Shyft joins forces with Tether, Bitfinex and more to create governance task force for VASP platform

Public blockchain protocol Shyft Network is partnering with several crypto businesses including Tether, Bitfinex and Huobi to create a governance task force for its new platform, Veriscope, the company announced Wednesday.

In June 2019, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued a new rule that required Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to share know-your-customer data between the sender and receiver of a transaction.

The Shyft Network launched Veriscope in July this year, describing it as a "blockchain-based compliance framework and smart-contract solution" for VASPs. According to co-founder Joseph Weinberg, the task force will collectively make decisions, run implementations and develop existing regulatory requirements that help maintain decentralization and user privacy.

“In a time where we are seeing global coordination challenges and incoming guidance requirements that make significant alterations to our ecosystem, it is critical that the rest of the world has strong liquidity representation and directives from our largest operators who in turn aggregate network effects for the smaller VASPs in our space," Weinberg said.

According to the announcement, the Veriscope task force will be led by Rick McDonell, the former executive secretary of the FATF, and Josee Nadeau, former head of the Canada delegation to the FATF. There will also be representatives from global digital token businesses as well as smaller VASPs.

“Any VASP system has to allow for any and all types of entities to have access, and with this, we have built out the world’s first self-governing model for VASP participants," said Shyft Network CTO and co-founder Chris Forrester. "This model allows global counterparties to onboard into the network, and maintain full sovereignty over their business requirements and compliance obligations."