Financial authorities in France and Singapore are actively exploring the cross-border applications of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In a joint announcement on Thursday, the Bank of France and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said that they successfully completed a whole cross-border payment and settlement experiment using CBDCs and blockchain technology. The CBDC experiment was conducted with support and expertise from JPMorgan's digital currency-focused Onyx division on a permissioned, privacy-enabled blockchain based on the investment bank's Quorum blockchain infrastructure. As part of the experiment, the Bank of France and MAS simulated cross-border and cross-currency transactions for a Singapore dollar-based …

Just as the cryptocurrency sector is constantly changing and evolving, the enterprise blockchain industry has been undergoing its fair share of developments lately. Most recently, enterprise blockchain solutions are shifting from private, closed networks to public, open systems. This has largely been made possible due to advances from the Ethereum network, which are ensuring better privacy, scalability, throughput and more for enterprise clients. A new industry analysis report demonstrates this shift, noting that the global blockchain technology market size is expected to reach $72 billion by 2026, rising at a market growth of 51.8% CAGR during the forecast period. Interestingly …

Banking giant Citigroup has successfully completed a proof-of-concept for blockchain-based cross-border payments in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, or IADB. According to a Thursday announcement, Citigroup’s Citi Innovation Labs and the IADB enabled several disbursements from the United States to a recipient in the Dominican Republic, using the LACChain blockchain network — a proprietary effort by IADB’s regional program LACChain. As part of the project, the IADB deposited tokenized funds denominated in U.S. dollars in a Citi account and transferred the funds using digital wallets, IADB’s blockchain specialist and LACChain technical leader Marcos Allende explained. “After tokenized, these funds …

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) — the United States’ largest bank — is reportedly poised to release an open-source extension that enhances the privacy of payment mechanisms on Ethereum-based blockchains. The development was reported by crypto media outlet Coindesk on May 28. The new tool has reportedly been designed as an extension to the Zether protocol. As reported, Zether is a privacy-focused payment mechanism that is compatible with Ethereum and other smart contract platforms. The protocol uses zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology and was developed by researchers from Stanford University and Visa Research earlier this year. JPM reportedly plans to release its extension …