Together with one of their biggest partners, DNV GL, VeChain just hosted their long-awaited rebranding event. Even though there have been a lot of rumors about the content of the event, VeChain’s CEO Sunny Lu still managed to positively surprise his audience with new partnerships and a leap forward of the development and application of the platform.

The rebranding is part of a long-term process during which the platform will transform itself into one of the leading global blockchains. The VeChain Foundation calls the coming developments their Apotheosis, during which they expect VeChain to reach new highs.

This event kicked off a new phase for this blockchain project: VeChain is now officially VeChain Thor. Additionally, VeChain has given us much more to look forward to, so let’s take a look.

VeChain Thor

As Vechain’s CEO, Sunny Lu, said during the introduction of the event, Vechain has seen an enormous growth spurt over the last few months. They started with 10 employees working in a small office and now employ over 80 people working globally from 4 offices in Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Paris. The community has also been growing substantially, with over 40,000 Redditors and 80,000 Twitter followers.

At this event, VeChain (VEN) was officially rebranded to VeChain Thor (VET). This rebrand entails much more than simply a new name, a new logo, and a brand new website. It is part of an entire transformation, the VeChain Apotheosis.

VeChain’s team wrote:

This apotheosis is not a day, a logo, or an economic model but rather it is a full revamp from a private blockchain to a qualified decentralized application platform servicing public applications, on a decentralized ledger, capable of evolving how the world defines business ecosystems.

They have seen the preliminary VeChain Thor ecosystem grow enormously with the help of and insights from their long list of partners. VeChain Thor (VET) will be a new blockchain — the Thor blockchain — on which the fresh VET tokens will be used. VEN tokens will be convertible to VET tokens on a 1:1 ratio and VET tokens will be the only tokens in existence once all VEN has been converted.

On the new VeChain Thor blockchain, there will be a twin token system. The tokens on the platform will be VeChainToken (VET) and VeThor (VTHO). VeThor is generated by holding VET, similar to the way GAS is distributed among NEO holders.

VeThor will be used to pay for the use of applications and for transactions. In this way, parties using VeChain receive VeThor for free and only pay for actually using VeChain applications. VET will be used for the issuance of new applications, the usage of platform-wide services and for other platform-wide transactions.

Contrary to popular belief, the rebranding does not include the launch of the mainnet. According to CEO Sunny Lu, this is set to launch sometime in June. The platform will be upgrading to V3.0, which allows for the usage of Thor power and for the creation of decentralized apps (dapps) for business appliances on the VeChain platform.

Dapps

Dapps are self-regulatory applications built on top of a blockchain. Because they are decentralized, these applications won’t be controlled by a central party, but rather by all the users of the application. In the case of VeChain, these dapps will be created for and by businesses that integrate their business processes with the VeChain blockchain.

VeChain has already announced their first dapp, VeVid. VeVid stands for VeChain Verified Identification and will be used to bring trust to the decentralized platform. The application will be used as a backbone for the VeChain ecosystem by validating and auditing identification of members of the VeChain network. It will act as a digital ID and KYC system. It will also help in the process of regulatory compliance and reduce the number of bad players in the VeChain ecosystem. Over the course of 2018, we’ll likely see a lot more business dapps surfacing on the platform.

Besides their first application, VeChain also announced two other new applications. The first one is VeVot, a voting application for businesses. Secondly, VeSCC was announced — an application for the certification of smart contracts built on the VeChain blockchain. Instead of creating a wild west environment where anyone can build applications and tokens, the VeSCC application will set standards and heavily scrutinize applications before they get verified to operate on the VeChain platform.

The team wrote:

For jurisdictions with clear rules and regulations on blockchain projects, VeChain Foundation will uphold the compliance set forth by the jurisdiction, no matter how stringent the process.

This means that, contrary to the Bitcoin ideology, VeChain will invest heavily in complying with and respecting legal rules and regulations . Although this process can be “stringent,” with an increasing number of countries appealing for stricter regulations of cryptocurrencies, VeChain’s approach is likely the way of the future.

Many predict that 2018 will be the year in which regulation around the world will come into play. VeVid, VeVot, and VeSCC are aimed to be compliant with global regulations. Because of this focus, it could make VeChain (Thor) one of the leading blockchains in the industry.

New Partnerships

On February 29, 2018,, VeChain announced yet another partnership, this time with the Yida Group, a major Chinese real estate developer. This would be major news for any other cryptocurrency, but for VeChain, this just adds one more name to their already impressive list of partnerships.

The VeChain rebranding event was organized together with DNV GL, a global leader in the area of providing quality, environmental, safety, and security management systems and certification. During the event, it was announced that VeChain will be working closely with DNV GL on a carbon bank. This carbon bank will be an application that focuses on the trade and transparency of carbon emissions.

VeChain also announced a partnership with the Oxford University Mathematical Institute. This body of the Oxford University will become part of the VeResearch programme, a programme designed to progress innovation and expansion of the VeChain platform. The mathematical institute will contribute especially in the development of VeChain’s mathematical and economical models.

That’s excellent news, given that Oxford has been one of the highest ranking universities of the world for decades.

But just as the audience thought the event had come to an end, Lu had one more thing to announce…

VeChain is partnering with automobile giant BMW. Rumors have been spreading over the last weeks and especially the last days, but nothing had been confirmed. The release of a YouTube video about VeChain’s automobile application now makes a lot of sense. Not much more information was given other than that VeChain and BMW are officially partners now, but even this alone is great news for VeChain.

But Wait… There’s More!

Next week, VeChain and DNV GL will appear side by side onstage in Tokyo at one of the most important global events for the food industry. During their appearance, they will be making a grand announcement, the content of which will remain a secret until then.

Both VeChain and DNV GL have promised it will be an announcement to look forward to. It will entail the first blockchain application on the VeChain platform for a specific segment in the food industry. The CEO of DNV GL, Luca Crisciotti, proclaimed during the rebranding event that the news will be “extremely, extremely exciting.”

It’s not just the announcement of a future service; the service will be live and usable after the announcement.

As mentioned before, the rebranding does not entail the launch of VeChain’s mainnet, which is scheduled for June 2018. This launch of their public blockchain is already something big to look forward to, but it will be followed up by even more planned developments.

VeChain version V4.0 will allow for Internet of Things (IoT) integration on the platform. The IoT is rapidly growing globally and it won’t be long before businesses need to adjust to this new environment. VeChain is anticipating this need by implementing IoT dapps on their platform for full IoT integration. In this way, businesses using the IoT will be able to immediately make this process efficient and decentralized through the use of the VeChain blockchain.

Additionally, VeChain will roll out applications for commercial, ecological, and environmental business usage over the course of 2018. This gives even more room for growth of the platform through partnerships as they move into new industries.

If that’s not enough, there will also be fiat pairings for VET. On February 25, VeChain announced via Twitter that the South Korean exchange Coinnest will make direct fiat trading available for the new VeChain token, VET. This is still quite rare, as only the biggest cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum enjoy this major direct influx of fiat capital. There will even come a direct fiat pairing for VET on Japanese exchanges, on which more is yet to be announced.

Concluding Remarks

This stream of news, updates and developments bodes well for VeChain. Together with their established partners PWC and DNV GL, VeChain has world class guidance on what next steps to take and which industries to focus on. Their newly-announced partner BMW will likely have the same strong positive influence on the direction VeChain is taking.

The VeChain Thor platform is getting ready for mass adoption and is doing so in a constructive way. The newly-announced applications indicate this, as they’re focused on creating a solid infrastructure for businesses with a focus on legal compliance.

Based on all that VeChain announced during their event, it seems like we should pay close attention to VeChain on a frequent basis. The hammer has struck, and we can expect lightning.