This article was published on May 20, 2019

Moonday Mornings: Banks pour $50M into blockchain, Bitcoin gets on CBS’ 60 Minutes

Another fix of cryptocurrency and blockchain news


Moonday Mornings: Banks pour $50M into blockchain, Bitcoin gets on CBS’ 60 Minutes

Another weekend, another batch of stories you might’ve missed. Or as we like to put it: welcome back to another edition of Moonday Mornings, Hard Fork’s wrap-up of the weekend’s top cryptocurrency and blockchain stories.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it:

1. Facebook has set up its secretive cryptocurrency and blockchain project, Libra, in Switzerland, Reuters reports. According to Geneva’s commercial register, the social media giant filed the registration papers on May 2, with plans to provide financial and technology services – and also develop hardware and software.

2. Remember the time a shady blockchain startup listed Hollywood A-lister Ryan Gosling as its designer? Well, another crypto-firm was caught pulling the same shenanigans last week. According to TechCrunch, alleged cryptocurrency exchange service Goxtrade used the photos and names of a number of blockchian influencers on its staff page. The kicker: none of them agreed to it.

3. Banks still want a piece of the blockchain pie. Several of the world’s leading banks – including Barclays, UBS, Banco Santander, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank – have invested $50 million in a blockchain-powered digital cash system, slated to launch in 2020, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

4. Security researchers warn that almost 40 percent of all Ethereum nodes remain vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) and 51-percent attacks as many machines running the software have yet to be patched (even though a fix was released earlier this year), ZDNet reports.

5. CBS’ 60 Minutes featured a segment on Bitcoin. And although most cryptocurrency enthusiasts expected a whole lot of FUD, Redditors were actually happy with it. Watch the full segment here.

Consider yourself apprised. See ya next week!

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