The Importance of Interoperability — not just on Blockchains!

If there’s anything that you need to know about Laser, it’s that Laser is all about interoperability. While more than 1,500 cryptocurrencies around the world use their own blockchains, these blockchains do not natively support inter-chain transactions — and this greatly limits the ability of cryptocurrencies in general to experience a whole lot of growth. By enabling separate blockchains to operate between one another, this growth restriction disappears — and substantially more potential uses for cryptocurrency are unlocked. That is blockchain without borders.

To put the power of interoperability into perspective, we’ve built today’s blog post around three well-known examples of interoperability networks that most of us use today, probably without even realizing it! What each of these networks did for their respective technologies, Laser will do for blockchains and cryptocurrencies.

Universal Postal Union (UPU)

Have you ever wondered why it is that you can just go to a post office and mail a letter or package to another country, but without knowing anything about the other country’s postal system? For example, if you wanted to send a letter from Australia to Germany, a lot of things have to happen. They have to get that letter out of Australia, into Germany — and once it’s in Germany, take it to the destination and have a mail carrier bring it to the recipient’s door. Who pays for that? Who coordinates who pays for that?

The way it used to be was that senders would have to manually calculate postage for each leg of a journey — and if there was no direct delivery, they would have to coordinate a mail forwarder service with a third country. Sounds complicated, right? In 1874, the Universal Postal Union was formed to simplify international mailing for senders, and ensure that postage payments were fairly allocated between sender and receiver countries. UPU currently has 192 member countries, connecting postal systems all around the world.

If only cryptocurrencies could move so easily across borders…

Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)

Now what about phones? Have you ever wondered how it is that you can pick up your phone and call a phone in another country, when that phone is on an entirely different set of phone lines, operated by an entirely different company, regulated by an entirely different government? This was made possible by the Public Switched Telephone network or PSTN. By using a network topology that manages the many local telephone network circuits around the world, someone on the other side of the globe can be dialled just as easily as your neighbour.

Phone calls — just like letters and cryptocurrencies — need to go a distance sometimes. In such cases, borders of the respective networks are not conducive to going such distances. With an interoperability solution like PSTN, that interoperability was given to telephones.

Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (Sabre)

Here’s another one you’ve probably wondered about at some point… have you ever gone on a travel booking site like Expedia and wondered how these websites are able to get all of this pricing and booking information from so many different airlines and hotels? That’s because Sabre’s Global Distribution System is able to aggregate this data from more than 400 airlines and 220,000 hotels — in addition to many tour operators, cruise lines, and car rental companies. Operating in the background, Sabre enables both travel agents and consumers to seamlessly browse the offerings of many different travel vendors — each of whom may have their own systems.

The way it used to be was if you’re booking a vacation with a flight, hotel, and rental car — you would have to use three different booking systems… one for each company. Thanks to systems such as Sabre, and companies such as Expedia who use it, users just have to go through one system, enabling each underlying system to do its own thing behind the scenes, invisibly to the user.

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As you can see… many separate networks exist in the contexts of postal mail, telephones, and travel booking. But through central networks that offer interoperability, the borders of such separate networks disappear. Thus enabling fewer steps, less friction, and much greater opportunities.

Today, we know mailing letters, making phone calls, and booking travel as very easy things to do, all because of these solutions that provide interoperability. Now Laser will provide these exact benefits to cryptocurrencies.

UPU is mail without borders… PSTN is telephone without borders… SABRE is travel shopping without borders… and Laser is blockchain without borders.

If you were with us earlier this month, you’ll know that Laser is actually most similar to SWIFT. Here is our blog post where we explain it.

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