THE CLERKS WHO SETTLED LONDON OVER LUNCH Picture Georgian London. Every day, clerks from rival banks trudged through the City, with bags stuffed with cheques and banknotes, knocking on each other's doors to collect payment. Carrying that much money was, to put it kindly, unwise. Then the clerks noticed something absurd. They kept passing each other carrying the same paper in opposite directions… So they started meeting at a tavern on Lombard Street, swapping cheques across the tables, and settling only the difference in cash. Nobody in charge had approved it. When the bankers saw how much money was changing hands over lunch, they did not shut it down. They decided to rent the clerks a room, and it grew into the London Bankers' Clearing House. $XRP was built around that tavern idea of meeting in one place…and settling at once. Great infrastructure often starts as a shortcut nobody signed off on.