On January 18, Dr. Dritan Abazovic, the prime minister of Montenegro, highlighted Ripple’s strong ties to the Balkan nation and hinted at future partnerships in a brief Twitter thread.
In the Twitter thread that has now spread throughout the XRP community, Dr. Abazovic revealed that he had meetings with a few Ripple executives, including the company’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse. The development of a payment infrastructure that is inclusive of Montenegrins was discussed by both parties, according to Google’s translation.
“Productive meeting with @Ripple CEO @bgarlinghouse and VP Central Bank Cooperation James Wallis,” Dr. Abazovic wrote as translated by Google. “We discussed the development of a payment infrastructure that would provide greater financial accessibility and inclusion. Montenegro is open to new value and investments.”
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According to a leak from the prime minister, the nation’s digital currency pilot test was already underway thanks to Ripple.
“In cooperation with @Ripple and the Central Bank, we launched a pilot project to build the first digital currency or stablecoin for Montenegro,” Dr. Abazovic wrote, as translated by Google.
According to this statement, the Montenegrin government and Ripple are working together for the first time. In December 2021 report, the nation’s central bank alluded to the creation of digital payment services.
It is noteworthy that the little nation in South Eastern Europe uses the euro, although it isn’t a member of the EU. It did so in 2002 for the same reasons it had previously adopted the currencies of other European nations: to guard against hyperinflation.
Consequently, as translated by Google, what Ripple helped Montenegro create is likely not a central bank digital currency (CBDC) but a stablecoin, specifically a euro stablecoin.
It is the most recent illustration of the blockchain payments company’s attempts to digitize payments on a global scale, which typically involve consulting with governments on creating CBDCs. Remember how in 2021, Ripple created a secret ledger for central banks to test CBDCs? The XRP Ledger’s native currency, XRP, was selected as the solution to the cross-border CBDC interoperability issue that year, and it was hailed as the perfect neutral bridge currency.
Notably, the On-Demand Liquidity service provided by Ripple, which the company recently disclosed now supports over 90% of the foreign currency market, is already utilized to bridge fiats in cross-border payments. Advocates of XRP have lauded this value proposition as a catalyst to drive the price of the digital asset skyrocketing by positioning it as a bridge currency for the world’s CBDCs.
Despite Ripple’s tremendous influence internationally, the US-based company is nevertheless constrained by regulatory issues at home. It is involved in a dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that has lasted for more than two years.
