Yesterday S&P Global Ratings listed a job advert for a blockchain engineering lead. This is the third division of S&P Global to adopt blockchain technology. S&P Global Ratings provides credit ratings for issuers of debt, securities and structure financed instruments like collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
The job listing requires enterprise blockchain skills, including Hyperledger Fabric, and mentions the distributed file storage protocol IPFS. It doesn’t outline any specific use cases. One obvious application would be to verify that a rating document is authentic and matches the one published by S&P. Hence, investors that rely on the rating don’t need to worry about whether the document has been manipulated post-publication.
In December, S&P Global agreed to acquire IHS Markit for $44 billion, a firm that also has various blockchain interests, including a stake in DLT-based forex solution Cobalt.
Last month S&P Global invested alongside State Street in Lukka, a company that provides accounting and tax reporting for digital assets and pricing data. Additionally, the S&P Dow Jones Indices division announced plans to launch a global cryptocurrency asset index with Lukka.
In other index news, just this week, Coindesk acquired Tradeblock, which runs the XBX pricing index for Bitcoin. Sister company Grayscale Bitcoin Trust uses the same index to price its GBTC.
Meanwhile, commodities division S&P Global Platts is working with the Port of Rotterdam’s BlockLab on a decentralized energy grid project powered by blockchain.