The World Bank is betting big on blockchain bonds
The World Bank has announced that it has hired one of the largest Australian banks to manage what defines the "first global loan to create, assign, transfer and manage "Using a blockchain – one of the clearest signs that technology is becoming mainstream.
The "bond-i": The World Bank, which issues between $ 50 and $ 60 billion annually in bonds to finance sustainable development in emerging economies, believes that blockchain technology can make the process more efficient by reducing the number of intermediaries needed. The bank did not say when the new "new blockchain-driven debt instrument" (supposedly named after a famous Australian beach) will be launched, but investor interest "was strong", according to a press release [19659003] Not as Bitcoin: There are not yet many details available on how this will actually work from a technical or logistic point of view. But unlike Bitcoin, where anyone can engage in the mining industry, in the process of verifying new transactions, the World Bank will use a private version of Ethereum in which the validators must have permission. The IT infrastructure will run on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.
An emerging trend: The idea of using blockchains to manage bonds is gaining ground. Last year, a company in the UK issued a bond using the Ethereum public blockchain. The government of the city of Berkeley, California, is exploring the use of blockchain technology to issue municipal bonds. The approval by the World Bank of the idea is the one with the highest profile to date.