Suzhou City, one of major cities that successfully piloted China’s central bank digital currency, signed a MoU with the Cypherium blockchain platform.
Cypherium, the enterprise-level blockchain platform, is going to contribute to the blockchain development of a major Chinese city.
A partner of global tech giants like Microsoft and Google, Cypherium has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU, with Suzhou City Municipal to advance the city’s development of blockchain Infrastructure. The firm announced the news on July 28.
Suzhou is among major cities piloting China’s digital yuan
Suzhou City is a major economic center located in Jiangsu Province. One of the most competitive cities in China, Suzhou is among pilot cities of China’s central bank digital currency project, the digital yuan.
In April 2020, agencies and enterprises in the Xiangcheng District of Suzhou piloted CBDC with payments of 50% of local workers’ transport subsidies in the new digital currency. The project is also referred to as digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP. The city also piloted a blockchain-based program targeting notary services in early 2020.
Driving blockchain interoperability
Suzhou City has successfully piloted the DCEP project and other blockchain-related initiatives, and Cypherium will now further expand the city’s blockchain-related capabilities. Cypherium CEO, Sky Guo, outlined that the platform will be particularly helpful in providing interoperability to diverse blockchain developments in Suzhou.
Guo said:
“With several trials taking place in the city, especially with workers in the city of Suzhou receiving part of their upcoming transportation subsidies in DCEP. Interoperability will likely play a role in determining which projects end up succeeding.”
Headquartered in New York, Cypherium is developing an enterprise smart contract platform that implements a mix of Proof-of-Work, or PoW, and HotStuff consensus algorithms. As reported, HotStuff protocol is also used by Facebook’s not-yet-launched digital currency project, Libra.
As an enterprise-focused startup, Cypherium has made a bunch of big partnerships to foster blockchain development. The firm positions itself as the first project to partner with so many tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM.
In mid-July, Guo predicted that CBDC-powered cross-border payments will happen in the next couple of years or even sooner.
