Why JP Morgan has Ripple in its Sights

Ripple will face competition from JP Morgan following the latter's blockchain patent application for a P2P method of processing network payments using a distributed ledger, similar to Ripple's model of cross-border payments.

Ripple's model works by avoiding the traditional intermediaries required to execute cross-border payments, as in the Swift payments system, which takes a number of days to complete and is slower than getting on a plane and physically taking the money to the required destination, compared to Ripple's 5-step-process of payment, validation, followed by a cryptographic holding of funds, and lastly settlement and confirmation, which currently costs 0.00001 XRP for a typical transaction and takes seconds to complete;

The proposed JP Morgan method of P2P cross-border payments would also use messaging across a distributed ledger technology to eliminate the traditional intermediaries;

https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-jp-morgans-blockchain-patent-application-is-not-that-surprising

This move by JP Morgan has surprised many, who well remember Jamie Dimon's comments about Bitcoin being a fraud that would eventually collapse, but whilst JP Morgan may not be enthused by Bitcoin, they have been a part of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance for some time and it is the obvious benefits of blockchain technology that appeals to JP Morgan.

In a recent JP Morgan publication, "J.P. Morgan Perspectives Decrypting Cryptocurrencies: Technology, Applications and Challenges", it was Ripple that was singled-out for special praise;

https://www.docdroid.net/6rtUfVX/jpm-decrypting-cryptocurrencies.pdf (Page 15)

Should Ripple be worried that this fearsome competitor will walk over it, rather than around it? Some in the Ripple community seem unconcerned;

It is also worth remembering that Ripple has a good head-start on JP Morgan, with partnerships including the Bank of England, Barclays Bank, HSBC, Western Union, Moneygram, American Express etc, and, interestingly enough, JP Morgan.

Ripple has also just successfully completed a pilot test for XRP, which demonstrated savings on cross-border payments of 40-70% and XRP is about to go live. Will the JP Morgan blockchain be tokenized, like Ripple is with XRP as a bridge asset to provide liquidity and avoid the need for Nostro accounts? If not, then it is difficult to see what Ripple has to be concerned about.

Let's not also forget the Codius smart contracts platform, recently revived by Ripple, which is written in Javascript, rather than the Ethereum coding language, Solidity, criticized as being too permissive and lacking intuitiveness and security, so Ripple will be a major competitor for the smart contracts on offer.

All in all, Ripple is a long way ahead of any competition and has 100+ partnerships in the bag, with more to come and smart contracts.