TheDinarian
News • Business • Investing & Finance
Chris Larsen's Ripple Effect
December 01, 2023
post photo preview

Chris Larsen, cofounder and executive chairman of Ripple, a cryptocurrency company, has the Midas touch when it comes to making money and giving consumers more autonomy over theirs. In the mid-’90s, Larsen cofounded E-Loan, an online mortgage company, the first to allow consumers to access their FICO scores for free — a tool used by many lenders to determine if a person qualifies for a credit card, a mortgage or another loan. A decade later, he cofounded Prosper Marketplace, the country’s first peer-to-peer lending platform.

And like other Bay Area tech moguls — think Marc BenioffMark ZuckerbergSergey Brin, to name a few — Larsen is investing some of that hard-earned money back into the community. He made local and national news when he funded hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras scattered throughout the City to help fight crime. He has financed TV ads to recruit police officers; provided grants to merchant associations to enliven retail corridors; and with his wife, Lyna Lam, and the Rippleworks Foundation, contributed $25 million to San Francisco State University, his alma mater. And just last month, Larsen and Gap board member Bob Fisher helped launch a $4 million advertising campaign — It All Starts Here — to help boost San Francisco’s tarnished reputation.

Larsen was born in San Francisco to a father who was an aircraft mechanic at SFO and a mother who was a freelance illustrator. He spent most of his childhood in Cupertino until he moved back to the City to get his B.S. from SF State. After graduation, he worked for Chevron and later earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Recently, I sat down with the mild-mannered Larsen at his Ripple offices in the FiDi. We talked about transforming global finance, climate change and his unwavering belief in his hometown.

Meet Chris Larsen.

Tell me about this company, Ripple. Sure. So, we’re using blockchain technology. It’s one of the core technologies of where the world is going. Essentially a second internet, but instead of an information internet, it’s an internet of value. We think that’s a critical component if you’re really going to have a globalized world that works well for everybody.

That makes sense. Obviously, the whole world’s connected through data. There’s some issues there, but it’s brought the world together. People communicate for free anywhere. But with money — you wire money to Europe or to the Philippines — it can take multiple days. It’s incredibly expensive, and access is still blocked for billions of people in the world. So you have an incomplete global infrastructure. ... We’re making global payments that can move in seconds instead of days with no failure rates and extremely low costs so everybody can participate.

What was the origin of Ripple? Well, I go back now over 10 years, which is pretty early in the crypto markets. There was a group of people way smarter than me [who], when bitcoin got launched — in ’09 [and] caught on by 2011 — were fascinated by it, but thought it was too wasteful. It was kind of a head scratcher on why it had to be designed in a way that used so much electricity [due to the energy-intensive process of verifying computerized transactions]. So they felt they could build a better bitcoin in a system that used de minimis amounts of energy. And that’s what they did. I joined that project — before it was a company — in 2012 and went from there.

The industry has changed a lot in the last decade, I’m sure. And we’ve certainly seen dramatic volatility in the market in recent years. It’s a wild thing for a lot of reasons. It’s actually the first time fintech is global. Blockchain is, again, kind of a second internet, but for value. It’s global, it’s everywhere. That introduces a lot more dynamism. And it’s also dealing with money and value. So I think anytime you have that, you’re going to get the usual cast of characters as we read about in the press every day. Crazy characters, crooked characters, but also people doing some really groundbreaking work that will make things like remittances, cross border payments, and really the entire global economy work more efficiently. And that’s good for everybody.

Lots of eyes are on the trial of former crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. What effect have his alleged crimes had on the industry? Oh, it was absolutely catastrophic. Not only because what he did was obviously wrong, but he was so political. He must have given $50 million, mostly to Democrats. And his mom [Barbara Fried] ran Mind [the] Gap [pro-Democratic super PAC]. So I think they were pretty skilled at politics. When it blew up, all these politicians that were in his corner had to almost overcorrect and back away. A number of bills would have given the U.S. market clarity, which is something the U.S. drastically needs because we’re really falling behind places like the UK, which has very clear, very pro-consumer, pro-innovation rules. Singapore ... Dubai ... same thing. Very pro-consumer, tough rules, but very clear rules. And they’re attracting all of the companies that should be right here.

So the U.S.’s lack of clarity, and then Sam’s screw-up, which then made that worse, has actually been really bad for San Francisco.

How so? Because San Francisco was actually the global blockchain capital of the world from the beginning through maybe five years ago. And it isn’t anymore. Coinbase was here just down the street. They’re not here anymore. So, I don’t know, we’re at a 30 percent vacancy rate [in the downtown area]? I think it would be half that. [Ripple is] growing. We have 15 offices around the world. We’ve doubled our London office in the last two years. That’s a shame. That should all be right here.

Let’s talk a little bit about AI because San Francisco is, for all intents and purposes, the AI capital of the world right now. How do we make sure AI doesn’t leave SF, similar to what happened with blockchain? I think it should be a lesson learned on what happened with blockchain. I love our leaders around here, but our leaders should have done more to fight for it. We can be pro-consumer, and we can embrace innovation, and that’s good for the state, it’s good for the City, it’s good for everybody. Instead of push[ing] it out to our competitors. So I hope with AI, people have gotten this.

Clearly, we need regulation, but it seems we need to regulate in a more creative and modern way than we did decades ago. Do you agree? That’s a great point. ... Regulation has got to be faster. It’s got to be more balanced ... embracing innovation, which always has an element of uncertainty. So you have to respond quickly. I think in the U.S. we have a particular challenge. We go to London or Singapore or Dubai, the advantage they have is the regulators, the capital market folks, and the innovators are all in the same city. So they all mix. And here we’ve got capital markets in New York generally, you’ve got regulation in D.C., and you’ve got innovation out here. And that doesn’t mix all that well. It’s too far, and the timelines are not in sync. That’s a real challenge here. So we’ve got to get more dialogue. It’d be nice to put fintech regulators, AI regulators, at Stanford or Berkeley or right here in the City.

Before Ripple, you cofounded E-Loan and Prosper Marketplace, all of which give consumers more agency over their own money and more transparency. Was that a mission of yours, or just a good business niche? When I was growing up, my dad was an aircraft mechanic at SFO. I just remember he was always really angry every time he had to go take out a home equity line or finance a car. I think he felt like he was taken advantage of. The motto of the finance industry, particularly pre-internet, is “in confusion there’s profit.” When you go to the car dealer, the car dealer is not telling you your credit score. … So what does that mean as far as price? That’s how they make their money. And that’s not right. So it is a little bit of “Schwabifying” because Charles Schwab was the first to introduce fair pricing before the internet. But I think with the internet you can do much more of that because you can show everything. You take out the commission person. Ripple’s a little bit different in that we’re enterprise, and we can actually have more impact by focusing on the technology, bringing it to existing platforms, and then that makes them more competitive and more effective. So it’s a bit of a tweak.

I’ve read about Ripple using blockchain to help poor populations, like farmers in Uganda, sell carbon credits at a fair price. Talk about how consumers benefit from this technology. The remittance flows on the planet are enormous. U.S. to Philippines, Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh, for example. Those are big flows, and those are generally people who are probably living paycheck to paycheck, if even that. So if you can have systems that allow prices to come down, have more access, that’s going to be a good thing for everybody. We like those kinds of things. You raise the farmer and the carbon. I like that you brought that one up. I think that is a real opportunity.

Farming could actually be a huge sink for carbon. The Global South farmers are subsistence, so wouldn’t it be awesome if [they] could change the way [they] work the soils, grab more carbon, and then if there’s a good effective market [with] transparency ... if [the carbon credits are] resold, they get a cut of the resale. That’s something you can do really well with blockchain technology — tokenizing carbon assets. We actually just launched something called Centigrade, which is a B Corp, a more benefit corporation. We did that with [green energy nonprofit] Rocky Mountain Institute to improve the voluntary carbon credit markets.

That’s actually happening now? Yeah. That’s a big goal for us. Climate’s a big focus that I work on personally, but also with the company. And there’s lots of ways we can use the technology to make that better. Same with sustainability credits, which I think will also be an emerging market. So not just carbon. This is actually happening to a small country called Niue. It’s a country of 1,200 people in the South Pacific, but they have an enormous ocean acreage that’s part of the country. The same with Palau, 20,000 people, but they have oceans the size of France. So these are huge opportunities to protect the oceans. But these are poor countries. They can’t just give up all their fishing rights because they’ll go broke, but maybe they can do sustainability credits, where now we put that on a blockchain, tokenize it, and then anybody in the world can buy a sustainability credit. That’s what Niue’s doing. It’s called ocean conservation commitments. And that’s potentially a great source of financing sustainability.

Aside from your business endeavors, you’re also very active in philanthropy and politically active in your hometown of San Francisco. Why is that important to you? In San Francisco, we just started going down the rabbit hole. We [were], I think probably like every San Franciscan, victims of the smash-and-grab problem. We live in Russian Hill right by the Lombard Steps, which was literally ground zero at one point. This was maybe seven years ago; [now president and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco] Alex Bastian used to work for [District Attorney] George Gascón, and they had done something creative with Union Square — the Union Square BID [Business Improvement District] — [putting] camera networks all around. They had smash and grabbers, a crew that was running in the stores and stealing … but the camera networks are effective. If you talk to the police, they’re really good at making cases. We talked to the DA, same thing. It’d be nice if we can extend that now to live access for the police. That’s been controversial, but they put a police officer on top of that building, they have access. I don’t really understand why that’s controversial. You could put AI tools in that would identify guns. That already works today.

So there’s a lot of things we can do. We like the camera network for public safety. We’ve got to do more with the police because we have a police crisis where you don’t have enough of them. That’s a nationwide problem, but it’s worse here in the City because of the very anti-police police commission, which has prevented tools from getting out there. ... So the morale is bad. Maybe only 20 percent of San Francisco cops live in the City anymore. A lot of them actually live out of state, believe it or not.

Out of state? Out of state. So they’re supposed to be able to get back in the City within four hours of an emergency. That’s just not going to happen. So you’ve got a real problem with public safety resources that’s very solvable, so that’s one big area. And then another area has been trying to help small business through having [Avenue] Greenlight, which is supporting the 34 merchant districts in the City, and then allowing small grants to go to those small businesses or to the district to do things like lighting or signage or cleaning things just to make the environment better for these small businesses [that] have been hanging on in some tough times. Although I think things are a lot better now.

San Francisco has an almost $14 billion annual budget, and you’re talking about privately funding cameras in neighborhoods, helping small businesses and our retail corridors. You have even paid for ads to recruit police officers. So, why is private philanthropy necessary when we have these kinds of resources in the City? It’s a great question. A $14 billion budget is a lot of money. I think the problem is it’s a lot of money, but it’s all tied up in this bureaucratic mess. To try to get cameras funded by the city, it’d probably be a five-year debate. And I think it would just get bogged down. Whereas private philanthropy — we probably have four and a half million dollars put into the camera networks — can deploy that quickly to the CBDs [Community Benefit Districts] or the BIDs. ... If we had to pay for license plate readers, we would do that. Again, another needlessly controversial area that’s super effective, especially since all the smash-and-grab crews are driving stolen cars with just-stolen plates. The number of stolen cars is just astronomical, and it’s mostly all being done to commit other crimes. And if you had license plate readers, you would tag them instantly. They’re avoiding any town that has license plate readers.

Any evidence that the cameras, Avenue Greenlight, grants and police recruitment ads are making a difference? Yeah, we talked to [SFPD] Chief [Bill Scott]. He says the cameras are just absolute game changers, so that’s great. We know that that’s working. On the police recruitment, it was the highest police academy numbers that we had in three years. Now part of that could have been a combination of wages going up, bonuses. The ads were meant for morale and for recruiting. So we might fire that up again. So I think that does work, and having [Avenue] Greenlight for sure. Actually, we’re super happy with that one because it’s relatively small grants, and they make the small businesses feel like they’re being helped. So we’ve got to get more of the bigger business community to help the smaller.

Despite some of the issues we’ve discussed, what do you think gives San Francisco its competitive advantage? There’s nothing like San Francisco, and you can’t replicate it. It’s such a mix of things. You’d never come up with anything like this place again. I love it. The weather, the food, the views. ... So we’ve got our problems, but it’s an awesome place. And my parents met in the City, too. They’re no longer with us, but working on the city stuff, I always feel like they’re happy about it.

I’ve heard people ask you, so I know what you’re going to say, but would you ever consider running for office? I’m just not wired for that.

So what’s next for Chris Larsen? Oh, well, geez. Getting older. There’s less tomorrows than yesterdays, as they say. I think we’re on the right path, but climate’s going to take many years. Climate’s actually really fun to work in.

I have two boys. I want to make sure that they’re growing up in a decent world, and it’s not on fire all the time. This is totally solvable too. But we’ve got to really go before there’s some tipping points. ... It’ll be one of the greatest wealth generators of all time.

Is there a certain philosophy or credo that you live by? I’m trying to tell my kids this, but we shouldn’t assume [that] the way the world is was somehow designed by experts. So we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge stuff.

This interview has been condensed for length and edited for clarity.

Link

community logo
Join the TheDinarian Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
0
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
🚨 After Years of Building Around Proof of Stake, Is It Time to Explore Alternatives! 🚨

As blockchain networks evolve, some are questioning whether proof-of-stake (PoS) remains the optimal consensus mechanism. Stellar offers a compelling alternative with its Proof of Agreement model, designed for simplicity and performance.

🔑 Key Details:

🔹 Proof of Agreement (PoA): @StellarOrg's consensus mechanism emphasizes fast finality and low-cost transactions without relying on additional layers.

🔹 Efficiency Focus: Unlike PoS, PoA achieves consensus through a decentralized network of trusted validators, enabling rapid and energy-efficient operations.

🔹 Scalability: Stellar's model is tailored for high transaction throughput, making it ideal for #payments and other real-world applications.

🔹 Decentralization: PoA balances #decentralization with performance, offering a flexible trust model compared to more centralized systems.

💡 Why This Matters:

🔹 Performance-Driven Design: As networks prioritize speed and cost efficiency, simpler consensus mechanisms like ...

00:00:50
🚁 Flying Taxis Are Here: China Just Made It Real! 🌏

For years, flying taxis have been the stuff of sci-fi movies, futuristic concepts, and flashy tech demos. Many of us dismissed them as mere publicity stunts or overly ambitious dreams that would never take off—literally.

But now, China has flipped the script.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has officially granted approval for two companies—EHang Holdings and Hefei Heyi Aviation—to operate autonomous passenger drones commercially. That’s right: flying taxis are no longer a concept. They’re a reality.

What Does This Mean?

This milestone marks a bold leap forward in urban transportation. China is not just experimenting with this technology; they’re integrating it into their infrastructure and economy, signaling serious intent to lead the world in aerial mobility innovation.

Here’s what makes this development so groundbreaking:

Commercial Operations Begin: EHang and Heyi Aviation will offer passenger flights in cities like Guangzhou and Hefei, starting with urban sightseeing ...

00:00:31
👀 NVIDIA has partnered with Hedera Hashgraph 👀

NVIDIA has partnered with Hedera Hashgraph through EQTY Labs to develop Verifiable Compute, a groundbreaking solution aimed at enhancing trust and security in artificial intelligence (AI) systems. This collaboration leverages Hedera’s blockchain technology, particularly the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS), to create a tamper-proof ledger for logging AI computations performed on NVIDIA GPUs and Intel CPUs.

Key Features of the Partnership:

AI Governance and Auditing: Verifiable Compute introduces cryptographic certificates that oversee and audit AI workflows, ensuring transparency, accountability, and security in AI operations.

Immutable Record-Keeping: Using Hedera's decentralized ledger, every AI computation is logged with a timestamp, creating an auditable trail that is resistant to tampering.

Hardware Integration: The solution anchors trust directly in the silicon of next-generation NVIDIA and Intel hardware, combining advanced cryptography with blockchain technology to secure AI ...

00:01:43
👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading

Custom AI assistants that print money in your sleep? 🔜

The future of Crypto x AI is about to go crazy.

👉 Here’s what you need to know:

💠 'Based Agent' enables creation of custom AI agents
💠 Users set up personalized agents in < 3 minutes
💠 Equipped w/ crypto wallet and on-chain functions
💠 Capable of completing trades, swaps, and staking
💠 Integrates with Coinbase’s SDK, OpenAI, & Replit

👉 What this means for the future of Crypto:

1. Open Access: Democratized access to advanced trading
2. Automated Txns: Complex trades + streamlined on-chain activity
3. AI Dominance: Est ~80% of crypto 👉txns done by AI agents by 2025

🚨 I personally wouldn't bet against Brian Armstrong and Jesse Pollak.

👉 Coinbase just launched an AI agent for Crypto Trading
🚨 BREAKING: Mastercard to Enable Crypto for 3.5 Billion Cardholders! 💳💥

In a historic move, Mastercard is revolutionizing the financial landscape by enabling its 3.5 billion cardholders to seamlessly use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, XRP, and others for payments. This bold step signals massive U.S. adoption of digital assets and positions Mastercard as a leader in bridging traditional finance with the crypto world.

🔹What’s Happening?

Mastercard is building a blockchain-based platform designed to make crypto transactions as simple as using Venmo or Zelle. The initiative includes:

Fiat-to-Crypto Integration: Allowing users to move money effortlessly between fiat and crypto worlds.

Global Reach: Leveraging Mastercard’s extensive network of cardholders, merchants, and financial institutions.

Multi-Token Network: A blockchain infrastructure supporting Bitcoin, XRP, and other cryptocurrencies.

🔹Why It Matters

This development is more than just a tech upgrade—it’s a game-changer for crypto adoption:

Massive Scale: For the first time, billions of consumers will ...

🚀 World’s Largest Bitcoin Mine Underway in Texas! Riot Blockchain Goes Big 🌟

Bitcoin mining is reaching unprecedented levels, and Riot Blockchain is leading the charge with its massive new facility in Corsicana, Texas. This isn’t just another mining operation—it’s a game-changer. Here’s why:

The Scale of the Corsicana Facility

Phase 1 Completed: The facility is already running at 400 megawatts of power capacity, making it one of the largest Bitcoin mines in the world.

Phase 2 Expansion: Riot is now developing an additional 600 megawatts, bringing the total capacity to a staggering 1 gigawatt—the largest known Bitcoin mining site globally.

Tens of Thousands of Mining Rigs: The site is packed with state-of-the-art equipment, including next-generation MicroBT miners, driving Riot’s hash rate to new heights.

Why Texas?

Texas has become a hub for cryptocurrency mining due to its abundant energy resources and favorable regulatory environment. Riot’s Corsicana facility is taking full advantage of this, partnering with energy providers to ensure efficient power usage...

🚨 Crypto in Retirement? Senator Tuberville Pushes Bold New Bill 💰

In a groundbreaking move, Senator Tommy Tuberville is reintroducing his Financial Freedom Act, a bill that could allow Americans to invest their retirement savings in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Designed to expand investment options for 401(k) plans, this legislation marks a bold step toward integrating digital assets into long-term financial planning.

What’s the Bill About?

The Financial Freedom Act aims to scale back restrictions imposed by the Department of Labor on the types of investments retirement funds can make. If passed, this bill would empower individuals to diversify their portfolios by including cryptocurrencies, offering new opportunities for growth and independence.

Why Now?

Tuberville’s renewed push comes amidst growing interest in digital assets and their potential as long-term investments. With Bitcoin outperforming most traditional financial assets in recent years, proponents argue that crypto could be a valuable addition to retirement accounts.

The ...

post photo preview
post photo preview
BlackRock’s Fink pumps tokenization in annual letter

Larry Fink, CEO and Chairman of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, touched on three blockchain related topics in this year’s annual letter. The first part of his letter was about how private markets have been out of reach for most investors and BlackRock is in the process of changing that. For the same reason, the digital assets sector often sees private assets as low hanging fruit for tokenization, as illustrated in this State Street survey.

Later he moved on to tokenization, highlighting how fractionalization can democratize access. Finally he referenced Bitcoin. On the one hand, BlackRock manages the largest Bitcoin ETF. However, his concern is more about getting control over the United States’ government debt.

“Decentralized finance is an extraordinary innovation. It makes markets faster, cheaper, and more transparent. Yet that same innovation could undermine America’s economic advantage if investors begin seeing Bitcoin as a safer bet than the dollar,” he wrote.

He also shared that half of the demand for the Bitcoin ETF has been retail, and three quarters of those investors are new to iShares ETFs.

Private assets and tokenization

On the tokenization front, Mr Fink noted that the “world’s money moves through plumbing built when trading floors still shouted orders and fax machines felt revolutionary.” He was less than complimentary about payments network SWIFT saying it was like routing emails through a post office. SWIFT currently dominates cross border payments, which are seen as a major real world use case for stablecoins. And it’s worth remembering that BlackRock looks after most of the reserve assets for the second largest stablecoin issuer, Circle.

He is bullish on tokenization because he sees it as democratizing access, shareholder voting and yield. The access is because tokenization enables fractionalization, lowering the barrier to entry. Even for relatively wealthy people, lower investment amounts will allow them to diversify their investment. Of course, people can vote already, but blockchain can potentially make it easier. He had one caveat about tokenization 👉 the need for digital identity.

Despite BlackRock managing the largest Bitcoin ETF, there was a striking omission in Fink’s projections for the future of investing: cryptocurrency itself. While he outlined a shift from the traditional 60:40 split between stocks and bonds toward a 50:30:20 allocation (stocks, bonds, and private assets), cryptocurrency doesn’t fit neatly into any of these categories.

Fink acknowledged that 20% of investments already exist in private assets, currently accessible primarily to institutional investors. And he highlighted how BlackRock plans to democratize access to these investments, including infrastructure and real estate. Potentially, that could include tokenization. Yet the absence of cryptocurrency in this long-term investment framework is notable, given BlackRock’s current role as a crypto asset manager.

Source

🙏 Support My Work 🙏

If you find value in my content, consider showing your support:

💳 PayPal – Just scan the QR code 📲
🔗 Crypto – Send contributions via Coinbase Wallet to: Dinarian.cb.id

Your generosity keeps this mission alive! Namasté 🙏✨ #SupportIndependentMedia #Crypto

 

Read full Article
post photo preview
Japanese banking giant SMBC plans Avalanche stablecoin – report

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, the parent of Japan’s second largest bank SMBC, is planning to issue a stablecoin. It’s collaborating with Ava Labs, the founder of the Avalanche blockchain, as well as Fireblocks, according to a report from the Nikkei.

The bank will work with Japanese IT firm TIS and plans to conduct experiments in Q4 of this year or 2026 Q1, with a live issuance during the following year.

One of the primary use cases is to enable corporates to move money around the world instantly and 24/7, sidestepping Swift. While Swift payments should in theory be almost instant, in reality they tend to be delayed by foreign banks that have different opening hours and rely on the receiving bank crediting the recipient promptly. Additional intermediary banks are often involved, which are not necessary with stablecoins.

Other big US banks are already targeting this use case. JP Morgan has its Kinexys Digital Payments (formerly JPM Coin), a blockchain based bank account. And Citi launched its Citi Token Services. Both use permissioned blockchains.

While Avalanche is a permissionless blockchain, it supports permissioned chains as subnets. For example, its Spruce testnet has institutions as validators. Hence, it remains to be seen which path SMBC adopts.

SMBC’s other blockchain initiatives

Meanwhile, SMBC is also one of the backers of Progmat, the Japanese tokenization platform. It has a stablecoin issuance platform, Progmat Coin. SMBC joined the other big three Japanese banks, MUFG and Mizuho, in an ongoing stablecoin sandwich trial referred to as Project Pax.

A stablecoin sandwich refers to a situation where a stablecoin sits at the heart of a transaction, but it may look like a normal payment to the sender and recipient. The three banks plan for their clients to make trade payments in the usual way, and to use Swift messages. However, stablecoins will replace correspondent banks.

Two years ago, our sources told us that SMBC had joined Partior, the cross border blockchain payment system co-founded by DBS, JP Morgan and Temasek. Partior combines a permissioned blockchain with correspondent banking, removing the typical delays and enabling instant cross border payments. SMBC has not yet confirmed it will participate in Partior. However, the other bank we reported simultaneously – Deutsche Bank – recently said it invested in Partior, highlighting the accuracy of the report.

Hence, SMBC is adopting a multipronged approach to speed up cross border payments using blockchain.

Source

🙏 Support My Work 🙏

If you find value in my content, consider showing your support:

💳 PayPal – Just scan the QR code 📲
🔗 Crypto – Send contributions via Coinbase Wallet to: Dinarian.cb.id

Your generosity keeps this mission alive! Namasté 🙏✨ #SupportIndependentMedia #Crypto

 

Read full Article
post photo preview
Hashgraph to launch permissioned DLT, HashSphere

Hashgraph (formerly Swirlds Labs), the founder of the Hedera Hashgraph distributed ledger, is expecting to launch a permissioned DLT, HashSphere, in Q3. One of the current beta testers is Australia Payments Plus, which operates key Australian payment infrastructures and is a long standing governing council member of Hedera.

The DLT company sees a gap with the current permissionless and permissioned offerings. On the one hand, the challenge with permissionless chains for institutions is the need to repeat KYC and compliance steps that their clients have already done internally. Additionally, institutions want greater privacy and control. At the same time, many are looking for a path to interoperability with the permissionless world and stablecoins, an area where HashSphere is positioned as a good example.

There was much excitement when Australia’s eftpos joined Hedera years ago, with the hope of bringing regulated payments to DLT. Eftpos merged with other Australian payment infrastructures which are part of Australia Payment Plus. With stablecoins now on the cusp of going mainstream, perhaps that time has come. Hedera developed various solutions to make onboarding with stablecoins simple. Filipino banks plan to launch the PHPX stablecoin on Hedera this year.

Rob Allen from Australia Payment Plus commented, “As a Hedera Governing Council member, we are interested in HashSphere primarily for its enhanced privacy and regulatory compliance, while also needing network interoperability for the seamless and transparent interchange of stablecoins between public Hedera and private HashSphere, and other Layer1 protocols.”

HashSphere versus incumbent permissioned chains

The arguments about compliance, privacy and control are for those firms not comfortable with permissionless chains. But without additional details (which we don’t have yet), it’s less clear how HashSphere will compete with the existing permissioned chains, although we can make some guesses.

Hyperledger Besu is currently doing well in the institutional space because it offers a path to integration with the Ethereum mainnet. HashSphere can potentially compete because of its EVM (Ethereum) compatible smart contracts. Assuming HashSphere performs similarly to Hedera, it will have a speed and scalability performance advantage over Besu. HashSphere will use many of the features of Hedera, including its consensus, token service and the Ethereum compatible smart contract service.

However, both Besu and HashSphere have a disadvantage compared to some of the other permissioned DLTs on privacy. Canton and Corda were both designed as privacy first and only share data with those that need to know. It’s unclear whether HashSphere takes this approach, but we suspect not. So the options for Besu and HashSphere is Zero Knowledge Proofs or something similar. While that’s progressing, there is no definitive solution so far. For example, Brazil’s central bank wants to go this route with Besu, but is waiting for a solution that is good enough.

Digital Asset will argue that the Canton Network is permissionless, although we consider it a work in progress. We classify public Hedera as partially permissioned because the nodes with write permissions are still controlled by governing council members, although that is evolving. However, all transactions are viewable by anyone.

Hashgraph returns to its roots

In many ways, for Hashgraph this is a return to its roots. Hashgraph was previously known as Swirlds Labs, which started out with a permissioned ledger, including partnering with credit union startup CULedger in 2018. However, at the time Swirlds’ solution was not compatible with other technologies, whereas the Ethereum compatible smart contracts make it more open.

The news comes as the enterprise world seemed to be coalescing around three DLTs: the Ethereum compatible Hyperledger Besu blockchain, Digital Asset’s Canton, and R3’s Corda. Yet in the past week we’ve seen two new permissioned distributed ledgers, the other being Google Cloud’s Universal Ledger. On the one hand, fewer options make for simpler choices. But competition will keep the leading three on their toes.

Source

🙏 Support My Work 🙏

If you find value in my content, consider showing your support:

💳 PayPal – Just scan the QR code 📲
🔗 Crypto – Send contributions via Coinbase Wallet to: Dinarian.cb.id

Your generosity keeps this mission alive! Namasté 🙏✨ #SupportIndependentMedia #Crypto

 

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals