Tag: Blockchains

Initial Exchange Offerings Restore Agility to Blockchain’s Original Fundraising Model

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One of the most groundbreaking concepts to emerge from blockchain over its short lifespan has been the initial coin offering, or ICO. In this article, the author will discuss an emerging trend called “Initial Exchange Offerings” or IEOs. Reading about blockchain or cryptocurrency in any newspaper will allude to this unique type of public offering, which draws parallels with its cousin the IPO. An ICO is when a company issues blockchain tokens that it will then sell in exchange for common cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, which are more fungible.…

Ecosystem to Support DApps From All Blockchains

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Free products and services on the internet are a hit with the public, but a new blockchain-based ecosystem believes that most consumers are unaware of the risks of using such companies for distributing their content.   The team behind Phantasma Chain says they were motivated to act after watching the world freely share their data and content on third-party platforms, even though they run the risk of losing full control over this valuable information. Following the mantra of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” the company argues that…

Parity Launches Beta Version of Tool Stack for Building Blockchains

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United Kingdom-based blockchain infrastructure provider Parity has launched a beta version of Substrate, its tool for creating customized blockchains, according to a press release published Tuesday, Dec. 18. The release states that Substrate is designed to provide “maximum technical freedom” while creating blockchains. It supports multiple programming languages, users can make their own consensus mechanisms, and it is compatible with most existing consensus algorithms. Parity is also going to add more consensus mechanisms in subsequent releases, making them hot-swappable and allowing users to switch between different mechanisms without a hard…

Tensions Emerge Between Hyperledger Blockchain’s Biggest Supporters

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When the governing board of Hyperledger approved a new supply chain project earlier this month, it marked a significant departure for the open-source blockchain consortium. Sawtooth Supply Chain, as the project is provisionally called, breaks new ground because it’s arguably the consortium’s first to really inhabit the application layer of the software stack. It’s built on top of the Sawtooth framework, which Intel contributed to Hyperledger. Prior to this, Hyperledger confined its work to the lower layers and eschewed the custom-design of blockchain application code with industry players in mind. That…

Proof-of-Stake, Sharding to Make Blockchains ‘1,000x’ More Efficient

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Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared that future blockchains with sharding based on proof-of-stake (PoS) will be “thousands of times more efficient,” in a lengthy Twitter thread Dec. 10. In the long series of tweets, Buterin addressed non-financial applications of blockchain technology. He stated that as scalability advances (driving fees down), and User Experience (UX) gets better, non-financial applications will become “a bigger part of the story.” He further noted that blockchains are not about “cutting computational costs,” but instead increase computation cost while decreasing “social costs.” Buternin stated that…

Satoshi Makes a New Friend, Buterin Gets Negative Over Centralized Blockchains

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Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Nasdaq Notes Bitcoin Futures Could Launch in Quarter 1 2019, Bloomberg Reports Major U.S. stock exchange Nasdaq still intends to launch Bitcoin futures, and may do so in the first quarter of 2019, according to “two people familiar with the matter.” Speaking to…

Has a Platform Offering 40m TPS Found the Key to Blockchain’s Mainstream Adoption?

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A blockchain/DAG hybrid platform has unveiled bold plans to entice businesses to use its technology – and says its “unprecedented speed, scalability and security” has the potential to benefit enterprises that handle a high frequency of transactions. BEXAM initially intended to serve the cryptocurrency market as a hybrid exchange which used a unique algorithm to deliver the best features of centralized and decentralized platforms alike. However, the startup has decided to refocus its proposition after receiving glowing feedback about its technology – moving away from the congested exchanges sector to capitalize…

Private Blockchains Could Be Compatible with EU Privacy Rules, Research Shows

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Private blockchains, such as interbanking platforms set to share information on customers,  could be compatible with new E.U. privacy rules, according to research published Nov. 6. The study was conducted by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Cambridge, U.K. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) act, a recent legislation that regulates the storage of personal data for all individuals within the European Union, came into effect this May. According to the law, all data controllers have to respect citizens’ rights in terms of keeping and transferring their…

Why Blockchains Struggle to Gain Traction in Enterprises

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Paul Brody is EY’s global innovation leader for blockchain. The views expressed are his own. The Y2K program (does anyone remember that?) came about because software developers assumed, in the early days of computing, that newer, better enterprise systems would come along very soon and that their efficient two-digit date systems would be replaced long before the year 2000 came along. There were very few CIOs in those days, and many of them would have carefully explained to those efficient software developers that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it,…

New Protocol to Enable Transfers between Bitcoin and Ethereum Blockchains

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A new protocol is allowing users to complete cross-chain transactions – meaning value can be transferred between different blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The open-source technology is known as the Open Federated Gateway Protocol, or OFGP for short. It has been developed by iBitcome and DEx.top, and the first federated blockchain to be built using this protocol is launching on Wednesday, Oct. 24. Known as Mallow, it is accompanied by a block explorer which enables users to examine the flow of assets and check up on transactions whenever they…