It was confirmed today that the first cross-border, commercial transactions have been conducted on the werade blockchain platform – an initiative established by a group of financial giants, including Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Rabobank.
These aren’t your average bank-funded, cross-border remittance transactions powered by the blockchain, though. This particular test was a sustained cross-country, multi-bank, interoperability remittance fest.
Over a whole business week, 10 companies conducted trades on the werade platform, making use of four different banks across five countries. The list of participants boasts high profile brands like Santander, Societe Generale and KBC. Participation spans across 11 European countries, including France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Germany.
“This live trade is a massive achievement for all involved,” said Hubert Benoot, Head of Trade at KBC and Chairman of the werade Board of Directors, “Not only has werade built a technical solution, it has also managed to create real collaboration across multiple banks and increased the connectivity of the trade ecosystem. This really is collaboration at its finest.”
Once fully-operational, werade members believe the platform could provide an enterprise-level, cost-effective solution. It remains to be seen whether the project can live up to its expectations.
The successful tests are also a major win for the IBM Blockchain Platform, which powers werade. IBM Blockchain Platform is perhaps the most successful offspring of the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger movement – an open source blockchain resource and enterprise onboarding project that boasts over 220 partners across all areas of global industry.
More successful tests for werade could see widespread adoption across Hyperledger partners, which even includes credit card giant American Express.
Moonday Morning: Coinbase, Korean borders, and cryptocurrency in Canada
The weekend has come and gone, and hopefully – you’re reading this fresh-faced and ready to take on the week.
Unlike us fleshy humans, the blockchain never sleeps, so here are five noteworthy stories that broke over the weekend.
1. Researchers have suggested that for cryptocurrency to be reliable it needs to be more heavily governed. Hard forks are bad for a coin’s stability . Except the Hard Fork you’re reading this on…
2. Cryptocurrency-backed debit card provider Wirex is expanding into Canada. According to the firm, five percent of Canada is holding cryptocurrency, apparently it will now be able to spend cryptocurrency like fiat .
3. Digital asset exchange platform Coinbase is going on a hiring spree. The opening of its New York office will see over 100 new employees welcomed to the firm .
4. Cryptocurrency finance startup Circle, conducted a survey of over 3,000 Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers in the US. It found the industry is dominated by young men, with males outnumbering females two to one . Tell us something we didn’t know .
5. Korean border control and customers looks to step up its blockchain game. The Korea Customs Service signed an agreement with Samsung to deploy a blockchain solution for tracking export goods in and out of customs .
Bitcoin as healthy as ever as the network hits all-time high mining difficulty
Bitcoin is having a very good week – both in terms of price and the stability of its blockchain.
Shortly after surging past $9,000 to hit its highest price for 2019, the cryptocurrency‘s mining difficulty increased by 11.26 percent to 7.46 trillion, setting an all-time high for the network. The previous record came in October, 2018, when the difficulty rose to 7.45 trillion.
Bitcoin’s hashrate also continues to grow steadily, currently standing at 53.36 EH/s – a good indication that the network is in a healthy state.
The development marks the highest hike in difficulty since December, 2018, when the network experienced a 10.03-percent increase in difficulty.
For those unfamiliar, mining difficulty is adjusted each 2,016 blocks to ensure the rate at which new blocks are created remains relatively constant – at about one block per 10 minutes.
Interestingly, the next difficulty adjustment is estimated to be 8.25 trillion. If the estimate turns out to be accurate, it would be a new record for Bitcoin‘s blockchain. If the network’s hashrate maintains its upward trend, it’s very likely that Bitcoin will hit a new all-time high during its next difficulty adjustment.
I guess we’ll have to wait another two weeks to find out (that’s approximately how long it takes for the network to mine 2,016 blocks at a rate of 10 minutes each).
In the meantime, though, things are looking peachy for Bitcoin.
[H/T Kevin Rooke ]
