Ripple Is Looking to Build a Market-Making Platform for XRP: Sources

Global payments company Ripple is looking to build a crypto market-making platform and is trying to hire staff in London and Singapore, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The company is looking to recruit as many as 10 people and is focused on initially hiring a crypto trader with experience with arbitrage between different exchanges, and a marketing and sales person, who will be tasked with building relationships with liquidity providers and exchanges, the person said.

The new group will be divided among London, New York and Singapore.

After the publication of this article, a Ripple spokesperson told CoinDesk the firm is not currently looking to build a market-making platform for XRP.

Last December, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ripple Labs and two of its executives with offering unregistered securities that raised more than $1.3 billion in XRP sales.

The news sunk the price of XRP, and within days after the announcement, it was reported that high-frequency trader Jump Trading and financer Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital had stopped making markets in the token. Coinbase and other U.S. exchanges also suspended XRP trading following the lawsuit.

In a sign that some of these woes may be behind the firm, XRP’s price has risen back above $1 and feedback from the court case has generally been positive.

Read more: Ripple Waiting for SEC Suit Resolution Before Going Public, Says CEO

A recent job posting for an institutional markets analyst position said Ripple’s “vision of an internet of value requires digital asset efficiency and a healthy crypto market, and robust liquidity is a core component of making that vision a reality.’’

Launching its own market-making platform would allow Ripple to manage liquidity in XRP, especially if other liquidity providers have stopped doing so.

While XRP and Ripple are fundamentally linked, they operate as two distinct identities. Ripple is a fintech company with a focus on global payment services, while XRP is a digital asset intended to be used for microtransactions, remittances and online payments.

UPDATE (Sept. 17, 19:22 UTC): Adds comment from Ripple spokesperson.