IBM Led Open Ledger Project May Change the Financial World for Good

Corporate computing giant IBM has teamed up with financial institutions like JP Morgan, the London Stock Exchange and Wells Fargo as well as a handful of top tech companies like Cisco and Intel to create an open source Blockchain.

According to a few media reports, the project is being called Open Ledger Project and it will be managed by the same non-profit foundation that runs the Linux operating system, the Linux Foundation.

Talking to Fortune about the Open Ledger Project, Jerry Cuomo, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of IBM’s software group, commented that “I think bitcoin is an interesting application for blockchain, but there are thousands of applications and wider use cases beyond that.” “I don’t have a strong opinion on cryptocurrencies, but I have a strong opinion on the blockchain as a solution for contracts and supply chains and the Internet of Things,” he added.

Since the Open Ledger Project will be open-source, anyone can use it to develop any type of application using this development library.

It is still not clear that the Open Ledger Project will focus on something other than using Blockchain for non financial issues, but since they involved some heavy weight financial institutions indicates that the project will focus on business issues.

Wired reported that “this open source project aims to build blockchain-like technology that can bring a new level of automation and transparency to a wide range of services in the business world, including stock exchanges and other financial markets.”

The blockchain is basically a global database that can work independently outside a central data storage facility.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use this technology to track a currency, but Blockchain can be used to track any other assets such as stocks and bonds as well. For example, a stock exchange run by blockchain can make the services of middlemen like brokers obsolete.

The application of the Open Ledger Project has potential to change how today’s financial world works.