Remittances giant MoneyGram announced a new service allowing real-time money sending, but the solutions of its blockchain partner Ripple are not involved. MoneyGram recently announced FastSend, a new service that allows its customers to send money in real-time to a phone number via a dedicated website or mobile application. Still, the firm’s answers to Cointelegraph’s inquiries revealed that surprisingly MoneyGram’s latest product does not make use of Ripple’s technology. You don’t need blockchain for real-time settlements Kamila Chytil, MoneyGram Chief Operating Officer explained to Cointelegraph that FastSend uses Visa’s Direct Original Credit Transaction to deliver funds to bank accounts through …

Bangladesh-based Bank Asia has joined Ripple’s RippleNet blockchain-based financial services network. The partnership was only recently discovered after a Twitter user pointed out the Bank Asia logo in an official Ripple document on Feb. 10. Still, the partnership must be well over a month old, given that the document in question was published in December 2019. Bank Asia’s logo is present on a page showing examples of RippleNet users, alongside Santander, American Express, MoneyGram, Send Friend, Standard Chartered, SABB and SBI Group. The LinkedIn profile of the bank’s head of foreign remittances Khandaker Mujahidul Islam shows that he is working …

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a global financial market infrastructure giant, says traditional IT security frameworks must be updated to tackle the blockchain. An official press release on Feb. 12 took note of the expected rise in adoption of distributed ledger technology like blockchains in financial services globally. The DTCC has published a new white paper, Security of DLT Networks, which recommends the creation of a comprehensive, DLT-specific Security Framework and, potentially, an Industry Consortium that would spearhead research into standards and guidelines for the sector. New benefits, new risks In its white paper, DTCC notes that at …

Blockchain-enabled applications developer Acoer has created a data visualization tool to track the deadly coronavirus. The tool, known as the HashLog data visualization engine, interacts in real-time with Hedera Hashgraph’s distributed ledger technology. This allows researchers, scientists and journalists to understand the spread of the coronavirus and its trends over time through visuals presented on Acoer’s HashLog dashboard. Acoer’s CEO, Jim Nasr, told Cointelegraph that the HashLog tool pulls data from the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization to capture useful information regarding the virus. He said: “HashLog allows for the real-time visualization of coronavirus data and …

According to a Feb. 3 press release, open source blockchain platform Waves established a non-profit organization called Waves Association in Frankfurt, Germany to provide effective governance for its own ecosystem, Web3, and to foster the development of DLTs, including public and private blockchain protocols. Uniting six countries The Waves Association will be represented by ten community members from six different countries: Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia. Waves founder Alexander Ivanov, who is also a member of the association, calls the launch of the Waves Association an important step for the company’s ecosystem: Through the Association, we will …

Hyperledger Fabric released version 2.0 of its enterprise distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, according to a Jan. 30 announcement. Several major features were added to the platform that improve how its different participants communicate with each other. Hyperledger Fabric is the IBM-backed part of the Hyperledger consortium, which features dozens of industry players. Fabric is a private or “permissioned” blockchain network that is used in industries such as finance and supply chains. It allows companies to control access to their networks and keep sensitive data private, while enabling some cross-industry cooperation through dedicated channels and verifiable smart contracts. Version 2.0 …

Chinese entrepreneurs registered 714 blockchain firms in China this month, resulting in a total of 26,089 such companies operating in the country. According to cryptocurrency data firm LongHash on Jan. 26, the total number of blockchain firms registered in China is 79,556, while 57,257 Chinese blockchain firms also lost their legal status or had their licenses revoked. From 2009–17, the annual number of founded blockchain firms remained relatively static, before a notable jump upward in 2018. While it remains to be seen whether funding remains stable for the remaining 11 months of 2020, if the average monthly rate of founded …

The World Economic Forum (WEF) — together with some of the world's major central banks — has created a central bank digital currency (CBDC) policymaker toolkit. According to an announcement on Jan. 22, the toolkit is the WEF's attempt to help policy-makers understand whether deploying a CBDC would be advantageous and guide them through its design. The WEF collaborated with regulators, central bank researchers, international organizations and experts from over 40 institutions to develop the framework. The head of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) at the World Economic Forum Sheila Warren explained: “Given the critical roles central banks play …

In the last quarter of 2019, Hyperledger’s Fabric open source blockchain software saw more developer activity than R3’s Corda platform. Blockchain service firm Chainstack recently published a report about developer activity on six major enterprise blockchains, showing that Fabric has overtaken Corda in regard to dev activity on its repository. A chart included in the report shows that Fabric developer activity exceeded Corda’s in Q4 2019. Total GitHub activity per-protocol. Source: Chainstack Fabric’s growth after the switch to GitHub The surge in Fabric developer activity closely followed the project’s transition from the code management tool Gerrit to the more popular …

San Francisco-based blockchain firm Alchemy announced the launch of its public application programming interface (API) after having raised $15 million in its Series A funding round. According to a press release published by the firm on Dec. 17, Alchemy’s platform allows enterprises to build blockchain-based applications. The $15 million funding round was reportedly led by Pantera Capital and has seen participation from the Stanford University — as Cointelegraph reported yesterday — crypto exchange Coinbas, tech giant Samsung, Alphabet chairman John Hennessy, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang. The company intends to use the funds to expand into international …

Multinational IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) launched a blockchain app development kit (DevKit). According to an announcement published by TCS on Dec. 16, the new Quartz DevKit is a low-code web-based integrated development environment that aims to allow enterprises to quickly build and deploy applications on any chosen blockchain in a simplified way. Fast blockchain app deployment The DevKit features expandable pre-built templates for platform setup, administration, deployment, platform security authentication, encryption, node, identity and user management. The firm claims that this lets programmers write smart contracts 40% faster than without its DevKit. Global Quartz head at TCS …

Microsoft’s blockchain-enabled cloud service Microsoft Azure announced new tokenization and blockchain data management services. In a post published on the official Microsoft Azure blog on Dec. 6, the IT service giant announced the Azure Blockchain Tokens and blockchain data manager. New tools for Azure blockchain users The Azure Blockchain Tokens service aims to simplify the definition, creation and management of compliant tokens built to industry standards. The firm also provides pre-built templates for common uses and hosts a gallery for templates created by partners, which are expected to be added in the future. The announcement reads: “With this latest offering, …