Telos has launched a partnership to use its blockchain to secure food assistance programs in the United States. EOS-based blockchain platform Telos has declared collaboration with virtual card provider All_EBT to scale the firm’s service for food assistance programs. The association will see Telos’ blockchain utilized to foster payments between All_EBT’s stakeholders in food assistance and public welfare. All_EBT is supported by Draper Associates, EOS, and Facebook, and enables recipients of electronic benefit transfers — or EBT — to spend those benefits online. The firm’s website recently prompts users to join a waitlist. 

The firm earlier won hackathons organized by Facebook and Y Combinator and received the EOSIO Hackathon’s social impact award in 2018. All_EBT also offers a customer on-ramp to cryptocurrencies.

Telos deploys DLT to secure food assistance.

“In America alone, more than 22% of the population, 54 million people, lives on food stamps,” said All_EBT founder and CEO, Eli Morin in a statement. “That number has gone up over the last several weeks and months amid the COVID-19 pandemic, making it even harder for people on food stamps to access healthy food and financial services,” he added.

Justin Giudici, head of product at the Telos Foundation, said in a statement that its blockchain “will be used to create an immutable record of EBT data,” making the data “verifiable, auditable, and trackable to users, merchants, and the government.” “Essentially, the result will be higher trust in the system, lowered costs and fraud protection not possible without blockchain technology,” he added.

Blockchain solutions highlighted by crises

Giudici recounts first meeting Morin and his team during the EOSIO hackathon in November 2018, noting that the firms have “touched base intermittently” since. Telos’ head of product said in a statement that after a year of discussions, “the partnership just made a lot of sense,” adding that the first “share a vision for a better future built on the blockchain.” During April, Telos collaborated with blockchain-based DNA-ownership platform Genobank to develop an app facilitating anonymous access to coronavirus testing.