Ripple Enters Massive Partnership; XRP Spikes
According to a post published to the blog of Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-headquartered fintech company has joined in a partnership with MoneyGram, one of the world’s most prominent money transfer firms. As a result, the value of the XRP crypto asset has spiked, rallying by 7% in the past 24 hours while Bitcoin has posted a relatively skimpy 1.5% performance.
This partnership, which is currently contracted to last for two years (which can be extended), Ripple will be MoneyGram’s primary partner for cross-border payment and forex settlement through the medium of digital assets. In other words, MoneyGram will be utilizing XRP in its primary business line — money transfer. For those that are fans of Ripple and its go-to cryptocurrency, this news is monumental.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, this partnership was triggered by Ripple investing $50 million in MoneyGram, which has an $80 million market capitalization according to Google Finance. The firm has purchased 10% of the firm for $30 million (implying a private valuation of $300 million, down from $1.2 billion) and gives MoneyGram the right to ask for $20 million from its financier any time in the next two years.
Due to this news, shares in the money transfer firm have jumped by 114%, rallying from around $1.5 to $3.10 in the after hours trading session.
This partnership will take a big focus on xRapid, Ripple’s solution for liquidity that utilizes XRP directly as a “real-time bridge between the sending and receiving currencies.” Alex Holmes, the chief executive of MoneyGram, claims that this partnership will allow for his firm to ” instantly settle funds from US dollars to destination currencies on a 24/7 basis, which has the potential to revolutionize our operations and dramatically streamline our global liquidity management.”
This arguably marks the biggest case of real-world XRP adoption to date, making it no surprise that the cryptocurrency continues to rally as Ethereum World News writes this.
Photo by Armando Arauz on Unsplash
