There are mixed indicators regarding the current progress or stalling of blockchain adoption throughout the enterprise world. Research has indicated that investments have dropped by over half over the last year, contrary to other research showing a growing sentiment toward the vitality of blockchain adoption as an innovative technology. For example, Research by CB Insights in 2019 indicates that there may be a separation between corporate adoption and corporate investments into blockchain companies. As reported previously by Cointelegraph, blockchain investments have dropped by up to 60% since 2018. However, this decline does not seem to have affected the positive outlook …

Ethereum-focused development firm ConsenSys becomes a premier member of blockchain development project Hyperledger, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. Software already submitted Per the release, ConsenSys also submitted its Pantheon Java-based Ethereum client to Hyperledger as the project Hyperledger Besu. Besu, which is reportedly the first public chain compatible blockchain submission to Hyperledger, is the fifteenth Hyperledger project. Hyperledger executive director Brian Behlendorf commented on the submission, saying: “By submitting the code for Hyperledger Besu right out of the gate, ConsenSys is showing its support for our mission to build a broad coalition for advancing enterprise blockchain.” Favoring …

Walmart is currently making use of blockchain technology to create a food traceability system based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric. Along with IBM, the retail giant has already tested two proof-of-concept projects to examine its envisioned system. The first project deals actively with tracing the origins of the mangoes being sold across Walmart’s stores in the United States, while the other seeks to trace the pork meat being sold via the company’s different Chinese outlets. From an efficiency perspective, the research team at Walmart claims that by making use of this new system, the time needed to trace the …

Blockchain development company Truffle has unveiled plans to expand its fully managed developer suite to include support for the blockchain protocols Corda, Hyperledger Fabric and Tezos. Truffle founder and CEO Tim Coulter announced the company’s plans at TruffleCon 2019 — Truffle’s annual dev conference — on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington. Coulter commented on how he thinks these tools will pave the way for collaboration via interoperability, saying: “We are empowering developers to build enterprise-grade solutions on any network of their choosing, creating a path for future cross-network collaboration.” According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph, the Truffle Suite …

Global tech giant Intel has co-sponsored a new blockchain programming project by major blockchain tech firm Hyperledger, according to a Forbes report on July 3. Officially released on June 27, Hyperledger Transact is a new tool that aims to boost the compatibility of blockchain networks by providing a standard interface, or a shared software library for smart contracts execution. Michael Reed, Intel's blockchain program director, said in an interview with Forbes that the main purpose of the company's efforts in blockchain development is to ensure that distributed ledger technology solutions “run well on Intel silicon.” Reed noted that the company …

Samsung SDS, Dutch bank ABN AMRO and the Port of Rotterdam have jointly conducted a proof-of-concept (PoC) shipment from South Korea to the Netherlands in which they tracked a container exclusively using an interoperable blockchain platform, according to a report by The Maritime Executive on July 1. According to the announcement, the container was tracked via the blockchain platform “DELIVER,” which allowed for the shipment to be instantly financed, fully tracked, and conducted paperlessly. According to Port of Rotterdam CFO Paul Smits, the traditional process of shipping is usually paper-heavy and inefficient: “Currently payments, administration and the physical transportation of …

Stuart Popejoy has 15 years experience in building trading systems and exchange backbones for the financial industry. Prior to co-founding Kadena with Will Martino in 2016 and becoming the company's president, Stuart worked at JPMorgan Chase in the new products division, where he led and developed JPMorgan’s main blockchain product, Juno. Stuart also wrote the algorithmic trading scripts for JPMorgan, which informed his creation of Kadena’s simple, purpose-built smart contract language, Pact. The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. IBM is a major player in the …

Canadian tech firm Graph Blockchain Inc. has partnered with the Ministry of Transportation in Seoul, South Korea, to run a pilot program for blockchain-based traffic data storage, according to a news release on June 24. Graph Blockchain reportedly signed a contract for around $55,000 CAD, or approximately $41,695 at press time, to run this pilot program as part of the “Smart City initiative.” According to the CEO of Graph Blockchain, Jeff Stevens, the company intends to use its blockchain solution to “streamline and protect” traffic data. Graph Blockchain purportedly uses the open source Hyperledger Fabric framework to develop its blockchain …

Azerbaijan has been a hotbed for a series of ambitious fintech-related announcements over the past several months, as the nation’s authorities were apparently moving to implement a series of innovative technological solutions in banking and e-government systems. Repeated statements by government representatives suggested that at least part of the program relied on blockchain infrastructure. Most recently, as Cointelegraph reported, the chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee revealed plans to implement blockchain technology to build an online-accessible cargo transportation database. Earlier in May, a high-ranking official for the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), speaking at the Fintex summit in Baku, mentioned …

United States tech giant Microsoft and the Ethereum Foundation are among the latest companies to join the ranks of the Hyperledger greenhouse hosted by the Linux Foundation. Many notable names in the tech and wider business fields today are developing enterprise-grade solutions based on the expanding set of tools built on Hyperledger. These institutional blockchain projects cut across both financial and nonfinancial distributed ledger technology (DLT) utilization. Presently, there are pilot projects geared toward identification systems, supply chain management (SCM) and provenance, to mention a few. On the whole, members of Hyperledger appear to be at the forefront of a …

Visa has launched a payment system for business-to-business (B2B) transactions partially based on blockchain technology. The United States payment behemoth says its platform, called Visa B2B Connect, offers seamless cross-border payment processing for institutional clients without going through the complex web of third-party intermediaries. In doing so, Visa becomes the latest entrant into the blockchain-based payment processing arena. This move brings the company into direct competition with cryptocurrency startups like Ripple and mainstream players, such as Barclays and BNY Mellon with their Utility Settlement Coin (USC) project under the aegis of the Fnality Consortium. Visa B2B Connect — three years …

IBM has announced upgrades to its Blockchain Platform, according to a report by Ledger Insights on June 18. The new IBM Blockchain Platform will reportedly be able to run on multiple cloud networks, such as major tech corporation Microsoft’s Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS). This is apparently the main upgrade over its previous iteration, which was available solely through IBM’s cloud. The multicloud platform will be available via Kubernetes, a container program that will reportedly allow users to scale their blockchain networks as needed. One of the main upshots of its new multicloud framework is that IBM Blockchain Platform …