Blockchain in the fight against coronavirus, stock exchange, electronic mortgages and other initiatives

Distributed ledger technology remains one of the hottest trends among financial,government and commercial organizations worldwide. ForkLog Magazine offers an overview of the most interesting initiatives of the past week.

Australian Mint will track blockchain gold shipments

Perth Mint Australia announced plans to develop a trueGold blockchain platform to track the gold supply chain to the market.

The solution is implemented in collaboration with Security Matters. Partners pay particular attention to the ethical side of the origin of the precious metal.

A trueGold launch is expected to happen early next year.

«This is a critical development given the growing focus on environmental, social and governance practices around the world relating to the gold supply chain»,— Perth Mint CEO Richard Hayes said.

According to him, the project will ensure transparency in the extraction, production and distribution of the precious metal.

Perth Mint and Security Matters are looking forward to joining the project for other members of the gold mining supply chain.

University in South Korea will issue diplomas on the blockchain

Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has announced that it will issue blockchain education diplomas for graduates.

The educational institution will be the first in South Korea to take such a step. Earlier, diplomas on the blockchain were issued by the Massachusetts University of Technology in the USA.

POSTECH counts with diplomas ona distributed registry will not only prevent their possible falsification, but also prevent the spread of coronavirus, since graduates will not have to come in person, as is the case with paper documents.

«As a result of the coronavirus outbreakit is impossible to conduct the final exam on time, so even if the student does not go to university and does not receive a diploma, he or she will be able to obtain a digital document that is provided online by blockchain technology.- explained a university representative.

He added that digital certificates of education are already issued by schools and colleges, but only blockchain technology guarantees the impossibility of falsification.

Digital certificates of university education will be provided through the Broof blockchain platform developed by ICONLOOP.

«Raiffeisenbank» ready to issue electronic mortgages on the blockchain

Russian branch of «Raiffeisenbank»passed certification to connect to the full version of the Decentralized Depository System (DDS) on the MasterChain platform. The bank demonstrated compliance with infrastructure and cybersecurity requirements, CNews reports.

«DDS will allow to transfer the mortgage marketmortgages in electronic form, which will undoubtedly simplify the issuance and servicing of loans and will encourage the secondary circulation of mortgages within the framework of securitization transactions»,- said the head of the depository services department of «Raiffeisenbank» Evgenia Klimova.

In 2018, a financial institution as part of a pilot project issued an electronic mortgage on the Masterchain blockchain platform. Now it is planned to begin commercial operation of the solution.

Alipay has created a blockchain platform for the fight against coronavirus

The Chinese Internet giant has launched a distributed registry technology platform to track the supply of coronavirus medical supplies in Zhejiang Province.

Alipay argues that the solution helps fight the epidemic by providing a reliable representation of the movement of preventive medicines, including those provided at no cost.

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs exchange shares on blockchain

The two largest investment banks in the world, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, conducted a successful transaction using blockchain technology.

The banking giants have completed the first of its kind stock exchange on a distributed registry. Another 13 such operations are queued.

Financial institutions have taken advantage of the Axcore blockchain platform, which, like Ethereum, allows you to deploy smart contracts. The network was created by startup Axoni.

According to the representative of Citigroup, the new technology allows you to instantly coordinate the life cycle data of securities, which previously occupied a significant number of working hours of specialists.

«The ability to have synchronous, peer-to-peerprocessing data between institutions and having databases natively talking to each other is just a huge, giant first step towards the future that I think a lot of people have been looking for in capital markets infrastructure.— said Axoni CEO Greg Schwey.

It is noteworthy that both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup previously invested in a blockchain startup that helped to implement the project.

In addition, this week we reported:

• A hard fork took place on the Bitcoin SV network. Not without problems.
• The Waves blockchain platform has established the Waves Association structure, which will unite all key ecosystem projects and will determine further priorities for their development.
• Distributed Lab, a blockchain company, has announced a partnership with PMPartners, an integrated business solutions developer.
• Developer Telegram Open Network has unveiled details of the platform consensus algorithm.
• A group of five leading central banks announced the first meeting on the development of their own digital currencies.
• The developers of the Ethereum 2.0 network are almost 100% sure of its launch in 2020.
• The IOV Labs company behind the development of the RSK platform introduced the “interoperability bridge” that provides the interaction of Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.