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Ripple has not had the best of starts to 2018. Last month’s hot cake has quickly become this month’s cold turkey as it has fallen out of favour amongst traders. XRP is down 66% from its high a couple of days after New Year but not all news is bad. SBI Ripple Asia will be leading a group to drive further adoption of blockchain technologies in Japan.
According to the Nikkei Asia Review a consortium of Japanese brokerages are joining up to drive blockchain and innovative technologies within the industry. Their goal is to boost efficiency and provide more convenient services to their customers. The conglomerate consists of 18 founding members including online firms SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities in addition to traditional brokerages such as Nomura Securities and Daiwa Securities.
Streamlining data flow
Leading the consortium will be SBI Holdings unit SBI Ripple Asia which will be responsible for organization and meeting arrangement. The division will also conduct proof of concept testing on leading technologies in order to achieve cost reductions through industry-wide cooperation.
The consortium is specifically seeking a shared log-in solution for brokerage accounts with customers that use biometrics and other personally identifying information. It also aims to use artificial intelligence to screen trading activity. Retail clients would have greater convenience in not having to input usernames and passwords or send personal information to brokerages. It can all be achieved on the blockchain.
SBI Ripple Asia has previously organized blockchain consortiums in the banking and credit card businesses and has close ties with a number of banks in Japan.
XRP still down trending
In other news Ripple will be enabled for trading on Dubai’s BitOasis next week however it has yet to make an impact on the price of XRP. According to Livecoinwatch, which includes South Korean markets where XRP is heavily traded, the altcoin is down over 66% since the beginning of the month. It is currently trading at $1.28, down almost 8% over the past 24 hours.
XRP remains the third largest cryptocurrency by market capacity with just shy of $50 billion. The top exchange by trade volume is South Korean Bithumb with over 50% however the Asian bears are still in command and XRP is still on a downward slide.
