One month after launching Hydro, a blockchain-based security and identity management mobile app, development platform Hydrogen has introduced a new entity. The Financial Industry Decentralization Initiative (FINDI), unveiled this week, will “facilitate a more open, transparent, and decentralized global financial system” – all powered by public blockchains.
The goal of the consortium is to pave the way for Web 3.0, according to Hydrogen co-founders Michael and Matthew Kane. They see public blockchains as the ideal vehicle to ensure the kind of openness, transparency, and user controls that made blockchain technology so attractive in the first place. FINDI serves as an alternative to what Mike Kane referred to as “an aggressive campaign from private blockchain consortiums” that threatens to leave “billions around the globe” unable to take advantage of the benefits of what he called “the blockchain revolution.” This includes the estimated two billion people around the world who are among the unbanked.
“Private blockchain is an oxymoron and centralized financial security is obsolete, as we have seen with recent hacks of Equifax, BMO, Coinrail, Banco, and Bithumb,” Kane said. “Together the members of FINDI can change the financial paradigm by leveraging public blockchains.”
Hydrogen co-founder Michael Kane demonstrating the company’s platform at FinovateEurope 2018.
Membership in FINDI is free, and the consortium welcomes financial professionals, startups, consultants, academics, and governments. With a focus on public blockchains, the consortium is both chain- and protocol-agnostic, and will support joint research and product development, host symposia, and provide industry consulting. In a statement, FINDI reported that its members oversee more than $1 trillion in assets, and projected having more than 100 members in its first year. Among FINDI’s initial associate members are fellow Finovate alum Wipro, the Dubai International Finance Center (DIFC), Natixis Investment Managers, and Principal Financial Group.
Headquartered in New York City, Hydrogen demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2018. The company’s technology enables developers to quickly build advanced fintech solutions to help consumers save, invest, buy insurance, and better manage their financial lives. Hydrogen is also responsible for developing the Hydro Blockchain, a public ledger for financial services, and IonAI, a next generation machine learning technology also geared to the financial services market.
Last month, Hydrogen was honored by the Fintech Awards Luxembourg 2018, sponsored by KPMG Luxembourg and the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology. The company picked up €50,000 in prize money and will receive four months of hosting at Luxembourg’s co-working space, Technoport. Hydrogen was founded in 2017.