Last year Sony entered into a joint venture with Singapore-based startup Startale Labs. Now the first fruits of that collaboration have come to light, with the launch of Soneium, an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain, from Startale and Sony Block Solutions Labs. The platform is first being made available to developers, with plans for an eventual public launch, the goal being “to create new services by leveraging the various businesses and IP within the Sony Group so that Soneium becomes an infrastructure that everyone can use on a daily basis,” according to Sony. Continue reading Sony and Startale Labs Launch Soneium Blockchain for Web3

As cryptocurrencies undergo explosive growth with little federal oversight, the Treasury Department is asking Congress for more power to regulate stablecoins due to their perceived danger of triggering a run on funds, according to a report by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Treasury is asking that those issuing stablecoins be subject to the same requirements under which banks and other traditional financial institutions operate, which would require the crypto’s brokers to maintain sufficient reserves to compensate customers who want to cash out quickly. Continue reading Regulators Press Congress to Develop Cryptocurrency Rules

Although Bitcoin accounts for 70 percent of all the global digital assets’ market value, Tether is the world’s most widely used cryptocurrency, said CoinMarketCap, which revealed that Tether, despite the fact that it’s market capitalization is 30 times smaller than Bitcoin, has the highest daily and monthly trading volume. Tether surpassed Bitcoin in April and, said CoinMarketCap, has done so consistently since early August, at about $21 billion per day, with monthly trading volume 18 percent higher than Bitcoin’s. Continue reading Tether, Most Widely Used Cryptocurrency, Is Under Scrutiny

Several cryptocurrency companies and their advocates have formed the Blockchain Association, the first-ever Washington, DC-based lobbying group to represent the fledgling industry and its investors and entrepreneurs. Among the companies behind the association are Coinbase, Circle and technology startup Protocol Labs, as well as investors Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital. Kristin Smith, who lobbied on blockchain for Overstock.com when it began accepting bitcoin in 2014, will lead the group. Continue reading Cryptocurrency Industry Sets Up Washington Lobbying Group

Facebook is expected to launch its mobile advertising network during the F8 developer conference in San Francisco at the end of this month. Facebook plans to leverage its massive user information database for better ad targeting, and will pitch the ads to publishers and developers. The social giant will also benefit from expanding its ad reach, and will allow the company to profit from its over 1 billion users even when they are not on the site itself. Continue reading Facebook Plans to Launch its Long-Awaited Mobile Ad Network