{"id":33515,"date":"2025-06-24T21:01:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=33515"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:01:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:01:32","slug":"palau-wraps-xrp-ledger-stablecoin-audit-heres-what-ripple-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=33515","title":{"rendered":"Palau Wraps XRP Ledger Stablecoin Audit: Here\u2019s What Ripple Paid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Palau\u2019s Office of the Public Auditor (OPA) has released the long-awaited performance audit of the government\u2019s XRP-Ledger-based stablecoin pilot, confirming that Ripple Services Inc. funded the 25-month experiment with a single $25,000 payment and that just over half of that grant has been spent. The 12-page report closes the accounting on the Palau Stablecoin (PSC) project<\/a>, which ran from 26 October 2021 to 27 November 2023.<\/p>\n

Ripple\u2019s $25K Grant Confirmed In Palau Stablecoin Audit<\/h2>\n

The audit documents<\/a> show Ripple wired $25,000 into the National Treasury on 10 March 2023. Of that amount the Ministry of Finance (MOF) disbursed $14,035, mainly to reimburse three participating merchants\u2014Surangel & Sons, Penthouse Hotel and King\u2019s Minute Mart\u2014for redeeming PSC tokens spent by 154 volunteer government employees, each of whom received an allocation of 100 PSC (one-to-one with the US dollar). The unspent balance of $10,965 remains in the Treasury pending a political decision on a potential second phase.<\/p>\n

Ripple\u2019s contribution was properly booked under the FY 2023 budget law (RPPL 11-24) and, in OPA\u2019s words, \u201cwas properly accounted for and deposited into the National Treasury,\u201d a finding that dispels earlier speculation that the grant bypassed normal budget channels.<\/p>\n

OPA opened the probe at the request of Senator Mark Rudimch, whose Resources, Commerce, Trade & Development Committee raised questions in July 2023 about the programme\u2019s constitutionality and financial controls. The audit therefore set two narrow objectives: whether the MOF had legal authority to partner with a private company and whether it followed Palauan law in doing so.<\/p>\n

On substance, the auditors concluded the MOF \u201cacted within its broad authority and did not violate its mandate,\u201d but they flagged two procedural breaches. First, neither the original October 2021 memorandum of understanding nor the December 2022 Ripple Master Hosted Stablecoin Services Agreement was certified \u201cfor form and legality\u201d by the Attorney General, as required by 40 PNC \u00a7 612. Second, the National Director of Program, Budget & Management did not certify fund availability when the services agreement was signed, a step mandated by 40 PNC \u00a7 401(b).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republic of Palau cannot ascertain the form and legality of the agreements as intended by law,\u201d OPA wrote, urging the MOF in a formal recommendation \u201cto ensure that every government contract\u2026is certified by the Attorney General before execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ministry accepted the admonition, but in its written reply stressed that \u201cagreements that do not bind the Republic are often acceptable without AG review,\u201d adding that it had \u201cconsistently relied upon legal advice provided by the Office of the President\u2019s legal staff.\u201d On the budget-certification lapse, officials noted that certification did occur at the time of each disbursement and argued the grant was already covered under annual outside-assistance provisions. \u201cThank you for the findings, which are accepted as presented,\u201d the MOF told auditors.<\/p>\n

XRP Ledger Pilot Ended: What\u2019s Next?<\/h2>\n

Beyond the procedural fixes, OPA offered a nuanced verdict on the policy experiment itself. It praised the pilot\u2019s design for exploring \u201ctechnological solutions enabling the Ministry of Finance to manage the minting, distribution, redemption and destruction of PSC\u2026recorded on the public XRP Ledger,\u201d and it highlighted potential benefits for financial inclusion and lower transaction costs. Yet the report also cautioned that rolling out a circulating national stablecoin would require explicit legislation by the Olbiil Era Kelulau (Palau\u2019s Congress); without such an act, any expansion \u201cwould be unlawful.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ripple, the audit caps a three-year engagement whose cash outlay\u2014$25,000\u2014was modest compared with typical central-bank-digital-currency pilots. While the report makes no judgement on technical performance, it confirms that the XRP Ledger handled mint-and-burn cycles<\/a> and retailer redemptions. For Palau\u2019s policymakers, the next decision is whether to draft the legislation that would turn PSC from a proof-of-concept into legal tender<\/a>\u2014or to leave the remaining grant dollars unspent and the project on the shelf.<\/p>\n

At press time, XRP traded at $2.1696.<\/p>\n

\"XRP<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palau\u2019s Office of the Public Auditor (OPA) has released the long-awaited performance audit of the government\u2019s XRP-Ledger-based stablecoin pilot, confirming that Ripple Services Inc. funded the 25-month experiment with a single $25,000 payment and that just over half of that grant has been spent. The 12-page report closes the accounting on the Palau Stablecoin (PSC) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-33515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}