| 1. Blockstream raises $55m
Blockstream has raised $55m in Series A funding, bringing its total capital raised to $76m over two investment rounds. Blockstream’s round was led by AXA Strategic Ventures, the venture arm of insurance firm AXA Group; Japanese online payments firm Digital Garage; and Hong Kong VC firm Horizons Ventures.
Comments from participating venture capital firms suggest the message that the bitcoin blockchain will be able to compete against alternatives for commercial applications.
(CoinDesk) Dan Elitzer and the IDEO Futures team look at recent challenges facing bitcoin, and express their belief that bitcoin and blockchain still hold much promise. Most problems facing the technology, they say, have arisen because of bitcoin's rising popularity and are more growing pains than a death knell.
(CoinDesk) JPMorgan Chase has teamed up with Digital Asset Holdings on a trial blockchain initiative that aims to make the trading process more efficient and cost effective. Several uses of the technology are to be examined, including addressing liquidity mismatches in loan funds. (FT, CoinDesk) Mike Gault states that blockchain technology faces daunting institutional challenges that make near-term success unlikely.
(TechCrunch, @mgault)
Blockchain analogy of the week
"The engine supplanted the horse; it did not make horses faster."
This week, Saifedean Ammous, assistant professor of economics at the Lebanese-American University, compared banks' blockchain investigations akin to placing an engine onto a horse.
"Despite banks' attempts to test and use blockchain technology for their own commercial gain, it is outside the realm of possibility for the technology to serve any useful purpose for the intermediaries it was designed to replace. That is akin to burdening horses with engines in the name of technological innovation: the approach would only slow down the horse and alleviate none of its problems. Such a ridiculous notion will find no real world demand." | 
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