Bitcoin’s BlockChain technology seems to be attracting Fortune 100 companies from around the world like nothing else in 2015. IBM is the latest industry leader to not only show major interest in Bitcoin’s innovative tech, but they seem to be nearing completion for a new creation featuring it, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Blockchain Technology & Smart Contracts: Perfect Together
Major banking leaders like UBS, Santander and Barclays have spent the better part of a year working on Bitcoin’s hidden secrets, and how this can help the financial markets become more efficient. IBM seems to be looking at releasing open source software that could be used to create digital contracts. The legendary computer corporation has been working on their own version of the blockchain, and the lead research executive calls the project “experimental.” Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of IBM Research said:
“Blockchain, as a technology, is extremely interesting and intriguing. I want to extend banking to the 3.2 billion people who are going to come into the middle class over the next 15 years. So I need a much lower cost of keeping a ledger. Blockchain offers some intriguing possibilities there.”
This version of the blockchain would be optimized to create smart contracts or private online contracts, logging transactions between banks and businesses. Particularly useful for large overseas transactions, the funds held in escrow can be released instantly for online payment transfers when a contract’s obligations have been fulfilled by both parties. This would be much more efficient than the slow, ancient wire transfer.
This is actually IBM’s second foray into Bitcoin technology, following the Adept project from January of this year. Adept is an experiment that monitors connected devices, but this new project is unaffiliated with Adept.
This blockchain system would not be privately held for IBM employees only, however. It would be publicly recorded and used worldwide like Bitcoin’s transactions are. The problem would be preventing mundane issues like spam and systematic abuse, according to Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center. IBM is working on resolving this issue and may employ a list of third-parties, sub-contracted to manage the digital ledger, kind of like a moderator would an online forum.