Coin News

Bitcoin Press Releases: “ROI before the halving!” Does that sound good. Well Miner Palace thinks so too. How’s this for a great deal on mining hardware, $700 Spondoolies SP31, or try a $350 Antminer S4+. These are the low prices customers are flocking to at Miner Palace (www.minerpalace.com), a U.S. storefront for Bitcoin, Blockchain, and PoW […]

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The R3-led blockchain consortium of the world’s biggest banks has completed their second known proof of concept experiment of blockchain technology with trials spanning five different blockchain solutions. Forty of the world’s biggest banks that are partners in the private blockchain consortium led by New York-based blockchain-tech startup R3 have tested distributed ledger systems from […]

The post 40 Global Banks Run Blockchain Tests from Multiple Vendors appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

CoinDesk analyzes the recent decrease in transaction capacity on the bitcoin network and its affect on bitcoin users.

Bidorbuy, an online auction and marketplace in South Africa and among the biggest e-commerce platforms in Africa has included bitcoin as a mode of payment for users – buyers and sellers in the marketplace. Major African e-commerce platform Bidorbuy has enabled bitcoin as a payment option for product purchases, as reported by local bitcoin publication […]

The post South Africa’s Biggest Online Marketplace Adds Bitcoin Payments appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin price decline accelerated overnight. Downside progress has seen price dip below $420 earlier today, and a correction currently has price retesting this level. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the code CCN29. Bitcoin Price […]

The post Bitcoin Price Decline Gradual appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Classic, an attempt to implement an alternative version of the Bitcoin protocol with a higher block size limit, has been one of the...

The post Bitcoin Classic Hard Fork Likely to Activate at 71% Hashrate Support appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Eleven member banks of the R3 consortium, a collaborative group of the world's largest and most influential banks and financial...

The post R3 Tests Its Blockchain Network With 11 Leading Banks appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Press Releases: Arlington, VA – (Marketwired – March 3, 2016) – BTCS Inc. (OTCQB: BTCS) (“BTCS” or the “Company”), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, announced its CEO and COO have donated shares of BTCS common stock from their personal holdings, currently valued at $170,000 […]

The post BTCS Executives Donate Personal Shares to Benefit Consumers’ Research appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

On February 21, representatives of the Bitcoin mining industry as well as the Bitcoin Core team met in Hong Kong to discuss a solution to...

The post Bitcoin Miners and Core Developers Release SegWit, Hard Fork Agreement appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Guardtime, a startup that uses the technology underpinning bitcoin to secure public and private data, has signed a deal with the Estonian government to secure all the country's 1 million health records with its technology.

The deal with the Estonian e-Health Authority comes alongside a partnership with Estonian Information Systems Authority, which will see more government data move to Guardtime's technology.

Guardtime uses blockchain technology, first invented to underpin bitcoin, to verify data and prove that its trustworthy. It has created a network that citizens, private companies, and the government can also access to verify information on it.

Estonia has one of the most digitally advanced societies in the world and helped to incubate Guardtime's technology. Estonian citizens carry a smartcard that stores their data and gives them access to over 1,000 government services.

Mike Gault, co-founder and CEO of Guardtime, told Business Insider: "The only thing that you can’t do online in Estonia is get married or get divorced. Otherwise you don’t need to go to a government office."

Gault said adopting Guardtime's technology for healthcare records would allow Estonia to "effectively eliminate lies," saying: "Every update to healthcare records and every access to healthcare records is registered in the blockchain. That makes it impossible for the government or doctors or anyone to cover up any changes to healthcare records and that’s really powerful.

"If you’re in the UK and you say what’s happened to my healthcare records? You just have to trust the NHS."

Gault says Guardtime and the Estonian government now plan to migrate more data onto its "industrial blockchain." First launched in 2007, it is also used by the US Department of Defence and Ericsson.

Blockchain technology — also known as distributed ledger technology — is a non-centralised database that allows a network of users to sign off and police data.

Data being added to the network is inspected by a majority of member of the network to make sure its accurate and once it's signed off the data is coded using complex cryptography which means it cannot be changed once it's added to the blockchain. It uses duplicated ledgers across a variety of servers, meaning if one is compromised the data is still intact.

Banks and finance firms have been getting excited about the cost cutting potential of the technology, as it would allow them to deal directly with each other rather than working through clearing and settlement houses who police trade to make sure no one gets ripped off.

R3, an industry-wide consortium of over 40 banks, announced on Thursday that its members had tested out issuing, trading, and redeeming fixed income products on 5 blockchains, signaling another step towards mainstream adoption.

But Gault told Business Insider: "We see the real opportunity for blockchain technology as data and data security."

Guardtime's CTO, Matthew Johnson, joined the company after performing due diligence on it for the US Department of Defence, which was keen to work with the business.

Johnson told BI: "The more I got involved with the company over the year 2012/13 I was absolutely convinced that what Estonia had built was indeed game-changing. I quit my job and moved to Estonia for the better part of a year to mature the technology roadmap."

Guardtime had revenues of $25 million last year and Gault confirmed the company has contracts with Ericsson, defence giant Lockheed Martin, and the US military. Of the latter, he said: "It’s not something we can talk a lot about."

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XBT Provider AB, having launched what it claims is the world’s first bitcoin-based instrument on a regulated exchange, Nasdaq Nordic, plans to expand globally with its Bitcoin Tracker One and Bitcoin Tracker Euro, the latter having performed well against major reserve currencies and global asset classes, according to Nasdaq. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company plans to […]

The post XBT Provider AB To Expand Bitcoin-Based Investments In Response To Rising Demand Amidst Declining Global Asset Classes appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

247exchange has expanded its cryptocurrency exchange services for bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin and Namecoin to Canada, allowing Canadians to buy cryptocurrency with CAD. Canadians can also buy bitcoin using a credit or debit card. 247exchange is owned by InterMoney Exchange, which is registered under different names in Belize (InterMoney Exchange Corp.), the U.K. (InterMoney Exchange UK […]

The post Cryptocurrency Exchange 247exchange Expands To Canada appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

247exchange has expanded its cryptocurrency exchange services for bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin and Namecoin to Canada, allowing Canadians to buy cryptocurrency with CAD. Canadians can also buy bitcoin using a credit or debit card. 247exchange is owned by InterMoney Exchange, which is registered under different names in Belize (InterMoney Exchange Corp.), the U.K. (InterMoney Exchange UK […]

The post Cryptocurrency Exchange 247exchange Expands To Canada appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

247exchange has expanded its cryptocurrency exchange services for bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin and Namecoin to Canada, allowing Canadians to buy cryptocurrency with CAD. Canadians can also buy bitcoin using a credit or debit card. 247exchange is owned by InterMoney Exchange, which is registered under different names in Belize (InterMoney Exchange Corp.), the U.K. (InterMoney Exchange UK […]

The post Cryptocurrency Exchange 247exchange Expands To Canada appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

247exchange has expanded its cryptocurrency exchange services for bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin and Namecoin to Canada, allowing Canadians to buy cryptocurrency with CAD. Canadians can also buy bitcoin using a credit or debit card. 247exchange is owned by InterMoney Exchange, which is registered under different names in Belize (InterMoney Exchange Corp.), the U.K. (InterMoney Exchange UK […]

The post Cryptocurrency Exchange 247exchange Expands To Canada appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Visa has, in a job posting, revealed that it is looking to hire a senior software engineer to be a part of its research team to help develop a “secure and scalable blockchain” network. The job posting comes via a posting by Visa Research, a newly created arm of the payments company as a part of […]

The post Visa Looks for Senior Developer for Virtual Currency & Blockchain Research appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

40 top banks have trialled trading fixed income products over 5 separate blockchains — cryptographically secure networks inspired by the technology underpinning digital currency bitcoin.

R3, the industry-wide body trying to bring blockchain technology to finance, announced on Thursday that its members had experimented with issuing, trading, and redeeming short-term commercial paper — a sort of IOU issued by companies to secure financing — across 5 different blockchains.

The blockchains were built by Chain, Eris Industries, Ethereum, IBM and Intel.

R3 says the conditions across the 5 blockchains were identical so that those trialing the technology could evaluate which was best for them. The experiment follows mock trading between 11 banks on a single blockchain in January.

In the release announcing the fixed income experiment, R3 says: "The trial marked an unprecedented scale of institutional collaboration between the financial and technology communities exploring how distributed ledgers can be applied to global financial markets."

David Rutter, CEO of R3, says in an email announcing the project:

This development further supports R3's belief that close collaboration among global financial institutions and technology providers will create significant momentum behind the adoption of distributed ledger solutions across the industry.

These technologies represent a new frontier of innovation and will dramatically improve the way the financial services industry operates, in much the same way as the advent of electronic trading decades ago delivered huge advancements in efficiency, transparency, scalability and security.

Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, was developed as part of cryptocurrency bitcoin as a way for it to circumvent central banks.

The technology uses complex cryptography and the wisdom of the "crowd" to verify transactions, rather than a traditional middleman. Records are shared across multiple servers and must be checked against each other, rather than a central ledger.

It essentially allows cash transactions on the web — rather than telling your bank to put money in your friends bank account, you just deal directly with your friend.

Ironically, while bitcoin was developed by anarcho-libertarian developers who wanted to circumvent traditional finance, big investment banks are now going crazy for the technology.

Just like people, banks still have to go through "trusted middlemen" when dealing with each other. Settlement and clearing houses make sure everyone gets paid the right amount and no one is screwed over.

But blockchain's technology and its inbuilt security and trust checks mean they can cut out this process and deal directly. This, in turn, cuts down costs. Santander estimated last year that the technology could save banks as much as $20 billion.

R3 is leading the way in encouraging adoption of the technology across the financial services industry, with a particular focus on banks.

Launched last year by David Rutter, the former CEO of ICAP Electronic Broking and a 32-year veteran of Wall Street, R3 has signed up 42 of the world's leading banks to collaborate on blockchain experiments. Members include Barclays, Santander, Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and HSBC.

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Jordan, a country with a cash-based economy, is among those countries with a large unbanked population that is seeing its fair share of fintech innovation, according to Wamda, a Mideast financial news site. Both the banking and technology industries have recognized the fintech opportunity. The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) last May introduced an electronic […]

The post Fintech Makes Waves In Cash-Based, Largely Unbanked Jordan appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Blockchain company R3 CEV ran a trial with most of its member banks testing a real-world financial markets process on distributed ledger technology.