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Blockchain is a technology providing a way for businesses and people around the world to collectively maintain a secured database without relying on a central authority. It is an immutable ledger to record transactions in a decentralized, secure, and scalable way.

Blockchain was popularized in 2009 as a technology supporting the digital currency Bitcoin. Since then, it has been appropriated by a wide range of projects, incorporating singularities to its core technology to address many different applications. For example, the Stellar blockchain, unlike Bitcoin, has been specifically designed to address international payments.

As such, Blockchain creates a new, efficient, and borderless model for sharing and reconciling information, one designed to guarantee trust for our interconnected and global future. It does so by solving the “double-spend problem”, which eliminates the risk to falsify and replicate information on a ledger.

For cross-border payments, blockchain’s properties create the ideal conditions to facilitate instant settlements and reduce the need to rely on correspondent banks and clearing houses. This technological breakthrough can therefore lead to faster, cheaper, and more secure international payments.

Check out this article for more information on the basics of blockchain

The Stellar blockchain enables efficiencies not attainable by centralized, traditional ledgers relying on one organization.

Stellar is a global public blockchain governed by The Stellar Development Foundation — a non-stock, non-profit corporation with no shareholders, no owners and no profit motive.

The network is tried and tested, operating since 2014, with over 4.8 million users and nearly 1 billion transactions in 2020 alone.

Stellar is specifically designed for international payments, making them more efficient thanks to its unique properties:

• Fast: 3 to 5-second settlements
• Cheap: virtually no transaction fees ($1 for 100,000 transactions)
• Scalable: process thousands of transactions per second
• Compliant: built-in compliance layer and licensed partners
• Secure: built-in security, best-in-class cryptographic techniques, and secure against 51% attacks
• Sustainable: green decentralization of the Stellar Consensus protocol (no mining or proof of stake needed)

Check out this article for more information about Stellar