Mike Kennedy, creator of Zelle, became CEO of Interstellar, a Stellar-based blockchain payment platform competing with Ripple and Swift. Interstellar is crypto-agnostic and aims to enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments for banks without correspondent banking networks.
Mike Kennedy, who created the person-to-person payment network Zelle, was named CEO of Interstellar, a blockchain payment technology company built on the Stellar protocol. Interstellar competes with Ripple and Swift by offering banks a distributed ledger for international money transfers. Unlike Ripple, which promotes XRP, Interstellar is crypto-agnostic and supports Lumens, bitcoin, stablecoins, or other digital currencies. Kennedy identified gaps in tokenization, liquidity, and market-making that Interstellar plans to address. The company also announced Pogo, a new app-focused spinout led by former CEO Adam Ludwin, focused on mobile wallet interoperability.
