As the new government focuses more on other priorities, it appears that a joint effort to permanently store and authenticate Colombian property title on the XRP Ledger will be stalled. Ripple Labs and the Colombian government have apparently stopped working together to place land titles on blockchain. This was due to the project being “deprioritized” by the new administration.
The outgoing government’s Ministry of Information Technology and Communications announced the project just two weeks before Gustavo Petro, the newly elected president, was sworn in.
According to a Forbes report dated August 30, Juan Manuel Noruega Martinez, interim director at the National Lands Agency, stated that the project was not one of their strategic priorities for 2022.
“This is not one of the projects in the PETI [Strategic Plan for Information Technologies]”
This is not surprising considering Colombia’s new president is known to be supportive of cryptocurrency and has previously tweeted his support.
The partnership included Ripple from Colombia’s National Land Agency and Peersyst Technology, a software development company. It aimed to tokenize real property on the blockchain to improve property searches, transparent and less expensive property title management, and to facilitate financing and payments.
The 2016 peace accord that officially ended the Colombian conflict included a directive to formalize property titles for small- and medium-sized rural properties. A 2013 report shows that only one in two small farmers have formal rights to their land.
The lack of formality discourages farmers from investing in land and makes it difficult for them to use the land as collateral when they seek credit. Blockchain ledger for real property aims to address this problem by giving landowners security and an incentive that they invest in their property.
The registry was officially launched on July. After being in development for over a year, the registry was launched by Peersyst Technology on Jul.
Excited to share that we just put into production the first version of the #NationalLandRegistry together with @AgenciaTierras and the support of @Ripple, to register the first adjudication resolution in Colombia🇨🇴on #XRPL🔐
— Peersyst Technology (@Peersyst) July 29, 2022
Search by its number "11774"👇https://t.co/C8o5xv9JKd pic.twitter.com/CaccQuUGbk
Peersyst tweeted that the first deed had been a added to the ledger, with the land certificate looking just like any other except for the QR code which is incorporated into it verifying the certificate on blockchain. Peersyst tweeted on Jul. Anyone can use the QR to locate the property deed’s position on the XRP blockchain.
The joint project has not received any further updates. Cointelegraph reached out to Ripple Labs for comment, but did not receive an immediate reply.
