The Dfinity Foundation was established in October 2016 and is a Zurich-based not-for-profit organization with global operations. It possesses the largest team of cryptographers in the blockchain industry.

Their mission: to develop technologies that drive the Internet Computer blockchain and its ecosystem forward. How do they do it? Through the creation of revolutionary projects like the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP).

«Decentralization is Foremost About Security»

The ICP enables the public internet to host smart contracts and decentralized apps directly on the web, thus creating a more scalable and secure digital infrastructure.

«Our vision is that, the whole world should run on blockchain because our current IT systems are not secure enough,» explains Jan Camenisch, CTO of Dfinity Foundation, in an interview with finews.ch on the sidelines of the Crypto Valley Conference in Zug. Over two days, the future of blockchain technology was discussed at the Institute for Financial Services Zug (IFZ).

According to the Cybersecurity Ventures Cybercrime Report 2023, the costs of damages from cybercrime, such as stolen funds, data breach costs, and intellectual property theft, are projected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. «We need to change this infrastructure if we want to survive,» says Camenisch.

Collaboration with Swiss Private Bank

As reported by finews.ch, we are increasingly witnessing significant milestones across the entire digital asset industry, with financial service providers entering the crypto exchange.

Camenisch affirms this and explains how Dfinity have collaborated with a Swiss private bank to develop the decentralized document sharing application (dapps) DocuTrack on the Internet Computer blockchain.

To address the challenge of securely handling Know-Your-Client (KYC) information, this use case demonstrates how dapps on the Internet Computer can help established financial institutions modernize and privatize their technology infrastructures.

The document provenance system ensures that user data never leaves the browser in plaintext and instead highly encrypted confidential data can be stored, as suggested by Camenisch. The data is secured during transmission and processed by nodes executing transactions using chain-key cryptography.

Won’t Happen «Overnight»

The CTO emphasizes, «We want to build technology that allows you to make financial systems more secure, more effective, and of course, that's why we build this technology.»

However, the widespread adoption of the Internet Computer blockchain and other DeFi technologies by private and institutional investors is expected to be a longer process.

«Blockchain is a new technology. The Internet Computer is a new technology. And so if you want to say, okay, like we want all the bank software on that blockchain, it doesn't happen overnight, right?»

Camenisch points out another obstacle in introducing the innovative capabilities of ICP to traditional banks: «And of course, as financial institutions, they are typically rather conservative.»