IBM is not only eyeing Bitcoin technology, but also wants to do more with it

Bitcoin technology has welcomed its biggest supporter since its inception.

On February 16, news from the Wall Street Journal showed that IBM will begin testing its own version of transaction processing software blockchain in the coming year, which can make operations simpler for customers who rent IBM computer hardware.

The so-called blockchain refers to a series of data blocks generated by cryptographic methods. Each data block contains information about all Bitcoin network transactions in the past ten minutes, which is used to verify the validity of the information (anti-counterfeiting) and generate the next block. Blockchain is also an important basic technology of Bitcoin.

According to Jiemian News, this technology replaces the current Internet's reliance on central servers with data blocks, so that all data changes or transaction items are recorded on a cloud system. Its obvious benefit is that it can reduce the cost of establishing global "credit", and point-to-point verification will produce a "basic protocol" to establish a new interface and sharing interface between human brain intelligence and machine intelligence.

Since the birth of Bitcoin, blockchain has also received widespread attention. Many technicians believe that most record-keeping systems still rely on paper, and in the future blockchain may replace paper in a digital way.

As a result, IBM has shown a keen interest in the technology and is trying to establish a new standard for blockchain software. According to the Wall Street Journal, IBM will contribute the computer code it developed for the free, open source project Hyperledger.

IBM also plans to launch a new service aimed at helping software developers provide blockchain services to devices that use radio frequency identification tags to monitor tags at the mainframe computer level. In other words, it is trying to get more corporate customers to use this technology.

To help spread awareness of the technology’s potential benefits, the company is setting up a network of sites called IBM Garages in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo where clients can test blockchain software.

IBM said that the London Stock Exchange, Japan Exchange Group, Nasdaq and JPMorgan Chase are among the companies exploring ways to use blockchain code in some of their businesses, which is also an attempt to extend blockchain management technology beyond Bitcoin.

"The applications of distributed ledgers are almost unlimited in the future," Arvind Krishna, senior vice president of IBM, told the media. The company believes that when companies rent computer equipment, blockchain can connect multiple back-end systems. Even those who are more optimistic about the technology say that blockchain can be used to track stock or real estate ownership, or settle cross-border financial transactions.

Before IBM released the above plan, the application value of blockchain technology was more imaginary than practical. As IBM increases its investment in this field, it may be able to attract more companies to try to use this technology.

Krishna said IBM plans to use Hyperledger to speed up blockchain and make it more scalable and easier to use, so that blockchain software can work on any computer running the open source Linux operating system and can also reduce the load on mainframes that host transaction processing systems.

But this also means that if IBM gains control of the technology sector, many companies will become more dependent on IBM for information exchange and storage in the future.