Blockchain and Crypto related News

KPMG has decided to "refresh" its distributed ledger technology (DLT) strategy, according to new U.S. blockchain lead Arun Ghosh, who took over the group in September.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, the Big Four consultancy has taken to expanding its blockchain activities beyond the pure financial services work it had been doing, to explore a less-traveled path.

Specifically, KPMG is homing in on the point where cross-border manufacturing and supply chain meet finance, customs duty, taxation and compliance. This is different than the usual supply chain use case, Ghosh said.

A subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Ports has partnered with Belgium's Port of Antwerp for a blockchain pilot aimed to facilitate international trade.

The proof-of-concept (PoC) trial will be conducted by Maqta Gateway using its own blockchain platform, Silsal, which was launched in June to address inefficiencies in the shipping industry and better connect importers and exporters.

According to a press release, the trial is expected to help the companies handle trade documentation between the United Arab Emirates and Belgium, "providing full cargo visibility and streamlining trade flows and supply chains."

The pilot is aimed to investigate how to best to scale up blockchain systems in world trade, as well as provide transaction security and lower integration costs. The effort is expected to be completed by the Q4 2018.

ING Bank is continuing further down the path of advanced blockchain privacy with the release of its Zero-Knowledge Set Membership (ZKSM) solution, announced this week at the Sibos banking conference. 

The Netherlands-based lender had already received plaudits for adapting classical zero-knowledge proofs (a way of proving possession of a secret without revealing the secret itself) into a simpler form for use within the bank called zero-knowledge range proofs.

Zero knowledge range proofs can prove a number is within a specific range. For example, a mortgage applicant could prove that their salary sits within a certain range without revealing the exact figure. As such range proofs are computationally lighter than regular zero-knowledge proofs and run faster on a blockchain.  

The Australian government agency dedicated to streamlining the country's IT operations has called blockchain "interesting," but said it is hyped by firms working with the tech.

The chief digital officer of the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), Peter Alexander, indicated the view was arrived at after the organization received  AU$700,000 (about US$500,000) from the government in May to explore blockchain applications within government services.

"Blockchain: Interesting technology but early on in its development, it's kind of at the top of a hype cycle," Alexander said at a parliamentary committee meeting on Tuesday, as reported by ZDNet.

Alexander was further quoted as saying that most of the hype comes from companies seeking to make profits in the space.

Oxfam, the non-profit group focused on alleviating global poverty, has teamed up with blockchain startup Etherisc to help bring affordable insurance to paddy rice farmers in Sri Lanka.

The tie-up between Etherisc, which applies the ethereum public blockchain to the world of insurance, and Oxfam in Sri Lanka was announced Tuesday at CoinDesk's first "Blockchain for Social Good" event in London.

So-called "microinsurance" is often defined as coverage for people on very low incomes. Using a blockchain to program in the conditions under which a payout will automatically be made (typically adverse weather conditions or other types of catastrophe), removes much of the distribution and operational costs which have made microinsurance unsustainable in many cases.

Etherisc's blockchain solution is being applied to an existing weather index insurance product supported by Oxfam in Sri Lanka, said Michiel Berende, the startup's inclusive insurance lead.

apanese financial services giant SBI Group has partnered with a blockchain security startup to develop a digital wallet for its recently launched cryptorrency exchange.

The Denmark-based startup, Sepior, announced in a press release Monday that SBI has licensed its proprietary "threshold signature" wallet technology for integration with its VCTRADE exchange to secure "on-line contents and transactions."

VCTRADE was launched in June by SBI Holdings' subsidiary SBI Virtual Currencies to become Japan's first bank-backed, government-licensed cryptocurrency exchange.

Sepior said its threshold technology uses signatures based on multiparty computation – a cryptographic method that allows a secret to be shared between different parties without revealing the secret – to provide a high level of wallet security.

On June 22, the Federal Bureau of Investigation presented its annual Internet Crime Report for the year of 2016. The FBI analyzed the victim reports at the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and used the information from their database to publish the annual study. It is important to mention that, according to the Department of Justice’s research, only an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. fraud victims reported their crimes to law enforcement.

Civil, an Ethereum-based platform with a heady bid to save journalism, has partnered with Forbes to help the 100-year-old publisher keep its stories free from meddling hands.