help its foray.

IoT is technology that allows physical objects like wearable technology, smartphones, other electronic devices to be connected. From smart cities to driverless cars and smart factories, and smart homes the Internet of Things is supposed to enter every aspect of people’s lives.

ALSO READ: How ‘Internet of Things’ will change the world as we know it

Reliance celebrated forty years of its existence a couple of weeks back, where Mukesh Ambani’s children- Aakash, Isha, Anant were projected as the petrochemical behemoth’s next-generation leaders.

Mukesh Ambani earlier said that group would take big leaps in the digital services sector. The Reliance group has changed its core business quite a few times over the decades- from dealing in spices to exporting textiles, to becoming a petrochemical behemoth and now disrupting the telecom sector………read more

Cryptocurrency boom to stay: What’s exciting about 2018 Asian tech scene

Blockchain- the underlying technology that enables bitcoin will see adoption

What are the possible developments in technology we can look forward to 2018? We asked a few experts from the tech community for their thoughts.

Joel Ko Hyun Sik, president at Marvelstone Group

I am excited about how AI could further develop in 2018. Many AI hubs are coming, as tech giants like Alibaba, Microsoft, Amazon, and Samsung announce AI research labs here and there.

Tim Romero, podcaster at Disrupting Japan

In Japan, AI companies will come out of the shadows in 2018.

I think the current cryptocurrency and ICO boom will continue for a little longer before exploding in investors’ face.

Antony Ma, founder at PowerData2Go

We’ll see language processing functions become available via APIs. Voice machine interface will play a bigger role. And AI-assisted conversations will change how people communicate, especially in functional conversations.

Isabelle Decitre, founder and CEO at ID Capital

I like to think that 2018 will be the year where more countries and more entrepreneurs domesticate agtech and foodtech.

Pradeep Menon, cloud solution architect at Microsoft

Internet-of-things (IoT)

Predictive maintenance is a standard use case in this area. However, opportunities linking IoT to consumer behavior is an exciting area for investors.

Blockchain

The underlying technology that enables bitcoin will see adoption…..read more