About 3% of American retirees claimed to own some bitcoin (BTC) in a new survey released by precious metals-focused magazine Gold IRA Guide on April 17. In April, Gold IRA Guide conducted a survey asking 1,000 American retirees over 50 years old about their thoughts on investing in major cryptocurrency bitcoin. According to the survey results, 56.7% of respondents were aware of bitcoin, but were not interested to invest, while 2.7 percent claimed that they already owned some bitcoin. Around 3.5 percent said that they would like to invest in bitcoin, but did not know how to start, while 4.5 …

KT Corporation, South Korea’s largest telecom firm, has launched its blockchain-powered fifth-generation (5G) network brand, local news agency The Korea Times reports on April 16. Called “GiGA Chain,” the brand intends to boost the security of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and to protect them from cyberattacks, the report says. As a part of the new brand, KT developed GiGA Stealth technology that prevents hacking attacks by hiding the IP addresses of the connected devices. According to the report, the blockchain-enabled tech makes IP addresses virtually invisible to hackers. Lee Dong-myeon, president of the future platform business group at KT, said that …

PewDiePie, the personality behind the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, will start streaming on blockchain video platform DLive as of April 14, the firm announced in a press release on April 9. DLive, a blockchain-powered broadcasting app that includes a rewards system for content creators, will be “the exclusive livestreaming platform” for famous Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, the press release notes. Based on decentralized blockchain protocol Lino, DLive claims to allow both content makers and viewers to earn rewards for their participation in content creation and consumption in the form of Lino tokens, the native cryptocurrency of …

Only 2% of Russians have invested in Bitcoin (BTC) so far, according to a new survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) published on April 9. The VTsIOM, the oldest polling institution in post-Soviet Russia, revealed that Bitcoin has not gained popularity in the country, with two thirds of Russians considering a purchase of the cryptocurrency as a bad investment. The research center has not provided either a time frame for the poll, or the number of total respondents involved in the survey. With that, 56% of Russians claimed that they were aware of Bitcoin, while 18% said …

The Russian prime minister has welcomed an initiative to use blockchain in agreements over gas supplies by the country’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, local finance news outlet Vestifinance reports on April 4. The news agency operates under Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR), a major TV channel. The head of Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, Alexey Miller, has met with Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev to report on the development of applications powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT). According to Miller, Gazprom has carried out substantive work with Russia’s state-owned bank Gazprombank, and has developed a prototype model that …

Blockchain games developer Lucid Sight has raised $6 million to expand its digital scarcity-powered games to traditional game platforms, tech news website VentureBeat reports April 2. Los Angeles-based Lucid Sight now has $11 million in funding to expand offerings of its digital ownership games company by bridging the gap between blockchain and traditional gaming. Leading investment bank and wealth management firm Salem Partners participated in the new funding round, as well as crypto and blockchain venture capital funds such as Digital Currency Group and the Galaxy EOS VC Fund. According to the report, the company will use the investment to …

Global blockchain applications in telecom will generate $1.37 billion in revenue by 2024, according to a press release by Research and Markets published on April 2. The report, dubbed “Global Blockchain in Telecom Market Forecast up to 2024,” Irish global market research store Research and Markets forecasts blockchain adoption in telecoms to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 77.9 percent during the forecast period. According to the report, blockchain growth in telecoms will be based on a number of key factors including rising security concerns, demand for fraud management, 5G implementation, as well as an increasing number …

Binance has unveiled a series of new products and features relating to stablecoins — with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange describing these digital assets as “an efficient fiat gateway into crypto.” Stablecoins are often pegged with a fiat currency, meaning one unit can equate directly to 1 euro or $1. With new coins emerging all the time, the industry is evolving quickly, prompting the company to launch a stablecoin market in which its consumers can benefit from pairings with other cryptocurrencies. The crypto-only exchange now supports five stablecoins in total: Paxos Standard Token (PAX), TrueUSD (TUSD), USD Coin (USDC), StableUSD …

Huobi Group CEO Leon Li met with senior Argentinian finance officials this week to discuss the role of blockchain and crypto in the country’s economy, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 29. In a meeting in Beijing, Argentina’s Deputy Minister of Finance, Felix Martin Soto, claimed that the government should address crypto and blockchain tech as a way to promote Argentina’s financial inclusion and reduce state costs. Soto, who leads Argentina’s international financial relations, explained that half of the country’s population does not have bank accounts and operate cash transactions by converting their savings to United …

Top execs at Mastercard and Wells Fargo agreed that blockchain technology has long-term potential, but it has not been realized to date, CNBC reports on March 28. Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan and Mastercard CEO Ajaypal Banga concurred that the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT) is yet to pay off, but that there are still no clear business use-cases as of now. The executives made their comments to CNBC at the Fintech Ideas Festival on Wednesday. Wells Fargo’s CEO emphasized that the technology has been very slow to roll out, pointing at a blockchain pilot carried out between the …

French luxury goods giant Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH) is reportedly working with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform for tracking its products, crypto media agency CoinDesk reports on March 26. Dubbed AURA, the blockchain-powered platform is reportedly scheduled to go live in May or June 2019 with two major LVMH subsidiaries: Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. Louis Vuitton is French fashion house founded in 1854 and known for its signature LV logo, while Parfums Christian Dior is the perfumery and cosmetics line of other French fashion house Christian Dior. According to the report, the …

Central banks should leave issuance of digital currencies to corporations such as Facebook and JPMorgan, according to a blockchain and financial partner at PwC France, Forbes reports March 22. According to PwC France’s Pauline Adam Kalfon, central banks should stay away from the issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) until large corporations test out the tokenization of fiat currencies themselves. Only when cryptocurrencies are "battle-tested by corporations,” should central banks make a move towards the crypto space, Kalfon argued, adding that it will reduce the likelihood of potentially negative consequences on the economy arising from any central bank issuing …