Another cryptocurrency goes live: British university-developed RSCoin can be backed by any central bank

Yesterday heralded a series of launches in the cryptocurrency sector, with two new denominations having arrived on the open market in a sector which has until now been dominated by Bitcoin.

FinanceFeeds exclusively reported the launch of Israel’s Jerusalem Lira yesterday evening, which is a social currency that facilitates the purchase of listed items within its community, however just a few hours later, a new international virtual currency has gone into circulation, this time available to all who wish to purchase and use it, its main differentiating factor to Bitcoin being the ability to centralize it in order that it can be maintained by a state’s central bank.

Arriving on the market under the name ‘RSCoin’, it was actually developed by academics rather than mavericks and capitalist moguls wishing to circumvent the existing system and create their own sub-economy as has been the case in the past with efforts such as Litecoin and Dogecoin, both of which lived in the shadow of the very prominent, de-centralized Bitcoin.

The shift toward an interest in the underlying technology behind digital currency, in particular blockchain, has led proponents away from the days of covert marketplaces and illusions of overturning the central banks of sovereign nations whilst defying the cross-border payments systems and into the realms of venture capital firms, major banking institutions and technology companies as blockchain is now becoming a focus for vast mainstream institutions.

On this basis, RSCoin’s development was conducted by University College London (UCL) which is one of Britain’s most highly respected universities. Written by academics George Denezis and Sarah Meiklejohn, a paper on how RSCoin can be centralized and maintained by a central bank in any country paved the way for its move to the live market.

As part of the explanation for this, the paper states

“By constructing a blockchain-based approach that makes relatively minimal alterations to the design of successful cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, we have demonstrated that this centralization can be achieved while still maintaining the transparency guarantees that have made fully decentralised cryptocurrencies so attractive.”