Ripple Launches ‘Xpring’ Initiative

Ripple announced on May 14th Xpring (pronounced Spring), a new initiative that will invest in, incubate, acquire and provide grants to companies and projects run by proven entrepreneurs. Every entrepreneur will use the digital asset XRP and the XRP Ledger, the open-sourced, decentralized technology behind XRP, to solve their customers’ problems in a transformative way.

As a major contributor to the XRP Ledger codebase and large holder of XRP, Ripple aims to support entrepreneurs and developers with their XRP-related projects.

In order to offer the best support, Ripple is bringing on Ethan Beard as a Senior Vice President to lead Xpring and Ripple’s developer program. Before moving into an advisor role at several technology companies, Ethan served as Director of the Facebook Developer Network from 2009-2012, where he oversaw worldwide developer relations, operations and product marketing for the Facebook API.

“I love helping startups leverage new technologies and developments to grow. At Facebook, we saw companies in areas like gaming, music, and news use our platform to become big businesses, said Ethan Beard, SVP at Ripple. “Blockchain and digital assets have the ability to solve important problems and XRP – with it’s speed, scalability and demonstrated real-world use case – is a great tool for startups and entrepreneurs to build businesses around.”

At Ripple, XRP will continue to be used to help financial institutions remove friction from global payments. However, the characteristics of XRP and the XRP Ledger – superior speed, scalability and stability — make it perfect for entrepreneurs looking to solve problems across identity, trade finance, gaming and virtual goods, provenance, real estate, insurance, digital media and many other industries. Xpring’s entrepreneurs and companies will leverage XRP for use cases like these, among others.

As of today, Xpring has already offered support to:

• Scooter Braun, entertainment talent manager, entrepreneur and founder of SB Projects, who is pursuing several endeavors that will use XRP to improve artists’ ability to monetize and manage their content.
• Stefan Thomas, inventor of the Interledger Protocol (ILP), creator of BitcoinJS, co-founder of TxtBear, who just launched a new venture Coil to use XRP and the Interledger Protocol (ILP) for various micropayments applications, such as facilitating “bite-sized” purchases of media.
• Thomas McLeod, serial entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Omni, who will soon integrate XRP as a currency into Omni’s marketplace.
• Bart and Brad Stephens, co-founders of Blockchain Capital, who have the first fund to accept capital calls in digital assets with a focus on driving innovation in the blockchain sector.