Today R3, the enterprise blockchain company, announced the release of an open-source universal payments application on its Corda Network. The company says the Corda Settler dApp will enable payments through “any of the world’s payment systems”, both conventional and digital currencies. XRP the cryptocurrency associated with Ripple is the first digital currency to be supported.
Until three months ago, R3 and Ripple were involved in major litigation which at times was worth up to $18 billion at XRP’s peak price. R3 was to promote Ripple to a consortium of banks but got sidetracked with its own fundraising. At the same time, there was a separate contract wherein R3 received options to buy 5 billion XRPs at 0.85 cents. Ripple canceled the options contract which was at the heart of the dispute, but the case was settled without disclosing details. Today XRP is valued at more than 34 cents.
The R3 statement said that Corda Settler would bring “the Corda and XRP ecosystems into closer alignment”.
Corda’s Settler has the potential to enable settlement for any Corda payment obligation by any parallel payment rail. That could be a cryptocurrency or stable coin, or a traditional payment rail. However, in the latter case, it has to be capable of providing cryptographic proof of settlement. “Oracles” which enable blockchains to communicate externally, are used to confirm the settlement. Once payment is verified, the Corda ledger will be updated.
Plans for the next stage include support for net settlement and real-time gross settlement payments.
“While the Settler will be open to all forms of crypto and traditional assets, this demonstration with XRP is the next logical step in showing how widespread acceptance and use of digital assets to transfer value and make payments can be achieved,” said Richard Gendal Brown, Chief Technology Officer at R3.
