Soramitsu

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SORAMITSU is a Japanese technology company with expertise in blockchain engineering and software development. SORAMITSU's most notable work includes Hyperledger Iroha, a distributed ledger infrastructure, part of the Hyperledger Project, that has been implemented as the backbone to the Central Bank of Cambodia's project Bakong..

Name

The name SORAMITSU is a reference to classical Japanese literature: the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan’s oldest historical chronicles, and the Man'yōshū, the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry. It is an archaic makurakotoba (枕詞) or “pillow word” that arises in connection with the place name Yamato (the ancient province surrounding Nara, later established as a name for Japan as a whole). It means "seen from the sky", as in “the country of Yamato, seen from the sky” (空見つ日本やまとの国).

Technology

SORAMITSU is the original developer of and main contributor to Hyperledger Iroha, an open-source permissioned blockchain platform aimed at helping businesses and financial institutions manage digital assets and identities. Hyperledger Iroha is part of the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Project. Iroha is written in C++.

History

SORAMITSU was founded in 2016 by University of Tokyo PhD student Takemiya Makoto and technology entrepreneurs Okada Ryu and Dr. Matsuda Ikkei.

In 2018-2019, SORAMITSU and the National Bank of Cambodia developed Bakong, a national backbone payment infrastructure and digital currency based on Hyperledger Iroha. The Bakong payment infrastructure was piloted nationwide in 2019, and officially launched in 2020, making it the first blockchain-based retail payment system to be brought live by a central bank worldwide. SORAMITSU’s work on Bakong was recognized by Central Banking journal with its inaugural Central Bank Digital Currency Partner Award.

In 2021, SORAMITSU was recognised with a Japan Financial Innovation Award, selected as a finalist in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global CBDC Challenge

In 2022, SORAMITSU launched Hyperledger Iroha v2.0, an upgrade to the original Hyperledger with a Byzantine fault tolerant consensus mechanism.

Public-sector and enterprise projects

Bakong payment infrastructure

Bakong is a national backbone payment infrastructure and digital currency based on Hyperledger Iroha, operated by the National Bank of Cambodia with support from SORAMITSU.

As of November 2017, around 270,000 direct Bakong wallets had been created, while around 7.9 million people had transacted over payment rails connected by Bakong. Total transaction volume at that time was equivalent to $2.9 billion USD.

Unlike traditional CBDC, Bakong has a two-tiered architecture in which digital currency is minted by the National Bank of Cambodia and distributed to commercial financial institutions, which then host wallets for retail customers. Upon on-boarding Bakong, users can choose which commercial bank they want to host their wallet. To prevent financial crime, wallets opened using only phone numbers have very low transaction limits. In order to access higher limits, a user must conduct know-your-customer (KYC) verification in the Bakong mobile app and/or in person at a commercial bank.

Bakong has been referred to in the press as a central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, it is not classified as a CBDC by the National Bank of Cambodia; rather, it is referred to as a “backbone payment system”. This is because digital currency held by end users is backed 1:1 by physical fiat currency held in their commercial banks’ central bank reserve accounts. This resembles the concepts of “indirect CBDC” or “synthetic CBDC” . The National Bank of Cambodia adopted this model because it represented “a rather conservative use of blockchain technology” unlikely to destabilise the financial system.

In 2021, Bakong was awarded a Nikkei Superior Products and Services Award for its “innovative technology and impact on the country's economic and social development.” In the same year, The Banker named Governor of the NBC Chea Chanto Central Banker of the Year Asia-Pacific, while CoinDesk named deputy director and Bakong project lead Serey Chea as one of its most influential 50 fintech players. Serey also attributes the positive adoption of Bakong to the pandemic, stating "[...] adoption was faster because people were worried about handling money"

Bakong appears as a case study in the Digital Assets course module in the “Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets Executive Education Online Certificate Program" at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which was developed in cooperation with the Hyperledger Foundation.

CBDC research and development

In October 2021, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) selected SORAMITSU to lead research on central bank digital currencies in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. In cooperation with the Bank of the Lao PDR (Laos’ central bank and regulator), SORAMITSU was tasked with analysing the current operation of the Lao financial system and assessing the potential of CBDC to improve financial inclusion and economic efficiency, as balanced against various risks.

In November 2021, SORAMITSU competed as one of 15 finalists in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global CBDC Challenge.

In January 2022, SORAMITSU was selected to lead research on central bank digital currencies in Oceania by the NTT Data Institute of Management Consulting, under the mandate of the Ninth Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (PALM9) "Joint Action Plan for Pacific Bonds [kizuna] and for Mutual Prosperity". The study is expected to focus on Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, and will combine an analysis of existing financial infrastructure with an assessment of the potential suitability of various CBDC models to the Pacific Islands context.

Private digital asset and identity management systems

SORAMITSU developed Byacco, a local, closed-loop digital payment system for use within the University of Aizu in Japan. It enables students, faculty, and staff to maintain digital wallets, pay for local goods and services, split bills with peers, and send and receive money via iPhone or Android. Byacco is based on Hyperledger Iroha

In 2019, SORAMITSU conducted a self-sovereign digital identity proof-of-concept for PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA). The digital identity platform allows users to create a profile and conduct know-your-customer verification with one company, then share proof of their identity with other approved companies in a private network based on Hyperledger Iroha. Users can then login and access services with all approved companies using a single private key stored on their mobile device. A similar principle underlies national digital identity schemes.

Digital securities

In cooperation with the National Settlement Depository of the Moscow Exchange Group and the Clearing Corporation of Slovenia, SORAMITSU developed D3ledger (distributed digital depository), a platform for tokenizing and exchanging securities based on Hyperledger Iroha. D3ledger enables delivery-versus-payment securities settlement using digital currencies Its use cases include custodial services, settlement and clearing services, tokenization solutions, private blockchain solutions, and inter-blockchain solutions.

Cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance, and Web3 Projects

In 2019, SORAMITSU received a Web3 Foundation grant to develop KAGOME, the C++ implementation of the Polkadot Host, as well as Polkaswap. It also received grants from the Kusama Treasury to develop Fearless Wallet, a mobile client tailor-made for peer-to-peer, non-custodial transactions on the Kusama and Polkadot networks

SORAMITSU was contracted by Filecoin developer Protocol Labs to develop FUHON, the C++ implementation of the Filecoin platform

The company also contributes to SORA, a decentralized organization and economic system. SORAMITSU founder Takemiya Makoto developed the theoretical foundation for SORA’s approach to economics and governance; however, SORA is an autonomous user-driven community. It is not the intellectual property of Takemiya or a SORAMITSU project. Rather, the company does development work on projects approved by referendum by the SORA community, on a contract basis. Other individuals or companies are free to submit proposals or bids to the SORA community

References

This article "Soramitsu" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Soramitsu. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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