News

Blockchains are slow and bottlenecked by limited scalability. Meanwhile, decentralized databases maintain many of the benefits of a blockchain while potentially addressing scalability. Are these systems a viable alternative? Blockchains have become more and more mainstream in the enterprise environment. Walmart is testing supply chain solutions to track lettuce, Spotify acquired Mediachain to test content […]

Eleven Indian banks have joined an initiative that may change the way small businesses obtain loans, via blockchain. The blockchain-linked loan system will focus on small and medium enterprises and aims to remove communication barriers between India’s largest banking providers. Blockchain-Linked Funding Aimed for SMEs A consortium of India’s eleven largest banks launched the first […]

The Washington State Senate introduced a bill that would—through amending existing legislation—encourage the development of distributed ledger and blockchain technology. The bill appears to codify blockchain-enabled digital signatures and licenses and provide the legal recognition necessary to enforce these standards. On Jan. 25th, the Washington State Senate introduced SB 5638, an act “relating to the […]

LocalBitcoins detected a security breach that allowed “unauthorized sources” to access and send transactions from a number of affected accounts. So far, there have been six confirmed cases of the breach. The company identified the source of the problem as a “feature powered by third-party software.” In the latest crypto hack, peer-to-peer trading service LocalBitcoins […]

To better understand who invests in crypto and ICOs, why they do it, and how exactly they make trades, in late 2017—at the peak of the crypto mania—I set out to study people behind the billions in investment and speculative trading. Research Background In the run-up market highs in December 2017, seemingly everyone was getting […]

In an industry that’s flooded with money, it’s sad to see some crypto media outlets succumb to the perils of so-called fake news, not to mention misinformed readers falling for scams during the ICO craze. 2018 was a controversial year in the crypto media sphere. Disappointingly, it was uncovered that stories people may have read […]

RealBlocks, a platform leveraging the Ethereum blockchain to tokenize equity in real estate, closed a $3.1 million seed round. The round was led by Science, Inc., a fund with stakes in digital businesses—such as Dollar Shave Club, and was joined by Anthony Pompliano’s Morgan Creek Capital and several other venture capital funds. On Jan. 25th, […]

Cryptocurrency, despite the massive drop in value from a year prior, was still a hot topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Experts on cryptocurrency and blockchain debated the technology in the panel “Building a Sustainable Crypto-Architecture” with insight into both sides of the discussion. The moderator, Gillian Tett of the […]

Hyperledger—an open-source project spearheaded by IBM—announced the launch of its Grid framework, a new set of tools designed for optimizing supply chain applications of the software. The new project will introduce new aids and “smart contract based business logic” to promote experimentation with Hyperledger’s suite of technologies. Greenhouse of Tools As noted in the group’s […]

Delinquent federal and state tax filings or unreported 2017 or prior tax years’ transactions may force taxpayers dealing in crypto to liquidate significant positions in cryptocurrencies at lower values to pay outstanding tax liabilities to the IRS, including interest and penalties. The meteoric rise of Bitcoin and other convertible virtual currencies’ value in 2017 were […]