The money spent on blockchain technology by enterprises wishing to use its trust building features is projected to increase to  $2.9 billion by the end of the year. This represents an increase by 88.7% over the $1.5 billion that was spent in this space last year.   These numbers have been derived from the International Data Corporation (IDC) who updated its “Worldwide Semiannual Blockchain Spending Guide.” According to somebody from the IDC, blockchain technology has moved out of its phase of being in design and has moved into real use and this transformation will lead to high spends ..read more

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the European Union needs to increase its adoption and usage of data technologies like blockchain to boost the agricultural industry and address concerns attributed to supply chain management.   Mr. Macron’s remarks came during the 56th International Agriculture Fair held in Paris over last week, with the president stating that blockchain technology would significantly improve on the critical sector of food traceability.   In his opening speech, the president called for measures to be put in place to ensure increased monitoring of the agr ..read more

Ripple and its blockhain are thriving in the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf region. Ripple is growing at an unbelievable rate and yet another financial institution has said that they are adopting Ripple’s blockchain payment solutions.   Navin Gupta (Managing Director, South Asia and MENA at Ripple) tweeted that Bank of Dhofar has gone live on RippleNet. His exact tweet read: “Congratulations! to Bank Dhofar – Live on Ripplenet. Now Non Resident Indians (NRIs) living in Oman can App money back home in real-time. #bankdhofar #ripplenet @Ripple”   Bank of Dhofar is the first financia ..read more

Levi Strauss & Co. is building on its three-year-old worker well-being program, underpinning new efforts with blockchain in order to enhance trust and transparency and reduce the time from data collection to review and response.   Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Levi’s announced the program development that’s funded by an $800,000 grant awarded to blockchain consultancy Consensys, civic think tank New America and the Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. SHINE administers Levi’s current ..read more

What kind of effect can blockchain technology have on the travel industry? When it comes to a revolutionary technology like blockchain technology, it’s hard to tell what exactly will change first, and where. The truth is that there are so many sectors that blockchain could disrupt or alter, in so many different ways. Here, we take a look at some of the different ways that blockchain can disrupt the travel industry. Data Storage/Management First and foremost, we know that the blockchain is a more secure way of handling data. This is important for many different reasons. First, it means that the ..read more

Euro Exim Bank, a bank based in the United Kingdom will begin to use xRapid, one of Ripple’s solutions and the XRP token in the first quarter of this year. This is the latest success in what has been a successful period for Ripple as it continues to move towards mass adoption as the #1 token for interbank transaction processing.   Euro Exim Bank functions in the world of trade finance, corporate banking and wire transfers. It made an announcement that it will be utilising XRP and Ripple’s xRapid solution before the end of the first quarter of 2019.   Graham Bright, the Head of Compli ..read more

A digital exchange opening next week allows investors to trade in major public companies using digital currency on Ethereum. DX.Exchange is a first of its kind in the cryptocurrency space. The exchange allows trades to occur even when the markets are closed. Stocks Held on the Ethereum Blockchain DX.Exchange will at first offer digital tokens based on shares of ten Nasdaq-listed companies. The company plans on expanding to the New York Stock Exchange in the future. “We saw a huge market opportunity in tokenizing existing securities,” Daniel Skowronski, CEO of DX, told Bloomberg via email. “We ..read more

The Government of India is in the last stages of finalising regulations on cryptocurrency according to a ‘Right to Information’ response from the Department of Economic Affairs.   The response was with respect to the RTI filed by a group called Coin crunch India at the end of 2018, enquiring as to whether the panel on cryptocurrency had recommended a ban on Bitcoin and if they had submitted any such report to the Finance Ministry.   “The report of the Committee is in the finalisation stage, hence, prohibited under section 8(3) of RTI Act, 2005,” the ministry said in its response. &nb ..read more

Jesse Lund is the VP of block-chain and virtual currencies at IBM. He has stated that he sees Bitcoin’s price eventually reaching $1 million. He said this in an interview with Finder.com, a news platform, on YouTube in February.   As the interview reached its conclusion, the interviewer asked Lund what he thinks the Bitcoin price will be at the end of 2019. He said that he believes the price will be higher than what it is today and ended by saying he thinks it will be at $5,000. He then furthered his prediction by saying:   “I see Bitcoin at a million dollars someday.”   Lund st ..read more

The last quarter of 2018 has been a bad time for the cryptocurrency market. The market didn’t just bleed, we also saw assets refresh new 2018 lows. Moreover, the doom Sayers reckoned that Bitcoin and alternative digital assets belonged at zero. Anyhow, that that’s their opinion what matters is that the development being practised in the space. Cryptocurrency corporations are working tirelessly to confirm that they are generating real-world use cases for the assets. This will drive adoption with a ripple effect on the worth of the assets. A recent survey by a well-liked person within the crypto ..read more