Rumours About XRP Support on BitPay Confirmed
- Gift card merchant eGifter and humanitarian organisation CareUSA will be the first merchants to accept XRP through BitPay.
- Support for the cryptocurrency has been achieved through collaboration with Xpring.
Brad Garlinghouse, Chief Executive Officer of Ripple, and Clifton Leaf, Editor-in-Chief at Fortune, at Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance conference in Montauk, New York. Rebecca Greenfield/Fortune
In a move that was deemed unlikely, despite being speculated upon, BitPay has now officially announced XRP support on its platform. Merchants will be able to receive the cryptocurrency with the third highest market cap, and two major ones have confirmed their support from the get go.
One of them is one of the most popular e-commerce website among crypto enthusiasts – eGifter. With the lack of official cryptocurrency support by most big retailers, the gift card merchant has allowed a user-friendly way of spending cryptocurrency on websites, services and stores such as Amazon, iTunes, Macy’s, Target, Uber and many more. While actual support is still not live, Tyler Roye, CEO of eGifter, has already announced their plans to support XRP through BitPay stating:
“We’re excited to add XRP as a payment option on the eGifter platform, and we welcome XRP early adopters in the same way we did those of Bitcoin in 2014.”
In addition, humanitarian organisation CareUSA will also make use of the new cryptocurrency addition. While its popularity within the crypto community pales in comparison to initiatives by native crypto businesses such as Coinbase and Binance, it has a proven track record, full transparency and 90% of their expenses globally go into program activities.
More are sure to follow, and while this move may perhaps not be to the taste of some bitcoin maximalists and decentralisation proponents, this decision could prove profitable for the early bitcoin payments provider.
XRP is the fourth supported cryptocurrency on the platform which is not a stablecoin. The other supported cryptos are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and as of recently – Ethereum. XRP’s addition is by far the most controversial within the larger community, but the speed and utility for cross-border payments it provides, as well as its network effect make a solid case for this decision.
- A federal judge ruled that the sale of XRP through exchanges and algorithms did not qualify as selling securities, which could have a major impact on several SEC lawsuits.
- The institutional sale of the token, however, did violate federal securities laws, and the lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple will have to go to trial.
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- These documents are seen as central in Ripple’s battle against the SEC, which in 2020 accused the company of selling its XRP token without registering it as a security.
- The documents in question are internal emails, text messages, and expert reports that followed Hinman’s 2018 speech, in which he said ETH and BTC were not securities.
- The exchange argues that the SEC failed to provide a “fair notice” that selling XRP was illegal, and that it previously made public statements that those transactions were lawful.
- Coinbase also pointed out that the SEC is yet to provide clear guidance to crypto businesses, and that it keeps being inconsistent about its enforcement approach.