PayPal just pulled out of Facebook’s cryptocurrency initiative Libra, introduced in June. At the time of release, Facebook partnered with 27 companies, including Mastercard, Uber and Visa, as well as PayPal. Libra is designed to be used internationally within Facebook’s own properties, such as Messenger and WhatsApp. Apple chief executive Tim Cook described Libra as a “blatant power grab,” saying that currencies should be the domain of countries and added that Apple had no plans to launch its own digital currency. Continue reading Facebook’s Libra Hit by PayPal Pullout, Apple Chief’s Roast

Although Bitcoin accounts for 70 percent of all the global digital assets’ market value, Tether is the world’s most widely used cryptocurrency, said CoinMarketCap, which revealed that Tether, despite the fact that it’s market capitalization is 30 times smaller than Bitcoin, has the highest daily and monthly trading volume. Tether surpassed Bitcoin in April and, said CoinMarketCap, has done so consistently since early August, at about $21 billion per day, with monthly trading volume 18 percent higher than Bitcoin’s. Continue reading Tether, Most Widely Used Cryptocurrency, Is Under Scrutiny

Mastercard, PayPal Holdings, Uber Technologies and Visa are among the more than a dozen companies that have agreed to back Facebook’s new cryptocurrency, codenamed Project Libra. Each company will invest $10 million and be part of the Libra Association, a consortium to control the virtual currency, said sources. The invested money will fund the currency, which will be linked to a collection of government-issued currencies to make it more stable. Facebook has been developing the project in secrecy for over a year. Continue reading Facebook Cryptocurrency Gets Backing From Major Players

Facebook reportedly plans to release its GlobalCoin cryptocurrency later this month, and will hand over control of it to an independent foundation. GlobalCoin, which is intended to rival Bitcoin, is the fruit of Facebook’s development, linked to a project dubbed Libra in concert with financial and technology partners. GlobalCoin is likely to target developing countries with unstable currencies and will be pegged to the U.S. dollar. Facebook will purportedly integrate GlobalCoin on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. Continue reading GlobalCoin: Facebook Expected to Debut Bitcoin Rival Soon

Facebook is currently recruiting financial firms and online merchants to launch a “cryptocurrency-based payments system on the back of its gigantic social network,” reports The Wall Street Journal. At its center is a digital coin that users would be able to send to one another and use to make purchases on Facebook and on the broader Internet. This has the potential to significantly disrupt, or even up-end, “the traditional, lucrative plumbing of e-commerce and would likely be the most mainstream application yet of cryptocurrency.”

Continue reading Facebook Is Developing Cryptocurrency Payments System

BitTorrent, purchased by blockchain startup TRON last year, plans to re-introduce BitTorrent Live, an OTT service first debuted in 2011 and shuttered in 2017. The new BitTorrent Live will be an Android/iOS social media app, whereas the original version provided access to free and paid TV channels. The company, which has put out a call for beta testers, has positioned the new app as similar to Snapchat and ByteDance’s TikTok in that it will encourage users to create and share content with like-minded people. Continue reading TRON Plans to Revive BitTorrent Live as Social Media App

Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, stated his intent to focus on private and encrypted communications that can be deleted after a certain amount of time. This new goal is opposite the originally stated purpose of Facebook, which was built around public posts in what he said would resemble a digital town square. Zuckerberg said the first step towards this new goal for Facebook would be to integrate Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, to enable cross-application messaging. Continue reading Mark Zuckerberg States Intent to Upend Facebook’s Basics

A group of professors from universities including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley are at work on the Unit-e, a “globally scalable” cryptocurrency that can achieve blazing speeds and retain Bitcoin’s vaunted decentralization. Unit-e will be the first project of the non-profit Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), an academic-formed foundation supported by hedge fund Pantera Capital Management. They hope to design a coin that will process transactions faster than Visa. Continue reading DTR and Academics Tackle Faster, Scalable Cryptocurrency

With an initial focus on the Indian market, Facebook is developing a cryptocurrency aimed for use on its WhatsApp messaging app. More specifically, sources said the company is developing a so-called stablecoin, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar to reduce volatility. The company is, however, still working on its strategy, meaning that debut of the coin is still some time off. In 2014, Facebook hired former PayPal president David Marcus to run Messenger, fueling belief the company was going to engage in financial services. Continue reading Facebook Strategizing Cryptocurrency for WhatsApp in India

Los Angeles-based OTOY, a company that has created software used for visual effects in projects such as “Westworld” and “The Avengers,” also launched a blockchain- and cryptocurrency-based rendering platform called RNDR to help other content creators harness the power of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs). OTOY’s strategy is to gather a group of computer owners who can share their GPUs in the cloud in a decentralized way, and thus trade GPU power among members to accomplish data-intense imagery. Continue reading Blockchain-Based RNDR Harnesses Power of 14,000 GPUs

Several cryptocurrency companies and their advocates have formed the Blockchain Association, the first-ever Washington, DC-based lobbying group to represent the fledgling industry and its investors and entrepreneurs. Among the companies behind the association are Coinbase, Circle and technology startup Protocol Labs, as well as investors Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital. Kristin Smith, who lobbied on blockchain for Overstock.com when it began accepting bitcoin in 2014, will lead the group. Continue reading Cryptocurrency Industry Sets Up Washington Lobbying Group

OTOY, a Los Angeles-based visual effects software firm, launched RNDR to allow more people to create 3D computer generated images. The company, which created software used for productions such as “Westworld” and “The Avengers,” relied on cloud, blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies to create a way that people can create 3D imagery rendered by shared hardware hosted in the cloud, and then sold and/or traded via blockchain. Doing so, says chief executive Jules Urbach, reduces the cost, time and labor of creating such assets. Continue reading OTOY Rolls Out Blockchain-Based Rendering Platform RNDR

Cyber criminals recently hacked the municipal computers of Rockport, Maine, demanding $1,200 in Bitcoin to unlock them. That’s just one example of a surge of ransomware aimed at municipal computer systems, both large and small, including the city of Atlanta and a St. Louis library system. According to Ponemon Institute, an information systems research firm, these kinds of public sector hacks are increasing faster than those on private ones. City officials are often unprepared to deal with the consequences. Continue reading Municipalities Increasingly Targeted for Ransomware Attacks

Justin Sun, founder of Tron and its TRX cryptocurrency, just purchased BitTorrent, a pioneering file-sharing company. TorrentFreak first reported rumors of the acquisition last month, saying that Sun was pursuing the company. After starting talks with BitTorrent in September last year, Sun signed a letter of intent to purchase the company in January. Meanwhile, BitTorrent began speaking with other suitors, leading Sun to file a temporary restraining order, asserting that BitTorrent agreed not to pursue other offers. Continue reading Tron Founder Sun Purchases File-Sharing Pioneer BitTorrent

Noted venture capitalist and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker recently released her annual Internet Trends report at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Among the 294 slides, Meeker explained that smartphone shipments did not grow in 2017, and Internet user growth slowed to 7 percent (more than half the world is already online). However, people are spending more time online. Of the 5.9 hours per day that U.S. adults spent on digital media last year, 3.3 were spent on mobile, which is leading the charge in digital media consumption. Continue reading Highlights From Mary Meeker’s 2018 Internet Trends Report