Mediachain: Protect Digital Content With a Bitcoin-Based Metadata Protocol

Mine Labs, a New York-based blockchain startup has announced the development of Mediachain, a Bitcoin blockchain-based decentralized metadata protocol which relies on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to protect and ensure the rights to creative digital works. Since early 2015, emerging blockchain startups have begun to focus on the development of blockchain-based identity and authentication […]

Deloitte Predicts Rise in Blockchain-Based Payments

Deloitte’s Center for Financial Services has released a report forecasting transformation of the banking industry over the coming decade due to disruptive technology. The Banking Industry Outlookreport estimates that blockchain-based payment systems could equal the volume of the United States’ Automated Clearing House (ACH) financial transactions network by 2020. It identifies artificial intelligence and machine […]

Rootstock Raises $1M to Develop Smart Contracts to Bitcoin Blockchain

By raising $1 million in seed funding, blockchain startup RSK Labs will develop Rootstock, a smart contracts platform that will be deployed as a sidechain on the bitcoin blockchain. In a funding round led by bitcoin mining hardware company Bitmain Technology, RSK Labs has raised $1 million in a successful initial seeding round to develop […]

Western Union Faces Legal Scrutiny In EU Over Business Practices

In the world of cash-transfers, few other companies come to mind as instantaneously as Western Union. If you’ve walked in a convenience store anywhere between the west and east coast of the United States, you’ve probably seen a banner for Western Union. The remittance provider is currently facing a preliminary antitrust inquiry as the EU […]

Coinbase’s Fred Ehrsam: Bitcoin Turns Finance Into a Software Problem

On a recent episode of the 1776 Podcast, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and 1776 co-founder Evan Burfield discussed the concept of regulatory hacking in the context of Bitcoin.  Regulatory hacking is a philosophy that 1776, a business incubator based in Washington, D.C, has taken to heart, and the basic premise is to find new ways […]

Japan Debates Regulating Bitcoin as Currency; Banks Eager to Study Blockchain

Japan recently made headlines by announcing that its government was considering defining Bitcoin and other digital currencies as currency rather than commodity. This was confirmed by Tomonori Kanda, representing the financial affairs section of the Liberation Democratic Party (LDP). He told The Guardian that the plan was to bring the matter up in Parliament.  Even after […]