Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Blockchain News
- Chinese financial institution Wuxi Rural Commercial Bank has launched the Jiangsu Province’s first blockchain-powered cross-border financial services platform, per news agency JRJ. The bank says that the platform will boost its own risk management operations, and “greatly shorten” the amount of time companies and backers spend financing and applying for loans to realize international trade deals. The province, on China’s east coast, has a booming financial sector and a number of trading companies with an international clientele.
- South Korea’s Gyeonggi Film School says it will hold an online “blockchain-powered film festival,” reported Fn News. The film school will team up with blockchain film distributor MoviBloc for the initiative, which kicks off next month and ends in early October. The platform operator says that it allows moviemakers to tokenize the film watching process, with viewers rewarded with token payouts if they leave reviews, help create foreign-language subtitles or complete other actions.
- A company named Guoren Property and Casualty Insurance has issued the Chinese insurance industry’s first blockchain-powered digital invoice, per Shenzhen Business Daily News. The firm is based in the busy Dongcheng District of Beijing, and says that its blockchain-powered invoices will be “a powerful tool for tax authorities,” letting them apply “smart tax management” protocols. The company added that customers could expect “more efficient, safer and smarter” insurance coverage, while corporate consumers could use the offering to implement more efficient invoicing, remission and tax declaration processes.
- NASA has given two companies USD 124,800 to build it a blockchain-powered communications solution for its satellites and drones. Orbit Logic and Fraunhofer USA Center for Experimental Software Engineering will thus be building SCRAMBLR – Space Communication Reconstruction and Mapping with Blockchain Ledgering. The goal is to build a network that will allow communication between satellites to be more efficient and better coordinated.
Exchanges news
- Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange IDEX has had the code for its 2.0 mainnet audited by Quantstamp, the company announced in a press release. The audit was focused on an updated core custody contract, which houses the customer deposits, and exchange contract, which determines how funds are traded and settled among users. IDEX expects to launch its new exchange in early September.
- Cryptocurrency options exchange, Deribit, suffered a major outage earlier this Thursday, which brought most of its operations offline, the company confirmed. Since then, it managed to fully restore its operations, taking to Twitter to announce that the outage did not come as a result of a cyberattack, and that everyone’s funds are safe.
- Binance.UK has joined CryptoUK as an Executive Member, the company announced in a press release. Binance UK is the British affiliate of the global cryptocurrency exchange firm, while CryptoUK is Britain’s self-regulatory trade association from the digital asset industry. Executive Members, which count the likes of Coinbase, CryptoCompare, and eToro, to name a few, are tasked with leading the association’s strategic direction, including creating policies and organizing governances, all with the goal of keeping the UK a global leader in the digital asset industry.
- The New Zealand Stock Exchange has been hit by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks three days in a row, by cybercriminals demanding payment in Bitcoin (BTC) in order to stop harassing them. The exchange suffered multiple outages earlier this week, one of which lasted for more than three hours. While no one is pointing any fingers, the media are linking this incident with earlier incidents against the country’s financial sector, behind which were Russian state-sponsored actors Fancy Bear.
Adoption news
- Brazil’s central bank seems to be the next in line to take a long, hard look at the idea of a digital asset. According to the institution’s official statement, it formed a dedicated group of 12 members, tasked with studying the industry and understanding how a Central Bank Digital Currency could fit into its national payments ecosystem.
Business news
- Cryptocurrency benchmark indices provider CF Benchmarks is teaming up with crypto financial firm BlockFi to provide independent pricing and valuation for the latter’s crypto deposits and loan collateral – across its full suite. The news was confirmed by BlockFi in an emailed press release, saying CF Benchmarks indexes will “empower BlockFi clients to refine asset allocation, improve risk management and measure investment performance.”
- Blockdaemon, a blockchain infrastructure platform for node management, announced its integration with Blockstack PBC, to support the Stacks 2.0 network. Per the press release, Blockdaemon will provide institutions, corporate entities, and individual developers with simple node creation and management services, as well as support, APIs, monitoring tools, back-up systems, etc., making it easier to become a node operator ahead of the Stacks 2.0 blockchain launch.
- Facebook-led global payment system Libra has a new leading lawyer. According to media reports, former general counsel for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Stevan Bunnel, has taken over from Robert Werner, who lasted approximately three months at the position.
- In its crowdfunding event, lending company Celsius Network amassed USD 20 million, the company’s founder confirmed via Twitter. The company initially went for USD 10 million, but after hitting its target within 24 hours of opening the offer, it decided to double the stakes, and it paid off.
Industry news
- The cryptosphere mourns the passing of crypto pioneer, founder and CEO of Blockware Solutions, Blockware Mining, as well as the manager of the Blockchain Opportunity Fund, Mathew D’Souza. He recently passed away, aged 29, Blockware Solutions announced. Mathew D’Souza was battling leukemia for seven years, it was said.