Alibaba subsidiary begins sending payments with blockchain, E&Y partners with Microsoft on content rights platform, Tron aims to build out its voting system and more!
Ant Financial (Alibaba Subsidiary) Begins Trials For Blockchain Payment Remittance in Philippines
As reported by CoinTelegraph, a subsidiary of Alibaba (Ant Financial) has begun testing blockchain payments in the Philippines, sending a transaction in three seconds. According to the CEO of Alibaba, Jack Ma, the goal is for these blockchain-based payments to be implemented globally in the future. As quoted by cnLedger, Jack Ma stated, “Using blockchain to achieve cross-border remittances is one of my most concerned projects in the past six months. Starting from Hong Kong, this service (AlipayHK) will be brought to the rest of the world in the future.” Earlier this month it was Ant International that secured a whopping $14 billion in funding for blockchain development.
Ernst & Young Launches Content Rights Platform With Microsoft
Royalties and content rights management has a new home with Ernst & Young and Microsoft, announced last week. As reported by ccn.com, the project will first aim to benefit Microsoft’s affiliated gaming partners, like Ubisoft, but does not plan to stop there. By eliminating operational inefficiencies and manual reconciliation on transactions, market participants will seemingly have real-time transparency surrounding transactions within the industry. Traditionally this process could take up to 45 days. The blockchain will be built on top of the JP Morgan Quorum blockchain, using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
South Korean Ministry Of Strategy & Finance Denies Cryptocurrency Tax Claims
Originally reported by Chosun, claiming South Korea will impose a 10% tax on cryptocurrency profits, has since been refuted by the South Korea Ministry of Strategy & Finance. Stating the original claim was “different from the fact”, the ministry is denying the rumor that this new tax will be included in a revised tax bill to come later this year. This comes as continued relief where taxation and regulation in South Korea has been mixed and far from clear this year, with previous rumors of South Korea banning cryptocurrency exchanges or imposing restrictions on investors.
Tron Block Producer Selection To Happen Tuesday
The blockchain project Tron is expected to complete its token swap process (from Ethereum to a proprietary blockchain) and initiate the voting in of block producers, according to Coindesk today. The project from Justin Sun, former representative for Ripple, recently purchased BitTorrent in a continued effort to “decentralize the web”. Tron, like other new blockchain projects, comes with rumors and drama of its own like the alleged plagiarizing of its whitepaper or claims that the code is insufficient (according to Digital Asset Research). The goal of the election of block producers will be a robust voting system for Tron.
Source: ICO Alert