Stories by Forkast.News Staff
Filecoin Creator: Decentralized Storage Will Power Web 3.0
After some initial turbulence, decentralized cloud storage network Filecoin’s recent mainnet launch is now opening up a range of applications that previously only existed in centralized Web 2.0 environments. Filecoin lets you rent out space on other people’s hard-drives for cryptocurrency. Think of it as a decentralized Dropbox. This storage can also be used to host decentralized websites. “Filecoin really brings for the first time the ability to have a large scale application to be fully Web...
Coda Protocol Changes Name Over R3 Trademark Dispute
Mina is still the world’s most lightweight blockchain—coming in at 22kb thanks to its clever application of zk-SNARKs—but just don’t call it Coda Protocol anymore. Effective today, the protocol formerly known as Coda has a new name, even though the underlying technology stack is all the same. Late last year, Wall Street-backed R3 sued O(1) Labs Operating Corporation, the parent company of the entity formerly known as Coda. Despite Coda and Corda having different applications and end-users, R3 cl...
The New Space Race Will Run on Blockchain
With space activities ramping up in anticipation of NASA’s ambitious plans to return to the Moon and eventually Mars, blockchain could have a crucial role to play in the resurgent space industry, experts say. “If you gaze a little bit into the future and imagine a whole supply chain based on celestial body resources, that’s easy to envision, especially if transactions are negotiated between robots,” said Brian Israel, lecturer of space and blockchain law at UC Berkeley School of Law, in a video...
Alchemy CEO: DeFi’s $8 Billion Dollar Growth at Risk From Gas Fees
Although decentralized finance (DeFi) is gaining traction with over $8 billion in total value locked, it is testing the limits of what the Ethereum network is capable of. The fever-pitch growth in demand for smart contract applications on the “world computer” has driven contract calls and gas transaction fees through the roof. Recently, Ethereum miners have even seen record profits of over $500,000 an hour for processing transaction fees. Although this may be good news for miners, it may not b...
ETC Labs CEO: Rented Hash Power Is “Huge” Problem For Proof of Work
The hackers behind August's 51% attacks on Ethereum Classic exploited a “huge vulnerability” in blockchain protocols powered by proof of work (PoW)—rented mining hash power—and it is a growing industry, according to experts. “It's actually a huge vulnerability in the system,” said Terry Culver, CEO of ETC Labs, an incubator of projects on Ethereum Classic, in an interview with Decrypt media partner Forkast.News. Millions of dollars were lost last month following three 51% hacks on the Ethereu...
51% Attacks a “Universal Problem” For Proof of Work, says ETC Labs CEO
Repeated 51% attacks on the Ethereum Classic network are a source of “increasing frustration,” according to Terry Culver, CEO of Ethereum Classic Labs. “Three attacks in one month will tell you that security is an issue on Ethereum Classic,” Culver told Decrypt media partner Forkast.News in a video interview. "Increasing frustration is definitely the best way to describe it.” The threat of 51% attacks on proof of work blockchains is a “universal problem,” Culver said. “We believe and know that...
Japan's Evolving View on Blockchain Regulation
Japan's stance on blockchain regulation appears to be softening. Last week, the country's deputy prime minister, Taro Aso, called for greater cooperation between regulators and the country’s blockchain community to improve governance, despite friction between the two. “In the blockchain community, some people may still look at regulators with a sort of hostility," said Aso, who is also Japan’s finance minister, during the Blockchain Global Governance Conference in Tokyo. "It may stem from the...
Blockchain Now Powers Parts of China’s Social Credit System
The public opinion monitoring arm of China’s social credit system is getting an upgrade that will allow it to share data across platforms and provinces using blockchain technology. According to a report from state-run media, “Remin Chain,” from Hangzhou’s Hyperchain Technology, will be integrated into the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Monitoring Center—the government apparatchik responsible for monitoring and analyzing every comment made online by China’s 800 million netizens. As the nam...
How cryptocurrency fuels protests and anti-government movements
Over the past couple months — and one might argue far longer, with the elections of politicians the likes of Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump being indicative of and engendering growing political polarization across the world — anti-government sentiment has been on the rise on a global level. Over this summer, Black Lives Matter protests have been racking many Western countries, most notably in major cities in the U.S. In Hong Kong, anti-government protests broke out again when the...
Ripple co-founder warns the US could lose a "tech cold war" with China
Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chairman of blockchain-powered remittance network Ripple, has authored an op-ed claiming that the United States and China are already embroiled in a "technological cold war". According to Larsen, China’s dominance in cryptocurrency and finance could be a major front in future battles between the two countries. Larsen argued that the US dollar’s hegemony over global financial systems might lose out in the face of technological advancements in cryptocurren...
China expands DCEP testing to high-volume commercial transactions
Following the first large-scale test of China’s Digital Currency/Electronic Payment (DCEP) platform in Shenzhen, China’s Ministry of Commerce has announced an expansion of DCEP tests to more cities. It's also putting the platform through its paces handling high-volume commercial transactions for verticals including hospitality and e-commerce payment processing. China’s Ministry of Commerce recently published a detailed plan for testing its DCEP in three main financial and political hubs in Chi...
China has over 10,000 new blockchain companies in 2020 so far
Despite the coronavirus pandemic’s continued onslaught on the global economy, China’s blockchain sector has exploded, with over 10,000 blockchain-related companies being created in the first seven months of 2020. According to blockchain and crypto analytics platform LongHash, the number of new blockchain companies established in China in 2020 is on track to surpass that of 2019. Out of the total 91,373 registered blockchain companies, only around 30,700 currently remain in operation, with abou...
Ping An-backed P2P lender Lufax applies for US IPO
Chinese online lender Lufax is reportedly applying for an IPO in the US—in response to a move by market regulators in China tightening listing rules to restrict IPOs. Authorities there are also pressuring firms to list domestically and in Hong Kong. Lufax is the second-largest P2P lender in China, and is 43% owned by Ping An Insurance. To date, it has raised $3 billion, with its most recent funding round led by local fund Primavera Capital, and backed by JP Morgan and UBS. That gives the compan...
Crypto prices stable after Bitfinex outage
Bitfinex was down for five hours Wednesday, taking the exchange offline for most of the North American late afternoon and Asia morning trading session. The company’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, tweeted that a few customers noticed that a “balance issue” was causing the value of their portfolio to be improperly displayed. Ardoino said that for the safety of all customers trading was paused on the platform while the team investigated. Few hours ago we noticed that few customers were affected by a bala...
Beijing selects Hong Kong's Greater Bay Area as first market to deploy DCEP
Fresh off the announcement that the retail DCEP app is undergoing the final stages of beta testing in Shenzhen, a representative from the People’s Bank of China told local media in the country that the first area where the platform would be officially deployed is the Greater Bay Area. The Greater Bay Area is a regional amalgam of Hong Kong, Macau, and Shenzhen, with a combined GDP of $2 trillion that Beijing wants to turn into a unified economic hub. Its competing legal systems, however, make t...
Bitcoin could benefit from Fed-led inflation, says Diginex CEO
As the Federal Reserve pours trillions of dollars into the United States’ economy to combat the coronavirus crisis, cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly appealing to institutional investors, according to Richard Byworth, CEO of Hong Kong-based digital financial services company Diginex. Byworth argues that the Fed’s plans to raise inflation rates, coupled with political uncertainties around the upcoming presidential election, could lead to investors seeking digital assets as a way to hedg...
All systems go for launch of China’s DCEP digital currency
The launch of China’s Digital RMB, or DCEP, appears to be just around the corner. During the past week, large-scale testing of DCEP wallets took place at major state-owned commercial banks in Shenzhen with multiple functions and features being put through their paces to prepare the infrastructure for launch. According to reports from Jingji21, a respected finance publication with a good track record of FinTech sources and scoops, the app is available to some clients at ICBC, Bank of China, Chin...
JD.com lays out vision for smart contract laws in China
One of China's biggest retailers JD.com is leading the effort to draft rules in China about how smart contracts can be used to automate the disbursement of funds when a contract is complete as well as be entered into court as notarized evidence. JD’s proposed guidelines are a series of best practices about how to build smart contracts to respect parties’ privacy, how to obtain evidence to be used in a contract dispute in court, as well as how blockchain can be used in court to demonstrate proof...
Canon hack leads to 10TB loss of private data
Camera and lens maker Canon has had its internal network and company services crippled via a ransomware attack-leading to 10 terabytes of data being stolen from the company's internal servers. Canon's website was not accessible for most of Wednesday, August 5 (source: Canon) According to BleepingComputer, which reported the story first, ransomware group Maze has taken credit for the attack. A spokesperson for the group told the site it had stole "10 terabytes of data, private databases etc" f...
Tencent takes on bootleggers with blockchain-backed wine-tracker
Shenzhen-based tech giant Tencent has announced plans to create a wine traceability platform using blockchain, in partnership with one of China’s largest wine producers. The collaboration with Changyu Pioneer Wine hopes to find a solution to China's booming counterfeit wine industry. Bin Ma, vice president of Tencent, told Chinese media that the wine blockchain traceability system could help improve the domestic wine industry’s standards. According to Tencent, each bottle of wine would be issu...
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