Welcome to the latest bi-weekly roundup of the most discussion-worthy news content related to Ripple’s blockchain network and cryptocurrency XRP, in addition to a brief look at periodical price movements.
XRP Acquisition Streak Continues
Towo Labs – October 16th
Swedish startup Towo Labs has received an investment from Ripple’s Xpring program of an undisclosed value, and will be used to fund all projects currently on its two-year roadmap.
Projects include the team’s open-source XRP Toolkit, which will see an update soon.
It features a multi-platform, “trustless” and “non-custodial” web interface for interacting with the XRP ledger, as well as hardware wallet firmware to enable compatibility for a range of Ledger and Trezor devices.
The toolkit also includes comprehensive support for all 17 XRP transaction types.
“We’re particularly excited to work with Towo Labs whose talented team was behind the launch of the XRP Toolkit, which enables users to manage their keys and execute any transaction type on the XRPL from the Secalot wallet.”
Ripple (official statement)
Ripple’s Xpring division describes this as an opportunity to increase the retail adoption of XRP, which falls in line with the official statements released alongside other such investments.
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BRD (Breadwallet) – October 11th
BRD or ‘Breadwallet’, a wallet for bitcoin, has received a reported $750,000 investment from the newly launched platform from Ripple’s Xpring division. Breadwallet is to take this opportunity to build upon the Xpring platform to help “support and integrate XRP into the BRD wallet”.
According to the announcement from Xpring, this will enable Breadwallet users to hold, purchase, sell, spend and send XRP with friends, family and merchants across the globe.
“BRD will build on Xpring to support and integrate XRP into the BRD wallet, which will enable their customers to hold, buy/sell, spend, and send XRP to anyone in the world….
[The BRD wallet model] could lead to new kinds of decentralized financial services (DeFi) such as decentralized banking, lending, and peer-to-peer transactions that require no intermediaries and work best on fast, reliable, and open-source ledgers like XRP.”
Xpring (official statement)
In its own statement, BRD claims to admire the size and “tight-knit” nature of the Ripple community, whilst praising the Xpring ecosystem as being influential in its decision to integrate XRP into its apps.
The team continues that Xpring and Ripple “not only endorsed [BRD] socially but [was] internally” there to help – and is helping “to make BRD the cheapest and easiest place to buy XRP”.
“Above all else, we are impressed with the adoption of XRP for real use cases around the remittance, payments and cross-border banking initiatives…
Offering better user experiences is something we always strive for, and Ripple is a tremendous help on that front.” – BRD Statement
BRD (official statement)
Breadwallet is a non-custodial, decentralized bitcoin (and now XRP) wallet, and as such gives customers “complete control” over their funds.
It is available on both Google Play store and the App Store, with high reviews and download-counts on each. Whether this will continue after integrating a largely centralized digital token, remains to be seen.
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Vega Protocol – October 3rd
Xpring took part in a $5million private “strategic” seed round for decentralized derivatives-trading protocol Vega, which was led by prolific VC firm Pantera Capital and joined by a range of participants including; Hashed, Eden Block, and other “select private investors”.
According to Xpring, this is a continued effort to progress the presence of Ripple technology in the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, alongside the establishment of a new internal engineering team.
“This premise for collateralizing assets to work in an interoperable environment was most appealing as we explore new use cases for XRP and the future of decentralized finance...
Vega’s vision to create an open and decentralized network will enable the freedom to trade and make capital markets broadly available”
Xpring (official statement)
The Vega team states that it is currently in the process of testing and completing the first version of its core protocol, in addition to expanding its community of developers, traders, researchers, and general enthusiasts.
They are currently working towards product features which “ensure security, reward participants who create markets and provide liquidity, and enable developers to build the Vega ecosystem”.
“This is a big milestone for Vega, and it will help us achieve our goal of designing and implementing a protocol for safe and non-custodial decentralised margin trading…
Over the coming months, we’ll share more details about the protocol’s validator and staking model, its market-making incentives, and the APIs that will be available to traders”.
Vega (official statement)
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Finastra – October 10th
Finastra and Ripple have teamed up to offer the latter’s technology through Finastra’s range of payment solutions.
According to Ripple, this will give Finastra customers the option to both connect and transact with partners across the RippleNet network, which comprises of over 200 international finance entities.
“This partnership will give Ripple’s more than 200 customers access to Finastra’s extensive network of banks, allowing mutual customers to easily access and partner with each other, increasing overall volume on the network.
Finastra’s banking customers currently process millions of transactions each month”.
Ripple (official statement)
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with a forward-thinking company like Finastra to bring Ripple’s technology to their many customers…
This partnership will enable Ripple to expand the reach and solutions for our partners, and the footprint of RippleNet while allowing customers to transact directly with each other.”
Marcus Treacher (Ripple, SVP of Customer Success)
Customers of Finastra will also now be hosted on Ripple’s cloud network solution. This “ will significantly improve speed of integration with other network partners and allow for faster upgrades”. They also have the option to use ‘On-Demand Liquidity’, “which leverages the digital asset XRP for cross border payments.”
Finastra provides a range of financial solutions which cover retail banking, lending, transaction banking, connected corporate banking, treasury and capital markets, innovation, and cloud solutions.
“Finastra’s collaboration with Ripple is another strong example of Finastra’s belief that the future of finance is open, and it demonstrates our commitment to bringing the latest innovations and choices to our customers.
Collaborating with a company like Ripple that harnesses innovative blockchain technology to provide fast and reliable cross-border payments is particularly beneficial for our customers in geographies where cost of correspondent banking is high”
Riteesh Singh (Finastra, FMS Senior Vice President)
Information correct as of 20:58 PM, 18th August 2019
