Today Japan’s Soramitsu announced a strategic partnership with the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), a government funded research body and think tank. The collaboration is for blockchain technology research and to develop skills and applications in Nigeria.
Soramitsu is best known as the developer of Bakong, Cambodia’s very successful digital currency payment network that has ten million wallets out of a population of 17 million. It has helped other governments with central bank digital currency (CBDC) and other research, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
The aim is to combine NISER’s local knowledge with Soramitsu’s deep blockchain expertise. In terms of technologies, that means central bank digital currency, SORA and Hyperledger Iroha. Additionally, they will also explore and implement applications to enhance financial inclusion and address Nigeria’s economic development goals.
Nigeria launched its eNaira CBDC in late 2021, but like other CBDCs, there hasn’t been a massive take up. Eighteen months ago, there was a report that the central bank started to explore alternative options to its initial technology provider Bitt, which also serves other central banks including the Eastern Caribbean.
While Project Bakong uses the permissioned Hyperledger Iroha blockchain, what’s novel about the NISER collaboration is the inclusion of SORA, a public blockchain or parachain that’s part of the Polkadot network. It was founded by Soramitsu and is managed by a DAO with its own governance token XOR. During the Solomon Islands CBDC proof of concept for Bokolo Cash, the CBDC was issued on the permissioned Hyperledger Iroha blockchain, but there was also integration with SORA to use the CBDC to ‘simulate’ cross border payments.
Other central banks have started to explore public DLT integration. Ghana recently ran a hackathon that involved the Hedera DLT.
