IBM Creates a "Smart Contract" System

The information technology is working on changing the world of how transactions take place, business to business, bank to bank and bank to business.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, the International Business Machines Corporation is working on a blockchain technology to create a “smart contract” system and will be releasing its open-source software in the next few months. This new platform will be used to keep a track of business to business, bank to bank and bank to business transactions.

A blockchain is a distributed database that keeps all the record of the Bitcoin transaction, while bitcoin is a new currency and mode of payment network. The new IBM system will help the firm to create digital contracts that the blockchain will be able to publicly record, on a secured network which functions all around the world.

The Senior Vice President and Director at the business services firm Arvind Krishna, said that this, Blockchain is a very interesting and intriguing software, with the help of which he would like to extend the business to over 3.2 billion people who will be a part of the middle class in the next 15 years. Blockchain provides the users with a very cheap platform to keep a ledger, as it offers quite a few intriguing opportunities.

The current Senior Vice President, Krishna was initially the general manager of the technology and development sector of IBM. Presently he leads the information technology company’s entire technical strategy and leads a global organization who has over 3000 technologists and scientists and has 12 labs in 6 continents. He added to his previous statement that this new technology is still experimental and could record transactions that are done between banks and businesses that are carried on overseas. This new technology could also aid in business and banks keeping the same system for record keeping.

At present the technologists at IBM are playing with the same Blockchain technology but trying to modify it in a way that it can operate without currency and they will have to make sure that contract details remain secretive and making companies able to carry out payments easily. This is believed to be the first time that such a big firm and powerful is working on the blockchain technology smart contract so vastly. The global technology firm’s main aim is to go beyond the retro ways in which this technology previously worked. For example: in the old fashioned way, the software would require permission to work with certain financial operators and a few and approved governments were validated to conduct transactions.

The IT Company has been researching on this technology for quite some time now. In March according to a report by the Bitcoin Magazine, International Business Machines corp. was working on developing a digital cash and payment system for important currencies, “something of a bitcoin but not exactly a bitcoin”. It even discussed this technology and possibility with a number of central banks.