Blockchain tech giant Bitfury has partnered with a Swiss investment firm to release a dedicated bitcoin mining fund for institutional investors, executives confirmed on Twitter on April 24. Bitfury, which develops various blockchain-related software along with mining services, confirmed that Final Frontier, in which it holds a minority stake, had gained regulatory approval for the fund from neighboring Liechtenstein. Focusing on institutions, the fund will give major investors access to the world of bitcoin mining, with Bitfury describing its creation as beneficial for the emerging sector. Bitfury will provide the hardware for the project, which will also leverage the company’s …

The Bitfury Group and blockchain-powered medical data marketplace Longenesis have jointly launched production of a blockchain-based consent management system for the healthcare industry. The development was announced in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on April 4. Per the release, the new product addresses issues with the management of user consent for ongoing and upcoming research endeavors, compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as streamlining data collection for medical research. Once collected, all data and updates to user consent are reportedly recorded on the ExonumTM blockchain with timestamping …

Canadian Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Hut 8 has reportedly laid off employees at its facilities in the province of Alberta, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports April 4. Hut 8’s crypto mining facilities in Drumheller and Medicine Hat are part of a joint venture with European crypto mining hardware firm Bitfury. A former employee at the Drumheller facility told the CBC that he was laid off along with two dozen colleagues in January. He reportedly stated that the company reduced its staff by around 25% globally at the time, while teams in Alberta have faced even bigger layoffs. The cuts …

The former Soviet republic of Georgia, which occupies picturesque mountain valleys and rugged ridges of the Southern Caucasus, has roughly the same population as the state of Connecticut. It is renowned as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, as well as for being one of the oldest wine regions in the world, its rich and eclectic cuisine, and, more recently, for hosting the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency mining operation. Additionally, an estimated 5% of the nation’s households are engaged in mining crypto or invested in it. Back in 2016, the Georgian government was the first to create an operational blockchain-powered system for …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining and development company Bitfury has entered into a partnership with United States payments processor startup HadePay to allow its merchants to accept Lightning Network (LN) transactions. The news was announced in a blog post from Bitfury’s on March 14. HadePay implemented Bitfury’s Lightning Peach API to facilitate LN payments, which are significantly faster and cheaper than conventional Bitcoin transactions. The startup worked with Bitfury’s Lightning Peach team, a dedicated spin-off group of engineers focused on Lightning Network promotion. As a payments gateway, HadePay already lets clients accept crypto and fiat currencies as well as payments via various …

Blockchain tech company Bitfury is partnering with radiology blockchain marketplace Medical Diagnostic Web (MDW) to create a blockchain-based medical imaging ecosystem. The partnership was announced by the Bitfury Group in a blog post on Feb. 11. Established in 2011, the Bitfury Group operates as a software manufacturer and provider of security and infrastructure for the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. The company raised $500 million in revenue in 2018. MDW is a radiology blockchain platform that allows radiologists to contact with imaging facilities and share patient data and medical images. Within the new collaboration, Bitfury, MDW and blockchain-powered life data marketplace Longenesis …

Recently, Forbes published the fresh edition of its “Fintech 50” list, counting the world’s top financial technology firms. Notably, there are just six crypto and blockchain companies featured this year, while the 2018 list contained 11 players from the field. Given that the notorious crypto boom of 2017 has been followed by the relentless bear market, it is hardly surprising. Nevertheless, while there is considerably fewer crypto companies featured this year, less than half of them — Ripple, BitFury, Coinbase — have made the list before, which means that new blood arrived regardless of the market condition. Veterans Ripple What …

The Forbes 2019 “Fintech 50” list of the world’s top financial technology firms published on Feb. 4 features six blockchain companies, little more than half the amount listed in the 2018 edition. Released in February of last year, Forbes 2018 “Fintech 50” list contained 11 blockchain- and crypto-related companies. In the introduction to this fourth edition of the list, Forbes writers note that while “crypto prices and ICOs collapsed, overall investment in fintech surged in 2018,” stating that “big fintechs are getting bigger.” The introduction also points out that 20 of the startups are making their appearance on the list …

Blockchain tech firm and Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturer Bitfury plans to launch several mining facilities in Paraguay, according to a press release published Thursday, Jan. 31. Bitfury has partnered with South Korean peer-to-peer knowledge commons research firm Commons Foundation to launch a series of transaction processing sites that will use Bitfury’s BlockBox AC mobile data centers in Paraguay. The project is part of a larger initiative from Commons, dubbed “Golden Goose,” that aims to “expand cryptocurrency and blockchain innovation in Spanish-speaking countries,” the press release reports. As per the announcement, the mining facilities in Paraguay will account for about 200,000 …

Blockchain technology firm Bitfury Group has released a series of new tools for merchants and developers in a bid to drive wider adoption of the Lightning Network (LN). The launch was announced in a blog post from Bitfury’s LN engineering team, “Lightning Peach,” Jan. 23. Bitfury’s new LN-related offerings span an open source LN-enabled Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, a hardware LN payments terminal and e-commerce software for merchants, a host of developer tools, and a public LN node to facilitate users’ creation of LN payment channels. The Lightning Network is a second-layer solution to Bitcoin’s scalability limitations, which works by opening …

Blockchain and Bitcoin mining manufacturer Bitfury announced the launch of a dedicated venture to open source the music industry in a blog post on Jan. 16. The spin-off, dubbed Bitfury Surround, aims to tackle the complex and often unfairly proportioned flows of revenue between artists, fans and middlemen using blockchain technology. The post explains, “The Surround platform will enable the entire music entertainment industry to streamline operations through secure transfer of copyright assets, streamlined connectivity as well as better monitoring and management systems. Surround marks Bitfury’s ongoing expansion into various aspects beyond mining. Within the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, meanwhile, this …

Big four consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has partnered with mining and blockchain software company Bitfury Group to create a blockchain accelerator for businesses in Russia, according to a PwC press release today, Dec. 13. The release explains that PwC has already used Exonum — Bitfury’s open source framework for building blockchain applications — for educational courses and seminars. According to the release, the main goal of the new accelerator is to meet the “current needs” of the consulting giant’s enterprise clients in Russia. Victor Nelin, an IT consulting manager at PwC’s Russian branch, claimed that Bitfury and PwC will provide …