FinTech startup Tramonex, who recently was award a government grant of £250,000, has been approved in the United Kingdom to issue electronic currency on the blockchain.
The question is, is this the Blockchain, or just a blockchain? Did they T0 or did they Corda? In other words is this thing going to be safe and secure or is it going to just ask for pain?
They had this to say:
“Automation of payments using the blockchain and smart contracts will reduce costs of transactions, allowing for the adaptation of this solution across many different fields such as insurance, real estate and government, to name only a few. Previously the missing link was lack of regulation – Tramonex Labs is very proud to provide a regulated environment where digital payments can be executed in a secure and transparent way.” Marc Avedissian, co-founder of Tramonex Labs.
Safe or Suicide?
T0 for example is a blockchain that sidechains the the Blockchain (the bitcoin network) and in doing so, provides an immutable and tamper resistant recording of a transaction whereas Corda is a private sidechain without any incentive to encourage its use, thus it will be as weak as the same software and infrastructure banks use now which is a frequently hacked environment since where there are people, there are holes in security.
In Corda's case it's even more dangerous given the fact you not only have points of failure and the given banks hosting nodes, you have only those banks hosting nodes in a private environment. It's just asking for trouble and even less secure than current systems with this architecture.
I won't even go down the IBM path, that's just pure silliness and I wouldn't want anyone truly looking into blockchain technology to get any fathom of an idea that anything in IBM's cloud is a blockchain because it isn't.
Then again IBM says the problem with current blockchain is its inability to provide immutability. Yeah.... they said that. So we won't even go there.
If Tramonex is sidechaining to the blockchain or issuing currency on the blockchain through the Omni layer or other methods, then this is something to watch for sure and we could see gigantic things from Tramonex. This would be synonymous with what the folks at Circle are trying to do, albeit possibly the wrong way given the controversy they stirred up, but they are doing a very similar thing where payments are sent in actual currency dollars using the blockchain as that settlement.
However, if Tramonex is simply doing some private networking, then this is another project where the consumer is going to be at risk and may not be the best thing for the industry. Not to mention the space is overcrowded with the same crap that doesn't work well now.
Registration
From past Tramonex speaking they appear to be pro-bitcoin so it's possible the Blockchain will be used. Ethereum is another possibility or a combination of the two.
Whats for certain is that they will be issuing value on a blockchain somewhere and they have been granted a registration for this now as a Small Electronic Money Institution with the Bank of England Financial Services Register (FCA).
The company has been registered with the FCA as an Authorized Payment Institution since 2014.
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