IBM Signs 6 Banks To Issue Stablecoins and Use Stellar's XLM Cryptocurrency (coindesk.com)

IBM is taking its banking clients a step closer to cryptocurrency. From a report: Announced Monday, six international banks have signed letters of intent to issue stablecoins, or 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. So far three of the banks have been identified -- Philippines-based RCBC, Brazil's Banco Bradesco, and Bank Busan of South Korea -- the rest, which are soon to be named, will offer digital versions of euros and Indonesian rupiah, "pending regulatory approvals and other reviews," IBM said. The network went live Monday, although while the banks await their regulators' blessings, the one stablecoin running on World Wire at the moment is a previously announced U.S. dollar-backed token created by Stronghold, a startup based in San Francisco.

Comments

IBM is a year late to the blockchain hype party...

[Cid Highwind]

...the cops have already been there and all the booze is gone.

So we have a handful of traditional, regulated banks trading tokens pegged to real currencies that are already traded around the world... on a blockchain!. Does that need to exist? Of course not! But it does, because in late 2017 Bitcoin was headed for $20k and one of IBM's many consultants told them that coinz were going to be the next totally tubular gotta-have-it thing.

Re: Just about everyone here

[phantomfive]

I used to think that IBMs block chain offerings were trash, and just a marketing name for "cryptography" or "public key signing" or even just "asset tracking." Now I see they are large enough to convince banks to play along with their game, and that gives their coin clout where others have failed.