The founder of Ripple-backed XRPL Labs has confirmed that his company’s new app is designed to do much more than let users send crypto from one wallet to another.
At a Bitrue community event in Amsterdam, Wietse Wind unveiled the company’s flagship mobile app. Called Xign, the app will be a fully-fledged mobile banking platform that allows users to hold and spend euros, dollars, XRP and other currencies, without any help from a financial institution.
“Xign will deliver a user experience we know as online banking. Not just crypto. So, what it will allow you to do is check your balance and send your funds in any currency, because the XRP Ledger can handle any given currency issued on the ledger…
We’re not building a crypto wallet. We’re building a banking app. Except, without a bank. We’re building a banking app based on a digital ledger, based on the XRP Ledger and based on ILP (Interledger Protocol).”
Wind says the idea is to appeal to the mainstream by making both crypto and traditional payments as simple as possible.
“It’s not for geeks. We know that crypto wallets are for geeks and then somewhere near the bull run at end of 2017, suddenly 10% of the population here had a crypto wallet or multiple crypto wallets on their apps. It was still a few percent of the population, and most of them were geeks. We’re building something that my mother could use and maybe even would want to use…
We’re going to help users get started with a really secure, user-friendly set-up guide in-app. And there’s no way you can, pardon my French, fuck this up. There’s no way. We’re gonna make it really easy.”
The platform won’t make users enter long crypto addresses when trying to send off funds. Instead, the app will utilize an account directory with look-up and social features. It will also give users the ability to review and approve or deny payments to people and businesses.
Earlier this year, Wind’s company, XRPL Labs, received an investment from Xpring, Ripple’s fundraising arm, to develop several ventures.
XRPL Labs is also working on a decentralized exchange and cold storage operating system.
