DAY LONG NEWS ROUNDUP: LATEST NEWS 17/12/21

• Avinandan Banerjee
• December 17, 2021

Finding it hard to keep a track of all the latest buzz around crypto? Then, this portal is here to solve all your crypto-related concerns. We have tried to assemble the most important news of crypto space so that you can keep a tab on everything without any trouble, take a look:

 

HSBC Teams with IBM To Test Multi-ledger CBDC Project

Technology and software giant IBM along with global payment settlement provider HSBC has successfully tested an advanced digital token and decentralized wallet settlement solution between two CBDCs in a hybrid cloud ecosystem. The experiment explored the end-to-end transactional capacity of the two CBDCs involved namely, eBonds and forex. This high potential testing was designed and implemented within a four-month span where IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric and R3’s Corda served as the required facilitators of the distributed ledgers used for processing the transactions.

As per the announcement, the entire project was supervised by Banque de France as part of its constant support for CBDC-powered experiments. The central bank has been at the forefront in supporting various tests and trials focused on the digital Euro. The demo was run in a hybrid cloud environment which included both public and private cloud clusters along with on-premise data resources.

The managing director of GFX e-risk, partnerships, and propositions at HSBC, Mark Williamson stated that testing interoperability across multiple decentralized ledgers was the main focus of the experiment. The teams were willing to see the use of such distributed technologies in reducing time, market risks, and improving security between central banks, commercial banks, and customers. A similar reaction was given by Likhit Wagle, general manager of global banking and financial markets at IBM. The chief is confident that the experiment will provide the groundwork for central banks willing to explore CBDCs for better transparency across the financial field.

The recent months have seen a rise in the popularity of CBDCs and authorities consider them to be a good substitute for stablecoins. Regulatory authorities fear that stablecoins hinder financial growth. The experiments conducted by the central banks including Project Atom CBDC by Australian Reserve Bank, Eastern Caribbean CBDC, Kazakhstan pilot on CBDC, etc. have successfully proved the potential of such digital currency projects in revamping the financial industry.

 

 

ConsenSys Unveils Rollups To Strengthen Privacy for Ethereum Users

ConsenSys, the prominent Ethereum software company using blockchain as a tool for DApp developers, has launched enterprise software solution ConsSys Rollups in support of Mastercard. With this launch, ConsenSys is introducing Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof technology to facilitate privacy-specific transactions for customers. The newly-launched service will help to protect some core transaction values including account balances, wallet addresses of the participating parties, and involved amounts to ensure high-end security and privacy for the Ethereum environment.

The Rollups feature will provide support for privacy-enabled CBDCs, decentralized exchanges, micropayments, and taxes seamlessly. The engineering experts of Mastercard played an important role in designing the project. The use of Zero-knowledge proofs facilitates the verification of private encrypted data, including personal information, by participating nodes without compromising with the information. These techniques have gained immense popularity in recent years as they tend to eliminate the risk of data tracking by blockchain firms like Chainalysis.  

Talking about the project, Madeline Murray, global chief of protocol engineering at ConsenSys stated that the Rollups feature offers higher scalability to the channel. The service provides improved privacy standards to existing as well as new use-cases. The team is looking forward to reforming the financial space with the ConsSys Rollups project. The executive VP of digital assets and blockchain and partnerships at Mastercard, Raj Dhamodharan conveyed that ConsenSys will help the team to proliferate more in the digital asset industry.

 

Global Universities Team with BitDAO to create EduDAO for Research Technology

Working as one of the biggest decentralized autonomous entities, BitDAO has announced the launch of EduDAO to promote research in blockchain and Web 3.0 technologies. This highly-anticipated project will be created with the collaborative efforts of BitDAO’s partner firm Mirana Ventures and eight top universities from across the globe. The institutes that will support EduDAO in nurturing academic research work include MIT, Harvard, Oxford University, University of California Berkeley, etc.

According to the report, BitDAO treasury will finance EduDAO by providing assistance of $11 million every year towards the project. The fund collected will be used towards project grants, research, and standalone project development with an initial capital investment of $33 million. The project aims to utilize the money in supporting academic research programs for advanced technologies like blockchain and Web 3.0.

John Allen of Mirana Ventures stated that the most useful products and solutions are being given a shape at the university level at present. With this collaboration, the firm is looking forward to achieving higher standards of growth in development and innovation. The students and teachers will get sufficient supply of capital to fuel their projects. The co-presidents of the Harvard Blockchain Club, Roman Ugarte and Virat Talwar shared positive views on the EduDAO project. The spearheads see the shifting of power to a decentralized authority as a revolutionary change for Harvard. The deputy director for UC Berkeley’s Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence, Jocelyn Weber Phipps said that the team is elated to be a part of EduDAO.