• Currently a LinkedIn job description by an IBM employee is causing a stir in the Ripple community.
• Viral Shah is therefore testing a proof of concept that uses RippleNet to perform interactions on the blockchain for participating banks.

IBM has long worked with the Stellar Foundation to revolutionize cross-border payments using Stellar Lumens technology. On September 1, 2018, Stellar officially announced that they are developing the “World Wire” payment service in cooperation with IBM. The service will use the Stellar protocol to process thousands of transactions in a very short time at very low fees.

The tech giant claims that the company works with 97% of the world’s largest banks and that this step could therefore have far-reaching implications for the further development of the Stellar project. According to the description of a LinkedIn profile, IBM could have been working on the use of RippleNet technologies for some time.

Is IBM exploring the use of Ripple’s payment software?

The Ripple community is currently hotly debating and speculating whether IBM developer Viral Shah, based in Mumbai India, is researching RippleNet. The overview page of his LinkedIn profile describes that Shah is working on the development of a proof of concept that uses RippleNet:

Solutioning for YONO App for various CRs and new requirements. Performing POC on RippleNet Blockchain implementation for Bank. Interacting with various team and client to gather information and drive various solutions.

IBM had in the past, as already described, confirmed only a cooperation with Stellar. However, the former head of the Blockchain department of IBM, Jesse Lund, caused a sensation in February this year. He announced in an interview that IBM is relying on the Stellar protocol, but is also taking a closer look at other digital assets:

Participants on the network should be able to choose and negotiate their choices in real time. And the pricing might be different depending on the settlement instrument you use.

So I think with Ripple, they’re looking at XRP as their primary digital asset for settlement. For us, it could be Lumens; it could be Ripple; it could be XRP even. It could be Bitcoin. But it would also probably include other instruments like stablecoins and even eventually, soon hopefully, central bank digital currencies.

Shah has also been working for LTI, a long-standing Ripple Partner, for several months. A document from 2017 shows that the company has already been working on a payment solution for a “leading Indian bank” for 2 years. At that time the Indian banks Axis Bank and YES Bank joined RippleNet.

Although there are some obvious links between IBM and Ripple, there is no official confirmation from either side that cooperation exists or is being sought. Therefore these are unconfirmed rumors for the time being.

Ripple collects record sum of 200 million USD

Ripple has raised more than $200 million from heavyweight Tetragon in a new round of financing with the participation of SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. The venture capital will be used to attract new talent and strengthen communications and support for new and existing clients.

Ripple also caused a stir with new forecasts for 2020. According to CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple is looking to achieve a 600% growth in transactions and a 30-40% growth in its customer base by 2020. Garlinghouse also predicts that 20 of the world’s largest banks will trade or manage digital assets.

The price of XRP has been moving sideways (-0.62%) over the last 24 hours and at the time of writing stands at USD 0.1890, more than 90% away from its former all-time high (January 2018).

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