Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 17 May 2017
The world moves fast, so you need a fast read. A round-up of key events in the blockchain and Bitcoin arena. Featuring Coinsilium Group, SatoshiPay, Aragon, ShapeShift and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Blockchain accelerator Coinsilium Group reveals that SatoshiPay, a “nano-payments” company in which Coinsilium has a 12.08% equity interest, has added PayPal as a new medium for SatoshiPay users to recharge their accounts, “opening up SatoshiPay’s services to 200 million active PayPal user accounts across 200 markets worldwide”.
SatoshiPay is developing a two-way payment platform, which enables online content providers to “monetise their digital content” through the acceptance of these nano-payments. It is headquartered in London with development led through its office in Berlin.
Spain-based Aragon, a decentralised management platform built on Ethereum, has teamed with digital asset exchange ShapeShift for today’s (17 May) token sale. The integration will enable Aragon buyers to participate in the token sale with over 45 different cryptocurrencies on the ShapeShift platform, including Bitcoin, Ether, Dash and Litecoin.
Aragon says its platform will implement features such as cap table management, governance, fundraising, payroll and accounting. Founded in 2014 by Erik Voorhees, ShapeShift offers global trading of a variety of digital assets via web and mobile platforms “without the need for email, passwords, sign ups or bid and ask orders”.
Over in India, the Economic Times reports that Kotak Mahindra Bank has used blockchain for trade financing for one of its clients – cutting the time for a letter of credit (LC) from 20 to 30 days to a few hours. Yet another example of how the technology saves time.
Kotak partnered with Deloitte and used blockchain to complete LC transactions with JP Morgan in Singapore as a partner bank – “from issuing the LC for outbound transactions to transferring trade documentation for inbound LCs to facilitating the transaction funds using Swift”.
