LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / February 3, 2022 / British distributed ledger company Millicent has been awarded government funding in the form of a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Innovate UK SMART Award. Possessing the UK's most competitive and prestigious R&D grant provides Millicent with resources to continue the development of its groundbreaking digital finance network.
Led by Harvard Business School alum and Wall Street veteran, CEO Stella Dyer, Millicent is using next-generation hybrid distributed ledger technology-combining Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) speeds with blockchain's structure-to transform the world's outdated financial system into an open, borderless and interconnected digital network, underpinned by a suite of regulation-compliant stablecoins.
Millicent is the first stablecoin and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project funded by the British government. Coming at a time when 80% of the world's central banks, including the Bank of England, are currently researching or piloting digital currencies, this award signals a UK interest in the mainstream issuance and acceptance of privately issued stablecoins and hybrid public-private CBDCs.
This environment has positioned Millicent as a government-backed first-mover, ready to shape the next generation of finance:
"Millicent is a game-changing project that could change the way we bank and spend; [its] impact could be very significant to the UK, financially, socially and technically, as it can lead the way for a UK system backed by the Bank of England," said assessors from Innovate UK.
The current global financial system is underpinned by an antiquated, inefficient and fragmented infrastructure; the dependence on multiple intermediaries to execute even the simplest of transactions leads to egregious fees and slow settlement times.
Blockchain and cryptoassets were created to solve these problems, however, they have yet to truly penetrate the mainstream. By contrast, Millicent's decentralized finance network integrates with existing open banking frameworks worldwide, creating-for the first time in history-a universal financial system, with currencies that can easily flow across borders as well as between on-chain and off-chain ecosystems.
Moreover, Millicent's ultra-scalable and highly-interoperable ecosystem will process tens of thousands of transactions per second, with sub-second finality, as well as transfer data, assets, and smart contract calls with major public and enterprise blockchain networks.
However, Millicent wasn't only awarded the UKRI grant because of its technology. The Millicent network's social impact also powerfully resonated with the awarding body. Creating an open, instant, globally connected, low-fee infrastructure is paramount for financial inclusion.
Millicent can help the 1.7 billion unbanked people around the globe, everyday people in all walks of life, as well as small to medium enterprises, while its open-source framework opens up Millicent's next-gen infrastructure to a wide pool of developers, ready to construct the financial services and primitives of the future.
Says CEO, Stella Dyer, "In today's system, it's usually the people with the least money who pay the most for financial services. Millicent is designed to level the playing field for everyone, creating an ‘Internet of Value' that is open and accessible to all."
About Millicent
Money is evolving, and Millicent is building the financial foundation for the future: a universal digital finance network for all realities, both on and offline. Built with next-generation technology, Millicent combines the benefits of distributed ledgers and smart contracts with legacy economic infrastructure. Millicent's fast, secure, and environmentally-friendly network makes sending, spending, and storing money instant, borderless, and accessible to all.
About CEO Stella Dyer
Arriving in the UK as a war refugee, Stella's formative years were defined by a lack of money. She is a true underdog story and graduated from Harvard Business School after living much of her early life in publicly subsidized housing. Upon graduating from Harvard, Stella worked on Wall Street where she had roles as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, managing the Global High Technology Investment Banking Group at Goldman Sachs and overseeing technology operations at JP Morgan. Beyond her career, Stella is also an active philanthropist. She led the development of The Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Stella's philanthropic nature is at the heart of Millicent's founding principles; she believes that creating an accessible and equitable financial system is the key to unlocking latent prosperity across the globe.
CONTACT:
Dan Edelstein
[email protected]
SOURCE: Millicent