Dramatically increasing the efficiency of international remittances with XRP. Taking on the challenge of innovating infrastructure to promote its widespread use │ Interview with Emi Yoshikawa

Dramatically improve the efficiency of international remittances with XRP
Challenging infrastructure innovation for widespread adoption

The rise of Web 3.0 has the potential to solve many problems. In particular, focusing on "money transfers," there are high hopes for significant improvements to issues that have plagued businesses in the past, such as high fees and the time it takes for funds to arrive.

In the field of money transfers in Web 3.0, the US company Ripple has been a pioneer since the early days.

One Japanese player who has been active in Ripple for many years is Yoshikawa Emi. As Ripple's vice president, Yoshikawa oversees strategy, business operations, and more.

Yoshikawa: In 2022, with the keyword "Web 3.0," players from various industries beyond the boundaries of crypto assets entered the market one after another, creating a lot of excitement. In 2022, the discussion focused on "What is Web 3.0?", that is, "What," but in 2023, the discussion will mature into "How should we utilize Web 3.0?", that is, "How?".

Specifically, the question of "how can we make use of Web 3.0?" and "how can we implement it safely and simply" will be examined.

Since its founding in 2012, Ripple has been dedicated to solving real-world problems with blockchain and crypto technology. For example, in international remittances between fiat currencies, which traditionally had a lot of friction, we have dramatically improved the efficiency of international remittances by using the crypto asset XRP as a bridge asset.

Even in the context of Web 3.0, Ripple continues to focus on utilizing crypto technology in the real world.

We are particularly focused on converting carbon credits into NFTs. By issuing unique credits linked to specific CO2 reduction projects as tokens, it becomes possible to distinguish the "quality" of the credits, realizing a more efficient and transparent market.

In the XRP Ledger used by Ripple, a new next-generation NFT standard was launched last year, and it has become possible to issue NFTs easily and safely by utilizing the protocol-native token issuance function without deploying smart contracts.

We believe that such infrastructure innovation in terms of convenience and safety will be a very important foundation for reaching the mass adoption stage. In this way, Ripple will continue to focus on "real-world impact" and "infrastructure innovation for widespread adoption."

◉Emi Yoshikawa

Profile│As a vice president at Ripple's San Francisco headquarters, Yoshikawa oversees strategy, business operations, joint venture partnerships, and more. She also serves as an outside director of SBI Remit, Japan's largest international remittance company. In 2021, she was selected as one of the 100 most influential women in the San Francisco Bay Area business world by the San Francisco Business Times. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a CFA designation.