Disclaimer: We may earn a commission if you make any purchase by clicking our links. Please see our detailed guide here.

Follow us on:

Google News
Whatsapp

US University Academics Come Together to Make Bitcoin Transactions Faster

Bipasha Mandal
Bipasha Mandal
Bipasha Mondal is writer at TechGenyz

Join the Opinion Leaders Network

Join the Techgenyz Opinion Leaders Network today and become part of a vibrant community of change-makers. Together, we can create a brighter future by shaping opinions, driving conversations, and transforming ideas into reality.

Professors from seven U.S. colleges, including MIT, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley, have joined hands together to create a digital currency that will process thousands of transactions a second. With the help of funding from Pantera Capital Management LP, the academics from those colleges have formed Distributed Technology Research to develop decentralized technologies. The virtual currency, what is being termed Unit-e, is their first initiative. The academics are also hopeful that their designed virtual coin will be faster than Visa also.

The mainstream public is aware that these networks don’t scale. We are on the cusp of something where if this doesn’t scale relatively soon, it may be relegated to ideas that were nice but didn’t work in practice: more like 3D printing than the internet.

– Joey Krug, co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital in San Francisco

Unite-e’s aim will be to process as many as 10,000 transactions per second, making it way faster than Bitcoin and Visa’s transaction process. According to Pramod Viswanath, one of the researchers on the project from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, DTR needs to deconstruct the blockchain technology that supports most cryptocurrencies in order to achieve the speed that they are aiming at. The researchers are looking at new mechanisms and new ways of sharding to increase the transaction speed.

Bitcoin has shown us that distributed trust is possible but it’s just not scaling at a dimension that could make it a truly global everyday money. It was a breakthrough that has the capacity to change human lives but that won’t happen unless the technology can be scaled up.

– Pramod Viswanath, one of the researchers on the project from the University

The cryptocurrency industry is undertaking a number of initiatives, such as the Lighting Network and Segregated Witness so that they can speed up the transaction process. David Chaum is also working on a similar project to make digital transactions faster. We will have to wait and see how Unit-e pans out in the long run.

Join 10,000+ Fellow Readers

Get Techgenyz’s roundup delivered to your inbox curated with the most important for you that keeps you updated about the future tech, mobile, space, gaming, business and more.

Recomended

Partner With Us

Digital advertising offers a way for your business to reach out and make much-needed connections with your audience in a meaningful way. Advertising on Techgenyz will help you build brand awareness, increase website traffic, generate qualified leads, and grow your business.

Power Your Business

Solutions you need to super charge your business and drive growth

More from this topic