The personal information of 130 million hotel guests might be sold on the dark web for eight bitcoins, which are currently worth about $56,000, according to The Next Web. The guests are all customers of one of the largest hospitality chains in China. A security firm in the country has suggested that the data might have been leaked when programmers for the company inadvertently put copies of the company’s database on Github. The price of one bitcoin was $7,059.18 as of 5:49 p.m. on Wednesday (Aug. 29), according to Coin Desk.
In other news, Terra has notched $32 million in funding to help build a system for digital money using crypto and blockchain technology, VentureBeat reported. Funds such as Translink Capital and Polychain Capital have invested in the Singapore-based company, which has the legal name of Terraform Labs. Karthik Raju of Polychain Capital said in a statement that Terra’s “existing technology and compelling business model provide an ideal launching pad for [the project] to fundamentally disrupt how everyday digital commerce is conducted across global consumer markets.”
And bitcoin mining company NiceHash has reportedly paid its customers back for approximately 60 percent of the 4,700 bitcoins that were taken in a December hack, Cryptovest reported. Yet authorities are still looking into the incident: “Information gathering and other activities are still underway and carried out with the help of international legal collaboration,” police said in a statement published by STA.
In other news, Tjoapack is teaming up with Veratrak to look into applications for blockchain in the pharmaceutical space, Pharmaceutical Technology reported. The companies are seeking to work on projects that could help supply chain partners work together transparently, while also helping to keep service lead times to a minimum. The first tool, which could launch in the first quarter, is focused on working with data that makes stock-keeping units (SKUs) ready for packaging.
And Data61 is collaborating with IBM and Herbert Smith Freehills to test a national blockchain platform in Australia, CoinDesk reported. With the pilot, the system seeks to have smart contracts take in data from sources such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In turn, smart contracts could execute on their own if certain terms are satisfied.
In other news, finance ministers in the European Union are planning to examine cryptocurrency regulations at an upcoming meeting in Vienna, Bloomberg reported. The officials, who are from 28 states in the EU, are seeking to talk about the challenges that cryptocurrency brings about as it becomes more popular, as well as whether regulations should be stricter.
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