As Ripple continues increasing investments through Xpring, its investment subsidy, in companies such as Coil and MoneyGram recently, it has come under fire from members of the community with accusations of price manipulation.
Top News
Welcome to the latest bi-weekly news roundup for Ripple blockchain network,XRP cryptocurrency and Ripple’s Xpring.
August 15th
Spending Spree: Coil Receives Grant Of 1 Billion XRP From Ripple and Xpring
“Xpring is Ripple’s ecosystem initiative to build the Internet of Value.”
Xpring, the Ripple investment subsidy, has agreed to grant one billion XRP tokens to Coil: a micropayments-based monetization platform for content creators.
As of 23rd August 2019, the value of one billion XRP is approximately $271,900,000.
Ripple claims that it is investing into Coil as a means of increasing XRP adoption by market capitalization. This follows the involvement of Ripple’s Xpring in a seed funding round for Coil, which collectively raised a total of $4 million.
Back in June 2019, Ripple made the promise of a $50 million investment to money transfer company MoneyGram to support the companies implementation of xRapid technology with a similar intention of driving adoption. MoneyGram is set to utilise xRapid technology for its daily cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlement activities.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse confirmed he and Ripple’s Xpring intend on continuing this trend of new investments.
Coil was launched back in May 2019, and allows content creators to monetize and distribute their content across the web. Customers can access content for a monthly subscription of $5, in return for enjoying advert free content – and the system looks to be a rival for the likes of Medium and Steemit.
Coil has a vision of establishing a popular ecosystem comprised of creators, developers companies and nonprofits – in addition to building awareness with consumers and potential strategic partners. Its key partners include Imgur and Cinnamon.
The company seeks to grow its own platform by achieving “mainstream adoption” of its proprietary ‘Web Monetization’ protocol, which is an open-source web standard.
Web Monetization protocol is a browser API that is built on the Ripple Interledger Protocol (ILP, circa 2004), and uses the micropayments features of ILP to enable content creators to monetize their websites.
Eventually the team hopes to directly implement the API into the users web browser, once adoption is sufficient. This could be possible through a direct partnership, or third party plugin.
Quotes
Ethan Beard, Xpring Vice President
“Current monetization models are broken, and cater to large companies that are able to collect and sell user data as well as advertise on their platforms,”
“Advertising and site-by-site subscription models are ready for disruption,” said Ethan Beard, Senior Vice President of Xpring. “The low cost and fast transactions of XRP makes it an ideal tool for Coil to offer an alternative monetization method and have a positive impact on creators. At Xpring, we build infrastructure and support projects that enable the Internet of Value and increase the utilization of XRP — we’re excited to support Coil and the team in their journey.”
Stefan Thomas, Coil CEO & Founder (and co-creator of Interledger Protocol)
“Creators want more choice and control over how their content is monetized and distributed, Web Monetization provides a solution that is more fair, open and inclusive for creators and fans around the globe. This initiative will help us level the playing field for creators by providing a better way to support content across the web.”
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August 7th
“Stop Ripple Dumping!” Petition Gains 2,000 Signatures In Under One Month
A petition has surfaced on Change.org titled ‘Stop Ripple dumping’, which has successfully garnered over 2,200 signatories in the short time between its launch on 5th August 2019 and the time of writing. This was on 25th August 2019.
Courtesy of Twitter influencer Crypto Bitlord (who currently has over 100k followers), the petition begins by exclaiming that “Ripple continue dumping billions of XRP on us, crashing the price!”.
It then continues into a short rally regarding the supply and demand situation of XRP and how it affects the market price for longer term token-holders, before closing by reminding readers that a minimum of 10,000 signatures are “required”.
“Everyday there is good news… A new bank or partnership announced but still, it manages to keep on dumping.
“The only logical explanation is that Ripple are dumping on us. And not small amounts either. Literally billions. We have seen the reports of them disclosing this so its a fact.
“Now imagine a world where those coins aren’t dumped… where the buyers get to buy without dumping and price suppression…”
It has also spawned its detractors, or perhaps trolls: with a tongue-in-cheek reaction petition entitled ‘Crypto Bitlord should burn his own crypto to help improve price of XRP’ by a user called XRP$ Fitzroy. So far it has gained 23 signatures, in three weeks.
Crypto Bitlord and the petition’s supporters appear to be among those who believe that the price of XRP/USD will decrease over time. Due to the combination of the centralization of the XRP token-supply, with a sustained campaign of systematic “dumping” by its parent company Ripple.
As Ripple has stockpiled 50% of the total XRP token supply, a clear argument can be made against the lack of democratization and transparency regarding price and its vulnerability to internal manipulation. Especially considering the vocal opposition to this “dumping”.
Ripple states that the purpose of these holdings is to be sold off periodically as a means of stimulating the XRP economy, and is scheduled to conclude by the end of 2023.
This news comes in light of Ripple’s recent decision to sell less of its token for (at least) the second of quarter of 2019, reflected in the official Q2 report.
Most Upvoted Reasons for signing (Public Signatories)
Wences Jilimin = “Ripple is not helping its investors” (Doha, Qatar – August 5, 2019 – 9 likes)
Brandon Astin = “Invested in XRP but the ripple dumps are making me second think investing more. Tired of waiting for price action. To much adoptions and partnerships for the price not to move.” (Atlanta, GA, USA – August 5, 2019 – 7 likes)
Mehmet Kemal Erdoğ = “XRP is still XRP and has tons of use cases but the supply is too much and the crypto cant find its true value.” (Izmir, Turkey – August 8, 2019 – 3 likes)
Coin Collector = “I am so disappointed about Ripples strategy. They better should think about what would happen, if all Investors would sell their XRP!” (Friedberg, Germany – August 12, 2019 – 2 likes)
Оксана Пахаревская = “Ripple is dumping so that to prompt purchasers. Then they invest our money to their projects and we get nothing. While we buy, they will continue dumping. We should wait until it falls on the ground and then buy something.” (Odessa, Ukraine – August 10, 2019 – 2 likes).
August 9th
Charitable Ripple-fork Is Being Made In South Korea
According to news outlet Chosun, South Korean holding company SK Corporation has announced plans for a new donation platform that forks from the Ripple blockchain, entitled ‘ChainZ’.
ChainZ is built upon its own mainnet and utilises two tokens to fuel its charity-oriented platform. Donors are to be rewarded SVPs in proportion to 1000:1 for each SVC they contribute.
Social Value Coin (SVC)
- A stablecoin which is backed 1:1 by the Korean Republic won (KRW), and used by participants for making donations.
- As of writing (25th August 2019) the 1 USD = 1,213.65 KRW.
Social Value Power (SVP)
- Used to reward participants for their donations, and is “impossible to purchase and transfer”.
- As such, it essentially acts like a reputation-based credential.
Quotes
Lee Sun-min, head of SK Corporation
“SK is a company that is serious about social values”
“SK has forked Ripple to create its own mainnet… We also developed features such as smart contracts and node compensation.”
“SVP is a vital part of the platform ecosystem… By granting voting power, the ecosystem participants can continue to use the platform”
Price Movements
Information correct as of 00:39 PM (GMT+1), 26th August 2019
