Ripple published a white paper about the future of central bank digital currencies this week. According to this report, XRP, Ripple’s cryptocurrency, is a neutral bridge for CBDCs.
Titled ‘The Future of CBDCs’, the document from Ripple underlines the probable advantages that central bank digital currencies can provide to the economy. It also states that it is very important for governments to support their residents, principally the unbanked, with payments and benefits.
The white paper brings up an issue about cross-border payments using CBDCs. According to Ripple, these kinds of payments aren’t being noticed and given the proper attention from central banks. If commercial institutions are permitted to make international trades, CBDCs may lead countries to competitive benefits.
“Supporting immediate real-time foreign exchanges, as opposed to the current 3-5 day process, will likely still require the need for pre-funded currency accounts,” the paper affirms.
The document states digital currencies like XRP have a very significant role in linking CBDCs globally.
“A neutral bridge asset can support healthy, alternative liquidity markets that will allow for frictionless and cost-effective value movement between various CBDCs in real-time. It would also enable the exchange of less liquid CBDC pairs and increase global competition by lowering entry barriers to new and smaller market participants.
To enable a truly efficient global market, a bridge currency must be specifically optimized for payments and support the same speed, scalability, low cost, and security that CBDCs will provide. One example of a neutral bridge is the digital asset XRP, which can be used to bridge two different currencies quickly and efficiently,” the paper states.
Ripple’s history
The idea for Ripple was conceived back in 2004 by Ryan Fugger and was called Ripple Pay. In 2012 it was passed to Jen McCaleb and Chris Larsen, who founded OpenCoin, later called Ripple Labs. Ripple Labs focuses on serving banks and payment providers, so they can lower costs and accelerate settlements.
