Ripple’s marketing department worked overtime, using its own acronyms to create a delicious alphabet soup with grand designs. It includes Ripple Consensus Ledger (RCL) and Interledger Protocol (ILP) designed to deliver the Internet of Value (IOV) which will interconnect all the world’s value. Who wouldn’t want that?
Six months ago Mercator developed a Strategic Framework for Evaluating Blockchain Solutions and used that framework to evaluate Ripple. The results suggested that Ripple was on a good path, having implemented a consortium that shared a single use case and a commitment to align the platform with that use case. With this announcement one wonders what happened to that shared goal:
“Ripple, a San Francisco-based provider of financial settlement solutions, has announced new features that will bring transaction throughput to the same level as Visa and American Express.
The startup aims to move money the way information is moved today, creating the Internet of Value. The new features improve the Ripple Consensus Ledger (RCL) and Interledger Protocol (ILP), by bringing the Internet of Value (IOV) to life, Ripple said. These will enable ILP to communicate with RCL for meeting the needs of digital assets, traditional payments, and the traditional financial world, creating a network that can interconnect all the world’s value on ledgers.”
A key finding of the Strategic Framework is that when applying blockchain technology to a regulated market the primary issue is that the use case must be nailed down tight so that the regulatory constraints can be fully understood. On then can the technological platform be constructed that will operate within those constraints. That was the goal announced when Ripple created the consortium but this announcement suggests that Ripple may have decided to reach for the sky instead.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
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