June 6, 2018 @ 11:16 am By Cali Haan  |  

ZenCash, a privacy coin and fork of ZClassic, which is itself a fork of ZCash, a privacy coin once recommended by Edward Snowdon, has been hacked. For four hours starting around 10:30 pm Sunday, June 3rd, a hacker gained majority control over the relatively small… Read More

June 5, 2018 @ 10:31 pm By Cali Haan  |  

According to China News Weekly, Xiao Wei, Chief Blockchain Scientist at Baidu, China’s Internet search giant, announced this weekend at a conference that Baidu has developed a high-performance “super chain” blockchain and will soon be, “completing a blockchain transformation of its own business.” The news follows… Read More

June 5, 2018 @ 11:28 am By Cali Haan  |  

On May 31st, Pavel Durov, CEO of private messaging app Telegram broadcast on Telegram that Apple was cooperating with a Russian government ban on the app and refusing to allow Telegram users across the globe to upload important updates at iTunes. “Apple has been preventing… Read More

June 5, 2018 @ 8:41 am By Cali Haan  |  

Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed rumours it is acquiring GitHub, a largely-free software-collaboration platform considered the most popular “version control system” in the world. Microsoft reports that it paid $7.5 billion dollars of its own stock for the acquisition. Today Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5B by issuing… Read More

June 3, 2018 @ 2:14 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Blockchain company, one of the few startups to survive Bitcoin’s early days while maintaining its founding ethics, saw downloads of its mobile and desktop wallet surpass the 25 million mark this week. The Blockchain wallet app now boasts more users than TD Ameritrade (11… Read More

June 2, 2018 @ 11:17 am By Cali Haan  |  

In a recent conversation with Brazilian nationals, including a bank manager and an accountant, I was told that Bitcoin is “not popular” in Brazil. That may be about to change. Brazilian site Portal do Bitcoin have reported that representatives from the third largest cryptocurrency exchange… Read More

May 31, 2018 @ 11:15 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Earlier this month we reported that Venezuela tired to increase demand for its new and controversial state cryptocurrency, El Petro, by offering India a 30% discount on oil purchased with the currency. Venezuelan officials reportedly travelled to several potentially sympathetic countries earlier this year trying… Read More

May 31, 2018 @ 2:56 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Venezuelan customs officials have been blocking imports of cryptocurrency mining equipment arriving in the country by land and by sea since April, Noticiero Digital and El Interes reports. GPU and ASIC rigs, related cards and processors, power packs and even mobile phones are reportedly being swept… Read More

May 31, 2018 @ 7:54 am By Cali Haan  |  

Coindesk is reporting that Baidu Baike, China’s Wikipedia-style site, is now tracking revisions made to articles on a blockchain. According to Coindesk reporter Wolfie Zhao, Baidu has not yet publicly announced blockchain developments at Baidu Baike, although they did confirm with Zhao over WeChat that… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 8:46 pm By Cali Haan  |  

  Cryptocurrency trading in economically beleaguered Zimbabwe has failed to resume despite a high court ruling striking down a ban imposed by the central bank on financial institutions prohibiting them from servicing cryptocurrency exchanges, CCN reports. CCN reported on May 24th that the Harare High… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 4:30 pm By Cali Haan  |  

In yet another blockchain news item emanating from China this week, multiple reports are sharing that China’s potential “president for life,” Xi Jinping, recently named blockchain as one of a triumvirate of new technologies (including IoT and AI) that will drive, “a new industrial revolution.”… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 9:38 am By Cali Haan  |  

A patent application released May 24th by the US Patent and Trademark Office shows that  Intel has been seeking for some time time to improve on inefficiencies in blockchains. Intel is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors, the processors that order signal communications inside electronic… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 7:29 am By Cali Haan  |  

Chinese tech behemoth TenCent is cooperating with tax authorities in the Shenzhen province to develop a blockchain-based and Big Dat-fed “intelligent tax” system.   Tencent last year joined Facebook, Google and Amazon as one of handful of companies on the globe to pass the $500 billion… Read More

May 29, 2018 @ 12:41 pm By Cali Haan  |  

In many parts of the Philippines, you’re more likely to encounter a remittance house like Western Union than a bank branch. Cash arrives from abroad, but the access to business loans and mortgages needed to build a self-sustaining economic base are hard to come by…. Read More

May 29, 2018 @ 9:22 am By Cali Haan  |  

Russian business news agency Prime has reported that the First Deputy Governor of the Russian Central Bank, Olga Skorobogatova, has stated publicly that blockchain technology is still too immature to be rolled out on an industrial scale. “In the world there is still no big… Read More

May 29, 2018 @ 7:24 am By Cali Haan  |  

At a recent cryptocurrency conference in Toronto, Dmitry Buterin, father of Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin and himself a technologist and programmer, floated the idea of an AI judge making better decisions than a human judge hungry for lunch. Judges, said Buterin, are known for issuing… Read More

May 28, 2018 @ 7:23 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The crypto press is reporting on several recent initiatives in China to advance the state of it’s blockchain sector and capitalize on efficiencies to government and business operations the new tech may allow. Coindesk reported on May 25th that the Xiong’An (or “Grand Shores”) fund… Read More

May 28, 2018 @ 8:38 am By Cali Haan  |  

South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and the fifth largest exchange in the world has announced it will cut off new and existing users trading from 11 countries identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as lax on money laundering and terrorist financing. Effective May… Read More

May 27, 2018 @ 6:00 pm By Cali Haan  |  

In April, a policy advisor in Fintech working at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco took a stab at establishing the value of a Bitcoin. His conclusion?  Bitcoin is overpriced, informed investors are likely taking profits now and we may be about to enter… Read More

May 26, 2018 @ 3:26 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Senior Vice President in charge of Platforms & Blockchain at IBM, Bridget van Kralingen, gave an inspiring talk in mid-May at the giant Consensus cryptocurrency and blockchain conference in New York. She said she’d long held a dream making micro-finance more available in the… Read More