Najib Aminy

Bitcoin's rise has gone hand in hand with the podcasting boom. Image: Shutterstock

10 Of The Best Bitcoin Podcasts (2021)

While Bitcoin has shaken up the world of finance over the last decade, there's been a parallel revolution in the media: the rise of podcasts. According to Apple Podcasts, there are now over one million shows available, and 30 million podcast episodes; March 2020 saw more than 63,000 new shows released compared with just over 25,000 additions in September 2019. It's perhaps inevitable, then, that one of the major sources of news and information in the cryptocurrency space is crypto podcasts—and t

Trust Me: I’m On Blockchain

Paris-based Arianee is hoping to do what the French typically do best—add a bit of class, culture and sophistication—in this case, to buying high-end luxury goods a la blockchain. Let’s say you’d like to purchase a Rolex or a Louis Vuitton bag. How do you know what you’re buying is legit? You could just go to a brick-and-mortar shop and make your purchase from the brand itself, but what if you buy it through a third party? Arianee wants to make it easy for consumers to look up and trace the his

The SEC's new "ICO office"

In response to growing concern regarding the lack of regulatory clarity surrounding ICOs, the SEC has launched a new division it says will help answer the public’s crypto-related questions. On Thursday, the SEC unveiled the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology, or FinHub. The agency says FinHub will directly engage with the public using a web portal, which investors, developers, and other interested parties can use to file their inquiries. The timing of the announcement comes a

Breaking Out of the Maze

Two identical mazes are displayed, side by side, on a computer monitor. The puzzle is complex, just like the last few stages of Pac-Man. It would take even the smartest algorithm some time to find its way out and beat this level. And a smart algorithm is exactly what we’re dealing with here: Each maze is filled with 40 dots, known as agents, that are programmed with the same maze-solving code. The simulation begins, and the agents on both the right and the left start searching for a way out. F

Infrastructure or Apps?

Presentation after presentation, pitch after pitch, cofounder after cofounder, Dani Grant, an analyst at Union Square Ventures in Manhattan kept hearing the same concern from clients working on blockchain infrastructure: "We can’t get developers to build apps.” This was a problem. You probably know that Union Square Ventures is one of the preeminent venture firms in technology. Its track record rivals that of any of the top VCs in Silicon Valley, with multi-billion-dollar hits that include Twi

The Blockchain State

Two blockchain-related bills that were signed into law in California this week capture the complicated relationship among crypto advocates and the federal and state governments. The bills’ passage ensures that the Golden State will officially recognize electronic agreements made over blockchain as legally binding. Specifically, the new law updates the state’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act to include the new technology, which it describes as a “mathematically secured, chronological, and dec

Goldman Sachs buys (even more) into blockchain

Goldman Sachs has a few million more reasons to believe in the future of blockchain. Earlier this week, the New York-based financial institution led a $25 million funding round for Veem, a San Francisco-based payment service built on the ledger technology. It joins Silicon Valley Bank and the National Bank of Australia, both investors in previous rounds, as financial backers of the startup. Veem, which launched in 2014, says it will use this C-round to scale its services beyond the 80,000 small

The United Nations doubles down on crypto

The big news that came out of the United Nations early this week was when the general assembly laughed at the president of the United States. But in fact there was a much more important story that was completely overshadowed by the circus. The international governing body announced this week that it’s doubling down on blockchain. Trials in Jordan involving Syrian refugees will expand alongside an initiative to track food shipments arriving in East Africa. Or as Robert Opp, director of the UN’s W

Voatz Or Die

America, let’s face it, you suck at voting. The 2016 election may have brought out 56 percent of you to the polls pulling levers, pushing buttons and filling out ballots, but for a country whose top boss claims “America First,” the stats show that when compared to the rest of world’s voting habits, it’s more like “America Last.” But that could all change if the nation’s election officials see promising results this November in West Virginia. For the first time in America’s 241-year-old live expe

Tokenize it and they will come

There is no love like the love a sports fan has for his or her team. Back in 2011, the Green Bay Packers American football team had the bright idea to sell “shares” in the franchise for $250 a pop. The shares were not “preferred,” meaning they were little more than a glorified piece of paper that was not pegged to the fortunes of the Packers. Still, 250,000 people bought in, and the Packers raised $64 million, which was used to revamp the team’s stadium. It was a nice idea, and no Cheesehead beg

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Stories by Najib Aminy