Did you know that one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Litecoin, was founded in Singapore?
With robust infrastructure, state-of-the art technology and entrepreneurship-friendly frameworks, Singapore has become a hotbed for new business ideas, especially in the financial technology sector.
Our strategic location and talent pool make our soil fertile for growth — and thousands of crypto and blockchain companies have already begun to germinate.
In the spirit of celebrating our nation’s achievements this august, we pay tribute to five crypto and blockchain initiatives started in Singapore, that are already making waves in the wider fintech landscape, and impacting the lives of many.
Project Ubin
Possibly one of the earliest blockchain initiatives, Project Ubin is also one of the bigger scale, nationwide projects that began in 2016.
Established to explore different applications of blockchain technology in phases, Project Ubin is a collaboration between government agencies and the industry to explore the use of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for clearing and settlement of payments and securities.
In its first phase, Project Ubin explored the use of blockchain technology in Singapore to facilitate inter-bank payments, in partnership with other financial institutions.
The conclusion of its fifth phase marks the end of Project Ubin’s five-year journey. The payments network prototype developed in its final phase will continue to be used as a testbed for collaboration between central banks and the financial sector, for developing the next generation cross-border payments infrastructure.
Healthcerts
PHOTO: INNOVATIVE DIAGNOSTICS AND QUEST LABORATORIES
Imagine the hassle of tracking COVID-19 results across borders for millions of people — definitely a recipe for logistical disaster.
Worse still, if travellers present fake polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results at checkpoints in a bid to game the system.
Jointly created by the Ministry of Health and the Government Technology Agency, Healthcerts is a set of digital standards for issuing COVID-19 test results, in compliance with both local and international standards.
How Healthcerts work:
Healthcerts allows medical providers to issue patients with proof of their COVID-19 test results via email. Using the government portal Notarise, travellers can then submit their Pre-Departure Test results for digital authentication by Singapore’s Ministry of Health. Once their documents are authenticated and endorsed, they will be issued a digital certificate containing a QR code sent to their Singpass app or email address.
With digital certificates that can be easily shared and tracked, this allows for more efficient inspection by both local and overseas border authorities!
Opencerts
You’ve probably heard of people producing bogus certificates in an attempt to land their dream jobs. While candidates might have been able to fake it till they made it in the past, government agencies in Singapore have since discovered a tamper-proof solution to combat this problem.
How Opencerts work:
Developed by the Government Technology Agency, Ministry of Education, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and SkillsFuture Singapore, Opencerts is a blockchain-based platform which offers an easy and reliable way to issue and validate academic certificates that are tamper-resistant.
This means that employers can now verify the authenticity of certificates and qualifications, and schools can issue digital certificates to students. Despite the lack of physical graduation ceremonies, students can log in to view and download their digital certificates directly from their Singpass app.
Opencerts or not, it’s generally unwise to use fake certificates unless you want to court trouble with the law.
Zilliqa
Despite being a fairly new project in the blockchain space, Zilliqa has gained considerable traction in the crypto community. This comes as no surprise, though - Zilliqa is the contender for many firsts in the blockchain space. Ziliiqa is the first blockchain to implement sharding on its mainnet, which will allow miners and applications to scale better. It’s also powered by Scillia, a safe-by-design smart contract language.
Born in 2017, the Ziliqa was conceived by a team of academics, entrepreneurs and engineers at the National University of Singapore. Starting out at an ICO price of $0.0038, ZIL has seen a near 2900% increase since its inception.
👉 Read more about Zilliqa here
Litecoin
Did you know that Litecoin was founded in Singapore? The non-profit organisation Litecoin Foundation is also registered here. Founded just 2 years after Bitcoin, Litecoin is a pioneer in the cryptocurrency space and one of the most popular tokens out there.
Brought to life by ex-Googler Charlie Lee in 2011 in Singapore, Litecoin has four times the supply of Bitcoin. Rather than viewing Litecoin as Bitcoin’s competitor, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee sees Litecoin as a way to complement Bitcoin —while Bitcoin is serves as a store of value, Litecoins provides an avenue for payments and transactions
👉 See Litecoin SGD prices now
👉 Read more about Litecoin here
We hope this round-up has been able to provide you with some insights on the developments in crypto blockchain technology in Singapore - and hopefully stirred up some feelings of national pride!
Do share this piece with fellow Singaporeans who you think might enjoy reading this, and watch this space for more updates!
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