While blockchain is known for bringing trust and transparency to multi-party workflows, it can also ensure the immutability of business-critical data. Realizing this potential, technology giant Oracle has announced a crypto-secure data management offering that will be provided as a free feature for Oracle converged database users. Juan Loaiza, executive vice president, Mission-Critical Database Technologies at Oracle, told Cointelegraph that it’s become apparent that customers deploying blockchain solutions often do not require the full capabilities of these implementations. Loaiza also pointed out that the complexity of introducing a completely new technology stack into an IT environment can be burdensome. Blockchain …

A French project is building “The Internet of Trust” — and says decentralized identifiers will be a crucial part of Web 3.0. XSL Labs is developing a Secure Digital Identifier (otherwise known as SDI for short) that’s designed to ensure users have full control over their private information. In time, it’s hoped this approach will diminish the power of tech giants such as Facebook and Google. SDI aims to limit the amount of data that is shared about ourselves online, without impeding access to goods and services. The project intends to ensure zero-knowledge proofs are utilized wherever possible, which add …

In our digital world, data has now become as valuable as gold or oil. In order to achieve success, companies must adapt to handling their data much like a commodity, by trading and earning a profit off of it. Data is especially valuable when it comes to artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms due to its ability to provide value that enables new AI use cases. In order for a marketplace to be successful, it is essential to take into account scalability, quality and price of data. This is where blockchain technology comes in, where it will able to provide …

Over the past decade, blockchain has surpassed the hype realm into a real transformative solution for industries. Several companies are investing billions of dollars on the network; it topped LinkedIn’s list of in-demand hard skills in 2020, and articles about its potential are now littered on every finance blog. Ask those who had experienced the early internet days, and they will certainly have a lot to tell you about the feeling of deja vu that has diffused the tech space. Mainstream maximalist circles have touted blockchain as the magic solution for many industries — healthcare probably being the neediest. Forbes’ …

A year unlike any other, when much of life went online, created a compelling case for digital identity. Talk of “immunity passports,” privacy-protecting contact tracing apps and even a potential move to online voting systems all speak to the need for robust digital identities. In July 2020, the World Economic Forum published a briefing paper covering the risks and opportunities around “the internet of bodies.” From wearable technology to connected medical implants, it’s evident that our future digital identities could comprise more data than we ever thought possible. But the push for digital identity is also provoking strong pushback. The …

The long-awaited video game Cyberpunk 2077 came out as an unfinished product with a bunch of technical flaws, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most important cultural phenomenons of recent years. And while some gamers are asking for refunds and the developers are hurriedly working on patches, I suggest we look at the enormously rich video game setting. The picture is not very nice — this world is a real centralized hell. In the fictional world of Cyberpunk 2077, blockchain technology either never existed or was never massively implemented. This is a world where full-scale decentralization …

New York's financial regulator is asking for new tools to gather real-time financial data. On Thursday, the New York Department of Financial Services announced new details of its coming "techsprint" competition: "The objective of the techsprint is to achieve creative and collaborative prototyping as a step toward smarter regulatory reporting in virtual currency." Namely, the DFS is using the two-week competition to get better access to data from crypto companies in real time. It's first question reads: "How can DFS achieve real-time or more frequent access to company financial data from virtual currency licensees and receive early warning signs of …

Data is becoming one of society’s most valuable resources. And yet, our existing approaches fail to unleash its massive intrinsic value. Why is this the case? The issue is that our data — who we are, and what is relevant about us — is defined and collected by corporations and governments. Consumers were alarmed to find their phones were being tracked by the government , for example. These organizations, whether private or governmental, seem interested primarily in using your personal identity and your data streams to enhance their power. If you are an average user, this means you are missing …

As the first vaccines against COVID-19 roll out, governments and institutions across the world are scrambling to figure out how to provide proof that someone has been vaccinated. Paper certificates, PDFs, wristbands and mobile apps have all been suggested — and the former director of the Centers for Disease Control, Tom Frieden, and international human rights attorney Aaron Schwid urged the adoption of digital “immunity passports” as a way to reopen the world. In theory, their idea is great. In practice, it’s terrible. Or, as the Daily Beast put it: “Vaccine Passports Are Big Tech’s Latest Dystopian Nightmare.” As a …

A crypto platform is positioning itself as a central hub for DeFi trading and market analysis — with its ecosystem offering powerful aggregation that delivers up-to-the-minute data and helps users capitalize on the latest movements in decentralized finance. DEXTools enhances Uniswap, one of the world’s biggest decentralized exchanges, by offering a pool explorer that enables investors to discover new trading pairs. As well as showcasing promising new projects, this tool also highlights high-risk scams. A pair explorer also enables users to check real-time analytics, while the Wallet Info tool allows addresses to be tracked and followed. The app recently unveiled …

Bitcoin's market capitalization was briefly flippened today as Wrapped Bitcoin suddenly gained quadrillions of dollars in value. WBTC showed a behemoth market cap of about $432 quadrillion for a brief period (the total world money supply is estimated at $1.2 quadrillion, including derivatives, according to Rankred.com.) It sat listed atop all the other assets, even Bitcoin (BTC), which had a valuation of roughly $733 billion at the time. But crypto aficionados and maximalists need not worry about the usurpation of the Bitcoin crown: The move was a glitch on CoinMarketCap, which briefly displayed Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) as worth more than …

Just like you might think twice about eating chicken nuggets once you see how they are made, you’d likely hesitate about volunteering your personal information once you see how it is used and monetized. Freedom has become one of the world’s most commoditized assets — and over the years, the internet has eroded it. We live in a world where we’re confronted with 5,000 words of terms and conditions when buying sneakers. Crucial details about what companies do with our data is buried in masses of legalese — prompting most of us to click “I agree” without thinking of the …