The Hedera blockchain network gets a major boost as the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has partnered with WaterLedger to bring a statewide environmental credit marketplace. The U.S. State of Virginia is building an environmental credit marketplace atop the Hedera blockchain. Virginia is a national leader in mitigation banking, a financing mechanism used by developers and construction firms to register and offset environmental impacts.
As a result, the DEQ has selected a platform that can deliver end-to-end transparency, real-time supply and demand, digital credit identifiers, robust price discovery, and free-market integrity across 600 mitigation banks. So it has selected Hedera for this new credit marketplace.
This marketplace takes a new approach to how environmental credits are issued, tracked, and traded. It offers better transparency, traceability, and compliance to improve overall market efficiency. Officers called this launch a big step for data-driven mitigation markets. This will lead to greater institutional participation in building environmental credits through integrity.
With this contract, WaterLedger will be at the forefront of next-generation environmental digital public infrastructure (DPI). It will provide smarter permitting, capital formation, and an architecture that can be expanded to additional states seeking to modernize mitigation and environmental credit systems.
The Hedera blockchain has slowly become a go-to platform for some of the top players across industries like pharma, defence, government institutions, etc. As reported by CNF, they supported PharmaTrace last month to provide a regulated, decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) across pharmaceutical supply chains.
In a similar development, the Hedera Foundation announced an integration with Ownera, a distribution network used by financial institutions. Together, they will work to simplify access to tokenized real-world assets on Hedera for banks, broker-dealers, and asset managers.
Moreover, Hedera is also making a big move into the machine economy and the defense sector by partnering with aviation technology firm Neuron. As mentioned in our previous story, the two organizations are lined up for a potential partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This shows the growing interest in applying distributed ledger technology to critical national infrastructure and defense-related use cases.
The HBAR price is showing signs of recovery, bouncing back from the support at $0.10. As of press time, it is trading 3% up at $0.1135 with a market cap of $4.83 billion.
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Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives and Senate met with cryptocurrency industry leaders in three separate roundtable events this week. Members of the US Congress met with key figures in the cryptocurrency industry to discuss issues and potential laws related to the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a market structure.On Tuesday, a group of lawmakers that included Alaska Representative Nick Begich and Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno met with Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor and others in a roundtable event regarding the BITCOIN Act, a bill to establish a strategic Bitcoin (BTC) reserve. The discussion was hosted by the advocacy organization Digital Chamber and its affiliates, the Digital Power Network and Bitcoin Treasury Council.“Legislators and the executives at yesterday’s roundtable agree, there is a need [for] a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve law to ensure its longevity for America’s financial future,” Hailey Miller, director of government affairs and public policy at Digital Power Network, told Cointelegraph. “Most attendees are looking for next steps, which may mean including the SBR within the broader policy frameworks already advancing.“Read more
