Group items tagged

Uniswap smart contracts hold liquidity reserves of various tokens, and trades are executed directly against these reserves. Prices are set automatically using the constant product market maker mechanism, which keeps overall reserves in relative equilibrium. Reserves are pooled between a network of liquidity providers who supply the system with tokens in exchange for a proportional share of transaction fees. The Uniswap Exchange is an opensource front-end interface for traders and liquidity providers to easily interact with Uniswap's smart contracts."

"We present Hamilton, a transaction processor for CBDC that provides high throughput, low latency, and fault tolerance, and that minimizes data stored in the transaction processor and provides flexibility for multiple types of programmability and a variety of roles for financial intermediaries. Hamilton does so by decoupling the steps of transaction validation so only the validating layer needs to see the details of a transaction, and by co-designing the transaction format with a simple version of a two-phase-commit protocol, which efficiently applies state updates in parallel. An evaluation shows Hamilton achieves 1.7M transactions per second in a geo-distributed setting."

The mission of the The Linux Foundation's Open Wallet Foundation (OWF), launched in September 2022, is to develop an open source engine to enable secure and interoperable multi-purpose wallets anyone can use to build solutions. The OWF aims to develop open source software, key building blocks, and best practices that anyone can use to build multi-platform, interoperable, secure, and privacy-protecting digital wallets that will support a wide variety of applications from identity credential to payments. The OWF community is currently working on its governance and structure with the goal of launching in early 2023.

"A few months ago, the Linux Foundation (LF) announced its intent to launch the Open Wallet Foundation (OWF) in early 2023. The OWF aims to develop open source software, key building blocks, and best practices that anyone can use to build multi-platform, interoperable, secure, and privacy-protecting digital wallets that will support a wide variety of applications from identity credential to payments. "

Hedera has become a founding premier member of the Linux Foundation's newly launched decentralized trust initiative, and contributed its entire source code, including its hashgraph consensus algorithm and all core services, tools and libraries, to the Foundation. The contribution, which forms the new project "Hiero," aims to allow developers to collaborate on decentralized trust technologies globally under an open-source framework.

The Digital Euro Association (DEA) published a paper that I contributed to on the opportunities and challenges of using open-source software (OSS) in central bank digital currency (CBDC) development. The use of OSS could be crucial in building trust and transparency within CBDC projects, especially for retail CBDCs in regions where consumers and advocacy groups have resisted their implementation. By making the source code publicly available, central banks can facilitate independent verification of the software's functionality, which could help to address concerns around privacy and surveillance. By analyzing successful case studies and industry best practices, this report seeks to guide central banks in making informed decisions about OSS adoption.

The World Bank published a paper that examines the use of open-source software (OSS) in the context of fast payment systems (FPSs), as well as relevant implementation models, risks, benefits, and costs. It identified only one live FPS using OSS for core functionalities, but interest is growing among payment system operators, particularly in initiatives such as Mojaloop. Moreover, some FPS operators may choose to use OSS for non-core components, making it crucial for both operators and regulators to be aware of the potential impacts that OSS may have, both positive and negative, on the overall efficiency and resilience of FPSs. While OSS offers advantages, such as cost savings from reduced licensing fees and the flexibility to customize systems, it also presents challenges. For example, institutions need significant in-house expertise for customization, maintenance, and operation and must align their long-term FPS goals with the chosen open-source solutions to ensure adaptability and scalability.

The Linux Foundation published an updated report on how its open-source distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are powering central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives globally. It explains the advantages of open source development for CBDC projects, emphasizing transparency, collaboration, and the adaptability of community-driven solutions. The paper also showcases projects using Hyperledger Fabric, Besu, Iroha, and other tools across various implementation stages-from research (European Central Bank, France, Norway) to pilots (India, Brazil, Philippines) to live deployments (Nigeria, Eastern Caribbean). These implementations demonstrate how open-source blockchain technologies can improve payment efficiency, enhance security, enable programmability through smart contracts, and support financial inclusion.