Bitcoin Daily: SIMBA Chain Lands $1.5M Blockchain Contract From US Air Force; Centra Tech Co-Founder Pleads In Crypto Fraud Case

The U.S. Air Force has granted blockchain firm SIMBA Chain a $1.5 million check to help create a new blockchain for supply logistics in the next two years, according to Coindesk.com.

The South Bend, Indiana-based company will now also be partnering with Boeing as it moves into the next phase of its research in investigating blockchain’s potential for military supply value. The company has been doing this since 2017 when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency granted it funding the first time.

The military’s need for tracking its multi-part, expensive operations has only increased with the introduction of 3D printing, according to Coindesk. The goal of using blockchain is to hopefully cultivate a reliable source of information, documenting every data point necessary to keep track of the supply chain.

Robert Farkas, the 33-year-old co-founder of crypto project Centra Tech, has pleaded guilty in court to conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud, Coindesk reported.

The project, which centered on a crypto debit card reportedly with 38 state money transmitter licenses, was backed by celebrity voices like music producer DJ Khaled and boxer Floyd Mayweather.

But Farkas admitted on Tuesday (June 16) that he and his partners intended to defraud investors out of more than $25 million. He could face up to 10 years in prison.

Kazakhstan authorities are expecting to attract 300 million tenge, or $738 billion, in cryptocurrency and investments in digital mining, according to Askar Zhumagaliyev, the country’s Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry.

Addressing the Senate, Zhumagaliyev spoke of the potential of digital currencies, with a bill on the floor forbidding the issue and circulation of unsecured ones unless specified otherwise. Zhumagaliyev said the form was attracting attention worldwide, and that Kazakhstan could expect to see more digital currency work on top of the 14 current operations already in the country.

In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Development Bank Group is developing a new blockchain-based smart credit management system.

The bank’s Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) will be working with Samsung-backed blockchain provider BLOCKO. The system is working to address the problems in Islamic banks’ operations, which don’t charge interest, rather issuing a late fee that they reportedly donate to charity.

The new blockchain-based credit system, according to the E24P regional consortium launched by BLOCKO, will be more transparent in terms of how credit is handled.