After a brief hiatus, I am back, and FLO has had one hell of a Q1. Since the last article, there has been significant progress made all over the FLO ecosystem. From tZERO and Medici Land Governance, to Alexandria, OIP, and more, FLO continues to be a leader in the real world adoption of blockchain technology. With all that said, it’s time to take a look at FLO’s progress in Q1.

Block Halving

FLO started out the year strong with a block halving on January 9th. The block reward dropped from 12.5, to 6.25 FLO per block. The FLO inflation rate has now decreased to 3.19% per year, with only 12,960 new FLO being generated per day. As it stands, 150,533,986 out of 160,000,000, or roughly 94% of all FLO has already been mined. FLO only continues to grow more scarce, with the next block halving scheduled for January 23, 2020.

The Launch of tZERO

On January 24 the tZERO security token exchange went live, and as expected, tZERO has continued to utilize FLO for its state of the art Digital Locate Receipt (DLR) technology. Every business day, hour after hour, tZERO has been publishing DLRs to the FLO blockchain. Even prior to the launch of tZERO, the DLR technology was already seeing commercial use, with revenues increasing 5–6x in 2018. Now that the platform is finally live, DLR utilization is only likely to increase as tZERO continues to grow in prominence. Patrick Byrne predicted the DLR technology alone could warrant a valuation of $1.5B, and time will tell if he was right.

For more information on the DLR technology, check out my article on the specifics of the DLR technology and how it aims to disrupt.

Trezor Support is Imminent

Trezor support is right around the corner, and with it, FLO will have access to its first dedicated hardware wallet. With hardware wallet support comes added peace of mind, and no doubt many are eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Medici Land Governance at The World Bank Land and Poverty Conference

From March 25th–29th, The World Bank’s 2019 Land and Poverty Conference took place, and Chris Chrysostom of Medici Land Governance (MLG) was there to showcase the progress that has been made in land title registry on the FLO blockchain. By utilizing the Open Index Protocol, MLG is building an easy, fast, and secure way to formalize property rights, of particular importance to the developing world. The below video recently published by MLG, provides a clear and concise example of how blockchain property rights can aid the developing world, as well as drastically improve the current system the world over.

With MLG already titling land in Zambia, Rwanda, Mexico, and Wyoming on the FLO blockchain, progress is rapidly being made to develop land administration systems suited for the 21st century.

Chris Chrysostom’s full presentation at the Land and Poverty Conference can be found below. It’s lengthy, but the entire video is well worth watching if you find time.

Ravencoin Implements OIP Support

Of further interest to Medici Land Governance, Ravencoin implemented OIP support in late March, the details of which can be found on Github.

This has huge significance for MLG, and the further revolutionizing of property rights. By integrating OIP support into RVN, the RVN blockchain can now call back to the FLO blockchain and reference the FLO transaction id containing the property rights information of a piece of property. By doing this, a RVN asset can be created representing a piece of property, that references to the FLO transaction id for its property rights. This asset could then even be distributed proportionally in instances where multiple parties contributed.

The digitization of property rights and real world assets onto the blockchain remains once of the most promising applications of blockchain technology, and FLO and RVN are at the forefront of the effort.

Alexandria and PUBLISH, Inc. Partnership

In March, PUBLISH, Inc. formally announced that they are entering into a strategic partnership with Alexandria. Per the press release,

On 11th, PUBLISH, Inc. announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Alexandria.io to develop an extended Open Index Protocol specification catering to blockchain news dissemination. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will collaborate on the development of a new common metadata framework specific to blockchain news dissemination and mapped to existing news standards, such as the IPTC’s (International Press Telecommunications Council) NewsML-G2.

The significance of this partnership cannot be overstated. The PUBLISH group is currently averaging around 1 billion page views per month, and also recently entered into a partnership with NetEase News Korea. NetEase itself is a massively influential publicly traded company, with a valuation around $10 billion. One thing can be said for certain; Alexandria has found itself in good company.

Continued Progress, Day by Day

With Q1 behind us, we now turn our sights to Q2. If Q1 was any indication, there should be no shortage of significant developments as the year continues to progress. Exciting times are ahead, and the future of FLO has never been brighter.

For additional information, visit the FLO Telegram Channel, and check out my past articles on FLO and the DLR technology utilized by tZERO, as well as the Open Index Protocol and how it operates on FLO.