CONSORTIA CO-OP: Hyperledger and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) are linking up through a new partnership.
The tie-up will see the two groups collaborating on common standards for the blockchain space. This will form the basis for a broader effort to cross-pollinate a diverse open-source community.
As EEA executive director Ron Resnick told CoinDesk: "The enterprises of the world are going to want to purchase solutions where they have a choice of multiple vendors."
Yet the field for enterprise blockchain solutions remains a fiercely competitive one, as CoinDesk's Ian Allison reports. Indeed, R3's lead platform engineer Mike Hearn recently criticized the move as "a marketing event rather than a major change to the way the platforms work." Full Story
BITMAIN BLOCKADE: The Sia network is about to become very unfriendly for cryptocurrency mining hardware products made by firms Bitmain and Innosilicon.
The move to "brick" the miners -- by changing the code to block the ability for them to be used -- comes after months of painstaking debate within the network's community of users. The stated goal is to offset the "near-monopoly" enjoyed by the two companies, accordign to Nebulous founder and CEO David Vorick.
Whether the entire network embraces the change remains to be seen -- in theory, a separate Sia network could emerge from the nodes that don't opt to block Bitmain and Innosilicon's miners. Full Story
'INEVITABLE' CRYPTO?: Malta's prime minister, Joseph Muscat, struck a bullish tone on cryptocurrencies before the United Nations General Assembly last week.
"Blockchain makes cryptocurrencies the inevitable future of money, more transparent since it helps filter good businesses from bad businesses," Muscat declared.
His support is perhaps unsurprising, given that Malta has spent time and resources in an effort to roll out the welcome mat to crypto startups which are seeking friendly jurisidictions. Full Story | 
