Renowned San-Francisco-based blockchain company Ripple has recently announced an expansion bid that involves a sizeable increase in its engineering team as well as a move to Iceland. The company which is behind the very popular XRP token is hoping to grow its brand in Iceland by acquiring Algrim, a digital currency trading firm that is based in Iceland.
Through the acquisition, Ripple is aiming at providing better services to customers of its RippleNet product suite. The company has been working very hard to expand the reach of its cross-border payments solution and the recent expansion will go a long way in helping it achieve that goal.
With RippleNet, businesses are able to make cross-border payments between several countries. This is especially good news for the unbanked particularly in areas that do not have widespread banking options. Ripple facilitates the cross-border payments by swapping the original currency with XRP before sending across borders after which it is swapped back to fiat currency at the destination of the payment.
Why Algrim?
Well, to accommodate the sudden and mostly temporary busts of XRP purchases in the process of these payments, the business requires a large supply of the token to dig into. This is what makes the acquisition of Algrim such a monumental leap forward for Ripple. The Iceland-based crypto trading firm will be of huge importance when it comes to building out Ripple’s “On-Demand Liquidity” – this is what the company calls its supply of XRP used for making payments with the digital token.
“With built-in expertise in trading and exchanges, the addition of Algrim’s engineering talent to our team will be instrumental in continuing the momentum we’re already experiencing with On-Demand Liquidity,” Christopher Kanaan, the SVP of Engineering at Ripple commented.
Both companies are quite happy with the new arrangement especially because they share a vision to enable mainstream and wider adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology.
What Next?
Going forward, the new Iceland office will serve as a regional hub for Ripple as it moves ahead with its massive global expansion bid. RippleNet currently boasts of more than 200 customers including Xendpay. There are also several other businesses that use XRP to send payment across borders and they include companies like MoneyGram, Cuallix as well as Mercury FX. In addition to all that, Ripple has also been inking more partnerships across the globe.
All its expansion plans aside, Ripple has been going through a bit of trouble with regards to the price of its XRP token. The price of the token fell significantly this year and it has been showing very little signs of a speedy recovery. Hopefully, these partnerships might be able to help prop-up the price.
