Colombia’s government has launched a partnership with Ripple Labs, the company behind the cryptocurrency XRP, to put land titles on the blockchain, part of a plan to rectify land distribution efforts so unfair they’ve led to decades of armed conflict, reports Decrypt.co.
The project, built by blockchain development company Peersyst Technology and Ripple, will permanently store and authenticate property titles on XRPL — Ripple’s public blockchain.
This will help eliminate bureaucracy and hopefully make land distribution more equal, Ripple Labs and Peersyst Technology, reports Decrypt.co.
Why would Colombia’s government want to do this? Because land ownership in the South American country is among the most highly concentrated in the world.
Colombia’s civil war, the longest running war in the western hemisphere, from 1964 until a 2016 peace deal, was rooted in the unequal distribution of land, with leftist guerrilla groups taking up arms against the state.
“Land is everything in Colombia,” Peersyst Technology CEO Ferran Prat told Decrypt. “This is what led to armed groups like the FARC starting a war with the government.”
“The point is that land is important in Colombia, so a system is needed that ensures land cannot be wrongfully taken,” he added. “Putting the information into a public blockchain that cannot be changed or altered will help.”
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