On a lackluster Thursday before the May Day holiday, Ripple quietly changed board members.
According to the news released by Ripple, Yoshitaka Kitao, the current president of SBI Holdings, replaced Takashi Okita and joined Ripple's board of directors. This move is in line with Ripple's "plan to accelerate business expansion in the Asia-Pacific region."
"Half of Ripple's customers are located in the Asia-Pacific region, and we are rapidly expanding our global presence in the region, looking to deepen our client base in Asia and beyond," said Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.
Not only in the Asia-Pacific region, Ripple is constantly expanding its boundaries. On March 13, Ripple’s developer eco-fund Xpring and Forte, which provides a blockchain technology platform for the game industry, invested 100 million US dollars to establish a fund to help game developers use blockchain technology to formally enter blockchain games. Expand the usage scenarios of Ripple's token "XRP".
Ripple's breakthrough and attempt to cross the comfort zone is inseparable from his anxiety in the past six months.
Ripple's anxiety started on February 14th, Valentine's Day.
On February 14, 2019, JPMorgan Chase, the largest commercial bank in the United States, announced the issuance of the cryptocurrency JPM Coin, which is mainly used to realize cross-bank and cross-border instant payments for its major customers.
"The launch of JPM Coin is a major reason for the weak growth of XRP." Some analysts pointed out that compared with the recovery of BTC and BCH prices, the price of XRP has not improved. For the past six months, the price of XRP has been hovering at $0.3.
And just half a year ago, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was still lying in his peaceful dream. He said: "Ripple's prospects are bright, because many banks use the XRP ledger at the end of 2019. XRP ledger is an open-source codebase that can perform over 1500 transactions per second, and requires XRP.”
Now, under the siege of JPM Coin, he has to make some moves.
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The threat is coming
After JPMorgan Chase issued the currency, the first thing that the financial industry thought of was Ripple.
As far as the current usage mechanism of JPM Coin is concerned, it is closer to XRP based on the Ripple protocol, acting as an intermediate tool for settlement.
Therefore, Ripple and JPM Coin have a direct head-on collision.
On February 17, an article published by Forbes pointed out that JPMorgan Chase’s move means internally looking for ways to improve transfer efficiency based on encryption technology or blockchain. "The process of using JPMCoin is almost identical to Ripple's xRapid service." This constitutes a threat to Ripple, XRP and xRapid systems,
"JPMorgan Chase's move is a 'slap in the face' for Ripple." Forbes commented.
You know, Ripple was still dreaming of comfort in the comfort zone last year. In October last year, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an interview with CNBC: "Ripple's prospects are bright because many banks use the XRP ledger at the end of 2019. To perform more than 1500 transactions, he needs to use XRP coins."
The CEO said this not long ago and said: "The xRapid ledger will become an important tool for the world's major banks, and before the end of 2019, I believe dozens of banks will accept Ripple."
Now, the battle has been ignited, and the battle lines were opened by the CEO himself.
"JP Morgan's project misses the point - it rolls out a closed network." Brad Garlinghouse commented on JPMorgan's currency, saying that banking institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Citibank and BBVA are not Will use Morgan coins.
JPMorgan Chase did not respond, but countered with practical actions - data.
expressexpress, the development of IIN (an interbank information network based on blockchain technology launched by JPMorgan Chase, which was launched as a pilot in 2017) is progressing rapidly, and more than 220 banks have signed the initial service agreement, allowing payment data to be shared through IIN.
Ripple's public data shows that it has worked hard for 5 years, and the number of cooperative banks is only more than 200.
expressexpress, JPM Coin is a Token "backed by JP Morgan's deposits", focusing on the speed and ease of use of tokens, although the final payment will be done by the user's funds in the bank.
On March 29, according to data from indeed.com, one of the world's largest job search websites, in the past 12 months, JPMorgan Chase has listed more blockchain-related job offers than any other bank, and it is also one of the top ten blockchain-related jobs. One of the chain employers, the top ten companies include consulting firms such as Deloitte and Accenture, as well as technology companies such as IBM and Cisco.
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midfield battle
Who will be better, Ripple or JPMCoin?
There are many voices in the market.
Cryptocurrency rating agency Weiss Ratings tweeted about JPMorgan Chase's move to expand its blockchain banking information network, commenting that "it still won't work."
In fact, there are 3 differences between XRP and JPM Coin:
Exchange rate stability, JPM Coin is a "stable currency" anchored to the US dollar, and XRP is floating;
JPM Coin is USD payment, XRP is multi-currency and cross-currency payment;
according to
according toBITMEX RESEARCHAccording to the report, the difficulties of XRP are:
lack of inflation;
Prices are too volatile and speculative;
After widespread use, regulators shut down the system;
The most important argument: why not just use dollars? Banks will build digital systems based on traditional currencies.
explainexplainLaw, in the field of digital assets, liquidity is the key to success.
There is also a generally accepted view that in the future, more and more banks will develop their own internal solutions instead of relying on Ripple's Xrapid payment network.
According to recent statistics from Odaily, the world's top eight overseas banks have 84 blockchain businesses, of which 33 are related to trade finance and payment, accounting for 38%.
Interestingly, Ripple, JPM Coin, and many banks are like Marvel heroes, challenging the same opponent: SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).
Back in 2016, SWIFT experimented with blockchain. In 2017, SWIFT cooperated with 34 financial institutions to conduct blockchain experiments, including 28 institutions including the Bank of China to participate in the test. In March 2018, SWIFT released its POC project report (POC stands for Proof of Concept, proof of concept), and stated that this is the largest blockchain POC project in the world so far. The POC project is to use the blockchain on the international current account.
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Cross-border payment melee
The emergence of JPM Coin may represent another voice.
At this time, in this melee of cross-border payment, the competition is not only the progress but also the strength of each "legion".
Where is Ripple's advantage or capital?
On the one hand, Ripple has a large user base because of XPR. "How to invest in Ripple?" was ranked fourth in Google's US search ranking in 2018. Relying on the crazy rise in currency prices, it has enough audiences. This is Ripple's development. double-edged sword.
On the other hand, Ripple shareholders include first-line venture capital firms such as Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, while Ripple's layout in Asia is supported by the consortium SBI Holdings.
In May 2016, SBI Ripple Asia was established, which is a joint venture company jointly established by SBI Holdings and Ripple, in which SBI Holdings holds 60% of the shares and Ripple holds 40% of the shares. Its main business is to provide a next-generation payment platform powered by DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) to financial institutions and remittance transfer providers in Asia.
Ripple is not only accelerating to seize the Asia-Pacific market, but also entering blockchain games to expand the usage scenarios of XRP.
On March 13, Ripple's developer eco-fund Xpring and Forte, which provides a blockchain technology platform for the game industry, invested 100 million US dollars to establish a fund to help game developers use blockchain technology.
JPMorgan Chase has also developed rapidly because of its previous accumulation.
In November last year, the number of banks joining JPMorgan Chase's blockchain-based Interbank Information Network (INN) was more than 100, and now this number has become 220, covering Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. main market.
On the other side, someone has already started to fade away.
In March this year, the digital currency payment company Circlewas passed onIt is seeking to raise about US$250 million in the form of equity and debt. One theory is that after Circle received US$110 million in financing led by Bitmain in May last year, the company was valued at about US$3 billion. As the digital market fell, 2 The month's valuation was around $705 million.
In any case, the melee means competition and profitability, which is the driving force for the development of cross-border payments.
If the emergence of Ripple raises the level of cross-border payment, clearing and settlement were separated in traditional international remittance before, which will inevitably lead to a reduction in efficiency. In the blockchain system, clearing and settlement are integrated. Ripple The gateway follows up through smart contracts, does not require different bank reconciliations, and jointly abides by a set of agreements.
Now that the war is starting, will cross-border payment be raised to another level?
Last month, the World Bank published a blog discussing the need for faster, more innovative and upgraded remittance systems, noting that industry giants like Ripple, SWIFT, Circle and JP Morgan are using distributed Digital ledger technology (DLT) to develop innovative and efficient cross-border solutions, greatly reducing transaction costs.
Giants are still coming in.
On June 25 last year, Alipay launched the world's first blockchain-based e-wallet cross-border remittance service in Hong Kong. Users who use AlipayHK, the Hong Kong version of Alipay, can make cross-border remittances to the Philippine wallet Gcash through blockchain technology.
The melee of blockchain + cross-border payment, whether it is the process or the result, is worth looking forward to.
