u.today
While Ripple, a U.S.-based fintech heavyweight, was always associated with retail payments infrastructure ("on-demand liquidity corridors" or ODLs), the year of 2023 might have changed the status quo and moved its focus to another sphere.
Ripple in 2023: More news on CBDCs, less news on payments
In the last months, announcements about Ripple-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects outnumbered those about its involvement in payments solutions. This was noticed by @WKahneman, a pseudonymous observer of XRP Ledger and Ripple ecosystems.
2023 has seen far more Ripple CBDC news than payments news. Fortunately, there seems to be an increase in devs working with the XRPL. Spread some love to the devs you see doing work. #XRP #XRPL
— WrathofKahneman (@WKahneman) December 16, 2023
At the same time, the number of Web3 developers working on top of XRP Ledger (XRPL) increased in 2023, he added. As such, XRP enthusiasts should "spread the love" to engineers working with XRPL-based solutions.
His audience opined that Ripple's shift from payments to CBDCs might be attributed to the extreme hostility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
As covered by U.Today previously, in 2023, Ripple scored a number of long-term strategic partnerships in the CBDCs segment. It is contributing to "government stablecoins" in various regions across the globe, from Georgia and Montenegro to Palau and India.
Also, it is a member of Digital Euro and Digital Pound associations and a technical partner of Mastercard's stablecoin program.
XRPL AMM amendment has never been closer to historical milestone
The growing activity of XRPL-focused devs is another prominent trend of 2023. Right now, the ecosystem is close to approving the automated market maker (AMM) functionality on XRP Ledger's mainnet.
The corresponding proposal is set to be included into the v1.12.0 release of the client software. As of today, by Dec. 16, 2023, 17 out of 35 XRP Ledger (XRPL) validators voted in favor of the amendment.
As such, 48.57% has been reached, and any next validator joining it would mean a majority has been reached. Once activated, this functionality would turn XRP Ledger into a full-fledged ecosystem for DeFis and on-chain wallets.