Blockchain & Digital Assets

May 22, 2020 @ 4:00 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Æternity, a public, open-source blockchain protocol that enables a platform for next-generation decentralized applications and high scalability, announced on Thursday the launch of Superhero, a peer-to-peer social sharing project for tips, patronage, and sponsoring. The platform was notably development on the Æternity blockchain. According to… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 1:30 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Connie Gallippi, founder and Executive Director at BitGive, recently shared her views and insights with Crowdfund Insider. BitGive is a non-profit organization that aims to bridge the gap between practical philanthropic solutions for nonprofit and humanitarian work globally made possible through emerging blockchain technology. Established… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 12:32 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The cryptocurrency market continues to recover from its mid-March 2020 lows and at the end of last month, Bitcoin (BTC) was up 22% for the year. As reported by Blockchain.com, a block explorer and crypto wallet service provider, Bitcoin has outperformed other major assets that… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 11:37 am By JD Alois  |  

Young, an Italian crypto-exchange startup that raised seed funding on Seedrs last fall, has raised additional capital at a valuation of €10 million. When Young raised funding on Seedrs the pre-money valuation was pegged at €8.5 million. The company ended up raising €787,480. Details on… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 10:43 am By Omar Faridi  |  

New York-based tech giant IBM (NYSE:IBM) has acquired a 7% stake in we.trade, a blockchain-enabled trade finance platform that’s owned by 12 major banking institutions. Launched by nine banks back in January 2017 under the name, Digital Trade Chain, the platform was renamed as we.trade… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 7:57 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Singapore-headquartered CapBridge Financial has acquired equity investments from SGInnovate, a private organization wholly-owned by the Singapore government. SGInnovate aims to help scientists establish “Deep Tech” startups. CapBridge has also received investments from the Cyberport Macro Fund, which offers seed to Series A stage funding to… Read More

May 22, 2020 @ 12:34 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group (DCG), has published a report which argues that legacy banking infrastructure has made it difficult to distribute stimulus money, following the COVID-19 outbreak. The report states: “Central bank digital currencies [CBDCs] have the potential to streamline… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 11:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

Security token issuance platform Tokensoft has issued $4 million of its own equity to investors via blockchain. The security token represents a Series Seed funding round that took place some time ago in July of 2018. At that time, investors Base10, e.ventures, as well as… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 11:00 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, a global markets company and the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange with over $75 billion in assets, has reported a considerable increase in its Bitcoin (BTC) options contract volume during the past week. An options contract is an agreement… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 10:33 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

IOHK (Input/Output Hong Kong), a research and development (R&D) firm focused on bringing innovation via blockchain and cryptocurrencies, has confirmed that it will be joining the Hyperledger initiative and W3C. Hyperledger is an open-source project focused on blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) development. It… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 5:51 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Argentina-based Fintech firm Koibanx has maintained operations in the Latin American region, well before the COVID-19 outbreak led to major changes in the daily lives of the area’s residents. Despite the economic challenges associated with expanding a business during these difficult times, Koibanx is planning… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 12:45 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Klaytn, a blockchain project led by the South Korean Internet platform Kakao, announced on Wednesday it has formed a new partnership with Chainlink, a decentralized open-source oracle network that gives smart contracts secure and reliable access to data providers, web APIs, IoT devices, and payment… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 9:16 am By JD Alois  |  

Société Générale, a top French bank, has completed the first central bank digital currency (CBDC) transaction. According to a statement by Societe Generale SFH, a subsidiary of Société Générale, the company has issued 40 million euros in covered bonds in the form of “security tokens”… Read More

May 21, 2020 @ 8:22 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Brian Armstrong, CEO at San Francisco-based crypto exchange Coinbase, noted on May 20, 2020 that the firm would be moving to a remote-first policy, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This means that most Coinbase employees will be able to work remotely from home. Armstrong confirmed… Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 11:33 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

  South Korea’s Fintech sandbox program has reportedly acquired $111 million in funding. The initiative is expected to create 380 new jobs, locally. South Korean officials confirmed that the financial technology regulatory sandbox had secured KRW 136.4 billion in capital, and that they’re expecting the… Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 10:57 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Leading Chinese digital bank, WeBank, has teamed up with OpenNodes, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform developed by the Singapore-based Infocomm Media Development Authority, a statutory board of the nation’s government, under the Ministry of Communications and Information. WeBank will provide the FISCO BCOS blockchain-enabled… Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 9:12 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)-listed Fintech firm Identitii (ASX:ID8) claims that the strength of its network, which includes global banking clients, has been one of its main competitive advantages. Identitii works with major banking institutions including HSBC. They’re both developing the Overlay+ platform, which is a… Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 10:44 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lending and borrowing platform, announced on Wednesday it is offering borrowers USD and stablecoin loans against their cryptocurrency assets at just 1% APR as part of its COVID-19 relief efforts. The platform also revealed that it has surpassed 100,000 active users…. Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 9:16 am By Omar Faridi  |  

The developers of AVA, a platform that aims to democratize capital markets while bridging or connecting all distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms together into a single interoperable ecosystem, have awarded the first class of grants through their project accelerator program, AVA-X. As noted in a… Read More

May 20, 2020 @ 7:48 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Payments company Square‘s (NYSE:SQ) Cash App now lets users schedule automatic Bitcoin (BTC) purchases at specific times, which includes daily, weekly, or bi-weekly options. Cash App’s new feature is called “Auto Invest,” and seems to be based on the concept of dollar-cost averaging, which involves… Read More