Another FAANG company has its sights on financial services — this time it’s Google, as Forbes reported on Nov. 16, polemically claiming this could “kill Bitcoin.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, Google had revealed plans — devised under a project code-named Cache — to launch consumer checking accounts in partnership with Citigroup. Lessons “learned” For cryptocurrency veterans, the inauspicious history of Google’s choice of banking partner will not go unremarked: on the eve of the 2008 global financial crisis, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince was still telling journalists that “as long as the music is playing, …

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee believes Bitcoin (BTC) will accrue price value following a similar logic to the Silicon Valley tech titans. During an interview for CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on show on Nov. 15, Lee argued that cryptocurrencies “are network value assets” — and share this with the world’s most successful tech stocks. “Network value assets” Lee — a renowned Bitcoin bull, co-founder and Wall Street strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors — made his argument when asked about the logic behind Fundstrat’s $25,000 by 2022 forecast for Bitcoin. Noting that the number was set in 2017 as part of a five-year …

The blockchain community should immediately begin working on three issues to prevent being overtaken by quantum computers, a cryptography expert says. Xinxin Fan, head of cryptography at privacy- and IoT-focused blockchain platform IoTeX, published an article in The International Business Times on Nov. 7, calling on the blockchain community to stay up to date about the progress being made on quantum computers. While reiterating that short-term developments in quantum computing are “modest,” Fan argued that blockchains will have to keep pace to avoid being overtaken by quantum computers as the technology grows and improves. As such, Fan outlined three major …

Blockchain technology is reshaping the face of our global financial system, and it goes far beyond cryptocurrencies alone. Since Bitcoin’s arrival, the conventional finance world has been intrigued by blockchain, Bitcoin’s underlying disruptive technology. Now we are seeing that intrigue being transformed into a full-fledged and active public interest, and the potential onset of popular mass adoption. But why is the white-collar financial world interested in adopting the very technology that holds profound implications for permanently altering “business as usual?” We headed to London in attendance of a conference called Sibos 2019 to find out. Sibos is the premiere financial …

Worldwide Google searches for “Bitcoin” (BTC) — currently worth $9,400 — are now near a three-month high, according to Google Trends. Current interest is at the highest level since early August, when BTC price was around $11,700. Africa leads in searches for “Bitcoin” Notably, three of the top five regions reporting the most searches for the keyword in question are located in Africa. The top five regions are Nigeria, South Africa, Austria, Ghana and Brazil. As reported earlier today, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading platform Paxful said its volumes grew 2,800% over the past year in South Africa. Bitcoin, not blockchain Google …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is not at all impressed by the perceived threat Bitcoin (BTC) faces from Google’s quantum computer. Buterin took to Twitter on Oct. 23, where he commented on the news that Google had achieved quantum supremacy, meaning that a quantum computer has solved a mathematical calculation that would take any traditional computer millenia to solve. Buterin shared a seemingly snarky analogy: “My one-sentence impression of recent quantum supremacy stuff so far is that it is to real quantum computing what hydrogen bombs are to nuclear fusion. Proof that a phenomenon and the capability to extract power from …

The application of Google’s quantum computing technology could purportedly help improve the technology which underpins proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptocurrencies. Quantum computing would create truly random numbers PoS is a type of consensus algorithm where block creators are randomly chosen with probability proportional to their stake, while the algorithm of proof-of-work-based digital currencies uses mining. However, the PoS variant has raised doubts regarding the integrity of random selections. Scott Aaronson, a quantum theoretician at the University of Texas at Austin, told Fortune on Oct. 23 that quantum computing could assuage PoS-skeptics doubts, as a quantum supremacy experiment could generate certifiably random numbers. …

Former Google Russia chief technology officer Jennifer Trelewicz has joined blockchain platform Credits (CS) as its new chief business officer (CBO). According to an official announcement published on Oct. 11, Trelewicz’s first experience working with blockchain was during her time as the CEO of Russian technology startup S7 TechLab. In the past, she also worked as the director of IBM’s systems and technology laboratory and the director of risks and market data at Deutsche Bank. Focused on new partnerships Potential collaboration with major companies such as IBM is now among the key growth opportunities for Credits, Trelewicz added. In fact, …

Bitcoin (BTC) has “zip” to fear from the latest advances in quantum computing from Google, one of the industry’s best-known figures has confirmed. The effect on Bitcoin? “Zip, bupkis nada” Speaking as part of a Q&A session on Oct. 10, Andreas Antonopoulos poured cold water on fears Google’s recent quantum computing success could impact cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. “What is the effect on mining and the cryptocurrency world in general? Zip, bupkis, nada, nothing really happens,” he summarized. As Cointelegraph reported last month, Google had announced it has used a quantum computer to perform a task, which a regular machine …

At a time when the term “fake news” has become a household name thanks to its repeated use by President Donald Trump, deepfakes — i.e., seemingly realistic videos that are in fact manipulated — can further escalate the problem associated with distrust of media. Technologists are looking at the inherent nature of blockchain as aggregators of trust to put more public confidence back into the system. Truth is increasingly becoming a relative term. When everyone has their own version of the truth, democracy becomes meaningless. The advent of deepfakes is surely pushing society to a point where facts can be …

Blockchain and cryptocurrency investment firm Multicoin Capital has hired a former Google product manager as one of its new investment principals. In a blog post published on Oct. 1, managing partner Kyle Samani said that Tony Sheng would help secure new deals for the firm and work with existing portfolio members. Crypto market offers “tremendous alpha” Announcing the hire, Samani said the crypto market is still very young — and “things are only just starting to get interesting.” He added: “With all the right forms of capital— people, financial, social, service providers, and brand—we’re looking forward to our next stage …

The rapid onset of technological advancement is not evenly spread. Society is increasingly becoming digitally literate and uses emerging technology for work, to communicate and pay for things in ways unimaginable just 15 years ago. So, why are methods of governance largely unchanged since the invention of liberal democracy hundreds of years ago? Although many aspects of government remain entrenched in the past, one area is being brought into the 21st century: identity. With fears regarding third-party data abuse, citizens are more concerned than ever about how this affects their lives and their sovereignty. A number of innovative government departments …