Ripple takes notice of South Korea, looks to boost XRPL adoption

The company behind the cryptocurrency XRP and the XRP ledger is partnering with a local research firm to shore up its footing in South Korea

by James Cirrone /

July 27, 2023 04:13 pm

JUN3/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

Ripple continues to look for opportunities to scale up its business and bring its services to new countries after emerging partially victorious from its years-long legal battle with the SEC.

South Korea is Ripple’s latest gambit. The company said on Tuesday that it will be partnering with Seoul-based firm Catalyze Research to bolster awareness of XRP Ledger (XRPL).

Three engineers founded Ripple, launching XRPL in June 2012 as a peer-to-peer blockchain. The network had 116 active validators as of July 27.

Ripple and Catalyze Research will be developing an XRPL education program for developers. The pair will also be hosting workshops, meetups and hackathons to help integrate decentralized applications (dApps) on the XRPL platform, according to a statement.

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Ripple told Blockworks it’s been working with Catalyze Research for about a year and described the firm as “scrappy.” Ripple added that its blockchain analysis team is plugged into the Web3 ecosystem and has a lot of experience with chains such as Avalanche and Tezos, making them natural partners in a play to boost developer participation on XRPL.

Markus Infanger, a Ripple vice president, called South Korea a “dynamic market” and praised the country’s developers.

“South Korea has emerged as a vibrant hub for blockchain and Web3 technology, with a strong developer community that has showcased remarkable innovation and expertise,” Infanger said in a statement.

South Korea has booked a number of instances of elevated XRP trading volumes, compared to other nations. Ripple denied the partnership stemmed from those volumes.

From January to May, XRP was the most highly traded cryptocurrency on South Korean crypto exchanges aside from bitcoin (BTC).

Over the same period, trading volumes for XRP, which totaled to $24.5 billion, nearly tripled that of ether (ETH), which sat at around $9 billion.

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