Australian-based blockchain company ShareRing has partnered with Tripadvisor experience marketplace Viator to allow users to pay for almost 400,000 tourism experiences with a variety of cryptocurrencies. The ShareRing platform, built on Tendermint, will allow users to book, register, and pay for Viator’s 395,000 global activities and experiences, using local fiat currencies or major crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and its native SharePay token (SHRP). The platform uses the ShareRing ID system to ensure that sensitive personal and financial information is securely handled, and has contact tracing features to help with tourism safety during the pandemic. “We're very happy …

To navigate well in a digital world, we must be able to easily and securely establish our digital identity. Traditionally, a username, password and some trivial arcana like our first pet’s name have been key pieces of information held by institutions to establish our digital identity. Unfortunately, this system has come at a high cost. Trusting third parties to securely hold our personal data is a risky — and often losing — proposition. The number of hacks that have resulted in stolen personal data is staggering. In the top 15 data breaches, the personal data of 3.5 billion people have …

The COVID-19 outbreak, just like any other black swan event before it, revealed systemic weaknesses in a wide variety of industries and processes. With the information age now in full swing, this particular event emphasized the critical importance of data management, and it highlighted the failure of status quo data management systems. In terms of the global response to the pandemic, the consequences of poor data management range from exacerbated shortages to unnecessarily long medicine development times, and the end result is more lives lost. On the other hand, opportunities abound for those who embrace the next generation of data …

Bitcoin (BTC) price appears on the verge of closing another week pinned below the $11,000 resistance but given the major events of the week, things could have been so much worse. Cryptocurrency daily market performance snapshot. Source: Coin360 The top-ranked cryptocurrency by market cap held its ground as KuCoin revealed more than $150 million worth of assets had been stolen from the exchange, and the price only stumbled slightly as the CTFC announced that legal action was being taken against BitMEX exchange. The price again avoided collapse when DOW and S&P 500 futures took a hefty drop upon the announcement …

A crypto-enabled freelancing platform is taking on some of the world’s biggest brands — and says it treats hard-working talent far more fairly. AnyTask is the brainchild of the cryptocurrency project Electroneum, and it underwent a soft launch back in February. Already, the company says it has had a positive impact on the lives of several freelancers. According to AnyTask, a substantial number of talented individuals risk being frozen out of more established websites such as Fiverr, Freelancer.com and Upwork because they don’t have a bank account — and even if they do, they can end up paying punishing fees …

Bitcoin (BTC) may see a price boost this week as the U.S. dollar currency index (DXY) weakens and one analyst tells American voters to buy. Data showed DXY dropping for a fourth day on Oct. 1, as negotiations over a new coronavirus stimulus deal continued in Washington. Vays: “Buy Bitcoin” no matter who wins the U.S. election DXY and BTC/USD have demonstrated a strong inverse correlation in recent months. Recent DXY gains did not translate into intense selling pressure for Bitcoin, but fresh losses could yet buoy BTC bulls in the long term. The U-turn in DXY’s fortunes comes as …

In a pandemic era of unprecedented health data collection and surveillance, Singapore is turning to blockchain technology for the infrastructure that can make it work. Government-owned investment firm SGInnovate and Singaporean startup Accredify have jointly developed a new blockchain-powered digital health passport, according to a report on Sept. 30. Development work on the application, which allows personal medical data to be stored in a blockchain-secured digital wallet, began in May. A successful pilot in July showed that the app was capable of managing and verifying digitized healthcare documents — including COVID-19 discharge memos, swab results, immunity proof, and vaccination records …

As the world is battling to recover from the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a major cryptocurrency event in Switzerland prepares to take return to a physical format. Crypto Finance Conference (CfC) St. Moritz, an international crypto event held in St. Moritz, will take place from Jan. 20–22, 2021, and feature speakers from key industry firms and institutions like Winklevoss Capital, Swiss National Bank, the European Parliament, Ledger and others. Cointelegraph will serve as the main media partner for the CfC St. Moritz 2021. The upcoming conference is the fourth annual iteration of CfC St. Moritz and will be …

2020 will forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19, but there is no telling what the long-lasting effects of the pandemic will be on the global economy. Around the world, countries have been forced to shut down their local economies, with people having to shelter in place in order to observe the social distancing measures needed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The immediate result of these measures has varied from country to country, but a common trend has been many companies and businesses having to fundamentally change their regular ways of operating. Those lucky enough to stay …

In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organization to be a pandemic. Just over six months after that declaration, there have been almost 33 million cases of the disease worldwide and nearly 1 million deaths. While most of the stories from the pandemic involve its astronomical cost in terms of human life and suffering, the disease has also revealed a number of problems in our global economic infrastructure. A surprising number of these weaknesses might be addressed, or at least reduced, with blockchain technology. As a result of COVID-19, businesses around the globe, including in the most …

The recent health scare surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak seems to have accelerated the move toward a cashless society, with cashless payment spiking in concert with viral cases. Yet, our findings in a Genesis Mining study called “Perceptions and Understanding of Money 2020” indicate that a significant majority of Americans are not psyched about parting with their paper money on a permanent basis. To be more specific, we found that 60% of respondents are opposed to the idea of paper money being replaced with “digital-only money.” This could be a “devil-you-know” versus a “devil-you-don’t-know” situation where familiarity with paper money is …

While the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is unknown, it has infected more than 30 million people, with almost 1 million confirmed to have died from it as it continues to spread across the world. The highly contagious virus has the ability to survive up to three weeks in frozen food supplies of meat and fish, according to a study. Related: Illicit crypto transactions are getting more attention from the government The United States — the worst-hit country by sheer numbers — is now facing two intersecting health crises: The ongoing opioid overdose epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic with …