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a total of 585 Russian banks use it as a standard, whereas others keep it in reserve in case SWIFT ends up being withdrawn from the country.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.

During the last couple of years, the popularity of blockchain technology has quickly increased, with start-ups, corporations and financial institutions investing considerable amounts of money in its development.

Now, recent reports indicate that the Alphabet Inc. unit, the parent company of Google, is working on their very own blockchain to help support its cloud business, while also staying ahead of the competition. Companies mostly use blockchain technology to record transactions, and process data securely over the internet. This is a service that Google could definitely use in various ways, such as assuring customers that their data is protected, even when stored in their data centres, powering up the cloud storage facilities.

If you have been involved in the bitcoin market, then chances are that you’ve heard of Bitcoin Pizza Day, a celebration of the time when Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas with 10,000 BTC, in order to prove that the digital currency can be used as a means of value.

When it happened, the transaction represented one of the world’s first purchases made directly via the digital currency. At current value, this is roughly worth over $100 million, a massive price for two pizzas.

Now, recent reports indicate that the early adaptor and bitcoin developer, wanted to test out the Lightning Network, a fairly controversial technology whose purpose is to run parallel to a blockchain, to speed up transactions. To do this, Hanyecz decided to purchase 2 pizzas for 0.00649 BTC, equal to $67 at the current market value. The transaction cost for this purchase using the Lightning Network was of only 6 U.S. cents, considerably lower when compared to current transaction fees for bitcoin.

Craig Wright is perhaps one of the most well-known names in the digital currency industry, especially since he has proclaimed himself as the inventor of bitcoin. While Wright has never managed to prove that he is in fact Satoshi Nakamoto, he has recently come under fire, as he is being accused of swindling $5 billion worth of digital currency alongside other assets from the estate of a computer security professional.

To put things better into perspective, Craig Wright allegedly used phony contracts and signatures, to lay claim to bitcoin that had been mined by Dave Kleiman, one of Wright’s colleagues, who unfortunately died back in 2013.