This post was originally published here Hybrid blockchain platform Orbs has raised over $15 million in cryptocurrency with help from South Korean app provider Kakao. A Kakao representative told CoinDesk that its investment arm had joined the funding effort because it “always seeks to invest and support innovative startups and Orbs is a good example.”

This post was originally published here Blockchain startup Civic has hired Apple veteran Phillip Shoemaker as executive director of Identity.com. Shoemaker will be responsible for growth and development of the decentralized identity platform, the firm announced Thursday. “Phillip’s knowledge of blockchain and expertise building internal infrastructure will guide Identity.com through a key time of deployment

This post was originally published here U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin Paxos Standard (PAX) has exceeded $5 billion worth of transaction volumes, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Dec. 13. As reported, PAX is an Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based stablecoin, backed 1:1 by the U.S. dollar, which sealed regulatory approval from the New York State Department

French political deputies want to spend €500 million (about $569 million) on state-level blockchain deployments over the next three years, local daily news outlet Les Echos reported Dec. 12. Citing a report published Wednesday, the publication said both blockchain and cryptocurrency interaction was high on the agenda of two members of parliament (MP), who are

While some blockchain projects quickly burned through the capital they raised during the heady days of 2017, others prepared for this market downturn by limiting access to their own funds. Such was the case at the New York-based blockchain startup Blockstack, which raised nearly $54 million in 2016 and 2017 from a Series A round

This post was originally published here Crypto exchange Kraken is on a fundraising drive, offering “select” investors a chance to purchase stakes in the firm. The firm’s CEO, Jesse Powell, confirmed to CoinDesk that his company is looking to tap a small number of clients for a fundraising round valuing the firm at $4 billion.

Germany-based crypto payments startup Bitwala is now offering crypto banking services in the country. Claiming the launch is Europe’s first such banking solution, the firm announced Wednesday the service becomes available via a partnership with local fintech firm SolarisBank that has a banking license and thus is fully regulated. Users can now manage both bitcoin

This post was originally published here Hyperledger has onboarded 12 new members, including such major firms as Alibaba Cloud, Citi, and Deutsche Telekom, according to an announcement published on Dec. 11. Launched in 2016, Hyperledger is an open source project created by the Linux Foundation and created to support the development of blockchain-based distributed ledgers.

This post was originally published here Venezuela has reportedly begun converting pensioners’ monthly payments into its controversial cryptocurrency, the petro. According to the Caracas Chronicles, an English-language politics and economics blog based in the country, the government has recently been taking the bolivares (the country’s current fiat currency) paid to its elderly residents and automatically swapping

A Dec. 12 Business Law Blog post from the University of Oxford Faculty of Law notes possible repercussions for lost and stolen crypto claims following a case in a Canadian trial court earlier this year. In the post, SAFE Frankfurt researcher Grygoriy Pustovit notes the case of Copytrack Pte Ltd v Wall. The superior trial