The newest Italian Banca Intesa Sanpaolo blockchain – related project has been tested with the main goal of validating trading data.
Thanks also to a partnership with Deloitte and the Italian startup Eternity Wall, Intesa San Paolo started to test a new proof-of-concept at the end of 2016.
Heart of the project is the open-source OpenTimestamps protocol, developed by Peter Todd, a Bitcoin Core contributor, that Eternity Wall moved to implement.
The Intesa Sanpaolo blockchain project uses the bitcoin distributed ledger to notarize transactions and create a publicly available database trail for future referral.
Information security officer for the bank, Carlo Brezigia explained:
“Relevant data has been hashed to produce a short unique identifier – a digest – equivalent to its digital fingerprint. This fingerprint has been associated to a blockchain transaction and hence registered on the blockchain: the blockchain immutability provides robust non-refutable timestamping that will always prove without any doubt the existence of that data in that specific status at that precise moment in time.”
According to a Deloitte statement, Intesa Sanpaolo tested this tool between October and February with tht idea of including support for other blockchains, potentially including also private ledgers.
This Italian blockchain trial shows the will of regulated financial institutions to test public blockchains.
In an official announcement, the bank’s retail innovation accelerator officer, Gianni Cavallina, explained the interest in experimenting these protocols beyond the main use case of digital currenciese:
“In particular, considering public blockchains, we are exploring the applicability of different use cases, abstracting from the value of its native digital currency. Notarization is one of the most interesting applications.”
Intesa Sanpaolo Blockchain projects– also member of the R3 distributed ledger consortium – also include tests on several blockchain use cases made during the previous years, including trade finance and digital identity.
Read more about previous Italian projects related to the Blockchain here.
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While we haven’t exactly seen widespread adoption of bitcoin for
digital news subscriptions, it’s nice to see it getting a start in Italy.
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Bit-Wallet at Bitcoin Meetup in Rome Photo by G. Baroncini Turricchia |
“Risk and opportunity were clearly disclosed in a neutral way. In the second part, [a representative moderated a] discussion between politicians, institutions and business, and [many questions were asked by these participants].”
The events come in the wake of the Central Bank of Italy’s May warning that domestic investors should avoid buying, investing in or using bitcoin as a currency due to price volatility and the lack of consumer protection laws to protect consumers.
Proliferating bitcoin
A second, non-affiliated event, organized by digital payment advocacy group CashlessWay, is set to take place on 26th June. Speakers will include bitcoin banking provider Robocoin CEO Jordan Kelly and parliament member Sergio Boccadutri, who presented a proposal for regulating bitcoin under existing Italian law in January.
“Italy is full of cultural tastemakers and has a rich history in banking and finance. These all support Robocoin’s goal of helping proliferate bitcoin.”
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.
“The use of electronic
currency is restricted to banks and electronic money institutions — that is,
private legal entities duly authorized and registered by the Central Bank of Italy.
Aside from these developments, Italy
does not regulate Bitcoin use by private individuals, and currently the
implementation of initiatives concerning the use of electronic currencies lies
with the EU.”
“Banca d’Italia is
studying the [Bitcoin] phenomenon, and perhaps — if they were fast — in 10-20
years we could have a law on it.”
“In Italy, we are at the beginning of
Bitcoin’s spreading among the population. There is an interesting Bitcoin
community [in Italy],
but it is still very hard to explain to Italian people the real value that
Bitcoin creates in the economy and the job opportunities it creates.This is because of
misinformation by the national media that actually regard it as a scam or worst
as associated with criminal deeds.Even the local Bitcoin
Foundation is not as active as it should be, so whatever can move this
situation is welcome.”
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