This post is part of CoinDesk’s 2019 Year in Review, a collection of 100 op-eds, interviews and takes on the state of blockchain and the world. Flex Yang is co-founder and CEO of Babel Finance. Babel Finance is one of China’s largest financial service providers. The firm works with crypto mining companies to fund the volatile industry and products including crypto-backed loans, deposit services, margin trading and derivatives. Since July 2018, Babel has issued $400 million in crypto-backed...

This post is part of CoinDesk’s 2019 Year in Review, a collection of 100 op-eds, interviews and takes on the state of blockchain and the world. Anand Aanchal is a land specialist and blockchain expert at the World Bank. Last spring, Anand Aanchal of the World Bank spoke to the teething problems of blockchain. “Tech can look big and flashy, and like it can solve all our problems … but the Big Mac burger never matches up to the one in the ad,” she said at a World Bank conference in Washington,...

The Takeaway: Administrators at 8kun, the anarchic message board formerly known as 8chan, have been experimenting with blockchain and p2p technologies in an effort to build a website resistant to deplatforming and censorship. They found an ideologically aligned open-source blockchain to piggyback on, but the developers don’t seem keen on protecting 8kun from activist attacks. Ron Watkins, the principal 8kun dev, plans to launch the mysterious Project Odin in an attempt to bolster the publicly...

Citing regulatory uncertainty, technical challenges and growth in non-blockchain related opportunities the company is concluding its blockchain project, the Colu Local Network (CLN), according to a statement. As part of the scale down, the company will repurchase approximately 54 million tokens sold during its $17 million ICO from those that participated in the crowd-sale. The CLN token, which ran on the Colu Local Network, was used as a means for retail payments and provided incentives for...

United Arab Emirate’s national airline has teamed up with a Switzerland-based blockchain startup to provide its internal information systems. Winding Tree, a decentralized business-to-business marketplace built on ethereum, will provide logistical support for Etihad Airways’ distribution system, according to a Reuters report on Thursday. The move will allow the airline to bypass third-party operators that currently manage its inventories – such as flight times, travel itineraries, and baggage...