With a new product that allows traditional financial institutions to offer cryptocurrency services to their customers, Ripple Labs is moving towards a “crypto-first future.”
In a new press release, the makers of XRP announced their newest product called the Ripple Liquidity Hub.
“[It is] a groundbreaking new way for enterprises to easily and efficiently source digital assets from the broader crypto market.
As a crypto liquidity platform built for the enterprise, it will unleash the potential to access deep liquidity within markets, accelerating the shift to crypto.”
The company has been using this crypto sourcing technology to support its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product for nearly two years.
In a statement to Yahoo Finance, RippleNET GM Asheesh Birla says,
“Customers are coming to banks asking, ‘How can we buy Bitcoin [BTC] or digital assets?’ This is a solution that enables banking customers to do that.”
Ripple’s press release goes on to say,
“While the XRP Ledger and XRP are and will remain a native part of our tech stack, we at Ripple believe that achieving interoperability is key to unlocking crypto’s true potential.
Because of this, Ripple Liquidity Hub will initially support BTC, ETH [Ethereum], LTC [Litecoin], ETC [Ethereum Classic], BCH [Bitcoin Cash] and XRP (availability will vary by geography) with plans to add additional digital assets over time.
In the future, Ripple plans to add functionality such as staking and yield-generating functionalities.”
Ripple is currently being sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under allegations that it sold XRP as an unregistered security.
The SEC announced the lawsuit in December 2020, crashing XRP’s price. Despite the unresolved nature of the charges, XRP is currently trading at $1.25, up over 500% since the initial lawsuit fallout.
