Philip Morris, the world-renowned tobacco producer is now working on a new ‘’public blockchain’’ as a company executive noted. It is still not really clear what the term exactly means but in the altcoin news below we can try to give an answer. The global head of architecture at Philip Morris Nitin Manoharan noted:

 “We want to do public blockchains’’

To be more specific, the New York-based tobacco company would use this new public blockchain to track tax stamps on cigarette boxes as Manoharan explained. He pointed out that these pieces of paper are valuable since they are worth about $5.50 per packet and are manually dealt with. This means there is an open chance of them being easily counterfeited which later costs the industry $100 million a year. Philip Morris is estimated to be able to save up to $20 million off the bat by implementing an automated process and could even reduce the possibilities of fraud with transparency and traceability. As far as enterprise blockchains are concerned regarding the permissions, the one that Philip Morris will be using, makes the parties participating able to access it easily. Manoharan pointed out:

 “The aspiration is an industry-wide blockchain that interested stakeholders can come in and subscribe to it and benefit from it. If they see no value they can just leave.”

Philip Morris is not creating a cryptocurrency at the end of the day, nor is it building on top of the public ETH blockchain. Manoharan says that the tobacco giant is using the Hyperledger consortium instead. As the latest cryptocurrency news report, tax stamps tracking is only one of the blockchain use cases that the company is exploring in order to develop it further in the following year. Manoharan stated:

 “We view it use case by use case. But, this particular use case, for me it’s a public blockchain use case. I wouldn’t say public for all of them: there are quite a few use cases that are purely internal and need to go through access control etc.”

At the conclusion of the interview about the future of the blockchain technology in Philip Morris, Manoharan said that permissioned blockchains are simple. They have a small opportunity and you can easily achieve anything with the existing infrastructure.

Coinbase engineers were reportedly laid off after the company’s office in Chicago closed despite the market going green. As the coming altcoin news inform, the crypto bear market is still hardly influencing the crypto businesses even after it passed. According to the reports, the shutting down of the office is a signal that the major financial players on the market are not ready to get deep into crypto. About the Coinbase engineers layoffs, an executive from the company stated: “Coinbase has consolidated our matching engine efforts into our San Francisco office. This means we are shutting down the matching engine efforts in the Chicago office. We assembled a talented team there and look to relocate a number of them to San Francisco. We’re incredibly grateful to the Chicago matching engine team for their contributions to Coinbase and have benefited from their unique perspectives and skill sets.” The Chicago office was initially opened in May 2018 but just under a year now, the office is closed. The best cryptocurrency news sites headlines all write the same thing: What went wrong and why are the Coinbase engineers getting fired? The major trading platform makes its money from trading fees. This means that when the volume is higher, the more money the exchanges make. However, something didn’t go as planned and the company announced that high-frequency trading is not a priority anymore. This is one of the reasons why about 30 coinbase engineers are now getting fired, most of whom upgraded the back-end systems of the platform. The company also announced its regret for having to fire the coinbase engineers. The question still remains why the company decided to open the Chicago office in the first place. The president of the San Francisco-based company said that the team had managed to boost the trading platform. However, many in the community believe that the company got greedy. High-frequency trading companies make up to half of the daily volume traded on the US market. The trading company struggled to live up to its name especially since Binance has taken huge steps ahead. The Company was condemned by the crypto community after the Neutrino scandal where they hired an ex-hacking expert who sold technology to repressive regime governments. Despite the expansion to 11 countries in Asia and Latin America, the company still had to lay off the hardworking Coinbase engineers.

Euro poll conducted by bitFlyer Europe shows that most of the Europeans believe that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. However, the data that reached our latest cryptocurrency news shows that about 55 percent believe that Bitcoin will be overtaken by other cryptocurrencies. The Euro poll surveyed about 10,000 individuals in ten European countries and it showed that only 55 percent of the participants believe that bitcoin will still be around. Most of them are less confident about bitcoin and believe that other cryptocurrencies will have a brighter future. It seems that the sharp bear market has destroyed the consumer’s confidence in digital assets. During the crypto winter, the market shed off about $700 billion in market cap. This is one of the reasons why the Euro poll participants remain skeptic about the success of cryptocurrencies. For example, people living in Norway were most optimistic according to the Euro poll data where nearly 73 percent of the participants expressed their confidence that cryptocurrencies will still exist in the next ten years. Eve France, as the least optimistic crypto nation, reported that the majority of the people believe that crypto will be here. When announcing the Euro Poll results, the bitFlyer COO stated:

 “These results indicate that the reputation of cryptocurrency has moved beyond hype and become more established. It’s very easy to forget just how new cryptocurrencies still are; we’ve only just celebrated bitcoin’s 10th birthday, so for the majority of consumers to believe in crypto’s future is without a doubt an achievement.”

The most surprising outcome of the Euro Poll survey is that consumers are losing their confidence in Bitcoin. About 50 percent of the respondents believe that Bitcoin will still exist in the next ten years but about 63 percent don’t share the same opinion. This could be a result of the negative press including the reports on exchange hacks and investment losses. Of course, the number one cryptocurrency is always to one to be hit the hardest. The Euro Poll confirms that cryptocurrencies are here to stay in the next ten years. One crypto hedge fund founder wants to bet his house on it. Also, as previously reported in our altcoin news, Anthony Pompliano is willing to stake $1 million bet that crypto will outperform the S&P 500.

Samsung Electronics, the Korean tech giant is secretly exploring the ETH-based ERC20 token in order to develop its own mainnet. According to the coming altcoin news from Korea, the blockchain task force of the company has tested multiple versions of the ETH blockchain protocol. The information from Coindesk Korea and the Hankyoreh crypto media outlet write that the Samsung Electronics Company formed a blockchain task force in order to test the few versions of the ETH based blockchain protocols. A source explained:

 “Blockchain task force made several models and are evaluating [them]. There are already several platforms that are functioning after some internal tests.’’

The report also shows that two months after Samsung Electronics introduced the Samsung Blockchain Wallet, the company decides to develop its own mainnet. The company introduced the ERC20 wallet that is now featured on the new Galaxy S10 smartphone. When the Samsung Electronics tech giant first released the crypto wallet early in February, investors were really held back by the fact that the device does not provide support for a bitcoin wallet service and is mostly focused on Ethereum. Samsung Electronics pointed out:

 “Galaxy S10 is built with defense-grade Samsung Knox, as well as a secure storage backed by hardware, which houses your private keys for blockchain-enabled mobile services.’’

Some also believed that the motive behind Samsung Electronics implementing a crypto wallet is the reason that HTC failed to integrate a fully functioning crypto wallet feature. If the tech giant is currently developing an ERC20 token and a new blockchain protocol, then it is possible for the company to integrate a crypto wallet and an easy-to-use platform. Companies in South Korea, as the altcoin news show, are not allowed to issue token via ICOs. This means that investors cannot invest in domestic ICO projects so they had to move to overseas companies in order to conduct private token sales. For a company like Samsung Electronics, going around the local regulations was not an option. An insider for the company told the local news:

‘’Currently the company is considering a private blockchain with a B2B approach but nothing is set in stone. In the long-term, the company could shift to a public blockchain but as of now, the company is likely to go with a public and private hybrid-type blockchain.’’