Featured Archives - The Block

Charles Hoskinson, Founder, Cardano: On restoring trust through decentralisation

The Block spoke with Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson about the blockchain industry and restoring trust through decentralisation ahead of the platform’s upcoming launch of smart contracts.

Hoskinson co-founded the current decentralised app platform leader, Ethereum, but left the project following a dispute about accepting venture capital and the need for a more formal governing structure. He went on to found Cardano in 2015 and became the CEO of the project’s main developer,...

9 February 2021 | Cryptocurrency

Cardano is ‘building bridges’ to Ethereum with new KEVM testnet

Cardano is launching a new KEVM (K Ethereum Virtual Machine) to build a bridge with the leading smart contract platform’s developers.

Charles Hoskinson, Founder of Cardano and CEO of IOHK, was a co-founder of Ethereum.

Disagreements over Ethereum’s direction led Hoskinson to create Cardano, taking a more academic approach to its development and fixing the notorious problems which have plagued the largest smart contract platform.

Cardano launched after...

18 December 2020 | Blockchain Applications

General Motors applies for blockchain map patent

General Motors (GM) has filed an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office for a “Decentralized Distributed Map Using Blockchain.”

The patent tries to solve an issue related to the dynamic feedback of mapping around a car.

At present, most vehicles, including autonomous vehicles, leverage some type of navigation system that provides detailed maps to the driver of the vehicle or the automated driving system regarding the geographic location of the vehicle and...

6 April 2020 | Blockchain Applications

BMW looks to blockchain for supply chain transparency

BMW Group is continuing to use blockchain technology to trace and track components and raw materials multi-stage international supply chains. According to Andreas Wendt, member of the board of management of BMW, who’s responsible for purchasing and supplier networks, the automaker successfully conducted a pilot in 2019 to purchase front lights and in 2020 it is expanding the project to a large number of other suppliers.

Apart from implementing blockchain solutions, PartChain...

1 April 2020 | Supply Chain & Logistics

Hyperledger Besu moves to active status as enterprise blockchain cases rise

Hyperledger Besu, an enterprise-focused initiative and the first which was able to operate on a public blockchain, has taken a step towards mainstream operability after comittee members voted to place it as an active project.

The move, which makes Besu the only Ethereum project to have moved outof the incubation phase, 'demonstrates the strength of the project and the active community supporting it', according to the company. Among the community are ConsenSys, Chainsafe and...

31 March 2020 | Blockchain

ASX postpones launch of blockchain stock exchange programme amid Covid-19 pandemic

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has announced the postponement of the launch of its blockchain stock exchange platform, the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS), due to the current coronavirus outbreak.

In a press statement, the company said: “In light of recent events, ASX is re-planning the implementation of the CHESS replacement system. We are conscious of the importance of providing a new schedule, and the need to get the valuable input of CHESS...

30 March 2020 | Blockchain

Forte partners with five game developers to boost operations

Forte, a California-based blockchain platform developer for games and Ripple partner, is teaming up with five game developing companies to provide best-in-class gaming experiences based on the distributed ledger technology.

The five companies are US-based Hi-Rez Studios and nWay, Canadian social games provider Magmic, and German gaming companies DECA Games and Netmarble, that will follow their previously joined collaborators Disruptor Beam, Other Ocean and...

27 March 2020 | Gaming

EY, ConsenSys and Microsoft team up for Baseline enterprise Ethereum project

Ernst & Young (EY), ConsenSys and Microsoft are coming together to form a protocol which aims to make Ethereum ‘safe and effective’ for enterprise usage.

Making blockchain technologies enterprise-friendly has long been a goal of the industry; the key part being increasing the transaction speed to deal with complex organisational goals. The efforts of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) and Foundation aside, Ethereum has so far struggled on this front, although...

5 March 2020 | Enterprise

R3 paints optimistic look on enterprise blockchain adoption as companies become ‘smarter’

A new report from R3 paints an optimistic picture for enterprise blockchain initiatives, with companies learning more around how the technology works and delivery increasing.

The report, titled ‘Blockchain: 2020 Vision’, argues that delivery issues, rather than disillusionment, led to the slowdown. In other words, putting these things together takes time; companies who have been working on privacy, performance, and enterprise integration in 2018 and 2019 will see success in...

3 March 2020 | Enterprise

John Calian, SVP, Deutsche Telekom: How blockchain brings trust to the emerging M2M economy

“Think about all of your interactions, whether it’s humans dealing with humans or humans dealing with machines,” John Calian, senior vice president and head of T-Labs at Deutsche Telekom, explains. “How do you trust things?”

The concept of trust, so central to the rise in blockchain technologies, is one where consumers are increasingly gaining power. But there is a long way to go. A report from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights in September predicted...