Ripple research
Waterloo is only Canadian institution to take part in $50-million Ripple research initiative
UW gets research funding for deep dive into blockchain technology
WATERLOO — A San Franciscobased company that uses blockchain technology for processing international transactions is funding University of Waterloo researchers who are working in this evolving area of global commerce.
Waterloo is the only Canadian institution participating in Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. Ripple, launched in 2012, uses blockchain to process international transactions quickly and inexpensively.
Anwar Hasan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW, has been appointed the Ripple chair. His areas of expertise include cryptography.
“The timing is perfect in the sense there is lots of activity and lots of excitement about research in the area of cryptocurrencies, blockchain and digital payments,” said Hasan.
Ripple is investing $50 million into research at several universities. Agreements with individual institutions are still being negotiated, and Waterloo expects to receive several million dollars during the four-year long program.
The funding from Ripple will help in several ways, said Hasan.
“A very important one is attracting graduate students,” said Hasan. “There are companies interested in exploring blockchain, but they may not have expertise. So if we can train graduate students, this will help companies in Canada.”
Blockchain is touted as foundational technology that will lead to the next version of the web. It is a digital ledger that is shared by all the parties to a transaction.
Once it is created and the parties agree on terms, the ledger cannot be changed. It creates a direct digital pipeline among the parties, eliminating a long list of fees.
Blockchain is best known as the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Ripple uses the technology to enable direct, bank-to-bank payments around the world. Typically, international transactions take three to five days and must pass through several intermediaries. It is expensive and slow.
Credit card companies charge 2.5 per cent per transaction, and international wire transfers take 8.5 per cent. Central banks and investment firms also take cuts along the way. The total annual fees for international payments is estimated at US$1.6 trillion a year, says Ripple.
Ripple has a network of banks around the world on its platform. International payments can be processed by participating banks within three to five seconds, rather than two to five days, it says.
Hasan’s specialty is “cryptographic computation,” or protecting online activity from hackers. That is one of the reasons Pearl Sullivan, dean of engineering at UW, selected Hasan for the Ripple chair.
“I think it is an emerging area and developing quite quickly,” she said.
A lot of research and development are needed to apply blockchain to other areas, such as health records, governmentissued identification or supply chain management, said Sullivan.
“It is a very interesting area for our professors. They have not imposed any specific constraints.”
Ripple is interested in other applications for blockchain, Sullivan said.
“They are interested in us exploring opportunities for blockchain technologies and the integration of cryptography, the security through cryptography into blockchain technologies,” she said.