September 24, 2019
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Bank of America has filed for a patent for a settlement system which will use distributed ledger technology (“DLT”), allowing for settlement transactions to take place in real time. Transaction information related to the settlement(s) in question would be communicated through a “shared, decentralized ledger to which the banks of both parties would have access.”
Though the Bank of America patent explicitly cites a “refunded ripple settlement”, the Ripple platform and its cryptocurrency, “XRP”, are not mentioned by name anywhere in the patent. As envisaged, the network described in the patent would be able to simultaneously verify the identity of the payer and the payee in order to facilitate settlement. However, it has not yet been verified whether “refunded ripple settlement” as noted in the patent is meant to refer to the Ripple system specifically, or to another DLT system with a similar name.
Since its launch in May 2018, more than $500 million has been distributed to over 20 XRP projects by Ripple’s incubator and investment arm, Xpring, with the ultimate goal of funding the development of test cases for the use of XRP.
Authors: Amanda Bertucci and Shannon Skillings