coindesk.com
San Francisco-based fintech firm Ripple will launch a new “Liquidity Hub” product to help enterprise customers access BTC, ETH, LTC, ETC, BCH and XRP from a range of global exchanges, market makers and OTC desks.
The Ripple Liquidity Hub will support the five cryptos at launch and employ smart order routing to source digital assets at optimized prices, according to an announcement Tuesday. The first partner for the new service is Coinme, the payments and crypto ATM company that recently partnered with Walmart.
Ripple plans to add additional features such as support for staking and yield generating functionalities, and also explore liquidity from a growing army of decentralized exchanges (DEXs), said Asheesh Birla, general manager of cross-border payment system RippleNet. The Ripple Liquidity Hub will go live in early 2022, Birla told Coindesk.
In fact, the infrastructure for the Ripple Liquidity Hub was mostly in place already, said Birla, thanks to the RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) products. Branching out to include more cryptocurrencies was a response to customer demand, he said.
“We had a lot of expertise in connecting our customers that wanted to move money across borders by leveraging crypto exchanges,” said Birla. “Then we started hearing from our customers, saying, ‘hey, we were buying cross border payment liquidity from you; can we also buy crypto liquidity in terms of the ability to buy bitcoin and ether and other assets for our customers?’”
Birla calls the partnering with Coinme a “match made in heaven,” given the bitcoin ATM operator’s unique liquidity demands.
“What’s great about the partnership with Coinme is they have the right product to service end consumers with their Walmart deal,” said Birla. “They have a working capital issue when sourcing cryptocurrencies because they have to pay out bitcoin and other assets immediately when folks go to their ATM, but they don’t always get the cash several days later.”
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