United States-based blockchain startup Spring Labs announced sixteen fintech companies had joined its partner program prior to the release of its Spring Protocol in a press release Jan. 17. Spring Labs, which last year raised $15 million in funding, aims to release anti-fraud technology in the form of private P2P data sharing technology, powered by blockchain. At the same time, it has convened the Spring Founding Industry Partners (SFIP) Program, a research effort comprised of partners aiming to further reduce data fraud and boost security prior to the Protocol’s public release. Now, a further sixteen small businesses and consumer fintech …

BitTorrent’s system dubbed BitTorrent Speed, which will integrate the Tron-based BTT token into the popular µTorrent Windows client, will launch by summer. The company has confirmed this in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 19. BitTorrent Speed will issue cryptocurrency token rewards to users that serve content to others via the µTorrent network. The client’s users — which number more than 100 million, according to BitTorrent — will also be able to pay for faster downloads with the same tokens. The company also announced that to all accounts that are not based in the United States, the token …

The Department of Energy (DOE) of the United States has announced $4.8 million in funding for university research of technologies including blockchain, according to an announcement published Jan. 7. The funding has been announced by the department’s office of fossil energy. Projects eligible for funding include those researching emerging technologies, “such as blockchain and decentralized, peer-to-peer [P2P] internet protocols” to secure data from fossil power generation sensors. The developed systems would be used to securely process data from the sensors and other unspecified information flows within distributed sensor networks for fossil-based power generation systems. The DOE said it “anticipates selecting …

Peer-to-peer torrent client BitTorrent has launched a native token, BitTorrent (BTT), based on the TRON protocol, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Jan. 3. The token can be exchanged between users to optimize their network speed and attain faster downloads, according to the press release. BitTorrent’s first full-fledged move to begin to tokenize its content sharing ecosystem — which reportedly serves over 100 million users — comes around six months after the company was acquired by decentralized internet startup TRON for an undisclosed amount. BTT tokens, which are to be issued by the BitTorrent Foundation, feature native TRC-10 …

Japanese multinational IT equipment and services company Fujitsu will build an interbank settlement platform using blockchain technology as part of a joint project with nine domestic banks, Cointelegraph Japan reported Monday, Oct. 29. Aiming to “confirm the viability of blockchain technology,” the trial of the platform is being orchestrated by the Japanese Banks' Payment Clearing Network, also known as Zengin-Net, a press release confirmed. As part of the development, the platform will use an unnamed “digital currency” to make settlements. According to the release, Fujitsu “will additionally leverage the P2P money transfer platform it developed in (the) fiscal (year) 2017 …

Russia has been trying to pass cryptocurrency legislation since the beginning of January 2018, with no success as of yet. The government’s main bill, “On Digital Financial Assets,” which was expected to be passed by July 1 — according to the wishes of President Vladimir Putin — will instead most likely be pushed back until an October Duma session. According to Artem Tolkachev, the self-proclaimed “first” lawyer in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to begin working with Bitcoin (BTC) and blockchain startups, the reason the crypto bills didn’t make it on the July agenda was “because of the complexity …

Australian firm Vicinity has announced it will trial a blockchain solution for its energy network. The company revealed this Thursday, September 25 in an official press release. Vicinity – with more than $42 billion in real estate assets under management – has partnered with Australian energy tech company Power Ledger. The newly announced trial is a part of Vicinity’s $75 million solar energy program that is about to start in Castle Plaza – the company’s mall located in Adelaide, South Australia. The new blockchain platform delivered by Power Ledger will reportedly allow Vicinity to manage energy distribution in real time, …

IBM has won a patent for the autonomous self-servicing of networked devices that form part of its Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry (ADEPT) environment. The patent, first filed in late June 2016, was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) September 18. IBM first unveiled a proof-of-concept (PoC) for ADEPT in partnership with Samsung back in March 2016. The system uses a blockchain protocol as a basis for a distributed network of devices — what Samsung has called “a sort of decentralized Internet of Things (IoT).” As IBM explains as a background to its new patent filing, “IoT controllers …

Germany’s joint stock company Deutsche Boerse (DB) has established a dedicated unit for blockchain and crypto assets, Finextra reported September 3. The newly established “DLT, Crypto Assets and New Market Structures” unit will comprise a 24-person team led by Jens Hachmeister, and will explore the disruptive potential the technology could have for financial markets infrastructure, as well as the new products DB could develop to enhance its existing offerings. As Hachmeister outlined: "Deutsche Boerse has been active with the technology in a first phase of ideation and exploration [...] However, these explorative steps have not been coordinated on a group-wide …

Cayman Islands-based blockchain startup Everipedia formally launched its peer-to-peer (P2P) encyclopedia August 9, a press release confirmed. Designed to be an “autonomous encyclopedia without the need for advertisements or donations,” the project uses the EOS network to function and will reward curators with its own token, dubbed “IQ.” Co-founder of Wikipedia turned Everipedia CIO Larry Sanger commented in the release that they are “elated to release [their] minimum viable network which allows users to vote on and create articles in a decentralized manner for the first time.” Talk of a blockchain-based “alternative” Wikipedia has long floated around cryptocurrency circles, with …

Huobi, currently the world’s third largest crypto exchange by daily trading volumes, is set to support Indian rupee (INR) transactions on its proprietary peer-to-peer trading platform, according to an email cited by Crypto News India July 26. Huobi, whose over-the-counter (OTC) service will reportedly offer Indian users zero-fee trading on Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT) using rupees, noted in the email that: “We do think it’s time that we provide a solution of buying/selling digital assets with INR for all Indian users...every registered Indian user of Huobi can log in to https://otc.huobi.com to trade digital assets with INR.” …

A major cryptocurrency exchange says the world is on the brink of a data crisis, and is launching a digital cooperative designed to give users total control over their personal information. CoinBene has announced it is listing the Internet of People (IoP) — a digital cooperative community which aims to allow users to build “a new generation of DApps” with full control of personal information, eliminating censorship and obstruction by governments and large companies. IoP says its protocols and “people first” principle are essential in a world where data breaches occur daily, with large corporations harvesting far more information than …