The battle for supremacy in the cross-border payments industry on the blockchain is no longer Ripple’s only arena. The longstanding partnership between IBM and Stellar (XLM) has brought about a further development in the form of a cross-border payment solution “almost immediately”. The two companies have the so called IBM Blockchain World Wire.

The new service aims to revolutionize cross-border payments by:

“Clearing and Settlement [of payments] with finality almost in real time. The solution uses digital assets to process transactions – which are exchanged as agreed store of value between the parties – as well as to integrate payment instruction messages. All of this means that funds can now be transferred at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional correspondent banking. “

It was known that prior to the announcement of this new blockchain service, the IBM company was operating 9 Stellar nodes to process cross-border transactions. With SWIFT being the only payment solution for the past 50 years, Stellar and IBM are entering a domain that needs to be revitalized with new, more efficient technologies. The likelihood that the banking industry will adopt blockchain 100% in the next 12 months is very high and both Ripple and Stellar are at the forefront.

Since Bitcoin set the pace when its ledger was launched in 2009, it has proven for so long that digital assets can significantly improve financial services by increasing security and making them more efficient.

What does IBM mean for XLM and XRP in the markets?

From a business and investment perspective, XLM suddenly has the upper hand. Since XRP has many so-called “non-believers” in the crypto space, XLM offers the opportunity to invest in a relatively cheap digital asset with the potential to make massive profits in the long run.

XLM is currently valued at $ 0.20 due to the massive correction in the crypto market that has just occurred and at the time of this writing. If you look at XRP, it is valued at $ 0.29 just 9 cents higher. However, XLM has a lower circulating supply at 18.8 billion, while XRP has 39.65 billion. This in turn means that if there is significant demand for the launch of this new cross-border service in markets, XLM could continue to grow.

However, IBM and Stellar have not definitively stated that XLM will be used to raise instant liquidity for the cross-border transactions. They just state that the service is using the Stellar protocol with a liquidity provider on both ends. To make this concept easier to visualize, a block diagram is provided below.

Over 1 million active XLM accounts in its ledger

The XLM network recently marked a new milestone of over 1 million XLM accounts in its ledger. According to the network’s block explorer, the current number of active accounts is 1,218,453, which is another sign of a growing interest in buying, owning, and using XLM as the digital asset of choice around the world. For a clearer visual representation of the increase in accounts on the network, see below:

Finally, Blockchain technology from Ripple and Stellar will revolutionize cross-border payments over the next 12 months. This means that we will be globally more connected not only by using the internet but also by making cross-border payments almost instantly, making our daily lives more efficient.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be construed as investment advice and is not intended as investment advice. Global Coin Report and / or its affiliates, employees, authors 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 do your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.

Source: Cryptocurrency News Room