Oracle Corp. is racing to latch onto one of the hottest trends in tech, announcing the general availability of its Blockchain Cloud Service that it announced last year.

Blockchain is the distributed-ledger technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but it also has use cases beyond digital payments. The technology can be used to create tamper-proof contracts and track just about any kind of transaction, and its distributed nature makes it an ideal service for cloud companies.

Oracle launched a preview of its Blockchain Cloud Service in October, when it said it was already working with clients such as Banco de Chile and the Nigerian government for use cases that include interbank transactions and tracking of import duties. Since the launch, Oracle has picked up a number of other clients, including the Arab Jordan Investment Bank, Indian Oil, CargoSmart and Intelipost.

Oracle is notably late to the blockchain party, however. One of its main rivals, Microsoft Corp., has had a blockchain service on its cloud since 2015, while IBM Corp. has been making inroads with its own service for a good couple of years now.

Oracle is trying to differentiate its blockchain offering by pitching it at its own customers. The company said its platform can easily be tied into customers’ supply chains, inventories and other software, no matter if they’re running on-premises or in the cloud. To that end, Oracle said, its Blockchain Cloud Service can integrate with its software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service applications. With the service, Oracle will manage the infrastructure under the hood, with customers building their own applications and smart contracts on top of it.

Despite these efforts, however, Oracle’s blockchain service, which is based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source blockchain development consortium that also counts IBM, Microsoft and SAP SE among its members, is very similar to that of its main rivals’ offerings, said James Kobielus, an analyst with SiliconANGLE sister company Wikibon.

“As with these rivals’ blockchain offerings, Oracle is offering a blockchain quick-start capability with fast application development, managed cloud deployment, enterprise integration and granular security built in,” Kobielus said. “What we find most significant about Oracle’s GA of its blockchain cloud service is the range of customers who have already adopted it and the vendor’s commitment to rolling out applications that leverage the platform to deliver value in diverse connected-commerce scenarios.”

Kobielus added that he expects enterprise-grade blockchain platforms to prove their worth in business-to-business scenarios over the next couple of years, permeating through both hybrid and private cloud environments. And when that happens, he expects Oracle will be in a “good position to leverage its substantial enterprise customer base” and tap into some of the most lucrative blockchain opportunities to serve Global 1000 customers.

“Blockchain promises to be one of the most transformative technologies of our generation,” Amit Zavery, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Platform, said in a statement. “With Oracle’s platform, enterprises can enhance their business, eliminate unnecessary processes, and transact with their distributed networks more easily, transparently and securely than ever before.”

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