Ownerless companies on the rise as startups experiment with new business models
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain will let us build new types of companies in new ways, including ownerless companies where funds and profits are divided automatically between individuals. Slowly, very slowly, we’re seeing the emergence of the world’s first fully autonomous companies, from small hedge funds in Hong...
Blockchain startups are lining up to decentralise and revolutionise the internet
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We think the internet is already decentralised, but the internet as we know it is evolving, and tomorrow’s internet will be truly decentralised. An increasing number of people want to fix the flaws of the internet by decentralizing it, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the father...
Microsoft gets rid of blockchain miners with new Ethereum blockchain service
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Mining blockchain has become a contentious issue because of the amount of energy it uses and its speed, Microsoft are trying to solve both problems. Hot on the heels of its interest in Iota, a blockchain-like peer to peer cryptocurrency that does away with...
Ethereum falls after rumours of new powerful ASIC emerge
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The more centralised the mining of an individual cryptocurrency becomes, especially if it leverages new, more powerful technology, the greater the impact on a cryptocurrencies value. Rumors of a new ASIC mining rig from Bitmain have driven Ethereum prices well below their one week high of...
Ethereum founder thinks crypto can disrupt Mastercard and Visa in “next few years”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The processing networks that the major credit card companies have built up over the years means that they’re difficult to disrupt, but as we learn so often difficult doesn’t mean impossible… The brain behind the runaway train that is Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, is matter of...
The Beginning Of The End: Is The Ethereum Bubble About To Burst?
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In this opinion piece CEX.io takes a look at the Ethereum and cryptocurrency marketplace and offers their perspective on whether or not they think the bubble is about to burst Never before has the saying “Nothing lasts forever” been more applicable. Eventually everything will...
Estonia announces plans to create its own national cryptocurrency
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of money is digital, and more countries around the world are drawing up plans to develop and deploy their own national cryptocurrencies, signalling the demise of the cash society and ushering in a new era of government led transparency and control. Estonia...
A secret trader just made over $200 million in a month trading Ethereum
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many speculate that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are riding bubbles that are about to pop, but as the adoption of cryptocurrencies, by individuals, organisations and governments increases it’s likely they’re wrong An unknown cryptocurrency trader turned $55 million of paper wealth into $283...
The United Nations taps blockchain to solve world hunger
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Hundreds of millions of people go hungry every night, and after a succesful pilot the UN thinks that blockchain could help them solve world hunger. Earlier this week United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) announced that 10,000 individuals had taken advantage of its trial to deliver food to Syrian...
DTCC wants to put hundreds of trillions of dollars of securities transactions on the blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Vice Chairman of the DTCC argues that a lack of standards is holding back blockchains adoption in the financial services industry, and he wants to change that. Last week Larry Thompson, the Vice Chairman of the US Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC),...
New blockchain tools are helping people reclaim control of their online identities
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF You lost control of your online information, and your online identity, almost a decade ago, but now companies are using new technologies to help you regain control of it The Sovrin Foundation, a non profit organisation who’s building a range of online “Self-Sovereign Identity” and...
An AI hedge fund designed a cryptocurrency to open source Wall Street
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The finance marketplace is unique in that, unlike the technology sector, it has little to no “network effect” but one entrepreneur is trying to change that. Wall Street is a competition, a Darwinian battle for the almighty dollar. Gordon Gekko said that greed is...
Entrepreneurs think blockchain is the future of cloud computing and HPC
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Everything changes, whether we call it disruption or something else, but as the world becomes increasingly distributed, as the plumbing of the internet continues to change, we can now see a way to disintermediate the giant cloud providers, build global supercomputers and move to the...
New blockchain DNS system would put an end to DDoS attacks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain can help organisations and governments improve the resilience of their operations without compromising security On Friday, October 21st the internet – specifically the US west coast and parts of Europe, fell victim to the worlds largest DDoS attack. At the time reports said that nearly half the...
Futurist keynote, London: The Future of Blockchain, Marketforce Blockchain Summit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is turning into a force of nature that’s changing the world and as the hype around the technology reaches fever pitch everyone wants in. It’s always a great privilege to be invited to take part in Marketforce’s wonderful events and the Blockchain Summit...
BHP turns to blockchain to improve its supply chain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is finding a home in the enterprise and now BHP want to use it to improve their supply chain. At this weeks Global Blockchain Summit BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining firm, revealed that it is going to begin using the Ethereum blockchain and IPFS running on Microsoft Azure...
Bitcoin slumps twenty percent after $65m Bitfinex hack
The Bitfinex heist is the latest is a growing line of high profile heists that are undermining confidence in the crypto currency The price of the virtual currency Bitcoin fell sharply Tuesday after Hong Kong-based digital-currency exchange Bitfinex said it was hacked, resulting in the possible theft of $65 million...
Ethereum community votes to reverse DAO hack
In a landmark decision, the distributed, decentralized community that makes up Ethereum came to a near-unanimous consensus to implement a radical software change, known as a “hard fork.” This has been done in order to prevent a hacker who attacked The DAO and drained nearly $40 million worth of ether,...
The Hard Fork, D-Day for Ethereum and the DAO
Last month, an unknown attacker drained tens of millions of dollars worth of the digital currency Ether from The DAO, an Ethereum based smart contract aimed at functioning as a funding vehicle for projects in the ecosystem. The incident sparked an effort to effectively roll back the clock and undo...
