Weekly Crypto Recap 12 May 2018

Chinese Government Wants to Release Standards Rules for Blockchain
While cryptocurrencies remain outlawed in China, officials also realize that blockchain technology holds promise for the economy. As a result, a dedicated working group will handle development of the project to release hard-and-fast standards rules for blockchain by the end of 2019.

Michael Novogratz Joins Forces with Bloomberg to Launch Cryptocurrency Index
Former Wall Street executive Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency merchant bank, Galaxy Digital LP, has struck a strategic partnership deal with Bloomberg to create a cryptocurrency index called the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI). The all-new index would “track the performance” of ten established cryptos on the market, including bitcoin, ethereum, EOS, monero, and ripple.

Ripple: XRP Pilot Cuts Payment Fees Up to 70%
The distributed ledger startup Ripple published the results of its xRapid pilot programs which stated that pilot-takers saw significant savings on fees as well as overall transaction times. Transactions across borders only took a few minutes, compared to a period of several days for traditional payments of that kind.

Oracle to Offer Blockchain Products
The world's second largest software company will unveil a platform-as-a-service product this month, and decentralized ledger-based applications next month. They are working with Banco de Chile to log inter-bank transactions on a hyper ledger. According to Bloomberg, Oracle’s products will also be pitched to pharmaceutical companies for the management of medicine supply chains.