Kusama, a sister chain to Polkadot’s platform, is ready for the rollout of parachains on the network. Polkadot and Kusama creator Gavin Wood said on Tuesday in a blog post that Polkadot was entering the fourth and final phase of its mainnet launch, which involves deploying parachains to the Kusama network. According to Wood, the development arm behind Polkadot, Parity Technologies, had released an upgrade — Polkadot version 0.9 — for Kusama, which “is now finally ready to host parachains.” Wood said the launch of the parachains would proceed following a full external audit on the new version of Polkadot …

Supply chain management has historically been challenging due to issues, such as increased costs, consumer demands, financial risk, volatility and much more. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has created even bigger issues for supply chains globally. A recent survey conducted by Big Four firm Ernst & Young in late 2020 puts this in perspective, noting that 97% of automotive and industrial product companies found the pandemic to have negative effects on their businesses. The EY study further found that 64% of surveyors believed that the digital transformation of global supply chains will accelerate due to the pandemic. Although this is merely …

The Bank of England's deputy governor Jon Cunliffe has argued that a sea change in the issuance and circulation of public and private monies could make general access to a digital form of central bank money crucial for ensuring financial stability in future. In a speech at the OMFIF Digital Money Institute in London, Cunliffe reflected on past, present and future trends in the widespread use of private money issued by commercial banks, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated existing trends away from public to private money for everyday payments. About 70% of respondents to a recent Bank of …

It’s been more than ten years since computer scientist Hal Finney became the recipient of the first transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain, and his impact on crypto as a technology is still felt today. Finney was one of the first people to respond to Satoshi Nakamoto’s post on the cypherpunks mailing list, with some in the space still believing he was one of the pseudonymous individuals behind the creation of Bitcoin (BTC). The legendary Bitcoin pioneer would have turned 65 years old today, had he not passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, or …

The year 2020 was certainly lonely for many people around the world, as the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of almost all social events and gatherings. As a result, online events have become the new normal for almost every industry. While some may view this as an innovative development, many industries have struggled to exist due to a lack of ticket sales for events. For instance, the billion-dollar concert and event promotion industry has seen a decline in revenue at an annualized rate of 11.5%, reaching $17.1 billion in 2021. Data further shows that this decline is a direct …

It has been four months since the Brexit trade deal came into effect between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The deal, in common with other free trade agreements, does very little to support the export of financial services from the U.K. into the single market. As a result, spring has seen financial services firms, including those in financial technology adjusting to different trading relations with the EU, while also managing the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. Most notably, U.K. financial services have lost their automatic rights to service EU clients from their U.K. base, using the so-called passporting rights that …

United States cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced a new project aimed at increasing innovation in the nascent blockchain industry. Project 10 Percent will see Coinbase divert 10% of its resources to supporting innovative ideas within the company. The project aligns with the exchange’s philosophy that “70% of our time should be focused on core work, 20% on strategic bets, and 10% on innovative experimentation,” the company said Wednesday. The project is being rolled out internally by asking Coinbase employees to complete a two-page submission about their potential ideas, followed by a pitch-off style event every year. Projects are considered “disruptive …

Brian Brooks has defended the fintech banking charter introduced while he served as the acting comptroller of the currency after Congressional Democrats took aim at the license on Thursday. Brian appeared as a witness before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions at an April 15 hearing titled, “Banking Innovation or Regulatory Evasion? Exploring Trends in Financial Institution Charters.” The fintech charter was introduced by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, and overseen by Brooks in 2020, allowing financial technology firms including cryptocurrency companies to offer lending and payment products without …

A new contest is taking place that aims to test a node written in the Rust programming language — with the ambition of breaking the world record for the bandwidth of blockchain protocols in a real network. Free TON's current node is written in C++ and already has the ability to process thousands of transactions per second. Sharding plays an instrumental role in this network, as this means that smart contracts can be processed in parallel. It’s believed that a node written in Rust would be dramatically quicker due to better process parallelization, and organizers of the Rust Cup believe …

A Scottish music school will begin accepting cryptocurrency for tuition payments following demand from students, it was announced this week. The Morningside School of Music in Edinburgh said it was responding to suggestions from adult pupils in the school, many of whom now work in the city’s burgeoning fintech sector. Morningside’s director, Linda Boyd, said the school had previously used cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to make business purchases and could see the utility in accepting it as a form of payment. She said, “We sometimes use things like Bitcoin to pay for goods for the school, so we know how …

The economic recession of 2008 to 2009 resulted in the invention of Bitcoin (BTC), creating a brand new financial system that is now growing and developing rapidly. Back then, the Harvard Business Review published an article titled “The Female Economy” pointing out that about $20 trillion of the annual consumer spending in the world was controlled by women, and “That figure could climb as high as $28 trillion in the next five years.” Also in 2009, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay published the book Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success. Though the term “womenomics,” and the concept itself, was …

As big-name payment processors like Visa and Mastercard increasingly integrate blockchain technology into their payment rails, decentralized platforms offering the best solutions to issues like scalability and fast transaction times are gaining traction. COTI is one such platform that has been gaining momentum in recent weeks after a series of network upgrades and big announcements brought extra attention to the enterprise-grade fintech platform. According to COTI’s website, the protocol focuses on empowering organizations to create their own payment solutions and digitize any form of currency as a way to save time and money. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows …