Draft:Interledger

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Interledger Protocol (ILP).[1] is a project and a technical specification aimed at changing the way that payments are handled globally. The focus of the protocol is to be neutral with respect to different types of ledgers which translates into an end user account. This articulation is in contrast to existing protocols which exist on a per payment network basis (ISO8583, ISO20022, SWIFT). It includes a global pointer to identify both the sender and receiver for routing purposes and includes an analog to the TCP/IP packet transport concept for effectuating the transfers. It fits within various proposals to address interledger transactions [2].

By making payments possible across different payment networks, the Interledger Protocol proposes to remove friction in the form of delays and costs in movement of funds. It conceptually is related to Open Banking.

"The open-source protocol connects ledgers from two or more different banks, thereby removing intermediaries and central authorities from the system. It promises to reduce costs and the time required to process cross-border transactions."[3]. Despite its roots in blockchain technology, the Interledger protocol itself is neutral to either blockchain or standard transactional database ledgers.

The initial white paper by Stefan Thomas and Evan Schwartz was released in 2015.[4] [5] It came out of work done by the authors at Ripple Labs. [6] Follow up academically published papers include "Interledger: creating a standard for payments - Hope-Bailie, Adrian and Thomas, Stefan - Proceedings of the 25th International Conference Companion on World Wide Web" [7] and "Deep dive into Interledger: Understanding the Interledger ecosystem", University of Luxembourg", 2019 [8].

There have been efforts to include this protocol in the W3C standards around payments, especially web based payments. The Interledger Community Payments Group met in 2015 through 2016.[9]. Related to this was work that the W3C did around Website monetization and interledger is noted as an ASN.1 protocol.

The protocol is a significant departure from established norms around payments, such as ATM card networks (8583 payment protocol), or ISO20022 protocols, which rely on state management of transactions.[10].

The Interledger Foundation [11] [12]was created to enable use and adoption of the protocol, but statistics on adoption are not published. In 2023, the Bank of England studied its use in settlements [13].

On a commercial basis COIL[14] implemented the protocol with limited success, and closed in early 2023 [15]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "What is Interledger Protocol?". 17 January 2016.
  2. ^ "Interledger Approaches" by Vasilios A. Siris et al, IEEE Access. July 2019. https://www2.aueb.gr/users/vsiris/publications/p30_interledger_approaches.pdf
  3. ^ "Interledger Protocol: What it Means, How it Works".
  4. ^ "A protocol for Interledger Payments", 2016. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Protocol-for-Interledger-Payments-Thomas-Schwartz/ab98c62a7efdc5362c7f36589680597a93f3111f
  5. ^ https://blockchainlab.com/pdf/interledger.pdf
  6. ^ https://ripple.com/insights/back-to-the-future-an-interview-with-david-schwartz-and-stefan-thomas/
  7. ^ "Interledger: creating a standard for payments - Hope-Bailie, Adrian and Thomas, Stefan - Proceedings of the 25th International Conference Companion on World Wide Web", http://www.gdac.uqam.ca/WWW2016-Proceedings/companion/p281.pdf.
  8. ^ "Deep dive into Interledger: Understanding the Interledger ecosystem", Lucian Trestioreanu, Cyril Cassagnes, Radu State. University of Luxembourg. https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.10446
  9. ^ "Interledger Payments Community Group". 17 February 2016.
  10. ^ "Understanding Interledger". 18 May 2020.
  11. ^ https://interledger.org
  12. ^ "Interledger Foundation Aims to Make Web Payments as Easy as Email". Forbes.
  13. ^ "Bank of England (BoE) Releases Paper Exploring Ripple Interledger Protocol for Payment Settlement, Demonstrates XRP Real World Case". 4 August 2023.
  14. ^ "W3C Interview: Coil on Interledger Protocol and Web Monetization". 3 September 2019.
  15. ^ https://www.coil.com