The announcement that two high-profile figures in the fintech world are joining the Singapore-based Zilliqa team comes as the company prepares to release its source code and testnet publicly in December of this year.
Among other qualifications and experiences on a long and impressive résumé, Alexander Lipton is the former Managing Director at Bank of America and the founder and CEO of StrongHoldLabs. According to Zilliqa’s announcement, Lipton is a “leading expert in distributed ledger, digital currencies, and payment systems.” He has published hundreds of academic papers as well as six books.
Stuart Prior is a “fintech veteran” with more than twenty years of experience in corporate and investment banking. He specializes in the adoption of cryptocurrency into corporate banking structures, and has spent much of his career focusing on the creation and development of banking technology, including platforms for large-scale data management.
The Addition of High-Profile Figures Shines a Light On Zilliqa’s Potential
Xinshu Dong, CEO of Zilliqa, said that the company was “truly honored” that these two individuals are joining the team. “The fact these true visionaries in banking and fintech have seen the potential in our technology is a testament to Zilliqa. I’m sure Zilliqa will greatly benefit from their experience and expertise to build the Blockchain platform for high-throughput dApps.”
Indeed, it seems that Zilliqa is on a path to success. The public support and involvement of high-profile figures in the fintech world is one of the most solid pieces of evidence that a new blockchain-based piece of technology may be something to pay attention to.
The fact that Zilliqa has chosen to publicly release its testnet and source code for developers to test is also a very positive indication that its creators are dedicated to keeping the technology as secure and up-to-date as possible.
Why Is Zilliqa So Innovative?
Scalability has long been an issue with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the world’s most major cryptocurrencies. Both networks can process a maximum of ten transactions per second, which is a problem when one considers the fact that thousands of transactions happen on each of these networks per minute. Within the Bitcoin user community, the debate over how to fix the scalability issue has been the cause of several 'hard forks' that have resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold.
Zilliqa’s platform, which was developed by researchers at the University of Singapore, is capable of processing as many as 2,488 transactions per second using a technology called 'sharding'. As the network continues to grow, its payment processing capabilities increase. If the Zilliqa network was currently running on as many nodes (computers) as the Ethereum network (roughly 22,000), it would be capable of processing around 15,000 transactions per second--VISA’s current processing rate is roughly half that.
At the current moment in history, much of the potential that blockchain technology holds is untapped. In theory, Zilliqa’s platform could become a major player in the digital Payments industry. However, the future is yet unseen; the world will have to wait and see what is in store for Zilliqa. In the meantime, though, these two latest additions to Zilliqa’s team are a very positive sign.
