IBM Reveals Two Further Blockchain Patents for Security And Database Management

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IBMBlockchain

Multinational computing giant IBM is adding to its stack of blockchain patents with two new applications, the United States Patent and Trademark Office confirmed, publishing documents on March 5. According to one patent document, IBM now seeks to target network security using blockchain technology. A second patent focuses on database management using the tech. “Securing a data log using monitor security protocols may be accomplished with different levels of security, ranging from low security to high security, and have various combinations of hardware and software configurations,” the description of the…

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Smart Contract Firm Quantstamp Reveals Investment From Financial Giant Nomura

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Nomura Japan

United States smart contract security company Quantstamp has announced its expansion to Japan following an investment from local financial giant Nomura Holdings. The news was revealed in a press release from Quantstamp published on March 6. According to the announcement, the U.S. firm has received a “significant investment” from Nomura, which provides investment, financing and related services to individual, institutional and government customers. Venture company Digital Garage, which invests in successful internet startups across the world, reportedly also contributed to the round. Information that the corporate funding round was led…

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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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Is Rakuten moving toward crypto payments?

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Rakuten Pay

The latest version of Japan-based e-commerce giant Rakuten’s mobile pay app may support cryptocurrency payments, according to the company’s 2018 earnings report presentation. The new version of the app, called Rakuten Pay, will be released on March 18th, and will support “all payments solutions embedded into one platform.” Rakuten has been accepting Bitcoin as a payment option through its American portal, Rakuten.com, since March 2015. In January, Rakuten revealed that its cryptocurrency exchange, “Everybody’s Bitcoin,” had been incorporated as part of the company’s new payments subsidiary, Rakuten Payment. The subsidiary,…

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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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Bitmain Announces Energy-Efficient ASIC Chip for Mining Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash

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Bitmain has announced 7nm ASIC mining chip

Chinese mining giant and ASIC hardware producer Bitmain has announced its next generation 7nm (nanometer) ASIC mining chip, according to a press release published on Monday, Feb. 18. The new mining hardware, BM1397, is designed for mining cryptocurrencies that use the SHA256 algorithm for their proof-of-work (PoW), such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). BM1397 requires less power for mining cryptocurrencies, representing a 28.6 percent improvement in power efficiency in comparison with the company’s previous 7nm chip, BM1391. The new chip will be used in new Antminer models —…

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Major crypto brokerage Coinmama reports 450,000 users affected by data breach

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Coinmama security

Israel-based crypto brokerage Coinmama — which allows users to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) using a credit card — has suffered a major data breach affecting 450,000 of its users. The incident was disclosed in an official company announcement on Feb. 15. The breach is reportedly part of a mammoth, multi-platform hack that affected 24 companies and a total of 747 million records — among them gaming, travel booking and streaming sites. Coinmama says a list of around “450,000 email addresses and hashed passwords” of users who registered on…

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Public transport facilities in 37 localities across Argentina now accept Bitcoin

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Argentina now accept Bitcoin

Public transport facilities in 37 localities across Argentina will now accept Bitcoins, thanks to a collaboration between Alto Viaje, who provide the travelcard-loading platform, and Bitex, a fintech company. Manuel Beaudroit, CMO of Bitex, explained: “We believe that this type of project is of great importance since it brings technology as disruptive as bitcoin to the common people, demonstrating the true value and the applications it has in everyday life.” Argentina is in the middle of a financial crisis right now. Many citizens have turned to Bitcoin to preserve their…

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Google Cloud Analyzes Coin Concentration, Adds Six Crypto Datasets

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google cloud

Google Cloud, a distributed computing service, has added several new cryptocurrencies to its data collections. The service originally introduced Bitcoin data in February 2018, and it followed up on that with the addition of Ethereum data last summer. Now, six more altcoins—Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Dogecoin, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Zcash—have been added to the service. These additions mean that large-scale crypto analysis is more feasible than ever. The aforementioned datasets are now available to the public, but Google Cloud has already done some work with the datasets on its own.…

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$1.4 Billion Raised via ICOs in Q4 2018

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1.4 Billion Raised via ICOs in Q4 2018

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) in Q4 2018 raised 25 percent less than in Q3, while the total amount of completed ICOs increased, according to a report by ICO rating service ICObench shared with Cointelegraph on Feb. 6. The number of ICOs completed in Q4 increased to 594 from 554 in Q3, the report says. With that, the number of ICO projects that did not raise funds has also increased in Q4, while the number of successfully completed ICO projects remained equal. According to the report, the total funds raised by…

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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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Cryptopia goes offline after hack

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Cryptopia

A New Zealand-based crypto-currency trading company went offline after it was hacked at the weekend. Cryptopia, based in Christchurch, announced on Twitter that on January 14, it suffered a security breach that resulted in significant losses. “Once identified, the exchange was put into maintenance while we assessed damages,” it added. The exchange has not disclosed the value of the losses, the tokens and currencies affected or any measures to refund users. But Whale Alert, which tracks large crypto transactions, reported that 19,391 ether (ETH) tokens worth nearly $2.44 million, and…

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