U.S. senator Pat Toomey presses the SEC chairman Gary Gensler for clarity on the regulation of cryptocurrencies. Toomey says in a letter to Gensler: “For investors to benefit from a fair and competitive marketplace, regulators must proactively provide rules of the road to industry. Unfortunately, the SEC has instead adopted a strategy of regulation-by-enforcement in this area.”

As it is common knowledge, cryptocurrencies actually are regulated in the U.S. by FinCEN and the CFTC. But the SEC wants a piece of the pie and, through seemingly deliberate ambiguity, is creating a (quote Gensler) “Wild West,” as a pretext for the SEC to step in and control the highly promising, disruptive space.

Toomey voices concerns about the SEC’s lack of regulatory clarity – concerns that are shared by others, including SEC commissioners. In one recent enforcement action, SEC commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman stated they were “disappointed” by the SEC’s failure to explain which digital assets were securities. They stated this omission was “symptomatic of (the SEC’s) reluctance to provide additional guidance about how to determine whether a token is being sold as part of a securities offering or which tokens are securities.” Peirce spoke of an intentional “decided lack of clarity” by the SEC.

Gensler in a bind

Toomey requests Gensler to explain a wide variety of crypto-related issues to provide congress, industry and innovators clarity on the SEC’s regulation of cryptocurrencies. And the senator minces no words. He drives Gensler into a corner, forcing the SEC chairman to act on most basic yet important issues: Such as: providing a list with all guidance material.

Toomey’s questions for the record clearly highlight the failure of the SEC to provide clarity. In one question, Toomey requests Gensler to “specify what information is missing” while warning Gensler of fear mongering overreach: Gensler should “not address any potential effects” of, for instance, a stable coin “on the banking system or systemic risk implications.”

Here are the two main points relevant to the SEC enforcement action against Ripple:

SEC needs to provide all guidance material on crypto

Toomey asks Gensler to list all guidance materials posted to sec.gov or investor.gov since January 1, 2021 through the date of his response that reference cryptocurrencies, tokens, digital assets and similar items. Related, he asks Gensler to list all publicly-disclosed enforcement actions taken since January 1, 2021 as well as all exemptive orders and no-action letters.

Unfortunately, Toomey chooses a relatively recent cut-off date. A longer time frame would make it even clearer how the SEC fails in providing clear guidelines. Yet, the request puts Gensler in a tough spot. There is no published guidance material. Zero, zip, nil, zilch, null, nada.

Gensler asked to clarify conflicting statements

Then Toomey highlights the questionable decentralization of Ethereum (ETH). He wants to learn more about Gensler’s thoughts on the threshold for a token to be deemed decentralized. In a 2018 New York Times article, Gensler spoke about the decentralization of Ethereum. As the article lays out, “Mr. Gensler said Ether could have more problems because the first Ether tokens were sold in 2014, before the network was functional, by the Ethereum Foundation. Ether could get off the hook, Mr. Gensler said, because its development has been more decentralized recently, and new Ether tokens are now given out to so-called miners through a network.”

Meanwhile, Gensler also repeatedly said that he agrees with former SEC chair Jay Clayton’s statement that he has yet to see an initial coin offering that was not a security. So Toomey’s question arises: It appears that Gensler believes ETH transitioned from a security to a commodity. The concept that ETH can transition to acommodity because “its development has been more decentralized” appears to conflict with his past statements that all ICO tokens are securities.

What then follows is Toomey’s reference to the Ripple case: “I understand there are pending court cases that may address this very issue, but as we await decisions in these cases, can you clarify your position as to when a token is sufficiently decentralized in light of your previous statements?”

SEC’s house of cards

Gensler is obliged by law to respond to the altogether 25 questions. Toomey says in his letter, Gensler’s answers would give industry clarity on developing promising technologies, so that innovators have the guidance they need to ensure domestic investment and innovation.

Yet, by answering the questions in detail, Gensler risks to undermine the SEC’s enforcement policy. Gensler is in a bind. Evading clear answers was easier at the hearing. Is the SEC’s controversial power play in the crypto space about to collapse like a house of cards? As long as congress doesn’t step in, Gensler & Co. continue to overreach their authority. Expect more extortion attempts under the guise of investor protection.

Two years or so ago, Ripple Careers page listed China Country Manager. The position was never filled. Now Ripple lists a new China job offer for Customer Senior Success Manager China.

It’s unclear whether Ripple maintains an own base in China at this stage. In 2018, Hong Kong-based LianLian joined RippleNet to provide faster payments into China. Most likely the new China position reports to its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, Ripple’s fast growing market spearheaded by Brooks Entwistle, Ripple VP and Managing Director APAC & MENA (Asia-Pacific & Middle East and North Africa).

Also in 2018, Ripple partner American Express received approval from Chinese regulators for its global payments platform. This development was made possible via a joint venture with LianLian. China’s approval marked the first time an American company was given direct access to the Chinese e-commerce market, which by now is the world’s biggest.

Ripple and American Express partner LianLian processes billions in payments between merchants and consumers including major online retail sites, such as Amazon, Ali Express and eBay – making it one of the largest money service companies serving China’s massive e-commerce market.

Bullish or to be taken down again? Not sure when exactly this information went live again. The webpage had been taken down after the SEC lawsuit against Ripple was announced. Now the page is back. On www.coinbase.com/international, U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase promotes sending money internationally and fast for free. Sending funds across borders virtually instantly by using XRP. XRP! The one token Coinbase had suspended trading with due to the litigation case by the government regulator.

Crypto space joining forces against SEC overreach might be legit. This after the recent rant of Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong against SEC about what «feels like a reach / land grab vs other regulators».

Of course you’ve already seen the rumors on Coinbase Pro going to relist #XRP. This metric was pulled from their API markets list on September 12, 2021:

Coinbase called it a “technical issue» – or are they about to relist XRP? Signs of an imminent Ripple SEC settlement?

Dear Chairman Gensler

Nearly five months have passed since you were sworn in as the new chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). President Joe Biden had nominated you in recognition of your vast experience and long public service.

President Biden also chose you to chair the SEC because of your experience in fintech. The financial landscape is changing drastically and radically because of new technologies that are challenging the way business has been done in the past. And you were a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. You’re considered an authority in your field of knowledge.

But almost half a year has passed since you became chair of the SEC, and the commission has yet to give a single sign that it recognizes the importance of the fundamental changes that are at stake. Especially in the area of digital currencies, there is still a complete lack of regulatory guidance in the United States.

You, dear Mr. Gensler, insist that there is clear guidance – even though your own SEC commissioners emphasize the lack of such guidance. You must be familiar with the relevant comments of your fellow commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman. Admittedly, there are clear offenders who should be prosecuted. But there is also a huge gray area which sets traps to snatch victims. Your official SEC policy, Mr. Gensler, looks like deliberate deceit. 

Countries such as the UK, Japan, Switzerland and other major financial players have long issued clear guidance. The U.S., however, continues to point to an old set of rules, referencing the so-called 1946 Howey test to determine whether a digital currency is an asset or a security that must be regulated accordingly. A 75-year-old test should determine the future of the U.S. financial landscape. Good luck with that.

Moreover, it has meanwhile been documented beyond a shadow of a doubt that SEC commissioners and friends with vested interests pick winners and losers. I’m sure you’ve seen the videos currently circulating on social media proving that key decision makers have used their position and influence to pick winners and losers. The main characters in question are William Hinman, former SEC Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, and Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum. 

Take this event, in which Lubin, whose Ethereum benefits massively from the SEC free pass issued by Hinman, sounds like an SEC representative or spokesperson.

The tragedy of it all is that Hinman has since denied in a court deposition that he ever declared Ethereum’s Ether token a non-security under SEC guidelines. That famous speech of his, which was picked up by Wall Street and major U.S. media, this speech was his personal opinion, Hinman now claims. This despite the fact that the SEC itself on multiple occasions has declared this Hinman speech to be an official policy.

You must also be aware of the fact, Mr. Gensler, that Hinman and Lubin met just prior to this speech on June 14, 2018. And you’re certainly also aware of the fact that upon his appointment to the SEC, Hinman had left his post at law firm Simpson Thacher – which sits on the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and represents cryptocurrency-related financial interests. While at the SEC, Hinman continued to receive millions in financial payments from the law firm.

And Mr. Gensler you certainly know that the law firm of your predecessor, former SEC chairman Jay Clayton, represented Lubin and his firm ConsenSys. You must also know that Clayton and Hinman were already working together before their work at the SEC. Clayton brought Hinman on board to join him at the SEC. And there they picked winners and losers. As you know, literally on the day of leaving office Clayton’s SEC sued U.S. start-up Ripple. On the last day of work. Let that sink in.

Shall we talk about One River Asset Management? In October 2020, One River makes a one billion dollar bet on Bitcoin and Ether – the two digital currencies Hinman gave clarity by declaring them commodities. Less than three months later, Clayton buries Ripple and XRP in litigation and leaves the SEC to join One River.

And as you are well aware, Mr. Gensler, neither then nor today there is official written policy guidance on these regulatory matters. None. No one even knows whether the SEC has jurisdiction over cryptocurrencies. The current SEC credo is that nothing an SEC official says is the SEC’s official position, only his or her personal opinion. This is despite the fact that the SEC cannot show a single document to guide digital currency issuers as to whether their tokens are an asset or a security. No one in the U.S. knows for sure, Mr. Gensler, what the rules are. Not even the SEC. Of course, you refer to the Howey Test… Mr. Chairman, this is a power grab attempt under the pretext of obsolete guidance. There is neither clarity nor guidance, just intended ambiguity, while your SEC, Mr. Gensler, is now trying to cover its tracks. The Ripple case does not go as planned, does it. And your SEC is holding up resolution.

Look, even Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong is upset about the SEC’s refusal to provide regulatory clarity.

This refusal to do your job, Mr. Gensler, also tarnishes your reputation as a professional who should have these fundamental and honorable goals in mind: protecting investors and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets. Currently, however, the SEC has become synonymous with the opposite: vested interests and corruption in broad daylight. Your SEC is trying to protect legacy systems and their business models on the guise of “investor protection.”

This is not just an embarrassment to the SEC. It is an embarrassment to the U.S. and a mockery of countless innovators and investors who are at risk of being ruined because they are accused of offenses they can’t possibly be aware of due to the lack of rules. People look elsewhere to invest and innovate.

As for digital currencies, the U.S. is drifting into a legal vacuum that is being exploited by those who can. Not an enviable position for you to be in, Mr. Gensler. But there is a simple way forward. Surely you’ve studied the legal frameworks of other financial markets that provide clarity. This is not magic. It’s simple realism and economic foresight – a foresight the U.S. had demonstrated with the rise of capitalism and the rise of the Internet: global leadership.

The choice is yours, Mr. Gensler. History is being written right now. No one is calling for a revolution, but for realism, foresight and the laws to be applied fairly. Will you be on the wrong side of history, Mr. Gensler?

By the way, you remember your speech in 2018 when you referred to the digital token XRP as a currency? XRP is at the core of the Ripple enforcement case. The SEC claims the digital currency is a security, contrary to what you said. Either you were wrong. Or the SEC is. Who, you think, is right?

Ripple tried for years in vain to get clarity from the SEC. The SEC refused to. Last so even in 2020, shortly before suing Ripple, Clayton refused to give an answer. Not Ripple has to adjust its ways. The SEC has to. The SEC is on trial here. Not Ripple. Providing clarity is a core mission of the SEC. Yet in the new digital economy the SEC is mudding the waters to interpret laws at whim. It’s in your hand, Mr. Gensler, to right the wrongs.

Sincerely yours,

one of many

It was a shock and awe operation that ruined Christmas for many. Right before the festive season 2020, within the last hours of the old SEC administration being in office, then-chair Jay Clayton gave green light to legal proceedings against U.S. startup Ripple. The allegation: billions were made illegally with the sale of non-registered securities.

The price of the digital token XRP at the heart of the allegation, which is key to Ripple’s vision to build the Internet of Value (IoV), crashed. It was never easy to hold XRP. The SEC action was a last test for many die-hard XRP holders. Many got flushed out, only for the token to make a strong recovery soon after, thereby demonstrating its strong fundamentals.

Since then, a whole new movement making the case for XRP as a digital asset with function and utility has grown. Lawyer John E. Deaton leads a pro bono class action of XRP holders against the SEC while fellow lawyer Jeremy Hogan has clearly established himself as the XRP community’s most favorite case observer.

SEC entangled in contradictions

Looking back four months later after the SEC filing, the government agency’s case against Ripple turns out to be a godsend. Not only do the SEC enforcers find themselves entangled in contradictions and untenable allegations. Contradictions such as filing cases against Ripple execs Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse for selling XRP as securities, while SEC lawyers admit themselves they have no clue whether XRP is a security.

The last-minute, hasty, arbitrary, flawed and even personal SEC actions come back at them with a vengeance. America’s most renowned business and financial publications start to weigh in how disturbing the SEC actions seem. The Wall Street Journal calls it the SEC’s “confusion” which “harms investors by filing suits before setting clear rules”.

A next step for the SEC should be to recognize the harm of its current ad hoc approach. Investors and developers deserve to know whether their actions in the market are legal before they read news of the latest SEC lawsuit.

WSJ

Reputable Bloomberg quotes a lawyer who calls the enforcement action “a mistake,” with the author “calling on the SEC to drop the suit.” The new SEC chairman Gary Gensler, it is said, has an important opportunity to undo actions taken in the waning hours of the Trump administration that threaten cryptocurrency innovation:

Though misguided, the SEC attack on Ripple presents a promising opportunity for the Biden administration. Under new leadership, the SEC could course-correct back to its mission to protect investors, while fostering fair and efficient markets, rather than interfering with currencies outside its jurisdiction. Gensler has a solid understanding of blockchain technology, and he could usher in fresh start on cryptocurrency by dismissing the case against Ripple. Rather than fight the cryptocurrency industry, Gensler should collaborate with them, and work toward the shared goal to safeguard the future of crypto, and America’s place within it.

Bloomberg Law

Forbes writes “the SEC is now on trial – and knows it” – and hints that those responsible for the SEC’s “dishonest” action should be investigated:

It was extremely shortsighted of the SEC to handicap Ripple at a time when the U.S. needs every American crypto leader on board to compete with China. Moreover, the case seems to reveal that former SEC leaders put their personal gain above the well-being of the nation.

Forbes

The tide is turning

Don’t be surprised if the U.S. Department of Justice starts to investigate this whole mess. Not only did former SEC-chair Clayton and fellow commissioner William Hinman have clear ties to Ripple competitors while in office. The conflicts of interest are stunning. The did not even try to hide their white-collar profiteering, as if it were business as usual in these high levels of government.

The Ripple case threatens to tarnish the SEC’s reputation beyond repair. With it the future of all cryptocurrency projects in the U.S. is at stake. If the bullying of the SEC gets its way, then they will go after the rest of this still nascent industry. But the tide is turning.

The SEC action is backfiring dramatically, the mighty agency stands with its back to the wall. Face-saving exit scenarios might be drafted as we speak. It seems only a matter of when, and not if, that Ripple emerges handsomely strengthened and with regulatory clarity from this whole mess.

+ + +

It’s not that Ripple never engaged with the regulators – on the contrary: Ripple’s chief technology officer David Schwartz predicted in 2019 exactly what the SEC ended up doing:

So much we don’t see that is going on in the background while Ripple slowly and steadly weaves its network web across the globe. One unnoticed news: RippleNet-powered Nium a.k.a. InstaReM facilitates cross-border payments for Kasikornbank, one of Thailand’s top 5 banks.

Ripple’s top exec Marcus Treacher recently said that through a number of RippleNet members like Singapore-based Nium, which is an aggregator like Earthport, Ripple can touch many places. Besides Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) that would make two major bank heavyweights in the kingdom who are RippleNet users.

Wait, there’s a third one: Bank of Ayudhya, branded and commonly referred to as Krungsri, a Thailand-subsidiary of Japan’s massive MUFG Bank, which in 2017 joined the consortium of SBI Ripple Asia and pilot-tested RippleNet… that’s three out of Thailand’s top five banks surfing the Ripple wave.

And, at this point, a big thanks to a never failing community and the untiring Leonidas Hadjiloizou of XRP Arcade.com, treasure trove of XRP news, who unearthes many gems – like this this one-pager by Ripple posted in June, revealing five new customer names and 17 already using RippleNet Cloud.

The uptake in RippleNet cloud usage demonstrates how Ripple is picking up momentum at increased pace – for a long time against many odds. Logic now would suggest that the vast supply of XRP locked up in escrow gets picked up by monthly buyers. This usage might finally reflect on price and kickstart the token value.

Now here’s the list of events that got noticed during the course of last week – and to warm you up, why not with a quote by Ripple’s Marcus Treacher. Asked, what the largest value is Ripple can transmit, he says: “Infinite.”

XRP Market Overview

The call in the XRP Weekly of June 5 to set an XRP buy order around $0.19, while XRP was hovering above $0.205, wasn’t too wrong. My guts feel an impulse is incoming. XRP on June 11 nearly wicked the moon line at $0.182. Patience and hold. Crunch time approaching. It’s no longer a matter of months.

$33.9 Billion Market by 2026 – How Big a Piece of the Global Remittances Cake Will Ripple Cut Off?

According to a growth trend forecast published on June 3, the global digital remittance market will grow at an annual average of 17.2 percent, reaching $33.9 billion by 2026. Time for haters running out while Ripple eats the cake.

Ripple Confirms Brazilian ODL Corridor

In an interview with Future of Finance published on June 8, Marjan Delatinne, Head of Global Banking at Ripple, confirms the Brazilian ODL corridor will be up and running soon.

Delatinne explains that Brazil is at the heart of Ripple’s business strategy for Latin America and that the company is currently actively working on the development of an ODL and thus XRP-based payment corridor for the country. When describing the advantages of ODL compared to the traditional nostro / vostro system, Delatinne says:

We extend these services now to more and more corridors typically exotic corridors with lots of challenges, like the Philippines and very soon within Brazil, so let’s say there is a big agenda and roadmap on that.

BitPay’s Prepaid Mastercard Makes Using XRP Easy

Blockchain payments provider BitPay has launched a Mastercard prepaid card for crypto users in the United States, Cointelegraph reports on June 11. The BitPay Card enables customers to convert their cryptocurrency into fiat, which can then be loaded onto the card and spent anywhere Mastercard debit is accepted. BitPay Card supports Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH), XRP and stable coins including USDC (USDC), GUSD, PAX and BUSD.

RippleNet Saves Saudi Arabia’s Central Bank Up to $400 Billion per Year

Saudi Arabia’s Monetary Authority (SAMA) has drastically cut down on costs, saving up to $400 billion a year following its decision to upgrade and modernize its payments system to Ripple’s xCurrent. In a reference posted on June 11, Saudi Arabia’s central bank is quoted as saving up to up to $400 billion a year through RippleNet, which at this stage does not include ODL services in real-time.

Trump’s New Top Banking Regulator Is Bullish on Crypto

Former Ripple Chief Marketing Strategist Cory Johnson might be a bit biased as far as XRP is concerned. In a Forbes article published on June 11, Cory interviews Brian Brooks. former head of Coinbase’s legal department, who has been appointed head of the new U.S. Office of the “Comptroller of the Currency” (OCC).

“Interestingly, he’s looking for decentralized networks in general”, the article says. “He cited Bitcoin, Ether and XRP in particular – to solve many of the problems hindering more than one-thousand financial institutions under his purview.”

In his “regulation proposal” of June 2, Brooks advocates a revision of the existing regulations on “digital assets of banks.” In particular, Brooks also expressed concern about the antiquated methods used by banks to transfer money.

It takes three days if you’re trying to send money from the US to Europe… on the Swift network. Your money is at risk during that period. And even when the money is transmitted, foreign exchange fees are incurred. But a digital representation of value on both sides of the transaction can eliminate that friction and those costs.

Doesn’t this sound familiar. There’s no confirmation Ripple whispered this in Brooks’ ear.

Increased Activity Spotted on New GBP/PHP ODL Corridor

Observed by long-time XRP proponent @TeholBeddictXRP on June 12, there’s some activity on the ODL corridor between the U.K. and the Philippines via Bistamp and Coins.ph exchanges:

Digital money transfer service Azimo meanwhile confirms using ODL for the GBP/PHP corridor.

ODL Corridors Still Depressed After Hard Reset

ODL corridors show signs of volume recovering after Ripple’s amendments the other week. The XRP/EUR liquidity on June 14 seems back on track to a reversal of the downwards trend.

Bitso’s XRP/MXN corridor is still substantially down while Coins.ph’s XRP/PHP as well as BTC Markets’ XRP/AUD corridors seem on a fragile path to recovery.

Overall, most ODL corridors don’t yet seem to stabilize and are still way down from previous highs. I wouldn’t be surprised though if Ripple somehow manages to mask ODL metrics. Which client wants to see business details out in the public open?

Bye-Bye Swift!

While not directly related to Ripple and XRP, this is no less interesting. Liechtenstein’s Bank Frick drops Swift, which faces competition that will only get more intense as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins get more traction.

The “crossover finance” bank will now use the USDC stablecoin to power cross-border transactions. Currently, stablecoins are the fastest growing segment of crypto, according to an op-ed by Daily Fintech published on June 15. In just two months, global stablecoin assets in circulation grew by 70 percent.

Make no mistake, XRP is still needed in a world of stablecoins. Read Galgitron‘s in-depth analysis. Key excerpt:

The common misconception is that stablecoins are going to eliminate all of the problems related to cross-border payments, but stablecoins are merely just faster versions of the underlying fiat. They don’t inherently generate liquidity, they don’t create new pairings / corridors, but most importantly, they don’t eliminate nostro / vostro. Sure, stablecoins could eliminate the need for country A to have foreign assets in a bank account in country B, but that just means country A would need to hold those foreign funds themselves, and would need to do so for each country.

Media Giant Condé Nast Monetizes With Coil

More than 144 million readers of Condé Nast, the 111-year-old global media company, are invited to monetize the media giant with the Ripple-backed online payment platform Coil.

This development is popped on June 14 by Eric Dadoun, a tech startup investor and crypto enthusiast.

XRP Arcade did a check, thus more than a dozen other Condé Nast U.S. publications are also Web-monetized with Coil – among them notable brands: allure, Bon Appétit, epicurious, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Self, Pitchfork, GQ Style, GQ.com, Them, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue.

BTW, joining Coil to support dedicated publications doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg. The flat rate of $5 a month is a welcome contribution to support quality sites that work for and believe in the future of this unobtrusive Web monetization. If you haven’t done yet so, why not join – and small droplets also support this XRP Weekly.

Ripple’s Marcus Treacher Spills the Beans: Complete Global Coverage by Mid-2021

Marcus Treacher, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Ripple, in a fireside chat published on June 15 delivers fascinating insights about what Ripple is up to in the medium and longer term.

Ripple is building an ecosystem from scratch without any relying on legacy systems, Marcus says, which explains the network’s impact. He also mentions China expansion plans – Ripple is ready to move forward, first though the “geopolitical situation needs to soften”.

Ripple is not after taking out Swift, he says, yet for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication there seems no way out in the long run. Marcus:

Ultimately, what Ripple is doing, will fundamentally affect the market Swift is working in. That’s just how innovation works and how disruptive change works in the marketplace.

Marcus’ key statement about global coverage and the MoneyGram factor:

Our network is only as big as the customers that we connected to and clear through so right now we clear directly in 45 countries. Through a number of RippleNet members like Nium, for example, with a head office in Singapore, who are aggregators like Earthport, for example, we can touch many many other countries. The way we’re heading I would think by mid-2021 we’ll have, to intensive purposes, complete global coverage. We do have a great pipe into MoneyGram, which we have a relationship with, which gives us a cash payout in virtually every country in the world and we’re looking to build that up and plug that into the RippleNet network this year.

Oh, and what’s the largest value Ripple can transmit? “Infinite,” Marcus says.

U.S. Bank Integrates Volante’s Ripple Global Settlement Network

Announced on June 15, First American Trust, a U.S. banking solutions provider, selects Volante cloud solution to replace the bank’s legacy wire transfer system.

Volante Technologies provides services to accelerate digital transformation and modernization in financial services. Volante offers VolPay processor module which simplifies the connection to Ripple’s near realtime payment and settlement network. Find more information here.

And some XRP ODL icing on the cake:

Solid Uptake Validates Future of Cloud-Based Banking

Since its launch, 30 percent of all RippleNet payments go through RippleNet’s cloud solution. Ripple’s top executive Marcus Treacher tweets on June 15:

Ripple in CNBC’s 2020 List of Top 50 Disruptors

Ripple makes it into the 2020 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies, published on June 16.

In 28th place as “a crypto answer to money transfer,” Ripple joins this exclusive list of “private companies whose breakthroughs are influencing business and market competition at an accelerated pace. They are poised to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic with tech platforms that have the power to dominate.”

Tellingly, first place is taken by Stripe, the global e-payments company which is “unlocking the lockdown’s biggest value.”

Big Upvote by Crypto Influencer for RippleNet Cloud

Crypto expert and ambassador Sydney Ifergan, who among many other achievements is Honorary Advisor of Hong Kong International Blockchain Association, on June 16 gives his 16k Twitter followers a big upvote for RippleNet Cloud:

Former CFTC Chairman Says XRP Isn’t a Security

Bummer really that Chris Giancarlo is no longer the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). According to a paper released by the the honorable International Financial Law Review on June 17, Giancarlos says that “ultimately, under a fair application of the Howey test and the SEC’s presently expanding analysis, XRP should not be regulated as a security, but instead considered a currency or a medium of exchange.”

The increased adoption of XRP, Giancarlo goes on, as a medium of exchange and a form of payment in recent years, both by consumers and in the business-to-business setting, further underscores the utility of XRP as a bona fide fiat substitute.

For transparency’s sake we have to add that Giancarlo is now at a law firm providing counsel to Ripple, calling the impartiality of such claims into question. Right at the bottom of the report, a footnote states that Willkie Farr & Gallagher, for whom Giancarlo works as a senior counsel, also provides counsel to Ripple. Let’s hope Ripple is not shooting itself in the foot with this paper.

BCRemit About to Board ODL

U.K.-based online money transfer service BCRemit on June 18 confirms they’re in the early stages of Ripple ODL adoption – thank you Crypto Eri for the shout. BCRemit’s stronghold is the U.K. to the Philippines corridor.

Ripple Aims to Make XRP Palatable to India

In a recommendation paper released on June 18, Ripple touts XRP use in new crypto framework suggested for India:

Ripple Supports Global PayID Network

Ripple on June 18 announces to support the global PayID payment network with 40+ partners, allowing users to send digital payments across different platforms.

This is about focus on retail and making the use of digital and fiat easier. Hear what the man himself, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, on CNBC has to say about PayID – and disruptors:

That’s it for this issue. Next XRP Weekly is published on June 26, 2020. Stay tuned!

If you like what you read, sending a tip to XRP address rLHzPsX6oXkzU2qL12kHCH8G8cnZv1rBJh tag 3130998845 is most welcome!

+++ Please get in touch if you’d like to share XRP and Ripple news or related rumors, inputs, insights.

This weeks’s big question of course is Ripple’s announcement to reduce emphasis on large treasury payments, which – for now – drastically reduces ODL (On-Demand Liquidity) volume. What are they not telling us? Who pulled what plug?

This XRP Weekly, however, is a bit different. Instead of the XRP and Ripple timeline of events, this Weekly focuses first on the June 8 Ripple announcement that caused quite a stir: “Staying the Course in Remittances and SME Payments.”

In the timeline, hear Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse talk about the impact of Covid-19 crisis and why he expects overall market dynamics to be good for crypto and good for Ripple. But first things first.

XRP Market Overview

Bitcoin still does its dog and pony show: tricks the market into a sense of recovery, followed by the usual big fat red candle. Sadly, XRP still has no own legs, the token only mimics the king coin’s movements while movement upwards are followed timidly and movements downwards accelleration. No decoupling keeps XRP enslaved. The only way to beat this market is either patience or your’re so good to have a slight majority of trades in the plus.

Ripple’s Bombshell Announcement: “Staying the Course in Remittances and SME Payments”

Now let’s take a look at the Ripple story making waves this week. Key excerpts of the June 8 article written by Asheesh Birla, Ripple Senior Vice President of Product and Corporate Development:

In particular, we are reducing emphasis on large treasury payments -which are traditionally used to fund businesses and services in the absence of real-time transfers – to support individual, low-value transactions, addressing the growing need in remittances and SME payments. This may reduce overall ODL transaction volumes.

Still, because the benefits of ODL are so compelling for enabling the future of global payments, we anticipate businesses will support even more transactions than ever before on RippleNet, and new additional connections on the network will take shape. 

At first sight, this seems like a defeat, an admission of failure, forcing Ripple to hit the reset button and setting ODL metrics back by about a year.

The crash in ODL volume is substantial – more than 50 percent within three days. Screenshot taken on June 9:

Yet, Asheesh is quick addresses the outcry in the XRP community and explains on Twitter:

Ripple CTO David Schwartz adds:

Now let’s examine why this whole turn of events might be a good and healthy development, assuring XRP to work the way it’s intended to.

1. Ripple Strikes Against Nostro / Vostro Hijacking ODL

Most likely some of these treasury transactions were just moving nostro / vostro funds using ODL. The whole point of ODL is to eliminate nostro / vostro prefunding and associated risks, or at least mitigate the need to prefund. ODL is about P2P elimination of nostro / vostro.

Ripple putting the breaks on this furthermore means no more quick depletion of order books, but a steady flow of smaller, real-time, direct payments ramping up liquidity. Ripple can now move forward.

2. Force Them to Need You

Big correspondent banks controlling and profiting from nostro / vostro friction are not ready to abandon their most profitable ship. Trying to work with the system and changing it from the inside out proves to be more difficult than anticipated. A few corridors and low liquidity aren’t enticing for banks. Ripple seems to have a hard time getting names and Swift to adopt ODL and XRP, and ISO20022 just got delayed again.

Ripple’s decision to change strategy will entice financial institutions caught in the middle to have a closer look at RippleNet and ODL offerings. While adoption at the top is dragging on, Ripple will concentrate on smaller micro payments. The bigger players will get it together eventually.

For now, Ripple is focusing on the small and medium fish, which are the lower hanging fruits, offering the path of the least resistance and allowing Ripple to scale volume to the degree necessary to eventually feed the big fish. And while those big fish, for now, remain focused on cutting fat and treading water rather than moving to a faster, leaner, safer money transfer network, Ripple gets ready for them.

3. Better Many Small Than Few Large Customers

Ripple does not want to depend on single large clients, but reshape the international cross-border transactions market from ground up. They want to drive the benefits all the way down to the customer – as already emphasized in July 2018 by Dilip Rao, Ripple’s then Global Head, Infrastructure Innovation:

4. Aggressive ODL Expansion

Ripple concludes its announcement with the phrase: “We want to talk.”

If you’re a financial institution interested in learning more about RippleNet’s ODL service and its benefits for eliminating the need for pre-funding, we want to talk.

Reminds me of Ripple’s aggressive camping out in front of Swift’s annual convention back in 2017 in Toronto, trying to lure away heavyweight Sibos attendees to the Ripple’s simultaneously held Swell event.

Ripple is pushing the reset button from a position of strength, not weakness. They have the right product and are just about to start. Asheesh in the announcement goes on to say that Ripple will open more ODL corridors this year and ramp up volume:

Ripple is on track to open new ODL corridors this year and we’re onboarding new customers and working with existing customers to ramp up ODL volume in important corridors including USD-MXN, USD-PHP, AUD-USD and PHP, and from EUR-USD.

Also, Ripple did not say in the statement they won’t do anymore treasury-type transfers in the millions of dollars. They’re just optimizing the system.

5. Western Union, Welcome Aboard ODL?

Western Union is mentioned in the announcement as if this competitor is already using RippleNet. We might have Western Union board ODL sooner than we expect. Ripple publishes this artictle with a clear intention, anticipating the result of negotiations between Western Union and MoneyGram.

No, it’s not Western Union’s attempt to aquire Ripple ODL partner MoneyGram that crashes ODL. Asheesh even confirms: “Yes, MGI continues to be an active ODL customer.”

6. Ripple CEO Reactivates His “Peanut Butter Manifesto”

Seems like Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reactivates the legendary Peanut Butter Manifesto, which dates back to his days at Yahoo. Rather than spreading Ripple’s resources too thinly and not focusing on anything in paticular, Ripple refocuses and resets priorities.

7. Lack of Liquidity Needs to Be Addressed

Not all is sunshine. An obvious lack of XRP liquidity urges Ripple to reprioritize. Ripple might just be backing away from accommodating business cases for larger payment sizes until XRP has more liquidity.

High token inflation and low price certainly don’t help improve liquidity. One might hope Ripple is not to give away XRP as abundantly anymore as in the past. Not only does this send out wrong signals. Tighter supply and rising demand could increase price and thereby improve liquidity.

8. Incentives Don’t Create Organic Uptake

In its current incentivized form ODL does not seem to create organically growing uptake. In other words: how sustainable is growth driven by incentives? Not sustainable.

Ripple likes to refer to the early days of PayPal how they incentivized uptake. In order to create organic growth and demand they have to cut down on those incentives that most likely were funded through XRP sales. Reduced incentive scheme XRP sales will reflect in real-market token demand, price appreciation and increased liquidity.

9. Low-Value, High-Frequency Payments Are Key

If things are still unclear, this should put the controversy once and for all to rest. Ripple is after low-value, high-frequency payments – just as Mastercard and Visa do:

David emphasizes the same points:

10. So… Is the ODL Reset Good or Bad?

More good than not, it seems. Ripple has already proven they can easily transact large cross-border payments. That’s not what they’re after. They’re not particularly keen to handle your large transaction when you buy a house. They want to be the bridge mechanism when you shop, eat, have a drink, buy something online. In everyday life, on a global scale, without friction and no borders.

11. Number of Transactions Matters More Than Volume

We should rather be looking at the number of transactions than volume. Unfortunately, Ripple in January eliminated the TPS (transactions per second) metrics from their site. You can, however, still check TPS on xrpscan.com and livenet.xrpl.org.

TPS are currently maxed out at 1,500 – we’re still far away from this number, currently in the very low double digits. But 1,500 is not carved in stone and can be substantially increased according to Ripple developers. Visa does around 1,700 transactions per second on average.

Trying to change the financial industry vertically is not just smooth sailing and sunny skies. But yes, Ripple’s about-face is a well thought out, ambitious and forward looking step. And I am patient. Ripple will figure it out. If the tech is that much better, it makes it difficult to argue for the benefits of legacy systems.

A Word of Caution

The metrics available still do not show any sign of ODL recovery and we have no way to tell what payments exactly fell off the cliff. If Ripple is serious about the transparency it prides itself, then according tools should be made available, such as TPS metrics (which don’t erroneously spike at the top of the hour as in the past).

There’s this empty spot on Ripple’s Market Performance page. What better use for it than making more reliable TPS appear again, as a reference to ledger activity.

That’s it for the analysis of Ripple’s controversial announcement, over to the Weekly’s timeline.

Ripple Reaches 350 Customers

Navin Gupta, Ripple’s Managing Director in the South Asia and MENA region, in a virtual session published on June 1 updates the number of Ripple customers to “about 350 financial institutions who use our technology every day.”

The aha moment in blockchain technology, Navin says, will occur in about three to five years down the road when companies embrace blockchain.

BTC Markets CEO: “XRP Is Becoming Increasingly Mainstream”

Inexpensive, efficient, safe – cross-border money transfers via XRP are just brilliant, says Caroline Bowler, CEO of Australian Ripple ODL partner BTC Markets. In fact, she mentions the word “brilliant” several times in this Digital Finance Analytics interview published on June 8.

Bowler talks of increasing XRP activity both regarding ODL and trading. What we’re going to see, she says, “it’s becoming increasingly mainstream.”

Ripple’s Craig DeWitt: “Number of XRP Verticals Being Built Are Gonna Multiply”

Thinking Crypto on June 8 interviews Craig DeWitt, Senior Director of Product at Ripple.

Main takeaways:

Even though things are moving slowly, eventually the U.S. gets things right, DeWitt says. It might take time though. No one can time the market, even less so regulation.

He’s amazed about the incredible growth in the past five years at Ripple. “We’re making the world a better place – it’s not an overnight thing because it is so impactful.”

Over the next years, DeWitt expects some really good infrastructure to be built allowing easily made payments. It’s gonna be a lot easier for developers to build payment applications or applications that leverage payments. XRP as a payment mechanism, yes, but the “number of verticals being built on that are gonna multiply.”

MoneyGram Digital Business Reports Triple-Digit Growth in May

Ripple partner MoneyGram achieves a 100 percent year-over-year digital transaction growth in May, the company reports on June 9. This means a significant acceleration from the first quarter of 2020 where the company reported 57% growth.

• MoneyGram Online, the company’s direct to consumer channel, delivered 107 percent year-over-year transaction growth in May, with over 80 percent of transactions completed on a mobile device.
• Digital partnerships, driven by key partners in Asia Pacific and Middle East, accelerated from 67 percent year-over-year transaction growth in April to 92 percent growth in May.
• Account deposit and mobile wallet transactions increased 156 percent in May which is an acceleration from the first quarter where the company reported 80 percent year-over-year transaction growth. Growth has been driven by markets such as the Philippines where sends to mobile wallets have increased over 200 percent compared to the prior year.

Ripple Says XRP Lawsuit Fails to Show CEO Committed Fraud

Ripple has moved to court asking to drop all fraud charges against it on a lawsuit as plaintiff Bradley Sostack has failed to provide details to back its claims, CoinDesk reports on June 9.

Sostack claims Garlinghouse sold 67 million XRP tokens in 2017, which, he alleges, counts as a misrepresentation as it coincides with the time he was also publicly claiming to be “very, very long XRP.”

Ripple calls this statement fraudulent, arguing that just because Garlinghouse sold XRP doesn’t mean he wasn’t still bullish on the token’s prospects: “Selling a portion of one’s XRP holdings does not mean that the seller cannot also be ‘very, very long’ in the same asset as a percentage of his or her own personal balance sheet.”

Hacker Noon Gets Coil-Enabled for Micro-Tipping

CoinDesk on June 10 reports tech publication Hacker Noon has closed a $1 million strategic investment from micropayments firm Coil, the blockchain-agnostic product built on the Interledger protocol and headed by former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas. 

With Coil’s simple Web tag, the integration lets readers pay Hacker Noon writers based on their screen time. Coil advertises memberships starting at $5 per month. Coil’s preferred payout currency? XRP, of course.

Ripple Offers Most Cost-Effective New Payment Service in Japan

FX Coin on June 10 reports Money Tap, which uses RippleNet, is the cheapest and most efficient new payment service solution in Japan which goes to market on June 22. MoneyTap charges members 1.5 percent tax free per transaction, while same-priced competitors add tax.

Japan’s new system for QR payments is called JPQR and supports 18 payment services, including Ripple-powered MoneyTap. JPQR is to become Japan’s new national payment standard.

Brazilian Bank First to Join Ripple’s Cloud Service

Ripple’s first partner in Brazil is also the first to join the company’s cloud services, reports Cointelegraph Brazil on June 10. Says Ripple in a statement:

The use of “cloud-based services,” i.e. services based on storage and control of data entirely in the cloud, have become increasingly common in different industry segments. In the case of financial institutions, cloud services bring benefits such as agility, greater transparency and cost reduction, in addition to enabling digital transformation – something so relevant at this time when the remote prevails over the physical.

Brad Speaks Out: Ripple to Have Over 500 Employees by Year’s End, Positive Outlook for Crypto Market

In a recorded video call employees, released on June 10, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse addresses the difficulties caused by Covid-19 for Ripple. He can’t wait to go back to the office and presents a solid progress report, despite the global downturn.

Key takeaways:

Q1 took Ripple by surprise, no one expected the impact. Regarding the macro-economic outlook for Ripple, record unemployment numbers will be followed by debasement of fiat currencies, Brad says. Decrease in currency value will turn people to “safe haven” assets, like gold back in the day. He expects this to spill over into cryptocurrencies: “We gonna see dynamics which are good for crypto and good for Ripple.”

Given the slowdown in growth, Ripple is “much more thoughtful about hiring.” By year’s end Ripple will have some 515 employees instead of the expected 575, which is still about 60 positions more than now – and almost twice as many as at the end of 2018.

Since this Ripple in-house address was recorded before the recent ODL crash, Brad refers to 190 percent ODL growth from Q4 to Q1 and an 85 percent increase in volume across RippleNet during the same timespan. “We saw some of our big customers, a player in Thailand, go live. That’s driving a lot of volume.”

Expected were 20 new production contracts in Q1, added were 28. With borders and economies opening up again, one might expect Q3 and Q4 to make up for lost opportunities in the first half of the year.

Even though the globally distributed operations continue during lockdown, Brad concludes he can’t wait to go back to work and continue to build the company and Internet of Value. “We are in a really strong position,” he says, “from balance sheet point of view and customer activity on the network.”

Ripple Officially Launches Brazil Operations

With news posted on June 11, Ripple officially launches operations in Brazil to expand its footprint in South America. Ripple already has more than a dozen Brazilian financial institutions and money transfer companies on RippleNet.

That’s it for this issue. Next XRP Weekly is published on June 19, 2020. Stay tuned!

If you like what you read, sending a tip to XRP address rLHzPsX6oXkzU2qL12kHCH8G8cnZv1rBJh tag 3130998845 is most welcome!

+++ Please get in touch if you’d like to share XRP and Ripple news or related rumors, inputs, insights.

Despite lockdowns and the new normal, Ripple and XRP keep moving ahead. There are signs the eagerly awaited Thai baht ODL (On-Demand Liquidity) corridor is about to move out of the regulator’s sandbox. And why is a former Merrill Lynch broker all in on XRP? And learn why a Ripple pioneer says XRP’s value is tied to its liquidity. (Feel free to subscribe to XRP Weekly at the bottom of the page.)

XRP Market Overview

XRP’s chances to stay above $0.20 are reasonable. Crawling towards $0.21, trading volume is increasing. As the whole market is still enslaved by Bitcoin’s moods and ritual dumps, holding a buying position around $0.19 cannot harm. Overall XRP is neutral, sticking to its sideways channel for more than 1,000 days. Waiting for breakout – yet any market impulse can push XRP north or south.

XRP Preferred Base Currency for Arbitrage

In a blog on May 28, Ripple’s Breanne Madigan, Head of the Global Institutional Markets, makes the case for XRP as the preferred base currency for arbitrage trading.

Amidst the sudden market collapse on March 12, 2020 – what many are calling “Black Thursday” – daily transaction fees skyrocketed to five times the normal amount on Ethereum and Bitcoin’s network, delaying settlements and increasing the price of exchange for currencies between exchanges. During this time, analysis shows that users began shifting to the digital asset XRP for exchange balance transfers. 

Breanne Madigan

Even and especially in a volatile market: XRP transactions cost a tiny fraction of a penny and are lighting fast. The token’s “speed, low transaction costs and scalability put the digital asset in a league of its own when it comes to settlement,” Madigan adds.

California Court Consolidates Two Ripple Lawsuits

Law360 on May 28 reports a Californian federal judge consolidating two lawsuits which claim Ripple illegally sold XRP as an unregistered security.

Ripple sought to dismiss the initial suit in September, claiming that all federal securities claims are barred by the statute of repose of three years in federal securities laws. In late February, the judge allowed the case to move forward, but asked plaintiffs to explain more specifically why they alleged that Ripple made fraudulent claims about XRP.

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in late March, further alleging that Ripple knowingly overstated the cryptocurrency’s actual utility as a “bridge currency” to facilitate international payments, and claiming that Ripple CEO Garlinghouse touted the product while unloading millions of dollars of the cryptocurrency.

XRP Arcade’s Leonidas Hadjiloizou notes:

This is definitely positive. One less lawsuit to worry about. Don’t forget Ripple asked for the lawsuits to get consolidated along with the main plaintiff.

The judge argued merging the two cases will save time, money and avoid conflicting results. The judge even noted, Leonidas adds:

Based on errant typos in its complaint, it appears that the second plaintiff literally copied, pasted (without formatting), and then deleted numerous footnotes of the first plaintiffs allegations.

Another Swiss Private Bank Announces XRP Trading and Custody

It’s still limited to select private banks, but down the road we will likely be able to store digital tokens the same way we currently store fiat currencies in bank accounts.

Swiss private bank Maerki Bauman on May 29 announces trading and custody of XRP digital asset. Aside, the bank will initially offer trading in the other principal cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether and Litecoin. 

Maerki Baumann is the third private bank in Switzerand to offer digital asset trading and custody, after Sygnum Bank announced full XRP services, followed by Arab Bank announcing a full suite of digital asset services, providing advisory, custody and brokerage. Swiss online bank Swissquote currently offers XRP trading.

Ripple Talks “Institutional Matters” With Brazil’s Central Bank

On May 30, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and three company executives have a video conference with the Central Bank of Brazil to discuss “institutional matters,” as Cointelegraph reports.

Garlinghouse is joined by Ripple board member Ben Lawsky, Eric van Miltenburg, Senior VP Global Operations, and Luiz Antonio Sacco, VP of Global Operations and General Director for Latin America. On behalf of the Central Bank of Brazil, its President Roberto Campos Neto is assisted by his two top executives responsible for regulation and financial system organization.

So far, Ripple has secured alliances with at least three major Brazilian players – Santander, Bradesco and Banco Rendimento. Ripple’s ambitious plans for Latin America and Brazil in particular surfaced in June 2019, when the company launched its Sâo Paulo office with the aim to expand across the continent. 

Ripple Settlements Coming to Japanese ATMs

Ripple partner and investor, SBI Holdings, in its latest financial report revealed plans to integrate Ripple settlements across ATMs by integrating the Ripple-powered settlements platform MoneyTap.

Cointelegraph on May 30 posts a handy video explainer. Should international money transfers be enabled, chances are high they’ll be facilitated through XRP. During September 2019, SBI chief executive and Ripple board member Yoshitaka Kitao stated that the firm was planning to utilize XRP for remittance in the future.

New Liquidity ATHs for XRP/MXN Corridor

Third record day in a row on May 30 for Bitso’s XRP/MXN corridor:

ODL Spotters Rejoice

While your fiat transactions from A to B might take days, sending XRP-powered cash remittances around the globe is as easy as pie.

Around $1 million sent within half an hour on May 31 through the USD/MXN corridor. Total cost? Less than a cent. Plus, of course, the cost structure wrapped around it. Point in case: no more friction to be exploited.

Thai Baht About to ODL?

Do Thai Baht ODL corridors finally move out of the regulator’s sandbox into production mode? On May 31, quite a few THB transactions are caught by monitoring website Utility Scan.

XRP/THB live corridor runs through Thailand’s Bitkub exchange liquidity. More and more THB/PHP transactions are popping up. As we know from other new corridors: the money flow literally starts with droplets until the corridor gets traction.

BTC Markets’ XRP/AUD Corridor Pushing to New ATH

May 31, another nice day in the XRP world.

Last-Mile Playbook to Global Payments

On May 31, Ripple publishes its Last-Mile Playbook to Global Payments – a treasure trove to “new opportunities to leverage blockchain technology and grow your business in this country-by-country primer on domestic payment systems.” You can download the Playbook here.

The brochure lists countries of the “last mile” in global payments, a term which refers to the movement of value from a financial institution to the final delivery recipient. This last leg of the payment’s journey is plagued with inconsistencies, due in part to the differing policies and infrastructure, country to country. That’s where RippleNet especially shines.

Listed “Live Countries” are:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Europa
• India
• Mexico
• Nigeria
• Peru
• Philippines
• Poland
• Thailand
• United Kingdom
• United States

What Does Christopher Greene Know We Don’t Know?

Christopher Greene, a turned journalist and former Merrill Lynch broker who got fed up with the old financial system and turned , posts this on June 1, bound by NDA:

Hello Nigeria – and U.K.!

On June 2, Nigeria is spotted on @UtilityScan‘s global ODL map – soon after joined by newcomer U.K.’s Union Jack.

Western Union Offers to Buy Ripple-Partner MoneyGram

Breaking news, based on an anonymous source, on June 2:

MoneyGram’s stock shoots up 30 percent in after-hour trading. No details are yet known. Hope is that XRP could play a role in this newly formed remittance giant. Strategic partne Ripple owns some 10 percent of MGI. More details about the possible merger by Bloomberg.

Western Union so far pretended to be reluctant to use ODL for commercial purposes. If the acquisition proceeds and the three companies cooperate to introduce ODL, the spread of XRP remittance will accelerate.

Ripple’s “Little Bighorn” Growth Hack?

Or there’s no way that… MoneyGram is bait? Which would be called the «Little Bighorn» growth hack. If a target market is difficult to reach, instead of tackling it head on, go after an adjacent market in order to stimulate demand. This tactic was made famous by Facebook.

Back when Facebook was still just for schools, some schools already had their own social networks. Instead of trying to market directly to students at those schools (“but we already have a social network!”) Facebook targeted schools in the vicinity, which would inevitably be home to friends of the target school’s students.

Once all your friends were on Facebook and you’re the last one left standing… it’s kind of hard to say no! Once more and more market players join your network that offers clear advantages… it’s kind of hard not to join!

Bitso Bullish on ODL

In a Pantera Capital conference call on June 2, Bitso CEO and co-founder Daniel Vogel presents an extremely bullish outlook based on the uptake in use cases.

At the end of this year, Vogel says, he will present an enourmous number of crypto-enabled remittance transfers the XRP-enabled exchange handles between the U.S. and Mexico.

In just 12 weeks of operation Bitso is the largest exchange in Argentina. They develop the tech in-house and already attract institutional players.

World’s Top 100 Banks and Ripple

XRP Arcade on June 2 posts a compilation of the world’s top 100 banks with links to Ripple. Currently, 38 percent of the world’s top 100 banks have been linked to RippleNet. Bear in mind, the report says, that there are NDAs in place and banks might be connected to Ripple via other integrators.

Did Someone at SBI Just Blink?

Japan on May 1 enacted new crypto regulation. These regulations benefit those who are established the most – and in Japan SBI is the one. As long-time XRP proponent @TeholBeddictXRP observes on June 2, since the enactment a small number of XRP transactions goes from Bitstamp to SBI VC Trade through their BitGo wallet. Someone at SBI finally blinking with an eye?

For newcomers, a term coined “longest blink in history” refers to Kitao Yoshitaka, Ripple board member and CEO of SBI Group, who mid-2018 famously said SBI’s Virtual Currency exchance SBI VC “will be the number one in the blink of an eye” once the exchange launches. The exchange went live mid-2019.

XRP Pioneer Greg Kidd: XRP Value Comes With Liquidity

In a Digital Asset Investor interview published on June 3, entrepreneur Greg Kidd – one of the first 10 people working at Ripple and an early investor in Twitter and other unicorns – shares some telling Ripple and XRP insights.

Key excerpts:

Kidd has quite an XRP stake. Five years back he took an option for one percent of the entire flow. So here’s an XRP whale holding one billion token.

Kidd reminds us that XRP was the second digital currency after Bitcoin – and you knew who was behind it. It was not anonymous, but a company with people you could join: Chris Larsen, David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, Stefan Thomas.

Kidd says XRP liquidity is more important than price. The price can only rise if there is enough supply. XRP’s value comes from and with liquidity.

Asked whether Ripple can IPO without a declaration that XRP is no security, Kidd says an IPO would require total disclosure. Yet, securities can become non-securities and vice versa. Even is something is declared one thing today, this doesn’t mean it can’t be declared another thing tomorrow.

Will Ripple make XRP the world reserve currency? Still a long way to go to take over Swift, Kidd says. Ripple is at 2 or 3 out of 10 in terms of how close they are in taking over Swift. Money is still passing through those old legacy rails. A very exclusive club of banks continues to make a whole lot of money out of this friction.

XRP Checks Amendment Proves XRP Ledger’s Independence

As Forbes’ Thomas Silkjær reports on June 3, Ripple Checks amendment is in voting and near the needed 80 percent majority. If enabled, users will be able to send deferred payments that operate similarly to traditional checks, thereby adding more utility to the ledger.

As an example, accounts can choose to strictly reject any incoming funds from transactions sent by unauthorized accounts, but use Checks as an easy way to accept payments and choose to claim or reject at their discretion. This can help in compliance where an entity needs to know the source of funds received.

+++ Update: The amendment is approved on June 4 – without Ripple’s vote. What other clear evidence one needs that the XRP Ledger is independent from Ripple. The two week timer on Checks has started.

MoneyGram Partners With World’s Largest Islamic Bank – Remittances to More Than 200 Countries

On June 4, Rajhi Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the world, announces its partnership with MoneyGram. Tahweel Al Rajhi, the remittances arm of the bank, is to provide money transfer services in Saudi Arabia. Tahweel offers international and local money remittance services with more than 190 centers across the world.

Regarding the new partnership Rajhi Bank says:

We always try to exceed customer expectation by offering them an enhanced value proposition, this time for money transfers to more than 200 countries around the world.

… and This Massive Islamic Bank Confirmed in 2017 They’re Working With Ripple

Just that you know, the groundwork for this deal has been laid since some time. Rajhi Bank confirmed already three years ago on May 13, 2017, they’re working with Ripple:

Al Rajhi Bank (ARB), the world’s largest Islamic Bank, has completed a secure, cross-border money transfer using Ripple blockchain technology. This successful transaction marks the first time the technology has been used in Saudi Arabia.

AUD/USD Corridor Joins the Party

Look who – June 5 – joins the party? The volume was a few hundred dollars a couple of weeks ago.

To the Moon!

Concluding this XRP Weekly with another record high on June 5 for BTC Markets’ XRP/AUD ODL corridor.

Oh Wait, He Needs Some More of His Non-Fav Zerps

June 5 and Christopher Green is buying more XRP.

The next XRP Weekly is published on June 12, 2020. Stay tuned!

If you like what you read, sending a tip to XRP address rLHzPsX6oXkzU2qL12kHCH8G8cnZv1rBJh tag 3130998845 is most welcome!

+++ Please get in touch if you’d like to share XRP and Ripple news or related rumors, inputs, insights.

A week that shows several advances of RippleNet rails especially in the Asia-Pacific region, with the rails becoming primed for ODL (On-Demand Liquidity). The XRP flywheel is getting put in place and about to be set in motion. This is what steady progress looks like.

XRP Market Overview

XRP goes sideways mostly for the week, yet follows the broader market’s exploit into May 29 with XRP breaking the trendline and – for a moment – hovering around $0.20. That pressure cooker is sure building up.

Ripple Joins «Heavy Hitters'” U.S. Financial Group

Craig DeWitt, Director of Product at Ripple, announces on May 21 that he’s joining the U.S. Fast Payment Council Working Group, whose members include FRB, VISA, Master Card, AMEX, BONY, etc.

Blockchain.com Adds XRP

On May 21, Blockchain.com announces the addition of XRP to its trading platform. Offering the USD and EUR fiat pairs, Blockchain.com is available in 21 languages, active in 140 countries, trades more than 200 billion dollars annually and has over 40 million accounts.

Does Chris Larsen Fund New ODL Corridors?

In her video on May 22, Crypto Eri speculates that Ripple co-founder Chris Larson might have been moving large volumes of XRP to fund new ODL exchanges / market makers.

Xumm App – “Be Your Own Bank”

Warren Paul Anderson, Head of Developer Relations at Ripple, on May 23 blogs about Xumm app by @XRPLLabs, providing users with the basic tools to “be your own bank,” which include the ability to create accounts, store, send, receive and exchange value, using the #XRP Ledger. Plus there is much more, Anderson explains.

Xumm app is still in beta mode. As per lead developer Wietse Wind the banking application’s version 1.0 is ready in the near future for mass adoption.

EUR/USD ODL Gearing Up

On May 23, some chatter suggests there is a rapid increase in XRP transfer volume between the U.S. and Europe:

A widely quoted article goes as far as Ripple CTO David Schwartz confirming that ODL spending on the EUR/USD pair increased by 1.5 million USD a day. In fact, David did not confirm this increase per se. A plausible explanation for the increased corridor volume is that XRP/USD and XRP/EUR order books are autobridged. David nevertheless reveals a no less interesting insight:

David comments that some customers also find ODL useful in efficient and liquid hard currencies. Ripple going after efficient corridors opens up a whole new playing field.

Hong Kong Exchange Taking Off With XRP

On May 23, GokuMarket, a decentralized marketplace for the blockchain economy, announces the addition of XRP with eight utilities:

It’s All Getting Connected

In her video on May 24, Crypto Eri shines with investigative journalism. She examines the background of Go2 Exchange, another Ripple client in Hong Kong that runs on Ripple.

In a nice piece of investigative journalism, Crypto Eri links the global payments platform with iRemit, MoneyMatch and UnionBank of the Philippines – which finally leads to Ripple ODL partner Coins.ph. There you go. It’s all getting connected.

U.S.-Mexico Corridor Approaches Critical Mass

At REIMAGINE 2020 on May 24, Ripple’s Director of Product Warren Anderson says that ODL by now handles more than 10 percent of the remittances between the U.S. and Mexico. According to Anderson, ODL in this corridor is no longer in the pilot stage, but is fully part of economic activity – meaning critical mass is within reach (critical mass, at which new technology explosively spreads, is said to be at 16 percent):

“So U.S.-Mexico is one of the largest remittance corridors in the world, and Ripple was seeing upwards of 10 percent of that flow actually going through our production network.”

Warren Anderson

Back in April, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the company’s XRP remittance platform processed $54 million worth of transactions from the U.S. to Mexico in the first week of February alone.

Binance Launches XRP Options Trading

On May 25, the world’s largest digital asset exchange Binance announces XRP options contracts on the exchange’s derivatives platform – one more tool by Binance to help increase market liquidity for XRP.

Ripple Again Calling on U.S. Regulators

On May 26, Ripple-CEO Brad Garlinghouse, not too active on Twitter these days anymore, tweets a cry for help:

Embrace crypto, Garlinghouse demands. Or risk falling behind China in terms of the unstoppable overhaul and technologization of the world’s financial system. Yet, the U.S. is fighting China on several fronts right now, just to mention Covid-19, the trade war, battle for Hong Kong, global claims to hegemony, you name it.

Just imagine what hub of financial industry innovation the United States of America could become by embracing, among others, modernized asset transfers. Yet, for now, the old system is fighting for its survival while politicians and bureaucrats defend the status quo.

Bitstamp Announces GBP/XRP Pair

Ripple ODL partner exchange Bitstamp on May 27 announces GBP trading. All of Bitstamp’s fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies will get an additional GBP pair, with zero trading fees through September 1, 2020, starting next week. Pairs includes USD, EUR, BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH and LTC.

Did Ripple CEO Silently Liquidate 67 Million XRP in 2017?

This is what an amended class-action lawsuit accuses Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse of. According to a Cointelegraph story published on May 27, Garlinghouse was presenting himself as bullish on XRP online while simultaneously liquidating his personal holdings.

The judge, however, requested that the plaintiffs explain the basis for their claims that Ripple made fraudulent claims concerning greater detail, citing several examples of the plaintiffs’ claims that were too general in scope.

A Closer Look at XRP’s Seemingly High Inflation Rate

On May 27, an analysis posted on reddit examines XRP’s high inflation rate – this despite assurances by Ripple to keep token supply in check and create a healthy eco-system.

The author of the detailed analysis goes to great lengths to come to the following takeaways:

• (…) Ripple (…) obviously want us to believe that XRP is entering the broader market at a much slower rate than reality.
• Low sales numbers reinforce that notion, however an inflationary average of 5% isn’t as sexy.
• Ripple is doing lots with XRP that it doesn’t consider a “sale.” This gap will probably only widen with Ripple provided loans on the horizon.
• At the current rate of distribution, Ripple doesn’t need to dip into its escrow for another 2-3 years.
• Somebody (or somebodies) is receiving large amounts of XRP that they aren’t paying for. Ripple, if you’re reading this, sign me up for that program please!

FYI, known anti-Ripple portal Messari.io back on May 22 lists a much higher XRP inflation rate: whopping 20 percent!

Yet lest weforget: Even if 87.5 percent of Bitcoin’s maximum supply have been distributed, nearly a quarter of all Bitcoin hasn’t moved in five years and a few hands only control the largest Bitcoin wallets. It’s anyone’s guess how many Bitcoin are really in circulation, lost forever or locked up for who knows until when.

Harnessing Ripple’s Cloud Power

In a blog post on May 27, Ripple highlights the benefits of using RippleNet Cloud. Customers can go live on RippleNet five weeks faster than on-prem customers, the article says, and avoid hardware requisition or staffing to get started—speeding up payments for the end consumer.

“Consumers today are digital-first—for example, ordering an Uber and getting to their destination with a few taps on their phone—and expect their banking services to be as well. Unfortunately, today’s global payments infrastructure has more in common with the outdated postal system than with this generation’s need for speed. RippleNet’s Cloud solution provides banks and financial institutions with a new platform to meet these demands.”

Amir Sarhangi, Vice President of Product at Ripple

Mercury FX Promises Exciting ODL News

On May 28, Mercury FX creates some mystery. What’s about to come? Maybe, with Bitstamp adding GDP to their platform, after long silence finally a partner is here who can provide the required liquidity.

ODL Indexes Reach ATH

The liquidity index for the Bitso XRP/MXN corridor reaches an all time high on May 29, with a new ATH as well for BTC Market’s XRP/AUD corridor.

That’s it for this XRP and Ripple Weekly Report. Tune back in for the next XRP Weekly Report, published on June 5, 2020.

If you like what you read, sending a tip to XRP address rLHzPsX6oXkzU2qL12kHCH8G8cnZv1rBJh tag 3130998845 is most welcome!

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This is the month we’ve been waiting for. Swell conference Nov 7-8 in Singapore is just around the corner. We should expect several announcements this month and Q3 report might hint at ramped up MoneyGram and other On-Demand Liquidity (ODL, formerly xRapid) volume. BTW, did MGI bottom out?

And certainly not bad news for project Ripple: After Visa and Mastercard, others like PayPal are reconsidering involvement in Facebook’s Libra network. Wary of attracting regulatory scrutiny, some of Libra’s early backers decline Facebook’s request to publicly support the project.

This is highly speculative, but chances are that Ripple’s involvement with regulators might draw Facebook closer to Ripple. The industry is certainly having another better look at Ripple’s approach and progress after learning that Facebook’s brazen attitude isn’t that productive.

Big XRP upvotes by big traders

Talking TA, trading legend Peter Brandt sees some evidence that XRP is bottoming against Bitcoin:

This comes a bit as a surprise from someone who is not exactly known as an XRP lover. Brandt respects Ripple as a company but believes that they grossly manipulate the token’s price.

Contrary to Brandt, trader Luke Martin with 211k Twitter followers calls XRP this month’s “favorite” altcoin. Bookmark his Twitter thread, he’ll update it throughout October and just added (what we’ve been saying here all along): “Still think that at some point in the next 30 days $XRP reaches the 4000 sats zone.”

Tune in daily to XRP Briefs – for all issues go to Daily Briefs on Coil.