Blockchain technology’s potential to transform the insurance industry has been the subject of much talk but, to date, little action. That is set to change with the announcement by a major Chinese insurer, PICC, of its plans to leverage the internet of things (IoT) and blockchain-powered smart ...

In a significant move for blockchain adoption in the financial services realm, the World Bank has issued “bond-i,” a major bond using distributed ledger technology. Bond-i was announced in late August, though the bank, whose mission centers on eradicating poverty across the globe, announced a ...

Chinese companies have a new Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) option for building custom blockchain applications, thanks to the recently launched JD Blockchain Open Platform. The platform was announced on August 17 by the Beijing-based e-commerce company JD.com, also known as Jingdong. JD.com ...

While advocates have promised a lot from blockchain technology in the supply-chain management sector, little tangible action has taken place on this front. That may be changing, thanks to TradeLens, a new global supply-chain management solution announced recently by IBM and Maersk. The companies ...

The Chinese government has spent the past several weeks scrambling to respond to a vaccine safety crisis. Now, at least one government agency has turned to blockchain technology and the IoT for a solution, according to enterprise blockchain provider VeChain. A crisis erupted for the Chinese ...

If you’re a bank looking to take advantage of distributed ledger technology, there’s an app for that — or there may soon be, at least, thanks to LedgerConnect, a new platform from IBM and financial services partners that some folks are calling a blockchain “app store.” To be clear, IBM and its ...

Understanding the value of blockchain-based software is easy. But creating software that interacts with the blockchain is typically pretty hard because, in contrast to the world of traditional programming, the blockchain developer ecosystem offers few ready-made tools to help programmers write ...

Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is set to become the next major proving ground for IBM’s efforts to deliver government functions built on blockchain technology. This month, the city’s municipal government announced a partnership with IBM designed to improve the municipality’s services. The ...

Is blockchain technology the answer to fighting porch pirates and ensuring safe delivery of items from online retailers to customers’ homes? Walmart seems to be at least exploring the possibility, according to a patent application that the company recently filed.The application, dated July 5, ...

Is Taiwan the next epicenter for the enterprise adoption of blockchain technology? That seems to be the hope behind the recent announcement of a partnership between Microsoft’s Taiwan division, China Binary Sale Technology and High Cloud, which aims to provide new blockchain solutions for a ...

The application of blockchain technology in the financial industry received a boost recently from the Bank of England, which announced plans to make its payment settlement system compatible with payments based on distributed ledgers. The announcement came during a speech late last month by Mark ...

Competition among blockchain-based advertising solutions has grown even more intense with the announcement from IBM and Mediaocean that they are forming a new blockchain consortium for digital advertising and media. The two companies announced the consortium at Cannes Lions, a technology and ...

Blockchain sharding could potentially solve the greatest long-term threat to the viability of blockchain technology: scalability. But sharding is still a controversial topic. Why are some people so opposed to sharding, and how close are blockchains like Ethereum to implementing it? What Is ...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Global Blockchain Technologies Corporation think that blockchain technology could disrupt the $300 billion cloud computing market. But how innovative is the blockchain-based cloud computing solution they now propose? And how much potential does it actually ...

Complaining about the airline industry has become something of an international pastime. From shrinking legroom to strict refund policies to bans on pets, the commercial aviation industry has given consumers a lot to resent in recent years. But there may be some hope, thanks to blockchain ...

Science has come a long way since the days when heliocentrism was controversial and most people believed in spontaneous generation. Yet when it comes to sharing and verifying scientific work, the systems that researchers still rely upon today date back to an era of premodern science. This is a ...

Most talk about blockchain technology focuses on how distributed ledgers can solve problems in our lifetimes. But does blockchain technology also have a role to play when our lives are over? Wills and Estate Settlement Death and dying are grim topics, and you probably don’t think much about the ...

Forget iOS. Forget Android. Your next smartphone could be powered by blockchain technology that enables a host of new features, from built-in cryptocurrency wallets to decentralized rewards systems. That, at least, is what some entrepreneurs are hoping as they develop new blockchain-based ...

What can a blockchain platform do for the hotel industry? Quite a bit, according to several startups and entrepreneurs who are building platforms that use distributed ledgers and cryptocurrencies to improve hotel booking systems, review websites and more. While a blockchain can’t resolve every ...

Can blockchain technology help get rid of your garbage? A number of startups working on blockchain-based waste management and recycling solutions think so. Too Much Trash, Too Little Accountability To date, two main waste management challenges have emerged at the center of efforts to build ...

Construction may not be the first industry that comes to mind when you think of areas ripe for disruption by blockchain technology. The construction industry is not where digital innovation has traditionally made many inroads, and it can be hard to imagine how distributed ledgers might help ...

If you look around the blockchain ecosystem, you might notice that one seemingly obvious use case for blockchain technology is surprisingly rare: email. While a handful of startups are working to build decentralized email platforms based on blockchain technology, they are few and far between. ...

At first glance, the art industry may not seem like an obvious candidate for disruption via blockchain technology. Much of the industry is not digitized — trade in oil-on-canvas paintings is still a big business — and in some cases the artists have been dead for centuries. They have no say about ...

What role will blockchain technology play in the future of healthcare? The upcoming HLTH conference, which aims to bring together healthcare industry representatives with next-generation technology experts, promises to help answer that question. The conference, which takes place in Las Vegas ...

It can be easy to overlook the importance of online image sharing in an age when other media, like streaming video, is increasingly capturing consumers’ attention. Yet the fact remains that more than 3.5 million digital photos are shared online every minute. Demand for platforms that allow users ...

Video streaming has rapidly become a competitive niche for blockchain companies. From Livepeer to YouNow to the STREAM project and beyond, a number of startups are leveraging blockchain technology and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies in bids to disrupt the likes of Netflix, YouTube and other ...

In essence, digital currency has existed within the video game industry for years. Traditionally, however, game players have faced strict limitations in their ability to gain real-world value from in-game payments. With the help of blockchain technology, that may be set to change. Startups and ...

IBM and Unilever are the latest companies investing in blockchain-based digital advertising solutions. They join a blockchain ad tech ecosystem that has already been well established even before these major enterprise players came in. The question is: Can IBM and Unilever use the blockchain to ...

Can distributed ledgers be the next big thing in the trade finance industry? A group of major international banks and their partners in the blockchain ecosystem clearly think so, as they begin pilot operations for their Marco Polo trade finance initiative. The State of Trade Finance To ...

Online search engines exert enormous influence over the way people consume digital content. They connect advertisers to consumers. They help determine which videos users view, songs they download and blogs they read. They shape people’s understanding of the world around them, for better or ...

Internet-based video services like Netflix and YouTube have created significant competition for cable TV networks in recent years. Yet they have failed to kill cable entirely and they don’t appear poised to do so anytime soon. Now, a new set of video services that are built on blockchains are ...

The digital music industry, as it is today, experiences a host of challenges that blockchain technology may has the ability to solve. A number of blockchain startups are already targeting the music industry for disruption, using blockchain technology in various way to alleviate specific problems ...

Blockchain projects in the media space are enjoying increasingly easy access to funding and investment and it’s not just thanks to the rise of initial coin offerings (ICOs). In recent months, enterprises have displayed interest in investing in or collaborating with blockchain-based media ...

Could blockchain technology drive the next round of innovation in live messaging platforms? Several indicators suggest that it already is, as companies in the instant messaging and communications business work to integrate distributed ledgers into their products. Live messaging platforms have ...

The last year saw the growth of a number of innovative blockchain-based projects in the media space. Startups like MadHive and Truth announced or launched platforms designed to restore transparency and fairness to the ad tech industry using blockchains. Other startups, like Po.et and Steem, ...

By now, blockchain technology has become a well-known industry disruptor. Yet few grasp just how truly revolutionary the blockchain can be. Many know it as the architecture behind cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin but have yet to appreciate how blockchain technology is poised to enact radical ...

Advertisers are turning toward “influencer marketing” more than ever before to reach online audiences with whom it is difficult to engage through conventional digital advertising. Yet influencer marketing suffers from significant challenges and connecting advertisers to influencers is difficult; ...

The ad tech industry faces serious challenges. MAD Network, a new ad tech platform built by MadHive, is working to solve them using blockchain technology.Built by a team of entrepreneurs with experience, not just in blockchain technology, but also in the SaaS, online gaming and digital media ...

Resumé padding. False transcripts. Misplaced academic records. These are just some of the problems created by credential management challenges in the education industry. Blockchain technology offers a solution. Universities and startups are already leveraging the blockchain to help manage ...

Companies like Netflix disrupted cable television by making it cheap and easy to stream TV shows online. Now, streaming TV itself is being disrupted by the blockchain. Startups are leveraging blockchain technology to solve the pitfalls of traditional video streaming. The Challenges of Streaming ...

Advertisements were once purchased and negotiated by humans through an inefficient, unreliable process. Then, the digital revolution enabled programmatic advertising, which automated ad purchasing but still has shortcomings. Now, blockchain technology is upending the world of advertising once ...

The ad tech dollar is disappearing. For each dollar that advertisers spend on digital advertising, only a fraction of that ends up in the hands of publishers. Why? Because the ad supply chain is extremely “verticalized” and convoluted. So many intermediaries separate advertisers from content ...

The privacy and data protection requirements incumbent upon advertisers are about to grow stricter as a result of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But the regulation also introduces a new opportunity. This challenge is a chance for the growth of blockchains in the advertising ...

Blockchain-based cryptocurrency platforms like Bitcoin and Ethereum have a major problem to solve if they are going to conquer the world of finance: scaling.In this context, scaling refers to the ability to process more transactions in a timely fashion. Scaling is important because it’s the only ...

If your technology can’t scale, it might as well not exist at all. At least, not if you have any intention of using it in real-world settings.The world of blockchain-based media is no exception. In order for media blockchains to work effectively, the blockchain technology that powers them must ...

A major German automaker and a group of banks have become the latest large corporations to embrace blockchains on a large scale, to the tune of 100 million euros. A loan worth $114 million, which was announced last month, was issued via blockchain technology to Daimler AG, a German automaker, by ...

Those in the travel business may assume that upon purchasing online advertisements, the ads will be displayed on websites related to travel. But the reality can be surprising. These business owners may find that their ads appear on websites that have nothing to do with travel — or even websites ...

Blockchain companies have seen billions of dollars in investment and many Fortune 500 companies are now exploring applications with distributed ledgers. By now, it’s clearly on the road to mainstream adoption. But to make the most out of blockchain technology, it helps to have an understanding ...

Compared to Western nations, many areas of Africa lack extensive infrastructure, entrenched financial institutions, a high degree of political stability and/or large pools of capital. In most traditional senses, these challenges constrain opportunities for growth on the continent.Yet in many ...