Citibank studied and issued Citicoin 4 years ago, and its confidentiality measures were comparable to those of Steve Jobs | live scor asian bookie, rtp omega89, 77 lucky slot

Following JPMorgan Chase, Citibank also plans to exit cryptocurrencies similar to JPM Coin.

Recently, JPMorgan Chase announced plans to issue a bank-backed cryptocurrency, JPM Coin, which attracted great attention in the industry. However, many people seem to have forgotten that Citibank, another banking giant, actually tried to use and test digital tokens to connect global payments as early as 2015.

In fact, Citibank's confidentiality measures are very good. Even when it was used as a proof of concept, its encryption project codenamed "Citicoin" was not leaked. Dublin-based Citi Innovation Lab hopes to simplify global payments through the cryptocurrency, which bears many similarities to the much-touted JPM Coin.

However, after evaluating the results of the trial (and suffering scorn from the Bitcoin community), Citibank concluded that while the “Citicoin” cryptocurrency may be able to deliver on its promise, there are other more effective and efficient ways to optimize payment services.

Gulru Atak currently serves as the head of Citi Innovation Labs and is also the global head of innovation for Citi Innovation and Trading Solutions. Regarding the cryptocurrency projects studied by her predecessors, she said:

“Given the learnings from this cryptocurrency experiment, we prefer to make some meaningful improvements within the existing payment ecosystem trajectory. And, within the existing ecosystem, we will also take into account other fintech technologies and global regulators including the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).”

Guru Attak revealed that the reason why they did not rush in blindly is because when it comes to cross-border payment issues, Citibank hopes to find some effective solutions with short-term impact. She added:

“Citibank is making some changes, but we value the present more than putting all our efforts into future technologies. After all, if you want to completely transform into a cross-border remittance payment network based on blockchain technology, you have to take all the banks into consideration. If we talk about fast payments, we first have to look at how many banks there are around the world - and how many banks are already connected to SWIFT, and how long will it take for SWIFT to connect with those banks?”

Therefore, Citibank’s blockchain strategy in recent years has mainly been to explore solutions that can optimize and improve traditional systems. Guru Attak said that Citibank entered into a partnership with Nasdaq as early as 2017 to use CitiConnect to streamline the private securities payment process. She believes that this project has many similarities with JPMorgan Chase’s JPM Coin. She revealed:

“CitiConnect does not issue stablecoins, but the infrastructure used is similar to issuing coins on a blockchain platform. But we prefer to purely integrate the Citi client into a blockchain-enabled system and enable real-time docking with Citi’s traditional payment processes.”

From trade finance to foreign exchange trading

In fact, Guru Atak has been actively reflecting on Citibank’s previous blockchain plans, and she also emphasized that Citibank will definitely continue to explore blockchain technology, especially in areas such as trade finance. Guru Attak believes that the niche market of trade finance can become a realistic use case for blockchain technology, because building a trade finance ecosystem does not require access to as many banks as building a cross-border payment system.

Guru Atak continued: "Citibank now hopes to apply blockchain technology to trade, trade finance, trade letters of credit and other fields, and is already conducting some experiments. However, we hope to have reservations before making an official announcement."

In contrast, Citibank's biggest competitor, HSBC, seems less "shy". In January this year, HSBC announced that the total number of foreign exchange transactions settled through blockchain in the past year had reached US$250 billion.

When talking about the application of blockchain technology in the field of foreign exchange trading, Opeyemi Olomo, head of blockchain at Citi Innovation Lab, believes that there are obvious industry electrification issues in the foreign exchange trading market, such as credit transparency issues, but like the global payment industry, whether related problems can be solved through blockchain technology depends on the complexity of building an ecosystem and whether the process is profitable.

Of course, Ofeyemi Olomo admits that there are many opportunities to try to apply blockchain technology in the foreign exchange trading market. He said:

“Forex trading is a niche ecosystem, and if you look at those who are providing liquidity in this space, there are not that many, so it is a good opportunity to build an ecosystem. If you can connect four or five institutions together, it is likely to do something different.”

Hosting issues

Citibank is one of the largest financial custody providers in the world, so it is easy to imagine whether they will also explore digital asset custody business - a business that has recently attracted the interest of many traditional financial institutions (including central securities depositories).

However, Guru Attak remained tight-lipped on the issue, saying simply: "Digital asset custody is not within our scope of business, nor is it a business we are responsible for. It may be a feature that others are looking into."

Guru Attak believes that, broadly speaking, many industries are trying to move their tools or infrastructure to blockchain platforms, but they rarely think about why they are doing this. On the contrary, Guru Attak feels that it is more important now to take a closer look at the nature of financial instruments, adding:

"For example, if a person wants to launch a letter of credit banking tool on his/her own, how should he do it? What is the reason why he/she wants to do this?"

Guru Attak said that Citibank is now thinking more in this philosophical way. She finally said:

"I am actually also choosingChallenge yourself, are we trying to maximize the potential of blockchain technology, or is it just to solve some contradictions and inefficiencies in business operations in the current system? ”

(Source: Carbon Chain Value)