The Iota Foundation has announced the release of its beta version smart contract functionality, with the objective to solve market challenges of scalability limitations and high transaction fees, as well as reportedly debuting components not witnessed thus far in the space. Iota’s nonprofit foundation is focused on open-source research and development initiatives to drive adoption in the distributed ledger technology space, alongside its native platform, the Tangle. The smart contract service will foster interoperability and standardization through the integration of Ethereum Virtual Machine; multi-capacity for developers to write program languages with Tiny Go, Rust, and Ethereum’s Solidity; as well as …

The age of digital transformation has arrived, leading traditional industries to adopt new technologies to accommodate a fully digital future. As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the trillion dollar oil and gas industry has quietly started to leverage blockchain technology for business success. Douglas Heintzman, chief catalyst at the Blockchain Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that the oil and gas sector is particularly ripe for blockchain development due to its uniquely positioned supply chain: “There are many participants in downstream and upstream operations within the oil and gas industry.” He added further: “The industry must now look at …

Smart cities are steadily garnering attention worldwide as they become points of aspiration for many jurisdictions. There is a very clear relationship in these urban utopias between the citizens for whom they are built and the systems, networks and devices that enable their safe, secure and efficient operation. Most importantly, they will be built on entirely new financial technology infrastructure that supports the flow of micropayments over financial “plumbing,” in a similar way that other essential utilities (water, energy, data, etc.) flow over pipes, cables and fiber. The principal aim of a smart city is to optimize city functions and …

On Monday, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released an official white paper exploring the potential of a retail-focused central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD). According to the document, the HKMA will seek to understand the “potential architectures and design options” from a technical and regulatory policy perspective, with the ambition of creating a dual-tier system — the first being designed for a “central bank to issue and redeem CBDC,” and the second being retail-centric for “commercial banks to distribute and circulate either rCBDC or CBDC-backed e-money.” Hong Kong debuted its investigation into CBDCs in …

Some people think that permissioned distributed ledger technology can perform better than open blockchain because it is tweaked to address the issues of the latter. Such systems are also called “permissioned blockchain,” as if blockchain is a high-level concept and “permissioned” is one of its variants. But this statement is controversial and down below, you will come to understand why. Is “permissioned” decentralized? There are a lot of other options to choose from in DLTs: permissioned, private, enterprise, federated DLT, etc. And frankly, sometimes, it is not easy to distinguish between them. Therefore, for this level of discussion, let us …

In the past 60 years, the life expectancy of the average newborn has increased by nearly 20 years — from 52.5 to 72, as of 2018. We’ve seen an incredible wave of technological innovation in this time: The introduction of the internet, medical breakthroughs and an enhanced understanding of public health initiatives have transformed the course of human life. And with new technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence now taking the stage, we know that even more radical transformation is coming. These disruptive technologies are paving the way for both longer and healthier lifespans. To show you just how much …

In April of this year, an anonymous buyer purchased a copy of Action Comics #1 for $3,250,000 USD — the highest figure on record for a vintage comic book. Published in 1938 and featuring the first-ever appearance of Superman, the comic is one of the last known copies in existence. Prior to the auction, it was graded by the Certified Guaranty Company, or CGC, using a 10-point system, where it received a near-perfect score. Any legitimate copy of Action Comics #1 would have been worth a decent sum of money, but this particular book out-sold all others because its physical …

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or FINMA, announced their approval for regulated Swiss exchange SIX to launch a digital asset marketplace and central securities depository built on distributed ledger technology on Friday. Initially intent on launching in the latter half of 2019, the Six exchange was slowed from progressing its ambitions by regulatory hurdles. Although no specific date of launch was announced on Friday, it is expected that after this challenge has been negotiated, customers will be able to experience the exchange's offerings in the near future. In February this year, 21 Shares launched the world’s first Polkadot exchange-traded …

Supply chain management platform VeChain has announced a new service for combining businesses to overhaul their carbon footprint data management practices. The new service, detailed in a Medium post on Thursday, combines decentralized ledger technology with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model. The Digital Carbon Footprint SaaS Service “allows enterprise users to log key data and integrate it with world-leading third party assurance providers within VeChain’s partnership network. This data can then be later transformed into new kinds of value and improve sustainability performance across the entirety of an organization.” In the announcement, VeChain cited obstacles with trust and transparency in …

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has officially joined Hedera Hashgraph’s panoply of 39 global governing council members, confirming its place as the second academic institution to support the blockchain platform following University College London’s admission last year. Hedera Hashgraph is an enterprise-grade distributed ledger technology designed to support the creation of new and existing web applications in the decentralized economy. Members of its governing consortium, which comprises established industry leaders such as Google, IBM, Boeing and Chainlink Labs, among others, pledge to support Hedera’s ambitions in growing its decentralized open-source ledger network. The members fulfill this …

Chinese multinational e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding has launched a new nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace allowing trademark holders to sell tokenized licenses to their intellectual property. The new NFT marketplace, dubbed “Blockchain Digital Copyright and Asset-Trade,” can be accessed via Alibaba’s Auction platform. NFTs launched via the platform will be issued on the “New Copyright Blockchain” — a distributed ledger technology platform centrally operated by the Sichuan Blockchain Association Copyright Committee. According to a Tuesday report from Alibaba-owned news publication South China Morning Post (SCMP), the marketplace hopes to target writers, musicians, artists and game developers. The marketplace is already …

The study of history and ancient people is immensely important to preserving the knowledge passed down through the generations. Unfortunately, the significance of the knowledge is particularly acute when it is lost. With tragedies such as the fire of the Library of Alexandria, or the pillaging of the House of Wisdom in ancient Baghdad, or the more recent losses of artifacts at the Iraq Museum, perspectives were lost, advancements in philosophy and literature were forgotten, and languages and translations vanished from the earth. As we look to preserve our history, how can we safeguard the artifacts of our heritage from …