Nasdaq integrates Microsoft Azure to build a blockchain for blockchains

In a press release published yesterday, Microsoft announced it would be bringing its Azure blockchain technology to Nasdaq’s Financial Framework (NFF) system.

Nasdaq’s Financial Framework will integrate with Microsoft’s Azure blockchain to build a platform that does not rely on one particular distributed ledger.

The NFF was designed to provide a platform that allows institutions to make use of new technologies in financial trading infrastructures. Given it’s 2018, what else was going to be integrated besides blockchain?

Microsoft claims that this integration will address interoperability challenges to create a blockchain system that allows various technologies to work together.

Perhaps we shouldn’t consider this a single blockchain by definition, but a blockchain-based system that exists on top of other blockchains to get them all to play nice.

“Nasdaq sees immediate opportunity for blockchain to manage the delivery, payment, and settlement of transactions that may reside on multiple blockchains with different payment mechanisms,” the statement reads.

Microsoft has been dabbling in blockchian for sometime, and not just with financial applications.

Earlier in the year reports stated that the company was using blockchain to curb spam calls in India. The Washington based firm also developed a blockchain-based system to help netizens manage their online identity.

But Microsoft’s activity in this space isn’t without competition, Google and Amazon are hot on their heels with their own blockchain offerings.