As part of China’s censorship moves, the Chinese version of Wikipedia has been banned at the beginning of 2018. Despite this, there is an alternative to the encyclopedia available in the country, this being Baidu Baike, which is the search giant’s equivalent to the platform.

Now, recent reports indicate that the website has implemented blockchain technology, in order to help record all revision entries. The move is meant to bring more transparency alongside traceability for revisions to the online platform.

Despite the risks associated with Initial Coin Offerings, the trend has become extremely popular in areas throughout the world. In an effort to reduce the risk of fraud, money laundering and tax avoidance, several countries have banned ICOs.

South Korea was one of these, as the Financial Services Commission, a government department in-charge with financial policies and supervision, banned domestic ICOs in September 2017. Now, recent reports indicate that the South Korean National Assembly has proposed the idea of lifting the ban placed on domestic ICOs.

The state of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in China is especially relevant to the industry, given the country’s active regulatory process, which has heavily influenced the market in the past.

Recently, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, commonly known as MIIT, has published a white paper regarding the blockchain technology market in mainland China. Despite the country’s crackdown on digital currencies, it seems like by the end of March 2018, there were 456 active blockchain-based companies. In fact, according to Yu Jianing, the chief of the MIIT Information Centre Industrial Economy Research Institute, 2017 has been the best year for the industry so far, granted the appearance of 178 blockchain-related companies, whereas the technology begun achieving maturity.

SWIFT, commonly known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, represents one of the world’s biggest financial networks, as it allows financial institutions throughout the world to send and receive money alongside data on financial transactions, via a reliable and standardized environment. It represents the system used by most of the world’s banks for sending and receiving money, yet it has often threatened to withdraw from Russia given economic sanctions.

As a response, back in 2014, Russia has begun developing its very own Financial Communications Transfer System (SPFS) that it would use in case of a SWIFT withdrawal. While the SPFS is currently an alternative system, a total of 585 Russian banks use it as a standard, whereas others keep it in reserve in case SWIFT ends up being withdrawn from the country.

During the last couple of years, governments throughout the world have been actively researching and looking for ways to implement blockchain technology into the public administration. Now, recent reports indicate that both the public and private sectors in Indonesia, are exploring the technology.

With this in mind, the government has taken what many refer to, as a leadership role, meant to further explore blockchain technology. This has been done by having the Financial Services Authority create a team, in charge with studying all methods in which blockchain technology can help improve Indonesia’s financial services market.

During the last couple of months, the European Parliament (EP) and Commission (EC) have been actively involved in discussion of appropriate regulation for the digital currency market. Now, recent reports indicate that the EP has voted for a stricter array of regulations for the crypto market.

With this in mind, once the legislation is applied at the European Union level, crypto exchanges alongside wallet providers will be required to introduce specific due diligence procedures for their customers. In other words, wallets and exchanges may soon have to begin verifying user identity. Additionally, the measures also point out that crypto wallets and exchanges will need to register before being allowed to offer their service.

Samsung is commonly known as one of the world’s biggest smartphone and TV producers, yet this aspect doesn’t stop the South Korean giant from actively looking into blockchain technology, and how they can leverage it both for its inner operations and customer base.

With this in mind, recent reports indicate that Samsung is working on a distributed ledger platform, which would help it better keep track and process its global shipments, worth tens of billions of dollars on a yearly basis. According to Samsung’s informational, technology and logistical arm, Samsung SDS Co., the blockchain-based system may cut shipping costs by more than 20%.

So far, there hasn’t been much news regarding any involvement of NASA with blockchain technology, or digital currencies. However, things are about to change, as a research project that recently received funding from NASA, will be looking for ways to leverage Ethereum’s smart contracts, to help automate spacecraft manoeuvring and avoid space debris.

NASA, which is also co-running the research and development effort of the project, has mentioned that the development may revolutionize the search for deep space probes. To put things better into perspective, NASA is investing in a project that would use blockchain and smart contract technology to not only enhance space communications, but also to make navigation efforts safer and more efficient.

During the last couple of years, all around the world, there have been numerous discussions on what the proper taxation mechanism for digital currencies is. The lack of a united approach towards this issue has led to countries implementing vastly different taxation policies.

The issue goes deeper, as in the United States, citizens aren’t yet sure what approach they should consider when doing their taxes. While the IRS has provided guidance on bitcoin transactions for a couple of years, bitcoin is considered as property. This means that the purchase, trade, sale and mining of crypto can be regarded to as taxable actions.

The last couple of months have been nothing short of incendiary for digital currency users throughout the world. Following Bitcoin’s massive increase to $20,000 in 2017, the coin has been facing large volatility ever since. A few days ago, the bitcoin price managed to rebound more than $1,000 in less than 24 hours, after its price increased from $6,900 to over $8,000.

Economic analysts have found plausible reasons for both the decrease and increase in price. To kick things off, the price fall sustained until now, can be attributed to fear-selling, tax liability and regulatory changes. Tax liability is a bigger issue than people expected at first, considering the fact that the large price increase created massive short-term gains, which are taxable by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in the United States. With $590 billion in value created in 2017 alone and U.S. holders capturing roughly 30% of value growth, many had to sell in order to keep their taxes in check, and avoid any issues with the IRS.