A recent study by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a post-trade financial services firm, has found that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is scalable enough to support daily trade volumes of the U.S. equity market, according to a press release published Oct. 16. The blockchain scaling problem is growing along with the increasing popularity and public awareness of cryptocurrencies as there is a risk the technology will not be able to keep up with demand. The largest cryptos Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) use limited sized blocks to process transactions. The more transactions that are performed, the more data …

The Italian Banking Association (ABI) has revealed they successfully passed the initial phase of testing their blockchain-powered interbank system, Italian financial media outlet Ansa reported September 29. By applying distributed ledger technology (DLT), the group of 14 Italian banks is planning to improve interbanking processes. Specifically, the association intends to boost the processing time of operations, increase the transparency of banking information, and enable the verification and exchange of information directly within the application. According to local Italian source Corriere Nazionale, the application of blockchain technology will also assist in specific aspects of banking operations that usually involve a number …

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Joe Lubin has made a $6.5 million investment to secure a minority stake in enterprise distributed ledger (DLT) startup DrumG Technologies, Forbes reports October 1. Lubin’s investment comes via his blockchain startup ConsenSys, and is notable given that DrumG Technologies is headed by senior level executives from the ostensibly rival blockchain consortium R3. Lubin will reportedly join as an outside member on DrumG’s board of directors, and reciprocally, DrumG will have a "significant presence" within the ConsenSys ecosystem. As Forbes notes, DrumG was founded in response to a potential tension in the nascent blockchain space, as developers …

Blockchain consortium R3 has deployed a digital ID application developed by Dutch digital security company Gemalto on the latest version of the Corda Platform, according to an announcement published September 18. Corda is an open-source blockchain-powered platform developed for financial establishments by R3 in collaboration with more than 200 of its partners. The platform is geared to work within finance to operate massive transactional volumes and restrict access to transaction data. The parties expect to conduct several pilots of the application — called the Trust ID Network — that will reportedly be launched later this year. Per the announcement, Trust …

The Saudi British Bank (SABB) has become the first Saudi bank to join enterprise software firm and global banking consortium R3’s blockchain ecosystem, local news outlet Trade Arabia reports today, September 11. SABB enjoys a strong reputation, having reportedly been named by Global Finance magazine as the “Best Trade Finance Bank” in Saudi Arabia for the 10th consecutive year, “Best Supply Chain Finance Bank” in the Middle East for 2018, as well as Saudi’s “2018 Best Trade Finance Bank” for the 2nd year running. The bank joins R3’s efforts to enlist a broad spectrum of partners and members from different …

Ripple Labs Inc. has announced it has reached a settlement “of all outstanding litigation” between R3 HoldCo LLC, R3 LLC, and XRP II, LLC, according to a press release published September 10. Per the statement, the details of the settlement will remain confidential while “both sides look forward to putting these disputes behind them.” The litigation between Ripple Labs and R3 Consortium began in September 2017, when the consortium filed a lawsuit in Delaware and New York against Ripple Labs. R3 then claimed that Ripple had violated a prior purchase agreement between the two companies for XRP tokens. The agreement …

For several years now, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been cautiously enthusiastic about blockchain technology. Beginning with a 2014 working paper titled, "The Bitcoin Question" the intergovernmental organization has been considering the economic possibilities opened up by distributed ledgers and cryptocurrencies — and, on the whole, it has found these possibilities exciting, even if such working papers "do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organization or of the governments of its member countries." But for the most part, reports on "Blockchain Technology and Competition Policy" and "Corporate Governance" — among other subjects — have …

Germany’s joint stock company Deutsche Boerse (DB) has established a dedicated unit for blockchain and crypto assets, Finextra reported September 3. The newly established “DLT, Crypto Assets and New Market Structures” unit will comprise a 24-person team led by Jens Hachmeister, and will explore the disruptive potential the technology could have for financial markets infrastructure, as well as the new products DB could develop to enhance its existing offerings. As Hachmeister outlined: "Deutsche Boerse has been active with the technology in a first phase of ideation and exploration [...] However, these explorative steps have not been coordinated on a group-wide …

UK multinational banking and financial services company Standard Chartered (SC) disclosed it is working on a blockchain pilot for bank guarantees using R3 Corda blockchain technology in a press release Thursday, August 30. In partnership with Siemens’ financing arm Siemens Financial Services (SFS) and trade finance platform TradeIX, the pilot began operating in March and aims to be complete by the end of 2018. If successful, the project will “digitize trade and leverage real-time data to deliver efficiency gains and transform the way trade finance is conducted,” SC’s global head of trade products Samuel Mathew commented. “The future of trade …

Germany’s joint stock company Deutsche Boerse (DB) has furthered its partnership with blockchain-based liquidity provider HQLAx, making a million euro investment to become a minority shareholder, a press release announces Tuesday, August 28. Deutsche Boerse AG is a German marketplace organizer and transaction services provider which had as much as €3.695 billion ($4.327 billion) in total equity as of 2015. The two parties, which originally partnered in March to produce a blockchain-based securities lending platform using R3 Consortium’s Corda technology, said the move allowed them to expand their activities in the field. “This partnership gives us the opportunity to develop …

The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has revealed plans to develop a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that will use R3’s Corda platform, in a press release published August 21. A CBDC is a digital currency issued by a central bank whose legal tender status depends on government regulation or law. The “wholesale” variant of CBDC limits its use to financial institutions and markets, as opposed to a “retail CBDC” for the general public. R3’s Corda, for its part, is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that has been designed to work within the financial service sector and uses a …

Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure has introduced a proof-of-authority (PoA) algorithm on its Ethereum (ETH) blockchain product, according to a blog post Aug. 7. The new Ethereum network algorithm will reportedly allow a “more efficient” way of building decentralized applications (DApps) for private or consortium networks, where “all consensus participants are known and reputable.” In contrast to proof-of-work (PoW) — the existing protocol on Azure — a PoA algorithm is based on the principle of approved identities or validators on a blockchain, and does not require competition in completing the transactions. The new Ethereum product on Azure is equipped with a …