Cryptocurrency News Roundup | September 3 — September 9
Welcome to the PlayChip blog cryptocurrency news roundup, where you can keep up to date on all of the weeks important cryptocurrency and blockchain related news.
IBM Launches Global Payment Solution on Blockchain
IBM announced this week that they would be launching their blockchain based payment solution the ‘IBM Blockchain World Wire’ . Big Blue has been quietly working behind the scenes to develop real world solutions using blockchain technology.
By leveraging the blockchain’s ability to simultaneously clear and settle funds along with reduced fees, the World Wire service aims to improve efficiency for financial institutions.
In the example provided by IBM, two financial institutions first agree to make a transaction between fiat currencies, also agreeing upon the intermediary digital currency which will be used to facilitate the transaction. The World Wire service integrates with the financial institutions existing payment solutions and performs the first step of converting the senders fiat currency to a digital asset. World Wire then completes the trade and the conversion back to the second fiat currency in a single transaction, which is in turn recorded on the immutable record of the Stellar Lumens networks blockchain.
IBM will demo the product to industry heavyweights at the Sibos banking conference in October.
Bitcoin is Not Anonymous, Criminals Beware
One of the prevailing misconceptions of Bitcoin and blockchain technology is that the data stored on the open ledger is anonymous and serves as the ideal currency for criminal activities like money laundering and payment for illicit products and services.
In the early days of the network this may have been true, but in the more mature cryptocurrency marketplace anonymity has been all but abandoned. Cryptocurrency exchanges can fail to achieve regulatory compliance in their regions of operation if full KYC protocols are not adhered to. As exchanges are forced to collect more user information prior to allowing purchase and trading of cryptocurrencies, anonymity is reduced and in some cases negated entirely.
A recent announcement by the US Department of Justice confirmed the indictment of 12 Russian Intelligence Officers on charges related to election interference. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein indicated that the computing resources utilised for the attack were purchased with cryptocurrencies.
After tracing transactions on the public blockchain, the DoJ was able to cross-reference them against customer information on notable public exchanges. From there a clear path could be drawn between the buyers of the hacking services and the GRU agents behind the purchases.
To learn more about forensic analysis on the blockchain visit Tom Cotten’s blog. Tom has a detailed analysis of the process used to identify the cryptocurrency purchases related to the alleged election interference.
Bitcoin Gets A Shoutout on New Eminem Album ‘Kamikaze’
In a sign of the times the world’s highest selling hip-hop artist, Eminem, references Bitcoin in his surprise album drop earlier this week.
The reference on the albums ninth track ‘Not Alike’ was delivered by Royce Da 5'9' —a frequent collaborator. Royce quipped “Remember everybody used to bite Nickel, now everybody doing bitcoin."
The comparison referred to the age old technique of biting coins to ensure their validity (with ‘Nickel’ being a long time nickname for Royce), and rappers who ‘bite’ or steal content becoming obsolete.
While the financial analysis of celebrities may not be the most accurate metric for gauging market sentiment, the power mainstream influencers have over markets is no secret. Back in February Kylie Jenner famously released a negative tweet about Snapchat, prompting a $1.3 billion slide in the Social Media platforms market cap.
The album is available to stream now on Spotify.
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Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
