Blockchain

A16z, USV Lead $1.5 Million Round for Blockchain Startup Mediachain

New York-based Mediachain has become the latest blockchain startup to join the portfolios of VC heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. The two firms announced today that they led a $1.5m seed round for the digital media startup. RRE Ventures, Digital Currency Group and LDV Capital also participated in the round, as did angel investors Alexis Ohanian, William Mougayar, Kanyi Maqubela, David Lee, Mathieu Drouin and Brian Message.

The funding comes four months after the launch of Mediachain’s core product, a metadata protocol that envisions content creators timestamping their work to the bitcoin blockchain while also storing it with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).

Source: A16z, USV Lead $1.5 Million Round for Blockchain Startup Mediachain – CoinDesk

Digital Music Rights, Metadata and the Blockchain

Blockchain is finding its way into a huge variety of industries. Plans and research from finance to postal delivery are considering the benefits of blockchain to improve operational efficiency and enhance security, and the latest industry to explore the concept is the music industry.

At a meeting of entrepreneurs, blockchain advocates and music industry experts at a Berlin Music Festival, will look to discuss ideas relating to metadata and the identification of rights for individual tracks and how blockchain can improve the current, less than efficient situation.

Source: Digital Music Rights, Metadata and the Blockchain

Blockchain Entrepreneurs, Musicians Test Ideas at Berlin Music Festival

A group of musicians, entrepreneurs and blockchain advocates is set to gather at a festival in Germany later this week with the aim of testing how the technology can change the music industry.

The Music Tech Fest Berlin is set to be held from 27th to 30th May. During this time, the MTFLabs: Blockchain initiative will bring together participants including Grammy Award winner Imogen Heap, who has been advocating for blockchain applications in the music industry since last year.

Source: Blockchain Entrepreneurs, Musicians Test Ideas at Berlin Music Festival – CoinDesk

Copyright Infringement Disputes? Blockchain Can Provide Solutions

An episode of Family Guy titled ‘Run Chris Run’, that aired on Fox on 15 May 2015, used a clip showing a glitch in the 1980s Nintendo video game Double Dribble. The glitch allowed users to get an automatic 3-point goal every time.

The clip was taken from Youtube, where it was uploaded in 2009. After the release of the episode of Family Guy, Fox complained to Youtube and had the video taken down on copyright grounds.

Source: Copyright Infringement Disputes? Blockchain Can Provide Solutions

Bunkerchain Labs Puts Gaming On The Blockchain

In an ironic twist of fate, an ex-military nuclear bunker and data center operation called BunkerChain Labs inc. has been tasked with enabling a “war games” protocol built entirely on a Blockchain, the software technology that began with bitcoin. This new project, code named “Peerplays”, uses a high speed program called Graphene to automatically connect players from all around the world and enable online gaming and wagering that is highly resistant against cheating.

In the 1983 hit movie “War Games” a supercomputer called WOPR mistook a computer game for real-life, and almost set off a Global Thermonuclear War. Lucky for us, Peerplays is programmed to remain neutral. This new Blockchain database will contain a public record of gaming history that allows auditors to prove afterwards that games are being played without manipulation.

Source: Bunkerchain Labs Puts Gaming On The Blockchain – Blockchain News

Blockchain Going for a Song: New Tech Tunes Up Music Industry

How can Blockchain  change the industry’s revenue stream due to its ability to store, organise and share data based on a concept of transparency?

Blockchain panelists at Shoreditch House’s library in London gathered on Tuesday May 17. The technology is changing all the time and so rapidly as no one is quite sure what it will look like in a few months from now. But already music professionals – musicians, managers and labels – can use blockchain to fight fraud, create smart contracts and secure payments. Panelists also talked about many the issues involved, including transparency and copyright.

Source: Blockchain Going for a Song: New Tech Tunes Up Music Industry

Lisk to Move Developers from Blockchain to Sidechain

Lisk plans to launch a modular cryptocurrency which it says would satisfy the growing interest to use the blockchain as a decentralized database for different use-cases outside of FinTech May 24.

According to its co-founder and CEO, Max Kordek, the platform will allow JavaScript developers to follow it by offering them necessary tools to deploy a blockchain application in its own sidechain on the Lisk network. They won’t have to learn complex languages of individual blockchains.

Source: Lisk to Move Developers from Blockchain to Sidechain

Apache Foundation Founder Named Hyperledger Executive Director

There’s a new man in charge of the Hyperledger Project, a group of more that 30 companies working together to build an open standard for distributed ledgers across industries.

Announced today, the founder of of the Apache Software Foundation, Brian Behlendorf, joins the open-source project as its first executive director and a batch of new companies joined.

Source: Apache Foundation Founder Named Hyperledger Executive Director – CoinDesk

Thunder Road: Adding Speed and Scale to the Bitcoin Blockchain

blockchain-wallet-graphic-300x200Leading Bitcoin wallet developer Blockchain this week announced the open-source alpha release of the Thunder Network, which it describes as “the first usable implementation of the Lightning network for off chain bitcoin payments that settles back to the main bitcoin blockchain.” Though only a first step, the Thunder release could help pave the way to enabling the sort of high-speed, high-volume transactions and micro-payments on which many media-related uses of Bitcoin are likely to depend.

Deloitte Demos Blockchain Use Case for Art Industry 

The use of blockchain data to establish provenance for artwork has attracted the attention of more than a few innovators and engineers in the space. Now, professional services firm Deloitte has unveiled its own approach to the use case.

Deloitte’s proof-of-concept, dubbed ‘ArtTracktive’, was developed by its Luxemourg office, and according to the firm, it seeks to provide a channel for distributed information sharing between artists, owners, galleries and anyone involved in the transportation of an artwork.

Source: Deloitte Demos Blockchain Use Case for Art Industry – CoinDesk

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