Chinese holding conglomerate Ping An Group filed the largest number of blockchain-related patents in 2020, according to a new report. Intellectual property-focused magazine Intellectual Asset Management has released a report on the rankings of the world’s foremost blockchain patentees. Based on data from the Derwent World Patents Index, the rankings show that Ping An filed 1,215 blockchain patent families in 2020, more than Tencent and Ant Group combined. Owning a total of 1,749 blockchain patent families, Ping An sharply increased its number of patent applications in 2020, up from just 291 in 2019. Based in Shenzhen, Ping An operates a …

A sense of relief has begun to emerge as COVID-19 vaccinations continue to be administered across the world. While hopeful, a new challenge remains: distinguishing between individuals vaccinated and those unvaccinated. Various statistics claim that very little of the world’s population has been fully vaccinated as of the start of March 2021. While this number is still low, some regions like Texas have optimistically begun lifting mask mandates in hopes of resuming normal lifestyles. Other states across America, however, have started taking safer precautions to ensure normalcy following the COVID-19 vaccination rollouts. For example, New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently …

IBM’s food-tracking blockchain technology will be used by the Carrefour multinational retail firm to track food supply lines from the farm to the store. An agreement between Majid Al Futtaim — the firm that operates Carrefour in the Middle East — and IBM will see the retail giant use the IBM Food Trust initially to track two food categories: chicken and microgreens. The IBM Food Trust is a blockchain-specific platform designed for the food industry, hosted on the IBM Cloud. Carrefour, which recorded $97 billion in revenue in 2019, will enable customers to scan QR codes on the products in …

A little-known altcoin known as Metacoin (MTC) surged to 486% gains in just 24 hours on Jan. 18, after Bittrex Global announced it would be listing the coin against Bitcoin (BTC). Metacoin is built on the Hyperledger network, an umbrella project of open-source technologies focused around building permissioned blockchain ecosystems for large cross-industry enterprises. Metacoin became the first cryptocurrency of Hyperledger’s to achieve mainnet status when it went live in 2018. Hyperledger was founded by the Linux Foundation, and is overseen by a host of “premium members”, comprising leading technology and finance companies, such as IBM, J.P. Morgan, Fujitsu, Hitachi, …

"Mining" may be most frequently used in the crypto industry to refer to the process by which digital currencies are collectively generated — but there are contexts in which firms are adopting blockchain infrastructure to manage the most physical of mining supply chains. The Russian company Norilsk Nickel — the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a large producer of platinum and copper — has joined an initiative called the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network, according to an announcement published on Jan. 14. The Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network, or RSBN, is the outcome of an initiative by the …

Enterprise blockchain started gaining traction in 2017 shortly after Bitcoin had reached its all-time high of nearly $20,000. Since then, enterprise blockchain has mainly been defined by private blockchain networks used by businesses for things such as supply chain management. The enterprise blockchain space has changed quite a bit since 2017. For instance, 2020 has brought in a number of enterprise blockchain use cases that leverage public networks rather than private ones. The COVID-19 pandemic has also driven many companies, both large and small, to use blockchain for guaranteeing proof-of-health or to revive tourism. Finally, some blockchain companies this year …

An IBM blockchain-powered platform is now offering a way for people to track wine from its vineyard origins all the way to your local store shelf. In an announcement today, IBM said it has partnered with wine monitoring firm eProvenance to release the VinAssure platform. Built on IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply, VinAssure will reportedly run on IBM Cloud and allow wine producers, importers, transporters, distributors, restaurants, retailers, and others to track the supply chain of bottles “through a permissioned, permanent and shared record of data.” VinAssure’s members include North Carolina-based wine importer De Maison Selections, which reports $22 million in …

Central banks from two of the most powerful economies in the Middle East released a report today on a yearlong joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) project — and results speak glowingly of blockchain technology. First announced in January of 2019, Project Aber was a joint effort between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to establish a “proof of concept” designed to “contribute in the body of knowledge in CBDC and DLT technologies.” The combined effort of two central banks in such a study is among the first of its kind. To this end, the report notes that the …

A new blockchain-based payment system is aiming to create infrastructure that will digitize banking like never before — bringing together banks, regulators and consumers. Cryptoenter says its goal is to blur the lines between fiat and crypto. The platform will deliver services that take inspiration from DeFi, all while providing levels of reliability that traditional banks have become renowned for. The ecosystem has been in development for the past two-and-a-half years. It has been built by Smart Block Laboratory, which became a registered business partner with IBM back in 2017. A year later, the company was recognized as a silver …

IBM’s foray into the blockchain ecosystem is deepening with a new partnership to track supply chains in the textile and fashion industries. The Armonk, New York-based tech giant announced Monday that it’s teaming up with German textile manufacturer Kaya&Kato to develop a blockchain network that tracks the origin of fabrics used in the fashion industry. The new application will allow Kaya&Kato’s suppliers and customers to identify where their fabrics are processed, as well as understand each step of the production and distribution processes. IBM said: “The network is designed to create transparency about the origin of garments, from the fiber …

Malta-based virtual assistant firm Vaiot has integrated IBM’s Watson Assistant with the Cosmos blockchain to sell car insurance. The new platform features an end-to-end sales process that does not require human assistance to complete the car insurance contracts. The mobile app interacts with customers via voice or text, initially asking a series of questions to identify and suggest insurance options. Once signed, the contract is stored on the Cosmos SDK in the form of a smart contract, underpinned by the Tendermint Protocol. The AI monitors the deal and automatically begins the insurance coverage once the payment goes through. Although multiple …

American market research company Forrester recently released its blockchain predictions for 2021. The report reveals interesting findings, noting that 2020 has been an important year for growth in the enterprise blockchain and distributed ledger technology space. Martha Bennett, principal analyst at Forrester and a co-author of the report, told Cointelegraph that the firm’s blockchain predictions are based on inflection points that show definite changes rather than the continuation of trends. For instance, the report predicts that 30% of global projects will make it into production next year. This is partly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to …