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Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank, is partnering with Peersyst and Ripple to pilot blockchain technology on the XRP ledger.
The Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MinTIC) will oversee the project, which will use the recently launched Ripple central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform.
Ripple and @Peersyst are partnering with Colombia’s @BancoRepublica in conjunction with @Ministerio_TIC to pilot use cases that will enhance Colombia’s high-value payment system.
Learn more about the partnership: https://t.co/X9jyJ3pvDa
— Ripple (@Ripple) June 15, 2023
The announcement, published on June 15, says the pilot project will run until 2023 and says its goal is to demonstrate to the public the usefulness of the technology:
“The goal of the third phase of MinTIC blockchain experiments will be to educate national and territorial government organizations through interactive and collaborative experiments with real applications on how the unmatched speed, scalability and transparency of blockchain technology can revolutionize payment systems and data management.”
The CDBC platform for the XRP ledger is also serving as the basis for similar pilot projects in Hong Kong, Bhutan, Palau and Montenegro.
CBDC team making significant progress with the launch of the new #cbdc platform Four countries now announced Grateful to the team at @Ripple who are developing the best platform for the future of Digital Currencies Palau Bhutan Montenegro Hong Kong …
— Antony Welfare (@AntonyWelfare) May 19, 2023
Ripple’s continued rise comes amid ongoing legal challenges stemming from a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against the company filed in 2020.
The SEC claims that Ripple sold $1.3 billion worth of unregistered securities in the form of its XRP token. Ripple claims that XRP is not a security and that the SEC has never issued any notice or warning.
Related: SEC Lawsuit Against Ripple: Everything You Need to Know
As recently reported, the company also claims to have spent $200 million to defend against the lawsuit. While there is currently no definitive answer to the question of when the trial will end, it is widely believed that the release of the so-called “Hinman papers” could affect the remaining trials.
The Hinman documents cite internal SEC communications related to a 2018 speech by William Hinman, a former director of the SEC’s corporate finance division. During the keynote, Hinman noted that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) may start out as securities, but may become a commodity later on when they become sufficiently decentralized.
At the time, internal SEC memos indicated that the commission was concerned that Hinman’s comments might make it difficult for the agency to take a different stance on air in the future.
Although Hyman’s speech was given before the SEC lawsuit against Ripple and did not directly address XRP, experts argue that it shows that even the SEC understood that the agency’s attitude towards cryptocurrencies was causing confusion.