Take the cream off the profits: the block chain will fight ticket fraud

If you ever have a chance to go to the Summer Olympics … GO!

I went to 2008. It was a fantastic experience at the Beijing Olympics. Warning: Tickets to the most popular areas – such as women’s gymnastics, figure skating or Michael Phelps swimming distances – were insanely expensive. It’s about tickets that cost more than $ 1,000.

If you are a long-time reader of my newsletters, you know that I am too frugal to spend a thousand dollars on any ticket. But I went to see several preliminary rounds, which often cost less than $ 100.

I had a great time, with one exception … I accidentally bought a few fake tickets!

That mistake cost me less than $ 300. But I was very angry at the guy who sold me these fake tickets. And I was quite angry with myself for being so confident.

The biggest problem with tickets to every event is that the organizers still use paper tickets … and the average fan who buys tickets from resellers has no way to tell the difference between a real and a fake ticket.

The counterfeit ticket industry is actually quite large. According to AARP, consumers buy 5 million tickets each year – including tickets that do not exist or that the seller never sends to the customer after payment – for sports competitions, concerts, amusement parks and more.

And these people are not tight with their money when it comes to an event they really want to go to. Unknowingly, consumers spend about $ 2.3 billion on counterfeit tickets – and that amount is rising every year. And this data only reflects cases where fraud is reported!

And the more popular the events – such as the Super Bowl, the Rolling Stones concerts, the “Hamilton” on Broadway and yes, the Olympics – the more fake tickets will be on the market.

The new company, Bandwagon, is working with sports teams, concert organizers, musicians, festivals and other ticketing companies to put an end to fake tickets and force scammers to give up their dirty business.

Bandwagon – based in Greenville, South Carolina – collects tickets from event organizers. It then links these tickets to a block-chain authentication operation, which makes them tamper-proof.

Harw Hughes, the founder of Bandwagon, explains:

“We believe that the blockchain is the right technology to solve these problems, as it allows shareholders to work together on a model that connects tickets and fans. “

“The buying process will not change for fans, nor will it be for ticket markets, but event organizers will get a much better picture while pushing out counterfeit tickets out of the market.”

I think Bandwagon has started something important, but you can’t buy their shares directly. But you still have the opportunity to easily invest in their important work.

This is because Bandwagon is one of 10 companies to join IBM’s Blockchain Accelerator program.

The 108-year-old IBM Corp. (IBM) has a reputation as an old, boring, unfavorable computer hardware company. Let other investors believe it.

What you should know is that while the focus was elsewhere, IBM began to become one of the most cutting-edge blockchain innovators in the world.

Alibaba and IBM receive the most blockchain patents – 90 and 89, respectively. The top 5 also includes Mastercard (80), Bank of America (53) and People’s Bank of China (44)

IBM has been quietly working on blockchain projects for the past five years and has become a global leader in the development of blockchain technology.

Fact: 2018. IBM received almost the most blockchain patents in the world in. It was transmitted only by the Chinese internet giant Alibaba.

IBM has a small army of 1,500 working on blockchain projects. There are more than 500 blockchain projects in progress.

Whatever the future holds for the blockchain, I’m sure IBM will take the lion’s share of those profits.

To be completely honest, I must read that the readers of my Weiss Crypto Investor newsletter are IBM’s happy shareholders. But that doesn’t mean you have to rush to buy IBM shares tomorrow morning.

As always, timing is paramount, so I encourage you to consider the risk-free trial period of our Weiss Crypto Investor newsletter. I believe you will be very pleased with the results.

Best wishes,

Tony

Article – Weiss Ratings

Translation: Lucreds Plus OÜ