IBM Brings Banks into Swift's Blockchain Fold, Threatening XRP
International Business Machines (IBM) has integrated its Digital Asset Haven platform with Swift's shared blockchain ledger, allowing banks to send tokenized deposits around the clock without needing XRP tokens or the Ripple network.
This is a potential blow to XRP investors, as the idea behind XRP investments was that banks would use it as a quick bridge between currencies. However, Swift's answer is less exciting and more bank-friendly: banks can now move their own money on a ledger they already share with IBM's platform.
Ripple Labs is reportedly considering an initial public offering (IPO), but Ripple is increasingly settling transactions with the predictable Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin, leaving volatile XRP pricing out of the process.
IBM's involvement may be bad news for XRP, but it also provides IBM with another reason to sell its mainframe computers. The company's Digital Asset Haven platform can now run on-premises on IBM Z mainframes and LinuxONE servers, which have seen a 42% sales decline in the second quarter.
IBM claims that a properly configured setup can hit 99.999999% availability (eight nines!), or roughly a third of a second of downtime per year.