Category: Blockchain

Germany Proposes Launching State-Run Electronic Register for Blockchain Sector

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Bundestag Reichstag Berlin

Germany’s justice and finance ministries have proposed to launch a state-run register to boost the use of blockchain, Reuters reports on Friday, March 8. According to the Reuters, the seven-page initial guidelines offer to create a register to regulate the sector and protect investors from possible abuses. The document reportedly states that regulation in the sphere could contribute to the development of the technology behind cryptocurrencies, along with enhancing Germany’s position in financial markets. The guidelines also propose easing existing requirements, which assume that financial instruments must have tangible counterparts…

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Singapore Launches Pilot of TradeTrust Blockchain Shipping Initiative

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Blockchain Shipping Initiative

The Singapore government will press ahead with a pilot of its blockchain-based maritime trade platform TradeTrust through an official partnership, trade news outlet Asia Middle East Maritime Focus reported on March 7. TradeTrust, which aims to leverage blockchain to streamline complex manual processes involved in international shipping, will first focus on blockchain-powered electronic bills of lading (EB-Ls). Processing the essential trade document can often incur long time spans and considerable extra costs using paper-based methods. The pilot follows a January Memorandum of Understanding signed by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority…

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Google added six new blockchain datasets

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Google Six new cryptocurrencies in BigQuery Public Datasets

A new raft of crypto and blockchain analytics tools has just been launched by search giant Google. They will provide deep data sets for the top cryptocurrencies and aim to revolutionize blockchain search as the company did for information on the internet. Over the past year Google Cloud has released blockchain transaction history datasets for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Yesterday the company announced the release of six more datasets in addition to a deeper set of queries that enables multi-chain meta-analyses and integration with conventional financial record processing systems. The six…

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Two ethereum hard forks are likely to happen this week

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ethereum hard forks

The developers of Ethereum have confirmed that the two hard forks – Constantinople and St. Petersburg – are scheduled to take place this week. Constantinople was delayed last month for security vulnerability issues. According to the February 22nd announcement, both the forks are set to be executed at Ethereum’s block number 7,280,000 and the developers are expecting that the block will be mined on February 28th. However, considering the unexpected mining scenarios, the set block can also be achieved a day or two before or after the scheduled date. Hard…

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Waste management company launches blockchain platform in UAE

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Sharjah’s first Blockchain platform

A blockchain-enabled waste permit portal will be launched in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country’s official news agency, Emirates News Agency (WAM), reported on Feb. 17. The blockchain-based waste permit portal will be jointly developed by environmental, recycling and waste management company Bee’ah and the Hamriyah Free Zone Authority (HFZA) — the city of Sharjah’s free trade zone. According to WAM, the platform is the first in the city to employ blockchain technology to validate, process and store transactions. According to the report, the platform will cut costs…

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Vulnerability Is Found in Constantinople

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Constantinople Hard Fork Postponed

Ethereum’s (ETH) Constantinople hard fork faces a delay over a newly discovered security vulnerability allowing a reentrancy attack. The critical issue was detected by smart contract audit firm ChainSecurity and reported in a blog post Jan. 15. According to the company’s report, the Constantinople upgrade introduces cheaper gas cost (transaction fees) for some operations on the Ethereum network. As an unexpected side effect, this allegedly enables reentrancy attacks via the use of certain commands in ETH smart contracts. A reentrancy vulnerability allows a potential attacker to steal cryptocurrency from a…

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20% of Bitcoin’s daily trading volume generated by a single project

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The VeriBlock blockchain

According to the recent research published by Forbes Crypto, about 20% of all Bitcoin transactions are generated by a project called VeriBlock. It is developed on top of Bitcoin blockchain with the aim to provide a more secure alternative to existing cryptocurrency networks. VeriBlock is based on proof-of-proof (PoP) concept that functions as a supplemental consensus mechanism for blockchains integrated with VeriBlock. Basically, it allows minor altcoin projects to avoid security issues related to low hash rate and relatively low reward for mining. Low hash rate may lead double spend…

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Coinbase suspended Ethereum Classic (ETC) trading after a successful 51% attack

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Ethereum Classic attack

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase suspended the trading of Ethereum Classic (ETC) after double-spend attacks worth $1.1 Million. The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has suspended the trading of Ethereum Classic (ETC) after double-spend attacks that consist in spending digital coins twice. Ethereum Classic (ETC) is the original unforked Ethereum blockchain, the attacks resulted in the loss of $1.1 million worth of the digital currency. 51% attack refers to an attack on a blockchain by a group of miners that controls over 50% of the network’s mining hashrate. “On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a…

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McKinsey Finds Little Evidence of Practical Blockchain Use Cases

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McKinsey & Company Blockchain

Major financial consulting company McKinsey & Company believes that there is little evidence of practical use for blockchain, according to an official post published on Jan. 4. McKinsey was founded in 1926 and has a reported revenue for 2018 over over $10 billion, with over 27,000 employees globally. The article, written by three McKinsey partners, notes that the “evidence for a practical scalable use for blockchain is thin on the ground,” explaining: “Blockchain has yet to become the game-changer some expected […] given the amount of money and time spent,…

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Ethereum Extends Impressive Run, up 35% in 1 Week

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Ethereum chart

In the past week, Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency in the global market, has experienced a strong upward movement, recording an additional three percent increase in value on the day. Within seven days, the Ethereum price has increased from $117 to $159, by over 35 percent against the U.S. dollar, making it one of the best performing crypto assets throughout the past two months. Can the Constantinople Fork Effect Continue to Fuel Ethereum? Analysts have attributed the positive price movement of Ethereum to its upcoming Constantinople hard fork. The…

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The First Bitcoin Block Was Mined 10 Years Ago Today

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Bitcoin 10 years

Bitcoin’s Genesis block, which was mined on January 3, 2009, at 18:15:05 UTC, is now 10 years old. The Bitcoin Network Turns 10 The marking of the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin’s block 0 is, however, not to be confused with the Bitcoin whitepaper’s 10th birthday which was commemorated last year on October 31 in remembrance of the day the whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” was released. As CCN reported earlier, Seychelles-based bitcoin exchange, BitMEX, has marked the day by placing an ad on the front page of…

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German Railway Operator Examines Deploying Blockchain to Tokenize Its Ecosystem

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Unibright Deutsche Bahn Ecosystem Tokenization via Blockchain

German railway operator Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) has partnered with blockchain integration platform Unibright to examine the possibility of tokenizing its ecosystem. A press release revealed the partnership on Tuesday, Dec. 18. DB appointed Unibright to make preparations for an internal workshop, dedicated to the possible tokenization of the company’s assets. The railway giant, which is considered to be the largest in Europe, wants to find out whether decentralized solutions can cut operational costs and help DB interact with other members of the travel industry. Unibright developed a proof-of-concept (PoC)…

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Opera For Android Now Has A Cryptocurrency Wallet

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Opera blockchain browser

Opera had confirmed earlier this year that it would build a cryptocurrency wallet inside its Android browser. The company has followed through on that promise and confirmed today that the latest version of its browser does indeed come with a cryptocurrency wallet. The announcement was made at a blockchain event in London today. The latest version of Opera for Android comes with a built-in crypto wallet. It will enable users to make transactions online and also securely store their digital tokens within the browser itself. The Opera browser’s cryptocurrency wallet…

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IBM Research and Hello Tractor Pilot Digital Wallet for Agriculture Based on AI and Blockchain

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Hello Tractor

Scientists from IBM Research and start-up Hello Tractor are piloting an agriculture digital wallet and decision-making tool which provides demand and supply visibility for farmers, tractor fleet providers and banks to give farmers the equipment and technology they need to build a sustainable farm. The technology was unveiled at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018. In Sub Sahara Africa more than 60% of farms are powered by humans, with less than 20% provided by engines, a model which is not sustainable as food demand increases due population growth, which is averaging…

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Facebook Is Hiring Blockchain Engineers

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facebook blockchain

It appears as though the social media giant Facebook has been quietly hiring blockchain engineers currently. There are five different job listings in the Facebook Careers section. The listings are for the following jobs: data scientist, data engineer, software engineer, and product marketing lead. It is currently unclear as to what exactly Facebook might be doing with these new positions, although Mark Zuckerberg himself (the founder of Facebook) hinted that he might be developing his own cryptocurrency. Although he did not specifically say that this was in the company’s plans,…

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