Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 15 November 2017
Following on from yesterday’s (14 November) news, here’s our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up. Featuring Trustology, Accenture, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Association of Banks in Singapore, Square and London Block Exchange.
Another day, another new firm. Trustology has emerged from stealth and revealed it is building a peer-to-peer network of smart contract compute services. Trusted entities are permissioned to operate individual nodes, which host fiduciary applications such as asset custody, corporate treasury and fund administration solutions. Each node runs an Ethereum-based instance of Trustology’s Contract-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform.
Its founder and CEO is Alex Batlin, who was the global head of emerging business and technology team, and the global blockchain lead at BNY Mellon. Previously, he worked as senior innovation manager at UBS, and was involved in that bank’s crypto 2.0 pathfinder research programme into blockchain. It’s very early days for Trustology as it’s advertising for a variety of developers.
News from Phase 2 of Project Ubin in Singapore
Accenture, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) have published a report on the outcome of Phase 2 of Project Ubin. As reported last month, this 13-week project was to develop software prototypes for improved payments on blockchain.
The report is based on the results of a “successful” prototype involving nearly a dozen banks and three blockchain technology platforms – Corda, Hyperledger Fabric and Quorum – that were tested in parallel. According to Accenture, the test confirmed that real-time gross settlement (RTGS) functionalities such as gridlock resolution and a liquidity-saving mechanism on a decentralised system work. It adds: “Crucially, the test proved, perhaps for the first time, that blockchain-based designs can also effectively preserve privacy in such transactions.”
US mobile point-of-sale firm Square is testing support for Bitcoin through its Cash payments app. TechCrunch first reported the news, citing a Twitter user.
That’s pretty much it for now, as a Square spokesperson told CNBC: “We’re exploring how Square can make this experience faster and easier, and have rolled out this feature to a small number of Cash app customers.” Let’s see what happens later.
In the UK, the London Block Exchange (LBX) has unveiled a new cryptocurrency card, allowing people to use a linked Visa card to “spend cryptocurrencies anywhere that card payments are accepted”. The platform will allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using a smartphone app and trading interface.
It’s called the LBX Dragoncard and LBX founder and CEO Benjamin Dives says: “If a shop accepts Visa, it now accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin or Ripple.”
