Ripple, the U.S. blockchain banking payment technology company, said Wednesday (Jan. 11) its digital currency, dubbed XRP, will begin trading on Bitstamp, the Europe-based bitcoin exchange.
According to a report by Reuters, XRP will start trading on Bitstamp on Jan. 17. Ripple said the XRP/euro and XRP/dollar currency pairs will be available to trade to all customers and regions that are supported by Bitstamp. According to the report, Nejc Kodrič, CEO at Bitstamp, said the company went with XRP after evaluating a number of digital currencies to include on the exchange. It chose XRP because customer demand for the digital currency was strong. Just like bitcoin, XPR can be moved around the globe in a speedy fashion and with anonymity. Digital currencies, like bitcoin and XPR, are attractive to people wanting to circumvent strict capital controls in places like China, noted the report. Currently, XPR is valued at less than a penny, but it is still the third-largest digital currency based on market cap equal to $245.2 million. Reuters noted volume over the last 24 hours was around $2.2 million.
In November, Ripple announced Chris Larsen will end his time as CEO of Ripple, with COO and President Brad Garlinghouse taking his place effective Jan. 1, 2017. According to a statement from Larsen, the executive will continue to play an active role in the development of the blockchain firm. Reports said he will remain a controlling shareholder and added that he looks “forward to taking a break from the day-to-day, while staying highly involved in Ripple’s strategic direction.”
Under his direction, Larsen led Ripple to raise $93 million from investors, most recently closing a $55 million round led by Standard Chartered, Accenture Ventures, SCB Digital Ventures and SBI Holdings. Larsen was also involved in a recent trial that saw 12 R3 member banks test Ripple’s distributed financial technology and the potential for its digital asset to scale liquidity and reduce the costs and inefficiencies of interbank cross-border payments.
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