SpaceChain shoots blockchain to space; Cardano’s bridge to China | The Daily Forkast

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, June 2nd, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News. Let’s get you up to speed from Asia to the world.

Our first story is a little out of this world — literally. SpaceChain, a Singapore startup is sending its Blockchain technology all the way up to the International Space Station.

The company’s node, which will store blockchain data, is set to blast off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this week, Thursday. The mission — to develop the company’s smart contract capabilities and explore offering extra secure services for customers like digital banks.

“Now, because the commercial space is really coming up and the cost of our launch has dropped significantly. And so it leaves a lot of room for innovation and for entrepreneurs like us to make it happen.”

Blackouts on Earth, internet disruptions or intentional or accidental outages is risk that having blockchain node in space actually insures against.

“Where it would have a very significant role is in the supply chain to track resources in space programs and projects which tend to be very large skilled.”

In this case, it can also be the ultimate backup for the world’s data.

And coming back down to Earth, Cardano has selected Chinese public blockchain Nervos Network for its first cross-chain bridge. Now, the Nervous Force Bridge will unlock cross-chain transactions for Cardano and Nervos users. And that means ADA and CKB holders can soon transact with one another

“We hope that developers on Nervos can also benefit users from other blockchains.”

Meanwhile, China’s digital fiat ambitions or e-CNY ambitions are intensifying. Once again. Beijing has announced that it will be issuing 200,000 digital red packets filled with e-CNY through a lottery system.

Now, each red packet or envelope — traditionally a cash gift that’s handed out on special occasions or festivals — will contain 200 e-CNY or about US$31. Those who win the CNY drop will have about nine days to use the money at nearly 2,000 designated merchants in the city.

All right. Catching up with Bitcoin up by over a percent today, trading over US$37,000 as of 4:00 pm local Hong Kong time at the end of the Asian broader trading day.

And in the top ten for cryptocurrency — Dogecoin heading up after a Coinbase Pro listing today, up 22%. The rest of the top ten in green today. And finally this and fees are continuing to make a splash in more ways than one. As more exchanges this week started throwing their weight behind these assets.

India-based WazirX announced the launch of its NFT marketplace on Monday. So far, it’s received over 15,000 applications, it says, from creators and collectors. Meanwhile, over in Korea, South Korea’s Korbit also launched what they say is the country’s first NFT platform on Monday.

And from Taiwan, singer and actor Vanness Wu of globally renowned boyband F4 — he’s inviting fans to submit selfies to create an NFT collage for charity. I had a chance to speak with him earlier this week.

“It’s this nostalgia of everything kind of is taken away. But I like to see how now, the nostalgia of like baseball cards are coming back in a digital form to the next generation.”

Bridging generations, bridging nations and bridging our world to outer space. It seems there isn’t much that isn’t within the reach of blockchain technology, at least today.

That’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.