Ripple has launched the CBDC Innovate challenge, which comes with a total prize pool of $197,000. According to the post, the hackathon is aimed at providing a platform for programmers to build or update a fintech or payments solution that utilizes CBDC and is capable of running on the XRP Ledger.
“Participants will use our XRPL, CBDC sandbox to drive financial inclusion, interoperability, and retail payments solutions,” the tweet read.
The deadline for the initial round of submissions is August 25.
The tech firm also published a blog outlining the requirements and revealed that winners from this challenge would be invited to a Winners Only Event with a $150K prize pool.
Recently the blockchain firm has announced its official headquarters in Toronto with plans to onboard 100 new employees.
With regards to Ripple and its interest in helping global banks with their CBDC projects, it is worth noting that on February 11, the Digital Euro Association [DEA] announced that it was “delighted” about a new partnership with Fintech firm.
Ripple Promotes XRP As “Designed For Issuing Currencies”
In a blog post published on 3 March 2021, Ripple said that over 80% of the world’s central banks were “actively exploring some form of sovereign-backed cryptocurrency”, and that eventually there would be a wide range of central bank digital currencies [CBDCs].
Arguing that existing public blockchains cannot fulfill the needs of CBDCs, the fintech firm said that the proposed solution would be to use a Private Ledger.
And according to the firm, XRP uses the same distributed ledger technology necessary for payments and is “designed for issuing currencies”
“XRP could then serve as a neutral bridge asset for frictionless value movement between CBDCs and other currencies,” it argued.
Roughly six months ago, Ripple had signed a deal with the Kingdom of Bhutan, a landlocked nation in the Eastern Himalayas.
According to its blog post, the partnership was intended to onboard Bhutan’s central bank [aka “Royal Monetary Authority”] in using Ripple’s CBDC solution to pilot digital currency in phases.
A month later, the payments firm had joined hands with the island country Republic of Palau to develop strategies for a digital currency.