Blockchain has been becoming increasingly utilized across a range of industries; speculators believe 2017 could be blockchain's biggest year ever with a number of factors supporting the technology; bitcoin's price has been increasing, reaching a three-year high in January; market participants have been strengthening led by the Hyperledger Project; investment has also been increasing, specifically investment in patented blockchain technology. Source
A new report by the World Economic Forum shows that more than 40 central banks have begun some sort of...
Just when you thought you had got a handle on blockchain, it turns out not all are equal. Modular could solve scalability and more.
Alex Tapscott has raised $20 million for NextBlock Global, an investment firm investing in projects selling cryptographic tokens; he now has plans to list the company on the Toronto Stock Exchange; Tapscott is also the co-author of "Blockchain Revolution," which he wrote with his father, Don Tapscott, last year; with the IPO listing of NextBlock Global he hopes to further accelerate adoption of ICOs and blockchain. Source
CoinDesk reports that an internal memo at JPMorgan Chase states that blockchain lead Amber Baldet is moving on from the bank to start her own firm; Christina Moy, senior product manager of Quorum, will take over Amber’s position; JPMorgan spokeswoman said in a statement, "Amber is extremely talented and helped build the outstanding team we have today. We respect her desire to start her own venture and we wish her nothing but the best." Source.
2018 has not been kind to the digital currency as it is down 50 percent against the dollar and the first quarter is the second worst on record; regulation, a clampdown in Asia hurting volume and the big price run up in late 2017 have all hurt Bitcoin; the prevailing thought about making fast cash has gone away as the price has dropped; the price today stand just below $7,000, down from a high of $20,000. Source.
Silicon Valley startup accelerator 500 Startups partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Huobi to incubate blockchain projects; Edith Yeung, a partner at 500 Startups, said to CoinDesk, in partnering with Huobi Labs, "Our teams will learn so much especially around the ins and outs of how a digital exchange works."; the companies will help startups to develop business plans, create and refine marketing strategies, fundraise and develop white papers. Source.
Business Insider takes a look at the worldwide regulations surrounding the emerging Cryptocurrency market; in addition to cryptocurrencies they also take a deeper look at the regulatory structure beginning to be built around blockchain technology; regions covered include the US, Europe, China and more. Source.
Blockchain technology firm AlphaPoint has partnered with Scotiabank for a successful proof of blockchain technology; the test showed significant advantages for use of blockchain with FIXML trading communication; leading features of AlphaPoint's blockchain solution for financial trading include easily integrated communication with legacy systems and throughput of thousands of events per second with sub-second confirmation times. Source
Speaking at EthCC, an Ethereum conference in Paris, JPMorgan’s Amber Baldet talked about the concerns of private and public blockchain builders; “These problems really aren't so far apart, it's just that people are trying to solve the problems in different ways,” says Baldet as reported by CoinDesk; she doesn’t think public and private blockchain need to be so different, what everyone wants is the ability to interoperate; CoinDesk went on to interview Amber about building connectivity, feedback loops and more. Source.