Microsoft teams up with New York startup to launch blockchain technology cloud platform

On November 11, according to Reuters, Microsoft and New York startup ConsensYs jointly launched a cloud-based blockchain technology platform on Tuesday. The platform aims to help financial institutions easily and cheaply experience the encryption technology behind digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

Blockchain technology can be thought of as a huge, decentralized "ledger" that records every Bitcoin transaction in the world. Since the technology is based on a global computer network for verification and sharing, this "ledger" is essentially tamper-proof.

The financial industry is now very interested in blockchain technology, and relevant institutions are constantly increasing their investment, hoping to significantly reduce settlement costs and improve efficiency by using this technology.

Blockchain technology is not limited to Bitcoin, any data exchange can be encrypted and verified through this technology. Some companies are now even starting to use their own blockchains to provide additional auxiliary functions for Bitcoin transactions.

For example, one well-known company is Ethereum, which created a fully reprogrammable blockchain. The blockchain platform launched by Microsoft on Tuesday is based on Ethereum's technology.

Currently, Microsoft’s blockchain platform is open to its Azure users and can be used by all banking and insurance companies. Microsoft specifically pointed out that the world’s four largest financial institutions are now users of this new service .

“We have a lot of customers who want to get on board with blockchain technology, and the pain point we keep hearing is that they think it’s too hard to get started and it’s too expensive,” Marley Gray, Microsoft’s director of technical strategy for financial services, told Reuters at the Ethereum “DevCon” developer conference.

Gray described how companies can use the cloud technology platform provided by Microsoft to build services without having to build their own systems.

Gray said the technology would allow businesses to create their own private blockchains, or so-called “smart contracts,” that could automatically execute the terms of an agreement in 20 minutes, without requiring any prior experience.

Original article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/10/us-microsoft-tech-blockchain-idUSKCN0SZ2ER20151110#IU3TVkfUzYXL03Ru.97
By Jemima Kelly
Compiled by: Lu Xin