Cryptocurrency

  What Are the World Bank's Blockchain-Based Bonds? Some of the most important and influential financial institutions worldwide may be looking to further integrate blockchain technology into their offerings, including the creation of blockchain-based bonds. For an example of how to accomplish this, they might look to one of the world's largest lenders to developing countries, the  World Bank . In August 2018, the World Bank launched its bond-i, short for "blockchain operated new debt instrument." The new bond was created through Australia's Commonwealth Bank (CBA). 1  Below, we'll discuss how blockchain-based bonds work and take a look at how these  bonds  could impact the mainstream investment world. KEY TAKEAWAYS In August 2018, the World Bank created the bond-i, the world's first global bond using distributed ledger technology. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia arranged the blockchain bond issue, which initially raised A$110 million and a subsequent A$...

Bringing Governance Into Focus: DAO By most measures, the 2016  initial coin offering  (ICO) for venture fund Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) was a success. Billed as the “largest crowdfunding project in human history,” it raised a record $100 million worth of ethers in less than two days. 1 DAO was stateless and decentralized, meaning that its operations were not tied to a specific geographic area, and it had a flat  organizational structure . DAO token holders could vote on projects for investment and the relationship between them and the overall organization was governed by  smart contracts  on Ethereum’s blockchain.  But a hack, which exploited security vulnerabilities in its code and resulted in the theft of $55 million worth of ether, foiled its ambitions. The question of what to do with the remaining funds cleaved the Ethereum developer community KEY TAKEAWAYS The DAO ICO in 2016 and subsequent hack raised red flags related to crypto...