Walmart and IBM team up to track shrimp using blockchain

Walmart has announced a pilot to track shrimp imports from India to the USA using blockchain technology.

The retail giant plans to track shrimp imports between Andhra Pradesh, a gorgeous coastal region in India’s southeast, and U.S.-based retail warehouses, using blockchain technology developed by IBM. It will feature “end-to-end traceability,” according to a press release issued Friday.

“The introduction of blockchain in the shrimp supply chain could help improve the quality of information on the product for compliance purposes and for sharing with consumers, providing added traceability beginning at the farm and extending throughout the transportation process,” the company said.

The system will be available only to small-time farmers enrolled in Walmart’s membership-only retail warehouse chain Sam’s Club, whose food-safety program requires compliance with international best aquaculture practices (BAP). Walmart will provide funding for smallholder farmers in Andhra Pradesh to receive BAP training as part of the scheme.

Samson Mow: Bitcoin is just the beginning for the Lightning Network

Samson Mow is feeling very confident about the Lightning Network. While the Blockstream chief strategy officer seemingly spends most of his time posting travel pics on Twitter—he’s also a keen watcher of bitcoin, and in particular, the Lightning Network, aka the layer-two scaling solution. 

In an exclusive interview with Decrypt, the long-time Bitcoin veteran told us why the underlying tech powering Lightning could be just as pivotal to help deliver better scalability to a whole host of tokenized digital assets out in the wild today, not just bitcoin.

Despite Mow’s bullishness over the Lighting Network’s growth over the last 12 months, he did share some concerns about how the network can scale longer term. To test the network, he told us how Blockstream had initiated a project that created a million Lightning channels to stress the network to its full capacity.

Here are the biggest stories in the cryptoverse:

• Hong Kong regulators issue crypto guidance amidst fiat crisis. 
• McAfee to launch decentralized exchange.  
• Traders can now make bets on Libra's launch date.
• Y-Combinator and Bitmain invest $10 million in blockchain network NuCypher.

Venezuela’s largest retail chain opens its first Bitcoin ATM

What you need to know

Venezuela, for all its troubles, is making a strong push to become a leading “crypto state”— so much so that even its socialist government is fully embracing Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Now, the country’s largest retail chain, Traki—already a pioneer within the country in terms of adopting crypto as a means of payment—is going yet another step further.

Why it's important

The Venezuelan department store announced on Thursday that CriptoTraki—a division of the chain that’s in charge of all things crypto for the business—successfully installed a Bitcoin ATM in one of its stores. The Bitcoin ATM went live on Friday.

The crypto ATM is located at a Traki store in the El Recreo mall and will be managed by the Venezuelan exchange platform VEINTE (Venezolana de Intercambios). The machine, however, is currently only unidirectional—meaning that, right now, customers can only buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from the machine, but are not yet able to trade them for cash.

What to do when your crypto's been stolen

Crypto’s so secure, they said. So trustless, so safe. You are your own bank. Well, now the bank’s been robbed and you’ve turned to Decrypt, perhaps the only thing there is left to trust in this broken world.

Perhaps someone hacked into your exchange account and bled your account dry; perhaps you sent crypto to someone posing as someone else, perhaps the company you invested in turned out to be a scam, and made off with the cash? 

Read more here.