Initiative

TRON and Waves Tap Gravity to Connect Their Blockchains

Blockchain projects TRON and Waves have inked a strategic partnership with the aim of achieving mass adoption of inter-chain DeFi. The landmark inter-chain initiative owes a debt to Gravity, the decentralized blockchain-agnostic oracle network that facilitated the integration. When Chains Collide TRON and Waves use completely different smart contract languages, the former having been written in Solidity and the latter using Ride. To bring the pair onto the same page, Gravity’s interoperable oracle queries data on each chain, thereby enabling the ecosystems to increase access to services for both user

IP Australia and National Rugby League Use Blockchain Against Fake Products

Australia’s top-tier rugby league, the National Rugby League, along with IP Australia will trial a blockchain-based application to curb the sale of counterfeit products.IP Australia is an agency of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science that orchestrates and regulates the issuance of intellectual property rights and legislation relating to patents, trademarks, registered designs and plant breeder's rights in Australia.Genuine products will be tagged with trust badgesAccording to a ZDNet report, the new application uses blockchain to enable trademark owners to link their products to the government register. It acts

What is Flexa Coin? A Guide to FXC Token

A look at the Flexa project, its background, history, and its native asset, Flexacoin. We will also talk about its underlying protocol, as well as its role in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) field. The Flexa project claims to be the “simplest and safest way” to allow retail usage of crypto-currencies today. This DeFi project has acquired its reputation and value by enabling different crypto-assets to be used for payments on its digital wallets. And these are done in an instant and highly-secure manner for users and merchants alike. Built on

South Korean Beachgoers Can Now Use Bitcoin to Pay for Services

A pilot project run by Bitbeat-affiliate company CIC Enterprise wants to provide crypto payment solutions at two of the busiest beaches of the country for tourists to use.According to ZDNet Korea, the firm partnered with card and cash payments provider Innotech for the token-powered payments solution in the Haeundae Beach System on the beaches of Busan in South Korea famous with tourists.The program will allow people to pay for water sports-related activities, life jackets, and even parasol rentals, among others, with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), along with MCI and WAY

Slow But Steady: FATF Review Highlights Crypto Exchanges’ Struggle to Meet AML Standards

In June 2019, the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) introduced its revised set of standards for virtual asset service providers. The document establishes the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements that regulated VASPs —  the term mainly referring to cryptocurrency trading platforms — must eventually implement in their day-to-day operations. The guidelines are framed as recommendations, and the FATF leaves it to the participating nations’ governments to develop their own regulations in accordance with suggested principles.The watchdog has also set a 12-month review timeframe to monitor the public and

What is Wrapped Bitcoin? A Guide to WBTC

WBTC is a way for Bitcoin to run on the Ethereum blockchain. Performing quick and affordable transactions using Bitcoin (BTC) has long been a problem of the community ever since it became more popular. This is why there have been many developments planning to address this issue.  But what if we can make our BTC coins functional on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain? Would there be a difference? Wrapped BTC (WBTC) is a multi-institution project that aims to solve common BTC problems by creating its ERC-20 token counterpart. And in the

Why Klaytn and Link Will Catalyze Blockchain Adoption in Asia

In the last two years, popular messaging giants in Asia and Europe have announced plans to launch a blockchain-powered cryptocurrency. In Asia, Kakao’s Klaytn and Line’s Link platform have launched and are quickly gaining momentum, but Facebook and Telegram’s cryptocurrencies have not fared so well. Messaging Giants Pushing Blockchain Adoption As it stands, Kakao is by far the most dominant mobile platform in Korea with a market share of 97% in the country. Kakao subsidiary Ground X began development of Klaytn back in 2019, after raising $90 million in both

Ex-Chinese Banking Exec Says CBDCs Will Substitute Cash in Circulation

A former Bank of China executive has shown his support for digital currencies, positioning it as a substitute for cash, widely known in economic circles as M0. Ex-vice president of China’s central bank, Wang Yongli, said that digital currencies should substitute all currencies “as much as possible”. The push for digital currency: “shouldn’t be confined to such substitution; otherwise, its market competitiveness could be problematic,” ,he said. Yongli is the present director of the Haixia blockchain research institute and previously served at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) for over

Revolut Offers Cryptocurrency Service to its 7 Million Users Amid COVID-19 Crisis

The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic has affected the economic growth of many countries around the world.  Most financial institutions are forced to proffer different initiatives to mitigate the harsh effect of the virus on the global financial market. Central banks continue to print more banknotes to stimulate the economy in the fight against the outbreak. However, many reports have revealed that banknotes are potentially not safe during this time as they could help transmit the virus from one person to another. There is also the fear that excess money

Silk Road Founder Shares Health Update from Jail 

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the once-popular Dark Web marketplace Silk Road, has shared his health update with members of the tech and crypto communities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.Ulbricht was identified as the marketplace’s creator in 2013, and he’s been in jail for about seven years. However, with the coronavirus pandemic causing special attention to prisons, he’s come out to put everyone at ease on his health. Prisons: Petri Dishes for VirusesIn a tweet posted earlier this week, he explained that he’s completely fine and doesn’t know anyone in

Chicago DeFi Alliance Launches to Save Decentralized Finance

Amid the apparent ongoing collapse in decentralized finance (DeFi) lending, a group of major trading and cryptocurrency companies in the United States are launching an alliance to support the sector.Introduced on April 7, the Chicago DeFi Alliance (CDA) aims to provide DeFi-focused startups and entrepreneurs with support and guidance in complying with trading regulations and other applicable requirements.Chicago DeFi Alliance to share its expertise to boost DeFi liquidity and marketsAccording to a blog post by crypto fund Volt Capital, a founding member the CDA initiative, the alliance also includes major