On Nov. 28, e-commerce giant Amazon announced two blockchain-related products: Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain. The company hence marked its further expansion into the field of blockchain technology, which started with blockchain-related patents and collaborations that Amazon has seemingly chose over working with cryptocurrencies, per se. So what are those new projects and are they going to change the crypto industry? QLDB: Cryptographic, but centralized database As per Amazon’s website, QLDB is a ledger database designed to provide “transparent, immutable and cryptographically verifiable log of transactions,” which is overseen by “a central trusted authority.” Thus, all …

E-commerce giant Amazon announced the debut of two new services, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Amazon Managed Blockchain, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Nov. 28. QLDB is a ledger database designed to provide transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable log of transactions, which is overseen by a central trusted authority. All changes are purportedly recorded on chain, while the new product is also able to automatically scale and execute two to three times more transactions than already existing products. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), reportedly said that the product “will be really scalable, …

On November 13, Amazon was granted two crypto-related patents. While the American e-commerce pioneer, with a revenue of over $177 billion, has not chosen to accept Bitcoin (BTC) and major altcoins as a payment option despite public interest and competitors’ experience, it has not ignored the subject altogether. In fact, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing arm, has contributed to blockchain adoption. Amazon and cryptocurrencies: refusal to accept BTC, unfulfilled plans for Amazon Coin Amazon has a complex relationship with crypto. In April 2014, the e-commerce giant decided not to accept Bitcoin (BTC) citing customer preferences. Amazon payments …

E-commerce giant Amazon has won two patents related to methods for protecting the integrity of digital signatures and improving distributed data storage. The two patents were published by by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today, Nov. 13. The first patent document, first filed in April of this year, outlines a “signature delegation” method for “protecting the integrity of digital signatures and encrypted communications,” by allowing for the generation, distribution, validation, and revocation of one-time-use cryptographic keys. In the proposed system, these keys are arranged in what is known in cryptography as a “Merkle Tree” structure, which is a …

ConsenSys’ blockchain startup Kaleido and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have launched a full-stack platform that helps enterprises implement blockchain solutions, according to a press release published Nov. 8. The platform, dubbed Kaleido Marketplace, reportedly “eliminates 80 percent of the custom code” needed to build a given blockchain project by providing an array of full-stack tools and protocols that are “plug-and-play,” spanning needs from back-end development to front-end app user interfaces. According to the press release, Marketplace clients can access native integrations with AWS cloud, as well as swiftly implement solutions such as “HD wallets for privacy and ID registries for …

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 …

Be honest: shopping with cryptocurrency isn’t always the easiest experience. Even if price volatility is on your side, spending funds can be nightmarish. Crypto is gaining in popularity but many merchants still don’t accept it – meaning you are stuck with those age-old, boring options of paying by card or cash. A “technology enabler” startup known as Cyclebit is aiming to simplify things by enabling stores to serve as “cryptocurrency gateways” – enticing crypto enthusiasts to come and spend their coins with them and inject some new funds into the economy. The idea has already started to gain traction – …

The Bank of America (BoA) has estimated that blockchain could be a $7 billion market and provide a major boost to corporate giants such as Microsoft and Amazon, CNBC reports Oct. 2. While BoA’s analysts refrained from putting “a time stamp” on the industry becoming a major, multi-billion dollar addressable market, they reportedly based their estimates on a ballpark figure that two percent of corporate servers would be used to run blockchain at a cost of $5,500 annually. BoA research analyst Kash Rangan told CNBC that the technology is well-suited to some of the world’s largest corporations, noting for example …

“Big Four” audit and consulting firm Deloitte has outlined five basic areas of development for blockchain technology in order achieve widespread adoption, according to a study published September 28. According to Deloitte, in order to be adopted by enterprises on a mass scale, blockchain technology should overcome five major obstacles – the possibility of time-consuming operations, lack of standardization, high costs and complexity blockchain applications, regulatory uncertainty, as well as the absence of collaboration between blockchain-related firms. Identifying the area that needs the most development, Deloitte singled out the problem of possible operational delays on a distributed ledger network. The …

A blockchain system developed by Australia’s national science agency (CSIRO) and Sydney University claims to have set a benchmark of 30,000 transactions per second during a test on Amazon Cloud, according to CSIRO’s Tuesday, September 25 press release. The technology arm of CSIRO, Data61, and the Concurrent Systems Research Group at the University of Sydney created Red Belly Blockchain as a “graduate” from CSIRO’s Pre-accelerator program ON prime. CSIRO and the Concurrent Systems Research Group announced the first outcome of its experiment held on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. Red Belly Blockchain was tested on 1,000 machines in 18 …

Former Twitch exec Matthew DiPietro has joined crypto startup Kin Ecosystem Foundation as chief marketing officer (CMO), PR Newswire reports September 18. After serving eight years as senior vice president at the popular live streaming platform Twitch, DiPietro will now be responsible for developing marketing and brand strategies for Kin, the cryptocurrency launched by Kik Interactive, as specified on the expert’s LinkedIn profile. According to PR Newswire, DiPietro drove brand development for Twitch, as well as led all marketing projects, including the launch of community convention TwitchCon that is devoted to Twitch and the culture of video game streaming. Having …

U.S. retail giant Walmart has applied to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) to patent a blockchain system for deliveries, according to an official patent document released August 30. The new patent aims to provide a technology for running “in-field authenticating of autonomous electronic devices” to enable secure deliveries. The patent specifies that “[i]n exemplary embodiments, two autonomous electronic devices, such as delivery drones or household autonomous robots, can authenticate each other using embodiments of security procedures described herein.” The patent is entitled “Systems, Devices, and Methods for In-Field Authenticating of Autonomous Robots” and was filed in January 2018 …