Blockchain News | Blockchain Technology News

Cardano launches Vasil upgrade on testnet

Cardano’s much-anticipated Vasil upgrade has successfully launched on the project’s testnet.

Vasil is the most significant upgrade for Cardano since ‘Alonzo’ in September 2021 which brought smart contracts to the platform.

The platform’s main developer, IOHK, described Vasil as delivering numerous improvements:

https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1541800460838993922

Cardano is consistently among the most actively-developed blockchain...

4 July 2022 | Altcoins

Tether CTO responds to reports of hedge funds shorting USDT

Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino has responded to reports of hedge funds shorting its USDT stablecoin.

A “short” is a bet against the value of an asset. In contrast, a “long” position is a bet that an asset will appreciate in value.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that various traditional hedge funds had open USDT short positions worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“There has been a real spike in the interest from traditional hedge funds who...

28 June 2022 | Blockchain

Ethereum Virtual Machine goes live on Cardano testnet

Ethereum developers that are considering defecting to Cardano can now test their dApps on the growing blockchain platform.

https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1535979507840167943

Cardano’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has full compatibility with Ethereum upgrades and tools, Web3 wallet compatibility, can use the Ouroboros Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus protocol, and inherit security from Cardano’s main chain.

Cardano vs Ethereum

Ethereum is...

14 June 2022 | Altcoins

Terra buys another 4,550 Bitcoin worth over $206M

Blockchain project Terra continues to amass Bitcoin by taking another 4,550 off the market, worth over $206 million.

Terra has been following a number of companies – including MicroStrategy, Tesla, Square, and others – in adding Bitcoin to its reserves.

Do Kwon, CEO of Terraform Labs, has said his ultimate aim is to have Terra’s reserves of Bitcoin rival that of Satoshi Nakomoto...

6 April 2022 | Altcoins

Marc Blinder, Aikon: Making blockchain simple for businesses and consumers

Could you tell us a little bit about Aikon and what it offers?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm one of the founders of the company, and also of a blockchain called ORE, which is the open record exchange. And four years ago we started this project, inspired by my original co-founder, Stefan Rover, who was an early encryption pioneer on the internet. Sadly, he has since passed away, but we're kind of continuing on with his original vision.

You probably remember that the US...

15 February 2022 | Blockchain

Polkadot network launches parachain functionality

Polkadot, a network protocol for connecting multiple blockchains, has launched its first five parachains, individual blockchain networks running in parallel to create an interoperable ecosystem.

The five parachains that went live this weekend – Acala, Astar, Clover, Moonbeam, and Parallel Finance – were chosen following successful crowdfunded auctions and focus on topics from decentralised finance (DeFi) to investments and loans.

In total, the five projects raised...

20 December 2021 | Blockchain

SEBA Bank makes it possible to digitally own physical gold

Digital assets banking platform, SEBA Bank, has launched a Gold Token, a regulated digital token for investment in and delivery of physical gold on-demand.

SEBA Bank issues a token backed by what it describes as responsibly sourced gold, providing a cost-effective access to the precious metal, and sets a new standard in the stablecoin sector.

The SEBA Bank Gold Token is a landmark development in investment products, enabling investors for the first time to own a...

16 December 2021 | Banking

HSBC and Wells Fargo using blockchain to settle forex trades

HSBC and Wells Fargo, two of the world’s largest financial institutions, have started using blockchain technology to settle foreign currency trades.

The distributed ledger technology is being provided by Baton Systems with the aim of increasing settlement speed and efficiency.

Through Baton’s platform, the two banks are settling FX trades with real currencies and real accounts in less than three minutes.

It avoids passing the trades through CLS, a...

14 December 2021 | Banking

Blockchain Association boosts lobbying power with $4m funding injection

The Blockchain Association, a lobbying group for improving public policy towards crypto and decentralised ledgers, has raised $4 million (£2.97m) in new funding.

A decentralised web advocate group, the Filecoin Foundation, provided half the funding with the promise of an additional $2 million (£1.49m) if the Blockchain Association can match it through outside funding.

Crypto exchange Kraken and Digital Currency Group – the parent company of CoinDesk – contributed...

19 November 2021 | Blockchain

Michael Jackson, Concordium: Bringing blockchain to traditional finance

“We’re trying to shoehorn permissionless technology into extremely permissioned environments,” reveals Michael Jackson, advisor to Concordium and former COO of Skype.

Jackson’s take is a breath of fresh air in a blockchain industry that has become bogged down in use cases that are struggling to find their feet. For years, the ideas of supply chain ledger technologies and pharmaceutical blockchains have sat stagnant in the water waiting to be realised.

As the...