· February 15, 2018 · 10:30 am
Ripple Signs Major Deal with Saudia Arabia’s Central Bank
Ripple, the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has been on a tear lately, and it has now signed a significant deal with Saudi Arabia’s central bank.
Ripple Rapidly Gaining Traction
Ripple continues to make inroads into the traditional financial sector. It has recently announced a massive deal with the and a major partnership with . Additionally, Banco Santander is set to roll out in Q1, and just today came the news that will begin testing XRP transfers.
According to , Saudi Arabia’s central bank has penned a deal with the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency company, which aims to help banks in the oil-rich kingdom settle instantaneous cross-border payments using blockchain software. Specifically, Saudi Arabia will utilize xCurrent, Ripple’s enterprise software solution facilitating such payments with end-to-end tracking.
Saudi Arabia’s deal with the cryptocurrency company is the first such blockchain-utilizing pilot program launched by a central bank. Dilip Rao, Ripple’s global head of infrastructure innovation, :
Central banks around the world are leaning into blockchain technology in recognition of how it can transform cross-border payments, resulting in lower barriers to trade and commerce for both corporates and consumers.
Saudi Arabia’s partnership with the virtual currency company comes after Gulf regulators have expressed concerns over and the cryptocurrency market’s lack of regulation. Thus, Ripple has, unsurprisingly, proven itself to be an attractive offer.
Unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that are largely founded on the premises of deregulation and decentralization, Ripple has openly marketed itself as a blockchain solution for traditional financial institutions. In turn, the cryptocurrency has long come under criticism for undermining what some consider to be the very foundations of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
Drawing further skepticism from investors is the fact that the vast majority of XRP tokens are owned by Ripple’s parent company, thus making it technically capable of regulating the price of said tokens.
XRP saw highs around $3.84 on January 4th but has since fallen as low as $0.59. It is currently trading at $1.12.
In December, UAE central bank governor Mubarak Rashed al-Mansouri also told Reuters that the central banks of both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are working together in hopes of issuing a digital currency that would help facilitate cross-border transactions between the two countries.
What do you think of Ripple’s efforts to continually sign major deals with financial institutions? Do you think Ripple undermines cryptocurrency’s foundations? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Bitcoinist archives.
Published at Thu, 15 Feb 2018 15:30:02 +0000
Altcoin News
You might be interested in …
Crypto Startup Files Petition Against India’s Central Bank Ban
Altcoin Today Crypto Startup Files Petition Against India’s Central Bank Ban Crypto Startup Files Petition Against India’s Central Bank Ban An Indian startup planning to launch a crypto exchange has filed a complaint against the […]
Monero (XMR) : intégration des « bulletproofs » via Hard Fork le 18 octobre
JournalduCoin.com Monero (XMR) : intégration des « bulletproofs » via Hard Fork le 18 octobre Le dernier Hard Fork en date avait eu pour conséquence la création de tout un tas de variantes du Monero […]
Status CommitETH: A Tool to Incentivize Community-Driven Development Projects
The development team behind , a leading decentralized mobile messaging browser for Ethereum, has created a tool to promote community-driven software development.
[Note: This is a press release]
Status announced the first alpha release of in a recent describing the tool as a GitHub bounty bot that enables token holders to incentivize “pull request” submissions by securing ETH or any ERC20-compatible token to open issues in GitHub. CommitETH will aim to incentivize developer involvement while increasing token-holder control and offering a greater utility to app tokens.
CommitETH seeks to play a pivotal role in the evolution of governance protocols and decision-making processes of blockchain powered decentralized business models. Commit ETH will enable the holders of ETH and later ERC-20 tokens, to directly invest their holdings into the development of new features, the priority of bug fixes and the implementation of integrations with other decentralized applications.
CommitETH is a bot that scans for issues within any open source project, regardless of the type of blockchain used. Once the issue has been identified a multi-signature wallet is deployed to the specific network assigning CommitETH and the project maintainer as signatories.
Status Co-founder, Jarrad Hope, said:
For us, CommitETH is a path not only towards community driven development of Status itself, but also a way we can help foster the movement for open source in general – both of these things are really exciting for us. It’s also important to us that CommitETH becomes fully decentralized, and we’ll be working towards this in the coming months.
At present only supports Ether but incoming implementational changes to support ERC 20 friendly tokens will allow holders the freedom of staking their preferred tokens to issues of any project they choose. Status CommitETH release represents for them the first step towards a decentralized organizational structure that will democratize further development models that will contribute to the evolution of Ethereum based platforms and DAPPS.
Images Courtesy of Status, CommitETH, AdobeStock
The post appeared first on .