Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Moris Beracha .-  The bitcoins and the main cryptocurrencies in the market were designed with some important security patterns, which make them quite difficult to steal. The fundamental aspects of cryptocurrencies include protecting user privacy, avoiding asset theft and avoiding harmful practices such as double spending. However, there are some failures that are sought out by hackers, which allow them to take over and empty some accounts, leaving losses, in some cases, of thousands or millions of dollars. According to the Bit2me cryptocurrency and blockchain academy, about a billion US dollars in Bitcoin have been stolen to date. They recall the thefts in Mt Gt I and II, for a total of 769,408 bitcoins; the 173,655 bitcoins seized by the FBI when closing Silk Road; the robbery known as “Pony” Botnet, which stands out due to the number of machines involved, and which amounted to a total of US $ 220,000 in various types of cryptocurrencies th...

By Leigh Cuen Bitcoin wallet and blockchain explorer provider  Blockchain just launched its first exchange platform. Blockchain’s head of retail products, TD Ameritrade alum Nicole Sherrod, told CoinDesk the custodial exchange, called The PIT , can connect to non-custodial Blockchain wallets for nearly instant transfers. Registration opens today, with the ability to trade up to 26 assets rolling out over the next two weeks. Sherrod said that with nearly 40 million wallets already created – and an exchange matching-engine set up in London’s Equinix LD4 data center – PIT could be posed to attract more liquidity than competitors. “That’s what market makers are looking for,” Sherrod said. “They want to co-locate [data center servers] with you, they want to directly connect to your matching engine. It’s the way it’s done on Wall Street.” Indeed, Tom Haller, previously the chief software architect for trading systems at the New York Stock Exchange, co...

By  Adrian Zmudzinski Walmart   China  plans to track  food  through its  supply chain  with  VeChain ’s Thor  blockchain , reveals a VeChain press release  published  on June 25. Per the release, the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform (WCBTP) will be a joint venture by Walmart China, VeChain, PricewaterhouseCoopers ( PwC ), cattle company Inner Mongolia Kerchin, and the China Chain-Store & Franchise Association. WCBTP has been reportedly announced at the 2019 China Products Safety Publicity Week Traceability System Construction Seminar jointly organized by Walmart China and the CCFA in  Beijing . Walmart China already revealed 23 product lines that the system will track and plans to release another 100 products for further inclusion, covering more than 10 product categories. The press release claims that the company expects that tracked sales will be significant in volume: “It is expect...

By  William Suberg Amazon  would only consider discussing the creation of its own  cryptocurrency  like  Facebook’s Libra in several years’ time, a senior executive said at a  conference  on June 10. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance 2019 event, Patrick Gaulthier, vice president of Amazon Pay, said the kind of value transfer system Facebook unveiled this week was a step too far in the current climate. “It’s fresh, it’s speculative; at Amazon, we don’t really deal with the speculative, in the now,” he said. Facebook continues to cause a stir in cryptocurrency, financial and government circles in the wake of the first publicity material around Libra going live. Billed as a network designed to allow users to send money like messages or pictures on social media, the scheme has  attracted  scorn for its technical setup and roadmap, while some lawmakers have already gone as far as to request the company  halt d...

Facebook is set Tuesday to unveil a bid to bring cryptocurrency payments into the mainstream, reportedly with the endorsement of governments and financial giants. The world's biggest social network is expected to outline details of a virtual currency launching next year that it hopes will avoid the rollercoaster volatility of "blockchain" technologies such as bitcoin. Facebook is setting up a consortium called "Libra" which, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been joined by more than a dozen companies including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The companies along with venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will reportedly invest around $10 million each into the consortium. Facebook has been trying to ward off hostile regulatory scrutiny after a series of privacy abuses and the spread of fake news. The consortium will be managed externally and will seek to build trust among consumers by pegging the virtual coin to a basket of c...

By Mark Williams Blockchain is one of those tricky concepts known by many but understood by few. Despite this, it has been heralded as a true game changer with the ability to revolutionise traditional transactions and processes. Some even compare its potential to that of the internet. But what does blockchain technology do, and how is it impacting the world of work? What is a blockchain? A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger where transactions are recorded and stored in chronological order. When a transaction takes place, a new block is added. Each new block contains information about the transaction and a unique hash – much like an encrypted ‘digital fingerprint’ – for both the new block and the previous block. So, each new block is cryptographically linked to the previous block, creating a chain of blocks all the way back to the original ‘genesis’ block. Instead of being managed by a central entity, the blockchain is distributed openly across...

By Falon Fatemi Today's business landscape is demanding that companies spearhead large-scale changes in order to survive and remain competitive. In an ever-changing political, social, and economic climate, constant organizational change is the new normal. Few advancements promise to help organizations cross critical business chasms more profoundly than artificial intelligence. When it comes to business operations, artificial intelligence has enormous potential to catapult companies beyond the status quo and adapt to new dynamics.  1. Enhancing the customer experience According to research by Walker, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. The centrality of customer experience in today's business landscape has motivated many companies to adopt a more holistic approach to customer experience improvement. Companies such as Intuit, EMC, and Adobe all have core custom...

Standard Token Protocol (STP), a firm hoping to bring transparency to the tokenization process, announced Wednesday it has raised a total of $7 million through the sales of its STP tokens. The fund was raised through two rounds from investors including Neo Global Capital, BlockVC, AlphaBit. STP develops an open-source standard for projects looking to tokenize their assets. The company highlights compliance, claiming that the protocol will ensure tokens fully comply with region-specific regulations and KYC requirements. Meanwhile, the firm’s STP tokens could be used to pay for issuance fees and compliance investigation or to be used for staking and governance on STP’s platform,  per the company’s white paper. STP’s offering of compliance-proof tokenization protocol seems timely as initial coin offerings (ICOs) regain momentum, with 109 offerings raising a total of over $236 million in April alone,  according to ICObench’s data .  However, the ICO sector is also no...

By Dennis Wafula  Advancements in blockchain technology are proving beneficial in the financial industry. The most recent progress is the introduction of the Finledger blockchain platform, which allows processing of promissory note loans. According to a news release dated May 21, this new application for this type of legal binding loan agreement will be very beneficial to the entire financial industry. The test stage involved four banks, DekaBank, dwpbank, DZ Bank, and Heleba, who used finledger technology to complete note transactions. Reportedly, the platform can reduce the processes involved when issuing such notes by more than 50%. Marion Spielmann, Head of Banking & Depositary at DekaBank, said:   “The opportunities offered by using a blockchain take the product promissory note loan to a whole new level. Together with the other institutes, we have now successfully implemented a digitization project that allows our customers and us to han...

The adoption of blockchain technology in the energy sector will generate over $3 billion by 2025 owing to an increase in deployment in the power, oil and gas sectors, according to Global Market Insights. Worldwide, the deployment of blockchain technology in energy-related applications has become a trending subject of sorts among industry giants as well as the start-up investor community, with applications ranging from grid transactions, financing and transparency in supply chain.  Advancements in the technology have resulted from widespread efforts to replace outdated and less secure trading and documentation platforms through digital transformation. Blockchain is deemed ideal for the energy segment since it can enable the creation of automated, auditable and transparent records of generated power and its subsequent consumption. Even in the oil & gas industry, legacy systems are being overhauled for implementing more reliable and cutting-edge dig...

By Harare Bureau BLOCKCHAIN technology can help enhance transparency, efficiency and grow investor confidence in Zimbabwe’s fledgling capital markets, experts say. The technology, which underpins crypto-currencies like bitcoin, is temper-proof. Its decentralised nature allows for financial transactions to be traced throughout the payment process by anyone with a computer or smartphone with internet connection. These characteristics have meant that blockchain technology is now being adapted for use in several spheres including the supply chain, banking, financial markets and even voting, to curb fraud while improving transparency. Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) chief executive Justin Bgoni told our Harare Bureau that the exchange is open to exploring how it can harness Blockchain technology in the near future although there is still no regulatory clarity on the matter. Mr Bgoni spoke about introducing blockchain-based new products and services such as real estate ...