On 02 June, 2017, XRP released the first bitcoin plug-in or its Interledger protocol (ILP), which allows users to conduct transactions across a wide range of ledgers. What that means is that if J.P. Morgan Chase normally goes through five different banks if it's trying to transfer money from the U.S. to the Philipines, then each bank is going to charge a fee so they make money and each bank is going to delay the transfer of funds while it waits for verification. The ILP is designed to cut out all the middlemen so Chase can instantaneously send funds to the final bank right away and drastically reduce their costs.
They conducted a test of this bitcoin plug-in for a single transaction across seven different ledgers. Additionally, they announced that they are working on a Litecoin (LTC) plug-in next.
This is great news for XRP holders and as Ripple increases its interoperability more and more banks will likely come on board the project and use XRP as a currency to conduct transfers.
Here's a link to the full article:
http://www.coindesk.com/interoperability-boost-ripple-sends-blockchain-transaction-across-7-different-ledgers/
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