The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Center has announced the launch of a series of new projects targeting various aspects of traditional and encrypted payments, including a cryptocurrency market intelligence platform and the security of retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
BIS’ cryptocurrency market intelligence platform will be launched under the Eurosystem Centre’s initiative to provide vetted data on crypto projects. One of the key drivers for the project’s launch was the collapse of stablecoin projects such as Terra and USDD and decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platforms. As explained in the official statement:
"The goal of the project is to create an open-source market intelligence platform that reveals market capitalization, economic activity, and financial stability risks."
The move runs counter to the practice of relying on unregulated companies to self-report information on data such as asset backing, trading volume and market capitalization. The BIS also emphasized that quantum computers could easily crack the codes traditional financial institutions use to secure and settle payments. Therefore, a project at the European Systems Center will be dedicated to testing several encryption solutions and checking the overall performance of legacy systems.
In addition, BIS’s Sela project will explore technical solutions that allow the issuance of CBDC through intermediaries while ensuring greater security and lower costs. The Hong Kong center of the BIS Innovation Center will also work with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to develop a prototype for the second phase of its green finance project Genesis.
Cointelegraph recently participated in the UNFCCC’s DigitalArt4Climate press conference to learn about various blockchain initiatives actively addressing climate change.
Ukraine joins Norway and Liechtenstein as the third non-EU country to join the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP), a partnership launched by 27 member states to provide cross-border public services.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Konstantin Yarmolenko, founder and CEO of Virtual Assets Ukraine, said:
“The next step is full blockchain integration between Ukraine and the EU based on the EBP/EBSI initiative.”