Chain Merges with Lightyear, Goes All-In on Stellar

Combined company, to be called Interstellar, will help organizations build on the Stellar Network; Stellar Development Foundation to remain independent

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chain, Inc. ("Chain") today announced it has been acquired by Lightyear Corporation ("Lightyear"), a Stellar-focused commercial entity formed last year with the support of the Stellar Development Foundation. The Chain and Lightyear brands will be retired and the combined company will be re-named to Interstellar.

The merger brings Chain's enterprise customer base and products to Stellar's global public ledger, creating an end-to-end solution that will enable organizations to issue, exchange, and manage assets on a highly-scalable public network. Chain's cloud ledger service, Sequence, will allow organizations to easily track assets as they move between private ledgers and the Stellar network.

Key facts:

• Adam Ludwin, who is Chain's CEO, will be Interstellar's CEO
• Jed McCaleb, who co-founded the Stellar Development Foundation and Lightyear, will be CTO of Interstellar
• The Stellar Development Foundation, which develops the Stellar protocol and supports the open source community, will remain independent

Stellar is an open network that allows any currency or asset to be digitally issued, transferred, and exchanged over the internet. Interstellar will make it easy for developers and enterprises to leverage Stellar as a platform to build novel financial products and services.

"Chain's team has led the market for enterprise adoption of blockchain technology, which is a critical component of building a future where money and digital assets move over open protocols," said Jed McCaleb. "We are thrilled to be joining forces to help organizations build on Stellar."

"Chain has admired Stellar for years, and from day one we've shared their goal of enabling financial assets to move seamlessly over the internet," said Adam Ludwin. "Chain has worked from inside the enterprise while Stellar has focused on the network between organizations. As a single team, we will have a complete view and set of capabilities to make value-over-IP a reality."

Interstellar's product portfolio will also include StellarX, a recently announced marketplace for trading assets on Stellar. StellarX is currently in beta and will be launching to the public soon.

At close, Interstellar will employ 60 people with its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York City and Singapore.

More information is available at http://www.interstellar.com/

About the Stellar Network

Stellar is an open network that allows any currency or asset to be digitally issued, transferred, and exchanged over the internet. The Stellar public ledger has a built-in order book, pathfinding algorithm, and network token that together allow assets to move seamlessly between participants. The Stellar network is open source and validated by decentralized nodes that anyone can run, yet it is highly scalable and energy efficient thanks to a novel consensus system called SCP. SCP was developed by professor David Mazières, who leads the secure computer systems group at Stanford and is the Chief Scientist at the Stellar Development Foundation.

About the Stellar Development Foundation and Lightyear Corporation

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit founded in 2014. It helps build and maintain the Stellar network and supports the Stellar community through education, grant programs, and technical leadership of Stellar's open source projects. The Foundation is obligated by its charter to distribute 95% of the network's token, lumen (XLM), to ensure the operational and economic decentralization of the network. SDF received its initial funding from payments innovator Stripe.

Lightyear, a for-profit entity focused on adoption of the Stellar network by enterprise, was founded by Brit Yonge and Jed McCaleb in 2017 with support from SDF. Lightyear will be re-named to Interstellar concurrent with the merger.

About Chain

Chain was founded in 2014 by Adam Ludwin, Devon Gundry and Ryan Smith. The company builds enterprise-grade blockchain products leveraged by leading financial organizations including Visa, Nasdaq, and Citigroup. Chain's cloud product, Sequence, will become an important component of Interstellar's product portfolio and enable enterprises to issue, manage, and track assets as they move between private ledgers and the Stellar network. The company previously raised $44M from Khosla Ventures, RRE Ventures, Thrive Capital, and strategic partners including Visa, Nasdaq, Citi, Capital One, Fiserv, and Orange.