Experts and industry players have said that the adoption of blockchain technology is still in its early stages at the annual meeting of The Wall Street Journal CIO Network, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Feb. 26. The regular Wall Street Journal CIO Network is a membership exclusively for chief information officers and technology experts from the largest companies around the world. The event gathered a range of experts from startups, large corporations and governments to share their views on the development of enterprise technology. Although enterprise blockchain technology has found its practical use, its new applications are not large …

The National University of Singapore (NUS) will work with a Chinese tech company to research and develop blockchain solutions, the Communist Party of China’s official news outlet, People’s Daily Online, reported on Feb. 26. As part of a blockchain and big data seminar held in the city of Chongqing in Sichuan Province, NUS will collaborate with local business Chongqing Jinwowo Technologies (CJT) on innovations that also include big data and artificial intelligence (AI). “This strategic cooperation will work within big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, etc,” People’s Daily quotes professor Pang Yan, professor at the NUS’ School of Business and …

The Fetch.AI (FET) token sale on top crypto exchange Binance’s Launchpad platform closed yesterday, Feb. 25, reaching its hard cap of $6 million dollars with the sale of over 69 million tokens. In a tweet published the same day, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao — known in the industry as CZ — reported the sale had been completed within a dizzying 22 seconds. Fetch.AI describes itself as a project that aims to create an “economic internet” by conjoining machine learning, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, intelligent smart contracts and distributed ledger technology. Yesterday’s token sale was set to close with either the …

Liberstad — a private, anarcho-capitalist city in Norway — has adopted a cryptocurrency native to its blockchain-powered smart city platform as its official medium of exchange, according to a press release published on Feb. 12. Founded in 2015, Liberstad is the outcome of the Libertania project, run by the nonprofit Liberstad Drift Association, which aims to create a city-society autonomous from government interference — eschewing taxes in favor of private sector funded services. As reported, the city’s freehold plots were first sold for either Bitcoin (BTC) or Norwegian krone in 2017, with around 100 prospective residents said to have bought …

South Korean internet giant and messaging app operator Kakao Corp has published its Q4 2018 report that covers blockchain and AI operating expenses, Korean news website ZDNet reports Thursday, Feb. 14. According to ZDNet, in Q4 2018 Kakao’s consolidated operating income was 4.3 billion Korean won ($3.8 million). At the same time, the company’s operating expenses related to new businesses, such as blockchain and AI, was 65 billion won ($57.5 million), which reportedly led to a net loss for the whole period. As cited by local media News1 Korea, executive vice president at Kakao Bae Jae-hyun confirmed that, despite the …

The government of the Spanish autonomous community of Aragon has allocated over 12 million euros ($13 million) for the development of “Industry 4.0,” which includes blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and other emerging technologies. The news was announced by local news outlet La Vanguardia on Feb. 12. The funds — the amount of which is reportedly twice the originally planned amount — were co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) within the Operational Program of Aragon for 2014–2020. The donation will be used for the development of industrial property and consulting projects, as well as the analysis and planning …

The governor of California Gavin Newsom supported the development of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI)-based products in his “State of the State” speech, local news outlet CALmatters reported on Feb. 12. In his speech delivered on Tuesday, Feb. 12, Newsom said that “California needs a comprehensive statewide strategy to uplift and upskill our workers, to ensure technological advancements in AI, blockchain, big data, are creating jobs, not destroying them, and to reform our institutions so that more workers have an ownership stake in their sweat equity.” Newsom further revealed that he appointed a new Commission on California’s Workforce & Future …

Decentralized Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm SingularityNET has announced a partnership with agriculture-focused blockchain startup Hara at the World Web Forum, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Jan. 21. Hara’s objective is reportedly to use blockchain to provide Indonesian farmers with useful data like grain price, soil quality and land ownership details. The newly announced partnership between the two firms aims to use this data to offer AI-powered crop diagnosis and data analytics to the ecosystem, according to the press release. As the press release notes, a main goal of the partnership for the firms is to expand access …

The board of directors of cryptocurrency and e-commerce startup Zwoop reportedly filed for administration at the end of November last year. The news was revealed in an exclusive article by major United Kingdom-based newspaper The Telegraph, Jan. 11. According to anonymous sources cited in a report by tech news outlet The Next Web, this move has left employees and suppliers of the company with unpaid wages and bills. Namely, the company allegedly owes one London-based marketing agency £42,000 (about $53,858) and a public relations firm £30,000 (about $38,470). Zwoop — reportedly founded by Italian entrepreneur Alessandro Gadotti and raised $13 …

Researchers have reportedly shown how they were able to hack the Trezor One, Ledger Nano S and Ledger Blue at the 35C3 Refreshing Memories conference. The demonstration of the hacks was published in a video on Dec. 27. The research team behind the dubbed “Wallet.fail” hacking project is made up of hardware designer and security researcher Dmitry Nedospasov, software developer Thomas Roth and security researcher and former submarine officer Josh Datko. During the conference, the researchers announced that they have been able to extract the private key out of a Trezor One hardware wallet after flashing — overwriting existing data …

Global blockchain platform Waves has raised $120 million in a private funding round for its new project called Vostok, according to an official blog post published Dec. 19. The Vostok project is a “universal blockchain solution” that combines two basic components — its own private blockchain platform, and the Vostok system integrator, a tool for developing and optimizing the platform. The Vostok blockchain is focused on the deployment of Waves technologies for commercial and government IT systems. The new product will reportedly help the Waves Platform to develop new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and …

The role of blockchain developer is the most rapidly growing emerging job in the United States, according to the 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs report by LinkedIn released on Dec. 13. In the course of preparing the report, LinkedIn used data from its Economic Graph to analyze the positions that companies are hastily hiring for, as well as skills related to those positions and roles that have emerged over the past five years. The professional social network found that the role of blockchain developer has registered an increase of 33 times in the past 12 months, while cities with the highest …