SWIFT Chooses Linea for Real-Time Blockchain Payments – You Won’t Believe This

SWIFT-the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication-has decided to install its shiny new blockchain-based payment settlement platform on Ethereum layer 2 Linea, as if selecting a captain based on how well it handles bureaucratic orbit. Consensys CEO Joe Lubin confirmed this with the calm of a man who has packed a towel for eternity.

On Monday, SWIFT revealed that it tapped Consensys and over 30 TradFi institutions to build infrastructure for a 24/7 real-time crypto payments system – but didn’t confirm which chain it would build on, despite widespread speculation that it would be Linea. The suspense was almost (but not quite) as dramatic as a vending machine that only dispenses opinions.

But Lubin confirmed Linea’s selection in a fireside chat with CryptoMoon’s Gareth Jenkinson at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore on Thursday, speaking with the sort of confidence that suggests he has memorized more jargon than there are stars in the galaxy.

Lubin said that during SWIFT’s announcement to the banking sector, SWIFT CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso didn’t mention Linea by name. Lubin said SWIFT had to “soft roll out” the “big news,” which was received with the polite enthusiasm of someone who’s been handed a spare umbrella on a sunny day.

“I believe the sentiment was, ‘thank you for doing this.’ It’s about time to bring the two streams, DeFi and TradFi, together,” said Lubin. And if that synthesis includes a towel, so much the better. 🧼🧷

Developed by Consensys, Linea is a scaling-focused layer 2 that leverages zk-EVM rollup technology to process around 1.5 transactions a second at one-fifteenth the cost of fees on Ethereum. It’s the kind of arithmetic that makes accountants nod thoughtfully while wondering if their calculators have feelings.

It has $2.27 billion worth of total value locked – the fourth largest among Ethereum layer 2s, trailing only Arbitrum One, Base Chain and OP Mainnet, L2BEAT data shows. In other words, it’s doing respectable, grown-up stuff without screaming for attention at every turn.

SWIFT’s entry into the blockchain payments space could be massive, as it handles around $150 trillion worth of global payments through traditional banking rails each year. And yes, somewhere between the lines there’s a towel joke waiting to happen.

Some of the biggest banks are involved

Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Toronto-Dominion Bank are among the TradFi firms set to participate in trials of SWIFT’s new blockchain payments rail on Linea.

It could pose a serious competitor to Ripple’s XRP Ledger, one of the few prominent blockchain-based payment systems tailored for banks.

SWIFT’s move to build a blockchain payments rail has been anticipated for some time, benefiting from the blockchain’s near-instant, 24/7 settlement without intermediaries, while reducing costs, errors, and delays. And yes, there may well be a galaxy-spanning purring sound of contentment somewhere between the servers and the coffee machines.

Linea could enable a “user-generated civilization,” says Lubin

Lubin highlighted the broader potential of Linea beyond payments, describing it as a platform where “content can be created in a user-generated fashion.” He imagines a future where creativity flows as freely as credits in a very well-behaved universe and where the only rules are the ones you code yourself.

“We will have user-generated civilization and user-generated content on Linea and other places,” Lubin said, explaining that by leveraging Ethereum’s trustless settlement layer, Linea allows communities to build infrastructure, rules, and apps from the bottom up – the opposite of the top-down approach seen in traditional government and banking hierarchies. Don’t panic, bring a towel. 🧯🧶

Decentralized autonomous organizations are already trying to run entities without centralized leadership, often implementing smart contracts and decentralized voting systems to manage treasuries and make decisions. However, few DAOs have achieved success at scale so far. The universe, it seems, still has a sense of humor about governance by consensus.

2025-10-03 08:34

Some of the biggest banks are involved

Linea could enable a “user-generated civilization,” says Lubin

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