LETTING GO: Banking giant JPMorgan Chase may soon merge its Quorum blockchain project with ConsenSys, the ethereum-focused software developer and investor. Anonymous Reuters sources said while the terms of the deal are still not agreed, the merger might happen within the next six months. Full story
MINERS AT WAR: Just four years ago, two lifelong friends turned a small investment into what's thought to be North America's largest crypto miner. Now the former friends are warring over the company's future, with one founder seeking dissolution of the firm and liquidation of its assets. Full story
SPINOFF BENEFITS: Enterprise blockchain is a catalyst for further spending at Big Blue, according to Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s vice president of blockchain technologies. “When you look at the direct attribution of the actual dollars spent on blockchain, we are seeing that for every dollar spent, $15 is spent on other cloud services,” said Cuomo. Full story
BLOCKCHAIN PLUNGE: One of the oldest banks in Europe, Munich-based Bank von der Heydt, is developing a special-purpose euro stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain to facilitate private placements in tokenized securities. Full story
FEELING OPTIMISTIC: Optimism, a startup previously known as Plasma, is creating a transaction layer similar to bitcoin’s Lightning Network to increase the number of people who can use smart contracts on ethereum. Full story
FALL FIRST? Bitcoin's broader uptrend is still valid despite Monday's sudden fall from $10,200. Though prices rebounded past the five-figure mark, short duration charts are indicating buyer exhaustion. A move below $9,075 would invalidate the bullish setup. Full story
SETTING PRECEDENT? Last week, Blockstack announced a proposal to reward node operators in bitcoin. In the latest episode of The Breakdown, Muneeb Ali, the firm's chief executive, discusses how this move may influence how the crypto industry looks at security and incentives. Listen in
CORRECTION: Yesterday's edition of BlockchainBites erroneously referred to Andy Bromberg as CEO of CoinList. Bromberg's correct title is Cofounder and President.
ConsenSys Quorum