Participants in the App Challenge in Bolivia propose blockchain solutions for the stock market. The Bolivian ecosystem moves slowly due to lack of information and regulations.
On July 27th, the Bolivian Stock Exchange organized the “First App Challenge of Financial Technologies.” Of three participating initiatives focused on blockchain, one took second place in the competition.
Rodrigo Quiroz and Gabriela Melendrez, the “Bond Tokenization” team that won the second prize in the App Challenge, explained that their project is a platform that helps verify the information of bonds before they are placed in the stock market. This information is tokenized to track transactions on the NEM blockchain. Regarding the technology that they used, Quiroz believes that NEM adapts perfectly to the needs of the solution and its ease of asset tokenization.
Fernando Ontiveros, co-founder of Process Maker, who also participated in the challenge, developed a platform with Ethereum technology for the process of issuing and placing securities in the primary market. He said that his solution is built precisely on POA and Parity, two Ethereum-based complementary technologies.
The project demonstrates how two key technologies can improve the processes in which several participants of the Stock Exchange engage, according to Ontiveros. He says that business process management (BPM) is used to model the process of structuring, issuing and placing securities. A decentralized database such as blockchain was incorporated to reduce the time of processes due to friction between participants. Besides, smart contracts helped reinforce and standardize the process.
In this way, the hackathon-like projects that arise from these competitions are focused on creating applications. Additionally, they help and encourage developers who seek to solve problems. Regarding this, the authorities of the Bolivian entity said that they were very committed to innovation. Apart from the monetary prize to the teams, they promised to support the implementation of the winning solutions, while giving them the opportunity to continue the career in an international stock exchange competition.
Cryptocurrency Regulation and Ecosystem in Bolivia
Quiroz says that the cryptocurrency ecosystem in Bolivia is moving slowly due, in part, to the lack of information and the regulations. The Central Bank of Bolivia (CBB) promulgated resolution 044/2014, which prohibits using currencies not issued or regulated by Bolivian states, together with monetary denominations such as cryptocurrencies not authorized by the CBB, within the scope of the national payment system.
Even so, the cryptocurrency community in Bolivia is very active, since technology always moves faster than regulations. Fernando Ontiveros collaborates with Gabriela Melendrez in the Bolivian Mind Blockchain community, talking about blockchain and cryptocurrencies to inform people about the subject.
Likewise, the Departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Tarija and Santa Cruz lead P2P exchanges. Services such as Bitrefill are also available for cell phone recharge. For its part, the AsoBlockchain Bolivia community is committed to training professionals in this area and organizing educational activities at universities.
The country is characterized by having a population with little access to digital payment systems and financial services. Citizens have naturalized paper procedures and certifications based on physical receipts that are easy to forge.
In that sense, blockchain-based notarizations to protect the integrity of documents, such as Open Time Stamp, Bitcoin MIT Blockcerts, Ethereum Stamping and NEM Apostille, could be useful solution alternatives.
By Willmen Blanco
