“Best known as the record-keeping system behind cryptocurrencies, blockchain is a data structure that makes it possible to create and share a digital ledger of transactions among various parties. The data, encrypted and unchangeable, is always up to date on all participants’ systems, making blockchain a potentially powerful tool for say, tracking a package’s movement across multiple parties. By 2023, blockchain is expected to help support the global movement and tracking of $2 trillion goods and services annually, according to technology research firm Gartner Inc. That includes raw materials, spare parts, finished goods and service-infrastructure for maintenance and repair, Gartner said.”

“Investment banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase is planning to expand an existing blockchain project to include settlement features as it seeks to fend off competition from payments upstarts such as TransferWise and Ripple. The blockchain-based Interbank Information Network (IIN), set up in partnership with Australia’s ANZ bank and the Royal Bank of Canada back in 2017 , currently allows its over 220 banking members to quickly address payments that contain errors or get held up for compliance reasons – problems that can takes weeks to solve with multiple banks being involved across the payments chain. The Financial Times reported Sunday that John Hunter, head of global clearing at JPMorgan, said the IIN is fast developing and that the bank is “looking at the ability to do more at the point of settlement.””

“The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) – a bank consortium-owned umbrella organization for retail payments and settlements – is planning to use blockchain technology to boost digital transactions. According to a report in Business Today on Sunday, the NPCI has said it plans to develop a “resilient, real time and highly scalable” blockchain solution using open-source technology. The organization has already issued an Expression of Interest (EoI), calling for entities to bid to develop a blockchain solution for the payments space.”

“INATBA’s mission will be to facilitate and promote DLT-related technologies by organizing forums where regulators and policymakers can interact with corporations and startups to develop the necessary regulatory incentives for the technology to evolve. In signing the charter and joining the association, the founding members agreed to a broad range of goals such as creating interoperability guidelines and standards, promoting transparency, and emphasizing inclusiveness.”

“Cosmos, a highly anticipated blockchain itself designed to improve the interoperability between any number of other blockchains, has officially released a live software. With the mining of its first block at 23:00 UTC, the project has launched Cosmos Hub, the first in a series of proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains that will be created in the Cosmos ecosystem. At present, users of the network will not be able to swap tokens between blockchains or otherwise connect to Cosmos Hub with existing blockchain networks until validators officially vote to activate what is called the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.”

“The cryptocurrency company Ripple on Tuesday announced an ambitious project to integrate blockchain technology into video games. The plan, which features a $100 million fund for developers, could remake the gaming industry by creating a new way to create in-game marketplaces for digital goods. The fund will be overseen by Forte, a San Francisco company founded this year by prominent gaming executives, and which is backed and advised by a host of big Silicon Valley names, including Andreesen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures and Battery Ventures.”

“CULedger will work with IBM to use permissioned blockchain technologies to create an immutable audit trail that can be used to create new business models and transform existing business processes for credit unions. The companies also intend to help drive greater financial inclusion by extending reach to a broader range of new members.”

“In MIT Technology Review, Mike Orcutt succinctly summarized the current state of blockchain: “In 2017, blockchain technology was a revolution that was supposed to disrupt the global financial system. In 2018, it was a disappointment. In 2019, it will start to become mundane… After the Great Crypto Bull Run of 2017 and the monumental crash of 2018, blockchain technology won’t make as much noise in 2019. But it will become more useful.””

“The hype surrounding cryptocurrencies and blockchain — the distributed ledger technology that underpins all cryptocurrencies — is a little overblown, with inroads to mainstream finance patchy at best, say analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. While advocates tout that most assets can be shifted to a blockchain-type ledger and the technology will improve everything from transparency to supply chain efficiency, results are yet to match the industry buzz.”

“Fit Pay Inc. announced on Friday it will begin shipping its Bitcoin-based contactless device, Flip, on Feb. 13. The coin-shaped token sells to consumers for $29 and allows them to convert their Bitcoin holdings to U.S. dollars and then spend the money at stores equipped with contactless point-of-sale terminals. The device comes equipped with a near-field communication antenna.”

“Ethereum mining consumes a quarter to half of what Bitcoin mining does, but that still means that for most of 2018 it was using roughly as much electricity as Iceland. Indeed, the typical Ethereum transaction gobbles more power than an average U.S. household uses in a day.”

“With cryptocurrencies having lost more than 80% of their market value from their high in January, it’s a fair question to ask what this means for blockchain, the technology underlying the turbulent crypto market. There’s a difference, of course. Blockchain’s true potential value lies not in making–or losing–the quick buck, but in helping solve some of the internet’s biggest challenges around authentication and security.”

“Distributed ledger technology provider R3 has launched the Corda Settler, an application aimed to facilitate global cryptocurrency payments within enterprise blockchains – and it’s starting with XRP. R3 said XRP is the first globally recognized cryptocurrency to be supported by Settler, bringing the Corda and XRP ecosystems into closer alignment – something of a rapprochement considering Ripple and R3 were previously locked in a legal dispute.”

“As reported in October, 14 banks passed the first phase with the help of ABI Lab, the technological laboratory supported by the Italian Banking Association (ABI). This followed on from June when they said this new tech will be applied to interbank processes to increase data transparency and visibility, speed in executing transactions, and allowing checks and exchanges directly within the application.”

“Developed over a two-year period, the prototypes functioned as a sandbox for testing blockchain-based securities settlement including the full lifecycle of bond issuance, settlement, corporate actions, redemption as well as cash transfer including provisioning of digital coins, transfer between market participants and settlement of cash payments.”

“The Austrian government has enlisted Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB) to notarize the auction of a EUR1.15 billion government bond using the ethereum blockchain. Local bank OeKB will deploy the notarization service to authenticate transaction data and then store it on the blockchain. Blockchain-based data notarization involves using an encryption method for documents to derive a unique electronic fingerprint, known as the hash. This hash is unambiguously assignable to the original document, but conversely does not allow conclusions to specific data content.”

“Announced Monday, the Hyperledger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) have agreed to collaborate on bringing common standards to the blockchain space and cross-pollinate a wider open-source community. This joining of forces is notable as EEA and Hyperledger represent two of the three largest and arguably most influential enterprise blockchain communities, the third being the R3 Corda ecosystem.”

“The strategic partnership between Ripple Labs and Santander was announced in March of 2018, but at the time, the intricacies of the collaborative work between the two companies were not disclosed to the public. Since March, the Ripple team explained in an official statement that Santander has been experimenting with RippleNet and other liquidity products available on its blockchain network.”

“The idea is that a mutually-accessible ledger across banks would allow them to quickly resolve issues such as compliance checks, faulty addresses or missing data, which can lead to payments being held up for weeks.  The banks expect to put about 14,500 US dollar-denominated payments a day through the enlarged network.”