Per a Sept. 27 blog post, Ripple’s Xpring initiative, the company’s investment arm, has onboarded Logos Network. Logos Network is a distributed ledger-based payment platform that focuses on speed and scalability.
Ripple, the San Francisco-based startup behind the third-largest asset on the crypto market, XRP, has acquired payments platform Logos Network to develop decentralized financial (DeFi) products.
As part of Xpring, the team behind Logos will be exploring a DeFi system that is set to leverage XRP at its core. With the acquisition, Logos’s founder and CEO Michael Zochowski will lead DeFi Products, as well as build relationships.
Exploring DeFi and building relationships
Commenting on the initiative, Zochowski said: “We expect that our team will work on a variety of projects at all levels of the Xpring platform, with a particular focus on enabling a wide range of DeFi applications. We continue to strongly believe that the future of payments and finance lies in blockchain and decentralization.”
Xpring’s projects and spendings
In mid-August, Xpring announced a 1 billion XRP (roughly $265 million) grant to web monetization platform Coil. Coil will reportedly use the funds to build an ecosystem of creators, developers, companies and nonprofits that use XRP through the Web Monetization open standard.
In April, Xpring and Bain Capital Ventures invested in early-stage blockchain venture capital firm Robot Ventures. Targeting fintech and product strategy disruptors, Robot Ventures invested in crypto mining firm Coinmine and Point, a startup developing new debit card solutions.
In July, Xpring published data on its spendings on XRP projects since its launch in May 2018. By the time, the incubator spent $500 million on related projects, distributing the funds to over 20 companies, including the blockchain-based gaming platform Forte.
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse Hints Firm May Seek IPO Within 12 Months
DAVOS, Switzerland – Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said an initial public offering (IPO) is seen as the “natural evolution for the company”, perhaps even this year.“I think over the next 12 months you’re definitely going to see IPOs in the crypto, blockchain space. I’m not sure we want to be first but we certainly don’t want to be last either, so I expect we’ll be on the leading side of that, not the lagging side”, Garlinghouse said.
He also said his cross-border payments company has been in communication with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the regulatory status of the cryptocurrency XRP.
“We have been talking to the SEC for some period of time”, he said. “I feel like educating regulators is part of my job and I think that’s been a really constructive process.”
It was the first time both of those points were addressed publicly by the firm, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
Garlinghouse made the comments at a Ripple-sponsored session at the Wall Street Journal lounge at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The San Francisco-based startup, which is working in concert with the financial services industry to rewire the world’s cross-border payments system, recently raised $200 million at an eye-popping $10 billion valuation.
The blockchain firm also announced on Wednesday that its XRP sales fell significantly in the last quarter.
Sales dropped 80 percent from the $66.24 million sold in Q3 to just over $13 million in Q4, according to Ripple’s XRP Markets Report. The drop is partly due to Ripple’s suspension of programmatic sales, which accounted for $16.1 million in the previous quarter. Over-the-counter (OTC) trades also dropped 74 percent quarter-on-quarter.
