Russian FinTech Association starts Ethereum forked platform tests

The Fintech Association of Russia, an organization led by the Russian Central Bank and financial agencies nationwide, reported having completed the initial version of distributed accounting technology software, Masterchain, which was created from a fork of the blockchain of Ethereum.

Kirill Ivkushkin, representative of Sbernak - the largest bank in Russia and one of the members of the association of financial technologies - commented in an interview that the Masterchain network would have begun to carry out the first proofs of concept after completing the works of constitution at the end of May this year.

Masterchain will specialize in remote identification, distributed ledger and Open API technologies. Also, the platform is created under Russian domestic standards in order that the software can adapt to a wide use in the Russian business and financial sector.

Ivkushkin emphasizes that the platform will store personal data, competitions that does not allow the blockchain of Ethereum or the platform of Hyperledger.

Masterchain will use Ethereum tools, but will not allow it to connect to the public protocol nodes of this DLT. Likewise, the platform will be used in the peer-to-peer (person-to-person) insurance sector and mortgage foreclosures, applications that may be implemented by mid-2018 by all member banks.

Russia has been one of the countries in the region with the greatest legal hesitation in terms of cryptocoins. For example, only in the course of 2016 to 2017, the cryptographic currencies were outlawed with up to 7 years in jail, then discussed as a financial asset and finally intended to be categorized as a digital asset.

However, the nation appears to be more open to the application of blockchain in government services, initiatives including the incursion of a group of Russian physicists who have created a quantum blockchain to enhance security, as well as the recent meeting of Vitalik Buterin with Vladimir Putin that could result in institutional support for Ethereum's blockchain.