Algrim has integrated more than 30 markets into its developing crypto trading platform over the past two years. It’s engineers bring more than a decade’s worth of experience to the Ripple team, according to the announcement.
Ripple continues its run of acquisitions, announcing an expansion into Iceland with its acqui-hire of crypto trading firm Algrim in a blog post on Sept. 30.
The acquisition adds six engineers to Ripple’s ranks. This new team will play an integral role in its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) program.
Ripple strengthens European presence
Per the announcement, Iceland will now serve as one of the company’s engineering hubs, joining London as another European base. Amir Sarhangi, Ripple’s vice president of products, said:
“This team hits the ground running as opposed to building out a team that has to gain this knowledge.”
Algrim and Ripple – a natural fit
Algrim CEO, Dadi Armannsson, described the decision to join Ripple as a natural fit, explaining:
“Both companies share a vision to enable widespread adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology, which aligns directly with what we’ve been working towards for the past several years.”
Ripple last week acquired payments platform, Logos Network, through its Xpring initiative, and also announced a partnership with MoneyGram earlier this year.
Poloniex Exchange Will Upgrade XRP Wallets Monday, Limiting Activities
U.S.-based crypto exchange Poloniex took to Twitter today to announce the upgrade of its XRP wallets, which will result in withdrawals and deposits being suspended for several hours.
What will change?
On Sept. 5, the crypto exchange took to Twitter to explain that it will upgrade its XRP wallets to further enhance the user experience. Once the upgrade is implemented the base reserve deposit requirement of 20 XRP to create a new address will no longer be needed. In addition, deposit confirmations have been reduced from 12 to 2, which will reduce deposit times from 20 minutes to about 15 seconds.
Poloniex will reimburse users affected by flash crash losses
On Aug. 13, Cointelegraph reported that Poloniex announced a scheme to reimburse users affected by a flash crash in May, which led to total losses of around 1,800 Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency exchange pledged to repay daily trading fees (in BTC) to impacted lenders until their losses were fully recovered.
Some users were displeased with how Poloniex generalized the loss, with some users claiming the leading cryptocurrency exchange stole their funds because they didn’t have active margin loans on the day of the crash. Cointelegraph reached out to affected lenders on Reddit for their views, to which Reddit user geopo321 responded:
«If Poloniex were operating in any regulated financial space, they would not be allowed to get away with this. They are simply taking advantage of the fact that there are no regulations or standards for them to abide by set by the industry. Instead of keeping payback as a high priority, they have pretty much deemed it as the lowest priority and taken the minimum amount of steps to try and appease affected parties.»
Please note, there is no confirmation if the respondent was indeed affected.