Verizon Launches Tech to Log Press Releases on Ethereum

Today, Verizon beat the crypto news industry to the punch. It announced that it’s implemented a blockchain-based record for its press releases.

The new system, called Full Transparency, is a blockchain-based, press release-recording system “designed to raise the bar for corporate accountability.” It cryptographically bounds each press release to the blockchain, tracking and contextualizing subsequent edits.

It’s open-source, so other businesses can use it. Anyone integrating Verizon’s tech can log their press releases on the blockchain, the excitement of some crusty product release indelibly recorded on its immutable ledger.

It’s built on the MAD Network, a Layer-2 solution that is itself built atop the Ethereum blockchain.

Adam Helfgott, Project Lead at MadNetwork, which along with Huge and AdLedger partnered with Verizon to build the product, is, and forever will be, “thrilled to power Verizon's approach, exploring how blockchain can be a critical part of enterprise software at scale, providing validation and authentication in the digital world."

Perhaps Verizon’s shot itself in the foot. Participating companies can no longer update their posts to sweep mistakes under the rug, with readers none the wiser.

Verizon’s technology is vaguely similar to that of Everipedia, a blockchain-based version of Wikipedia that launched in 2018. Everipedia records the number of upvotes edits to each post have, so that everyone is on the same page about the content stored within it.

It’s also similar to what was attempted by Civil, a now-defunct blockchain-based platform for newsrooms that, among other things, recorded articles from participating websites to the Ethereum blockchain in pursuit of greater transparency. Civil folded in June, but its spirit is forever logged on the chain.