It's a very dangerous conversation.

The authorities - whether they be central bankers, tax collectors, governments, law enforcement, financial institutions, or private debt collectors, are quite nervous about this conversation. They don't like how it's going. They don't like the conclusions being reached.

What is that conversation?

Well, let's get it started: What should money be? How should private property work? These questions are very dangerous to those that would control a population. If you look around, think about how the vast majority of the populace is controlled.

The Shackles of Debt

In the United States, the public is controlled by its reliance on credit. From early childhood in the United States, we are taught to spend money. Commercials whip up the desires of children so they'll pester their parents for specific toys.

Then, when we're graduating high school, we're encouraged to enroll in - you guessed it - college! And then, even before most of us have entered the workforce, we're saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, shackling us to whatever company or corporation is willing to pay us the necessary monthly wage to survive.

According to the latest data, there is 1.5 trillion dollars in student debt in the US; it includes 44 million people with, on average, $37,000 in student loans. How recent and shocking is this? That average number increased by $20,000 in just thirteen years. The college debt crisis is a very real phenomenon; it's probably the reason for some of the politically-motivated calls for debt forgiveness. This won't happen, of course, but these promises make for good sound bites for presidential candidates.

And for those of us that have children after college, this situation can become even more precipitous, especially if you throw in events like medical problems or other unexpected costs.

And just like that, you are 'under control.'

Are you still skeptical? It's not overt; it's subtle. Think about this question: Could you freely engage in political demonstrations without there being any repercussions professionally? Most of you are probably shaking your head 'no' if you're being honest. Companies will not tell you officially that they conduct background searches on your political or social media activity, but they do; it's almost standard procedure now for some corporate jobs. Companies typically don't want 'uppity,' vocal, difficult-to-control citizens working for them.

So what happens if we can't pay our debt?

This is where things get interesting

Depending on what type of debt you have, and who you owe it to, the courts can dip into your savings and confiscate your money.

Before the twentieth century, this process was more physical than virtual, but with the advent of the digital age, it's all about electronic debt collection from centralized institutions where citizens have historically stored their money. If your creditors - no matter who they are - want your money, they must go through the courts to claim it.

This goes for property as well, but for our purposes, think about what digital assets - like XRP - do to this equation.

The ability for these same creditors to seize peoples' assets diminishes substantially with the use of digital assets. With digital assets, these individuals can store value using a secret key that is cryptographically-secure. No business, court, or tax-collecting authority can break in and take the value in these wallets.

It's not even technically possible.

And while these same institutions can certainly restrict centralized exchanges, that's about the extent of what they can do if their citizens decide en-mass that digital assets will be their preferred method of value storage. These creditors are now left to negotiate with the people that they oversee. It's a massive power shift from organizations to individuals.

Future Proof

Will crypto be around forever?

It's difficult to know; some popular science fiction franchises like Star Trek foresee that economics will become so advanced in the future that people will stop competing for scarce resources and instead focus on how they want to contribute to civilization in their own way. It's an inspiring, if somewhat-utopian vision of how society should be.

Personally, I think that there will always need to be a way to motivate and reward individuals monetarily. I also think there will always be a need for people to choose their own currency if they'd like. Many of us currently choose to purchase precious metals. This 'need to choose' will continue into the foreseeable future.

To truly future-proof XRP, a decentralized digital asset, the community will need to agree on improvements to the protocol itself, whether they are Cobalt-inspired changes or new features. This decentralized governance process is necessary to upgrade the network so that it doesn't stagnate like Bitcoin. And XRP's governance process has so far been very effective at promoting needed changes quickly and successfully.

Immortal XRP

The trend began two years ago.

Digital assets, no matter what gyrations the market makes, are here to stay. Although only recently created, these technological constructs will exist long after we are gone. It's strange to think that the XRP that each of us owns will probably outlast us.

That's the inherent strength of blockchain technology. Those are the obvious benefits of decentralization.

Even if we are not immortal, we can purchase a digital asset that is faster than Superman, more resistant to censorship than Donald Trump, and more likely to live forever than Elon Musk.

Ripple News

The biggest 'Ripple news' in the past week was the PNC implementation of xCurrent.

In September of 2018, we first learned that PNC, the 8ᵗʰ largest bank in the US, had joined Ripplenet.

The announcement indicated that plans were in the works to implement Ripple technology for PNC's cross-border value transfer. And now, at the end of a relatively quick implementation, PNC has gone live with xCurrent, which will be used for the bank's cross-border payments:

One news source indicated that the purpose of the PNC implementation would be to support its PNC Treasury Management division, and quoted a spokesperson for the bank:

“(𝘹𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴) 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘺𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭.”

PNC now joins the list of many 'top 100' worldwide banks using xCurrent and RippleNet for cross-border payments.

Euro Exim Bank

One of the first banks to become an early adopter of using XRP in its international remittance payment flows is Euro Exim Bank. It was an incredibly exciting announcement at the time, because it was the one bank in a list of five xRapid partners at the beginning of the year.

In case you don't already know, Euro Exim Bank is headquartered in St Lucia, and has a branch office in the UK. They are a relatively small bank specializing in corporate services, and were the first RippleNet bank to 'flip the switch' on using digital assets.

On June 17ᵗʰ, the bank announced that they'd received Capital Finance International's (CFI) 'Best Global Trade Services Bank' award for the second year in a row:

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰 𝘌𝘹𝘪𝘮’𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘟𝘙𝘗 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘙𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘦."

The bank already made history as the first bank to use digital assets in their payment flows; it's great to see them win industry awards like the one that CFI recently conferred.

Consumer Tipping Point

The IAMTN is the "International Association of Money Transfer Networks." It's a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 with offices in the UK and Denmark.

"... 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴.

𝘐𝘈𝘔𝘛𝘕 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘈𝘛𝘍, 𝘍𝘚𝘉, 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘬, 𝘐𝘍𝘈𝘋, 𝘋𝘐𝘍𝘋 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦, 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘺𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮."

On August 28ᵗʰ, the organization published an interview with Jeremy Light, Ripple's VP of Strategic Accounts. The article noted that he will be providing the keynote address in their IAMTN Global Summit in early October in London, and spent some of its time chronicling Ripple's history, as well as the history of XRP. It then quoted Jeremy Light on his perspective of what's to come:

“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 ... 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 ... 𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 & 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴-𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘺𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳.

𝘈 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭-𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘺𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘱𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳-𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘺."

IAMTN's article found its way across the crypto news outlets subsequent to its release, and it's great to see such an eloquent communicator like Jeremy Light take a leadership position in industry conferences where other remittance operators may want to join RippleNet.

SBI Promotion

While I knew that SBI is working to grow its VC Trade division using a variety of tried-and-true approaches, I was surprised - and delighted - to learn that XRP was directly involved in their latest promotion:

"𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 (𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘵) 𝘟𝘙𝘗 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳

30 𝘟𝘙𝘗 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘟𝘙𝘗 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵 (100 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴) 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 30, 2019."

While the amount of XRP is relatively small considering what some traders currently handle, it is more than enough to pique the interest of a significant percentage of traders, and may prompt a large number of SBI customers to investigate further.

The part of this story that's most noteworthy is the size of SBI's customer base.

In one recent presentation, the company revealed that it had analyzed its own customer rolls, and projected that over eight million of their current clients would - or could - make the transition to trading in crypto as well as traditional securities.

It's this raw number that's most astounding; when numbers range into the millions, it doesn't take much in terms of XRP ownership to see what that might do to overall demand. And Yoshitaka Kitao, the CEO of SBI, is very "pro-XRP."

Notable Quotables

Every once in a while, a new 'fan video' of one XRP topic or another catches my interest; in this case, it was a video collage of quotes from Brad Garlinghouse:

The short two-minute video contains scenes from Brad Garlinghouse's recent AMAs ('Ask Me Anything' sessions) and conferences, and then suspensefully closes with a shot of the 2019 SWELL website background.

Thanks to @stuart_xrp for sharing the video.

Coil

The Coil blogging platform started out just months ago, and already, the amount of content is formidable. And we're not just talking about quantity; there are quite a few original authors and artists that are now making Coil their permanent home, and that's good news for XRP holders; the algorithm that the company uses calculates how much time is being spent viewing Coil-enabled content and then streams tiny XRP micropayments directly to the payment pointer belonging to that specific artist.

The artist can then choose to receive their payment(s) in XRP or in fiat.

If you are thinking of becoming a blog author on Coil, there is nothing stopping you! It is free to sign up and start writing immediately.

The other thing I've noticed is an increase in the amount of both entertaining and valuable subscription-only content for Coil subscribers. For only a $5 dollar monthly subscription, that person receives unlimited viewing of all Coil-enabled content throughout the entire Internet.

It's a great deal compared to site-specific subscriptions on other platforms, and will eventually result in a massive number of websites offering premium content for Coil subscribers.

For now, subscribers have thousands of articles and a treasure trove of premium content on the Coil blogging website.

If you haven't already explored Coil, I urge you to do so; no matter if you choose to hold XRP or not, subscribing to Coil supports a new and growing revenue model for the web; one that doesn't rely on exchanging your personal information and privacy for so-called 'free' services and content.

My Coil Recommendations

This week, I made an effort to browse a bit more than I usually do, and I was rewarded with some new finds. Below are some of the articles I encountered, and they are both fascinating and educational. I've placed my own 'topic' description below each one, based on my own understanding of the material.

Author: Billie Paige (@WannaWanga)
Article: George W. Bush Family Recipes
Topic: Cooking

Author: Isaac Hu (@Ichthyoid)
Article: How Decentralization Affects Everyone
Topic: Technology and Society

Author: Derek Groen (@whydoitweet)
Article: Small Sims (1): Simulating a Random Walk
Topic: Programming

Author: Cavan Winikates (@XRPUnderdogg)
Article: XRP: The Sleeping Giant?? What Sources Can I Turn To?!
Topic: Crypto Trading

Author: Chris Richards (@ripter)
Article: Day 1 - JS13k Game Dev 2019
Topic: Programming

If you have any new Coil picks that you've discovered, or an inspirational author or artist on the new platform, I would encourage you to use social media to share what you've found. The more that we can support some of these early adopters of Coil, the faster we can see web monetization begin to transform large parts of the Internet.

XRP News

Creating crypto 'collateral,' 'clothing,' and 'tchotchke' is a fun - and important - way to support XRP.

One community member that's created an impressive array of XRP-and-IoV-related graphics is @stedas (Twitter avatar):

Others in the XRP Community have contributed many amazing creations as well, including professionally-produced videos about the cryptocurrency:

Independent sellers have now jumped into the game, by selling XRP-themed merchandise that turns heads and starts conversations:

It's important for this overall effort to continue, to achieve more listings of XRP-related free artwork and images on multiple websites, including Unsplash, imgur, and others. The more that this happens, the more that these images can be freely and quickly used by others on social media.

In addition, it's important for business users of XRP to eventually be able to communicate about it in a simple and straight-forward manner: This can be achieved by various techniques such as using CSS scripts and website deep linking.

It's not always clear how the community should go about organizing itself around these particular activities, because of the decentralized nature of how crypto tribe members operate and support adoption. However, these efforts are important for 'getting the word out' and they definitely make a difference.

Already, we've seen various XRP Community members step forward with independent contests, using rewards of crypto to help motivate participants in their efforts. I predict there will be more of these in the coming months.

IoV Timeline

The Internet of Value is an idea; a concept.

The idea behind it is that money should move through the Internet as easily as information does; and it's a tall order, because the world's population has become accustomed to sending text messages that are immediately received by others no matter where they are in the world.

To make this vision a reality, several tough challenges need to be overcome. Some of the obstacles are related to regulations of money transfers; others have to do with how liquidity is managed via the legacy correspondence banking system.

Substantial progress is being made, and the end-result promised by this vision will become a reality; the world's economy has far too much at stake to ignore it. Central banks like the Bank of England are pursuing real-time settlement, and the big four consulting firms each now have divisions allocated to blockchain technology.

So, naturally, investors in digital assets are interested in the time frames that these organizations have designated for plans at upgrading their stack with blockchain technology.

To that end, one XRP fan analyzed the various time frames and end-dates of a subset of significant blockchain projects:

His post is an example of what good 'DYOR' is all about. DYOR stands for 'Do Your Own Research,' and it's important for all crypto traders and investors to develop their own set of skills that are used to confirm information, and to investigate on their own.

Another helpful aspect of his post is that some crypto traders and investors don't understand the timeline normally necessary for implementation of large-scale technology projects. These timelines are normally measured in years, not months; the fact that Ripple is able to implement its technology for clients in months instead of years, is a reflection of their capabilities and technology encapsulation.

My own perspective on his research is that there isn't 'one date' or 'one year' that we can use to label when the IoV is 'complete;' I believe that it will be a continual process rather than discrete time frames.

The reason I say this is that the evolution of businesses, services, applications, and banking is something that's already been occurring for a while, and some stakeholder organizations may already be far along their path; but the timelines considered in his post are important as well, as they indicate that some organizations will inevitably be laggards, much like how some traditional companies and organizations were slow to develop an Internet presence in the early 2000's.

Whether you agree with some of his conclusions or not, the post contains an impressive amount of personal research, and you may find it illuminating.

OK Swap

OK Swap is a strange new exchange that emerged from nowhere a couple days ago, supposedly with a completely built exchange.

It's rare - and odd - to see an exchange built and released into the wild with no advance marketing. And the small amount of marketing that's been done is sure to draw the attention of regulatory authorities; the exchange seems to be indicating that its customers will remain anonymous. Here is the announcement tweet:

It's always good to see XRP listed on new exchanges, no matter the underlying technology; but given the way that the exchange is choosing to market its debut, I'm predicting trouble.

My prediction is that there are three possibilities for this exchange:

• It's a (real) centralized exchange
• It's a (fake) site, scam site or application
• It's a (real) decentralized exchange

The problem is that there's very little information that I could find on the exchange's official website about the technology underlying their platform. That's a red flag. If the exchange is a centralized exchange, and it's marketing 'anonymous transactions,' it will face regulatory scrutiny in short order. If the site is a scam trying to look like an exchange, it may disappear after stealing crypto from a number of individuals.

And my third prediction? If it's really one of these new decentralized exchanges, it may actually possess enough censorship-resistance to exist for at least a short period of time.

I would not use this site, because I cannot ascertain enough critical data points about the identity of the company or individuals running it, or much other information about the exchange, for that matter.

Note: I do not personally endorse any exchange or wallet.

Immortal XRP

It's the fastest digital asset in the market; it's steadily building liquidity; its use in banking and international payments is growing; and its scalability has resulted in billions of payments to date.

XRP is censorship-resistant. It's secure. It's decentralized. It settles with deterministic certainty in under four seconds. It is scalable to trillions of transactions per second.

XRP is on a mission to take over the cryptomarket. To stay up to date on the latest news about the growing IoV and its preferred digital asset, it's important to subscribe to my blog on Coil; while it doesn't supplant the need for your own research, I include all of my references linked in the article for you.

Thank you for reading, and make sure to support others in the XRP Community as well!

Credits: Thank you to Tadej Skofic for this blog's cover art. Thank you to Juan Ramos for the student debt - related photograph