Digital Euro Association Announces Ripple CBDC Innovate Challenge

Ripple partners with top fintech experts for its latest CBDC Innovate Challenge. 

Cryptocurrency behemoth Ripple Labs has revived its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Innovate challenge. According to an announcement, the contest is designed to promote the development of diverse applications for CBDCs. 

Notably, the goal of CBDC Innovate 2023 is to foster the development of fintech and payment solutions using Ripple’s enterprise services. 

“You are invited to build or update an original fintech or payments solution utilizing Ripple’s CBDC solutions,” the announcement read. 

The Digital Euro Association also took to Twitter today to announce the challenge. 

📢Attention to all #developers! The #CBDC Innovate Challenge by @Ripple is back! Participate in the #hackathon, share your #CBDC App concept before Aug 18, and contend for prizes! No category limits. Unleash your imagination and showcase your creativity! 🔗https://t.co/JlucC03u06 pic.twitter.com/GCjJOgRg9G

— Digital Euro Association (@DigiEuro) June 29, 2023

Per the announcement, both individuals and enterprises can participate in the challenge by submitting their CBDC application concepts. Interestingly, Ripple has set aside a whopping $200,000 worth of prizes. 

Phases of the CBDC Challenge

It is worth noting that the challenge is segmented into two distinct phases. 

Phase 1

For the first phase (Phase 1), participants are expected to build an application on the public XRP Ledger (XRPL). The submission of CBDC applications for the first phase, which started on May 15, 2023, will end on August 18, 2023, at 02:00 PM (PDT). 

After submission, a team of judges comprising professionals from Digital Euro Association, Mastercard, Bank of Finland, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PwC, BIS, and DXC Technology, among others, will commence the selection of innovative projects from August 21 to September 4, 2023. 

The judges will announce the finalists from September 6 to September 8, 2023. 

Phase 2 

The winners of the first phase will be moved to the second phase (Phase 2). In this category, finalists from phase 1 will develop applications on the recently-launched Ripple’s Private CBDC Platform. 

Notably, the deadline for the submission of applications is scheduled for October 31, 2023. Ripple will announce the date the judges will select the most innovative solutions. 

Six finalists will receive $10K each and an invitation to pitch executives at the “Ripple CBDC Winners Only event,” with a prize pool of $140K. 

It is worth noting that Ripple is in talks with various central banks globally, including the apex bank of Montenegro, to enable them to understand their goals and propose how its CBDC platform can help achieve them. 

As reported earlier, Ripple Director of CBDC Product Management Anthony Ralphs was listed among the contributors of DEA’s whitepaper.