Moonday Mornings: Microsoft helped Louis Vuitton put overpriced rags on the blockchain

You know what time it is: we’re back for Moonday Mornings, Hard Fork’s wrap-up of the weekend’s top cryptocurrency and blockchain stories.

Here are some of the hottest stories you might’ve missed over the weekend.

1. Louis Vuitton, the favorite luxury fashion brand of people without any sense of style, is launching a blockchain pilot designed to help customers verify they’re not blowing their pockets empty on counterfeit clothing. ConsenSys and Microsoft are helping the company get the platform off the ground.

2. Privacy-oriented messenger Telegram will reportedly be introducing its own blockchain programming language specifically built for its upcoming cryptocurrency platform, Cointelegraph reports. The language will facilitate the deployment of smart contracts, and it’ll be called Fift.

3. ConsenSys has released a new industry report, claiming the “industry continues to see vast expansion all over the world.” Ironically, the Ethereum-oriented software company laid off 13 percent of its staff last December (though rumors suggested the number could be as high as 50 to 60 percent).

4. One of Switzerland’s biggest telecom providers, Swisscom AG, has announced it’ll be rolling out a blockchain-based art dealership system to ensure that ownership is properly handed to buyers – and that artists are getting paid for their work. The platform will be called Noow (and it sounds like any other centralized, permissioned blockchain).

5. Two massive mining pools – BTC.com and BTC.top – purportedly executed a 51-percent attack on the Bitcoin Cash network in an effort to reverse another miner’s transaction, CoinDesk reports. What a mess.

Well, there you have it.

Catch you next week!