Watch: Pairpoint by Vodafone CPO David Palmer speaks to Yahoo Finance Future Focus
Vodafone will use SIM card technology to meet the expected increasing demand for cryptocurrencies on mobile phones.
David Palmer, CPO of Pairpoint by Vodafone, spoke to Yahoo Finance Future Focus about how the company is driving the use of blockchain on mobile devices to manage crypto transactions.
“There is a SIM card in every mobile phone and we have been focused on linking the mobile phone SIM card to digital wallets, identities and blockchains by leveraging the cryptography that exists in those SIM cards for this blockchain integration,” Palmer told Yahoo Finance.
Palmer explained how the company’s Pairpoint brand is driving Web3 and Internet of Things (IoT) services by leveraging SIM card technology for blockchain-based digital wallets on mobile devices. “Pairpoint provides a secure digital platform that enables vehicles, devices and machines to interact and commerce with each other autonomously and seamlessly,” Vodafone’s website states.
Rise in blockchain-based digital wallets
Palmer predicts that there will be 5.6 billion blockchain-based digital wallets by 2030 and that they will be the gateway to financial services.
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Palmer emphasized the use of public blockchains such as Ethereum (ETH-USD). He pointed to the increasing speed and security of blockchains, but acknowledged regulatory hurdles.
“The long-term path is to use public blockchains like the Ethereum network, and with the Ethereum fork we see public blockchains becoming faster and more secure,” Palmer added.
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However, he acknowledged regulatory obstacles, adding: “Traditional financial services have regulations that prevent them from using public blockchains due to sanctions.”
Vodafone’s digital asset management platform
One of Vodafone’s (VOD.L) key innovations in this sector is its digital wealth brokerage platform PairPoint. Palmer detailed how ParPoint can facilitate transactions between public blockchains such as the Ethereum network and private blockchains such as JPMorgan’s Onyx, which uses smart contracts for seamless integration.
He said: “We act as a middleman for large companies that want to write to a public blockchain. These large financial services companies can connect to Vodafone’s blockchain, they get logged there and then a smart contract that uses things like account abstraction enables cross-chain interoperability.”
Vodafone’s digital asset brokerage platform followed its early experiments with peer-to-peer micropayment transactions. Later, Vodafone integrated its SIM card technology into the blockchain and introduced interoperable “digital identity passports.” These passports, anchored on the blockchain, securely store private keys to digital wallets in the SIM card’s hardware module.
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This culminated in the creation of Vodafone’s Pairpoint platform, which gives Internet of Things (IoT) devices decentralized digital identities and enables them to operate across organizational and system boundaries.
Palmer illustrated this concept using scenarios in which devices equipped with hardware wallets could autonomously authenticate and execute transactions – for example, an autonomous electric vehicle could pay for its own charging at a charging station.
However, Palmer warned against protecting these wallets from cyber threats, acknowledging that they are a prime target for hackers.
Watch: How cryptocurrencies’ faster payment systems are impacting traditional finance | Future Focus
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