UC Berkeley to explore XRP consensus mechanism; receives grant from Ripple’s UBRI

In its recent document announcing the research program focused on Ripple, UC Berkeley has called for proposals, for which the deadline is set to be 30th November. It also acknowledged the grant awarded by Ripple to the institution for the same purpose. The document read:

“Berkeley Haas has been awarded a multi-year, multi-million-dollar grant from Ripple, a growing company in the emerging blockchain industry, to support research, courses and student activities in blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital payments”

The document also informed that the fund will be housed in the Institute for Business and Social Impact [IBSI], wherein the funds will further be granted for the following purposes: cryptocurrency and digital payments, blockchain systems, cryptography and related subjects, for instance, blockchain for global financial inclusion and economic development.

In the announcement, the university also provided the aspects that a research proposal topic can include. Under technical topics, one can include efficient scaling solutions for XRP consensus mechanism. Another research topic suggested by UC Berkeley was:

“Evaluate the incentives in emerging blockchain networks (proof-of-work, Byzantine fault tolerant (XRP), etc.) on a variety of factors including: network diversity and participation, security, consolidation of decision making, etc”

Under business topics, the document specified but did not limit the proposals to include the use of blockchain in verifying and protecting medical records, identity to avoid voter fraud, which will further be used to fetch immediate verification of results. The suggestion also included a topic that revolved around the implications for automation of contractual relations across a value chain.

Lastly, a section was dedicated to the topics surrounding regulatory issues in the cryptocurrency space. The overall regulatory framework regarding digital assets, its projection of new technologies on the world, locally and globally were some of the points in sight under regulatory issues.