A Stellar startup, Lightyear, which is powered by the former network in an undisclosed contract, has recently announced the acquisition of a San Francisco-based distributed ledger technology (DLT) firm known as Chain.

With the announcement penetrating the mainstream last week, Lightyear will experience a change of name into Interstellar owing to the merger according to the company’s press statement.

Most importantly, the San Francisco-based DLT company will build enterprise-grade blockchain products to be backed by major players in finance including NASDAQ, Citigroup, Visa. Cloud products will also be available in Interstellar’s portfolio, allowing institutions to track as they move between private ledgers and the Stellar Network.

The Stellar Startup and Chain Merger

Co-founder of Stellar Development Foundation and Lightyear, Jed McCaleb, will become the CTO of Interstellar. Based on his judgment of the merger, it will “help organizations build on Stellar.” McCaleb stated that;

“Chain’s team has led the market for enterprise adoption of blockchain technology, which is a critical component of building a future where money and digital assets move over open protocols.”

As at press time, Stellar (XLM) is comfortably sitting in the sixth position in a cryptocurrency ranking based on the size of crypto establishment, the company has about $4.3 billion in market cap. Because of this acquisition-come-merger, Interstellar will receive unrestricted access to Chain enterprise products and customer base. This will also enable various organizations to issue, exchange and manage assets on a public network.

Chain has previous achievements, for instance; the company raised over $43 million from a plethora of financial institutions. Most noteworthy include, Capital One, Citigroup and the tech-driven focused funds like Khosla Venture, blockchain Capital and Pantera.

Interstellar Launches into the Financial Sector

Interstellar will ease enterprise into developing financial products and services with the expertise contribution from the Stellar open network. Chain’s CEO Adam Ludwin will take the position of CEO in the newly formed Interstellar. While explaining the nexus the company intends to create other organizations, he stated that;

“Chain has worked from inside the enterprise while Stellar has focused on the network between organizations. As a single team, we will have a complete view and set of capabilities to make value-over-IP a reality.”

Consequently, the report of the merger concluded by giving some structural infrastructure and human resources information. It stated that post-launch, Interstellar’s headquarters will be in San Francisco with office operations in New York and Singapore. On the other side, the human resources in term of employees will be about 60 employees to start with.

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