Huobi believes its upcoming blockchain will provide financial institutions with a framework for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and services. The Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange announced Saturday its proprietary network, Huobi Chain, had been successfully deployed on its testnet. Developed in collaboration with layer-1 protocol provider Nervos, Huobi said its new blockchain will allow businesses and regulators to determine the rules of the road for the emerging DeFi...

Distributed ledger tech provider R3 says it’s providing pension firms with the technology to build new blockchain-based identity solutions that could help savers reclaim some of the $48 billion in lost U.K. pension pots. According to Abbas Ali, the head of the New York firm’s digital identity unit, pension providers will be releasing their own solutions that leverage the R3 tech throughout 2020. More than 33 million people in the U.K. have a pension. But in a study by advice firm Profile...

The Bank of Korea (BOK) is looking at developing a new blockchain system for the Korean bond market, one of the largest such markets in Asia. Korean financial news site Yonhap Infomax confirmed Tuesday the Korean central bank was looking for a company that can build a new blockchain system that would improve record-keeping for the market. Bond transactions could be recorded on the blockchain and could even form the basis for a “real-time simultaneous payment trading system,” a local official...

North Korea is stepping up mining of the privacy coin monero as the regime continues its efforts to circumvent sanctions. U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future said in a report Sunday that network traffic for monero (XMR) mining that had originated from North Korean IP ranges had increased by “at least tenfold” since May 2019, making it the most popular digital asset to mine and surpassing the regime’s mining activity for bitcoin (BTC). The report attributes the changing preference for...

Mastercard has joined a working group that supports blockchain education and research in universities around the world. Blockchain accelerator MouseBelt announced Tuesday it has welcomed 11 founding members into its Blockchain Education Alliance. In addition to the card network, the new members include the innovation arms of payments startup Ripple and crypto exchange Binance, and representatives from Neo, KuCoin and ethereum scaling solution Matic Network. They will join the 13 companies,...