By : According to Reuters sources, about 12 banks are investing in a . While it’s unclear which banks are currently participating in the $50 million project, a spokesman for Barclays told the organization that “the Research & Development phase is coming to an end.”
R&D Phase Ending
The rarely discussed project began in 2015 with little fanfare. It supposedly involves several major banks who aim to use technology to reduce the cost of settlement and potentially offer new products.
Reuters describes a bank-backed stablecoin with a broader scope than existing stablecoins: it would inherently have whatever trust the several banks maintain associated with it.
Among the banks mentioned are UBS, Banco Santander, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, State Street Corp, Group AG, Barclays PLC, HSBC Holdings Plc and Deutsche Bank AG. Reuters was unable to get confirmation from any of them as to whether they were still working on “the project.”
Utility Settlement Coin
Several of these financial institutions have disclosed their own projects and integrations. Santander is , which opens the door to speculation that is involved in this project.
If that were the case, there’d be no need for secrecy, however. may see yet another group of potential clients slip away, or it may announce a massive addition of significant banks to its network. and other bank-oriented crypto projects rely on banks to not merely develop a product themselves.
’s vocal proponents believe that mass of and XRP by mainstream banks is inevitable and that the price of the asset will eventually reflect this. Erstwhile Labs plugs away, adding network participants here and there and opening offices around the world.
Where’s Ripple?
JP Morgan instead of directly integrating the existing protocols developed by Labs exasperated the community so much that CEO Brad Garlinghouse
Bank settlement instruments benefit from a network effect in the same way that like do. SWIFT is one of the primary ways that money is moved in the modern era, and it would be far less critical if major banks had never chosen to adopt it.
settlement layers might follow the same curve. Several institutional-grade and projects are in the running, including ’s various products and , which incorporates XRP.
At present, the project is dubbed only “utility settlement coin,” and is nearly four years in the making. The recent and several other crypto assets may be a driving force in releasing around the subject of . It may also spur these institutions into finally launching a product.
At the same time, it doesn’t sound like any part of this will be consumer-facing, which will come as a disappointment to many enthusiasts.
Published at Fri, 17 May 2019 03:16:12 +0000
