IBM is looking to move blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin and money transfer as it announced Blockchain-as-a-service on Tuesday.
Blockchain-as-a-service allows developers to "create digital assets and accompanying business logic to more securely and privately transfer assets among members of a permissioned blockchain test network".
The best part of it all is that it’s free -- 44,000 lines of code are available on GitHub to developers everywhere. Blockchain technology is an online public ledger where you can log pretty much any kind of transaction. Being decentralized, and allowing all parties to double-check the transfers, in theory it could reduce errors or misuse.
"London Stock Exchange Group is directly engaged in the development of the open blockchain technologies with IBM and we are excited to help enable the creation of solutions that will help manage risk and bring additional transparency to global financial markets", said Moiz Kohari, EVP, group head of technology innovation, London Stock Exchange Group. "We believe this technology has the potential to drive change across the industry but will need to be developed in partnership with customers and industry participants under an open source approach".
In order to speed things up, IBM has opened up what it calls IBM Garages -- places where developers and IBM experts can collaborate on the design and implementation of blockchain for business. The IBM Garages will open up in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.
"In just a few short months, IBM’s vision for making blockchain a powerful new business solution across multiple industries is becoming a reality as our clients begin piloting innovative new code, services and z Systems optimized for distributed ledgers", said Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President, IBM Research. "These advancements are making it easier for developers to move from understanding the potential of blockchain, to actually using it to change their business processes in powerful new ways".
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