“Big Four” audit and consulting firm Deloitte has outlined five basic areas of development for blockchain technology in order achieve widespread adoption, according to a study published September 28. According to Deloitte, in order to be adopted by enterprises on a mass scale, blockchain technology should overcome five major obstacles – the possibility of time-consuming operations, lack of standardization, high costs and complexity blockchain applications, regulatory uncertainty, as well as the absence of collaboration between blockchain-related firms. Identifying the area that needs the most development, Deloitte singled out the problem of possible operational delays on a distributed ledger network. The …

The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) is testing a blockchain platform developed by Elemential Labs to conduct e-voting for listed companies, local news outlet Hindu BusinessLine reports September 27. The NSE’s pilot will entail tokenizing voting rights and using the blockchain platform to connect the firm, registrar and transfer agents (RTA), and the regulator. Hindu BusinessLine notes that tokenized votes are both easy to transfer and to proxy, and the test will reportedly be used to evaluate how easy it is to audit the entirety of the voting procedure using blockchain. Sankarson Banerjee, CTO of projects at NSE, is …

American courier delivery services giant FedEx has joined Hyperledger, an open-source project established to improve cross-industry blockchain technologies, according to a press release published September 26. Hyperledger, which is hosted by the Linux Foundation, enables organizations to build blockchain-based industry-grade applications, platforms and hardware systems in the context of their individual business transactions. In joining Hyperledger, FedEx has become one of over 270 members. Other member companies include IBM, Intel, Deutsche Boerse, and J.P. Morgan. Kevin Humphries, Senior Vice President, IT, FedEx Services said that blockchain technology has “big implications” for supply chains, logistics, and transportation. In February, FedEx joined …

Privately held insurance advisory American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS) has introduced its blockchain-based insurance database and reporting tool, according to an announcement video posted August 15. The platform, dubbed Insurance Data Link (openIDL), is based on IBM's enterprise blockchain solution, using Hyperledger Fabric. The platform intends to reduce “burdensome” statistical reporting processes, as well as cut costs and data processing time for insurance carriers. According to a report accompanying the announcement, openIDL is operating the “first secure, open blockchain platform that enables the efficient and permissioned-based collection of statistical data on behalf of insurance carriers, regulators and other participating …

About 90 percent of currently active U.S. companies’ blockchain initiatives will ultimately be abandoned. This statistic comes from a study by Forrester Research, cited by Bloomberg in an article July 31. The U.S. market research firm Forrester Research predicts that most of blockchain-powered projects initiated by American companies will be put on hold in 2018. Specifically, Forrester Research estimates that in a whopping 90 percent of cases, the projects will “never become part of a company’s operations.” The researcher also claims that “some companies,” which have been striving to incorporate the widely touted distributed ledger technology (DLT) in their businesses, …

This interview has been edited and condensed. Leanne Kemp is the founder of blockchain platform Everledger, which tracks high-class assets like diamonds in order to reduce fraud and promote more viable marketplaces. Cointelegraph spoke to Kemp about how the service’s role as a global digital registry can help ensure ethical trade across a variety of assets. In the interview, Kemp explains how she considers Everledger’s role to be an anchor between the crypto space and the “real world,” providing a provenance platform to develop sustainable practices across the diamond industry. Molly Jane: As a first question, why did you guys …

Google is joining the list of tech giants to deploy blockchain technology to offer customers fintech and cloud service solutions, according to an official statement Monday, July 23. Google announced that the company has partnered with two blockchain-focused firms, Digital Asset and BlockApps, to offer new distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions on Google's Cloud Platform (GCP), which would allow users to "explore ways [customers] might use distributed ledger technology frameworks.” Digital Asset is a supplier of distributed ledger software for the fintech industry, while BlockApps offers a blockchain platform to launch decentralized apps (DApps). In the statement “Building a better …

Dublin-based major consultancy firm Accenture has partnered with French multinational aerospace firm Thales Group to update aircraft supply chains using blockchain, according to a press release July 16. Based on Hyperledger Fabric and set for its debut at the UK’s Farmborough Airshow July 21-22, the solution will use blockchain in tandem with Thales’ physically unclonable function (PUF) tool to “track, trace and authenticate aircraft parts and materials.” “The aerospace and defense industry has one of the world’s most vast and complex supply chains,” John Schmidt, global managing director for Accenture’s Aerospace and Defense practice said, continuing: “Blockchain technology offers a …

Brian Behlendorf, executive director of the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project, said that early blockchain projects will hardly be noticeable to most consumers, TechCrunch reported July 6. Speaking at the TC Sessions: Blockchain event in Zug, Switzerland, Behlendorf reportedly argued that a great number of consumers will not realize when financial institutions, governmental websites, or even social networks start using distributed ledger technology: “For a lot of consumers, you’re not going to realize when the bank or a web form at a government website or when you go to LinkedIn and start seeing green check marks against people’s claims that they …

European blockchain trading platform we.trade confirmed it had completed its first live operations today, July 3, involving twenty companies and five major banks. The blockchain platform, which claims to provide a “more efficient and cost effective way” for banks and businesses to trade worldwide, uses IBM’s Blockchain Platform, powered by Hyperledger Fabric. Part of various blockchain solutions currently under appraisal by the banking sector, the platform counts Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Nordea, Rabobank, Santander, Société Générale and UniCredit as its founding members. Together, according to Dutch institution Rabobank, the collaboration highlights the banks’ ability to “innovate.” “These trade(s) represents …

Bitcoin (BTC) developer Jimmy Song stated that using blockchain tech for a private, centralized system, such as an enterprise, ‘makes zero sense’ in an interview with Laura Shin June 26. Song, also a venture partner at Blockchain Capital, spoke on the podcast Unchained about his work as an architect on an enterprise private blockchain at Paxos for two years, noting that he “couldn’t” make a private blockchain work: “Every single time I came back to the same thing, you have to have some central point of failure, in which case a blockchain makes zero sense [...] I tried so hard …

Major Spanish banking group BBVA and Spanish energy company Repsol have signed an agreement to develop blockchain-based solutions for corporate banking, according to an announcement published June 20. The product by BBVA and Repsol was developed using multiple different blockchain technologies, namely Hyperledger and the Ethereum test network. Nuria Ávalos, the head of Blockchain and Digital Experimentation at Repsol, commented on the collaboration: “Repsol wants to actively take part in collaborative environments. Blockchain is a disruptive technology that is here to stay and the agreement with BBVA advances our strategy of driving digitization in all areas of our activity.” The …