Blockchain Interoperability, Ethereum Classic to Upgrade + More News

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 3 min read

Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

Source: Adobe/New Africa

Blockchain news

  • Accenture and Fujitsu Laboratories are jointly developing a blockchain interoperability solution, per a press release published by Asahi. The project is named Hyperledger Cactus, and its masterminds say that it will be an open-source blockchain project that can link public and private blockchain networks. Accenture says it began work on the project last year and has since welcomed development input from the Japanese company.
  • Ethereum Classic Labs (ETC Labs), and its ETC Core developer team have announced that Ethereum Classic (ETC) will undergo a system-wide, network upgrade, dubbed “Phoenix.” According to the press release, this will happen at block number 10,500,839, estimated for June 3, 2020. Phoenix is the result of a consensus among stakeholders – it will enhance EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) capabilities, and make Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic completely compatible for the first time, says the team.
  • A Chinese government body has unveiled a white paper centering on the use of blockchain technology in the nation’s energy and petrochemical trading sector. Per the China Economic Network, the central People’s Bank of China, ministries and financial regulators are now studying the proposal, which was jointly drafted by a number of logistics firms, banks, shipping companies and R&D institutions. The parties suggest that the commercial application of blockchain technology could “open doors to China’s commodity market” for international and domestic partners alike.
  • A major Chinese bank, the China Zheshang Bank, has been talking up its new blockchain-powered supply chain solution. Per the Beijing News, the bank, ranked in the top 100 worldwide banks in terms of assets by media outlet The Banker in 2018, says that the new solution will allow it to restore cash flows to companies that have had their income streams disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Exchanges News

  • Crypto ventures in Mexico have teamed up for a joint crypto donations drive that they say will see them deliver food parcels to people in the country who have been worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Per Heraldo de Mexico, leading crypto exchange Bitso and crowdfunding platform Donadora have teamed up with the Mexican Food Bank to collect money to help feed the nation’s most vulnerable families. The parcels, say the parties, will contain around USD 6.50 worth of food, enough to “feed a family of between four and six for a week.” The campaign will run until the end of May.
  • London-based digital asset infrastructure provider Copper has announced the launch of ClearLoop, a tool for investors to settle crypto trades off-exchange. Per the press release, the ClearLoop application programming interface (API) has already been integrated into crypto exchanges Deribit, AAX, Bitfinex, CoinPass, Deversifi, and Xena.

Libra news

  • The Libra Association, the member organization that is developing Libra Coin, has announced three new members: Singapore government-owned investment company Temasek, as well as San Francisco-based crypto investment firms Paradigm and Slow Ventures.

Crypto adoption news

  • Pillar Project, an open-source cryptocurrency and token wallet provider, has launched its Smart Wallet with a built-in private payment network and a “meta token”, meant to improve usability and scalability of cryptocurrency payments. Per the emailed press release, through the Pillar Payment Network, which acts as a sidechain network to the main blockchain and enables transactions, users can make payments using the meta token PLR, which is automatically converted to the merchants token of choice.

CBDC news

  • Only one out of surveyed 46 central banks said they would consider using blockchain in order to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), Central Banking reported last week, citing their inaugural CBDC survey in February. 65% of respondents were actively researching digital currencies at the time, saying that they would consider using distributed ledger technology (DLT) in order to create a CBDC. Blockchain is only one of the possible forms of DLT.

Crime news

  • In Australia, a 52-year-old woman has been charged after allegedly illegally changing cash for cryptocurrency, reported 9News. She is accused of being part of a syndicate profiting off the unlawful exchange of bitcoin (BTC), and yesterday police seized $60,000 in cash and BTC 3.8, the report added.