Internet crowdsourcing company Share Internet Data Ltd (SID) has partnered with private equity firm LDJ Capital to launch a blockchain-based digital banking solution. The new digital banking app is called LDJ Digital, according to a press release on July 16. According to the announcement, LDG Digital can function as a debit card and it supports both fiat money and cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the professed goal of LDJ Digital is to provide banking services to the unbanked, as per the report. LDJ Digital will reportedly be a part of the existing SID platform and is based on its core technologies and principles. …

United States Senators Mike Crapo and Sherrod Brown, respectively the Senate Banking Committee chair and ranking member, shared their views on crypto regulations. Both appear to want comprehensive policy for big tech companies. The senators made their remarks while speaking with the press following the Senate Banking Hearing on Facebook’s Libra on July 16. Senator Crapo stressed the importance of building an overarching regulatory framework for data protection — not just for Facebook, but for all Internet companies looking to launch their own cryptocurrencies, á la the Financial Stability Oversight Council for banks. Crapo said: “We've got to look at …

Intellectual of the innovative industry, innovator of the concept of intellectuality, experimentator with technologies and educator by dedication, before co-founding Wikipedia in 2001, Larry Sanger studied and taught philosophy, being interested especially in epistemology — i.e., the science of knowledge. It was in college that he started thinking of the internet as a potential way of decentralizing knowledge. His early project in this regard was a web forum for discussions between tutors and students, who could thus communicate outside the usual academic environment. Sanger explained: “The thing that drives me forward is all of the possibilities that the internet makes …

The appearance of blockchain technology can be compared with the emergence of internet at the initial stage of its development: Users were cautious about a decentralized system and failed to understand many of its subtleties. But just as firms opened up to the internet, almost all corporations are now working on integrating blockchain into their processes — at least as a trial. And there are some reasons for this trend: With the acceleration of data transfers, globalization and the amount of information, the security questions concerning personal data are becoming more acute for users. Personal information, in a way, is …

Recent research by Chainanalysis suggests that the amount of bitcoin (BTC) spent on illegal transactions this year could hit a record high of $1 billion, even as the ratio of illegal to legal transactions is shrinking, according to a report by Bloomberg on July 1. As per the report, the total flat value of BTC spent on illegal activity so far this year is thought to be $515 million. The research suggests that by the end of the year, this figure will double to reach $1 billion. However, the amount of BTC spent on illegal services as opposed to legal …

Norway-based internet browser company Opera has launched the iOS version of its mobile web browser, Opera Touch, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph. Opera Touch reportedly supports the Ethereum (ETH) protocol and the Ethereum Web3 application programming interface (API). This means that the browser accommodates Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps) and all ERC-20 tokens, stablecoins, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The browser also is said to feature a cryptocurrency wallet for storing Ether, the “Opera Crypto Wallet.” Opera released the Android version of its mobile browser at the end of 2018, which offers these same Ethereum-related capabilities. Opera Touch, however, …

Disclaimer: This article has been updated following revisions. Jack Dorsey, the founder of social media website Twitter and mobile payments provider Square, went into depth on his plans for his new team dedicated to improving the crypto sector at Square in an interview with The Next Web on June 14. According to Dorsey, this initiative, Square Crypto, will add to the fiat payment company’s operations by providing an infrastructure for frictionless internet payments. Right now, he says that regulations and partnerships slow Square down — obstacles that he hopes to avoid in the future with an improved crypto infrastructure: “Just …

Firefox Quantum, the latest version of open-source internet browser Firefox, has a new privacy toggle that protects against cryptojacking, according to a blog post by Mozilla on May 21. Mozilla previously warned official blog post that websites can deploy scripts that launch a crypto miner on a user’s machine without them being aware — a practice known as cryptojacking. To combat these exploitative practices, Mozilla partnered with online privacy company Disconnect to create a crypto mining blocker for their browser. Users can now toggle an opt-in feature, that purportedly blocks would-be cryptojackers from taking advantage of spare computing power to …

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has applied for over 200 blockchain patents, according to a report by Securities Daily News on May 20. The report also notes that major e-commerce competitor Alibaba has applied for 262 blockchain patents, and Chinese internet titans Tencent and Baidu have applied for 80 and 50 such patents, respectively, as recorded by the Intellectual Property Center of China Information and Communication. According to interpretation of the data provided by Intellectual Property Center of China Information and Communication, JD.com was in first place for “global blockchain patent strength,” with Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu coming it at second, …

Ethereum founders Joseph Lubin and Vitalik Buterin and their respective organizations ConsenSys and the Ethereum Foundation are each donating 1,000 ether (ETH) to the Moloch decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). This donation brings the organization's total funds up to $1 million, a Cointelegraph correspondent learned at the Ethereal Summit on May 10. The stated objective of Moloch DAO, created by Ameen Soleimani — the CEO of the Ethereum-based adult token platform Spankchain — aims to crowdsource funding for shared, open-source Ethereum infrastructure. Moloch DAO states: “Our objective is to accelerate the development of public Ethereum infrastructure that many teams need but …

Blockchain technology company Blockstream is launching the beta version of its Blockstream Satellite API, designed to help developers broadcast data via the company’s satellite network. The launch was revealed in the official announcement published Jan. 16. The move follows the company’s satellite service expansion back in December, when it started broadcasting Bitcoin’s (BTC) blockchain on a global scale. Blockstream’s Bitcoin space initiative reportedly aims to free the cryptocurrency’s network from depending on land-based Internet connection and thus increase its robustness. Blockstream’s latest “data agnostic” product allows to use its satellites for encrypted messaging, with users paying for the service via …

Bitcoin’s wireless broadcast footprint has been expanded substantially thanks to Blockstream’s most recently leased satellite. The blockchain development firm confirmed it has leased a fifth satellite on Dec. 17, which is being used to broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain to the Asia Pacific region, in addition to existing coverage over Africa, Europe, South and North America. The satellite service provides internet-free Bitcoin transactions and information sharing to crypto users across five continents. Along with the announcement, Blockstream reportedly launched a new application programming interface (API) which enables the satellite network to transmit encrypted messages. Users are able to pay for this …