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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UNICEF Invests in Blockchain Technology for Its Upcoming Humanitarian Projects

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Unicef Blockchain

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has announced investing in six blockchain startups. According to UNICEF, the new investments are part of the strategy the agency intends to implement in integrating blockchain in its humanitarian work line. The humanitarian agency already received more than 100 applications from 50 different countries, in response to the shout out it released in Jan. 2018 for young technology startups, while it already has 20 technology firms in its innovation fund, that range from science, machine learning, and virtual reality, to drones. Today,…

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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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Swiss Post and Swisscom launch a 100% Swiss infrastructure for blockchain applications

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Swiss Post and Swisscom

Private Blockchain-based ProjectWhile the Swiss Post is Switzerland’s national postal service, Swisscom is one of the country’s largest state-owned telecom service providers. The two will ally to streamline their service offering and foster the blockchain ecosystem in the country. The joint venture is the first “private blockchain” platform in the country to be operated by two entities. The platform differs from other private blockchains in that the data will strictly remain within the borders of Switzerland. Further, the press release noted that the security of the platform would be on…

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BitGo Now Supports Universal Protocol Alliance Stablecoins

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BitGo platform

BitGo, a leading blockchain security and cryptocurrency custodian based in California, has formed a strategic alliance with the Universal Protocol Alliance. The partnership will enable BitGo to offer support for the latter’s cryptoassets, including its U.S. dollar (UPUSD) and euro-pegged (UPEUR) stablecoins, according to a Business Wire press release on December 6, 2018. BitGo Supports Universal TokensPer sources close to the matter, BitGo, a highly-reputed cryptocurrency custodian and institutional cryptocurrency financial services company is now offering support for all tokens from the stables of the Universal Protocol Alliance (UP). In…

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Sberbank, NSD and MTS close deal on commercial bond issue using blockchain

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Sberbank blockchain

Sberbank, the National Settlement Depository (NSD) and MTS have summed up results of the deal to issue commercial bonds using blockchain. The nominal cost of MTS’s RUB 750 mln commercial bonds, organised and purchased by the corporate and investment banking business of Sberbank, was redeemed. A security deal using smart contracts – from issue to full execution of issuer’s obligations to the investor – was successfully carried out. Commercial bonds are privately-traded unsecured fixed income securities that are placed on the OTC market through a private subscription. Prior to the…

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Vulnerability on Ethereum enables malicious GAS Minting

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GasToken

A newly discovered vulnerability on Ethereum allowing for malicious GasToken Minting was found. The development team already acknowledged the issue and informed most of the affected users on November 13, 2018, via private disclosure. The Attack Crypto exchanges usually allow the withdrawal of Ethereum to arbitrary addresses with no gas usage limit; since this executes a fall back function, attackers can use this to make exchanges pay for arbitrary computation, allowing them to force exchanges to burn their own Ethereum on high transaction costs. Moreover, this even gives attackers the…

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Bitfury partners with Russian Economics University to establish Blockchain Accelerator

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Bitfury blockchain

Multisectoral blockchain company Bitfury has partnered with the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics to create an accelerator for blockchain projects, Russian crypto news outlet Forklog reports Nov. 21. In addition to supporting the development of blockchain projects, the university will provide courses and additional education dedicated to “training specialists who are able to create innovative projects using digital technologies in a short time.” This will enable specialists to “bring [the projects] to market amid the new industrial revolution,” Dmitry Ufaev, the head of Bitfury Russia, told Forklog. According to Forklog,…

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Crypto-miner steals your password and disables antivirus

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Linux.BtcMine.174

Malware targeting Linux users may not be as widespread as the strains targeting the Windows ecosystem, but Linux malware is becoming just as complex and multi-functional as time passes by. The latest example of this trend is a new trojan discovered this month by Russian antivirus maker Dr.Web. This new malware strain doesn’t have a distinctive name, yet, being only tracked under its generic detection name of Linux.BtcMine.174. But despite the generic name, the trojan is a little bit more complex than most Linux malware, mainly because of the plethora…

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German Federal Economic Ministry Wants to Combat Tax Fraud with Blockchain

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The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi)

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is planning to fight tax evasion schemes by using blockchain, German business news outlet WirtschaftsWoche reported Nov. 22. Following the major European tax fraud scheme CumEx-Files, the BMWi has suggested that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is capable of making the tax system more efficient in terms of fraud prevention. Discovered in 2017, the CumEx-Files was a tax fraud scheme that reportedly was used by a network of banks, stock traders and top lawyers to obtain billions from European treasuries through…

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Tezos Korea Foundation joins forces with Yonsei University to promote Blockchain

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Tezos Korea Foundation

The South Korean arm of the Tezos Foundation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Yonsei University for the development of unique talents and expertise in blockchain technology, according to a press release published by Tezos. The release reads: “Through this agreement, both sides will strengthen the expertise of the blockchain and education expertise, and discuss various cooperation opportunities to lead the blockchain field.” The new agreement, which is between the Seoul-based Digital Society Research Center at Yonsei University and the Tezos Korea Foundation, will look into providing “blockchain…

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Crypto market loses $6 billion as Bitcoin price retreats to $4,100

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Bitcoin trading price

In the last 24 hours, more than $6 billion was wiped out of the cryptocurrency market as Bitcoin (BTC), the most dominant cryptocurrency in the market, recorded a loss of 8.6 percent from $4,500 to $4,110. On fiat-to-cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp, the price of BTC reached a new weekly low at around $4,118. Bitcoin has since recovered to $4,291, but on a weekly basis, BTC remains 21.65 percent down against the US dollar. Similar to Bitcoin’s strength at $6,000 from August to November, despite experiencing an intense…

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Bitcoin plunges below $6,000 to lowest level in more than a year

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Bitcoin price

Its price plummeted more than 10% on Wednesday, hitting its lowest level in more than a year. It’s now trading below $6,000, far from the heights it reached during its meteoric rise at the end of 2017. After nearly touching $20,000 in December 2017, bitcoin’s value nosedived in volatile trading over the months that followed. But it has enjoyed a period of relative stability since early September, hovering between $6,000 and $7,000. Wednesday’s drop is a sharp reminder that cryptocurrencies are still an extremely volatile investment. While some people have…

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Google hacked to promote Bitcoin scam on Twitter

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Google hacked

In the latest in a string of cryptocurrency-related hackings on Twitter, attackers have breached an official Google account to promote a Bitcoin giveaway scam to its over 800,000 followers. The official G Suite Twitter account just blasted the following message to hundreds of thousands of users: Hard Fork has yet to confirm for how long the tweet remained on G Suite’s feed, but it was no less than 11 minutes (as you can notie on the screenshot. (Update 19:52 UTC, November 13: Ernst Mulders, who provided the screenshot above, told…

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Swiss report shows trojan malware attacking crypto exchanges

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Trojan Dridex malware

A Swiss report has unearthed that a virus that mines Monero is responsible for one of the largest attacks on the Swiss crypto industry this year. Trojan malware that was once used for hacking into large-scale banks is now being used to attack crypto-asset exchanges. Swiss Researchers Uncover Cybersecurity Threat The news of the computer virus attacking Swiss crypto exchanges comes from Switzerland’s Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance (MELANI). Malware has long been used by cyber-criminals to break into major banking systems but has now evolved to attack…

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