Blockchain projects continue to experience failure rates in excess of 90%, and it seems that with every passing moment, more and more “successful” companies add their underperforming blockchain project to the graveyard. One of the most recent blockchain failure victims was Moller-Maersk, which recently announced the termination of its highly publicized TradeLens offering — a global trade platform built on IBM blockchain technology. These failures, however, were totally predictable and, in many cases, would be avoidable if companies more closely observed certain lessons in innovation diffusion. Lesson 1: Innovation is not monolithic. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is …

Turkish automotive company Togg announced a partnership with Metaco, a digital asset custody orchestration technology provider, to secure its open mobility ecosystem built on Avalanche. Togg’s Mobility-as-a-Service platform (MaaS), a.k.a, Mobility Ecosystem, aims to deliver smart contract-powered use cases — including tokenization of mobility services, assessment of CO2 footprint and nonfungible token (NFT) ownership — for users in Türkiye and Europe. The partnership with Metaco will see the use of its digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize, to safeguard the custody and governance of Togg’s digital assets. Sharing insights on the initiative, Togg CEO M. Gürcan Karakas stated: “Blockchain-enabled …

United States technology company IBM and Danish logistics firm Maersk have decided to discontinue their co-developed blockchain-backed supply chain platform, TradeLens, citing a lack of “global industry collaboration” as a key reason behind the decision. Maersk stated on Nov. 29 that it has begun taking immediate action to cease operations on the platform which should take full effect by Q1 2023: “The TradeLens team is taking action to withdraw the offerings and discontinue the platform [...] During this process all parties involved will ensure that customers are attended to without disruptions to their businesses.” While the blockchain-based shipping solution was …

On Thursday, HSBC and IBM announced the successful test of an advanced token and digital wallet settlement between two central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in a cloud environment. The experiment consisted of transactions between CBDCs, eBonds, and forex. IBM's Hyperledger Fabric and enterprise technology provider R3's Corda served as the basis of the distributed ledger facilitating the transactions. The project was overseen by central bank Banque de France as part of a series of tranche projects to implement a digital Euro. Previously the French and Swiss central banks reported positive results on a pilot run of the digital Swiss …

The central bank of France continues actively exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC), completing a significant trial of a blockchain-based CBDC in the country’s debt market. Over 500 institutions in France have participated in a 10-month experiment testing a CBDC issued by Banque de France for government bond deals, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The CBDC trial was led by Belgium-based financial services firm Euroclear and used a system developed by American technology giant IBM. The CBDC test also involved the French public debt office alongside the central bank and a consortium of major financial companies operating in …

The global food and agriculture industry is a trillion-dollar sector that is growing exponentially. According to findings from the World Bank, agriculture alone accounted for 4% of global domestic product, or GDP, of the United States in 2018. The report further noted that agriculture could account for more than 25% of GDP in developing countries. Meanwhile, it’s important to point out that large corporate farms play a dominant role in the agriculture industry. For instance, research from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows that major farms accounted for 89% of food production in the U.S. in 2015. This …

The global blockchain technology market size is projected to reach $72 billion in the next five years. In order to ensure this growth, however, blockchain solution providers must continue to advance and innovate. For example, public enterprise blockchain use has become an ongoing trend this year as companies like ConsenSys aim to drive adoption for open, permissionless networks. On the flip side, it’s important to point out that private blockchains are still being leveraged by enterprises and will continue to be utilized as innovation continues. Advancing open, permissioned blockchain networks Most recently, computing giant IBM announced that it has open-sourced …

Spanish-based seafood firm, Nueva Pescanova Group, has announced its working with IBM to utilize its Food Trust platform — a distributed ledger technology platform designed for supply chain traceability. According to a June 8 announcement from IBM, the partnership is already underway, with Nueva Pescanova utilizing blockchain technology to track shrimp fishing in Argentina and prawn cultivation in Ecuador. In the announcement, Ignacio González, the CEO of the Nueva Pescanova Group, stated the tracability platform will help the firm in meeting the United Nation’s Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (DGST) standards, stating: “We want to offer our consumers all over …

Since the summer of 2020, decentralized exchanges (DEX) have been all the rage and in 2021 developers and investors continue to flock to the sector due to the ease of listing and buying into new projects. While the method has proved fruitful for many projects, the price performance for iExec RLC (RLC), a blockchain-based decentralized cloud computing network that recently listed on several centralized exchanges, shows that CEX listings still carry the most weight when it comes to initiating price movements. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of RLC has surged 430% to $16.50 since …

While almost everyone agrees the blockchain industry needs to address the under representation of women in the sector, experts remain divided on the best way to achieve it. Should we take an interventionist approach or hope that as blockchain becomes more widespread it will hold more appeal outside of its core demographics? Recent data from trading platform eToro, which has 18 million registered users, suggests women account for just 15% of Bitcoin traders, and 12% of Ether traders. Panellists at an Australian Blockchain Week event on April 21 offered a range of views on how to provide more diversity in …

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of the city's blockchain-powered “Excelsior Pass” vaccination passport on March 26. The passport is issued through a free and voluntary platform that verifies Covid-19 vaccinations or negative test results via a QR code for smartphone scanning or printing. The Excelsior Pass is intended to assist the process of reopening businesses and public venues across New York. The vaccination passport is built on IBM’s blockchain-powered Digital Health Pass, which enables a user's identity, vaccination history, and test results to be verified and securely shared without revealing unrelated personal information. In the announcement, Governor …

Digital asset security infrastructure outfit Metaco has partnered with tech conglomerate IBM to utilize the latter’s cloud platform for enterprise-grade digital asset custody solutions. According to a press statement issued on Thursday, Metaco will leverage IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services for its digital asset orchestration system. The goal of the partnership is to provide adequate digital asset custodial services for banks and other highly regulated financial services firms looking to participate in the digital asset ecosystem across use cases like tokenization, custody, and transaction management among others. As part of the announcement, Metaco will reportedly utilize IBM’s …