Canadian-based Jewelry Manufacturer And Retailer Now Accepting Bitcoin

One of the Major Jewelry manufacturer and retailer in Canada has began accepting cryptocurrencies to pay for its items.

Birks Group begun accepting Bitcoin as means of payment through its partnership with BitPay according to press release by the company last November 28.

The Canadian Jewelry company is one of the oldest and well established business in Canada and has been in operating since 1879.

The initiative will be piloted on its 8 biggest retail stores. Once proven effective it will eventually be rolled out to its other 30 stores.

According to its CEO, Jean-Chistophe Bedos the decision to accept bitcoin is of great significance as it will benefit their customers as they look to align themselves with innovative capabilities that are on the forefront of technology.

Bitpay’s chief commercial officer Sonny Singh, states that it makes perfect sense for the Jewelry to accept Bitcoin as it has a lot of international customers.

Goldman Sachs Wants Crypto Custody Before Entering Crypto Markets

The head of digital asset markets at Goldman Sachs, Justin Schmidt has recently stated the importance of a proper crypto custody solution before his company starts entering the market.

He revealed that one of the most often question he usually gets from investors who are interested with the new asset class is the ability of the Bank to hold cryptocurrency for them.

Unfortunately as it stands the bank has not yet released a custody service for Bitcoin or any other crypto.

However, this does not mean that the company is not interested with the new asset class.

In fact it has just invested in a crypto custodial service provider BitGo Holdings Inc.

It was also one of the first to offer clearing for CME and CBOE Bitcoin Futures.

They are even considering offering Bitcoin futures themselves.

Schmidt reveals that their customers are interested and curious with the new asset class but are still wary of the volatility and safe keeping of digital assets.

U.S. FDA Wants To Use Blockchain To Enhance Food Safety

According to news reports, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is mulling over the use of blockchain technology to improve the food safety.

This comes in the wake of an outbreak of E. Coli in United States that was linked to romaine lettuce.

The commissioner of FDA Dr. Scott Gottlieb states that the federal agency has hired the vice president of food safety at Walmart, Frank Yiannas, as its food and veterinary medicine deputy commissioner who will help them develop and use different tools to enable food traceability capabilities.

Yiannas was instrumental in deploying blockchain technology at Walmart.

According the Gottlieb with the use of blockchain technology, it will enable them to pinpoint the origin of the outbreak and help them avoid a blanket warning which affects everyone even when the cause is limited to a particular origin.

Swiss Food Manufacturer Wants To Track Tuna Products Via Blockchain

Gustav Gerig AG, a Swiss Food manufacturer, has become the first European firm to use the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to track fish products according to press release last November 28.

The company has been in operation for almost a century and have recently partnered with Pacifical c.v. to allow its client to certify the origin of is tuna through the use of blockchain technology.

Under this new initiative consumers will be able to scan QR code to find more information about their tuna.

Information that will be indicated in the QR code will be its production date, type of Tuna and the boat that caught the fish.

A Thailand-based blockchain service company, Atato will be implementing the blockchain solutions in partnership with ConsenSys.

It has been a trend now that food supply chains have increasingly turned to blockchain in order to increase fairness, security and transparency.

Nasdag Partners With VanEck To create Digital Asset Products

One of the world’s largest stock exchange Nasdaq and the U.S. investment firm VanEck have recently partnered together to launch what it describe a transparent, regulated and surveilled digital assets products.

This was revealed by VanEck’s director of digital asset strategy Gabor Gurbacs during the Consensus:Invest crypto conference in New York City.

This has corroborated reports that Nasdaq will be rolling out a Bitcoin (BTC) futures contract as early as Q1 2019.

According to Gurbacs, the new product will harness Nasdaq’s SMARTS Market Surveillance system which will be supported by VanEck’s MVIS digital asset pricing indices.

At the time of this writing it has not yet been revealed if the bitcoin future will be cash settled similar to CME and CBOE or Bitcoin-settled which involves the actual purchase of Bitcoins.

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