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US FDA Calls Meeting on Blockchain, AI and the New Era of Smarter Food Safety

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will hold a meeting with stakeholders to discuss its plans to usher in “A New Era of Smarter Food Safety .” The meetingwill take place on October 21st, with the aim of gathering input and feedback to help shape an FDA blueprint for the initiative. The FDA will propose leveraging modern technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and IoT to improve transparency and decrease the risks of contamination in the food supply chain. The initiative is part of an ongoing effort by the FDA to implements the agency’s Food and Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) which was designed to shift the focus from responding to foodborne illness to preventing it. The meeting will include breakout sessions on key topics that include traceability, smarter tools for prevention, evolving business models and retail food safety, and food safety culture.

Food Tech Revolution In a recent interview, Frank Yiannas, Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy, FDA said, “We are in the midst of a new revolution in food technology. There will be more changes in the next 10 years than there have been in the past 20 years. Products will be reformulated; new food sources and production approaches will be realized, and the food system will become increasingly digitalized.”

Before joining the FDA, Yiannis was a champion of blockchain in the private sector and claims he has been “chasing the holy grail of food traceability for years”. He believes that chase is at an end with the emergence of new technologies and specifically blockchain. Yiannis said, “Because of its distributed and decentralized nature that aligns more closely with a decentralized and distributed food system, has enabled food system stakeholders to imagine being able to have full end-to-end traceability. An ability to deliver accurate, real-time information about food, how it’s produced, and how it flows from farm to table is a game-changer for food safety.”

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US Government Considers Blockchain as a Stepping Stone to Smarter Food Security

Through its federal agency the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US government has considered blockchain as one of the technological innovations that will prompt traceability and food safety culture.

A new era of smarter food safety

Attributes like conscious consumerism have prompted a traceable food network as people are becoming more concerned about what they eat or drink to avoid health complications, such as obesity and cancer.

The FDA views blockchain technology as one of the foundational pillars, which will trigger smarter food safety by offering traceability and immutable storage. The other pillars include the Internet of Things (IoT), sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence.

According to the announcement, “Our ultimate goal is to bend the curve of foodborne illness in this country by reducing the number of illnesses.”

The FDA is considering deploying blockchain to help in tracing new sources of food ingredients as the world continues developing at a breakneck speed. This approach will be instrumental in tackling the foodborne illness challenge witnessed on American soil.

Notable tracking strides

Blockchain is touted to fill the void of food tracking and sharing information between regulatory and industry partners.

As per the report:

“Enhancing the safety of the foods consumers eat each day, as well as improving consumer trust in the food system, will require a heightened focus on prevention, advancements in food traceability, and continued efforts to provide consumers with actionable and accurate information about the foods they consume.”

The FDA considers blockchain as an ideal internal digital technology system needed to elevate the country’s food safety measures based on the emergence of new food production approaches and food reformulation.

Recently, the J.M. Smucker Company or Smucker’s revealed its plan to use blockchain to trace Colombian coffee beans from their source for better satisfaction rates.

Fidelity Files for Bitcoin Fund After Validating Model Predicting BTC Price at $1 Million

Peter Jubber, the president and director of digital funds at Fidelity filed for a new fund dedicated to Bitcoin with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The Boston-based investment giant disclosed in the filing to the SEC that it will begin to offer the Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund through a new unit—Fidelity Digital Funds. The Bitcoin fund will be available for qualified purchasers through registered investment advisers, family offices, and other institutions, according to Bloomberg.

Fidelity’s crypto business arm, Fidelity Digital Assets will provide custody services for the fund, and the minimum investment is $100,000.

The fund has not raised any capital from investors, as shown in the filing. Bitcoin is currently above the $11,000 threshold but has struggled multiple times to stay above the $12,000 line.

Fidelity has paved the way for institutional investors to get involved with cryptocurrencies, as it previously conducted a survey on what institutional investors thought of digital assets. The research was conducted from November 2019 to early March 2020 and is the second consecutive year that Fidelity Digital Assets has conducted this survey for US institutional investors and the first for European investors. 60 percent of the institutional investors surveyed believe that digital assets have a place in their investment portfolio.

As revealed later on in an exclusive interview with Blockchain.News, Christine Sandler, the Head of Sales and Marketing said that 90 percent of the survey respondents were traditional investors.

Sandler said, “Traditional institutional investors want to see other traditional institutions as service providers in the space. We found that as a traditional institution providing those services, we found that to be particularly encouraging. We’ve also seen the value of our brand attributes resonate in the marketplace, customer focus, strong operational processes, and focus on risk management.”

Recently Fidelity Digital Assets also validated a stock-to-flow valuation model created by Plan B, which predicts Bitcoin’s price at $1 million. The company examined ways that could attract investors to Bitcoin as an investment and noted that Bitcoin is increasingly integrated into traditional investment portfolios.

The firm believes that Bitcoin as a store of value is an innate and important feature of the cryptocurrency, as its scarcity was built into the protocol from the start. With the recent report with anticipation of Bitcoin being valued at $1 million and the filing of the fund, institutional investment in Bitcoin could see massive growth this year.

NASA is Funding a Blockchain Solution for Space Communication

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funding two US-based companies to develop a blockchain solution to enhance communication in space.

Two US companies, Orbit Logic and the Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering were awarded $124,800 and will help develop NASA’s proposed blockchain solution dubbed Space Communication Reconstruction and Mapping with Blockchain Ledgering (SCRAMBL).

NASA’s SCRAMBL blockchain solution will be ‘lightweight and tailored’ to function efficiently on the resource-constrained computing elements used on satellites.

As NASA detailed in the award briefing, SCRAMBL will “leverage blockchain technology to store and distribute a ledger containing satellite constellation-relevant shared data to enable satellite onboard autonomy cooperative attendance of individual assets to system-level needs and objectives. The ledger contains an inventory of established communication paths based on spacecraft-published connection state changes, but more importantly hosts events, states, objectives, and plans that constitute a Common Relevant Operating Picture (CROP) – key to enabling a space network’s coordination and overall awareness.”

Among the ultimate goals of SCRAMBL is to enable direct communications between two spacecraft while also infusing it to ‘naturally route around spacecraft communication disruptions and disconnections’.

The cryptosphere got a tip of NASA’s early involvement with blockchain technology back in 2019 when it announced a vacancy for a data scientist with experience in blockchain technology as a prerequisite. Per the job advert, Blockchain.news reported that NASA gave no explanation as to why cryptocurrency experience is beneficial for the announced position but states that responsibilities will include developing and conceptualizing innovative applications across an axis of areas such as cloud computing, AI, robotics, and next-generation flight hardware.

NASA is one of the agencies of the US government that has gone bullish on blockchain technology in the past year. The United States Customs agency and Border Protection announced back in November 2019, its intention to adopt and integrate blockchain to track natural gas and oil imports from Canada. In a bid to promote blockchain technology, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering blockchain as one of the technological innovations that will prompt traceability and food safety culture.

What Impact Will The Moderna Vaccine Have on Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin in The Long Run?

The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by American biopharmaceutical company Moderna has shown about 94.5% effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 in humans.

According to a report from CNN, the news about the efficacy of Moderna’s vaccine was revealed by the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, an independent panel analyzing Moderna’s clinical trial data.

Following the results of Moderna’s vaccine efficiency, the global stock market has responded with a bullish run. The S&P 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite all saw positive surges. Non-US markets including the FTSE 100 Index also saw positive gains following the clinical data results from Moderna’s clinical trials.

The overall surge in the stock markets has also impacted cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP) among others. While these are temporary gains, the presence of a vaccine will also have its long term impact on cryptocurrencies. But how?

Vaccine Presence and Long Term Impact On Crypto

The United States now has two companies with vaccines that have reported more than 90% efficiency in clinical trials to prevent COVID-19. The companies include Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. Both firms are currently seeking Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the success of which will see the vaccines being administered in America and subsequently other nations.

The presence of a vaccine may result in lifestyle routines reverting back to normal. Many people who have lost their jobs will likely return back to work as the most impacted industries such as the travel industry will begin to see an uptick in patronage.

This return to normalcy in the long term will eliminate the need for more stimulus checks, an economic strategy put in place by world governments to support small businesses and those who lost their jobs. As it was generally believed that the printing of more money for use as stimulus packages will cause inflation which is bearish on fiat currencies and bullish on Bitcoin and digital currencies, the absence of stimulus may potentially reverse the trend.

Bitcoin also gained recognition as a good hedge for inflation during the pandemic. With a recovering economy made possible with a vaccine, this favorable tag on Bitcoin may not be as pronounced. In all, some of the factors that have favored and contributed to the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies and altcoins may be impacted by the emergence of COVID-19 vaccines.

However, if the pandemic has taught investors anything, it would be that it is crucial “to save for a rainy day.” Bitcoin as a hedge has been incredibly effective during the coronavirus pandemic, and that may serve to classify the digital asset alongside gold as a safe-haven asset, once and for all.