Public-permissionless blockchains, like Ethereum, can be viewed as ‘Network States’ — decentralized communities that possess their own economic frameworks, native currencies, unique rules, and a shared cultural context. These networks are becoming an ever more compelling part of the emerging economic landscape, but still face significant regulatory challenges that keep them at arm’s length from the wider global economy.

Meanwhile, the traditional economy's approach — private-permissioned networks — often fail to replicate the benefits of public blockchains, leading to high failure rates in enterprise blockchain projects.

Clearly, the blockchain landscape is missing a crucial link to connect old and new economic systems.

In traditional economies, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) like Shenzhen and Dubai have successfully bridged different economic frameworks by enabling the best elements of multiple systems to thrive.

Similarly, Millicent One is a public-permissioned blockchain designed to combine the benefits of public blockchains with the necessary compliance structures that enable it to become the first Digital SEZ for Ethereum — a custom environment dedicated to facilitating ‘foreign investment’ from traditional financial services — expanding onchain economies for the benefit of all.

Public-permissionless blockchains represent a significant shift in trust, governance, and ownership in the digital world. These open networks foster value creation, collaboration, and frictionless economic activity, aligning around cultural emphasis on individual empowerment and collective innovation.

Sometimes conceptualized as ‘Network States,’ these blockchains form decentralized communities with their own economies, currencies, and governance systems, operating with a degree of sovereignty somewhat akin to digital nations with trillions of dollars of ‘GDP’ creation.

The Network State in One Image, via thenetworkstate.com

However, despite growing institutional interest and heightened political rhetoric, regulators in many jurisdictions are making it increasingly difficult for traditional financial institutions to participate on permissionless chains.

Just this past week, we’ve seen numerous publications from regulators on the subject illustrating these challenges:

• Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: Updated guidelines from the global standard setter for the regulation of banks categorizes stablecoins and traditional digital securities issued on permissionless blockchains as high-risk. This effectively blocks banks from significant tokenization initiatives on permissionless blockchains due to prohibitive costs.

• FINMA: The traditionally crypto-friendly Swiss regulator released guidance for stablecoin issuers requiring the identity of all stablecoin holders to be verified by either the issuing institution or by appropriate intermediaries.

• Qatar Central Bank: Outright banned the use of permissionless networks by regulated entities.

These restrictions stem largely from regulatory concerns about risk management and compliance on permissionless systems, including limited oversight on network operators, potential settlement finality issues, AML/CFT risks, and privacy concerns.

The advantages of public blockchains are evident. However, integrating the traditional global economy, powered by modern Nation States and multinational organizations, into permissionless Network States like Ethereum has proven challenging.

This has prompted traditional financial institutions to try replicating the benefits of Network States by co-opting the underlying technology to replicate existing structures onchain.

This has seldom worked out well.

Industry estimates suggest that 95% of enterprise blockchain projects fail.

Notable examples include the clearing and settlement platform built by Digital Asset for the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) that failed to launch despite 7 years and $170 million of investment, and TradeLens, a DLT logistics platform developed by IBM and Maersk to streamline global trade that shut down due to low adoption rates and resistance from stakeholders to share data on a single, centralized platform.

So, if traditional economies can neither directly integrate into public-permissionless blockchains, nor replicate the benefits of those systems themselves, how can we bring the value of Network States to traditional economies and vice-versa?

The answer lies in something that has already been proven to work with great success: Special Economic Zones.

SEZs are areas within a country designed to overcome bureaucratic hurdles, attract foreign investment, and stimulate growth. They offer numerous benefits including economic incentives, reduced tariffs, and streamlined regulations.

By providing a flexible yet stable environment, SEZs like Shenzhen in China and Dubai in the UAE drive significant economic development, power rapid innovation, successfully integrate local economies into global markets, and act as bridges between multiple stakeholders and economic systems that might otherwise be incompatible.

While meeting compliance guidelines on a permissionless chain is increasingly difficult, it is entirely possible to do so on a public chain, provided it has the right structure.

Enter public-permissioned blockchains.

These emerging designs offer a promising new path forward for individuals and institutions who want to benefit from the best properties of both traditional and decentralized finance.

Open, transparent, community-focused, and democratic — public-permissioned blockchain designs retain the best characteristics of public chains, adding a system of onchain checks and balances to foster a curated environment that balances innovation with regulation, much as SEZs do for traditional economies, providing the compliance and operational structure regulators demand while preserving the freedoms and privacy users deserve.

Millicent One is a public-permissioned Ethereum rollup designed to connect traditional and emerging economic networks.

Connected to the deep liquidity and user-base of the wider Ethereum ecosystem, Millicent One addresses the oil-and-water separation between traditional finance and decentralized finance by acting as a bridge between worlds.

By viewing permissions and decentralization as a spectrum rather than a binary, Millicent One is able to address regulatory guidelines through proactive structures that balance freedom and innovation with the required operational conditions.

Just as SEZs experiment with new governance models and financial instruments, adapting quickly to technological changes and market needs, Millicent One’s ‘Proof-of-Participation’ system provides positive incentives for stakeholder participation and a democratic governance system based on a two-tiered delegation system that creates a council-based variant of the ve(3,3) model used by projects like Aerodrome.

SEZs also offer economic incentives, like reduced taxes and access to exclusive markets, attracting participants with unique opportunities unavailable in the broader ecosystem.

Similarly, Millicent One offers gasless transactions and the ability to hypothecate tokenized real-world assets across a variety of composable DeFi applications in a compliant manner, using a low-friction, privacy-preserving approach leveraging reusable, user-owned identity credentials.

This unique system unlocks the potential for increased returns for investors, new distribution channels for asset issuers, increased demand for novel financial products, and enables the world’s biggest financial institutions to participate in Ethereum’s large and fast-growing onchain economy.

Another great example of an emerging Digital SEZ that connects two economic systems is Inshallah Network, an Ethereum Layer 2 with a custom validator network and staking solution that filters out interest & other haram transactions to create the foundation for an ethical DeFi ecosystem that enables millions of people to access Shari'ah compliant ETH staking and DeFi applications for the first time.

With the ability to meet KYC/AML requirements, and a structure designed to mitigate the major causes for concern during risk-weighted assessments, public-permissioned blockchains like Millicent One offer a promising solution for integrating traditional and digital economies. Effectively acting as Digital SEZs, they can provide the necessary regulatory comfort for traditional financial institutions while preserving the innovation and decentralization central to successful blockchain networks.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to dive deeper into the details of Millicent One, exploring its unique features, governance model, potential impact on economic integration, as well as use cases and benefits for everyone from DeFi degens to G-SIBs.

To be the first to know, visit millicent.io or join us on Twitter/X.

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This information is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be (i) an offer, or solicitation of an offer, to invest in, or to buy or sell, any securities, interests, or shares, or to participate in any investment or trading strategy, (ii) accounting, legal, regulatory, technical, or tax advice, or investment recommendations, or (iii) an official statement or endorsement of Millicent Labs.

No representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein. Millicent Labs may have financial interests in, or relationships with, some of the entities and/or publications discussed or referenced in the materials. Additionally, Millicent Labs does not endorse or approve any links or third-party websites that may be provided in the materials.

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Millicent Labs, core contributors to Millicent One — the vertically integrated chain for compliant onchain finance and RWAs — are excited to announce our partnership with Nuffle Labs.

This collaboration will leverage Nuffle's cutting-edge modular blockchain solutions, Near Data Availability (Near DA) and the Nuffle Fast Finality Layer (NFFL), to bridge the gap between traditional finance DeFi, setting a new standard for onchain finance.

Nuffle Labs, an independent entity spun off from the NEAR Foundation, with a recent $13 million funding round led by Electric Capital, Nuffle Labs is focused on creating scalable, secure, and efficient solutions to enhance the capabilities of blockchain networks.

As the demand for compliant blockchain solutions in finance continues to grow, Millicent is ready to deliver a robust, secure, and efficient platform for RWAs and onchain financial operations. This partnership with Nuffle Labs represents a significant step forward in achieving this goal.

Near DA offers Millicent One a cost-effective and reliable solution for storing and accessing transaction data. This is crucial for maintaining transparency and compliance in financial operations. Key benefits include:

• Unparalleled Cost-Effectiveness: Users from the Web 2.0 world aren’t used to paying gas fees for simple actions like buying a stock on Robinhood, or sending money with CashApp.  That’s why Millicent One offers a gasless transactions for the vast majority of our community.

Near DA's storage costs are approximately 85,000 times cheaper than Ethereum mainnet and up to 30x cheaper than Celestia, significantly reducing operational expenses to unlock much better experiences for Millicent One’s users and partners.

Source: https://www.nearmodular.com/

• Scalability: Near DA offers 4mb/s of block space per shard — with each 4mb block providing exactly 4mb of usable data, free from cryptographic bloat — across its four shards, for 16mb/s of data throughput. This efficiency, coupled with NEAR's unique ability to dynamically reshard in response to growing demand, ensures Millicent One can scale seamlessly.

Source: https://near.org/data-availability

• Reliability: A Top 20 system by marketcap, with 100% uptime since their launch in April 2020, Near is a battle-tested and time-proven solution.  That isn’t just impressive – it's a non-negotiable foundation for financial institutions considering blockchain adoption and the future of onchain finance.

NFFL addresses one of the most persistent challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem: slow transaction finality. This innovation is particularly crucial for Millicent One's mission to bridge TradFi and DeFi, as it dramatically improves both overall network efficiency and cross-rollup communication.

NFFL is engineered so that each transaction is irreversible and recognized as legitimate in record time. In order to achieve this, NFFL leverages both NEAR’s advanced consensus mechanisms and EigenLayer for economic security.

• Unmatched Speed and Security: While rollups traditionally offer fast ‘soft’ finality, ‘hard’ finality settling to Ethereum mainnet currently takes 12 minutes.  Through NFFL, Millicent One adds an additional finality guarantee in just 3 to 4 seconds — backed by $500m of restaked ETH already pledged to NFFL’s EigenLayer AVS by Swell. This dual-layer protection and game-changing speed is essential for real-time financial operations and RWA transactions.

• Interoperability and Chain Abstraction: NFFL takes a critical step towards an interoperable ecosystem that aligns perfectly with Millicent's goal of creating an open and unified platform for onchain finance. NFFL enables fast finality for all cross-rollup transactions, solving the liquidity fragmentation issue currently challenging the Ethereum ecosystem.

This partnership with Nuffle Labs marks a pivotal moment in Millicent’s journey to revolutionize compliant onchain finance. By leveraging Near DA and NFFL, we are setting new standards for efficiency, security, and interoperability in the blockchain space.

As we integrate these technologies into Millicent One, we invite financial institutions, asset managers, and DeFi enthusiasts to join us in exploring the vast potential of compliant onchain finance. Together, we're building a future where traditional and decentralized finance are one and the same.

Ready to be part of that future? Visit millicent.io or join our community on Twitter/X to learn more about how Millicent and Nuffle are reshaping the financial landscape.

Millicent One is the first vertically-integrated chain for compliant DeFi and tokenized Real World Assets, dedicated to creating more rewarding financial opportunities, accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Former core contributors to the NEAR Protocol and builders on Ethereum, Nuffle Labs builds next-generation modular infrastructure for all layers. There’s NUFF for everyone.

For over a decade, crypto enthusiasts have speculated that the future of finance would be blockchain-based.

In 2024, the convergence of TradFi and DeFi is rapidly moving from fantasy to imminent reality. As Citigroup says:

‍“We are approaching an inflection point, where the promised potential of blockchain will be realized and be measured in billions of users and trillions of dollars in value."

That’s why we’re building Millicent One — the vertically-integrated chain for RWAs and compliant onchain finance. With core features including protocol-owned financial applications, privacy-preserving ID at the chain level, and a sybil-resistant Proof-of-Participation reward mechanism, Millicent One is set to play a leading role in this impending shift.

The scale of what’s coming is staggering.

Boston Consulting Group predicts an asset tokenization sector reaching $16 trillion by the end of the decade.

One of the world’s largest banks, Standard Chartered, forecasts that over the next decade, more than $30 trillion of tokenized assets and currencies will come onchain — that’s more about 35% of all the money in the world.

But, before we get to the promised land, there are still significant challenges that need to be addressed.

Today, most people view blockchain design as binary: either public or private.

Crypto-natives are firmly in the public-permissionless camp, while TradFi leans much more strongly towards private permissioned (with the occasional peek over the fence).

Public-permissionless blockchains are the biggest thing to happen to money since Kublai Khan invented fiat currency in the 13th century. Coming out of nowhere in 2009 they have created more novel, accessible, and democratic financial systems, rapidly growing to grab the world’s attention.

Yet despite all their successes, public-permissionless chains still struggle with regulatory uncertainties, as well as the ever-present risks of hacks, bad actors, and scams.

Private-permissioned blockchains emerged around 2013, as financial institutions and enterprises began to recognize the potential of blockchain technology but wanted solutions that offered more control and privacy, and scalability than public blockchains offered.  The primary motivation was to leverage blockchain's benefits of immutability, security, and efficiency, while maintaining control over who could participate in the network and access data.

In a way, Private chains succeed in achieving these goals but the success rate of private blockchain developments has been notably low.  By stripping out the core values of community ownership, user freedoms, and product composability they also removed the very things that make blockchains and crypto so compelling.

But what if it turns out that permissioning is better viewed as a full design spectrum, rather than a binary choice?

As Coindesk’s Michael Casey put it in an International Monetary Fund OpEd titled ‘DeFi and TradFi must Work Together’:

“If they are to attain mainstream adoption, DeFi and crypto must integrate some of the regulatory and self-regulatory practices that have brought functional stability to TradFi. But there's also an urgent need for the stewards of the global economy to explore DeFi and crypto solutions to its many problems."

Enter Millicent One: a public-permissioned blockchain for onchain financial services, developed by a team from JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, PwC, Citadel, and Tendermint, with direct input from some of the world’s largest public and private financial institutions.

Millicent One isn’t yet another general-purpose Ethereum rollup; it's a carefully crafted bridge between TradFi and DeFi, designed to merge regulatory compliance and access to institutional capital with the benefits of open development, meaningful community participation, interoperability, and composability.

• Vertical Integration: Millicent One's core applications for RWA-based DeFi — including a next-gen DEX, a lending market, and perpetual futures exchange — are native to, and owned by, the protocol itself. These applications offer non-custodial access to products not traditionally found onchain, and are designed to benefit the entire ecosystem and reward all stakeholders, rather than being created by third parties with potentially conflicting agendas.
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• Privacy-Preserving Identity Credentials: Participants on Millicent One can selectively prove relevant attributes to chosen counterparties without disclosing personally identifiable information (PII). This feature delivers the compliance and operational safety regulators and institutions require, alongside the freedoms and privacy users deserve.
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• Composable RWAs: Millicent One’s native apps and compliance framework unlock the full potential of RWAs in onchain finance, far beyond simply buying and holding, enabling diverse investment and trading strategies that combine both digitally native and traditional financial assets.
  
  For example, on Millicent One, a trader could use a corporate bond yielding 12% APY as collateral for a margin trade rather than using a stablecoin with no native yield; a real-estate investor could unlock liquidity in their holdings though a collateralized debt position on the network’s native lending market.

• Proof-of-Participation: A cryptoeconomic system that rewards participants that improve the quality of the overall ecosystem, positively incentivizing skin-in-the-game and long-term protocol alignment with real yields generated by the network and its services.  Native identity credentials and bonding mechanisms reduce both sybil farmers and mercentary capital, enabling truly democratic user governance and sustainable ecosystem growth.

These innovative features distinguish Millicent One from current market offerings and position it to attract a diverse user base, from retail users to large institutions, many of whom have yet to participate in the blockchain space.

Over the coming weeks, we'll dive deeper into the details of Millicent One, providing an insider's look at what's to come.

To be the first to know, visit millicent.io or join us on Twitter/X.

Today, we're proud to announce that we have secured grant funding from the Arbitrum Foundation to support the launch of Millicent One, a public Ethereum Rollup to improve issuance and enhance the composability of tokenized Real World Assets (RWAs) and currencies within compliant on-chain financial services.

We're making this announcement from Basel, Switzerland where we've spent the past few days at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) headquarters for their inviation-only Innovation Summit, where global policymakers, senior executives from the finance and technology sectors, and leading academics gathered to explore how technological advances are creating new opportunities for a more open, interconnected, and user-centric global financial system.

As a participant in multiple BIS Innovation Hub initiatives and recognized by the G20 for its digital cross-border payment system, Millicent Labs has chosen this moment to unveil the next step in our roadmap to combine the best features of decentralized finance innovations with mainstream financial services: Millicent One.

Millicent One is designed as a public unified ledger — a comprehensive digital platform for seamless, efficient, and instantaneous payment, clearing, and settlement across a diverse range of assets and currencies.

The platform will integrate tokenized RWAs with various forms of tokenized sovereign currencies — including commercial bank deposits, e-money, stablecoins, and central bank assets — employing zero-knowledge cryptography for privacy-preserving identity and compliance solutions.

In addition to grant funding, the Arbitrum Orbit program enables us to leverage Arbitrum’s best-in-class Nitro codebase as a foundation for Millicent One’s highly-scalable, fully-customized chain with the ability for granular controls over parameters including privacy, permissions, fees and gas tokens.

Millicent Labs’ selection of the Nitro stack follows an extensive ecosystem evaluation process, noting that Arbitrum is not only the leading Ethereum scaling technology, but also of rapidly growing importance in the RWA space — underscored by the Arbitrum DAO’s Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP), which has attracted interest from major financial institutions like $1.5tn AUM asset manager, Franklin Templeton; Libeara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank; and Securitize, who presented BlackRock’s $381mm tokenized fund, BUIDL.

Kene Ezeji-Okoye, Co-Founder and CEO of Millicent Labs, said, “Today's announcement marks another significant milestone in our journey, with recognition from another highly-respected industry leader. We are thrilled to be building with the support of a world-class organization like the Arbitrum Foundation.”

Nina Rong, Head of Ecosystem Development at the Arbitrum Foundation, said, "From securing UK government funding to their involvement in the BIS and Bank of England's Project Rosalind, Millicent Labs continues to showcase a commitment to enhancing mainstream financial services through public blockchain technology. We are excited to welcome such a pioneering team into the Arbitrum ecosystem.”

More information and major announcements around Millicent One will follow in the next few days — make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with the latest news!

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Millicent is thrilled to announce its selection into the prestigious Techstars Web3 2024 Cohort, marking a significant milestone in our journey towards revolutionizing the digital currency and tokenized real-world assets landscapes. 

Techstars, renowned for its selective and intensive accelerator programs, has chosen Millicent Labs among a diverse group of forward-thinking startups set to shape the future of technology. Our participation in the Techstars Web3 2024 Cohort offers an unparalleled opportunity to collaborate with industry leaders, gain insights from seasoned mentors, and accelerate our growth in the Web3 space.

This year's selection process was exceptionally competitive, with an acceptance rate lower than that of getting admitted to Harvard, highlighting the caliber of startups and the stringent criteria used by Techstars to identify upcoming game-changing projects.

Our inclusion in this year’s cohort not only highlights our commitment to innovation and excellence but also underscores the impact of our groundbreaking solutions in the rapidly evolving Web3 ecosystem, and is a testament to our vision, innovation, and the potential of our technology to make a profound impact on global financial systems.

As we embark on this exciting journey with Techstars, we are eager to explore new possibilities, foster strategic partnerships, and continue leading the charge in the digital finance revolution. The future is Web3, and Millicent Labs is at the forefront of this transformative era, ready to unlock new opportunities and drive significant advancements in the industry.

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Stay tuned for updates as we progress through the Techstars Web3 2024 Cohort, and join us in shaping the future of finance and technology. Together, we are building the next generation of digital solutions that will redefine the way the world interacts with financial systems and beyond.

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For more details on the Techstars Web3 2024 Cohort, visit Techstars Newsroom.

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MUMBAI, INDIA / September 5, 2023 / London-based Millicent Labs, a pioneering fintech company dedicated to financial inclusion, is pleased to announce its win at the G20 TechSprint 2023 for its solution, LOFTHub - a decentralized currency exchange designed to improve liquidity and mitigate risks associated with cross-border payments and foreign exchange in emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) currencies.

This year's G20 TechSprint, a globally renowned competition that draws applications from the world's premier financial services and fintech firms, was launched in May under India's G20 presidency, by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with the aim of fostering innovative solutions that enhance cross-border payments.

From an overwhelming number of applications, twenty-one handpicked teams from around the world competed to develop innovative technological solutions to improve cross-border payments, culminating in a grand finale event held on September 4th in Mumbai. Here, Shri Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, presented Millicent Labs with their award, as selected by judges representing institutions including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Bank of Thailand and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF).

Millicent Labs' award-winning submission, the Liquidity Optimizing Forex Transaction Hub (LOFTHub) is a testament to the company's commitment to harnessing the power distributed ledger technology to create a more equitable and inclusive global financial system.

A hybrid decentralised exchange combining the benefits of Automated Market Maker liquidity pools with the reliability of traditional order books, LOFTHub protects against price volatility and slippage, while its multi-pool routing feature paves the way for the frictionless and low-cost exchange of currencies without established trading pairs or corridors - greatly increasing the accessibility of settling payments in a wide array of EMDE currencies.

Cecilia Skingsley, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, said:

"Identifying and developing novel solutions to common problems has been at the heart of the G20 TechSprint. The 2023 edition has again brought forward innovative solutions to help address challenges in cross-border payments, a G20 priority. The BIS Innovation Hub is proud to partner with the RBI in this year's G20 TechSprint to contribute to the global efforts in enhancing cross-border payments with a focus on emerging and developing countries. It allows us to push boundaries and explore uncharted territories, with the shared goal of making a positive impact on societies. I would like to congratulate the winners and also all the finalists for their participation and efforts in presenting new and innovative ways to address the challenges proposed."

Kene Ezeji-Okoye, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Millicent Labs, said:

"This win, and the validation of the international financial community, is a monumental step towards our vision of a more interconnected and inclusive global financial landscape. LOFTHub is not just a product; its designed to serve as a public good that bridges the gaps in the current system, offering unparalleled benefits to all participants, irrespective of their size or sophistication."

Designed to integrate the world's disparate domestic systems into a seamless global value transfer network, LOFTHub employs a hub and spoke model, interlinking independent sovereign currency issuance chains through its integrated FX exchange.

To achieve this unparalleled interoperability, LOFTHub leverages Cosmos InterBlockchain Communication (IBC), the leading cross-chain asset and data transfer protocol, designed to transform today's siloed ‘digital islands' into an ‘Internet of Blockchains'.

Millicent Labs' journey, from being awarded UK government funding to their participation in the BIS and Bank of England's Project Rosalind, reflects their unwavering dedication to innovation, and the alignment of stakeholders on all sides - from public bodies; to private financial institutions; to SMEs and individuals.

Led by Stella Dyer, a Harvard Business School alum and Wall Street veteran, and serial entrepreneur Kene Ezeji-Okoye, the company is devoted to creating an interconnected world where value moves as easily as data on the internet, and the tools for financial empowerment are within everyone's reach.

London-based Millicent Labs is an award-winning innovator in distributed ledger technology, tokenization and digital finance with support from some of the world's most prominent firms. Named one of the UK's top startups, the company is committed to breaking down silos and transforming the global financial system into an open and interconnected digital network benefiting stakeholders on all sides by combining the safeguards of today's financial system with the exponential advantages of highly interoperable distributed ledgers.

We are thrilled to announce that Kene Ezeji-Okoye, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Millicent Labs, has been selected to join the Bank of England's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Technology Forum. This is a significant recognition of Kene's expertise and Millicent Labs' pioneering role in the digital currency space.

The CBDC Technology Forum is an initiative by the Bank of England to engage stakeholders and gather insights on the technological aspects of CBDC.

It serves as a bridge between the Bank of England and experts from various sectors, including leading financial institutions, academia, and technology firms, to ensure the successful design and implementation of a potential CBDC.

The forum aims to:

• Engage a diverse group of experts to discuss the technological challenges of designing, implementing, and operating a CBDC.

• Inform the Bank's approach to CBDC, including its functionality and related technology issues, including privacy-by-design.

• Debate topics such as ledger design, data security, API standards, and the implementation of specific functionalities like offline payments.

A Central Bank Digital Currency, often referred to as a digital pound in the UK context, represents a new form of digital central bank money. A CBDC would be a digital representation of the country's official currency, issued and regulated by the central bank. In this case, the digital pound would be for use by households and businesses for their everyday payments, issued by the Bank of England.

The Bank of England and HM Treasury are considering the potential need for a digital pound in the UK, although a final decision has not been made. The move towards the design stage of this initiative signifies the importance and potential of a CBDC in the modern financial landscape.

The introduction of a digital pound brings along several challenges and risks. Ensuring data security, maintaining privacy, and achieving seamless interoperability with existing financial systems are paramount. Moreover, the design must be resilient to potential cyber threats and ensure uninterrupted availability. A sound design is crucial not only for the functionality of the digital pound but also for maintaining public trust in the currency. The CBDC Technology Forum plays a pivotal role in addressing these challenges, ensuring that the digital pound, if introduced, will be innovative, secure, and trustworthy.

Kene's selection to join the CBDC Technology Forum is a testament to his deep knowledge and experience in the digital currency infrastructure domain. As a leader at Millicent Labs, Kene has been instrumental in driving innovations that have shaped the future of digital currencies. His involvement in the forum will ensure that the insights he has gained through Millicent Labs are represented at this crucial stage of CBDC development in the UK.

Furthermore, Kene's participation underscores Millicent Labs' commitment to contributing to the broader digital currency ecosystem and ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of financial innovation.

With Kene representing Millicent Labs at the CBDC Technology Forum, we are excited about the opportunities to collaborate with other industry leaders and contribute to the development of a well designed digital pound, should one be released.

For more details on the CBDC Technology Forum and its terms of reference, you can visit the official page on the Bank of England's website.

Stay tuned for more updates from Millicent Labs, and as always, thank you for your continued support!

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We're proud to announce that Millicent Labs was selected as one of the three teams identified by the audience on the basis of originality, completeness and quality of presentation in Phase 2 of Project Rosalind, a joint endeavour by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Bank of England (BoE) that explored application programming interfaces (APIs) for retail central bank digital currency (CBDC).

A global initiative, Project Rosalind was designed to facilitate experimentation and collaboration between central banks and the private sector, enabling financial services firms and technology companies to develop and test innovative solutions for the distribution and use of retail CBDCs.

In Phase 1 of the project, the BIS and BoE collaborated with a number of organisations to build a prototype API layer for a retail CBDC system.Phase 2, the ultimate phase of the project — where 23 companies were selected to develop the first-ever solutions on the Rosalind API — attracted entries from some of the world's most prominent financial services and tech firms.

After two rounds of selection, 12 teams were chosen to present at a global demo day event organised by the BIS Innovation Hub London Centre to present to the global central banking community, where Millicent Labs was selected as one of the three teams identified by the audience.

Millicent Labs' solution, TradeFi, was a secure trade finance platform designed to demonstrate how the Rosalind API’s functionality can be leveraged to unlock value constrained by current financial infrastructure — like the world’s $1.7tn trade finance gap.Leveraging Millicent’s existing product line, the TradeFi prototype delivered a streamlined and secure escrow process — paired with a competitive secondary market — designed to protect both buyers and sellers as well as increase access to financing, especially for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), highlighting a valuable real-world use case for these digital currencies.

Kene Ezeji-Okoye, co-CEO of Millicent Labs, said, "We are thrilled to be recognised by such a prestigious project. Our goal at Millicent Labs is to utilise distributed ledger technology to create a more efficient, interconnected and inclusive global financial system — the work presented to the BIS, BoE, and wider central banking community is a testament to this mission, and we are excited to see the real-world impact these solutions will have in the near-term future."

Millicent Labs is a UK-based company led by war-refugee turned Harvard Business School alum and Wall Street veteran, Stella Dyer, and serial entrepreneur, Kene Ezeji-Okoye. Through its delivery of innovative digital financial infrastructure, the company’s mission is to create the conditions for increased prosperity through the inclusive and frictionless transfer of value.

Following on from their government funding via UK Research and Innovation as well as support from leading accelerator programs and innovation hubs — including Barclays’ Eagle Labs and Allen & Overy’s Fuse — this participation in Project Rosalind was another significant milestone for Millicent Labs and their innovative approach to digital finance.

About Millicent Labs:

London-based Millicent Labs is an award-winning innovator in distributed ledger technology, tokenisation and digital finance with support from some of the world’s most prominent firms. Named one of the UK's Top 100 startups for its tokenised bank deposit infrastructure, the company is committed to breaking down silos and transforming the global financial system into an open and interconnected digital network benefiting stakeholders on all sides by combining the safeguards of today’s financial system with the exponential advantages of highly interoperable application-specific distributed ledgers.

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Millicent Labs, a leading innovator in distributed ledger technology and digital finance, is delighted to announce its selection to join Fuse, the globally renowned tech innovation hub hosted by Allen & Overy, one of the world's leading law firms.

Allen & Overy, a multinational law firm headquartered in London, is recognised for its expertise in a wide range of practice areas, including corporate law, banking law, and intellectual property law. The firm is part of the UK's Magic Circle of leading law firms and is known for its commitment to innovation, particularly in the field of legal technology.

Fuse is a unique initiative by Allen & Overy that brings together technology companies, clients, and lawyers to collaborate and accelerate digital change.  The companies nominated by A&O’s clients to join Fuse this year were identified by the nominating companies — Citi, Goldman Sachs, the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA), J.P. Morgan, Lloyds Bank and Nomura — as having significant potential and relevance to their digital asset and distributed ledger technology practices.

“This year, we had the largest number of applications, both for the LegalTech stream and via client nomination. The Digital Assets stream is client nominated, which enables us to learn with them about new and emerging legal questions in this area.”

Said, Shruti Ajitsaria, Partner & Head of Fuse at Allen & Overy, continuing,

“I can’t wait to see what these companies will do. The potential for the digital assets companies to be transformational is enormous and we are excited to work with them and our nominating clients. We have a great cohort of companies and we all - Fuse, the cohort, A&O lawyers and our clients - have an exciting year ahead.”

Fuse creates a non-competitive ecosystem of companies which can benefit from being part of A&O’s network, while also providing A&O lawyers and clients with an experiential learning environment. This year’s focus on Digital Assets will afford A & O and its clients a dedicated opportunity to understand these types of businesses and keep up with the legal complexities inherent in this area. 

Millicent Labs is honoured to be part of this exclusive group of category-defining digital asset firms, including industry leaders like Chainalysis and Komainu, with each selected company allocated an A&O partner with relevant expertise to act as a mentor and advocate, and also able to run trials and pilots within the A&O network on internal and certain client projects, where relevant.

Kene Ezeji-Okoye, Millicent Labs’ Co-CEO, commented, "In a vertical with an incredibly fast-changing landscape, the opportunity to join Fuse provides us with access to an outstanding global network of experts and industry leaders. We're confident that partnering with Fuse will propel Millicent closer to our goal of creating a world where financial empowerment is within everyone’s reach."

Joining Fuse reaffirms Millicent’s commitment to shaping the future, and to realising our mission of creating the conditions for increased global prosperity through the inclusive and frictionless transfer of value for everyone, everywhere.

About Millicent Labs:

London-based Millicent Labs is an award-winning innovator in distributed ledger technology, tokenisation and digital finance with support from some of the world’s most prominent firms. Named one of the UK's Top 100 startups for its tokenised bank deposit infrastructure, the company is committed to breaking down silos and transforming the global financial system into an open and interconnected digital network benefiting stakeholders on all sides by combining the safeguards of today’s financial system with the exponential advantages of highly interoperable application-specific distributed ledgers.

We are excited to announce that Millicent Labs has been named in the Top 100 Startups in 2022 by TechRound — the UK’s fastest growing startup and tech news site.TechRound 100 finalists of the past have often gone on to be leaders in their industries, with many becoming huge names in the UK startup scene.Many thanks to the expert panel of judges — James Mercer (tayp), Stephanie Affleck (Apprentice Finalist / Little Fashion House), Alex Buttle (Motorway), Jeffrey Faustin (Jenson Funding Partners - Certified B Corp), and 🧙🏽 Sabrina Chevannes (EMBA, MCIM) (Complex Creative).

See the full article, here.

As the Nigeria-Biafra war raged around them, Stella Dyer (MBA 1994), her mother, and her brother made a dangerous dash for a better life. Huddled in the belly of a Portuguese cargo plane returning from delivering arms to the Biafran forces, Dyer remembers Nigerian soldiers shooting at the aircraft as it took off. Once they landed in the United Kingdom in the dead of winter, the family found themselves with nothing, shivering in their summer clothes.

“We lived in public housing and had very little money, but we still had more than our friends and relatives back home,” Dyer says. But their attempts to help those who remained there, she remembers, were undermined by the cumbersome money-transfer rails of the 1970s. “My mother would try to send over what little money she could spare, but the system made it nearly impossible, with terrible fees and long delays. Often the payments couldn’t be made at all.”

Fast-forward to 2020 and the pandemic, when Dyer and her friend, entrepreneur Kene Ezeji-Okoye, again saw a system badly in need of updating. Existing payment networks were extracting big fees from individuals and merchants, despite sharp declines in cash use and other major disruptions to small businesses and personal livelihoods. “For many small businesses, that meant tough times got even tougher, which inspired us to look for alternative solutions that put people first,” Dyer says.

Ezeji-Okoye asked Dyer, who had worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and held C-suite roles with several large private equity firms, for help with an idea that would eventually become Millicent, their blockchain-based digital financial venture. Dyer says Millicent’s payments network will be a purpose-built system that features low fees, and sub two-second settlement, all while requiring less computational power and using far less energy than many current blockchains. Dyer says they have also tested the first public stablecoin (a cryptocurrency that has its value pegged to a commodity or currency or its supply regulated by an algorithm) backed entirely by cash, which is held by a regulated third party in a segregated account.

Continue reading on Harvard Business School

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We're very proud to announce that Millicent Labs has been awarded the Foundervine People's Choice Award at the Barclays BFA3 Accelerator Demo Day!

The culmination of an intensive 4 month programme providing coaching, masterclasses and one-to-one mentorship with world-leading experts from Barclays network and beyond, the demo day event held at Barclays Canary Wharf HQ in London was packed!

10 companies from the 50 member cohort were invited to present in front of the crowd on demo day, with 3 minutes to showcase their products, followed by an intense Q&A session with a panel of experts.

The event's sole award, the People's Choice Award, was voted on by the crowd who scored each company against a variety of criteria. As our North Star at Millicent Labs is to create the infrastructure for a financial system that can better serve everyday people, we couldn't be happier to see that the crowd at Barclays share our vision for the future of finance.

Onward and upwards!

We are proud to announce that Millicent has been selected for Tech Nation’s Fintech 5.0 cohort!

Funded by the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, and built from a decade of supporting scale-ups — including 30% of all UK unicorns — Tech Nation is the UK’s pre-eminent growth platform for tech companies and leaders.

Fuelling the growth of game-changing leaders and scaling companies so they can positively transform societies and economies, Tech Nation’s alumni include some of the world’s most successful fintechs like Revolut, (Transfer)Wise, Monzo, Starling Bank and a host of other household names.

Tech Nation catalyses the 21st century infrastructure that accelerates the entire ecosystem, bringing together a network of purposeful founders and philanthropists, progressive enterprises and policymakers, influential funds and institutions in order to collaborate in building the technological innovation that will improve the future for the UK and beyond.

The Fintech programme is tailor-made to support founders and the wider leadership team for UK fintech and insurtech companies. This year’s cohort features companies, like Millicent, at the cutting-edge of fintech innovation working to transform all areas of the finance sector; from insurance and investment, to blockchain and digital assets.

Jelena Ewart, co-founder of Upside Partners and Fintech 5.0 judge, said: “If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that our ideal future isn’t going to just build itself. It was refreshing to see so many companies with real potential to empower us to lower the cost of our dreams and to contribute towards a world that truly values us. This isn’t just finance imbued with modern tech; it’s the start of a fintech uprising built by the people for the people!”

Jelena’s statement rings true with Millicent’s mission of delivering a more open, accessible, and equitable financial system to everyone, everywhere, and we couldn’t be more excited to join the ranks of Tech Nation — or for what’s to come in the future!

Upon earning an MBA from Harvard Business School, Stella Dyer polished off her gold star finance resume with jobs at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, moving then to C-suite roles at several large private equity firms. Her primary aim, however, has never been to accrue wealth. She is driven by a desire to make it easier for the approximately 1.7 billion marginalized and unbanked people across the globe to access financial services.

Dyer’s blockchain-based digital financial company, Millicent, is being funded in part by the British government. Her goal is “to build the infrastructure for people-first money,” Dyer says.

Through decentralized finance, the company hopes to usher in a new financial paradigm via an open infrastructure that breaks down walled gardens and creates a strong, collaborative foundation for the future of global financial services. Millicent offers lightning fast money transfers at a fraction of the traditional cost per transaction.

A few years back, Dyer identified blockchain technology as a way to potentially transform the financial system for everyday people. “I realized this could be my true calling and dove headfirst into uncovering everything I could about the industry,” she says.

Read the full story on Forbes.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital currency, staying ahead of the curve is paramount. At Millicent, we've always prided ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation in the digital currency infrastructure realm. Today, we're thrilled to announce a significant milestone in our journey: Millicent has been accepted for support from the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) new Innovation Pathways programme.

The FCA's Innovation Pathways programme is designed to assist financial services firms in launching innovative products and services. The programme aims to:

• Help innovative firms understand how regulation relates to their activities.

• Remove barriers to entry through ongoing monitoring of FCA rules.

• Clarify existing rules in relation to new business models.

• Assist firms in understanding their obligations as regulated entities.

The programme is part of a broader suite of services provided by the FCA's Innovate initiative. It offers firms the opportunity to understand the complexities of financial regulation, especially when introducing products or services that don't fit neatly into existing regulatory categories.

Being one of the first firms accepted into the Innovation Pathways programme underscores our commitment to regulatory compliance while pushing the boundaries of what's possible in digital currency infrastructure. The support from the FCA will provide us with:

• One-to-one discussions with a dedicated case manager to guide us through regulatory nuances.

• Customised signposting to help us navigate FCA processes.

• Insights from FCA subject matter experts to clarify grey areas of regulation.

• Pre-authorisation meetings to understand the authorisation process and the standards we must meet.

• Dedicated supervisory support for the first year after authorisation.

Furthermore, the programme's emphasis on genuine innovation, consumer benefit, and readiness aligns perfectly with Millicent's ethos. We're not just introducing another digital currency solution; we're pioneering a future where digital currency infrastructure is robust, reliable, and, most importantly, beneficial for consumers.

As we embark on this exciting phase, we're more committed than ever to delivering unparalleled digital currency solutions. With the FCA's support, we're confident in navigating the regulatory landscape while continuing to innovate.

We're grateful to our dedicated team, partners, and customers who have been instrumental in reaching this milestone. Together, we're not just shaping the future of Millicent but also the broader digital currency ecosystem.

For more details on the FCA's Innovation Pathways programme, you can visit their official page or access their comprehensive guide.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, thank you for being a part of our journey!

Disclaimer: FCA Innovation Pathways support does not constitute endorsement of a firm or business model.

The information provided in this blog post is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or regulatory advice. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Like most technology industries, the blockchain space is widely perceived to be dominated by men. Indeed, among the best known personalities in crypto - the likes of Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood and Justin Sun - to name a few, female faces are few and far between. Cointelegraph’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain contains just 12 women, for instance. Hell, even Satoshi Nakamoto is widely assumed to be a man.

The same can be said of investors. Recent research by eToro shows that just 15% of cryptocurrency traders are female, and it’s clear that the vast majority of crypto millionaires - those investors who got in early and made millions simply by hodling - are also men.

Though gender diversity remains an issue in blockchain, there are signs that won’t always be the case. Another recent report, this time from Gemini, shows that 40% of people currently considering making a crypto investment are women. What’s more, there is indeed a growing body of women playing a key role in the crypto community today. These women occupy a range of influential positions at some of the most innovative crypto projects in the space.

So what better day to showcase the gals who’re helping to fix blockchain’s gender gap than today: International Women’s Day.

As the co-founder and CEO of Millicent, Stella Dyer is playing a key role in the quest to bridge blockchain with traditional finance systems. She’s better placed than most to do this, having began her career on Wall Street where she served at three of America’s biggest banks: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. A keen philanthropist too, Stella helped to develop The Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Nowadays, Stella is bringing her philanthropic nature to the blockchain, working to create an accessible and equitable financial system for everybody in an effort to unlock latent prosperity across the world.

Read More on Entrepreneur

London-based blockchain-powered firm Millicent has won a prestigious research grant from the U.K. government to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Kene Ezeji-Okoye, co-founder and president of Millicent, shares his insights into the firm's latest projects, including creating regulator complaint stablecoins and a "highly secure blockchain." Plus, addressing privacy concerns of a potential digital pound.

Watch the full interview on Coindesk