The blockchain and crypto-friendly Asian country Singapore is taking several initiatives for a structured growth of tokenized assets. Singapore’s central bank – The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and the Singapore Exchange have joined hands to develop a blockchain-powered tokenized assets settlement system which can work on different blockchain networks.
Dubbed as Delivery versus Payment (DvP), the system leverages the power of smart contracts for settlement of tokenized assets. Furthermore, the system also allows for simultaneous asset swapping along with the corresponding payment. This will allow for instant payment upon the exchange of assets.
To commission this DvP settlements platform, MAS and SGX joined hands with Consulting firm Deloitte, Singaporean Tech giant Anquan, and U.S.-based securities platform Nasdaq. As we can see that the basic goal of the DvP system is to simplify post-trade processes while further shortening the settlement cycles.
The reads that the successful trial “demonstrated that financial institutions and corporate investors are able to carry out the simultaneous exchange and final settlement of tokenized digital currencies and securities assets on different blockchain platforms.”
All the parties associated with testing the DvP system said that the simultaneous execution of these activities allows for enhancing operational efficiency while reducing settlement risks. The trial also notes that the smart contract implementation for DvP will further enable consistent implementation of rights and obligations. This will help to boost the investor confidence while simultaneously reducing the compliance costs in the market.
Chief FinTech officer for the MAS, Sopnendu Mohanty, says that the blockchain technology and asset tokenization together are fuelling new innovation.
“This project has demonstrated the value of blockchain technology and the benefits it can bring to the financial industry in the short to medium term,” Mohanty said. “The concept of asset tokenization, as well as other learnings gleaned from this project, can potentially be applied to a broad spectrum of the economy, creating a whole new world of opportunities.”
DvP Settlements System – An Extension of Project Ubin
The blockchain-powered DvP project is an extension of Project Ubin. Ubin started two years back in November 2016 to explore the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for clearing and settlements of securities and payments. The Ubin Project successfully completed phase 2 of its project last year in 2017. Moreover, it also released three software prototypes which can achieve payment processing in a decentralized manner while simultaneously preserving the transactional privacy.
Head of Technology at SGX and Project Chair, Tinku Gupta said: “We are delighted to drive this important industry effort to accelerate innovation in the marketplace. Based on the unique methodology SGX developed to enable real-world interoperability of platforms, as well as the simultaneous exchange of digital tokens and securities, we have applied for our first-ever technology patent.”
The Venezuelan government has announced that its national digital currency, the petro, can be exchanged into any cryptocurrency if purchased this year. However, the wallet for the petro is still not available and petro buyers receive certificates of purchase.
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‘Special Period’
Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, visited the headquarters of the Superintendency of Cryptoassets and Related Activities (Sunacrip) last week to sign up for a petro savings plan, the Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information (Minci) announced.
Minci is dedicated to promoting the government and communicating its message to the public. Sunacrip is responsible for regulating all crypto-related activities in Venezuela.
During his visit, Maduro offered a new incentive for people to purchase his country’s national digital currency. El Nacional quoted him as saying:
Anyone who buys petro [from now] until December 31 can convert it into any digital currency or international convertible currency, such as bitcoin or yuan.
He was further quoted by Minci elaborating that “in this special period, from now until December 31,” the petro can be converted and “then in December you can buy what you want, through the internet.”
The petro savings plan was on Nov. 5. It can be redeemed after 90 days, 180 days, and 270 days, according to Tarek El Aissami, the country’s economic minister and former vice president. “Within three months I will receive what the petro is worth at the time,” Maduro said.
Buying the Petro
According to Sunacrip, a number of Venezuelans and government officials have purchased the petro since it on Oct. 29. Purchasers need to complete know-your-customer (KYC) requirements which include being fingerprinted before they are issued a petro certificate of purchase.
Two petro buyers — Omar Prieto, Governor of Zulia, being photographed while holding his ID (left). Manuel Quevedo, Minister of Petroleum, putting his fingerprint on his petro certificate (right).
Meanwhile, the petro currently does not have any of the usual hallmarks of a cryptocurrency. The official wallet for the petro is still unavailable. Links on the official petro website to download both the Windows and Linux wallets return the message “This wallet will soon be available for your operating system.” In addition, El Aissami explained that the Android app for the petro wallet, previously available in the Google Play store, has been removed by Google.
Furthermore, there is no code repository with the Petro code available to the public, so independent confirmation of its existence or functionality is impossible. There are also no published charts or data showing the health of the Petro network, such as network activity, confirmation times, transaction throughput, mining hashrate, or other basic cryptocurrency statistics.
Despite the petro’s whitepaper describing a block time of one block per minute on average, the government’s own block explorer shows only 743 total blocks at the time of this writing — over a month after the explorer was and its first block displayed.
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Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Venezuelan government.
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