11FS Blockchain Consultancy Seeks $100 Million

Last November, Mitchell Bourne, with the aid of the Bitcoin Consultancy, organized a highly successful Bitcoin conference in Prague, featuring speakers from both inside the Bitcoin community, like We Use Coins creator and BitcoinJS developer Stefan Thomas and Bitcoin Consultancy member Amir Taaki, and outside of it, like Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge and digital money theorist David Birch. This year, the Bitcoin Consultancy intends to hold a conference again on 15-16 September, this time in London. The last conference was held in Prague because the venue was less expensive and it was....

A member of the Barclays blockchain team has revealed to Business Insider he will be departing the UK banking giant to join a FinTech consultancy called 11:FS. Simon Taylor, formerly VP of entrepreneurial partnerships at Barclays, will depart the bank on 24th June. Taylor has long been one of the bank’s more outspoken members on matters relating to distributed ledgers and blockchain, frequently opined on the subject on social media and in published posts. Taylor told CoinDesk his role will be to consult and educate banks on blockchain tech and advising the company's planned investment....

One of India's biggest IT services firms is pursuing a wide range of potential blockchain applications. N Chandrasekaran, CEO of Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), remarked on that work during an interview with Indian newspaper The Economic Times. According to the transcript, Chandrasekaran said that the firm is involved in "more than 100" blockchain prototypes, the result of a process that has played out over the past year and a half. He remarked: "Companies are doing this differently, in different pieces. If you take financial services, there is a lot of excitement about....

A new investment fund is seeking to raise as much as $100m over the next two years to fuel investments in the blockchain space. Founded by financial technology consultant Chris Skinner and Singapore-based venture capital firm Life.Sreda, the Banking on Blockchain Fund is hoping to raise $50m by year's end, with an additional $50m to be raised by the end of 2017. Life.Sreda, whose portfolio focuses primarily on FinTech and payments, has committed $5m thus far, according to a report by Financial News. Those involved with the new initiative include Thomas Labenbacher, who will serve as....

As Accenture files a patent prototype that would allow changes to be made to the blockchain in ‘exceptional circumstances’ the consultancy firm has come under criticism. Earlier this month, Richard Lumb, global head of financial services at consultancy firm Accenture, wrote a column in the New York Times discussing the immutable ledger of transactions through the blockchain. According to Lumb, while the permanence of the blockchain has been vital in building trust among the people who use it, its usefulness can be limited in financial services. Lumb adds that the blockchain technology....