Blockchain

A posting for a digital currency job at Amazon stirred speculation that the e-commerce giant might begin accepting bitcoin at checkout. The company denies that — and experts say it has many other ways to make the most of its intended hire.

State Street is set to offer cryptocurrency reporting, reconciliation and processing services to its private-fund clients in the latest sign that digital assets are gaining acceptance on Wall Street.

Amazon.com’s payments team is exploring letting customers use cryptocurrencies to pay for their orders, a development that’s roiling digital currency markets.

The card issuer, which is offering its customers a chance to purchase non-fungible tokens created from a recent performance by the singer SZA, is betting that the digital art-trading phenomenon will become more mainstream.

Roxe says the distributed ledger technology that removes costly middlemen from international transactions can also lower expenses for currency conversions.

Distributed ledger projects in banking are few and far between — many have stalled and others remain experiments. Robert Townsend, who has worked with banks around the world and written a book about blockchain technology, explains some of the ways financial institutions could be using it, for instance in small-business lending and supply chain finance.

The Series B round, also led by Blockchain Capital, marks the first investment in the blockchain industry by Morgan Stanley's opportunistic investment arm.

Blockdaemon has seen rapid growth in the past year, and has won customers including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.

The e-commerce giant is looking for someone whose skills pertain to distributed ledgers and digital currency.

The bank and card brand will combine digital connections for supply chain finance and corporate disbursements.

Figure Technologies, the blockchain-based startup co-founded by Mike Cagney, is closing its latest funding round that values the company at $3.2 billion.

Silvergate Bank CEO Alan Lane, former HSBC executive Stuart Levey and experts at Anchorage Bank are helping Facebook make its digital currency more palatable to regulators and potential bank partners.

Government digital currency projects have the potential to displace banks and fintechs from the payment process. But three major participants — Accenture, Ant Group and Swift — argue that incumbents have a role to play.

The fintech already sells loans on its distributed-ledger-based trading platform but needed the Securities and Exchange Commission's blessing to bundle its mortgage and student loans into securities and sell them to investors.

The visibility of automated transactions provides a clear view of the flow of transactions, says Hummingbird's Joe Robinson.

Though she acknowledges pressure to say digital currencies and blockchain are the technologies of the future, Bank of America's Cathy Bessant favors the more practical benefits that could stem from advanced mobile data networks and even 3D printing.

The bank's blockchain venture with Temasek and DBS, called Partior, creates a wholesale blockchain network.

Mainstream attention to crypto and active projects mean it's time to have a strategy for CBDCs, says R3's Todd McDonald.

he regulatory establishment in the U.S. and Europe, the DeFi market has too much momentum, contends blockchain investor Giamo Arcaro.

There's a wide range of uses for decentralized finance and related blockchain tech, says Wirex's Yves Renno.