SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is developing a blockchain payment settlement platform on Ethereum layer 2 called Linea, as confirmed by Consensys CEO Joe Lubin. SWIFT announced this initiative with more than 30 traditional financial institutions to create a 24/7 real-time crypto payments system. Although SWIFT did not initially name Linea when making the announcement, Lubin later confirmed the selection at the Token2049 conference in Singapore. He noted that the banking sector responded positively to the news, highlighting the need to connect decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi).

Linea, created by Consensys, utilizes zk-EVM rollup technology, processing about 150 transactions per second at a significantly lower cost than Ethereum fees. It currently has $2.27 billion in total value locked, making it the fourth largest Ethereum layer 2 solution, following Arbitrum One, Base Chain, and OP Mainnet. SWIFT’s involvement in blockchain payments is significant, as it currently manages around $150 trillion in global payments annually. Major banks like Bank of America, Citi, and JPMorgan Chase are expected to participate in trials of SWIFT’s blockchain payment system on Linea, which could challenge Ripple’s XRP Ledger.

Lubin also mentioned Linea’s potential for user-generated content and decentralized organizational structures, allowing communities to create their own infrastructure and rules. However, few decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have yet succeeded on a large scale.