Ripple Dominates Crypto Market With Standard Custody Acquisition

Ripple, an inter-state payment company and XRP coin manager. (Photo; Doc. Blocklr)

JAKARTA - Ripple, a blockchain company and crypto developer XRP, announced that it agreed to acquire Standard Custody & Trust Company, a regulated digital asset platform. The move demonstrates Ripple's commitment to complying with regulations and strengthen their products, as well as following industry trends that integrate blockchain technology and digital assets into existing financial systems.

With this acquisition, Ripple will get a limited trust charter and a license for remittances from Standard Custody, which will add to their regulatory license portfolio. Currently, Ripple and its subsidiaries have a BitLicense license from New York, nearly 40 licenses for remittances in the US, major payment institution licenses from Singapore, and a registration of virtual asset service providers from the Central Bank of Ireland.

Ripple and Standard Custody are dedicated to allowing companies to take advantage of blockchain in various cases of financial use by building institutional class solutions to trade, store, and exchange values, said Ripple President Monica Long.

By expanding our licensing portfolio and making smart acquisitions, Ripple is in a good position to take advantage of current market opportunities and strengthen our crypto infrastructure solutions. We will continue to take advantage of our strong financial position to expand our product offerings, support new initiatives in product roadmaps, and serve a wider segment of customers," he added.

Ripple continues to expand their global presence, by acquiring Standard Custody after acquiring Metaco, a storage solution selected by many banks in the world.

Recently, Ripple also announced their storage partnerships with high-end banks, such as HSBC, BBVA, and Custody, as well as expansions to new regions for their payment offerings, such as Africa. Focusing on their core business in payments and storage, Ripple supports commercial storage offerings in 20 regulatory jurisdictions, and payments to 70 countries around the world.

"Standard Custody gives trust and platforms to financial institutions to keep their digital assets in place. Ripple continues to lead the industry with deep crypto expertise, its relationships with financial institutions, and strong product offerings, both in payments and in storage," said Jack McDonald, CEO of Standard Custody.

Standard Custody is a subsidiary of Polysign, and the closing of this transaction is still awaiting regulatory approval and standard closing conditions. TD Cowen acted as an exclusive financial advisor to Polysign, according to announcements released on Tuesday.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Ripple or XRP is the third largest crypto asset by market cap, after Bitcoin and Ethereum. When this article was created, the price of XRP was 0.64 US dollars (Rp 10,000) per coin, with a daily trading volume of 3.5 billion US dollars (Rp 54.6 trillion). Ripple has a total supply of 100 billion XRP, with 46.3 billion XRP circulating in the market.

Ripple is an open payment protocol that allows fast, cheap, and secure cross-border transfers. Ripple uses distributed ledger technology called XRP Ledger, which is supported by a global peer-to-peer server network. Ripple also has other products aimed at financial institutions, such as RippleNet, a global payment network connected to more than 300 service providers, and On-Demand Liquidity, a service that uses XRP as a bridge between fiat currencies.

Ripple was founded in 2012 by Chris Larsen, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, USA, and has branches in London, Singapore, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, and Sydney. Ripple has more than 500 employees and has received funding of $293.8 million from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, SBI Group, and Santander InnoVectures.