In 2017, when everything concerned with cryptocurrency and blockchain still looked fresh and interesting, it seemed that there would be no day without a new “revolutionary” project or idea. Decentralized financial system, decentralized torrent tracker, decentralized office documentation system. Decentralized, decentralized, decentralized. The overuse of terms like “transparent,” “distributed” and “blockchain-based” soon made most press papers look generic. The closer we got to the peak of the Bitcoin price at the end of 2017, the more absurd the names of new projects became: “Ethereum-based payment system for slaughterhouse industry workers,” “decentralized blockchain-based dwarf horse breeding platform,” “peer-to-peer personal banking service …

The United States arm of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has entered a major organization focused on decentralized finance, or DeFi. According to a Sept. 17 blog post, Binance.US has officially joined the Chicago DeFi Alliance. Also known as the CDA, the association is backed by crypto fund Volt Capital, brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, CMT Digital, Cumberland DRW, Compound Finance and others. By joining the alliance, Binance.US aims to contribute to the further development of the DeFi industry in the U.S., the firm’s CEO Catherine Coley said. “By working with DeFi Alliance, Binance.US will help mature the DeFi space, …

The Ethereum Foundation has announced that over $3.8 million in grants will be awarded to teams working on the Ethereum blockchain. In a Sept. 8 post published on the Ethereum Blog, the Ethereum Foundation, or EF, announced that it has given grants to teams as part of its ecosystem support program during Q2 2020. The categories included teams focusing on community and education, cryptography and zero-knowledge proof, or ZKP, developer experience, Ethereum 2.0, and Layer 2. The $3,884,000 funds will go to 28 companies and researchers, including blockchain advisory firm Akomba Labs for community and education, and Beacon Fuzz for …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has made changes to its definition of who qualifies as an “accredited investor,” likely broadening the field of participants for future private equity offerings. According to the commission, this development is the result of years of internal discussions about better ways to balance requirements for investor protection with the need to make America’s investment landscape more inclusive. Given the SEC’s insistence on regulated crypto token sales, the news could have significant implications for future security token offerings and even widen the pool of those with access to regulated cryptocurrency token sales. SEC broadens …

Financial services giants Visa and Mastercard have shown an increased interest in the trillion-dollar digital payment sector through their recent acquisitions of innovative fintechs. In January this year, Visa acquired fintech firm Plaid for $5.3 billion. The San Francisco-based firm enables data sharing of financial information between different fintech apps like Venmo and Chime, supporting over 2,000 financial institutions. As such, the acquisition could strengthen Plaid’s global wire transfer capabilities. Mastercard has also made some major fintech acquisitions. In June this year, the payment giant announced plans to acquire financial data aggregation startup Finicity for $825 million. Mastercard’s announcement states …

Blockchain and crypto data platform LongHash revealed on August 8 in a tweet that China’s blockchain sector has grown substantially despite the pandemic this year. It stated that over 10,000 blockchain companies were established between January and July. The report also shows the current number of blockchain-related companies in China is on track to surpass 2017’s total figure. LongHash said 2020 could also pass 2018’s total of 18,500 and for a new all-time high. Source: LongHash Tweet The figures show that there are 84,410 registered companies and, of these, 29,340 are in operation. The Guangdong Province in Southeast China has …

Major South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group is cementing its involvement in the cryptocurrency industry with a new investment. Hanwha Investment & Securities, a securities brokerage subsidiary of Hanwha Group, has participated in a 4 billion won ($3.3 million) funding round in crypto firm CrossAngle. Xangle is specialized in collecting corporate disclosures for crypto Announcing the news on July 16, CrossAngle said that the Series A2 investment is expected to enable the company to develop an infrastructure for institutionalizing crypto data services. Incorporated in Singapore, CrossAngle is building Xangle, a public crypto disclosure service focused on providing transparent data for cryptocurrencies …

Plutus, a crypto finance app founded in 2015, denied social media reports that its database was compromised by a hacking attack launched by alleged threat actors. On July 9, Israel-based threat intelligence firm, Sixgill, published an alert through their official Twitter account which stated that hackers have been sharing a database stolen from the crypto app since July 7, with no additional details revealed. Official Plutus statement on the alleged cyber-incident However, a representative from Plutus sent Cointelegraph the following statement: “We have investigated several possible attack vectors and not found any evidence of hacking. We want to reassure our …

Tim Draper, a famous American venture capitalist and serial cryptocurrency investor, believes that initial public offerings, or IPOs, are not the best source of funding for industry firms. The billionaire investor joined the Unitize conference on July 6 to talk about investing in early stage blockchain startups. Draper’s thoughts on IPOs During the Unitize panel, Draper highlighted that existing regulations make it difficult for blockchain companies to go public. “I don’t recommend going public to anybody right now unless your company is worth at least $10 billion,” the investor said. Draper continued that it makes more sense for blockchain entrepreneurs …

Online events are becoming more common as coronavirus cases continue to surge. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the blockchain community has seen an uptake in virtual hackathons this year, a concept which is actually proving to be beneficial. For example, hackathon management platform TAIKAI works with organizations to facilitate a virtual open network for innovators looking to solve different challenges. TAIKAI CEO, Mário Ribeiro Alves, told Cointelegraph that lately the platform has been drawing attention from blockchain companies interested in launching virtual hackathons. According to Alves, virtual hackathons will play an important role in developing the blockchain …

A new startup wants to change the way freelance talent and respective clients find each other through a community-run platform. To accomplish this, the project will feature its own governance token. The core premise of the platform, known as Braintrust, is to remove middlemen from the process of hiring highly skilled talent for contract and freelance work — primarily in the IT industry. But unlike the many iterations of this concept born in the initial coin offering era, Braintrust will not force users into a proprietary token for payments. Instead, it borrows some concepts from DeFi governance, and especially Compound, …

Kirobo, a two-year-old Israeli blockchain startup, announced on Tuesday that it has found a way to tackle problems related to human error in cryptocurrency transactions. In a recent survey by the Fio Foundation, 55% of respondents reported experiencing stressful human errors when sending cryptocurrency, and 18% reported loss of funds due to such errors. As such, Kirobo has invented “Retrievable Transfer,” a way for senders to cancel a transaction that is sent to the wrong address. Kirobo provides a unique code to the sender and the receiver has to enter the matching password in order to receive the transfer. “Until …