The Bank of Italy has chosen Algorand to serve as its public blockchain platform. The platform, due to roll out early next year, will be the first time a European Union nation uses blockchain technology for bank and insurance guarantees, Algorand said in a news...
A digital transformation is sweeping across the B2B payments ecosystem. PYMNTS recently sat down with Gary A. Vecchiarelli, CPA, CFO at CleanSpark, to talk about the business-to-business (B2B) evolutions in play, and how he sees B2B crypto as payments representing the spear-tip of industry innovation. “It’s an...
With the crypto industry under fire, some blockchain projects are also on the chopping block. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After all, blockchains — distributed ledgers whose promise has been to transform business models — do not necessarily need cryptos. Public blockchains do;...
In 2020, scientists at the University of Zambia (UNZA) proposed a clearing and settlement architecture that would allow interoperability between mobile money payment networks based on a distributed ledger system. The researchers argued that a payment infrastructure based on a centralized database is ill-suited to...
Apollo Global Management said it plans to offer a new fund on a public blockchain as it deepens its relationship with the FinTech Figure. According to a Bloomberg News report Tuesday (Nov. 22), Apollo and Hamilton Lane are launching investment operations via a platform on...
The collapse of FTX raises some existential questions: Not just about that company, not just about cryptocurrencies, but of decentralized finance (DeFi) as well. At first glance, it shouldn’t be this way. It is the centralized finance of the crypto space — the exchanges that...
Wells Fargo and HSBC, two of the world’s largest banks, have added the offshore version of China’s yuan (CNH) to their blockchain-based foreign exchange (FX) settlement system. The offshore yuan is the fifth currency settled between the two banks, using a shared settlement ledger that...
To say bitcoin has been volatile would be an understatement. After slumping more than 70% from its peak a year ago, it has most recently been whipsawed amid FTX’s high-profile plummet toward bankruptcy. And yet, for an intrepid and growing base of consumers, the marquee...
Blockchain is drawing government scrutiny worldwide as regulators seek to constrain fraudsters, limit its environmental impact and protect investors and enthusiasts from the technology’s potential drawbacks. The European Union and the United States are currently taking the lead in blockchain regulation, although other countries, such...