Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) has appointed in-house Head of Business Development Kurt Looyens, as its new CEO. Looyens formerly held the position of Country Executive at ABN AMRO Bank in Spain, and he will be taking over from Nick Cowan, as the latter transitions into his role as CEO of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX)…
Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, met with the country’s IT community to discuss the growth of its native tech industry, according to the state-owned national news agency, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency. The meeting was reportedly set up at the president’s request and he promised government support for Belarusian fintech companies. Lukashenko also reportedly outlined…
Global payment processing platform PayPal has been awarded a patent for a technique that can help with the timely detection and reduction of ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks are a form of malware that takes over the victim’s computer, locks up the files therein and demands a ransom before the files can be accessed again —…
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are one of crypto’s more novel and ambitious applications — one that Bitcoin, until recently, has had nothing to do with. In practice, they’re a bit younger than Bitcoin forks and older than smart contract-focused blockchains. The idea is that you can devise a decentralized governance system using the blockchain’s cryptographic…
An intelligence branch of the Russian government used bitcoin to fund its cyberwarfare efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Mueller Report claims. The culmination of a two-year investigation, the “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election” details the findings that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his…
Crypto exchange platform Coinbase has announced that it will be expanding its crypto-to-crypto trading service to more countries. In the announcement, Coinbase explains that cryptocurrencies are in a transition period, which will see them move from being investment options to utilities. According to the exchange, the enablement of crypto-to-crypto conversions will serve as “the backbone…
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are one of crypto’s more novel and ambitious applications — one that Bitcoin, until recently, has had nothing to do with. In practice, they’re a bit younger than Bitcoin forks and older than smart contract-focused blockchains. The idea is that you can devise a decentralized governance system using the blockchain’s cryptographic…
To many on the outside, the blockchain industry and speculative crypto markets are one and the same, which often leads to misunderstandings. For the two entities that regulate the market, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the result is that they tend to either look at the…
RIF Labs has announced the integration of its public blockchain, RSK Smart Contracts, on Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace. The RSK Smart Contract Network is an open-source platform that seeks to extend the functionality of Bitcoin using smart contracts and the Azure Marketplace is an app store for Microsoft’s cloud computing service. Prior to the integration, RIF…
The Winklevoss twins reached a settlement with Charlie Shrem on April 16, 2019, declaring that their case against him has been dismissed with prejudice and will not be reopened. The twins, who founded the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, originally sued Shrem, the founder of early bitcoin company BitInstant, in November 2018, alleging that Shrem stole 5,000…