A Hong Kong-based blockchain company has launched a digital payment system that aims to bridge the gap between stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Red Date Technology, a blockchain infrastructure company that is also one of China’s blockchain initiatives, unveiled its universal digital payment network during the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 conference in Davos, Switzerland on January 19. (UDPN) was launched.
According to its whitepaper, UDPN is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that serves similar purposes to what the SWIFT network does for banks, but aimed at stablecoins and CBDCs.
Technology engineering firm GFT Technologies and law firm DLA Piper’s digital asset creation engine TOKO also contributed to the development of UDPN.
“Just as the SWIFT network created the first common standard for messaging between financial institutions across different payment systems, UDPN serves the same purpose for a new generation of CBDCs and stablecoins.”
According to a Jan. 19 press release, “several global Tier 1 banks” are already involved in proof-of-concept (POC) use cases to test the network for cross-border remittances and swaps.
The release did not disclose which banks were participating in the POC, but Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of East Asia and Akbank all announced their participation in the UDPN launch in Davos. participated in the panel.
The stablecoin used in the POC was also private. However, the network’s whitepaper states that it only supports “CBDC and regulated fiat-backed stablecoin currency systems as payment methods”, adding:
“Unregulated public chain cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin will not be accepted.”
Eight other proof-of-concept tests are slated for the network, including the issuance and circulation of CBDC and bank-issued stablecoins, and the use of UDPN as a payment gateway for e-commerce.
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UDPN has been under development by Red Date for nearly two years.
Prior to launching this digital payment system, the company was known for working on China’s national blockchain project, Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN).
In its now-deleted roadmap posted on January 15, 2021, BSN stated that it would “completely change the current payment and distribution methods, creating standardized digital currency transfer methods and payment procedures for all information. We plan to build a global CBDC system that enables system. “
The latest white paper makes no mention of Red Date’s tenure at the helm of China’s blockchain project, nor of China’s own CBDC efforts using a digital yuan.
Earlier, in June 2022, Red Date CEO Yifan He called cryptocurrency “the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history.”
