It can eradicate world poverty. It can save the rainforest. It can protect us from Big Brother.

Such are the magical properties admirers bestow on blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, which is its first application.

The revolutionary promise of blockchain, which is touted as the harbinger of the fourth Industrial Revolution, has created a gold-rush mentality, reminiscent of the early days of the Internet. The hype and the Fomo (fear of missing out) factor have led hundreds of companies to unveil so-called blockchain initiatives. Venture capitalists have poured more than US$2 billion (S$2.6 billion) into blockchain ventures, most of it over just the last two years.

Seeking fortune by association, companies in fields as varied as iced tea, fruit juice, furniture, traditional Chinese tea, sports bras and e-cigarettes have rebranded themselves as blockchain companies, and some have witnessed huge run-ups in their share prices as a result. It is not unlike in the early 1990s, when companies were able to reap windfall gains in market capitalisation merely by adding the prefix “E” or the suffix “dot.com” to their names.

Don’t get me wrong. Blockchain is a big deal and its distributed ledger technology has the potential to be transformative. Let us look at some of the advantages.

While the Internet revolutionised the direct person-to-person sharing of data, such as e-mail and voice and instant messaging, the one thing it cannot enable efficiently or safely is the sharing of value. The Internet can’t solve the “double-spend” problem: You can send the same digital image to two people online, but you should not be able to send the same $5 to two people. If you did, money would lose its scarcity and hence its value.

So, if you want to send money or anything else valuable over the Internet, you have to go through an intermediary to manage and verify the transaction, such as a bank or a money transfer service like Western Union, or a broker, all of whom deduct fat fees as commissions. These intermediaries act as institutions of trust, verifying that your money has been sent to another person, deducting it from your account and crediting it to the receiver’s.

With blockchain, peer-to-peer transactions are possible with no intermediary. For example, you can send bitcoin – a virtual currency that uses blockchain – to anybody without a bank being involved and (at least in theory) pay tiny commissions. Blockchain solves the risk of double-spending by lodging every transaction on a time-stamped universal ledger automatically, without the need for an intermediary. By removing the need for an intermediary to verify transactions, blockchain opens up many services and exchanges to people at very low to zero cost.

The implications are said to be potentially game-changing across a staggering range of industries and activities.

Land titles can be put on the blockchain, which means they can never be altered or challenged, which would enable hundreds of millions of the world’s poor to have secure property rights – though enforcement is another matter.

People who generate their own electricity (through, for example, solar panels) can sell it peer-to-peer, without utilities coming in the way.

Commuters can connect with drivers directly on a blockchain without using intermediaries like Uber or Grab.

Stock transactions can be settled within seconds, securely and verifiably, without the need for brokers or cumbersome clearing and settlement systems.

Valuables such as diamonds can be tracked – individual diamonds can be given unique identities which are put on the blockchain. They can then be monitored as they are sold and resold, which prevents fraud or theft. A company called Everledger is already doing this, and extending its service to other valuable items such as jewellery, fine art, watches and other luxury goods.

There are countless other examples of how blockchain can, at least in theory, cut transaction costs, improve efficiencies and reduce fraud.

The blockchain also enables “smart contracts” which are self-executing and secured by digital code.

For example, if two parties agree to the terms of a contract – say, that a payment will be made when a certain item is delivered – the payment is automatically triggered the moment delivery takes place. The contract, which defines rules, obligations and penalties, is on the blockchain, time-stamped and cannot be altered, as if it were cast in stone.

And so, blockchain evangelists tout it as “The Trust Protocol”, suggesting that it eliminates the need for trust; strangers can easily transact with each other with no third parties.

Beyond the hype 

While all of this sounds exciting, it masks a lot of hype.

Take the key issue of trust. While it is true that you can, for example, send cryptocurrency to someone on the other side of the world quickly at low cost without a bank or a traditional money transfer service, this does not mean the problem of trust has been eliminated. It has simply been shifted to somewhere else.

To convert your dollars into bitcoin or any other crypto, you need to go through a cryptocurrency exchange or some other third party. These exchanges can be, and have been, hacked, including the one-time granddaddy of them all, Mt Gox. Your cryptocurrency wallet, which resides in your phone, can also be hacked. Would you trust an unregulated crypto exchange more than you trust your bank?

You also have to trust the blockchain-mining network, through which transactions are verified and cryptocurrencies generated. In theory, the blockchain is decentralised on millions of computers spread across the world, which makes it safe from Big Brother centralised control – which was claimed to be one of its big advantages.

In reality, however, most miners are merged into “pools” or cartels so they can enjoy economies of scale in computing power, and share income. About 80 per cent of the pools are in one country – China. The top four mining pools in the world control more than half of all computing power. This makes blockchain much less safe from manipulation than a truly decentralised mining network.

Nor are transactors in the blockchain anonymous. Rather, they are pseudonymous, identified by electronic addresses. Once somebody makes the link between your pseudonym and you – which can happen when you send money to somebody over the blockchain – your entire transaction activity, past and future, can be known. Such financial transparency is not what many individuals or companies would want.

Any data entered into a blockchain is also subject to human error. In the end, you do have to trust humans.

Blockchain is misused 

There are also signs that blockchain technology is being adopted for its own sake, even though it does not solve the problem it purports to solve. In other words, it is being misused.

Take the case of Kodak, which on Jan 31, will launch a scheme that will supposedly make life easier for the world’s photographers. In partnership with a company called Wenn Digital, it will create a “photo-centric cryptocurrency” on the blockchain which it claims will “empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management”.

It is an intriguing idea. Currently, you can download and use thousands of photos off the Internet that have no ownership rights. So the photographers who took those photos do not get compensated.

Kodak’s new system, called the KodakOne blockchain, will create an immutable digital ledger for rights ownership for photographers. They upload their photos to the system, and are given the rights to license them.

So every photo can be tracked and if somebody uses a photo, the photographer gets paid instantly. KodakOne will also trawl the Internet 24/7 to identify any unlicensed use of the images and then, according to its press release, “manage the post-licensing process” in order to reward photographers – although it does not specify how.

This apparently ingenious scheme would cut out middlemen like Getty Images and Shutterstock, through which photographers currently sell their work but end up losing 30 per cent or more in commissions.

But here is the catch: People can’t use normal money to pay for the photographs. They will need to use KodakCoin – a new cryptocurrency that Kodak will launch in an ICO on Jan 31. (In an ICO, or initial coin offering, someone offers investors units of a new cryptocurrency or crypto-token in exchange for a service or product.) And who can buy KodakCoin? Only “accredited investors”, defined as people who have at least US$200,000 in income or a net worth of US$1 million, which excludes most people.

The photographers will also be paid in KodakCoin (although Kodak will, of course, take a commission). They will be able to spend it on other (as yet unknown) items that can be bought by KodakCoin. How they will convert it into real money is not clear.

Here is a classic example of the misuse of the blockchain. It is not the solution to the problem of matching buyers to sellers of photographs. An ICO is not needed to do this. The whole scheme looks suspiciously like Kodak just wanted to jump on the blockchain bandwagon. Its long-beleaguered stock price jumped 44 per cent on the day of its announcement, which means investors bought into the hype, just as they did in the early Internet days.

Blockchain technology holds out promise, but it is far from flawless. It is clunky, geeky and user-unfriendly. Environmentally, it is a disaster. Just one application – bitcoin – consumes more electricity than all of Ireland. Imagine what a thousand applications would do.

Maybe it will evolve to be useful, practical and environmentally friendly. But we are still a long way from witnessing its true benefits. What we are witnessing now is mostly hype

The direction was revealed at the annual national meeting of the post and telecommunications sector, which began yesterday in Vientiane, led by Minister of Post and Telecommunications Dr Thansamay Kommasith.

“The public sector will use emails with our domain system such as dot la (.la) in the coming years,” Dr Thansamay said.

He explained that using the local domain would help identify the source of a particular email and this would result in more efficient communications management.

According to Dr Thansamay, the domain is being used within the ministry, while similar domains for emails have been set up by the ministry as a pilot project in other ministries.

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has also established an electronic document management system which is being used within the ministry.

“The ministry has completed setting up and piloting the use of email and video conferencing for the public sector in supporting the modernisation of public administration or e-government, which is needed in these modern times,” Dr Thansamay said.

Aside from extending the use of the local domain, the ministry has asked Microsoft to consider incorporating the Lao font “Phetsarath” into the Windows operating system and MS Office 365 to enable the automatic use of Lao language online and in accordance with the protocols of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

During the meeting, Dr Thansamay delivered a report highlighting the achievements of the post and telecommunications sector over the past year, including progress in enacting laws and regulations related to the sector, as well as developments in information and communications infrastructure, and personnel.

The passing of the Law on Radio Frequency and Law on Data Protection, which were approved by the National Assembly and announced as promulgated by the President, were major achievements of the sector last year.

Some 91 percent of villages throughout the country have access to a telephone signal, which has allowed more people to access information and communications technology.

The ministry last year completed the extension of the National Internet Centre to connect telecommunication service providers within the country with those in other countries to ensure full international connection.

A cloud computing centre with the capacity to accommodate 1,300 servers was set up last year, with 200 websites using the service.

Laos now has 75,000 kilometres of fibre optic cabling reaching 148 districts in 18 provinces.

There are 4.7 million telephone and mobile phone subscribers and 2.4 million internet accounts across the country, with internet users making up 37.5 percent of the population.

China has made significant strides in port transportation by using self-driving trucks to transport containers at Zhuhai Port in Guangdong province from Tuesday as part of its efforts to realize an unmanned smart port system in the future.

The domestically-made truck looks like a normal one but does not need any drivers. It is used to move containers between the stocking area and the container gantry crane at a standard speed of about 30 kilometres per hour.

Based on artificial intelligence technology developed by Shanghai-based startup Westwell Lab, the 18-metre-long vehicle can automatically navigate, calculate the best route, avoid barriers and deal with an emergency by slowing down, braking or taking a detour.

Tan Limin, CEO of Westwell, said the self-driving truck is “nearly 100 per cent safe”. Guided by the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, sensors and radars, it can reach an accuracy level of within two centimetres.

He said the self-driving technology for port transportation is more difficult than that for passenger vehicles as some roads in the container stocking area are almost the same width as that of a truck. This makes navigation difficult, even for experienced drivers.

Transport advances are necessary at ports as container throughput at China’s ports has risen in recent years, putting immense strain on existing transport resources and drivers, he said.

A medium-sized port with a throughput capacity of 2 million 20 foot equivalent units needs about 200 container trucks and four drivers for each truck. The annual pay for each driver is about 60,000 yuan ($9,372) to 120,000 yuan.

Many cities in China, such as Qingdao in Shandong province and Tianjin, are competing to build smart ports. Traditional automatic ports need to modify many facilities, such as road resurfacing and inserting transponder for vehicle navigation, but Tan believes their smart port solutions are much easier and cheaper to apply.

In addition, he added, driverless trucks are four to five times cheaper than automatic guided vehicles.

Ou Huisheng, chairman of Zhuhai Port Group, estimated that by using dozens of self-driving trucks, it would be able to save labor costs equivalent to hundreds of employees.

He said Zhuhai Port will expand its cooperation with Westwell to build a completely intelligent port in the future.

Despite the launch of the self-driving trucks, a “safety supervisor” is still needed when the vehicle is in operation.

The company already has an established network in Southeast Asia covering six high-growth logistics markets including Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

This new capital will be invested to further improve technology and operational capabilities to help Ninja Van continue its drive to offer hassle-free delivery methods to businesses of all sizes, Lai said.

Ninja Van has achieved strong growth driven by the booming Southeast Asia e-commerce sector and currently manages millions of deliveries a month.

It could now offer an even better service by increasing its staff to more than 1,000 professionals, Lai said.

The company is currently working with established, blue-chip investors such as the Abraaj Group, ACE Capital, B Capital Group, DPDgroup, Monk’s Hill Ventures and YJ Capital.

Ninja Van started operations in Singapore in 2014.

The office will serve as a regional hub for YITU to bring its AI and facial-recognition solutions to customers and partners in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau and Oceania markets, the company said.

It will also serve as a platform for the company to work with private and public organisations in the region that are looking to deploy intelligent solutions for the digital age.

Lin Chenxi, co-founder of YITU, said that it saw immense potential in Singapore as a market for AI development and innovation, and a springboard to introduce its solutions to the region.

Ang Chin Tah, Director of Infocommunications and Media from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), said that YITU’s strong capabilities in AI and computer vision made it a valuable addition to Singapore’s growing AI ecosystem.

YITU would develop new solutions across different domains such as security, finance, healthcare, and transportation, in the process creating “exciting new” jobs in the AI sector, Ang said.

The Singapore office will serve as a sales, marketing and operations centre, with plans to establish a Research and Development (R&D) hub by end 2018

The NATIONAL Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) has set goals to help drive Thailand beyond its current middle-income status through application of science and technology under the agency’s three-year plan (2018 to 2020), which focuses on a bio-economy and digital economy strategy.

Under the focus on bio-economy, the agency has developed the national biological database, nicknamed “Bio-bank”, which collects and digitises bio-information including plant (seed, cell, and tissue cultures), animal, microbe, and human genomes, said Narong Sirilertworakul, president of The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA). Bio-bank was established to support industrial research and biotechnology development.

The bio-bank is set to build the fundamental infrastructure of a bio-economy.

The agency has set its own budgets of Bt1.72 billion to develop the bio-bank over three years – 2018 to 2020.

But bio-bank’s, task goes beyond collecting basic biological information, to using genome-sequencing processes to turn the raw database of biology into value-added biological data in an electronic format.

The Thailand bank already has information on 80,000 strains, including 12,000 species of microbes, 7,000 species of seeds, 1,000 species of rice, and 800 species of herbs.

The NSTDA will work with partners, including local and global research institutes such as Beijing’s Genomics Institute (BGI), as well as some medical schools in Thailand, to develop data for the bio-bank.

“We will use big data analytics and gene editing to improve and to create new seeds, strains, and species to add into the bio-bank,” said Narong. In parallel with this project, NSTDA will also establish the “plant factory” to scale up herb planting to industrial levels under controlled conditions, in order to improve the quality of herbs and to turn herbs into functional ingredients for medical and cosmetic industries.

“With this role, we aim to drive Thailand to become the world supplier for functional ingredients for food and cosmetic industries, included functional food, bio-cosmetics, and bio-pharma,” said Narong.

The combined impact of the bio-bank, gene editing, and the “plant factory”, should help Thailand become a world supplier for the functional-ingredient industry.

Moreover, the agency also works with research partners on research-and-development projects that reflect the local needs. Examples include R&D on health, beauty, and medicine to serve the goal of sustaining a healthy ageing society.

But it doesn’t end there.

National computing centre

The agency also focuses on the digital economy. It is establishing the nation’s High-Performance Computing centre as part of the national infrastructure in order to help researchers, governmental organisations, and businesses to easily perform big-data analysis for any applications.

The agency prepared a budget of Bt130 million for three years, from 2018 to 2020, for setting up and running the national HPC centre.

“The national HPC centre can help the government and stakeholders to do big-data analysis,” said Narong. “For example, it helps to do big-data analysis on closed-circuit television’s (CCTV) information analytics, transportation, and the welfare-card scheme’s poor information,” said Narong.

Apart from the national HPC centre, the agency will also apply research resources to new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors in order assist stakeholders to benefit from using science and technology in bringing about the digital transformation.

Narong added that between the bio-economy and there digital economy lies an abundance of opportunities for new business for the country by utilising the benefits of the bio-bank and the national HPC centre to create new services that help increase the country’s competitive advantages. For example, it can help agriculturists to do precision agriculture.

EECi and Thailand 4.0

The NSTDA agency follows the government’s “Thailand 4.0” policy, which aims to enhance Thailand’s competitive capabilities and develop the country sustainably with benefits from research and development in science, technology and innovation. NSTDA also provides services that promote and leverage science, technology and innovation among private businesses and industries.

Though NSTDA’s role in relation to Thailand 4.0 is to focus on the bio-economy and digital economy, the agency’s main focus is more general – to support science and technology research and development, to transfer research and technology to industry and science, to develop science and technology human resources for the country, and to establish and provide the national science and technology infrastructure including the Thailand Science Park and Innovation Hub in the Eastern Economic Corridor of Innovation (EECi).

The EECi aims to become the “Innovation Ecosystem” of Asean, operating under a concept of industrial growth in Thailand based on the creation of innovation.

The EECi is working to become a new economic area that attracts an abundance of research and innovation. It will be generously equipped with infrastructure and industrial analytical testing services.

The EECi will increase the competitive capacity of Thai industries in global markets while enhancing the quality of life of people living in the area. As an important tool in the government’s “Thailand 4.0” policy, it will focus on addressing the problems facing both industries and communities.

The NSTDA has since 2002 successfully operated the Thailand Science Park – the country’s first fully-integrated research and development hub – in Pathum Thani province north of Bangkok.

More than 80 organisations, companies and research institutes have now set up research units in the Thailand Science Park.

Gareth Pereira, principal of communications, media and technology at ATKearney, a global management consulting firm , said that underinvestment (in Asean region) is aggravating the cybersecurity threat. Cybersecurity risk across the Asean region will continue to increase as the countries are more digitally interconnected.

Currently, companies in Asean face an exposure of US$750 billion from cyberattacks and underinvestment in tackling the threat is aggravating risks across the region.

He also recommended that Asean region need to spend between US$67 to 171 billion over the next 8 years until 2025, to improve its cyber resilience.

The region spends an average of 0.07 per cent of its collective GDP on cybersecurity annually. It is almost half of the countries’ cybersecurity spending or 0.12 per cent of their GDP.

In Thailand, spending in cybersecurity is 0.05 per cent of GDP, slightly above the average investment among Asean countries.

Asean region would need to increase spending to between 0.35 and 0.61 per cent of GDP between 2017 and 2025, to be in line with the best in class benchmark (based on spending levels as percentage of GDP for Israel) at 0.35 per cent of GDP. The research estimates that this translates to US$171 billion in collective spending needed across Asean during the period.

Meanwhile, Thailand’s cybersecurity spending is estimated at US$23.3 billion over the next 8 years, or 0.35 per cent of GDP.

According to Frost & Sullivan, IDC, and Gartner, in 2017, Thailand spent US$212 million in cybersecurity and expected to spend $243 million in 2018. Without urging, it is expected that Thailand’s cybersecurity in 2025 will be US$511 million or 0.07 per cent of its GDP.

Vatsun Thirapatarapong, managing director of Cisco in Thailand and Indochina, said that as digital adoption grows across the region, the cybersecurity threat will increase. To be ready to tackle the issue, countries need to build the next wave of cybersecurity capability including developing the next generation of cybersecurity professionals and strengthening the local cybersecurity industry.

In Thailand, The Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) aims to expand the country’s cybersecurity workforce to 12,000 by 2021.

“At Cisco, we are helping to build a cybersecurity workforce by providing practical security courses through the Cisco Networking Academy,” he said.

According the research report, the cybersecurity threat landscape is evolving rapidly due to the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the shortage of skilled and qualified cybersecurity professionals globally.

The end points in an IoT network often tend to be unsophisticated devices such as household gadgets, making it easier for attackers to hack the network. IoT attacks are already prevalent in Asia.

However, Pereira said that a combination of nascent policy preparedness, absence of a unifying regional governance framework, shortage of skilled talent, underestimation of risk and lack of adequate investment are among the factors that are contributing to the heightened risk.

Therefore, the role of the government is the facilitator to encourage the industries to invest in cybersecurity through the establishment of strategy, legislation, governance and operational entities.

The world’s biggest social network’s comments were the latest response to persistent criticism for its role in allowing the spread of misinformation, reinforcing “filter bubbles” and facilitating harassment of dissidents and activists.

“Now, we’re as determined as ever to fight the negative influences and ensure that our platform is unquestionably a source for democratic good,” said Katie Harbath, Facebook’s head of global politics and government outreach, in a statement.

Facebook civic engagement chief Samidh Chakrabarti said in a blog post the social network was “far too slow to recognize how bad actors were abusing our platform” and that the company is now “working diligently to neutralize these risks.”

The “hard questions” blog post was part of an effort by Facebook to reboot its image after last week’s announcement indicating it would call on its users to “rank” the trustworthiness of sources as part of an effort to stem the flow of false news.

“While I’m an optimist at heart, I’m not blind to the damage that the internet can do to even a well-functioning democracy,” Chakrabati said.

He added that Facebook is constantly working to balance the value of openness and transparency with efforts to stop manipulation.

“Many human rights organizations commonly use Facebook to spread educational messages around the world,” he said. “The wrong kind of transparency could put these activists in real danger in many countries.”

Chakrabarti added that Facebook is also struggling with “hate speech,” and limiting the spread of violent propaganda while remaining an open platform.

“Policing this content at a global scale is an open research problem since it is hard for machines to understand the cultural nuances of political intimidation,” he said.

“And while we are hiring over 10,000 more people this year to work on safety and security, this is likely to remain a challenge.”

In an accompanying guest blog post, Harvard professor Cass Sunstein said one of the difficult questions for social media and democracy is how news feeds are personalized.

“What social media platforms do is to make certain kinds of targeting and certain kinds of self-sorting, and especially self-sorting among hundreds, thousands, or millions of strangers a lot easier — easier than it has ever been,” Sunstein wrote.

“The good news is that social media platforms are hardly a finished fact to be categorically assessed. They are very much a work in progress.”

“Rapid warming after stopping geoengineering would be a huge threat to the natural environment and biodiversity,” said co-author Alan Robock, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Half-a-century’s worth of warming could rebound in a handful of years, dooming many amphibians, mammals, corals and land plants to local or global extinction, according to the findings, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

So-called solar radiation management — still untested — would inject billions of tiny particles into the upper atmosphere to bounce a bit of sunshine back into space, lowering Earth’s surface temperature a notch or two.

Sometimes nature does the same: more than 15 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide thrust into the stratosphere by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the planet by more than half a degree Celsius (one degree Fahrenheit) for about two years.

Advocates of the controversial technology say it could provide a quick and cheap fix for dangerous global warming, which has already begun to wreak havoc.

With an increase of only 1 C (1.8 F) so far compared to pre-industrial times, the world has already seen an upsurge of deadly heatwaves, droughts, and storms amped up by rising seas.

The 197-nation Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, enjoins the world to cap global warming at “well under” 2 C, and even 1.5 C if possible.

But efforts to achieve these goals by reducing greenhouse gas emissions have stalled, leading scientists and policy makers to seriously consider engineered solutions seen only a decade ago as far-fetched.

For the study, led by University of Maryland professor Christopher Trisos, scientists tested solar geoengineering scenarios in computer models.

They assumed that planes will spray five million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year into the stratosphere at the equator over a period of 50 years, from 2020 to 2070.

‘Termination shock’

Humanity, meanwhile, continues to curb carbon pollution, but not quickly enough to cap global warming on its own.

The models show Earth’s average surface temperature dropping by about 1 C, effectively erasing the increase since the mid-19th century.

But how will wildlife cope, the scientists asked, if Sun-dimming were to stop abruptly, leading to a temperature increase ten times faster than if geoengineering had not been deployed?

The researchers calculated how quickly animals and plants would have to move to stay within a hospitable climate.

Many creatures, they found, would be unable to migrate quickly enough, especially amphibians and land mammals. Plants have even less capacity to migrate.

It gets worse: In many cases, wildlife would have to go in one direction to find a liveable temperature but a different one to find the right amount of rainfall.

Harvard professor David Keith, author of “A Case for Climate Engineering,” did not challenge the potential dangers for biodiversity, but told AFP he could not imagine the world’s nations abruptly halting solar radiation management — a scenario sometimes called “termination shock”.

“A decision to suddenly terminate would have to be near unanimous,” he told AFP. Any country who decided doing so was against its interest “could continue geoengineering unilaterally.”

Solar engineering unproven

All this speculation assumes that solar engineering is feasible, which has yet to be proven.

“If solar radiation management is unworkable, we need to know now,” commented Ben Kravitz, a climate scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington and an expert on geoengineering.

“What terrifies me is that people are gong to start relying on it, and then we find out later that it is not going to work and we are already locked in,” he told AFP by email.

But that doesn’t mean solar geoengineering should be taken off the table, he other scientists caution.

Even the study authors agreed. “Given current emissions trajectories, it would be irresponsible not to study the potential benefits and costs of proposed climate engineering,” they wrote.

Keith and Harvard colleague Frank Keutsch plan to conduct preliminary atmospheric tests in the Arizona desert this fall, but any conclusions are years away, they said.

“It will be really hard to hit 1.5 C or 2 C without solar radiation, management,” said Kravitz. “Not impossible, but very hard.”

The cryptocurrency hype in Thailand has stepped up following an announcement from listed Thai firm Jaymart’s J Venture subsidiary, of the country’s first ICO to raise Bt660 million from the public. The firm said last week it will issue 100 million JFin digital tokens for sale from March 1-31. The funds will be used to develop a digital lending platform using blockchain technology.

Charl Kengchon, managing director, Kasikorn Research Centre (KResearch), said there are three major kinds of cryptocurrency, but most people pay attention to decentralised cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, which are the most popular.

According to Charl, cryptocurrencies are regarded as an innovation for mobilising public funds but companies preparing ICOs need to provide the public with the most comprehensive and reliable data similar to those raising funds via IPOs, which are common among stock investors.

While cryptocurrencies are innovative for fund mobilisation, he said, there are still debates around the world on a suitable regulatory framework, since it is not yet conclusive whether these units are assets that should be regulated by agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is not illegal for companies to announce ICOs, he said, but investors need to know that there are no rules and regulations on ICOs yet.

If cryptocurrencies are going to be used as a medium of exchange as some people have tried to do with bitcoin and other digital tokens, these units need to be convenient, have a low cost and, most importantly, have price stability.

However, decentralised cryptocurrencies do not have price stability, as evidenced by the high volatility of bitcoin, he said, adding that another type of cryptounits are those issued by banks and financial institutions which have clear objectives on their use. The third type of cryptocurrencies are those issued by central banks to increase efficiency in financial transactions and serve as digital wallets for consumers.

While cryptocurrencies provide an innovative approach for fund mobilisation, he said, there are still debates raging around the world about developing a suitable regulatory framework since it is not yet conclusive whether these units should be considered assets that should be regulated by agencies such as Securities and Exchange Commission. For companies announcing ICOs, he said, it is not illegal to do so but there are no rules and regulations on ICOs yet.

In his opinion, there is no clear fundamental value inherent in decentralised cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and similar digital tokens from an economic perspective, but the underlying blockchain technology is valuable to the economy.

He said the blockchain technology increases security of financial transactions while its cost is very low and blockchains can be applied in many kinds of financial activities such as payments and fund transfers.

Bitcoin and other decentralised cryptocurrencies are the best known and most traded internationally with no central governing authority and wildly fluctuating prices. Owners of these units are also anonymous and so they are often used for money-laundering and other illegal activities.