Conensys head Joe Lubin confirmed that SWIFT will adopt the Ethereum layer-2 Linea blockchain for its new crypto payments ledger.

On Monday, SWIFT announced a partnership with ConsenSys alongside over 30 traditional finance firms to develop an around-the-clock crypto payments infrastructure, sparking speculation about its blockchain foundation. Lubin specified the selection of Linea during a fireside chat with Cointelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson at the Token2049 conference in Singapore on Thursday.

Although SWIFT’s CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso did not mention Linea specifically at the banking sector announcement, Lubin indicated that SWIFT needed to gradually unveil its “big news,” which was received positively. Lubin remarked, “I believe the sentiment was, ‘thank you for doing this.’ It’s about time to bring DeFi and TradFi together.”

Image of Joe Lubin and Gareth Jenkinson From left, Cointelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson with Joe Lubin and Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson. Source: Cointelegraph

Developed by ConsenSys, Linea employs zk-EVM rollup technology to achieve a transaction rate of approximately 1.5 per second at a fraction of the cost compared to Ethereum. With $2.27 billion in total value locked, Linea ranks fourth among Ethereum layer 2s, trailing behind Arbitrum One, Base Chain, and OP Mainnet, according to L2BEAT data.

SWIFT’s venture into blockchain payments could be monumental as it handles roughly $150 trillion in global payments annually through conventional banking channels.

Major Banks Involved

Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Toronto-Dominion Bank are among the traditional finance institutions participating in trials for SWIFT’s blockchain payment system built on Linea. This initiative could potentially rival Ripple’s XRP Ledger, one of the notable blockchain-based payment systems tailored for banks.

Anticipation for SWIFT’s blockchain payment system has been building due to blockchain’s capability for instantaneous, 24/7 settlement without intermediaries, thus minimizing costs, errors, and delays.

Linea’s Broader Vision

Lubin emphasized that Linea’s capabilities extend beyond payments, enabling a platform for “user-generated civilization” where content can be developed collaboratively.

“We will have a user-generated civilization and user-generated content on Linea and other platforms,” Lubin stated, discussing the advantages of utilizing Ethereum’s trustless settlement layer to empower communities to construct their own infrastructure and regulations from the ground up, deviating from the top-down model prevalent in traditional governance and financial systems.

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are already striving to operate entities without centralized leadership, utilizing smart contracts and decentralized voting systems for governance. However, significant success with DAOs at scale is still limited.

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