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Microsoft is the latest major company to lend support to blockchain technology, with the launch of its new cloud platform offering Ethereum Blockchain as a Service.
It's available as part of Microsoft Azure cloud and is primarily targeted at the financial services industry. Ethereum is the open source technology behind the Ether cryptocurrency, and is described as a "next generation" cryptocurrency platform.
Microsoft's service has been developed in partnership with ConsenSys, a startup that describes itself as "a venture production studio building decentralized applications and various developer and end-user tools for blockchain ecosystems".
Marley Gray, Microsoft's director of tech strategy for financial services, told Reuters that "the major pain point" it was hearing from customers wanting to use blockchain technology was that it was too hard and too expensive. This, according to Gray, inspired the creation of Ethereum Blockchain as a Service, allowing companies to begin working with the technology without having to first make significant investments in hardware.
This isn't Microsoft's first move towards legitimising cryptocurrency -- it began accepting payments in bitcoin almost a year ago -- but the Ethereum cloud platform's existence is a sign of the increasing importance blockchain technology has to the financial services industry as a whole.
The news follows a number of other significant developments in the cryptocurrency world. Bitcoin achieved record trading volumes and reached an annual high of $502 (£330) on 4 November, although it's since dropped back to $322 (£212). Meanwhile, Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious, pseudonymous creator of the cryptocurrency, has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Economics by Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at UCLA Anderson School.
Earlier this year, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc announced that it was entering into partnership with blockchain infrastructure startup Chain to test blockchain technology for trading shares in private companies.
While they remain controversial, blockchain technology, cryptocurrency and bitcoin are all being taken increasingly seriously by the financial sector. It's a trend that could continue in 2016, with major banks including RBS and Barclays investing in and continuing to develop blockchain-based distributed ledger technologies.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
