A press release late last week announced that blockchain startup SIMBA Chain has been awarded a five-year, $9.5 million contract with the U.S. Navy "to deploy a secure, blockchain-based messaging and transaction platform, a critical need of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)." The contract is a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract that is a follow-on to an earlier contract for a working prototype. In the Phase III contract, SIMBA Chain "will focus on commercialization and full-scale implementation of the platform."

In other enterprise news, a major U.S. bank and a leading U.S. blockchain development firm are reportedly engaged in discussions related to a potential merger between the blockchain development firm, which focuses on Ethereum applications, and the bank's unit focused on the Quorum blockchain. According to another recent report, Hedera Hashgraph, an emerging proof-of-stake public/permissioned network, has selected the cloud service of a major U.S.-based technology firm to deploy its Hedera network. As part of the announcement, Hedera Hashgraph revealed that the cloud service provider has also joined the Hedera Governing Council, which governs the ongoing development of the Hedera network.

Finally, the Food Trust announced that it has onboarded a new member to its blockchain-based food traceability consortium. The new member is described as "the French market leader in the vegetable oil and protein industry." In recent comments, a vice president at the major global technology company that runs the Food Trust noted that blockchain is "driving additional spend" in other technologies. The VP was quoted as saying, "When you look at the direct attribution of the actual dollars spent on blockchain, we are seeing that for every dollar spent, $15 is spent on other cloud services."

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