The San Francisco-based payments company Ripple says its technology will power a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project in Bhutan.
The nation’s Royal Monastery Authority (RMA) is collaborating with the crypto firm to roll out its very own CBDC as a way of improving the efficiency of cross-nation payments and increasing financial inclusivity, according to a post on Ripple’s website.
“The RMA believes that easier, faster and more affordable payments, both domestically and internationally, will help it reach its goal of increasing financial inclusion by 85% by 2023.”
Ripple says the project will utilize the XRP Ledger.
“The power of the technology underlying the XRP Ledger, combined with Ripple’s experience in cross-border payments and tokenization, will harness tremendous speed, cost and innovation advantages in support of this mission.”
Ripple says Bhutan, the world’s first and only carbon negative nation, is particularly interested in working with the blockchain developer because the XRP Ledger is highly energy efficient.
“In addition to the technology, Ripple’s commitment to sustainability [is] important for Bhutan. The CBDC solution is carbon neutral and, because it’s based on the public XRP Ledger, is 120,000 times more energy efficient than proof-of-work blockchains.”
After the announcement, the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap saw its price surge from a two-day low of $0.87 to $1.01, a 16% increase, before stabilizing at $0.96, according to CoinGecko.
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