Inshorts

Poloniex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced that it will temporarily close its operations for residents of New Hampshire starting October 6, 2016, Due to changes in the state’s regulatory statute covering cryptocurrency.

Lemonade, a New York-based P2P insurance startup, announced it will ask customers to nominate a charity when they buy a policy. It will then pool the premiums of everyone who has chosen the same charity, and pay their claims out of that pool. Anything that is left at the end of the year will go to the charity, reports FT.

Gemini Trading, the bitcoin and ethereum exchange founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, announced its plans to host daily bitcoin auctions.

MyKassa.org, a service of instant payments acceptance for entrepreneurs, announced that it is now also working with Bitcoin and Litecoin payments.

Microsoft announced the next phase of support for blockchain on Microsoft Azure with the launch of an early version of the Bletchley v1 infrastructural substrate. Project Bletchley aims to outline Microsoft’s vision for an open, modular blockchain fabric powered by Azure, and highlights new elements they believe are key in enterprise blockchain architecture.

Synechron, a global financial services consulting and technology services provider, announced the launch of its Blockchain Accelerator Program that includes its first six blockchain applications available in the cloud. These applications enable financial services firms to be up-and-running on a blockchain network or in a ‘sandbox’ environment within weeks. This rapid time-to-market provides a first-mover advantage to firms that leverage blockchain as a revolutionary technology with the potential to change the fundamental economics of their businesses.

BKCM LLC, a global investment management firm, announced the launch of its Productive Asset Record system (PAR.IO), the world's first transparent investment platform. The PAR platform is designed to efficiently create, manage and administer capital pools by combining the strengths of public and private ledgers using blockchain technology.

One of the top-20 accounting and business consulting firms in the nation, Wipfli LLP, was announced to be joining the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world’s largest trade association representing the digital asset and currency industries, to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies.

Santander, Spain’s largest bank, plans to use the Ethereum Blockchain to digitize fiat to tokens. To make that happen, the bank is partnering with EtherCamp, and the Ethereum community, said Roman Mandeleil at Devcon2. According to his statement, Santander will have to make a parallel Ethereum account on the Ethereum network with tokens backed by fiat money for its customers.