Up to $40 billion a year (AU$60 billion), could be added to Australia's national GDP with the right regulatory framework and could lead to enormous cost savings for consumers and businesses according to a new report. The Nov. 29 Digital assets in Australia report was commissioned by the Tech Council of Australia (TCA), one of the country's technology industry advocacy groups, and written by technology consulting firm Accenture, which outlined a number of potential benefits the growth of the digital assets sector in Australia could deliver, stating: “Digital assets (DA) have the potential to transform our lives offering significant time …

Affluent investors in Asia are neither shy nor ignorant about crypto, with research revealing that 52% of them held some form of a digital asset during Q1 2022. According to research from Accenture published on Monday, digital assets, which include cryptocurrencies, stable coins and crypto funds, made up, on average, 7% of the surveyed investors’ portfolios, making it the fifth-largest asset class for investors in Asia. This was more than they allocated to foreign currencies, commodities and collectibles, and in some cases, was on par with or exceeded the amount invested in private equity/venture capital and hedge funds. Accenture said …

After completing the first phase of its digital currency pilot project, Sveriges Riksbank has found some critical issues that must be addressed before Stockholmers can buy coffee and kanelbullar with e-krona. In a recent study, Sweden’s central bank presented the first results of its central bank digital currency pilot on a network based on R3’s Corda blockchain. The Riksbank simulated core aspects of a potential CBDC system, including liquidity supply via the Riksbank’s settlement system, RIX, and network members serving as e-kronor distributors. The central bank also simulated participants, end-users and payment instruments like mobile apps. The Riksbank said that …

The first stage of the highly anticipated upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain, Ethereum 2.0, is expected to launch by the end of this year. Promising to increase the throughput and lower the latency of the Ethereum mainnet, these steps are likely to bring wider adoption in business and commerce. Ben Edgington, product owner for Teku — an Ethereum 2.0 client designed for enterprise and institutional stakers — told Cointelegraph that Ethereum 2.0 will indeed resolve key barriers for enterprises looking to deploy use cases on the Ethereum mainnet. “We expect it will accelerate the convergence of private chains with the …

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) plans to launch its blockchain-based securities lending pool in November. In an announcement on July 28, TASE said the platform will serve an essential function in the country’s capital markets, which currently lack a central system for securities lending. Contrary to the current set-up —— which fails to meet the needs of investors, in TASE’s view — the new blockchain-based system will concentrate all securities lending activities under one roof and enable direct borrowing among investors across a range of major financial instruments. Tried and tested In March of this year, TASE launched a …

Sharon Bowen, a former Commissioner at the United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission, today said that the U.S. was falling behind other nations that are working on a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. During a webinar hosted by the consultancy firm Accenture, Bowen — currently a board member at Intercontinental Exchange — said that a CBDC would help the U.S. dollar maintain prominence in the world economy. She stated that if the U.S. does not want other nations to “threaten the monetary policy or monetary supply” of the dollar, it must seriously consider cross-border transactions through the use of …

The Swiss-based non-profit blockchain industry association, the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), believes that the crises resulting from the coronavirus pandemic have highlighted the benefits of distributed ledger technology (DLT). In email correspondence with Cointelegraph, a representative of the GBBC asserted that DLT can modernize and address the inefficiencies of the systems that underpin the organization of contemporary societies. Coronavirus highlights DLT use-cases “The current pandemic is highlighting many of the inefficiencies and shortcomings of existing systems,” the spokesperson said, emphasizing the failures of many governments in both “preparing and responding to crises.” “While many of these inefficiencies existed long …

As per a detailed report released by accounting giant Deloitte at the World Economic Forum on the subject of blockchain interoperability, this fast-evolving technology still has some distance to tread before it can be ported into action for mainstream purposes such as large-scale supply chain management, secure data sharing and other processes. In this regard, a number of big-name web service providers such as IBM, Oracle, Azure Blockchain Services and SAP have been vocal in their support for cross-chain platforms and have made a firm commitment to solving many of the issues that currently plague this fast-growing technology. For example, …

While interoperability continues to pose serious challenges for enterprises leveraging blockchain networks, companies may be one step closer to breaking down these barriers. An open-source project initiated by Fortune 500 company Accenture and Fujitsu joined Hyperledger’s Greenhouse on May 13, 2020. The project, formerly known as the “Blockchain Integration Framework,” spent six months in development in the Hyperledger Lab before joining the Hyperledger Greenhouse as the 16th technology code base. Upon joining the Greenhouse, the project was renamed “Hyperledger Cactus” and now sits alongside notable projects including Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Sawtooth. The director of blockchain technology at Accenture, Michael …

Data privacy issues have been escalating in 2020 as personal data is increasingly being used to fight COVID-19. The Linux Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium, has today announced a new data privacy project featuring dozens of cross-industry giants like Mastercard and IBM. Called the ToIP Foundation, the new data trust coalition aims to provide a trusted exchange of data over the internet and establish a global standard to ensure digital trust. Blockchain consortium R3 outlines Corda’s potential for private transactions According to a May 5 announcement, the ToIP Foundation’s participants include a wide list of companies, governments and nonprofits across …

According to a new report released by Premium Market Insights (PMI), global investment in blockchain technology in energy markets is set to reach $34.7 billion by 2025. Valued at just $156.5 million in 2016, the sector is forecast to grow at a rate of 82% a year. Although $35 billion seems high, it’s dwarfed by the net worth of $1.85 trillion for the energy market as a whole. Key players using blockchain and DLT in the field include Accenture, AWS, Bigchaindb, Deloitte, IBM, Infosys, Microsoft, Nodalblock, Oracle, SAP, Enosi, and Electron. Blockchain is used within energy markets for data management, …

The Digital Dollar Project, which advocates a blockchain-backed digital dollar in the United States, has announced the inaugural roster of its Advisory Board. The new advisors joining the founders of the project The project is an initiative of several former heads of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Accenture. The new advisory board includes 22 members with broad backgrounds in finance and payment technologies. They include former CFTC Commissioner Sharon Bowen, PayPal policy exec Usman Ahmed and Georgetown fintech law professor and occasional Cointelegraph contributor Chris Brummer. The announcement for the new board says the advisors aim to “help …