1. Team 8: Andres Florez, Paul Lee, Junaedy Liem, Lyanna Lim

2. Use Case: Land Records
Developing countries face problems documenting land ownership:
Land title records are not documented (90% of rural land in Africa unregistered 1)
Land title records are not digitized
Digitizing records has led to scandals and corruption:
Records are changed
Central databases are hacked (ex: Honduras2)
Factom can create an immutable record for land to track change in ownership, loans made against the land and contract rights3
Source: (1)
(2)
(3)

3. What is Factom Inc.? Founded
Austin, Texas-based for-profit building programs that utilize the Factom Blockchain
Factom Blockchain is an open source project managed by non-profit Factom Foundation in UK
Started in 2014, first version released in April 2015
What it does?
Solves real-world business problems by providing an unalterable record keeping system and preventing information from being modified, deleted or backdated
Creates business applications built on top of the Bitcoin ledger using the Factom Blockchain in exchange for Factoids (FTC)
Partners
Technology: Microsoft’s Azure
Government: Honduras Government, Department of Homeland Security
Healthcare: HealthNautica
These days, data security is a HUGE issue among governments, banks, car companies, credit card companies, retailers and any organizations concerned about hacking.
The Factom protocol allows for the open coordination of processes against immutable ledgers of data
Partners:
- Microsoft added Factom as a partner to its blockchain platform. To date, Microsoft remains the largest company to offer bitcoin as a payment to consumers
- Honduras Government (land title registry)
- Get grantof $199K from DHS to to facilitate development of digital security for IoT devices. Factom will leverage the blockchain technology to authenticate devices. Authetication will prevent unauthorized access by device spoofing and ensuring the integrity of data.
- Partner with HealthNautica to secure medical records and audit trails using the blockchain. By using Factom’s immutable ledger to verify and time-stamp medical records and claims for HealthNautica’s clients, including hopsitals and physicians, both parties hope to achieve efficiency in claims processing as well as ensure data within the medical records remains unchanged (
Funding
$5.74M in 4 rounds
Investors: Billionaire investor Tim Draper, BnkToTheFuture, and China-based Fenbushi Corporation etc
Most recent funding: $4.2M Series A in October 2016

4. How does Factom work?
Application owner purchases Entry Credits (EC) with Factoids (FTC)
Application records an Entry
Factom servers create Entry Blocks and Directory Blocks
Factom secures an anchor (hash of Directory Block) onto Bitcoin Blockchain
Tackles 3 Key Bitcoin Concerns
Speed: Directory blocks are closed every minute vs. 10min Bitcoin blocks.
Cost: FTC to mitigate BTC cost & volatility
Bloat: Bitcoin blockchain size limit of 1MB/block. Use of Factcom blockchain escapes politics of block size limits.

5. Monetization & Current Projects
Monetization is driven by high demand in storage, auditing, and verification services.
Land Administration: Currently 75% of the world has insecure title to their land.
Beyond just currency or digital tokens, this allows for storage of such critical information as title records, legal records, medical records, etc.
Mortgages: Better record keeping (tracking payment movements), information sharing (Dodd-Frank), cost savings (22% of fees per loan.
Current Projects
Create immutable database within 20 smart cities in China (2016)  Securitize and streamline data + massive cost savings.
Create tamper proof and unalterable ledger of land title records in Honduras (2015)  Decrease in conflicts over property rights and validation of land title registry