After remaining range-bound for the past three weeks, the crypto market is showing signs of weakness. Bitcoin (BTC) has declined marginally to $6,300, from $6,500 levels in the past 24 hours. All major altcoins including Ripple (XRP), Tron (TRX), IOTA, Ethereum (ETH), EOS (EOS), and NEO are down by about 10%. The US SEC will meet again next month to discuss and decide on nine pending Bitcoin ETF applications. The crypto market needs investment from mainstream funds to start moving higher.
Government initiatives
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which is considered Singapore’s financial regulator and de facto central bank, wants to “bring together” crypto-related firms and banks. The message was shared after companies complained about the lack of banking support. While giving an interview, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has expressed his interest in establishing a balanced regulatory environment for new crypto firms. Singapore has established itself as a crypto and blockchain-friendly jurisdiction, with Menon openly offering support for the nascent technology.
Private sector initiatives
The US tech giant, IBM, has unveiled Food Trust, a blockchain-based food tracking network, after successful testing over a period of 18 months. Furthermore, the tech giant has also revealed that France based retail giant Carrefour has joined the network. The company, which operates more than 12,000 stores in 33 countries, will begin testing the blockchain in their own stores. By 2022, Carrefour is aiming to implement blockchain on all its brands across the globe.
In 2016 IBM Food Trust unveiled its blockchain solution to connect different organizations in the food sector. During the testing period, which began in August 2017, the company joined hands with Nestle SA, Golden State Foods, Dole Food Co., McCormick and Co., Driscoll’s Inc., Kroger Co., Tyson Foods Inc., McLane Co., and Unilever NV.
IBM has revealed that during the testing period, retailers and suppliers used the Food Trust blockchain to monitor “millions of individual food products.”
Forbes, the popular business news magazine, has signed an agreement with the blockchain-based platform, Civil, to distribute its content on a decentralized network. Matt Coolidge, Civil’s co-founder, has stated that Forbes is merging Civil’s software with its own content management system (CMC). As of next year, journalists will be able to feed their news to the Civil network while publishing it on the Forbes website simultaneously.
Across the globe, Forbes, the US news magazine, founded in 1917, has more than 120 million readers for its main and local editions.
Axios, the US news outlet, has stated that the trial will initially apply only to crypto-related news. If the experiment turns out to be successful, Forbes will permit news related to other topics to be posted on blockchain as well. Additionally, Forbes is also planning to extend its decentralized solutions to its huge network of contributors. Using smart contracts, Forbes’ content providers can upload their articles to CMS and then distribute them on other platforms, such as Medium and LinkedIn.
The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), and the Trusted IoT Alliance (TIoTA) have announced a competition for blockchain applications in vehicles. The 4-month MOBI Grand Challenge begins on October the 12th, with a public display of winning technologies to be presented by the BMW Group in Munich, Germany next February.
The new tournament, named MOBI Grand Challenge, supposedly aims to build “the first viable” blockchain-powered network of vehicles and systems which will bring together machines, facilitate data sharing and improve the level of mobility in city conditions.
Winners will be awarded more than 1 million dollars’ worth of tokens in the three-year blockchain challenge, which will cover multiple events.
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