Attention Haters: Ripple Making Big Moves

It is no secret that I am a fan of Ripple/XRP and it is no secret that a lot of you aren't. But I think people don't like Ripple/XRP for the wrong reasons; don't compare Ripple/XRP to other cryptocurrencies because it is not like other cryptocurrencies. Ripple/XRP are trying to bridge the gap between banks and cryptos. They are facilitating the transition of banks and other money moving institutions to blockchain tech. Granted this is not a complete departure from the current financial system in the same way that Bitcoin or Ethereum are, but it is a step in the right direction. Ripple/XRP are trying to beat them at their own game while introducing them, slowing to their new tech. The best way to get someone to accept your new concept is to let them think it was their idea and that is what Ripple is doing. Once financial institutions dip their toes into the blockchain and see how much of a benefit it is, then general expectance of all cryptocurrencies is right around the corner. Don't reject Ripple/XRP for what it isn't, support it for what it is: a gateway crypto for financial institutions.

Adding New Markets

Ripple has announced that it is now facilitating transactions in India, China and Brazil. Here is an excerpt of a release from their website, linked to the full article:

Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest private sector bank and Latin America’s biggest bank by market capitalization; IndusInd, a leading private sector bank in India; and InstaReM, a major remittance provider based in Singapore, will use xCurrent to provide faster, more transparent cross-border payments to other financial institutions around the world. Two fast-growing global remittance providers, Beetech in Brazil and Zip Remit in Canada, will both use xVia to open payment corridors for their customers around the world. Additionally, both will look to establish a connection for their customers into China, an opportunity that is now possible thanks to the recent addition of LianLian International to RippleNet earlier this month.

Continued Decentralization of the XRP Ledger

Starting back in May of last year, Ripple started the process of decentralizing the validator nodes. For every two independent nodes that are registered, Ripple is burning one of the their nodes. The idea being to have independent and Ripple-operated nodes to decentralize the XRP Ledger completely. Check out the article from their website.

Improving and Proving the Infrastructure

Ripple has released two new white papers. The first: Analysis of the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol dives deeper into the algorithm behind the ledger, explaining the ins and outs of the process and proving out the inherent security and liveness of the network.

The second is Cobalt: BFT Governance in Open Networks and this outlines the new algorithm that they are producing. Cobalt is a new algorithm that is going to facilitate further decentralization of the Ripple network as well as facilitate transactions over varied pathways with different protocols. This currently a purely academic venture in how to improve their network, but gives us a good idea of where they are headed in the future. Here is an excerpt from the white paper:

"To solve these issues, this paper proposes a new consensus protocol called Cobalt, which can be used to power decentralized digital currencies such as XRP. Cobalt reduces the overlap bound to only > 60%, which gives much more flexibility to support painless decentralization without the fear of coming to an inconsistent ledger state. Further, unlike the previous algorithm, Cobalt cannot get stuck when the overlap bound is satisfied between every pair of honest nodes.
Another advantageous property of Cobalt is that the overlap condition for consistency is local. This means two nodes that have sufficient overlap with each other cannot arrive at inconsistent ledger states, regardless of the overlaps between other pairs of nodes. This property makes it much easier to analyze whether the network is in a safe condition. For a network that can potentially be (mis-)configured by humans, it is very important to be able to easily recognize when the network unsafe."

It's a little heavy for the layperson, such as myself, but it is an interesting read none the less.

Conclusion

Ripple may have started out as a centralized company but they are moving ever closer to being decentralized. I believe that it is a brilliant move on their part to get these financial institutions onboard with them, using their infrastructure and exposing them to benefits of the blockchain, while moving ever closer to decentralization. This is a great way to facilitate the transition in a "safe" way for the institutions. Let's be honest, there is way too much money in the banking industry for it to be completely set aside, there has to be some kind of integration with the current system and crypto. The evolution will be a huge improvement over our current system, but may fall short of the highest ideals of Satoshi Yakamoto. Ripple/XRP is facilitating that evolution.

I know that it seems to be the cool thing to discredit Ripple/XRP and talk smack about it, but make sure before you do that you are as informed about it as possible, so when you get into a debate with someone like me, that you will be able to accurately defend your position. Well informed debates are much more fun than emotional arguments; debate someone to change their mind (possible), argue with someone to change their heart (virtually impossible). I don't judge who my friends are by whether they agree with me or not, in fact I like the conversation more if the don't agree, I judge who my friends are by how well informed they are. The most powerful weapon you can have is knowledge.

Check out my other crypto posts:

Telegram on track for a $1 billion ICO?
Here We Go Litecoin!
Big Gains for Ripple on the Horizon
If You Can't Fight 'em, Join 'em: Salon Offers Ads or Bitcoin Mining
XRP (Ripple): The Gateway Crypto

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