Ripple and MoneyGram have jointly decided to conclude their present partnership arrangement, according to a statement dated Monday (March 8) posted to the Ripple website, which noted that the two companies “are both committed to revisiting our relationship in the future.”
“We are proud of the work we were able to accomplish in a short amount of time, as well as the impact we were able to achieve in bringing this first-of-its-kind product to market,” Ripple said in the statement. “Together, we processed billions of dollars through RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL).”
Earlier this month, news surfaced that MoneyGram was facing a lawsuit from investors who purchased Ripple’s XRP digital currency when MoneyGram was harnessing it for money transfers, which was prior to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing suit against Ripple.
In January, Ripple had responded to the SEC suit against it, contending that the agency’s opinion that its XRP digital currency is a security is false, according to a filing at the time.
The SEC contended that Ripple’s digital coin counts as a security, and, for that reason, the agency is allowed to regulate it. According to the SEC, Ripple had misled investors by selling more than $1 billion without registering with the agency.
Ripple said that’s not the case since XRP is instead a method of exchange, a digital coin harnessed to conduct both global and in-country transactions. It claimed that the SEC’s move “amounts to picking winners and losers” in the field since fellow digital currencies such as ether and bitcoin have not been subject to such rules.
On Dec. 28, Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, announced that trade limits went into effect that day and trading would be completely stopped Jan. 19.
“The trading suspension will not affect customers’ access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension,” Grewal said in a press release at the time.
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