International electrical engineering company ABB has rolled out a blockchain pilot to explore how the technology could promote the role of solar energy in peer-to-peer (p2p) energy trading, technology-focused media outlet PV Tech reported on May 16. To implement the project, ABB collaborated with Italian energy aggregator Evolvere to deploy a blockchain it jointly developed with blockchain-based platform Prosume. The pilot will purportedly enable transparent and secure p2p energy transactions, as well research blockchain’s role in the smart grids market. ABB told PV Tech that the project’s objective is to make blockchain-ready inverters so energy market participants can reduce both …

Emin Gun Sirer, a professor at Cornell University and a major global blockchain expert, will launch his own cryptocurrency and blockchain network, Bloomberg reported on May 16. Sirer, the creator of the first crypto based on proof-of-work (PoW) — Karma System — is now planning to launch a blockchain network that he touts as running as many transactions per second as payment giant Visa. Having raised $6 million from major investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain and MetaStable in February, Sirer’s Ava Labs has reportedly launched a private test version of the Ava network on May 16, while the public …

A “next-generation” mobile payment platform has unveiled two products that are designed to help users smartly manage money matters and enjoy “greater financial empowerment.” Crypto.com’s first new offering, Crypto Earn, gives the public “the freedom to grow their assets.” Available through the platform’s flagship app, the service allows users to deposit virtual currencies and accrue incentives, the company said. Consumers can choose to hold their assets for either one month or three months, and the company said a flexible plan will follow in the future. The Hong Kong-headquartered company, which was founded in 2016, has also launched a second product …

Blockchain network Stellar (XLM) stopped confirming transactions for two hours on May 15, executives confirmed following a user post on social media. Stellar, whose lumens token is currently the eighth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, went down entirely for around 110 minutes Wednesday. The cause, it appears, was a mass offlining of Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) nodes, which the majority of the network trusts. Accordingly, other participants failed to find consensus for blocks, and no transactions were validated until developers resolved the issue. “I really hope we’ll get a real debate about decentralization after this event. And about the strategies to …

In the course of a planned hard fork update, the bitcoin cash (BCH) network experienced difficulties processing transactions, cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX tweeted on May 15. Following the expected fork at block 582,680, the network purportedly began to experience issues with transactions. BitMEX said that the number of transactions per block was low — 0 in the last 9 blocks starting at block 582,687. Bitcoin cash transaction per block. Source: BitMEX According to data from CoinDance, the greatest number of blocks mined after the upgrade were only processing transactions on Coinbase. In the meantime, BitMEX revealed that their mempool had 1,622 …

Recently, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), with the participation of enterprise software company R3, successfully tested a blockchain project that will speed up real estate transactions. Such a solution can provide transparent and fast operations for the end user, R3 officials say. However, is it already possible to talk about a breakthrough in the market? How will the traditional process of real estate transactions and mortgage issuance change? Why did banks, skeptical before, change their attitude toward blockchain? And what are the risks for private blockchain platforms? Experts answer. Barclays and RBS’s solution as a response to …

The chief financial officer (CFO) of major payment system PayPal said that the firm is hesitant about getting involved in the cryptocurrency sector in an interview with Yahoo Finance on May 7. Speaking about the company’s future cryptocurrency plans, PayPal CFO John Rainey pointed out that the firm previously allowed its merchants to accept bitcoin (BTC) as a form of payment, but subsequently saw the instability and volatility of the currency. “If a merchant accepted that they would quickly convert it to a more stable currency like the euro or dollar,” Rainey stated, adding: “We have teams clearly working on …

Ether (ETH) volumes on decentralized applications (DApps) have registered a new high, but new DApps coming on-chain are significantly low, crypto analytics firm Diar reported on May 6. The volume of ether transacted in April on DApps broke the previous record which was set last December by a small margin. This, Diar notes, marks a four-month growth trend in on-chain volumes, with 776,000 ETH transacted. Diar further notes that this year is the longest growth period in terms of transacted volume that DApps have ever seen. Almost $132 million transacted on DApps are marking a four-month in a row growth …

A single address has been responsible for more than half of the bitcoin cash (BCH) transactions in the past month, according to a tweet by @IamNomad on May 5. According to the Bitcoin Cash Block Explorer, the mystery account has made more than 587,000 transactions since it became operational on April 8 of this year. Many of the transactions are for fractional amounts of BCH and they are made with regularity, with three to four new transactions emerging per second. Overall, the address has received $22,763.06 (80.981 BCH) at press time and has sent $21,546 (76.654 BCH), leaving it with …

On-chain transactions on the bitcoin (BTC) network hit fresh highs not seen since 2017 in April, industry newsletter Diar noted on April 30, quoting blockchain data provider TokenAnalyst. Continuing a trend that had already started at the end of March, on-chain transaction volume hit a 14-month high in April. This, Diar notes, is similar to the figure from June 2018, when the price of bitcoin circled $7,000. Far from reflecting increased real-world usage, however, the driving cause of the uptick remains trading and speculative moves. “On-chain value of both Bitcoins and US Dollar value continue to follow price trends indicating …

Mixed cryptocurrency transactions now represent 4.09% of all bitcoin (BTC) payments, according to data published by Longhash on April 29. So-called “CoinJoins” have risen by 300% in the space of nine months. By blending multiple transactions together before they are sent to the recipient, the technique is regarded as a way of obscuring the sender’s details. The data was provided by Adam Fiscor, the CTO of the company that runs Wasabi Wallet, a product that aims to deliver greater levels of anonymity to bitcoin users. It shows that CoinJoin transactions have reached their highest level since 2013-14. CoinJoins have become …

A crypto exchange has unveiled its new market maker program, with incentives for participants in the form of lower trading fees and reduced transaction costs. OKEx — which, according to CoinMarketCap, is the world’s biggest exchange by trading volume at the time of writing — says the program is open to users who have completed the necessary Know Your Customer (KYC) verification procedures and have total assets exceeding 20 bitcoin or the equivalent in their account. The company says these requirements are “less strict” than those offered by its rivals. Applications for its market maker program are only being accepted …