Blockchain

A San Francisco startup working with Swift plans to launch a network that would tie self-executing contracts to independent data sources.

Readers react to USAA teaming up with Amazon’s Alexa, how a new Wells Fargo’s scandal could affect arbitration rules, a digital identity startup’s ambitions, and more.

As an open network, bitcoin is in one sense the most inclusive financial system imaginable. But for now, transfers of the cryptocurrency are priced like a luxury good.

Digital blockchain tokens can be naked instruments for profit-sharing among investors, but other types are directly linked to building network infrastructure. Their creation and sale must be unimpeded by regulation.

The agency’s new classification of “initial coin offerings” is yet another affront to the efforts by fledgling companies to raise funds.

Startups and open-source software projects have raised $1.3 billion this year through initial coin offerings. The real boom may still lie ahead, fears of a bubble notwithstanding.

Readers react to the CFPB’s final arbitration rule, a new potential hurdle for initial coin offerings, a housing finance reform proposal and more.

The federal agency's investigative report concludes that crowdsales of blockchain tokens known as initial coin offerings may need to comply with securities laws.

The move will explore the risks and opportunities of the new technology, and the group membership allocation across agencies and stakeholder groups seems to be a reasonable way to include a range of opinions, writes Rob Viglione, co-founder of ZenCash.

On the discussion table: Alipay, Jack Ma, blockchain, AI, building a true digital system, payments, financial inclusion.

A new blockchain network that promises to compete with Ethereum is taking the token sale trend to the next level.

British bank to pay $5.5 billion to settle mortgage issues, but faces Justice Department fine; Payments company offers restaurants $10,000 to stop accepting cash.

It’s not speed, which will steadily if not exponentially increase in the near term. It’s the centralists that are holding onto their roles as reconcilers of data.

Using technology from the blockchain startup Ripple, the U.K.'s central bank completed a successful proof of concept—and reaffirmed its goal of integrating with distributed ledgers.

Readers this week highlighted the need for banks to upgrade payments systems, debated a small bank’s decision to ditch its legacy core vendor, lamented populist initiatives of the GSEs, and more.

PwC reports a modest improvement in its gender pay gap. A study finds a big gender pay gap in the U.K’s financial services industry. Plus, female founders speak out about sexual harassment and explain why they kept quiet before.

Delaware corporations will soon be able to issue shares on a blockchain. Beyond the capital markets, the move has implications for the way banks stake their claims to collateral.

Interviews with entrepreneurs and techies at the Copenhagen conference.

Though they face an array of competitive threats — from digital currencies to peer-to-peer payment apps — the vast majority of community banks do not have a payments strategy, according to a recent survey.

Out of the ashes of the fake-accounts fiasco, heads of business lines became more open to change, an executive at the bank’s innovation group said Wednesday.