Bitcoin Inheritance Service, AML Efforts, and Other Blockchain Initiatives

Blockchain technology remains one of the hottest trends among financial, government and commercial organisations worldwide. ForkLog magazine offers an overview of the most interesting latest initiatives.

In Russia, a blockchain-based service to transfer Bitcoin wallet keys by inheritance will be developed

In Russia, разработают сервис on a blockchain to transfer digital information by inheritance. The developers say that with it one will be able to store “digital data and assets — from social-media passwords to Bitcoin wallet keys”.

As representatives of the National Technology Initiative (NTI) said, users will be able to store digital information via the service with the possibility of transferring it to specific individuals after at least six months.

“Digital assets are increasing — this includes crypto wallets, social media profiles, and messaging channels. Therefore the question arises: how to preserve digital information and pass it to heirs, for example, in 50 years?”, ForkLog told NTI.

The data will be stored encrypted on SberCloud and duplicated on DropBox and other platforms.

OK Group will assist police in fighting money laundering with blockchain

Ok Group, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, announced cooperation with the Nanjing Public Security Science and Research Institute. The collaboration involves applying blockchain in operations against AML violators.

Oklink, part of the group, together with the Nanjing Public Security Science and Research Institute, will create a dedicated laboratory Chaintelligence. It will focus on on-chain data analysis, risk management and staff training.

A similarly named flagship product from Oklink in blockchain analytics.

According to the press release, Chaintelligence helped police in five Chinese provinces uncover dozens of AML violations and add 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) to the budget.

In India, Ethereum blockchain used to verify diplomas

The government of the Indian state of Maharashtra вступили into a partnership with the blockchain startup LegitDoc to implement an Ethereum-based system for verifying university diplomas.

The Maharashtra State Board of Skill Development (MSBSD) decided to use the public blockchain based on the second-largest cryptocurrency network to counter the growth in forged higher-education documents.

MSBSD plans, in 2022, to rely solely on electronic diploma verification, eliminating physical authenticity checks.

CEO LegitDoc said that authorities in other regions, including the states of Telangana and Karnataka, have shown interest in their solution.

South China Morning Post tokenises the historical archive as NFT

The well-known Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) создает a series of NFTs using a new token standard named “ARTIFACT” designed to preserve historical assets on the blockchain.

The project comprises a structured metadata framework that enables the preservation of the publication’s 118-year archive of media resources through decentralized ownership and distribution.

“Blockchain offers enormous potential for the immutable preservation of journalism that bears witness to and explains history. The ARTIFACT project is an opportunity to discover, collect, display, trade and revive meaningful moments and objects from our collective human experience,” said SCMP CEO Gary Liu.

JPMorgan to expand blockchain unit headcount

The financial group JPMorgan opened 84 vacancies related to blockchain. Many of them are cross-posted on LinkedIn for job search and networking.

The roles relate to development, marketing and auditing at offices in the US, India, the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Mexico, Greece and Israel.

Many of them involve employment in the Onyx division, which focuses on blockchain projects and the JPM Coin stablecoin.

In Kenya, calls to move elections to blockchain

A Kenyan Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioner candidate, Justus Abonyo, argues that the country should employ blockchain technology for conducting elections. The Star reports.

In his view, a shift to electronic voting would increase the security and transparency of the process and help cut election costs by 300%.

“The cost of a ballot in Kenya ranges from $7 to $25. If we use blockchain technology, the figure would drop to about $0.50. This is a field I would study as a commissioner”, he explained.

Audit firm EY tested a DLT solution for cross-border taxation

The Big Four accounting firm EY completed a pilot project on using blockchain technology to tackle inefficiencies and complexities of cross-border withholding tax on dividends.

The pilot involved tax authorities of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway and a number of companies, among them BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citibank, JP Morgan Securities Services and others.

In the WHT solution, DLT technology is used to automate, decentralise and more securely exchange tax and financial information between financial intermediaries and tax authorities by creating a “common registry” of all dividend transactions. This enables proper and accurate taxation of income.

WHT also simplifies obtaining the correct tax regime, while increasing transparency and helping reduce the likelihood of fraud by authorities.

Blockchain startups join Mastercard accelerator Start Path

The payment system Mastercard announced joining a new phase of the Start Path startup-support program for seven projects working in the blockchain and digital assets industry.

The Start Path initiative aims to help startups accelerate the adoption of innovations, scale and succeed in later stages, through Mastercard’s expertise and resources.

According to the site, through the program 250 projects have passed, with investments totaling $3 billion.