Technologies related to the blockchain, the distributed-ledger technology that underlies Bitcoin infrastructure, has seen a great deal of attention the past year and many more ventures involved continue to appear. This week, Microsoft’s Azure cloud service is adding several more partners to its Blockchain-as-a-Service offerings and SWIFT, better known for facilitating international bank transfers, is looking into blockchain-technology for banking.

Gaming gets a boost from bitcoin integration with Taiwan’s GASH Point wallet service partnering with BitPay and Austria-based Coinimal partnering with Skrill.

Finally: Can we give the search for Satoshi a rest, asks Reason–another year another Satoshi unmasking and it’s certainly doing more harm than good.

Microsoft Azure integrates more Blockchain-as-a-Service platforms

The Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform will add more Blockchain-as-a-Service offerings next year.

According to a blog post from yesterday, December 15, Microsoft is adding Eris Industries, CoinPrism (Pixode Ltd) and Factom Inc. as partners. Each of these companies produce a Blockchain-related API that can be used by third party developers and now these APIs are accessible via Azure.

Eris allows developers to deploy a custom blockchain for the development of sophisticated legal and financial applications using smart contracts. CoinPrism makes use of the Open Assets Protocol to allow developers to issue and track cryptographic assets using a blockchain (including the Bitcoin blockchain) that can provide an auditable chain of ownership for digital commodities. And Factom has produced applications that use blockchain technology to provide provenance for documents (known as facts) by tying them to an auditable history using cryptographic keys. Factom has previously been in the news for seeking a contract with the government of Honduras to provide a more secure land registry.

The Microsoft Azure BaaS offerings will join already existing partners ConsenSys, which provides Ethereum blockchain services, and Ripple Labs Inc., a company that provides a distributed remittance service.

All of the current Blockchain-as-a-Service offerings are available in the Azure staging area while the Marketplace is being put together, blockchain-related offerings will show up when “bloc” is searched for. Although only two appear at the moment.

SWIFT dives into blockchain-technology as part of new global money transfer initiative

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has set a new initiative to look into using the Bitcoin blockchain to facilitate international bank transfers. According to Duncan Riley at SiliconANGLE this project is known as the Global Payments Innovation Initiative and it is designed to improve experience with correspondent banking “by increasing speed, transparency and predictability of cross-border payments.”

The idea behind GPI is to initially focus on a business-to-business payments amid supported banks by 2016 and then expand to allowing corporations to grow international business by providing same-day-transfers, increased transparency and easier end-to-end tracking of funds.

SWIFT’s interest follows a trend in 2015 for businesses to look to the Bitcoin blockchain as a way to provide faster, safer international transfers and eschew the current fee and delay laden mechanisms.

For example Align Commerce launched a similar service in April of this year and Coins.ph are both outfits seeking to use blockchain-technologies to power cheaper, easier international remittances.

Taiwanese gaming payment card GASH Point enables Bitcoin payments

Today Bitcoin payments processor BitPay, Inc. announced that the company’s newest partnership will help bring Bitcoin to gamers in Asia. BitPay has partnered with GASH Point, a payment platform created by Taiwanese digital media giant Gamania Corporation, provides a reloadable wallet and cash card service for gamers.

GASH Point boasts 10 million customers in Asia and over 3 million transactions per day. This partnership will allow GASH customers in Taiwan and Hong Kong to refill their wallets with bitcoin payments alongside local currencies.

photo credit: Severin Sadjina via photopin cc

NPR story speaks to Bitcoin’s use in the adult sex industry

Due to its taboo and illegal nature in many jurisdictions the adult sex industry faces a great deal of struggle when it comes to receiving payments. NPR ran a story recently about how websites that facilitate prostitution by providing listings, either via advertisement or classified, have faced pressure to stop and that credit payment assessors such as MasterCard and Visa cut off payment avenues. Amid these websites have been Craigslist and Backpage.com–after being pressured Craigslist did shut down forums related to escort services.

When credit agencies such as MasterCard and Visa cut off payments it can cripple customers ability to pay, but digital currencies such as bitcoin payments circumvent this directly by cutting out the middle man.

Ray Youssef is the CEO of Paxful Inc. in New York, a website where users can buy bitcoin, argues that the currency provides more than just a way for adult sex workers to continue their trade. He said to NPR that by striking at the payment gateways to these sites it led people to bitcoin in what he called “the Backpage Effect.” However, Bitcoin is still not easy to interface with for the non-tech savvy and the unbanked (the latter being a prime audience for digital currencies).

In response to the NPR article, a spokesperson for Paxful went to Reddit to comment.

“The people who struggle to pay their bills, who don’t have bank accounts, who pay more to PAY than the rich. These are the ‘invisible classes’ that many people want to ignore but they are all around us and struggling now more than ever,” wrote /u/paxful_bitcoin on Reddit. “We started Paxful because we actually thought bitcoin could help these people. Backpage is a perfect example. Every day we help thousands of people get around the moralistic financial sanctions imposed on them by banks. This makes a very real difference in their lives as they can now feed their families and pay their rent.”

Cover of Newsweek; March 13, 2014

Unmasking Satoshi: Doing more damage than good

The most recent unmasking of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin, led Wired and Gizmodo to post articles about Craig Wright and Dave Klienman, a now-dead American partner of Wright. Although the evidence seemed compelling at the time, it quickly began to unravel under scrutiny.

In the past, other unmaskings of Satoshi have led to other people. In 2014, Newsweek located and pointed to Dorian Nakamoto, who quickly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto–but not before the article led to a great deal of fallout that adversely affected Nakamoto’s health and family. Having articles pointing at Wright certainly have not led to good things for him either, although the raid on his home by the Australian government may not have been related to the articles.

Speaking to these examples, Reason’s Andrea Castillo argues that it’s time to leave Satoshi alone. Satoshi Nakamoto vanished in 2010 after getting the newborn Bitcoin system running since its 2009 launch, and since then the enigma of the inventor’s presence as driven many articles attempting to find him, or her, or them (nobody knows enough about Satoshi to say).

So far the problem has not simply been the search for Satoshi, but the way that media organizations have used the resources at their disposal to unmask the individual involved. In Dorian Nakamoto’s case the unmasking brought the community crashing down on him, the case of Wright it brought a great deal of attention. The common thread: all of the evidence gathered came apart extremely quickly once set in front of people who could identify what they were looking at.

Finding Satoshi may be the scoop of the century in technology and cryptocurrency circles, but shoddy investigation and reporting will doom us all–not to mention the next unintentional victim.

Skrill joins Coinimal to provide enhanced bitcoin payment options to merchants

Austria-based cryptocurrency broker Coinimal GmbH recently announced a partnership with payment provider Skrill (Skrill Holdings Ltd.) to allow for easy bitcoin payments.

As a major e-wallet provider, in operation since 2002, Skrill has become extremely popular service. Skrill allows customers to send and receive money in 41 different currencies and supports a number of major credit cards.

“Skrill doesn’t simply bring a new payment option to the table, although the convenience and reach it offers is very attractive for our customers,” said Coinimal Co-CEO Eric Demuth. “As a global business with a strong reputation, the Paysafe Group only works with the most reliable and safest partners. Consequently, their willingness to integrate with Coinimal is a vote of confidence in our business and our compliance.”

Customers using Coinimal’s fully automated payment platform offers eight different payment options including SEPA transfers, SOFORT, Neteller and PayPal. Users can currently purchase bitcoin, NXT, and Ethereum instantly.

Featured image credit: via Associated Press