A firm that specialises in crypto infrastructure, Fortress Trust, will be acquired by cryptocurrency corporation Ripple on Friday. This will grant it a Nevada licence and help it to grow outside its primary business of blockchain-enabled payments.
The conditions of the arrangement were kept a secret by Ripple.
Fortress Trust was established in 2021 by Scott Purcell, a businessman with experience in equity and debt crowdfunding, with the goal of assisting big businesses when dealing with cryptocurrencies. Purcell previously served as CEO of Prime Trust, a cryptocurrency custodian that closed when BitGo backed out of a plan to buy the company.
Most people are familiar with Ripple from its work in international payments. To approve quick transactions across a network of banks and other financial institutions, the company uses a blockchain-based messaging system similar to SWIFT.
Partners of Ripple include SBI Remit in Japan, Nium in Singapore, and Modulr in the United Kingdom.
The company also makes cross-border transfers between banks and other financial institutions using XRP, a cryptocurrency it owns a sizable chunk of and has been intimately identified with.
The announcement didn't cause XRP to move significantly. The token's price was 50 cents, and it had increased by around 0.4% over the previous day.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against Ripple, alleging that the company's leaders sold over $1 billion worth of the XRP cryptocurrency to investors in an unauthorised securities offering and that the token should be treated as a security.
Prior to this, MoneyGram and Ripple collaborated to develop a trial programme that allowed instant transfers utilising XRP as a "bridge" currency rather than pre-funded accounts. In March 2021, MoneyGram and Ripple ended their collaboration as a result of the lawsuit.
But in July, a judge made a significant decision in favour of Ripple, declaring that the XRP currency was "not necessarily a security on its face."
Recently, Ripple has experienced growth in its company, especially outside of the United States, where the majority of its clients are headquartered. Stu Alderoty, Ripple's chief legal officer, responded to a question about whether the decision meant that American banks would turn back to Ripple to employ its ODL product by saying, "I think the answer to that is yes."
This year, Fortress is Ripple's second acquisition. In May, the business reached an agreement to pay $250 million acquire Metaco, a Swiss provider of cryptocurrency custody services.
The amount of the deal, according to a Ripple official who declined to be named, is less than what Ripple paid to acquire Metaco. In the seed investment round for Fortress Trust, Ripple participated as a minor investor.
In particular, Ripple claimed the deal would "improve the customer experience within our payments and liquidity solutions" for its existing lines of business.
With the purchase of Fortress Trust, Ripple also added a Nevada trust to its growing collection of international regulatory licences. This, according to a company representative, would allow the business to "provide regulated services — for both fiat and crypto — to certain customers in the U.S."
Ripple already has 30 money transmitter licences across the United States, a New York BitLicense that enables it to conduct regulated virtual currency business in the state of New York, and an in-principle Major Payment Institution Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the nation's central bank.
The business previously disclosed to CNBC that it was seeking an e-money licence from the Irish central bank.
“Longer term, we anticipate there will be ways we can leverage the technology to support new initiatives on our roadmap and enable Ripple to serve a broader segment of customers and use cases,” a Ripple spokesperson told CNBC via email.
With its focus on assisting businesses and individual users keep their tokens in a secure, decentralised address without requiring much technical knowledge, Ripple is one of several players in the so-called "crypto custody" industry.
Fortress Trust enables businesses to access information from other software components, such as wallets containing cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, by using application programming interfaces, or APIs – systems that permit various apps to communicate with one another.
According to the website for the startup Fortress, it collaborates with "crypto exchanges, NFT marketplaces, tokenization platforms, corporate brands, agencies, securities exchanges, real estate, healthcare, neobanks, sports and entertainment celebrities, musicians, influencers, and other innovators."
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
The conditions of the arrangement were kept a secret by Ripple.
Fortress Trust was established in 2021 by Scott Purcell, a businessman with experience in equity and debt crowdfunding, with the goal of assisting big businesses when dealing with cryptocurrencies. Purcell previously served as CEO of Prime Trust, a cryptocurrency custodian that closed when BitGo backed out of a plan to buy the company.
Most people are familiar with Ripple from its work in international payments. To approve quick transactions across a network of banks and other financial institutions, the company uses a blockchain-based messaging system similar to SWIFT.
Partners of Ripple include SBI Remit in Japan, Nium in Singapore, and Modulr in the United Kingdom.
The company also makes cross-border transfers between banks and other financial institutions using XRP, a cryptocurrency it owns a sizable chunk of and has been intimately identified with.
The announcement didn't cause XRP to move significantly. The token's price was 50 cents, and it had increased by around 0.4% over the previous day.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against Ripple, alleging that the company's leaders sold over $1 billion worth of the XRP cryptocurrency to investors in an unauthorised securities offering and that the token should be treated as a security.
Prior to this, MoneyGram and Ripple collaborated to develop a trial programme that allowed instant transfers utilising XRP as a "bridge" currency rather than pre-funded accounts. In March 2021, MoneyGram and Ripple ended their collaboration as a result of the lawsuit.
But in July, a judge made a significant decision in favour of Ripple, declaring that the XRP currency was "not necessarily a security on its face."
Recently, Ripple has experienced growth in its company, especially outside of the United States, where the majority of its clients are headquartered. Stu Alderoty, Ripple's chief legal officer, responded to a question about whether the decision meant that American banks would turn back to Ripple to employ its ODL product by saying, "I think the answer to that is yes."
This year, Fortress is Ripple's second acquisition. In May, the business reached an agreement to pay $250 million acquire Metaco, a Swiss provider of cryptocurrency custody services.
The amount of the deal, according to a Ripple official who declined to be named, is less than what Ripple paid to acquire Metaco. In the seed investment round for Fortress Trust, Ripple participated as a minor investor.
In particular, Ripple claimed the deal would "improve the customer experience within our payments and liquidity solutions" for its existing lines of business.
With the purchase of Fortress Trust, Ripple also added a Nevada trust to its growing collection of international regulatory licences. This, according to a company representative, would allow the business to "provide regulated services — for both fiat and crypto — to certain customers in the U.S."
Ripple already has 30 money transmitter licences across the United States, a New York BitLicense that enables it to conduct regulated virtual currency business in the state of New York, and an in-principle Major Payment Institution Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the nation's central bank.
The business previously disclosed to CNBC that it was seeking an e-money licence from the Irish central bank.
“Longer term, we anticipate there will be ways we can leverage the technology to support new initiatives on our roadmap and enable Ripple to serve a broader segment of customers and use cases,” a Ripple spokesperson told CNBC via email.
With its focus on assisting businesses and individual users keep their tokens in a secure, decentralised address without requiring much technical knowledge, Ripple is one of several players in the so-called "crypto custody" industry.
Fortress Trust enables businesses to access information from other software components, such as wallets containing cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, by using application programming interfaces, or APIs – systems that permit various apps to communicate with one another.
According to the website for the startup Fortress, it collaborates with "crypto exchanges, NFT marketplaces, tokenization platforms, corporate brands, agencies, securities exchanges, real estate, healthcare, neobanks, sports and entertainment celebrities, musicians, influencers, and other innovators."
(Source:www.cnbc.com)