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SWIFT won't share it's legal basis with blockchain

06 August 2018 16:02, UTC
Oleg Koldayev

While exploring mass-media one may imagine an extraordinary breakthrough this autumn. Multiple global brands announced the start of their digital projects. there's one thing combining them all - a commitment to adapt crypto technologies for the needs of the big business. yet maybe it's going to be just a new hype.

Last friday IBM announced launch of an interbank digital service LedgerConnect. A private distributed register will orerate on the IBM BL Blockchainchain framework and the Hyperledger Fabric technology. Currently such giants as Barclays and Citigroup have already expressed interest in the project.

It is expected that internal blockchain will be used for the exchange of information about clients, data on the lending commitments securities, derivatives processing operations and reconciliation of data. But the project has a bigger goal. Developers assume that the service may become a base for creation of  unified standards of the digital information exchange and transactions for all the participants of banking. Many lending institutions complain that the market is saturated with different kinds of crypto tools and technologies, but there is no unified and clear interbank framework, like SWIFT in the real (not virtual) banking.

Two days later an american network of exchanges and clearing houses Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced the creation of the global digital ecosystem for the Bakkt framework. By the way, ICE possesses the New York Stock Exchange and 30 more platform all over the world. And Bakkt was announced as the first crypto market regulated by the state! All deals on this digital service will be made with the authorization of CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission of the USA).

Suddenly, Starbucks - a leader in online payments among fast-food franchises - took charge of the development of the blockchain framework for Bakkt. It also declared an intention to be the first of similar to accept payment in cryptocurrency.

The official start of the project is scheduled for November, 2018. Actually, the possibility of it's launch is questionable. At least because public authorities , Commodity Futures Trading Commission of the USA in particular, don't have real technological and metodical opportunities to control the crypto market. Therefore, the state may not pull off this challenge. Same old story with the IBM startup: there can be no common standard without a unified legal framework. For SWIFT, for example, it has been developed by almost every country of the world.

Cryptocurrencies and crypto market is a very serious PR tendency. Once there is a "crypto" prefix - the news is in the top. Against august lull and falling of assets even the biggest players need to generate some heat for their activity. And this topic is both fertile and safe - the market won't respond harshly to this kind of new information.

Anyway, PR in this case is not the worst thing to do. Entering of the blue chips on the market is an unavoidable process which is already running - but more humble, without fanfare and drums, what we wrote about. Cryptocurrency loves silence as well.