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SBI backs Ripple XRP Ledger for NFT; on cue Ripple invests in Mintable

Karthik Subramanian

SBI Holdings, the crypto and financial giant from Japan, has backed Ripple XRP Ledger as a good fit for the non-fungible token industry as well as other types of assets.

Ryan Tsui appointed Opertations Director at Japan's SBI FX

In a briefing document from the CEO of SBI Holdings, Yoshitaka Kitao, who is also a member of the Ripple board, has said that the extremely low fees on the Ripple network make it an ideal use case for the NFT-related transactions and he believes it is a better fit than even the current NFT network of choice, Ethereum.

And as if on cue, we also get the news that Ripple has invested in the NFT marketplace Mintable which raised $13 million in its latest funding round. Other investors included Animoca Brands, Metapurse, and others.

Kitao also added that the XRP Ledger had the capability to tokenize not only XRP but other assets as well and the low gas fees and low environmental impact, as it does not use mining, should make it ideal for NFT and other assets. He viewed tokenization as a great opportunity for Ripple and its RippleX team had provided a very rich model for NFTs in May which is being actively considered and will be adopted after the community reviews and votes on it.

There seems to be a plan behind all this pushing of the Ripple-for-NFT theme as Mintable also plans to integrate the XRP Ledger in the short term. Mintable is one of the largest NFT marketplaces and it had minted more than 700,000 NFTs last year. SBI and Ripple continue to have a very strong relationship with each other with Kitao publicly backing Ripple in its fight against the SEC and the company also regularly pays out shareholders and new customers of its VC Trade crypto exchange with XRP.

The competition between the various blockchains seems to be well and truly on as the bigger blockchain ecosystems compete with one another as the investments and businesses of various crypto-related initiatives begin to grow. While Ethereum seems to be competing for the digital payment systems business which Ripple had hoped to dominate, Ripple seems to be viewing NFT and tokenization as a huge opportunity which it wants to snatch away from Ethereum dominance.

Competition is good for the crypto ecosystem as it helps the various chains to advance, grow and innovate and this would, in turn, help the users to build exciting technology that would push the financial industry forward.

 

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