IBM’s Banking Blockchain

Happy Tuesday.

If you’ve been watching the continuing decline of the price of Bitcoin, you may be keep your eye on the wrong ball…err, wrong side of the coin.

Coindesk reported Monday that IBM is taking its banking clients “a step closer to cryptocurrency,” with six of its international banking clients having signed letters of intent to issue stablecoins (tokens backed by fiat currency) on World Wire, an IBM payment network that uses the Stellar public blockchain.

The network promises to let regulated institutions move value across borders – remittances or foreign exchange – more quickly and cheaply than the legacy correspondent banking system.

The network went live yesterday, and already has one stablecoin running on World Wire, a U.S. dollar-backed token created by San Francisco startup, Stronghold.

But the article points out this is much broader than a cryptocurrency play, and that IBM is doing “a lot of other stuff in the private permissioned space….code for enterprise blockchain.”

You can learn more about IBM’s blockchain efforts here, and developers can learn more about IBM Developer blockchain and hyperledger solutions here.