What if governments concede that it's both impossible and unnecessary to formally identify poor people at the on and off-ramps? What if they accepted an AML model that treats the endpoints as unidentified nodes and, drawing on these new analytic tools, actively managed access to networks based on behavior not identity? Here, ongoing research in machine learning and high-performance computing by the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab in collaboration with Elliptic could be a catalyst.
Hedera is a public ledger that uses hashgraph consensus, touted by the company as a faster, more secure alternative to blockchain consensus mechanisms. Hashgraph claims to achieve high-throughput with 10,000-plus cryptocurrency transactions per second, and low-latency finality in seconds from its "innovative gossip about gossip protocol" and virtual voting. Once consensus is reached, the data is added to the public ledger for everyone to see.
Elliptic collaborated with MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab researchers using machine learning software to analyze 203,769 bitcoin node transactions worth roughly $6 billion in total. They found that only 2% of the 200,000 bitcoin transactions in the data set were deemed illicit, although roughly 77 percent remained unclassified.
Hyperledger is a collective of open-source blockchains and tools hosted by the Linux Foundation and aimed at enabling enterprises to create their own distributed ledgers. Because Hyperledger is open-source, others can freely build on top of it. Large-scale enterprises such as IBM, Walmart and Fujitsu have developed projects using Hyperledger."
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI), via its Informatics and Services Corporation (ISC) and in conjunction with Areatak - a Tehran-based blockchain solutions provider - is developing a national blockchain project for its banking and financial sector.
The InterWork Alliance (IWA) launched operations as a platform-neutral, non-profit organization dedicated to creating the standards frameworks needed to increase innovation across token-enabled ecosystems. The new organization already has 36 members, including tech firms such as Accenture, IBM, and Microsoft; banking and exchange firms ING, Nasdaq, SDX, and UBS; and, blockchain companies Digital Asset, Neo Global Development, Hedera Hashgraph and R3.
A consortium of institutions led by Euroclear have completed a test run of the use of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) for settling French treasury bonds on a blockchain. The experiment, using technology from IBM and commissioned by the Banque de France included Agence France Trésor, BNP Paribas CIB, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, Societe Generale. The trial is part of a wider Banque de France initiative commissioned in March 2020, to test the integration of a central bank digital currency for the exchange and settlement of tokenised financial assets between financial intermediaries.
The Banque de France in partnership with HSBC and IBM demonstrated the use of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) to enable transactions across borders and technology platforms whilst facilitating the lifecycle of digital assets and currencies in wholesale markets. A combined proof of concept tested the issuance and distribution of a CBDC, bond subscription in primary and secondary markets followed by coupon redemption, and execution of cross border and cross network payments. It proved that each transaction flowed correctly through the network of systems, automatically triggering the required events, whilst retaining visibility and control over the CBDC in circulation.
The cross-border payment applications of Ripple, JPM Coin, and World Wire aim mainly at financial and enterprise institutions. None are designed for the other side of the market.
Cached
