Facebook is reportedly making a cryptocurrency for users of the messaging service WhatsApp, Bloomberg reports on Dec. 20. The token will purportedly be used for money transfers made within the app, and will focus on the remittances market in India. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg states that Facebook is developing a stablecoin. The sources further stated that the coin will not be released anytime soon, as Facebook is still working on a strategy for custody assets i.e. the asset to which the stablecoin will be tied. The Indian remittances market is significant. According to data from the World …

The Italian securities regulator has suspended two projects for allegedly offering fraudulent crypto investment schemes. The 90-day suspensions were reported in an official statement on the regulator’s website published Monday, Dec. 17. The Italian Companies and Exchange Commission — or Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) — is the Italian analogue of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and represents a governmental authority that regulates the Italian securities market. Both firms suspended by the CONSOB — Bitsurge Token and Green Energy Certificates — are allegedly scam projects from Avalon Life, a company that is not …

Blockchain will “probably take a little longer” to develop than the internet, because it is “much more complicated,” ConsenSys creator Joseph Lubin told German media outlet t3n in an interview, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported Nov. 9. Lubin, who is also the co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), told reporters that blockchain technology is developing in a similar way to the web, citing its exponential growth with “hundreds of projects that are already practical for humans” to date. Based on blockchain’s use case for decentralized cryptocurrencies, the digital entrepreneur also suggested that distributed ledger technology (DLT) will be able to “permeate society more …

The average earnings of a blockchain engineer have soared to between $150-175,000 per year, CNBC reported Oct. 21, citing Hired’s 2018 State of Salaries Report. Far higher than the $135,000 average software engineer salary, the figure puts blockchain engineers in the same pay bracket as artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, as the pace of blockchain recruitment demand gathers pace. The figure is also notably higher than other specialized tech engineering roles; Hired CEO Mehul Patel told CNBC that: "There's a ton of demand for blockchain. Software engineers are in very short supply, but this is even more acute and that's why …

Can you remember exactly what you did on social media 10 days ago? Probably not. The days can blend together as you embark on a never-ending quest of liking posts and sharing memes. Social media can also have a detrimental effect on our mental health – with charities warning they could be particularly harmful if we compare the picture-perfect, filtered images posted by our friends to our own lives. Although these networks play a vital role in our daily lives – with research suggesting we now spend 135 minutes a day browsing and posting on such sites – a blockchain-based …

A startup e-commerce ecosystem is turning to blockchain to help businesses become more operationally efficient, while enabling billions of users on social media “to generate income with ease.” TIPO says it has identified three major problems facing the e-commerce market today. According to the company, many of the platforms currently dominating the industry are too focused on buying and selling when there are many other services that can benefit merchants and their loyal customers. Plus, while online payments have continued to rise, market share is yet to reach its true potential. Lastly, businesses are wasting time and money through “suboptimal …

On Aug. 31, Line, Japan’s most widely utilized messaging app with more than 200 million active users, revealed the launch of its own cryptocurrency called LINK. Upon its announcement, Line immediately listed LINK on its digital asset exchange BitBox, which it launched back in July of this year. Uniquely, as Cointelegraph reported, Line has decided not to conduct an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to raise a significant amount of capital in exchange for the distribution of its token. Instead, Line utilized a mechanism called ‘airdrop’ to give users LINK as compensation for utilizing products within the Line ecosystem. Essentially, LINK …

This week, the government of China has cracked down on crypto-related WeChat accounts, blockchain events and digital asset exchanges, solidifying its negative stance on cryptocurrency trading and the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market. WeChat ban and PBoC’s warning against ICOs On Aug. 22, Cointelegraph reported that WeChat, China’s biggest messaging app that has over 1 billion active monthly users, banned the accounts of cryptocurrency investors, users and businesses. At the time, Lanjinger, a local financial media outlet, reported that the accounts of Deepchain, Huobi News, Node Capital-backed Jinse and Coindaily were suspended or taken down permanently, as they violated its …

We're living at a time of unprecedented concern over identity. Fears abound that our personal data is being abused by distant third-parties, while this data has become more valuable to us at a time when our identities and the identity politics we base around them have become more central to our lives. It's in this context that blockchain technology has appeared, and while its application beyond cryptocurrencies is still limited, protecting our online identities and data more securely looks set to be one of its most central applications. In its most basic outline, the use of blockchains in the area …

August 12: Crypto markets are seeing solid gains today in a fresh attempt at recovery following recent losses. Bitcoin (BTC) dominance –– or the percentage of total crypto market cap that is Bitcoin’s –– is continuing to see a 2018 record-high percentage, at close to 50.9 percent. After the leading coin decoupled from the wider market yesterday –– holding its gains while other cryptos floundered –– healthy growth has today been distributed across virtually all of the major cryptocurrencies, as Coin360 data shows. Market visualization from Coin360 Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $6,310 at press time, up a strong …

Facebook blockchain head David Marcus announced he was quitting his position on the board of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Friday, August 10, in a statement seen by various media outlets. Marcus, who joined the exchange’s board in December 2017 and took on a blockchain research group at Facebook in May, said he now thinks it is “appropriate” to leave. “Because of the new group I'm setting up at Facebook around Blockchain, I've decided it was appropriate for me to resign from the Coinbase board. “...I've been thoroughly impressed by the talent and execution the team has demonstrated during my tenure, …

Facebook has reportedly denied entering into talks with cryptocurrency firm Stellar (XLM), Cheddar reported August 10. Earlier today, Business insider reported that Facebook and Stellar had been considering a potential partnership to build a Facebook variant of a Stellar blockchain. A Facebook spokesman reportedly told Cheddar that the company is “not engaged in any discussions with Stellar, and we are not considering building on their technology.” The statement was made in response to Business Insider’s report that the two companies had discussed a potential fork from the main Stellar network as part of its blockchain efforts. Sources from Stellar reportedly …