Trials conducted on Blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, have shown that financial transactions can be performed 50 percent faster than first anticipated, outperforming market leaders including VISA for global payments. Blockchain is a public ledger that allows secure and almost instantaneous transfer of cryptocurrencies across the world. Called the 'Red Belly Blockchain', researchers from the University of Sydney, in Australia, have demonstrated that it can perform more than 660,000 transactions per second on 300 machines in a single data centre, compared with VISA’s network that has a peak capacity of around 56,000 transactions per second, and the Bitcoin network that is limited to around seven transactions per second. The Red Belly Blockchain was also tested across 14 diverse geographical regions, from Australia to the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan, India, South Korea and Singapore, confirming that the blockchain achieved better performance than existing technologies used by financial institutions, even when the machines that provide the service are located in different continents. To find out more check out Fast and safe blockchain being developed at University of Sydney.