Earlier this month, hackers executed a global cyberattack, reportedly attacking over 150 countries, including public and health care systems and individual computers. The attackers demanded payment in bitcoin to unlock computers and return the data.

On May 10 Segregated Witness (Segwit) was activated on Litecoin, allowing Lightning Network (Lightning) transactions from various software clients to settle on the cryptocurrency network.

A new blockchain-based platform is being developed by technology giant Intel and healthcare API service provider PokitDok. The platform promises to advance blockchain technology by processing transaction requests securely using Intel SGX.

Dutch point of sale (POS) software provider Countr recently announced a strategic partnership with European Bitcoin payment provider Conify. The partnership allows Countr to offer a wider variety of alternative payments, including Bitcoin and 13 other cryptocurrencies, for more than 3,000 retailers.

No technology has captured the public’s imagination over the past couple of years more than blockchain. The technology entered full hype-cycle in but has begun to climb the ‘slope of engagement’ with real progress in 2017. What is the current state of blockchain adoption and what does this promise for the future?

Nearly 80 percent of financial institution executives believe that distributed ledger technology will significantly transform capital markets within the next three years. But infrastructure technology will be the lynchpin for how well DLT applications and solutions are adopted and perform in the fintech, institutional trading and security arenas.

If you ask someone well-informed about the characteristics of blockchains, the word “immutable” will invariably appear in the response. In plain English, this word is used to denote something which can never be modified or changed.

If you are interested in Blockchain, you should maybe look to north-western Europe, in particular Ireland, The Netherlands, and naturally The UK with London still being the fintech capital of the world.

Three major energy companies in Europe, including the leading central European electricity Transmission System Operator (TSO), TenneT, have announced that they are working with IBM on blockchain solutions for managing electricity.

No discussion of blockchain or crytpo-currencies should begin without mention of David Chaum’s Untraceable Electronic Cash and Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments. These are some of the most interesting blockchain and crypto-currency documents and reports that I have come across. Note: These are in chronological order (oldest to newest).