Bitcoin Daily: Ripple Reports Positive xRapid Pilots, Kodak Coin Has $50M Funding Goal

Ripple reported positive results from multiple early pilots for its on-demand liquidity product, the company announced in a press release. The xRapid solution uses Ripple’s XRP for cross-border transactions between financial institutions.

Through tests of xRapid, financial institutions saw a savings between 40 and 70 percent compared to the costs they incur through foreign exchange providers. They also saw a time savings: The average xRapid payment took a bit over two minutes, but cross-border payments can currently average two to three days.

“XRP’s utility lies in its speed and scalability, which makes it the perfect fit for cross-border payments,” Asheesh Birla, SVP of product at Ripple, said in a statement. “The XRP ledger can send 1,500 transactions per second.”

In other news, the developer of a blockchain licensed by The Eastman Kodak Company wants to raise upwards of $50 million in funding through a token offering, Reuters reported. The system, which was created by Wenn Digital, is designed to protect the copyright of photographs within a platform called KODAKOne.

The public offering for Wenn’s token, which is dubbed KODAKCoin, is set for later this month. That offering was delayed from a scheduled offering in January.

“We really took a step back and decided that we would ensure that all Ts were crossed and Is dotted before we embark on a public sale,” KODAKOne chairman and co-founder Cam Chell told Reuters. “We wanted to make sure that we got it right.”

And a diamond company is turning to the blockchain to help keep its supply chain free of conflict minerals and imposters, Reuters reported. Using blockchain technology, De Beers has tracked 100 diamonds through their journey from the mine to the jewelry store.

“An immutable and secure digital trail was created for a selection of rough diamonds mined by De Beers as they moved from the mine to cutter and polisher, then through to a jeweler,” the company said in a statement.

And a Bank of America official said that cryptocurrencies lack an important feature of other payment systems, CNBC reported: They are too opaque.

“As a payment system, I think it’s troubling, because the foundation of the banking system is on the transparency between the sender and the receiver, and cryptocurrency is designed to be nothing of the sort,” Bank of America’s chief technology officer, Cathy Bessant, told CNBC. “In fact, [it’s] designed to be not transparent.”