Six of the World’s Largest Banks Join Together to Form “Utility Settlement Coin”

So many coins have been created with the expressed purpose of providing easier and cheaper access to a variety of financial services, including transferring money across countries and currencies. Now, six of the world’s largest banks have gotten smart to the opportunities that blockchain technology presents and created a coin of their own–the “Utility Settlement Coin” (USC).

The USC token will be a “pegged”, or collateralized, coin, similar to Tether. This means that each USC coin will be backed up by fiat currency, and therefore will always have the same value–no price volatility here. 

Barclays, CIBC, Credit Suisse, HSBC, MUFG and State Street have recently been revealed as the new partners in the so-called “Utility Settlement Coin” (USC) endeavor, joining Clearmatics, Deutsche Bank, Santander, NEX, UBS and BNY Mellon.

So far, the only purpose of the Utility Settlement Coin is that it will be used as a means for these banks to transact with each other. USC is not planned to be available to the public as an investment coin. Until further notice, the coin will exist in a closed, centralized ecosystem.

The third phase of the project, which was revealed earlier this week, consists of a test-run of formal transference of collateralized digital assets. Currently, this phase is intended to run for roughly 12 months.

After these 12 months have passed, the fourth phase of the project will begin. If everything goes as planned, this fourth phase will commence around the end of 2018, has been referred to as the “go-live” phase by Jaffrey. During this phase, the entities involved with the USC network will transact with USC on a “pegged” token exchange.

Jaffrey expects that in time, major banks will be issuing their own cryptocurrencies. However, blockchain is still so new that most larger financial entities want to take their time to really understand the technology before completely “plunging in” themselves. According to Jaffrey, USC “is essentially a stepping stone to a time when central banks might issue their own digital currencies.”

The Changing Face of Cryptocurrency?

In addition to providing an array of technological benefits, an increasing number of bank- and government-owned cryptocurrencies could mean that these centralized entities could be tightening their grip on the crypto sphere.

The concept of cryptocurrency was born out of the need and desire for a currency that was completely anonymous and decentralized–a currency that would belong to no corporate or government entity and be as identity-free as paying with physical cash.

However, as blockchain technology is becoming more and more popular, more corporations and governments are adopting it for their own purposes. As these currencies become more popular in the mainstream worlds of finance and fintech, the law follows them.

This is a sort of “mixed blessing”–on the one hand, investors are rejoicing as their crypto portfolios get fatter with each new set of regulations. Why does this happen? When governments put regulations on cryptocurrencies, they become safer (or at least, they are perceived as safer) for the average person to use.

On the other hand, some users who “believed” in Bitcoin and its various offspring are feeling alienated by the cryptocurrency sphere as it becomes cosier with legal systems all around the globe. An increasing number of coins and exchanges require increasing amounts of personal identification from their users.

While some may argue that the only ones who would be really affected by this are criminals, these regulations bring the questions of privacy and control of information into the spotlight. In other words, we must ask ourselves: who wants the information surrounding our purchases and transactional habits, and for what purpose?