Author: David Canellis

In a promising follow-up to NANO’s recent major release, version 12.0, it has been revealed today that a Ledger Nano S app built by the community has been submitted to Ledger for review.

The news comes as as an official developer update posted in the NANO subreddit and is the second progressive announcement following a class action lawsuit filed against the developers in relation to a scandalous alleged hack of 17 million XRB tokens.

While the submission of code for review to the popular Ledger line of cryptocurrency hardware wallets is not confirmation of complete integration, Troy Retzer, who is part of NANO’s core development team, has proclaimed that wallet developers have been urged to begin preparing their apps for Ledger support.

The full code repository, given the prospective title of the ‘Blue App’, can be found here. It is understood that this release is primarily designed for communication between web wallets and the Ledger Nano S (which we have reviewed here), with support desktop wallet apps yet to be released.

Third generation blockchain system, AION, is preparing to launch it’s mainnet this week, on April 25. This will kickstart the process of converting its ERC-20 tokens into a fully-fledged, standalone AION cryptocurrency.

AION is a multi-tiered blockchain that acts as a computer network, enabling scalability and privacy functions across various blockchains via its interoperability features. It’s mainnet is developed to link various blockchains together and manage their applications, aiming to contribute to the decentralization of the blockchain ecosystem and the internet as a whole.

The launch of their mainnet consists of the opening of the Kilimanjaro network, which will allow interoperability between Ethereum’s network and any AION-supported blockchain. This is essentially an enhanced Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that allows for speed and scalability of supported systems.

Most exciting for the overall adoption of the AION network is the release of a suite of proposed APIs. This repo will contain setup instructions, tutorials, example use-cases and even a test of their multi-sig wallet. Developers will also be able to make use of a Java implementation of their blockchain kernel application programming interface, which means that apps launching on the AION blockchain may not be too far away.

While no exact date has been set for the commencement of token swaps, allowing for the transformation of the AION ERC-20 token supply to native AION coins, the Token Bridge is currently under development intended for release post-mainnet launch.

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Nucleus Vision’s CEO, Abhishek Pitti, has posted a quick succession of responses via their official Medium blog to a string of tweets shared through the Nucleus Vision subreddit.

Accusations have been made against Nucleus Vision (NCASH) in regards to their advertised list of retail partnerships. Primary points of contention were the implied agreements with global lifestyle brand Nautica and designer sportswear mainstay Tommy Hilfiger.

Alleged screenshots were shared that seemed to show that many of the brands who appeared in Nucleus Vision advertising were unaware of any partnerships formed with India’s premier cryptocurrency.

The CEO’s first response provided the explanation that the promoted partnerships were in fact with retailers and franchisees of those global brands, primarily brick-and-mortar shops that stock their products, not the brands themselves, and that this was obviously a source of confusion.

Considering such retailers to be the primary target market of the Nucleus Vision platform, this may be understandable. A quote from their website reads:

Nucleus Vision is an end-to-end technology solution that captures and provides previously inaccessible data to retailers and other ‘brick-and-mortar’ businesses through its proprietary blockchain and real-time sensor technology.”

A second blog posted a day later outlined a four-stage operation to combat the allegations and prevent further confusion, including investigating legal opinions on possible action to take against those who, they claim, spread rumours with intent to abuse the market.

The Nucleus Vision website has also been updated to reflect the state of all partnerships with a declared intent to clarify all business between retail partners and their global head offices before further advertising is conducted.

The public crowdsale of their ICO, planned for early 2018, was cancelled after the proposed US40mln hard-cap was reached with funding received from a long list of notable blockchain investment firms, including Alphabit Digital Currency Fund, Kenetic Capital, FBG Capital, BlockAsset and Turiya Ventures. The hard-cap was also lowered by US20mln after Ethereum’s massive price-rise at the end of 2017.

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It has been announced recently that the Energo Lab Foundation, based in Shanghai, has switched it’s renewable-energy trading token, Energo (TSL), from Ethereum’s ERC20 framework onto the Qtum mainnet.

The shift has some exciting implications for the Qtum blockchain as a whole. As the Energo Lab Foundation has a cooperative understanding with the largest clean energy producer in the Philippines, First Gen, their blockchain microgrid project will now utilize the Qtum’s standalone mainnet completely. The project will be the first instance of an energy microgrid run solely on the Qtum blockchain and could set a revolutionary precedent for further application.

Qtum’s platform will be, by design, the core of the clean-energy dominant microgrid, handling registration, measurement, transaction and settlement of all electricity run through the local microgrids.

A similar microgrid project is currently operating under supervision of Energo Lab Foundation partner De La Salle University, who has implemented an in-house decentralized power network that enables peer-to-peer electricity transactions which successfully maintains supply and consumption of electricity between buildings. It is understood that this network will also be moved onto the Qtum mainnet.

Founder and CEO of the Energo Lab Foundation, Kakai Yang, spoke of the microgrid project in a release:

Through combining the decentralization of blockchain with solar cells, energy storage and other hardware, we hope to accelerate the power reform in off-grid areas and devote itself towards making clean electricity more accessible to residents in remote areas in the near future. We are delighted to partner with De La Salle University University on this case and wish to forge more partnerships with leading players in the cleantech industry,”

As the Energo Lab Foundation boasts the Clean Energy Access Network (India’s predominant decentralized energy organisation), the Alliance for Rural Electrification and Power for All as partners, any successful venture henceforth could lead to further integration of the Qtum mainnet.

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A lucrative partnership has been signed between privacy-focused web browser developer Brave Software and the Dow Jones Media Group this week.

The new deal is designed to test blockchain technologies usefulness in digital publishing while bringing brand awareness to a new wave of potential premium digital content subscribers.

A limited number of users who download the Brave browser will be granted full access to one of two Dow Jones Media Group global brands, either Barrons.com or a premium MarketWatch newsletter. The experiment is designed to test Brave’s blockchain-based digital advertising and services platform, which is to be fully integrated with Brave Software proprietary crypto-token, the Basic Attention Token (BAT).

BAT, an ERC-20 token, aims to monetize user’s attention anonymously and transparently to increase the efficiency of digital advertising using a decentralized approach. A fully-fledged, working BAT platform would increase revenue and growth for relevant parties (instead of internet giants such as Google and Facebook), it would also mean less irrelevant advertisements for consumers.

Daniel Bernard, Senior Vice President at Barron’s describes the deal:

Our partnership with Brave is an exciting and innovative step for Dow Jones Media Group. As global digital publishers, we believe it is important to continually explore new and emerging technologies that can be used to build quality customer experiences.”

The Dow Jones Media Group hosts a portfolio of top financial and luxury brands that includes Financial News, Mansion Global, MarketWatch and Barron’s, as well as millennial personal finance brand Moneyish. Dow Jones Media Group is an arm of Dow Jones, owned by News Corp.

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Scandinavian renewable energy firm InnoEnergy has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IOTA Foundation, as announced on IOTA’s blog.

The collaboration will be focused on innovative business models to aid in the development of smart community solutions.

InnoEnergy is quite a big deal across Europe: the self-described innovation engine has a partnership agreement with ÖrebroBostäder (ÖBO), among Sweden’s largest public building owners. The agreement is to build and implement a series of pilot ‘testbed’ operations in the city of Örebro as a precursor to smart-city innovation.

Most interestingly is the involvement of ElaadNL in the pilot program, an organised collaboration of prominent Dutch electrical infrastructure companies, who will be installing electric car charging stations run on IOTA’s Tangle network.

InnoEnergy’s partnership with IOTA is understood to be the resultant of the impression left by their participation in IOTA’s Data Marketplace, opened in November 2017. The platform is seen as a proof-of-concept of IOTA’s network, providing secure data transfers and micropayments with zero fees – capabilities that are critical for any prospective highly functional smart-community.

InnoEnergy Scandinavia’s Xue Wang, had this to say of the announcement:

The collaboration between InnoEnergy, IOTA foundation and ElaadNL on implementing the Tangle Distributed Ledger Technology in the testbed will facilitate the development of smart community energy markets. The citizens will be empowered to use the decentralised clean energy/e-mobility services with a transparent, autonomous and secured transaction and data management system.”

The Memorandum of Understanding will be effective as of this month.

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Privacy-focused cryptocurrency & blockchain-based scalability protocol Enigma (ENG) has been accepted as a member to both the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) and the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF).

The partnerships were announced today on the Enigma blog and come just three weeks after the launch of the Enigma Data Marketplace, a platform that acts as a matchmaker between data providers and curators with appropriate data consumers. It has an absolute focus on privacy and security, geared particularly towards merging crypto-financial datasets.

The Enigma Data Marketplace was the first major milestone of their roadmap and hosted five launch partners: Kaiko (trade and order book data), InfoTrie (social sentiment data), NapoleonX (Bitcoin trend following signal data), WhaleSupplies  (Twitter follower and token holder data) and CryptoDataSets ( Google Trend and historical price data).

Enigma aims to improve decentralization for blockchains by transforming smart contracts (such as Ethereum’s) into “secret contracts”, a technique that keeps input data hidden from code-executing nodes on Enigma’s network. Such features would reduce liability on sensitive data for those using the network and unlock many possibilities for development otherwise held back by privacy concerns. Such a platform would also allow for the merging of datasets across industries, removing many barriers that currently block corporate collaborations among various sectors.

The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance hosts a large list of notable members, including J.P. Morgan, Santander, Intel, Accenture, Bancor, BP, CME Group & many, many more. Their goal is to “evolve Ethereum into an enterprise-grade technology,”.

Enigma’s first protocol, Catalyst, is scheduled for release alongside its mainnet in the third quarter of this year. It will be released in a format compatible with Ethereum, making its use-cases now completely relevant to every member of the EEA.

The Digital Identity Foundation is an organization that pushes for the right to complete ownership of one’s data and proof of identity. Such rights would allow for the ability to ‘control, selectively share and potentially monetize his or her financial, browsing, health or geospatial data’. For example, one could prove their age is over 21 without revealing exact details of their date of birth.

The price of ENG has risen by almost 20% following this announcement.

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The South Korean blockchain ecosystem has a new project designed to spur innovation and development for budding blockchains: Deblock, a new incubator-style accelerator led by the ICON Foundation and digital advertising firm AD4th.

Deblock will act as an all-encompassing development onramp for prospective blockchain projects looking to run on the ICON network. The service will include investment and support for accepted projects through funding, advising, joint development of business models and ongoing marketing support.

In a released statement, Deblock expects to be supporting 300 new blockchain projects over the next three years, with more than 50 receiving the full suite of support offered. DeBlock is currently open for applications.

The reveal comes just days after the announcement of a Memorandum of Understanding between theloop and AD4th. Through this agreement, both organisations “hope to provide an organic system where DApp projects are newly discovered and provided with marketing support, which will lead to the expansion of the ICON network.”

Deblock is seen as a formal extension of this MoU to incorporate the ICON Foundation’s full breadth of talent and resources with an obvious goal of becoming the most highly sought-after DApp platform in South Korea. Afterall, AD4th’s name means “to expand existing digital marketing into the 4th Industrial Revolution blockchain based business,”.

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Embattled cryptocurrency NANO, formerly Raiblocks, has released its latest update today – ‘Milestone 12’.

Being a major update, there is a substantial number of improvements for the code compared with recent upgrades. This version has an overall utility to provide extra efficiency across it’s network, primarily geared towards cleaning up communication between nodes in various circumstances.

Milestone 12 comes complete with new Windows 64-bit installer and a Linux build for the updated PC wallet and transparent code for both instances.

The news is a great sign for NANO investors and early adopters alike, as positive news has been sorely missed of late. Just two weeks ago, the core NANO developers were served a class action lawsuit by Silver Miller Law on behalf of investors over the listing of their token, XRB, with Italian exchange Bitgrail.

The legal matter arises from the mess that was an alleged hack involving Bitgrail that occurred early this year, where 17 million XRB tokens were stolen from the exchange, valued between US$150mln to US$195mln at the time.

The complete transparency and prudence of the developers to continue working on their transactional cryptocurrency network may provide some relief for long-term investors and potential buyers alike.

Recently, NANO’s market price has seen slow but shows promising signs of recovery alongside other prominent altcoins, rising just over 20% over the past week.

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