World Bank gave a new high to the spirits of blockchain-enthusiasts around the world when on 9 August 2018 the institution published a press release on introducing the world’s first blockchain-based debt instrument ‘bond-i.’
According to the official release, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has been endowed with the responsibility by World Bank to create, allocate, transfer and manage the unique debt instrument, with the use of a blockchain ledger. Also, while the financial and technical aspects of the bond will be handled by the Australian Bank’s Blockchain Centre of Excellence, Microsoft will share its cloud-computing platform Azure to run the project infrastructure. The issuance and legal implementations of the bond were advised by the law firm, King & Wood Mallesons.
Denis Robitaille, World Bank Group Chief Information Officer, says “Helping countries transition to technology-led development is the key to our goals of reducing poverty and promoting lasting development. This is at the heart of the World Bank’s Innovation Lab—and this pioneering bond is a milestone in our efforts to learn how we can advise our client countries on the opportunities and risk that disruptive technologies offer as we strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”
World Bank believes that ‘bond-i’ will receive good response from inventors as the market has already hinted a demand for it. Apart from that, concerning functionality as well, World Bank holds a favourable opinion about the use of blockchain technology in raising capitals and trading securities, while improving operational efficiency and regulatory oversight of the same.
Reportedly, the verification structure of the ‘bond-I’ ledger will be based on a more private version of the Ethereum blockchain, where consensus would be derived only from authorised nodes of the network.
Microsoft is a significant technology player among the enterprises that have already identified the potential of the blockchain and actively support the same. The Satya Nadella-led tech giant was recently in the news for adopting Proof-of-Authority algorithm for its Ethereum blockchain product, with an aim to increase the degree of authority for businesses using Azure’s Ethereum blockchain product, which was launched on Azure in 2015.
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