Category: Crypto

Categories
Crypto News

Bank of England (BoE) To Use Blockchain Technology To Optimize Payments Systems

The Bank of England (BoE), the highest monetary authority in the UK, said its payment system could use distributed ledger technology (DLT), better known as blockchain technology, to interconnect with FinTech companies and protect itself from cyber attacks.

In a statement released recently, the BoE said a revamped Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) should be able to link to Financial Technology (FinTech) firms using distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain technology.

At the end of March this year, the British Central Bank announced the launch of a Proof of Concept (PoC), supported by Baton Systems, Clearmatics Technologies Ltd, R3, and Token. The purpose of the test was to discover ways in which the use of blockchain or DLT technology could facilitate a renewal of the RTGS system so that a diverse and flexible range of settlement models could be offered.

According to the document summarising the objectives and results of the PoC, “all participants confirmed that the functionality offered by the enhanced RTGS service would allow their systems to connect and achieve settlement of central bank money.”

Once the objectives of the PoC have been met, the Bank of England intends to investigate whether the RTGS service could acceptably record crypto evidence.

The Bank of England (BoE) to employ blockchain technology (distributed ledger technology) for payments

The crypto tests mentioned above, as explained in the BoE publication, are about functions that allow authentication of a user’s identity and protection of valuable information located on the network.

According to Reuter, the RTGS underpins British banking and commerce in the City of London. Through this system, there is a money supply of around 500 billion GBP, equivalent to almost a third of Britain’s economic output. The news agency said the system is expected to be ready for renewal in 2020, “to strengthen defenses against cyber-attacks and expand the number of companies that can use it.”

On the other hand, the BoE has carried out other concept tests related to blockchain technology, which it has been researching since 2016. In April of this year, the results of a study conducted by this financial institution were released, which verified the feasibility of a decentralized distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform with sufficient privacy for sensitive data.

The integration of traditional payment systems and blockchain technology, which supports cryptocurrencies, is in the interest of the financial sector globally. Recently, Mastercard registered a patent on a system that would allow the banking network of fiat currency payments to be interconnected with cryptocurrencies, through the blockchain technology.

Categories
Crypto News

Lufthansa Teamed Up With SAP To Sponsor Blockchain Technology Contest To Revolutionize Aviation Industry

Two of Germany’s leading global companies, Lufthansa Airlines and SAP software developer, have teamed up to develop and implement blockchain technologies and other related innovations to add value to the commercial aviation industry. In this regard, Lufthansa Innovation Hub and SAP.iO Foundry launched the “Aviation Blockchain Challenge,” a competition to draw attention to the potential of blockchain in the industry and to discover projects aimed at improving processes in different areas.

According to a statement published by SAP, the proceeding emerged from the belief that blockchain technologies can transform processes and increase the value of the aviation industry, in this case.

The impact of blockchain technologies on the aviation sector is not yet felt. We want to change that along with SAP and see substantial potential in our industry to use blockchain and other decentralized networking systems.

Gleb Tritus, Managing Director at Lufthansa Innovation Hub

Regarding the partnership between Lufthansa and SAP, Tritus said the collaboration of the two multinationals with a strong culture of innovation provides the best possible framework for attracting talent on a global scale.

Lufthansa and SAP teamed up to sponsor a blockchain technology project to revolutionize the aviation industry

Deepak Krishnamurthy, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of SAP, said participants would compete in three categories in which to focus solutions. These include user-focused ideas, with the goal of achieving a more optimal travel experience for travelers. The relationship with the airline, where they will evaluate projects focused on operations, and, finally, proposals focused on maintenance of the supply chain in the aviation industry.

The winning idea could become a pilot project of the Lufthansa Group, and the team would have up to 3 months to work on its development in Berlin, Germany. Also, they will be able to access SAP’s Blockchain-as-a-Service platform to build or improve their project.

The possible applications of blockchain technology in the aviation industry have been under discussion since 2017. In late-2017, the Accenture consulting firm pointed out in an article that areas such as maintenance, ticketing and security would be susceptible to optimization through a blockchain technology.

Air France KLM Group also discussed the possibility of applying blockchain technology for tracking aircraft spare parts. More recently, it became known that specialist security controls and supply chain companies in the aviation industry, such as Moog, Rolls Royce, Sabre and Air Bus, are exploring the application of blockchain in supply chains.

Categories
Crypto News

Bitmain Crypto Mining Company Launched Its New Litecoin (LTC) Mining WiFi Router

Bitmain crypto mining equipment manufacturer announced the launch of Antrouter R3-LTC WiFi Litecoin (LTC) mining device.

The Antrouter R1, announced on July 4th, with a price of $39 and a hash rate of 1.7 MH/s, has a much lower performance than the Antminers equipment dedicated exclusively to mining. This machine cannot work in the Antpool mining mode, which supports the P2P mining protocol and it forces Bitcoin (BTC) mining in standalone mode.

Antpool, as Bitmain said on Bitcointalk.org, brings together the hash power of several miners and directs it to their servers, to be used in a collaborative mining task.

Consequently, because of its moderate hash rate, the chances of mining LTC are minimal.

The Antrouter R3-LTC, announced by Bitmain on July 18th and designed to mine Litecoin (LTC), is based on the ASIC BM1485 chip. It contains six of these chips, capable of delivering a hash rate of 9.9 MH/s and consumes 23.2 watts, according to specifications.

Bitmain launched its new Litecoin (LTC) mining WiFi router

In a review, this Litecoin (LTC) mining WiFi router has a noise level of 50 decibels at a one-meter distance, at an ambient temperature of 30 degrees Celsius, measured in a quiet room.

“It is highly doubtful that anyone would want to have such a noisy WiFi router on their desk, even if it is used for Litecoin (LTC) mining,” as reported on Bitcointalk.

In September 2015, Bitmain had made its debut into this type of mining-capable WiFI router with the Bitmain R1, which was designed to mine Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitmain has between 70% and 80% market share in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment market and, in just four years of existence, managed to match and exceed the operating profits of established companies in the graphics card market like Nvidia, according to a report by analysts at Bernstein Research, the leading US research and brokerage firm on Wall Street.

In April, Bitmain crypto mining equipment manufacturer launched its first mining team for Ethereum (ETH).

Categories
Crypto Markets News

Bitcoin (BTC) Futures trades increased By 93% Over The Past Four Months, According To CME Group

Bitcoin (BTC) futures have experienced a significant 93% growth in daily volume over the last four months, according to CME Group, the market leader in this type of financial assets. According to information shared through Twitter, interest in contracts reached a rate of 2,400 contracts, an increase of 58% in future contracts over the previous four-month period of 2018.

Also, the CME Group issued a press release stating that it had reached a daily volume of 4.2 million futures contracts in the second quarter of 2018, nearly 13% more than the same period last year. Bitcoin (BTC) is part of the future contracts traded by this company, including metals and agricultural shares.

CME also manages the Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and Bitcoin Real-Time Index (BRTI) indices, the former being a benchmark price averaged daily with global markets and the latter a real-time index for trading. The indices have been in operation since 2016, taking into account multiple cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as GDAX, Kraken, and Bitstamp.

It has been a semester of growth for CME Group’s Bitcoin (BTC) futures markets since they were launched in December last year

Another brokerage platform, which recently requested authorization from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to trade Bitcoin (BTC) futures was the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which opened its offer of futures contracts before CME Group.

Thus, the SEC has received some comments regarding the approval of the Listed Investment Fund, and it is expected that, by August 16th, the decision will be made.

On the other hand, the current CBOE statistics maintain that Bitcoin (BTC) futures contract markets have a daily volume of 2,272 and 5,261 interest rate contracts, a 36% change concerning the previous four-month period.

In this way, the insertion of Bitcoin (BTC) in traditional financial dynamics is stimulated, on markets that are interested both in trading in cryptocurrencies and in knowing the benefits of distributed accounting technology, and as has been the case of dozens of companies that have launched investment funds in cryptocurrencies. In fact, the CME Group also filed a patent to create a private blockchain that can be modified for application in various industries.

Categories
Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) Mining Operations Unregistered With The Chinese Government Will Be Shut Down In China

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China will be shut down next September by order of the Economic and Information Commission (EIC).

According to information published last Saturday by a local media outlet, the EIC wrote a notice requesting local companies to suspend illegal crypto mining activities. The leaked announcement mentions that these companies will have until August 30th to submit reports on the process of cessation of their operations.

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities are defined in the publication as an operation that is not registered with the Chinese government, and that requires a high consumption of unauthorized electricity, in the absence of formal contracts with utilities.

China and illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations

This requirement of the EIC is unprecedented in measures taken earlier this year. In January 2018, the miners of the area were instructed to report on the 5th of each month for instructions on their orderly exit from the business. That is a measure that seemed to respond to the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which, since January 2nd, has instructed local governments to take action to regulate electricity consumption, land use, taxes and environmental protection, in the face of the demand for resources by companies engaged in crypto mining.

In that sense, some reports indicate that many of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies located in the region are leaving for Canada and the United States in search of better conditions to dedicate themselves to this activity, even if they have to start from scratch once again.

These kinds of decisions have been generating concern within the cryptocurrencies market, as they are seen as part of a plan by the Chinese government to eradicate mining from the Asian country. That is due to the implications that such decisions could have on the niche, as it is a country that concentrates more than 50% of the large Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools, according to estimates made at the end of 2017, and a significant percentage of the processing power of this network.

Exit mobile version