walmart - Pwim.Net

China’s Central Bank Accelerates R&D of its Legal Digital Currency

People’s Bank of China, the Central Bank of China made an announcement of the acceleration of the development of its legal digital currency.

In July, former PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan warned that China must take precautions against Libra and must compete against them. The PBoC started to research on digital currencies as Bitcoin became increasingly popular.

Huawei’s CEO Responds to Facebook: “China Can Issue Its Own Libra”

This week, a video conference was held in China regarding the implementations of the important arrangements of the Party Central Committee and State Council on the economic and financial work of the second half of 2019, while reflecting on the first half.

PBoC announced that they are developing their financial technology and developing a digital Yuan due to the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies worldwide, especially after Facebook’s Libra announcement. Walmart recently also came out with its USD-pegged digital currency.

As of Aug 4, the PBoC has filed 74 patents regarding its digital currency according to China’s State Intellectual Property Office.

Walmart Files Patent Application for Blockchain-Based Drone Communications

The American commerce giant Walmart filed for a patentapplication for a drone communication system entitled “Cloning Drones Using Blockchain” in January 2019. The United States Patent and Trademark Office published the patent on August 1.

Blockchain technology is utilized to transmit information such as drone identification numbers, flight speeds, flight routes to other drones.

The filing outlines a system that allows information being transmitted from a drone that encrypts and stores the operational parameters to another that decrypts and configures to those parameters.

The patent explains the benefit of blockchain technology used for these drones:

“A blockchain ledger may store any kind of information that may be stored in any other format or medium, for example, a large list of instructions of different types, navigational information, and maps. In such a way, a same software profile may be deployed across the cloned drones.”

Walmart has been showing increasing interest in blockchain technology as earlier this month; a patent was filed proposing a digital currency similar to Facebook’s Libra.

Exclusive: Gerard Dache, on the Two Contradictions of Facebook Libra

Exclusive interview with Gerard Dache: Part 2

In part 2 of the interview, Gerard walked us through some of the recommended bills to the government in fostering blockchain innovation, such as the “Blockchain Promotion Act”. He then shared his views on the nature of Bitcoin and two contradictions of Facebook’s Libra.

In Section 2 “Working group to recommend the definition of blockchain technology” of the Blockchain Promotion Act, as some academics have defined “blockchain technology” in their papers, is this bill trying to show that the working groups are more authoritative than the academic scholars? If the definition set is different from those in academics, will those academic papers and whitepapers lose their authority?

A great question! Firstly, we have 50 different working groups, and I am not involved in all of the output of all of them. We tend to think in terms of continuing to bring clarity, we are not in competition with the politicians or the academics and we are not a political organization. We want to bring the government and businesses together.

In my opinion, we are going to need a whole new asset class. These technologies are fundamentally different than securities or utilities or a lot of these things we seem to patent, they may have attributes of them.

We have never seen a technology like this before. We are going to need new regulatory tools to deal with it.

What’s your observation on the role of cryptocurrencies in the financial industry?

When cryptocurrencies first came out, the biggest enemy of cryptos was the financial services industry. Everybody in blockchain started moving to all these different use cases, such as supply chain, identity, healthcare, and others; blockchain will be helpful but it will be a slow path. In the area of financial services, there was the most animosity towards cryptocurrencies. The pace of blockchain development will be the quickest because the banks and financial institutions realize if they don’t leverage blockchain in their operations, they’re going to be left behind and will be out of existence.

The minute that banks start moving into this space, they will then drag the government. All the Facebook hearings, Libra hearings and other things are happening because the financial services industry is moving much faster than any other industry, and we see incremental innovations there. In the area of banking and financial services, that’s where the earthquakes will rock the foundations of our finances. That’s also where the laws must go first.

The US SEC claimed Bitcoin is not a security; the IRS said Bitcoin is considered property; the CFTC said Bitcoin is a commodity. How does the GBA or your personal view the nature of Bitcoin? Should Bitcoin be regulated?

There is no government agency that can come in and make an impact on Bitcoin. There isn’t any way for a government to regulate or to change the supply or to change the price of cryptocurrencies. The government can require its citizens to report it, but it is literally impossible for them to be regulated.

In your opinion, do you think Bitcoin is a security, commodity, property, or none of the above?

I believe it’s none of the above – Bitcoin has the property of the above mentioned and it bears similar characteristics as gold. However, for high dollar transactions, it can also be a payment system. GBA is not a lobbyist organization, so we’re not trying to push for legislation. In my opinion, we need a new asset class and new rules.

Let’s talk a bit about the future of Facebook’s Libra. David Marcus mentioned in the hearing that Facebook Libra is a payment instrument. What are the regulations required for Libra to stay compliant?

Facebook was hit with two completely conflicting issues; they said the reason that they are building this is that they want to help bank the unbanked. They also said at the same time that they will be fully AML and KYC compliant. The reason why so many people are unbanked is that they don’t have an identity. How are you going to give identity, do AML/KYC and at the same time bank the unbanked?

Facebook is going to run into so many regulatory challenges that I doubt they will ever launch, and if they do, it’s not going to be anytime soon.

Do you think Libra is not a cryptocurrency because of its centralized nature?

Yes. Facebook hasn’t figured out a lot of this stuff themselves yet, so the fact that they announced when they did, caused a lot of chaos but also woke up a lot of people. They are not ready for their prime time yet. In fact, many members of the association have many questions about what it would mean when trying to run a node and when they would be compliant, and the current regulators are not ready for this.

Recently, Walmart filed a patent on digital currency. What will be the future of Bitcoin when traditional giants start launching their own digital currency like Facebook?

For Facebook’s Libra and Walmart, when they launch their own token, I believe they will become another ‘Western Union’: another centralized payment channel.

I don’t think that they can actually take on the properties of a cryptocurrency. The concept of cryptocurrencies, as a decentralized mechanism, is so antithetical to what they’re trying to do.

My prediction is that I see Bitcoin going up to about half a million dollars. The reason is that if I go to Starbucks, or McDonald’s, I don’t need 51% of all the computers in the world to validate my transaction. However, if I’m going to buy a house or a car, or if the government is going to send a transfer payment to a state, a currency as secure as Bitcoin will be needed. I believe that we’ll see networks and technologies that are much lighter, much faster like the lightning network that will be secure enough for smaller transactions. Bitcoin will become more like the cornerstone gold, and more like the reserve currency that all of these technologies are tethered to.

I believe Bitcoin has something that very few other cryptocurrencies have – which is a fully decentralized nature gaining people’s trust. I think that’s where the value is, not in the everyday payment system, but as the foundation for a whole new economy.

Do you think the future of blockchain development will be driven by permissioned blockchains instead of public blockchains?

When the internet first came out, it was hard to imagine that we would be using the internet for our banking. Then we would use the internet to swipe right or left to decide who to date. We need transitional technologies and I believe that these enterprise permissioned blockchains are very important transitional technologies. If you try to tell someone we’re going to go from where we were ten years ago, to a fully decentralized economy, people will say you’re crazy. It is going to take time for that to happen. It may take decades, but these enterprise permissioned systems, I believe, are critical to the transition to the new economy.

IBM Food Trust: Cutting Through the Complexity of the World’s Food Supply with Blockchain

Alan Lim, one of the initial members of the IBM Worldwide Blockchain team, heads IBM Blockchain Labs in the Asia Pacific. Blockchain.News sat down with Lim to learn more about IBM’s blockchain initiatives, including its Trust Your Supplier and Food Trust platforms.

IBM Food Trust was first launched in August 2017, with 10 Foundation members aiming to use blockchain in food traceability to solve issues in the food supply chain. Prior to the launch, IBM, Walmart, and Tsinghua University announced a collaboration to improve the way food is tracked, transported, and sold to customers in China. Juniper Research recently announced that IBM Food Trust is one of the leading blockchain players in the food provenance space.

Since the launch of the IBM Food Trust, millions of transactions have been entered onto the blockchain, as the technology provides transparency and efficiency in supply chain record-keeping to help ensure food safety for consumers. “I think the problem we’re trying to solve is the issues around the current food supply chain. Whether it’s related to issues around food safety, issues around the freshness of food, there’s an opportunity for being more efficient,” Lim added.

The dire need for trust and transparency

Lim explained that the food supply chain is quite complex, as the ecosystem consists of an extensive range of farmers, growers, packing houses, distribution centers, retailers to the consumer. “There is a dire need for a common view across the value chain to establish trust, but not just the ability to track and trace but true transparency across the different parts of the ecosystem.”

“One thing that we realized very early on is the need for standards. We’ve been partnering with various industries, parties, and associations,” said Lim. He also mentioned that the IBM Food Trust has also investigated standards from GS1, a non-profit organization headquartered in Belgium that develops and maintains global standards for business communication. Lim believes that standards are very important, and the group is looking to onboard different parties from different parts of the ecosystem across the globe. “This becomes even more important, so we’re looking at how we can better partner and adopt some of these standards, whether it’s uniquely identified produce, whether it’s looking at better ways of tracking, including the life cycle of the product,” explained Lim. “With the adoption of standards, we think that would be a key enabler for us to be successful in this area.”

One of the design principles that the IBM Food Trust decided on was that the data provided by the different parts of the ecosystem remains in the different parts of the ecosystem, different players in the ecosystem will need to grant permission to another party in the supply chain to have the visibility of the data. Lim emphasized that IBM is just the solution provider and operator for the network and stressed the importance of the ecosystem.

Interoperability of IBM Food Trust

From a data model perspective, Lim explained, “If we’re able to conform on the same data standards, it makes 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. “With the integration, we have to put in place interfaces, which are standard-based through APIs and companies that are looking to integrate with the IBM Food Trust solution can do so using those established APIs to be able to connect in, publish information, and retrieve information about the food supply chain.”

The IBM Food Trust has convened an advisory council made up of different parts of the ecosystem. As described by Lim, some parties are even competitors with each other. “The idea is to ensure that the principles are being followed very closely.”

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.

Walmart Hires Digital Currency and Cryptocurrency Product Lead

The multinational retail giant in the United States, Walmart, hires the leader for cryptocurrency and digital products.

According to the official recruitment information, Walmart aims to find talent with more than ten years of experience in product or project management and technology commercialisation and a specific in-depth understanding of cryptocurrency and related technologies.

As the digital currency or cryptocurrency director, this position is mainly responsible for formulating and promoting Walmart’s digital currency strategy and supervising and executing each step of the product roadmap. Duties also include the use of blockchain-related technologies to identify customer trends and plan related investments.

The global leading retail business company has been committed to developing its digital currency strategy to provide its customers with more diversified and convenient payment channels.

Meanwhile, it establishes cooperative relations with other cryptocurrency-related companies and promotes investment.

Blockchain.News reported on August 2 on 2019, Walmart has filed a cryptocurrency patent to develop its own U.S dollar-backed digital currency similar to Facebook’s Libra.

Walmart also stated that its coin would have features that can apply to a token used in retail companies. Walmart’s significant difference is that the proposed cryptocurrency will provide a zero or low-fee marketplace for users to keep financial reserves.

Walmart Clarifies False report, Not Accepting any Litecoin for Payment

Retailer Walmart issued a press release on Monday, September 13, to clarify a false report about its previous announcement of a partnership with Litecoin (LTC), stating that the company has no relationship with Litecoin.

The clarification was released on the same day after a fake press release issued by GlobeNewswire. This false press release indicated that Walmart would accept shoppers to use Litecoin as a method of payment. Other well-known media organizations have also reported this news. After Walmart’s official verification, these media companies all corrected timely.

In the previous fake press release mentioning the partnership with Wal-Mart, Litecoin quickly rose by 20%. After the news was corrected, Litecoin withdrew from the increase. At the time of writing, Litecoin was trading at $177.28 with a slight increase in 24 hours, according to Coinmarketcap.

Yet, Walmart’s stock price did not fluctuate sharply because of this incident.

Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove said the press release was untrue. It also mentioned that Walmart’s team actively contacted the news line company to investigate how the fake press release was issued.

GlobeNewswire media agency stated that the false news was released from a fraudulent user account. A spokesperson representing GlobeNewswire responded to the incident:

“This has never happened before and we have already put in place enhanced authentication steps to prevent this isolated incident from occurring in the future. We will work with the appropriate authorities to request – and facilitate – a full investigation, including into any criminal activity associated with this matter.”

At 9:50 am Eastern Time, Litecoin issued a press release on its official Twitter account stating that Charlie Lee, the managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, would respond to this incident.

Walmart Installing Bitcoin ATMs in its Retail Stores

Walmart Inc, the world’s largest retailer, announced on Thursday, October 21, that customers at some of its U.S. stores will be able to buy Bitcoin using ATMs installed by Coinstar.

Walmart stated that it has begun a pilot program where consumers can purchase Bitcoin as Coinstar kiosks in some of its U.S. stores.

Molly Blakeman, Walmart communications director, talked about the development and stated that:

“Coinstar, in partnership with Coinme, has launched a pilot that allows its customers to use cash to purchase bitcoin. There are 200 Coinstar kiosks located inside Walmart stores across the United States that are part of this pilot.”

Mr. Blakeman said that the pilot test by Coinstar started earlier this month, and the pilot program includes 200 kiosks in Walmart stores.

The program is part of a broader initiative by Coinstar, which has partnered with a cryptocurrency exchange and payment firm called CoinMe that specializes in Bitcoin ATMs, to allow customers to purchase Bitcoin at some of its kiosks.

The Walmart spokesperson stated that there are 200 Coinstar kiosks located inside Walmart stores across the U.S. that will allow consumers to purchase Bitcoin.

Coinstar, which is best known for its machines that allow customers to exchange physical coins for cash, plans to provide Bitcoin at more than 8,000 kiosks worldwide.

Walmart Expanding Its Virtual Payment Options

Walmart is testing the pilot service program weeks after the firm became a subject to a cryptocurrency hoax in September when a fake press release was published, claiming that Litecoin (LTC) would be accepted as payment at Walmart stores. The phoney news sent values of the little-known crypto token surging.

Though the announcement was false, Walmart is examining the future of cryptocurrency in its business operations.

As reported by Blockchain.News in August, Walmart advertised to hire cryptocurrency experts to help the firm develop “the digital currency strategy and product roadmap” while identifying “crypto-related investment and partnerships,” a time when an increasing number of Fortune 500 companies warm up to digital currencies.