- Combined company, to be called Interstellar, will help organizations build on the Stellar Network; Stellar Development Foundation to remain independent
Chain, Inc. ("Chain") today announced it has been acquired by Lightyear Corporation ("Lightyear"), a Stellar-focused commercial entity formed last year with the support of the Stellar Development Foundation. The Chain and Lightyear brands will be retired and the combined company will be re-named to Interstellar (http://www.interstellar.com/ ).
The merger brings Chain's enterprise customer base and products to Stellar's global public ledger, creating an end-to-end solution that will enable organizations to issue, exchange, and manage assets on a highly-scalable public network. Chain's cloud ledger service, Sequence (https://www.chain.com/sequence/ ), will allow organizations to easily track assets as they move between private ledgers and the Stellar network.
Key facts:
-- Adam Ludwin, who is Chain's CEO, will be Interstellar's CEO
-- Jed McCaleb, who co-founded the Stellar Development Foundation and
Lightyear, will be CTO of Interstellar
-- The Stellar Development Foundation, which develops the Stellar protocol
and supports the open source community, will remain independent
Stellar is an open network that allows any currency or asset to be digitally issued, transferred, and exchanged over the internet. Interstellar will make it easy for developers and enterprises to leverage Stellar as a platform to build novel financial products and services.
"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," said Jed McCaleb. "We are thrilled to be joining forces to help organizations build on Stellar."
"Chain has admired Stellar for years, and from day one we've shared their goal of enabling financial assets to move seamlessly over the internet," said Adam Ludwin. "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."
Interstellar's product portfolio will also include StellarX (http://www.stellarx.com/ ), a recently announced marketplace for trading assets on Stellar. StellarX is currently in beta and will be launching to the public soon.
At close, Interstellar will employ 60 people with its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York City and Singapore.
