Startup Mobius Network launches ‘Stripe-like’ API for blockchain access

As blockchain technology settles into becoming the backbone of a new software ecosystem, startups are beginning to work out ways of tying the new frontier to the old world.

One such startup, San Francisco-based Mobius Network, has recently launched a universal API that connects any application, website, web application, device or data source to a blockchain.

The offering is one of the first that can give marketers’ sites or applications ready access to blockchain-based tokens for customer rewards, and to blockchain-recorded transactional transparency.

CEO and co-founder David Gobaud told me he undertook this startup because, when he was developing a game, he envisioned utilizing blockchain-based tokens. But, he said, it required setting up “a massive infrastructure, [and] we get rid of that.”

An application can accept Mobius’ Mobi tokens by registering the app in the Mobius Network’s new DApp store. Mobis can be exchanged for other tokens or conventional currency on crypto-currency exchanges, or can become credits inside the application.

To connect an application, a developer signs up in DApp and, a few clicks later, the application can accept Mobis through the store. If the developer wants to set up, say, a standard checkout with shopping cart to accept any Ethereum- or Stellar-based token, including Mobis, the API can be employed.

Via the API,  a developer can make an HTTP call to Mobius’ Stellar blockchain instance, not unlike the way Stripe lets retail applications enable payments directly in their online stores.

Gobaud says his company is the “first one with a Stripe-like approach” that enables access to the complex infrastructure of blockchain tokens and recording with a function call.

Eventually, Mobius says it will have API fees “like Stripe,” but for the moment, use of the API and the store is free.

Ethereum is a popular open-source blockchain platform, and Stellar is a more recent, payments-oriented blockchain competitor. Gobaud says Stellar is “faster, cheaper and more secure” than Ethereum.

Stellar can handle more than a thousand transactions per second, compared to seven transactions per second for Ethereum, he said. Additionally, Mobius says Stellar’s fee for each transaction is $0.0000025, while Ethereum’s is over $0.30.

[Article on MarTech Today.]

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.