In a press release published yesterday, Microsoft announced it would be bringing its Azure blockchain technology to Nasdaq’s Financial Framework (NFF) system.
Nasdaq’s Financial Framework will integrate with Microsoft’s Azure blockchain to build a platform that does not rely on one particular distributed ledger.
The NFF was designed to provide a platform that allows institutions to make use of new technologies in financial trading infrastructures. Given it’s 2018, what else was going to be integrated besides blockchain?
Microsoft claims that this integration will address interoperability challenges to create a blockchain system that allows various technologies to work together.
Perhaps we shouldn’t consider this a single blockchain by definition, but a blockchain-based system that exists on top of other blockchains to get them all to play nice.
“Nasdaq sees immediate opportunity for blockchain to manage the delivery, payment, and settlement of transactions that may reside on multiple blockchains with different payment mechanisms,” the statement reads.
Microsoft has been dabbling in blockchian for sometime, and not just with financial applications.
Earlier in the year reports stated that the company was using blockchain to curb spam calls in India . The Washington based firm also developed a blockchain-based system to help netizens manage their online identity .
But Microsoft’s activity in this space isn’t without competition, Google and Amazon are hot on their heels with their own blockchain offerings.
Meth-smoking football coach who blew $2.1M on Bitcoin: ‘I’m still a believer’
Disgraced football coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson has admitted to abusing crystal meth and obsessively trading cryptocurrency for 12 hours a day in the lead-up to his arrest, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Today, Thompson (53) told Melbourne Magistrates Court that cryptocurrency was something he’d “been looking for” since the end of his career, and that he’d been consumed by watching YouTube tutorials.
This, combined with methamphetamine intake, is said to have led the renowned footballer to trade up to $2.1 million (AU$3 million) worth of Bitcoin.
In 2015, Thompson was fined $30,000 for his role in the epic Essendon football club “doping” scandal , which involved team management encourage the use of performance-enhancing drugs for a competitive edge over several years.
Thompson eventually left the football world altogether, albeit after a brief-yet-unsuccessful stint in the media.
In January 2018, police raids conducted on his Port Melbourne home uncovered 134.6 grams of MDMA, an amount of crystal meth (ice), five-and-a-half Xanax tablets, one tab of LSD, and drug paraphernalia in Thompson’s (alleged) room.
Authorities subsequently charged Thompson with five counts of drug trafficking, as well as two counts of drug possession. Today, his defence reportedly maintained he had not intended to sell at least some of the drugs stashed in his abode.
Instead, it was claimed a bottle containing 481 ecstasy pills had been given to Thompson for safe-keeping by his friend-turned-housemate, who had been previously convicted on drug trafficking charges.
Earlier this year, news surfaced showing Thompson looked ready to join legal action against his embattled Bitcoin fund manager over $14.2 million (AU$20 million) dollars worth of (allegedly) missing investments, of which Thompson reportedly contributed roughly $697,000 (AU$1 million).
Despite the obviously tumultuous relationship, Thompson appears to still believe in Bitcoin. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Thompson told the court: “Bitcoin is still going to be a big thing. I’m a believer.”
Thompson, who’s out on bail since his arrest, is scheduled to return to court in July.
BlockShow becomes first blockchain conference to sell tickets by smart contract
Next week, BlockShow is returning to Singapore for the second time after successful events in Berlin and Las Vegas. But BlockShow Asia 2018—which will take place Nov. 28 and 29—already stands out. The 3,000 expected attendees can buy tickets via ethereum-based smart contracts thanks to a partnership with Trustee, the secure and easy-to-use blockchain service providing the interface.
Booking tickets on the blockchain
The smart contract DApp enables users to book tickets directly, without any intermediaries or centralized services. Ticket ownership is granted once the transaction is confirmed in the blockchain, while attendees can also gift tickets to other people after purchasing. The account that bought the ticket is able to transfer it to any other account without any limits or intermediaries, in the same way as any other cryptocurrency. And because this is a decentralized solution, there are no limits to usage of any other wallets and interfaces as well.
This application offers a good proof point for the suggestion that blockchain could transform the ticketing industry, which has long struggled with fraud and price control, thanks in part to hard-to-squash secondary markets. With tickets digitized, sales and operations are decentralized. And on the blockchain, each ticket has a unique identity that can’t be faked.
Crystal
Another exciting partnership Blockshow announced this year is with a major blockchain company Bitfury. This idea appeared when a group or individual using fake identities threatened to sabotage BlockShow Asia 2018 with explosives. In addition to reporting the threats to police and increasing security at the event, BlockShow’s organizers wanted to give attendees an opportunity to acknowledge the risks that accompany the promise of bitcoin, and to gain additional insight into their own vulnerability.
Crystal, which has assisted financial institutions and law enforcement in identifying and tracing criminal activities, assigns a risk score based on every bitcoin address that has ever appeared in the blockchain. All attendees at BlockShow Asia 2018 will have access to the Bitfury software and will be able to scan the QR code of their crypto-wallets to get their risk scores.
Next week’s conference will feature important speakers like Bobby Lee, Vincent Zhou, Stanley Yong, and Jason Hsu. You can find the full list here . On top of that, side events during Asia Blockchain Week will include an open day for accelerators and hubs, an influencers event, a pre-party, an after-party, and more.
Another VIP event, Nightshow, will take place in a business lounge on both days of the conference, and is exclusively for speakers and BlockShow VIP guests. Nightshow will have panels and speakers—including Crypto Finance board member Marc Bernegger, Radmis co-founder Penny Wong, and Chainrock partner Jeremy Show. Attendee tickets cost 1.5 ETH, while investors tickets are twice that price.
