Scottish Coldplay bass artist, Guy Berryman, has joined the crypto space, funding a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange application called Zumo. “Covid-19 has fast forwarded the move to a cashless society and for safe and easy ways to invest in new forms of currency that are more resilient to crises such as this one," Zumo CEO and founder Nick Jones told the Edinburgh News. The app is a basic avenue into Bitcoin Zumo touts basic Bitcoin functionalities, allowing users to buy, sell, transact and store BTC, the May 21 Edinburgh News article detailed. In addition to Berryman, the app boasts funding from …

The Free TON community, an independent group of software developers, validators and users are launching the "Free TON Blockchain" today, May 7. The blockchain would appear to be based on the Telegram Open Network, the blockchain originally created by encrypted messenger app Telegram. The TON community had previously declared that it would release the network, despite Telegram's long-running legal dispute with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the agency's continuous efforts to block the network's launch. According to an announcement shared by TON Labs, the community will launch the Free TON Blockchain along with free "TON" tokens to …

Telegram recently delayed their open network, TON, and their cryptocurrency, GRAM, once again. There is one related project that has not experienced these setbacks, however. TON OS, an operating system for the TON blockchain, will soon get an open source release. TON Labs, a third-party group of TON infrastructure developers, are planning to open source the main components of the TON OS on GitHub tomorrow. Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO at TON Labs, confirmed the news to Cointelegraph on May 6. TON Labs to issue a token known as TON Cash within a month As reported by industry publication, ForkLog, the release …

After decentralized finance, or DeFi, markets collapsed in late March 2020, a number of industry players joined forces to support emerging fintech. Today, the Ren Alliance, a new DeFi consortium backed by veteran crypto investor, Polychain Capital, has added another batch of new members. The group’s membership has now surpassed 50 companies in total. Launched in early March 2020 by DeFi project Ren, the Ren Alliance has added 14 new members, expanding the network up to 51 firms, the firm announced to Cointelegraph on April 16. The new entrants include major decentralized exchange, IDEX, Switcheo, Dex.Blue, 1inch, Jarvis Network, Charged …

Crypto-based emergency app Guardian Circle has seen a huge surge in monthly downloads due to the coronavirus crisis. According to figures supplied by the project to Cointelegraph, more than 5150 new users downloaded the app in March. That represents monthly growth of 2582% for the three year old app, which had struggled to attract attention in peacetime. In January, a little over 300 new users signed up. But while the current crisis has seen the app’s popularity increase, it’s also threatening the project’s future. What is Guardian Circle? The official website explains the app helps create a micro-economy around an …

A team of academics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa is developing a blockchain-powered application that will allow users to verify their own COVID-19 status. The platform, named Covi-ID, is still under development but aims to address a number of pressing concerns around the global coronavirus pandemic. It’s being developed by a team of academics and software developers in Cape Town and is aiming to launch on April 21. The application intends to improve contact tracing of infected patients, while users of the platform will be able to provide a verified COVID-19 status. Additionally, the app will …

Canadian technology company, VitalHub Corp, announced on April 8 the first deployment of a blockchain-based coronavirus screening tool. The tool will be used by a Region of Waterloo-owned long-term care facility called Sunny Side Home. According to the announcement, a request by Sunnyside Home resulted in the development of DOCit — a blockchain-driven app which will help to screen residents for common COVID-19 symptoms. The tool seeks to deploy and configure any screening or recurring task, enabling reporting standards for care providers, operations staff, and National, Provincial, or Regional health authorities. Efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Canada Julie …

The cryptocurrency trading app of Germany’s second-largest stock exchange, Boerse Stuttgart, exceeded 100,000 users on March 30 amid increasingly permissive regulations in the country. The Bison app, which launched on Jan. 31st, 2019, has attracted a six-figure user base in just 14 months. Bison users grow 40% during Q1 2020 Ulli Spankowski, the chief executive of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures subsidiary and developer of the Bison app, Sowa Lab GmbH, notes that the milestone has been reached amid a 40% growth in users since the start of 2020. Boerse Stuttgart’s app supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple …

While cryptocurrency markets are experiencing another crash this Monday, major digital asset platform Bakkt has some good news. Referred to as one of the most promising crypto-related initiatives for its physically settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures, Bakkt has now raised an additional $300 million to continue developing digital asset-focused services, the firm’s new CEO Mike Blandina announced on March 16. Closed the funding round on March 13, Bakkt has now totally raised $482.5 million According to the announcement, the Series B financing round featured Bakkt’s parent company, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Microsoft’s venture capital arm M12, fintech firm PayU, Boston Consulting …

Zabo has announced it has raised $ 2.5 million in seed funding, allowing it to extend its portfolio of services to continue connecting its customers’ cryptocurrency wallets to banks, brokerage firms, FinTech apps, and tax software. As detailed in a March 5 blog post, the seed round was led by Moonshots Capital and included funding from Blockchange Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group, CoinShares, Tezos Foundation, Capital Factory, among others. Bolstering connections with mainstream financial services Zabo’s technology is used in a wide variety of financial services applications, both centralized and decentralized, and with this announcement, they expect to …

Google’s Play Store for Android smartphone apps seems to have taken an issue with reporting on cryptocurrencies and blockchain news, taking down several notable apps, including ours. The newest block? As of 2:00 PM EST, apps of crypto news sites including Cointelegraph and CoinDesk were unavailable on the Play Store. Screenshots of results returned for Cointelegraph and CoinDesk Google did not contact Cointelegraph regarding the planned removal. We have reached out to the company but received no response as of press time. This article will be updated with new information or comment from the company should we receive it. For …

Earlier today, Binance announced the launch of its Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Merchant Program, a user-oriented fiat currency trading platform. How the program works In the Jan. 21 press release, the crypto exchange cites increasing demand of global users and a need for higher liquidity as prods for the P2P creation. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said: “In the past quarter, there has been increasing growth in trading volumes on Binance P2P platform, and we have constantly received requests for more fiat-to-crypto access from our global community. To meet the growing users demand, we are seeking credible merchants for Binance P2P trading platform …