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Ontology Teams Up with Chainlink to Solve the Oracle Problem by Creating Externally Connected Smart Contracts

In an effort to foster the Ontology network, the platform has announced its decision to collaborate with Chainlink to build data-driven smart contracts with end-to-end security and reliability, which is centered on solving what they identified as the oracle problem.

An oracle being a gateway to the external world, allows off-chain data inputs to come into the smart contract and also allows output data to be pushed out on to external systems. It permits a link and has control over the connection between two different systems, just like the Internet Service provider does.

By being able to control how the smart contract responds to what it sees, it has a problem, which is about developing the same rate of tamper-proof security for the real world connection that exists presently on the underlying blockchain. This then means that when an oracle is compromised, its smart contracts are also compromised. In that case, having a centralized oracle model is dangerous and unreliable because it does not support the merits inherent in end-to-end decentralization.

However, Ontology’s partnership with Chainlink will effectively address the oracle problem by providing a new option that will allow the creation of externally connected smart contracts.

The report noted that Chainlink’s solution decentralized oracle network, which has the potential of giving smart contracts secure and reliable access to data providers, enterprise systems, payment systems, web API, cloud providers, IoT devices, other blockchains and so on.

With this partnership in place, the Ontology network invites more developers to follow them and make great use of the excellent tools Chainlink provides, which will help to secure smart contracts.

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IBM and Oracle Collaborate on Interoperability Work for Their Blockchains to Communicate With Each Other

IBM and Oracle have announced that they are collaborating to build an interoperability initiative to allow their blockchains to be able to communicate with each other.

Announced at the Hyperledger Global Forum in Arizona, Oracle’s senior director of blockchain product management, Mark Rakhmilevich said that the Fabric interoperability initiative already began in 2018.

The blockchain teams at IBM, the company behind Hyperledger Fabric, Oracle and SAP are familiar with each other and believe in creating a “harmony” between firms to enable participation in different deployments on Hyperledger Fabric.

“We have done full testing with IBM and SAP. The three of us have basically done cross-networking testing on Fabric. So if somebody comes and says they want to run a network on Oracle but have some members whole preference is to be on IBM, we can show them the process which is tested and certified,” said Rakhmilevich.

With this new interoperability initiative, nodes will be able to run on both IBM and Oracle’s clouds, opening the door to connecting the consortia of firms on these two platforms.

The Hyperledger blockchain realm

HSBC has reportedly become the first bank to complete a financial transaction using the blockchain trade platform that runs on the IBM Hyperledger Fabric, we.trade based in Europe.

Blockchain.News previously interviewed Alan Lim, the head of the IBM Blockchain Labs in the Asia Pacific, and he mentioned the importance of the industry conforming on the same data standards, which would make “it easier for information to be shared by different networks and systems, platforms that are on blockchain and those that are not.” Lim mentioned that the design of the interoperability of the solution is a more advanced kind of adoption; however, integration is more complex.

Lim believes that enterprise blockchain has been maturing in the past few years, with a high potential in Asia. “Whether it’s across the financial services sector, supply chain, and other industries, we’re starting to see some of the early adopters, leading the charge, going to production. I think you’re going to see fast followers catching up, networks scaling and growing.” He expressed his excitement to see how things pan out, “Hopefully we see more use cases in production, spreading across different industries as well.”

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Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy to Dump Bitcoin and Chainlink (LINK) After $25,000 Loss

Online sports celebrity and founder of Barstool sport Dave Portnoy announced that he might be quitting crypto trading, after purchasing $200,000 in Bitcoin and a huge quantity of other cryptocurrencies such as Chainlink (Link) just a week ago.

Portnoy took to his Twitter account on August 21 and said that he sold off all of his holdings in cryptocurrencies, which he recently bought on August 13. He stated that he now owns zero Bitcoin (BTC).

Panic Selling Ruins Bull Run

Portnoy hosted the Winklevoss twins at his home on August 13, who explained to him thoroughly how cryptocurrency trading works. The meeting event enabled the Gemini co-founders to introduce Portnoy into crypto trading. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss not only explained the basics of Bitcoin to Portnoy but also taught him how to trade on the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange.

Portnoy had already deposited $250,000 into his Gemini account before the twins had arrived. The meeting with the twins then resulted in Portnoy investing $200,000 worth of Bitcoin and allocating $50,000 to Chainlink (LINK). A few days later, he boasted on social media, touting that he was the king of Bitcoin after gaining $98,000 in profits from BTC cryptocurrency.

He then began to annoy Bitcoin users by trying to promote small-time altcoin Orchid (OXT) on social media and urged his followers to buy the cryptocurrency. Since Portnoy has more than 1.7 million followers on social media, his promotion of the cryptocurrencies appears to have influenced the valuation of certain cryptos on the markets. But the more seasoned crypto investors on Twitter did not seem to take the bait.

Portnoy’s purchase of $50,000 worth of Chainlink token (LINK) did not go as planned as the altcoin saw a 30% decline amid a market correction for the decentralized oracle network. This resulted in a loss of $25,000 for the “Davey Day Trader”, an incident that angered him. Consequently, he announced that he might well be done with cryptocurrencies, for good.

Common Trading Tips Traders Ignore

The rule of “buy low” and “sell high” is the basic formulae for trading. This applies to a pattern of crypto prices, which shifts between certain price points. Portnoy appears to not have followed this simple rule, with Bitcoin bulls such as crypto analyst Scott Melker criticizing the Barstool Sports founder for his market trading tactics. Certain analysts referred to Portnoy’s “pump and dump” strategy as was criticized by Bitcoin bulls such as devaluating for the crypto community.

This case scenario seems to be of bad timing and unfortunate, as Portnoy purchased cryptocurrencies at the top of the current bull cycle, but panicked when the assets began to decline in value on the crypto market.

His initiation into cryptocurrency trading has put a spotlight on the reality of price volatility that still exists in markets. The crypto community responded by labeling him as weak for not being able to tolerate the downsides of cryptocurrency trading.

Microsoft Loses TikTok to Tech Giant Oracle – What This Means for Bitcoin and Blockchain Industry

TikTok, the multibillion-dollar video sharing platform owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and popularized by millennials and Gen Z, has chosen Oracle Corporation as its tech partner over Microsoft.

Trump: TikTok is a Threat to National Security

The news comes at a crucial time after US President Donald Trump had vehemently decreed that TikTok must sell its operations in the United States by September 15, stipulating that the social media app was a threat to national security due to it sneakily collecting user information, as revealed by an analysis from Wall Street Journal.

President Trump had accused TikTok, which is fully owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, of gathering information of millions of US users and of sharing the confidential data with the Chinese government. Parent company ByteDance has denied all claims directed towards it regarding data and security breach.

In order to keep the operations in the US, Microsoft had previously been working in collaboration with Walmart to acquire ownership of TikTok. However, after its offer was released, it was disclosed to Bloomberg that “Oracle Corp. is the winning bidder for a deal with TikTok’s US operations.”

US-China, Caught in a Tech and Blockchain Battle

President Trump’s previous user data breach allegations directed at TikTok come at a critical time, with presidential elections looming and set for the month of November. In addition, the US and China have been caught in a cold technology war, with the rise of blockchain and China gaining tremendous momentum in the race to be the first to release an officially regulated central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Previously, Donald Trump had publicly stated:

“As far as Tiktok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States.”

Why did TikTok Pick Oracle?

Though Microsoft had jumped at the opportunity of acquiring TikTok’s US assets, which boasts of over 150 million users, the booming video-sharing application has gone another way and chosen Oracle Corp. as its tech partner in the United States. Microsoft announced in an official statement on Sept. 13:

“ByteDance let us know today that they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests.”

The multinational tech company added, “We would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation.”

Will President Trump be Appeased?

Oracle has not released an official statement or commented on the situation yet. However, it is speculated that in partnering with ByteDance and acquiring TikTok, Oracle will conduct a restructuring of the video application. In any case, if the multibillion-dollar application was to survive in the United States market, it seems as though Oracle would have no choice but to do so, to appease President Trump’s fears of a national security breach and potential espionage from the Chinese government.

Furthermore, with Oracle in the works to buy TikTok US operations, this would enable TikTok’s data to run on Oracle’s cloud servers.

Bitcoin and Crypto Implications

At the time of writing, there is still speculation on whether Trump will be appeased with the partnership between Oracle and TikTok. If the US President decides to go forward with a ban of TikTok, this may result in other decentralized social media platforms picking up the American GenZ subscribers that were formerly subscribed to the video-sharing application. Downloaded around 2 billion times globally, TikTok boasts of approximately 100 million monthly active users in the United States.

Block.one, a high-performance blockchain platform that hosts its social media platform Voice, would be among those benefitting from a TikTok ban. If the partnership between TikTok and Oracle proves to be unsatisfactory for the White House and the Trump administration, other blockchain-based social media giants would greatly benefit. Subsequently, this may result in a cryptocurrency and Bitcoin (BTC) market boom as well.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $10,357.18, dipping by 1% since yesterday. The dip is speculated to be a result of crypto miner sell-offs, and investors are actively anticipating the digital asset’s next bull run, with Bitcoin bulls like the Winklevoss twins pumping up the price.

How Blockchain Can Benefit TikTok

There seems to be much work to be done for TikTok. According to a report released by CheckPoint Research on January 8, the dilemmas that the application encountered were – hacking of TikTok user accounts and manipulating content; deleting videos; uploading unauthorized videos; making private “hidden” videos public, and revealing personal information saved on the account, such as private email addresses.

More research seems to indicate that ByteDance could greatly benefit from leveraging blockchain as a solution to fight security problems encountered by TikTok. Employing blockchain to run its application would enable the personal data of millions of influencers and content creators worldwide to be better protected and secured through a distributed decentralized ledger. Blockchain has been increasingly adopted throughout Asia and Europe for its robustness, scalability, and overall stable architecture.

DeFi Booms – Aave Dominates

Currently, Ethereum is the most leveraged blockchain ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and projects. The decentralized finance sector is estimated to have a total value locked (TVL) of around $8 billion, according to data from DeFi Pulse. Currently, DeFi protocol Aave is leading the pack, with a TVL of $1.50 billion at the time of writing.

Oracle Confirms Partnership with TikTok, President Trump Still Needs to Approve Deal

Oracle, the tech company that was said to have acquired TikTok’s US operations, has finally commented on the partnership and confirmed it.

Just yesterday, Oracle publicly stated that it has indeed struck a deal with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. The Chinese company had been subject to a lot of backlash from the Trump administration. Previously, US President Donald Trump has decreed that it wanted TikTok services to be banned from the country by September 15, under allegations that the popular video content app was used as a tool by the Chinese government to spy on American users. Trump had publicly condemned TikTok, saying that it illicitly collected personal data of over 80 million Americans. In a heated moment, Trump had said:

“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States.”

Trump administration comments on the deal

Despite all, multinational computer tech company Oracle tech firm had managed to nab the US operations of TikTok, overtaking Microsoft’s initial plans to make a move on the trendy video-sharing platform. Though the partnership with ByteDance has been secured and confirmed, Oracle, along with TikTok, still require the US government’s approval before moving forward. Addressing the deal, US Secretary of the Treasury Department Steve Mnuchin had disclosed to CNBC:

“I will just say that from our standpoint, we’ll need to make sure that the code is, one, secure, Americans’ data is secure, that the phones are secure and we’ll be looking to have discussions with Oracle over the next few days with our technical teams.”

Microsoft leaves, Walmart wants to stay

Microsoft had previously tried to secure TikTok US operations, along with Walmart’s help; however, ByteDance seemed to be more satisfied with Oracle as a tech partner. While Microsoft has withdrawn its offer, Walmart has been reported to still be interested in investing in TikTok.

With Oracle’s collaboration, the billion-dollar video content platform will most likely go through a restructuring, in order to offer better security and privacy protection.

Will Oracle be able to appease President Trump?

Furthermore, better data protection will be essential in appeasing President Trump’s fears of privacy breaches, especially with the United States being currently entangled in a cold tech war with China and the presidential elections approaching.

To offer more security, blockchain is a viable solution for TikTok. There are indications that parent company ByteDance is already familiar with the industry, as reported by Blockchain.news last December. ByteDance had been reported to have taken an interest in blockchain, as it had started investing in the decentralized ledger technology along with other Chinese companies.

Will blockchain solve TikTok’s privacy issues?

If blockchain was implemented on TikTok, this could secure the data of millions of users, and offer scalability solutions. Also, privacy breaches would be prevented with blockchain.

Checkpoint Research had published a list of things at the beginning of the year that detailed the issues that needed to be fixed on TikTok’s part. The vulnerabilities included hacking of TikTok user accounts and manipulating content; deleting videos; uploading unauthorized videos; making private ‘hidden’ videos public, and revealing personal information saved on the account such as private email addresses.

Currently, regulatory approval is awaited from the Trump administration for the Oracle-ByteDance deal, and Congress is expected to reach a conclusion sometime this week.

What Does Oracle's TikTok Deal Mean for the US? ByteDance Confident President Trump Will Approve Deal

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is confident that its deal with Oracle tech giant for TikTok’s US operations will be approved by both Chinese and American regulators.

Oracle secures TikTok

The deal for TikTok US operations was confirmed by Oracle this week and in order for the video-sharing app to remain active in the United States, it still needs to pass approval from the Trump administration. A set decision is rumored to be rolled out by the end of the week.

TikTok, previously shunned by US President Trump who accused the video-sharing company of illegitimate data collection and security breaches that harmed American users, appears to now have found a way to remain operational in the US. Previously under Microsoft’s bucket list for things to buy, it has been swept up by Oracle tech company.

ByteDance refuses to sell its TikTok algorithms

The recent development is that Walmart may also have a stake in the tech company, along with other American investors. However, the proposal dictates that most of TikTok’s shares will still be owned by parent company ByteDance.

Furthermore, it has been disclosed that ByteDance is unwilling to sell the prized algorithms behind the video content sharing app and cede ownership of them to Oracle tech company. After all, the social media app gained so much popularity worldwide that it has grown to be a direct challenger of other tech giants, such as Facebook and Google.

So what does acquiring TikTok shares mean for Oracle?

Under the new partnership, Oracle’s ruling power will extend to software review and monitoring of TikTok US services. It will be able to analyze the source code behind TikTok’s digital network. However, as shared by Bloomberg, ByteDance will still hold the proprietary rights of TikTok, despite American investors owning partial TikTok equities.

The green light has yet to be given by the Trump administration. Previously, President Trump had said that the app was a national security threat and a means that the Chinese government used to spy on the US. Trump had vehemently stipulated on many counts that he wanted TikTok banned from the US and that he did not want the platform’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance to retain majority control. Addressing the issue, US Secretary of the Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin had said on behalf of the US government:

“I will just say that we’ll need to make sure that the code is secure, Americans’ data is secure, that the phones are secure and we’ll be looking to have discussions with Oracle over the next few days with our technical teams.”

China likely to okay the deal, under one condition

ByteDance and Oracle are currently awaiting approval from Chinese and US regulators. ByteDance is confident that China will approve the deal. An inside source that is familiar with the talks had disclosed that Beijing “is likely to greenlight the deal as long as it doesn’t involve the transfer of the artificial intelligence algorithms that drive Tiktok’s service.

Furthermore, they added that that needs to remain true even if ByteDance parent company were to cede majority control of TikTok over to American investors.

How can Oracle and ByteDance gain Trump’s approval?

As for Donald Trump, it appears that the US President will only be appeased if his fears of Chinese spyware were attenuated. On top of it, as mentioned by Bloomberg, the United States president will likely want US companies to retain majority control of TikTok, instead of ByteDance.

In order to provide security and dispel data breaching threats, blockchain technology could be an interesting alternative for TikTok to explore. It has been disclosed that ByteDance had strongly invested in blockchain technology, along with other Chinese companies in the past.

TikTok can benefit from blockchain technology

Blockchain technology may be a viable solution for TikTok to adopt so that the protection and security of the personal information of millions of influencers and content creators leveraging the app are ensured. Furthermore, the adoption of a decentralized ledger technology by TikTok can be beneficial to entertainers who are paid for the videos and content they upload onto social media.

Currently, the Oracle-ByteDance deal is awaiting the Trump administration’s seal of approval, as well as the okay from Chinese regulators. A decision is to be made by the end of this week.

President Donald Trump Approves Oracle Deal, Ban Averted for TikTok but not WeChat

President Donald Trump approved the TikTok deal that Oracle and Chinese parent company ByteDance have been working on all week, steering the video-sharing platform clear from its scheduled app store ban set for September 20.

The US Department of Commerce had announced that both WeChat and TikTok would be prohibited from operating in the US through an official country-wide app store ban, starting September 20. Though TikTok US operations appear to be saved for now, WeChat’s ban is still in effect and the messaging app is currently unavailable for download in the US.

Donald Trump approves Oracle-TikTok deal

The approval of TikTok by President Trump came at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The new company that was birthed from the negotiations will be called TikTok Global and will be owned predominantly by American companies. Oracle is to take a 12.5% stake in TikTok Global, while Walmart will potentially own up to 7.5% of company shares.

On top of the fact that four of the five board chairmen will be American, TikTok Global has also agreed to invest $5 billion into creating a new educational fund, an agreement that Trump had said would satisfy his demands that the US government receive a payment from the Oracle-ByteDance deal. As shared by CNBC and Bloomberg, Trump said:

“We’re going to be setting up a very large fund for the education of American youth and that’ll be great. That’s the contribution I’ve been asking for.”

Oracle and Walmart to have stakes in TikTok

According to a source familiar with the talks, ByteDance is looking for a total of $60 billion for the video content app. For the deal to go through, Oracle and Walmart are to pay a combined $12 billion to acquire their shares in TikTok Global. Discussions for the asking price are still being worked out at the time of writing.

Although TikTok’s parent company ByteDance seemed extremely confident that Chinese regulators would pass the proposal and that it will still have the upper hand, with it retaining the majority of the app’s assets and having control over the algorithms, President Trump appeared to think otherwise. He said:

“It will have nothing to do with China, it’ll be totally secure, that’ll be part of the deal. All of the control is Walmart and Oracle, two great American companies.”

Speaking about the deal for TikTok, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance will have “no decision-making authority, no ability to peer into” the US company’s activities, and will just act as a “passive shareholder,” as shared by Bloomberg.

During his rally, President Trump spoke about the deal for Oracle to acquire US operations of TikTok and said: “I approve the deal in concept. If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too.” Adding on to the president’s public announcement, TikTok also released an official statement, stipulating Trump’s wishes:

“We are pleased that the proposal by TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart will resolve the security concerns of the US administration and settle questions around TikTok’s future in the US.”

The new company birthed from Oracle and ByteDance’s agreement will host an initial public offering in which future investors would be able to take up as much as a 20% stake in the company. Walmart, Oracle, and TikTok are still currently working on perfecting their partnership agreements.

What is Oracle’s role in TikTok Global?

Oracle’s role in TikTok Global will be to host all US data and to secure the computer systems. The data from TikTok will be run through Oracle’s cloud servers and this will enable security threats to be dealt with systematically, securing American users’ data and preventing foreign governments from spying on TikTok’s US operations. Speaking about the tech giant’s role in the TikTok deal, CEO of Oracle Safra Catz said:

“Oracle will quickly deploy, rapidly scale, and operate TikTok systems in the Oracle Cloud. We are a 100% confident in our ability to deliver a highly secure environment to TikTok and ensure data privacy to TikTok’s American users.”

Trump sees China as a threat to national security

Trump’s seal of approval for the Oracle-TikTok deal comes at a crucial time, with the presidential elections set for November 3 and the current president trailing behind his counter rival Joe Biden in votes. The President of the United States has used his stance regarding China as a winning point for his campaign.

Trump has alleged that China had been illicitly deploying spyware directed at the US, through applications such as Tiktok and WeChat. Over the weekend, the US Commerce of Department had decreed that as of September 20 for WeChat and November 12 for TikTok, the Chinese-based applications will be prohibited on American soil. “Any provision of content delivering network services enabling the functioning of the mobile application in the US is prohibited,” the statement read.

WeChat downloads prohibited starting Sunday

While TikTok’s ban seems to have been temporarily lifted with the Trump administration’s approval, WeChat’s prohibition appears to be ongoing. Accusations directed towards WeChat are similar to that of TikTok. The Chinese-based messaging and multi-purpose platform has been accused of collecting data form users that involve their network activity, location data, browsing history and more.

The US is not the only country that has moved to ban TikTok and WeChat operations. India has already banned both China-based social media applications, referencing that it poses national security concerns.

China Unlikely to Approve Oracle and Walmart’s TikTok Deal – Blockchain and Bitcoin Implications

China appears to be on edge regarding Oracle and Walmart’s deal with parent company ByteDance for TikTok’s US operations, calling it an “unfair” deal.

China is outraged by US’ TikTok demands

In addition, it appears that there are divided beliefs regarding what the TikTok deal entailed. While President Trump had said that the Oracle deal for TikTok “will have nothing to do with China” and that “all of the control is Walmart and Oracle, two great American companies,” the remarks appeared to have struck a sensitive chord among Chinese regulators.

The editor-in-chief for the Global Times, which operates as a tabloid for the official newspaper of China’s Communist Party, publicly said:

“Stop extorting. You think TikTok is a company from a small country? There’s no way the Chinese government will accept your demand. You can ruin Tiktok’s US business if US users do not object, but you can’t rob it and turn it into a US baby.”

The editor-in-chief added that it was “hard to believe that Beijing will approve such an agreement.”

Trump thinks TikTok is a breach of privacy

US regulators have recently declared that TikTok would transform into a new US-owned entity, dubbed TikTok Global. Four of the five board members would also be American, and that seemed to satisfy President Trump’s previous resistance towards the video-sharing app.

The United States president had declared on numerous occasions that the social app popularized by millennials posed a threat to national security, as it had been reported through a Wall Street analysis to have been tracking online user activity through questionable methods and without permission.

Why China would never green light the deal

According to Reuters, Beijing had opposed the forced sale of TikTok by ByteDance, stating that it would prefer to see the multibillion-dollar media app shut down in the United States, rather than to see it operated by predominantly American companies.

Speaking about the fact that Beijing would never okay the deal, the official news outlet for China’s leading Communist Party, Global Times, wrote:

“If the reorganization of TikTok under U.S. manipulation becomes a model, it means once any successful Chinese company expands its business to the U.S. and becomes competitive, it will be targeted by the U.S. and turned into a U.S.-controlled company via trickery and coercion, which eventually serves only U.S. interests.”

Furthermore, it stipulated that the underlying algorithm behind TikTok will never be shared with Oracle, despite the American tech company’s future stake in the media app.

Beijing would definitely keep the algorithm for its own purposes, as TikTok is alleged to share the same source code as Douyin, which is a China-based video sharing platform similar to TikTok. The latter, though deemed a global hit, is not available for download in China.

Blockchain and Bitcoin implications

TikTok currently boasts of approximately 100 million monthly active users in the US and is downloaded around 2 billion times globally.

If TikTok’s US deal is rejected by China, Bitcoin(BTC) and blockchain may potentially benefit.

Should ByteDance’s business agreement with Oracle be dismissed, this would mean that the US may lose TikTok operations. This would give way to other social media platforms, such as Voice, to surge in popularity among the former American TikTok users, who will be looking into other platforms for entertainment.

Voice, which is birthed from the high-performance blockchain platform Block.one, may greatly benefit from the ban as it can potentially scoop up the 100 million monthly users. As it is blockchain-based, this may also address the privacy concerns posed by Donald Trump and his administration.

Subsequently, this may lead to a spotlight on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, as they run on blockchain ecosystems.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading north of $10,400, after a surge past the $11K mark over the weekend. Bitcoin whales remain bullish on Bitcoin and are expecting it to surge, as it seems to be “the only long-time protection against inflation,” according to Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss.

US Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Ban on TikTok Downloads

A federal US judge granted an injunction request against the Trump Administration’s order to ban TikTok downloads, temporarily saving the app from being permanently removed from all US app stores.

TikTok ban in the US temporarily averted

During a virtual court hearing, the legal team behind TikTok argued that President Trump’s shutdown of the video-sharing app was an infringement on freedom of speech; TikTok filed an injunction, which was granted by the judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Carl Nichols. Though the judge temporarily blocked the ban, a broader ban set for November 12 has not yet been dispelled.

In an official statement, TikTok said that it was pleased that the court agreed with them. It also disclosed that it was actively working on reaching an agreement with the Trump administration to keep TikTok operations within the US afloat.

On its end, the US Department of Commerce said, “The Government will comply with the injunction and has taken immediate steps to do so, but intends to vigorously defend the E.O (Executive Order) and the Secretary’s implementation efforts from legal challenges.”

ByteDance, Oracle and Walmart – TikTok goes the decision clock

The deal for TikTok US operations is still currently in the works. Initially, the Department of Commerce had announced that starting September 20, TikTok would no longer be available for download in US app stores. However, with Oracle and Walmart stepping in and actively working with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to save TikTok operations within the US, the ban was temporarily delayed until September 27.

The terms of the deal to create a new company by the name of TikTok Global are still being worked out, as both American and Chinese entities have not reached an agreement. So far, what is known is that TikTok Global will be co-owned by ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart. However, the firms have remained divided on the ownership structure of the newly birthed video-sharing company.

The Chinese parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, has said that it intends to keep an 80% ownership stake of TikTok Global. Displeased with the proposal, Oracle had contested it, expressing that ByteDance will not have any ownership in TikTok Global.

US calls TikTok a threat for national security

The Trump administration has been adamant in making TikTok within the United States majorly American owned, with talks that four out of five of the board members should be American entities. The US legislative department has maintained that TikTok posed a national security threat to Americans if it was to remain under ByteDance’s umbrella, as user data could be sent back to China.

Per the announcement shared with CNBC, US lawyers said:

“ByteDance has significant and close ties to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) which could potentially be leveraged to further their agenda and exact pressure on ByteDance.”

For TikTok’s deal to obtain the Trump administration’s seal of approval, TikTok will have to provide substantial proof that the code was secure and that American users data will not be leaked to the Chinese government, as it has previously been reported to have collected information from millions of mobile devices. ByteDance has however previously said that it will not give up or disclose its TikTok algorithm to Oracle.

PARSIQ Integrates Chainlink Oracle Price Feeds to Trigger Off-Chain Actions and Trading Decisions

Blockchain monitoring and automation platform PARSIQ has integrated Chainlink price oracles to trigger off-chain actions and trading decisions.

PARISQ, the blockchain automation platform that serves as a multi-level bridge between blockchains and off-chain applications has integrated Chainlink’s price oracles, thus allowing developers to build new automated event workflows based on Chainlink’s secure and reliable price data.

The PARSIQ platform allows users and enterprises to connect blockchain activity to off-chain applications, monitor and secure DeFi apps, create customizable triggers, and set up automated workflows based on real-time blockchain events.

According to the release shared with Blockchain.News, by integrating Chainlink’s price reference data into PARSIQ’s blockchain monitoring and automation platform, price data is automatically fetched from Chainlink’s oracles, alongside the automated workflow PARSIQ’s monitoring platform delivers. This data can be used to automate actions and set up triggers to monitor specific token pairs’ price fluctuations.

These new Events, called “Use Case Streams”, enable developers to use asset prices to implement more complex logic and automation, such as triggers to notify traders when asset pairs reach optimal prices, adding price data to accounting workflows, or conducting other price-based calculations.

Oracles and Reverse Oracles

Oracles are services that allow smart contracts on the blockchain to receive information from external sources.

For the most part, oracles go one way: they feed off-chain data into blockchains. Data is pulled from sensors or other real-world sources. It is verified. It is delivered to the blockchain or smart contract. There is a whole world of possibility that exists with having data move the other way around.

In 2019, PARSIQ launched as a platform for monitoring blockchain transactions, proving its worth by enabling mempool-level monitoring and alerts. Meaning, transactions can be monitored in real-time and forensically tracked even before the blockchain nodes confirm them.

The use cases are immense, and the ability to track on-chain and cross-chain transactions has displayed a lot of potential in the realm of fintech, compliance, and platform security.

Essentially, this ability also makes PARSIQ a reverse-oracle. Whereas an oracle provides inbound data into a blockchain, a reverse-oracle will utilize data and updates from the blockchain and deliver it to real-world applications through notifications, alerts, and APIs.

As a platform, PARSIQ’s work starts when the oracle’s job of pulling data into the blockchain is done. This addresses the challenge that data can be either inaccessible or difficult to obtain from within the blockchain. For example: a smart contract cannot know the events happening in other smart contracts, thus creating information asymmetry or inverted data flow.

Oracles and reverse-oracles thus serve as a communications stack atop blockchain platforms and other technology solutions that developers can throw upon the decentralized network. PARSIQ, for one, can retrieve on-chain data and send it off-chain or cross-chain to other blockchain platforms for subsequent processing.

PARSIQ and Chainlink

PARSIQ will now be actively monitoring Chainlink’s price oracles, thus allowing developers to build new automated event workflows based on Chainlink’s secure and reliable price data.

One of PARSIQ’s core concepts is Smart-Triggers, which can be seen as a workflow that gets executed when a particular Blockchain Activity happens under certain conditions.

The Smart-Trigger connects to a Native Event Stream, where each condition’s matching event acts as an input for the Smart-Trigger, which then activates the workflow.

Native Event Stream of Blockchain Activity-based Events are fundamentally native to a certain blockchain or at least received a status of an integral part of it (e.g., Ethereum Token Transfers). For example, with Ethereum, we could have Transfers, Token Transfers, Smart Contract Message Calls, or Smart Contract Events. Chainlink Price Feeds enable new event streams.

Starting with the Chainlink integration, PARSIQ will introduce a new type of Event Stream called Use Case Streams. Each Use Case Stream will consist of more complex Events representing important and interesting Blockchain Activities.

Tom Tirman, PARSIQ Co-founder, said of the Chainlink integration:

“Users can receive notifications on communication platforms like Telegram or directly to API endpoints via Webhooks. Now, using this newest integration with Chainlink, individuals, startups, and enterprises that deal with blockchain transactions can reduce the complexity of retrieving high-quality pricing information, minimize costs, and save time by building automated workflows based on Chainlink’s widely used price data.”

Tracking prices can be tedious and time-consuming for most users. By integrating Chainlink’s oracles into the PARSIQ platform, users can now monitor and get notified in their personal off-chain applications when there are any pricing changes in specific token pairs they’re following. This allows all types of investors to automate their workflows based on market conditions and assess any risks in their future transactions.