The strategic partnership will enable fast and cheap cross-border payments across Southeast Asia on the Stellar blockchain
Blockchain financial protocol Velo Labs announced today an integration with Interstellar that will enable cross-border payments in Southeast Asia that are faster, cheaper and more transparent through the development of a global settlement network.
The San Francisco-based Interstellar is a technology company that is revolutionising the payments industry by advising businesses and creating products and solutions. These mostly leverage the Stellar blockchain network, which currently has more than 4.8 million accounts and functions as both a platform for digital asset issuance and a cross-currency transaction system.
Stellar Network and Thai conglomerate CP Group have both backed the Southeast Asia-based Velo Labs, which aims to build a Federated Credit Exchange Network and connect the existing banking infrastructure to the CeFi (centralised finance) and DeFi (decentralised finance) crypto industry.
The strategic partnership, which first began in January 2020, will combine Velo’s connections across Southeast Asia with the Interstellar team’s Stellar blockchain expertise to transform international payments. The integration will be led by Interstellar CEO and new Velo Labs CEO Mike Kennedy, with the support of the Lightnet Group and the Stellar Development Fund.
Kennedy commented, “Interstellar has been focused on revolutionizing international payments with the Stellar blockchain technology, specifically in Southeast Asia. Velo and Interstellar joining teams is a natural progression of that work and will accelerate our shared vision to drive implementation and adoption throughout the region. We’ve already accomplished so much together and I am proud to lead this team through the next phase of our growth.”
Velo Labs launched VELO tokens on the Stellar network last year with the support of Interstellar. Other notable achievements include developing core functions like digital credit issuance on the Velo Protocol, completing the Federated Credit Exchange network’s first live transactions and gaining VELO token listings on major exchanges.
Founder of Interstellar and the Stellar Network, Jed McCaleb, added, “This is a significant step for the Stellar ecosystem, with potential to drive more anchors to the network, creating new on/off ramps in Asia and business opportunities for both Velo and Stellar communities. It ultimately moves us closer to the future we want to see, where Stellar is connecting global financial infrastructure so that it’s faster, more affordable, and more accessible.”