Analysis: Google Blockchain GCUL may become a competitor of XRP Ledger

According to Huobi HTX, Google's parent company Alphabet recently released a brand new blockchain - Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), which seems to compete directly with Ripple Labs' XRPLedger (XRPL). Similar to XRPL, GCUL will be a distributed underlying blockchain that supports API interfaces, all-weather low-latency operation, programmable asset tokenization, payment automation and other financial applications, charges transaction fees, supports institutional-level infrastructure, promotes global payments, and can be integrated with third-party wallets. This series of features, coupled with GCUL's focus on banking and payments, almost replicates XRPL's years of publicity. In fact, when reading Google's related documentation, people may not even be able to tell whether some paragraphs describe GCUL or XRPL. For example, GCUL will be used to “manage commercial bank monetary accounts and promote transfers through distributed ledgers, empowering financial institutions and intermediaries.” Although XRP is the third largest crypto asset, GCUL is built and named by one of the top five companies in the world. The total market value of XRPL and its supporter Ripple is only hundreds of billions of dollars, while Alphabet is as high as $2.5 trillion. More importantly, GCUL not only has a larger parent company endorsement, but also has launched pilot cooperation with CME, the world's largest options and futures exchange. CME has tested asset tokenization on the GCUL blockchain—which may involve commodities, options or futures contracts. On XRPL, CME has never conducted any asset tokenization experiments.