Day: September 14, 2018

Back Over $200 Billion: 3 Reasons Crypto Prices Could Be Heading Higher

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The cryptocurrency market has been making history for all the wrong reasons as of late, most notably by recently surpassing the plunge of the infamous Dot-Com bubble in the early 2000’s. With that said, cryptocurrencies tend to make recoveries when all hope is seemingly lost, and today’s price action of the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, ether and many others is no exception. At press time, several of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are reporting 24-hour gains above 10 percent, including monero (XMR), litecoin (LTC), and EOS. Ether (ETH)…

Local Officials in Ohio Seek Proposals for Blockchain Identity Trial

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The city of Dublin, Ohio, has been quietly pursuing a blockchain experiment focused on personal identity. Dublin, a suburb of Ohio’s state capital, Columbus, revealed its work through a request for proposal (RFP) document published last month. With the trial, Dublin becomes the latest municipal government to explore possible public-sector applications of the technology. The city announced its intention to test blockchain by developing a database that allows local officials to create a secure, private system which will collect and store personal information and preferences, as well as create an internal “token of…

Indian Central Bank Argues Cryptos ‘Not Valid’ as Currency in Court Battle

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The Reserve Bank of India argued Wednesday that bitcoin cannot be recognized in the country before the nation’s Supreme Court. In a case that has been brought by a number of exchanges against the Indian central bank for blocking their access to banking services five months ago, the RBI stated in an affidavit that current legislation means that cryptos cannot be considered either currency or money. The RBI stated: “It is submitted that crypto-currencies fall short of being true currencies. It is further submitted that RBI does not consider virtual…

Ethereum’s Vlad Zamfir Claims Breakthrough In Blockchain Sharding

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Ethereum might just be one step closer to sharding its blockchain. At least that’s according to long-time blockchain researcher Vlad Zamfir, who claims to have coded up a successful proof-of-concept of the idea at the ethereum hackathon EthBerlin this week. Built with the help of several other developers, including Tim Beiko, Steve Marx, and pseudonymous coder “maurelian,” the code is said to demonstrate how different ethereum shards may be able to someday communicate on the blockchain. Stepping back, sharding is an experimental scaling solution touted as a way to alleviate the…

SBI to Roll Out Ripple DLT-Based Payments App on iOS, Android

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Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings is soon to launch a payments application for iOS and Android devices powered by Ripple’s distributed ledger technology. Takashi Okita, chief executive of SBI Ripple Asia – a joint venture between SBI Holdings and the San Francisco-based Ripple – revealed the website of the application, named MoneyTap, on Wednesday. While an exact launch date remains unclear at this stage, the site indicates the application is planned to be available in autumn for both operating systems and used for customers of three domestic banks in Japan.…

R3’s CordaCon Event Sees Big News, Packed Talks and Blockchain Converts

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If R3 really is struggling, as rumored in recent months, you wouldn’t know it from the crowd at CordaCon 2018. The annual London gathering hosted by R3 to celebrate everything happening on the Corda platform and its developer community, appeared to be in rude health this year with standing room only in many of the presentations. The event saw some 1,150 registrations over the two days – exponential growth from last year, noted R3 CEO David Rutter, adding: “At this rate I should be addressing you from a packed O2…

IBM, Hacera Create Distributed ‘Yellow Pages’ for Blockchain Networks

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IBM has teamed up with enterprise blockchain firm Hacera to launch a yellow pages-like directory aimed to make it easier for interested companies to participate in blockchain projects across the globe. Jerry Cuomo, vice president at IBM Blockchain, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the directory – called Unbounded Registry – is now up and running, and aggregates a list of decentralized platforms built on various blockchain networks. The goal, as explained by Cuomo, is to have an information hub that can inform companies who are looking to adopt…

Bitcoin Will Rebound, But Altcoins are ‘Never Coming Back’: BitPay Exec.

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A top executive at one of the oldest and largest cryptocurrency payment processors said that he firmly expects bitcoin to rebound within the next year but that altcoin prices may never again see their early-2018 peaks. Sonny Singh, chief commercial officer at BitPay, said during an interview with Bloomberg that his firm has “never been more bullish” on cryptocurrency, noting that adoption and infrastructure development is moving “full speed ahead” even as the market has shed approximately 80 percent of its value from its January peak. However, he notes that…

Medici Ventures’ Latest Blockchain Investment Bridges Fiat With Crypto

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Medici Ventures, Overstock’s blockchain technology company, has invested an undisclosed sum in a Utah based company called Bitsy that specializes in bridging cryptocurrencies with fiat. The investment marks one of several that Medici Ventures has made in recent years as its parent company, under the leadership of CEO Patrick Byrne, continues to tout blockchain technology’s long-term prospects. Medici Ventures believes Bitsy’s ability to bridge cryptocurrency and fiat will make global cryptocurrency transactions more secure and support other blockchain businesses the company has invested in, such as tZERO, Bitt, Ripio. “Bitsy…

Wall Street’s EF Hutton Wants to Raise $60 Mln Issuing Crypto ‘Instruments, Coins, Tokens’

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U.S. stock brokerage firm EF Hutton plans to issue $60 million in various cryptocurrency instruments from January 2019, Bloomberg reported September 13. The latest in a series of crypto-related announcements this month, the company’s parent organization HUTN said it would begin offering “multiple instruments, coins and tokens” which would “generate proceeds of at least $60 million.” The move comes the same week as EF Hutton confirmed it was the major sponsor of a new U.S. cryptocurrency exchange known as ACEx, which also plans to start operating next January along with…