A partnership between the Colombian government and Ripple Labs to put land titles on the blockchain appears to have delayed following new administration.
The project was initially announced by the outgoing government’s Ministry of Information Technology and Communications just two weeks before the newly elected president Gustavo Petro was sworn into office.The interim director of the National Lands Agency Juan Manuel Noruega Martínez said the project is not part of the agency’s strategic priorities for 2022.
The shift comes as a surprise considering Colombia’s new president is thought to be friendly toward cryptocurrencies, and has previously tweeted his support for them. The partnership, which included Colombia’s National Land Agency, Ripple, and software development firm Peersyst Technology aimed to tokenize real estate on the blockchain to improve property search processes, create transparent and cheaper property title management, and more efficient processing of financing and payments.
The registry was launched on Jul. 1 as tweeted by Peersyst Technology, after having been in development for a year. Peersyst later tweeted that the first deed had been added to the ledger, with the land certificate looking like any other except for the QR code incorporated into it verifying the certificate on the blockchain. The QR code can be used by anyone to find the property deed’s location on the XRP blockchain.
