Ripple
Global payments unicorn Remitly, which transfers more than $6 billion a year by allowing customers to make person-to-person international money transfers from the US, is considering whether to implement Ripple’s cross-border payment solutions.
Ripple and XRP researcher Steven Diep uncovered a clip of Remitly CEO explaining why he’s hesitant to utilize cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin directly, but remains interested in blockchain payment solutions like those offered by Ripple.
“Think of us like a mobile phone alternative to Western Union or MoneyGram. We’re sending over $6 billion a year. In terms of scale and size we’re close to 1,000 people worldwide. We’ve raised close to $200 million in equity and, most importantly, we’ve served over a million people around the globe, and our customers tend to be immigrants.”
“Now the focus is on blockchain. And when I thought a lot about Bitcoin, especially as I was building the business, I always come back to the customer and say, ‘What is the customer valuing?'”
“We could integrate with Ripple. That’s one we pay a lot of attention to. Or the customer could be an end consumer.
I’m seeing – how can financial services institutions like us integrate with blockchain technologies to drive down our costs and therefore make it less expensive for customers, or faster to your ACH point?”
Remitly serves more than a million customers a year, with most of its customers in underserved regions such as Mexico, India and the Philippines.
ChainFront Supports XRP and Ethereum
ChainFront, a startup aimed at helping enterprise companies create crypto applications, just added support for XRP and Ethereum.
“The XRP Ledger and Ethereum are at the forefront of blockchain development. With some of the fastest transaction times, XRP may be one of the first cryptocurrencies to gain widespread consumer and enterprise adoption, and Ethereum has the most global active users aside from Bitcoin.
But like all blockchains, wallets still present a challenge to application developers and their subsequent end-users. With the launch of our API for Ripple and Ethereum, ChainFront has created a way for developers to remove the complexity of interacting with Ripple or Ethereum for anyone.”
The platform also supports Bitcoin and Stellar.
Binance CEO Goes Off the Chain
The founder of Morgan Creek Digital just hosted Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao in the latest edition of the Off the Chain podcast.
The two talk about Zhao’s early days and why the future crypto entrepreneur became curious about Bitcoin. They also cover the company’s critics and CZ’s latest plans to boost Binance and the crypto industry at large.