The battle to reign supreme in the industry of cross-border payments on the blockchain is no longer the sole arena of Ripple. The long-held partnership between IBM and Stellar (XLM) has yielded another development in the form of a ‘near instant’ cross-border payment solution. The two firms have introduced what is known as IBM Blockchain World Wire.
The new service plans to revolutionize cross-border payments by:
“Clearing and settlement [of payments] with finality in near real-time. The solution uses digital assets to settle transactions — serving as an agreed-upon store of value exchanged between parties — as well as integrating payment instruction messages. It all means funds can now be transferred at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional correspondent banking.”
The IBM firm had been known to be running 9 Stellar nodes to settle cross-border transactions prior to the announcement of this new blockchain service. With SWIFT being the only payment solution for the last 50 years, Stellar and IBM enter a domain that needs to be revitalized by new more efficient technologies. The probability of the banking industry adopting blockchain 100% in the next 12 months is very high and both Ripple and Stellar are at the front-line of all the action.
With Bitcoin having set the pace when its ledger was launched in 2009, it exists for such a long time has proven that digital assets can offer tangible improvements to financial services by increasing security as well as making them more efficient.
What does IBM mean for XLM and XRP in the markets?
From a business and investing point of view, XLM suddenly has the upper hand. With XRP having many so-called ‘non-believers’ in the crypto-space, XLM provides an option to invest in a relatively cheap digital asset with the potential of pulling off massive gains in the long run.
XLM is currently valued at $0.20 due to the massive crypto market correction that just happened, and at the moment of writing this. Looking at XRP, it is valued at only 9 cents higher at $0.29. However, XLM has a lower circulating supply at 18.8 Billion whereas XRP has 39.65 Billion. This, in turn, means that with considerable demand once this new cross-border service is live, XLM could continue to gain in the markets.
However, IBM and Stellar have not definitely stated that XLM will be used to source instant liquidity for the cross-border transactions. They simply state that the service will use the Stellar protocol with a Liquidity provider on both ends. A block diagram has been provided below for easier visualization of this concept.
How IBM Blockchain World Wire works. Source, IBM.com
Over 1 Million Active XLM Accounts on Its Ledger
The XLM network recently marked a new milestone of over 1 Million XLM accounts on its ledger. According to the block explorer on the network, the current number of active accounts stands at 1,218,453 further signifying a growing interest to buy, own and use XLM as a preferred digital asset across the globe. A clearer visual representation of the increment in accounts on the network can be found below:
Current active XLM Accounts. Source, stellar.expert/explorer/public/
In conclusion, blockchain technology from both Ripple and Stellar will go on to revolutionize cross-border payments in the next 12 months. This means that we will be more connected globally in not only by using the internet but by near-instant cross-border payments that will make our daily lives more efficient.
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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.
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