Coinbase, the San Francisco based exchange, announced XRP trading is now available to Coinbase users residing in New York.
XRP Trading on Coinbase in NY
Coinbase launched XRP as a new tradable cryptocurrency in February 2019, but users from New York State were prohibited from this service.
New York State is especially strict when it comes to approving money transmitter licenses, but Ripple and Coinbase seem to have overcome this. Coinbase users from the United Kingdom remain restricted from trading the digital token until further notice.
Coinbase made the announcement on their Twitter account on May 13th.
XRP (XRP) is now available to Coinbase users who are New York residents. New Yorkers can now log in to buy, sell, convert, send, receive, or store XRP on https://t.co/bCG11KMQ6s or using our iOS and Android apps.https://t.co/5VE1WklrWo pic.twitter.com/Zp5odgaoHs
— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) May 13, 2019
It seems like the relationship between Coinbase and Ripple has been getting closer this year. In fact, some have even raised concerns. For one, Bitcoinist previously reported that XRP’s total market cap might be inflated by as much as 47 percent.
Additionally, investor and entrepreneur, Alistar Milne hinted on Ripple paying Coinbase to list XRP earlier this year. A rather ambiguous response from Elliott Suthers of Coinbase allowed for further speculation within the cryptocurrency community.
The latest developments seem to give even more legitimacy to these speculations. After listing XRP on their exchange, Coinbase also added a cross-border payments service for XRP and stablecoin USDC for users with a Coinbase account.
This payment service allows users to “send and receive money virtually by sending those cryptocurrencies and have the recipient convert them into local currencies.”
XRP Price Soars 20%
Where many altcoins have been profiting from Bitcoin’s current bull-run, XRP has been lagging behind. The XRP/USD [coin_price coin=ripple] pair has been consolidating since the start of 2019, whereas XRP/BTC has been in a strong downtrend until last night.
Coinbase’s announcement spread like wildfire amongst cryptocurrency traders, resulting in a strong impact on the XRP price.
XRP surged 25% against BTC within 8 hours, possibly starting a new bull cycle.
Börse Stuttgart lists XRP and LTC ETN’s
The news coincided with a press release from the second largest German exchange Börse Stuttgart (SWB), announcing it has listed two cryptocurrency Exchange Traded Notes (ETN’s) for XRP and Litecoin (LTC).
The SWB ETN’s will be the first of their kind in Germany and will be tradable against Swedish Krona and Euro. SWB executive Jürgen Dietrich recognizes increased institutional demand and said there is “a lot of interest in cryptocurrencies.”
The official press release notes:
These ETNs will allow investors in Germany to track future price developments of the two cryptocurrencies Litecoin and Ripple through exchange-traded securities for the first time.
Although crypto markets never sleep, the crypto ETN’s will be available for trading on the exchange from 8:00 to 22:00 Central European Time (CET).
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