Leading Crypto Payment Processor Adding Support for XRP As Ripple Pushes to Build Digital Asset Ecosystem

Xpring is adding new players in the crypto space to its XRP developer community.

In addition to launching the Xpring platform, Ripple is partnering with leading crypto payment processor BitPay, allowing BitPay wallet and prepaid cardholders to spend XRP with any BitPay merchant.

Ripple is also backing a new decentralized trading platform that aims to revamp the derivatives markets, allowing trades to run automatically over peer-to-peer networks.

The startup, Vega, just raised $5 million in seed funding. Investors include Pantera Capital and Ripple’s Xpring.

The platform joins a growing ecosystem of decentralized finance tools that aim eliminate middlemen and corporate controls.

Says Vega founder Barney Mannerings,

“We support the right to collaborate and trade freely. Privileged institutions and gatekeepers have for too long kept the financial system rigid and rigged in their favour. It is neither desirable nor necessary for market participants to be subject to profiteering, monitoring, and control by those privileged institutions.” 

According to the announcement, the new platform has a number of key features.

• a fully automated end-to-end trading system that dramatically cuts operational overheads versus traditional trading operations
• a protocol that incentivizes market creators and market makers with significant rewards from fees paid by other participants for launching liquid markets
• a bespoke sidechain optimized for trading, with 10–100x faster execution than similar protocols on general-purpose blockchains
• a framework for creating and customizing products that give every participant the freedom to build new financial instruments and markets