The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is forming a dedicated focus group for blockchain exploration made up of both big business and cryptocurrency players, Indian daily newspaper Economic Times reported Monday, Oct. 15. Confirmed in a tweet Tuesday, the IAMAI, whose remit is to “expand and enhance” the online and mobile sector, will use its “Blockchain Committee” to “identify opportunities and challenges and work with government, industry and startups” to develop a blockchain “ecosystem.” The move comes amid testing times for cryptocurrency in India, with the country’s supreme court still deliberating on the legality of the Reserve Bank …

Cryptocurrency markets could increase ten times over from 2020, blockchain investment firm and hedge fund Pantera Capital’s co-CIO told Bloomberg Tuesday, Oct. 16. Speaking in an interview, co-CIO Joey Krug said that scalability improvements for Bitcoin (BTC) were essential to spark a shift in the deflated prices seen throughout this year. He told the network: “These are all markets, and so if you don’t have scalability, you don’t have market makers.” The comments came days after new developments on the institutional trading side of Bitcoin markets, with Fidelity Investments revealing it was testing a regulated custody solution for investors and …

Payment giants MasterCard and VISA will soon group cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) jurisdictions in a new “high risk” category, financial trading news site Finance Magnates reported Friday, October 12. According to the Broker Complaint Registry, some details of the shortly upcoming classification by MasterCard had already become public in May of this year. The registry notes that binary options, CFDs, forex, cryptocurrency options, and ICOs will fall under a new category of “High-Risk Securities Merchants” starting on Oct. 12, 2018, and will be subject to additional monitoring. According to Finance Magnates, the grouping means that chargebacks could now …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week CNBC’s Ran Neuner Claims Bitcoin’s Price Is Set To “Explode” Ran Neuner, crypto analyst and host of CNBC’s show Cryptotrader, said this week that the price of Bitcoin is “about to explode.” In a series of tweets, the trader predicted that a notable Bitcoin rally could be tied to the SEC’s upcoming decision …

On October 9, American financial services giant Mastercard was granted a patent for a method to partition a blockchain so that it can store multiple transaction types and formats. The filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveals the details of the new system — not the first of the kind for Mastercard. Why would you need to partition a blockchain? Simply put, different blockchains store their transactions in different blocks — say, Bitcoin (BTC) uses one kind of system to record data on its blockchain, while Ethereum (ETH) opts for alternative metrics. Now, imagine a company …

Mastercard has been awarded a patent for a method to partition a blockchain, making it capable of storing multiple transaction types and formats. The patent filing was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Oct. 9. The document explains that in current blockchain systems, the transaction records stored in the different blocks that comprise a blockchain are “often required to be of the same format and include the same types, and sometimes even sizes, of data.” This means that any entity that wants to use multiple types of blockchains — whether ones that support different cryptocurrencies, or …

Ajaypal Banga, the CEO of Mastercard, blasted cryptocurrencies during the “New India Lecture” at the Indian Consulate earlier this week, The Times of India reports Thursday, July 26. Banga described anonymous, non-state-issued cryptocurrencies as “junk,” because their prices can fluctuate “wildly” and thus they do not “deserve” to be considered a medium of exchange. Speaking at a series of lectures hosted by the Indian Consulate in partnership with the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), the India-born CEO and president of the multinational financial services giant Mastercard reportedly said the following: "I think cryptocurrency is junk....The idea of an anonymized currency …

The world’s fourth-largest telecoms provider, Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), has filed a patent for using blockchain tech for contract agreement, according to a U.S. Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO) release on July 19. NTT’s patent application writes that a problem with contracts on blockchain is that each transactions “contains only the electronic signature of the sender” as the “evidence of contract agreement by the receiver is not left in the transaction.” The patent suggests a “simple, possible way to solve this problem is to, for example, include the electronic signatures of all the involved parties in one transaction.” …

Bank of America (BoA) has filed a patent for a blockchain-based system allowing the external validation of data, according to a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent filing released July 17. BoA’s patent filing proposes using blockchain for tracking resource information and confirming resource transfers, noting that “A need currently exists for providing a more accurate indication of a user's financial standing by allowing external validation of data in a process data network.” The patent describes how the system would record information on the blockchain based on “aggregated information associated with past transfer of resources executed by an …

Mastercard has filed a new patent for consumer protection and payment transactions based on blockchain technology, according to a US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent filing published July 17. The new patent application includes a new form of a public blockchain-based method for linking assets between blockchain and fiat currency accounts. Mastercard’s patent describes the method for “managing fractional reserves of blockchain currency” as storing fiat currency in one central account with a “blockchain currency” stored in a second. The system would include a “plurality of account profiles, each profile including a fiat currency amount, blockchain currency amount, account …

Ripple, the company behind the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has recently employed Kahina Van Dyke as the new senior vice president of business and corporate development, according an official statement July 11. At the new position Van Dyke will be responsible for providing Ripple with strategic partnerships for international financial services, focusing on the development of “a new global technology solution for international payments.” Van Dyke has joined Ripple to “[eliminate] the friction in cross-border payments” by “establishing partnerships and applying technology to change an industry,” she said in the press release. When asked what is the “the …

Financial services provider Mastercard has filed a patent for a blockchain system to provide faster and more secure payments on their cards, according to US Patent and Trademark Office USPTO patent filing released June 7. The patent application dubbed “Method And System For Payment Card Verification Via Blockchain” describes a public blockchain-assisted conveyance and retrieval of payment processes to verify and secure users’ information. In the document, Mastercard noted the vulnerability of existing means of “wireless transmission of payment credentials,” claiming that they can be “subject to intercept.” By implementing a blockchain, the company aims to enable a secure way …