“The plugin –- powered by a combination of [the public VeChain] blockchain and a cloud-based application called “TAM” –- enables brands to generate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are pegged to physical assets. Consumers who purchase a product containing an NFT can scan that item to verify its authenticity.
Shopify, which has grown to become one of the most popular ecommerce platforms in the world, consists of over 500 thousand active online stores. Shopify is the third-largest online retailer in the US, right behind Amazon and eBay.
A number of companies are currently beta testing the Shopify plugin. The plugin will officially be released in Q1 of this year.“
“The RBI has not prohibited VCs (virtual currencies) in the country. The RBI has directed the entities regulated by it to not provide services to those persons or entities dealing in or settling VCs.”
“Hong Kong and Thailand’s central banks have stepped closer to implementing a joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) for cross-border payments.
Following a successful PoC, the banks concluded that the CBDC has the potential to significantly reduce intermediaries and settlement layers in comparison to the traditional banking payments system as well as prevent risks such as double spending.
The project is based on R3’s blockchain platform Corda and implements smart contracts in order to perform atomic Payment-versus-Payment (PvP) settlements for foreign exchange.”
“The network itself can automatically exchange the sender’s payment into the asset specified by the receiver.
The present technology permits a first party to pay in any currency, while permitting the second party to be paid in any currency.
Consumers can pay in their preferred asset – using a privacy coin to keep their identities secret, for example – and merchants receive the full value in an asset they want to hold.”
“The enterprise blockchain consortium launched the Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group (SIG) during the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting. The Climate SIG will enable participants to share ideas and findings on how distributed ledgers can help governments and companies coordinate on reducing global emissions.
DLTs are central to the creation of a global and open climate accounting system that helps integrate all actors and actions under the same planetary goal.
Members will develop the mechanisms required to enable trustless emissions and climate statistics reporting, and will create the protocols and standards suitable for companies and governments around the world.“
“Most experts at Davos appear to agree blockchain technology should be used for more data collection, not self-sovereign finance.
While he didn’t suggest it should be banned outright, Jabbarov’s primary concern was collecting know-your-customer (KYC) information associated with bitcoin ownership.
There’s widespread concern about bitcoin wallets that essentially allow “secret bank accounts.” ‘There needs to be unique identities of natural persons in this data.'”
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“Each “torchbearer” sends a tiny amount of bitcoin to the next. The goal is to highlight the speed and global nature of the lightning network. It’s moving around the world much faster the second time around, already reaching 91 people in three days.”
“The asset manager will continue to donate one-third of the management fees from its Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust to the ETC Cooperative each quarter through 2021.
Since 2017, Grayscale has donated a total of $1.1 million, including $338,000 in 2019, to the cooperative, which funds development of the protocol.”
“Annotations and in-line comments themselves will be hosted on readers’ devices using GUN. Both firms are working towards further blockchain feature integrations in the near future.
Less dependency on central entities is essential for the internet to mature into a technology that works for the people using it.”
“Sports live-streaming provider SportsCastr is launching its own [ERC-20] cryptocurrency to reward viewers and encourage interactions. SportsCastr says the tokens can be earned at the “thousands of sports bars” on FanWide’s U.S. network and will be redeemable for cash.
FanWide has promoted over 1.5 million watch parties and is the official fan club network of teams in the NFL, LaLiga, Ruby League and others.”
The Disrupt 