Suffice it to say, 2020 was a challenging, at times chaotic and exhausting year — I won’t attempt to recap all of the world’s events, and certainly hope that 2021 will soon be a bit calmer and more peaceful.

Despite these challenges, Ripple had a milestone year. We experienced increased customer growth and traction in key markets, and saw incredible innovation from developers in the XRP community. Our team continues to serve customers and partner with industry pioneers who share our vision in enabling the Internet of Value, where money moves as efficiently as information on the internet. 

While there is still regulatory uncertainty in the U.S., we have been grateful for the support both publicly and in direct conversations from a broad, cross-section of our global community including customers, partners, shareholders, industry players and global regulators. We ended the year strong and with the new administration and SEC leadership expected to be confirmed in the coming months — I feel well prepared and confident that we have the right team here at Ripple and ingredients in place to make 2021 even more successful than last year. 

RippleNet customers need solutions that not only save money, but help them to grow and scale their business. We are laser focused on continuing to improve the capabilities of our products, as well as adding new ones that best serve the needs of our customers. 

By the numbers, RippleNet had a banner year. In 2020, we processed nearly 3 million transactions over RippleNet — this is nearly 5X volume growth compared to 2019. On-Demand Liquidity continues to grow and scale — we experienced 12x year over year growth, and transactions in 2020 had a notional value of ~$2.4B. 

Customer interest globally remains very strong —the team continued to close new customer deals at a rate of 2 per week, across more than 40 countries, 18 of which are new to RippleNet. Despite the SEC lawsuit filed against Ripple on December 22, we signed 15 new customers to close out 2020 with more customers than ever before. 

An increasing demand for digital financial services and payments interoperability in Asia Pacific (APAC) is further propelling the adoption of RippleNet amongst the region’s many SMEs, fintechs and PSPs. As such, it remains our busiest market for both customer demand and transaction growth – the number of deals signed in 2020 were up 80% year over year and there was a 1,700% growth in transactions. Earlier this month we announced new customers Mobile Money and Mutual Trust Bank who have partnered with bKash to power seamless wallet-to-wallet payments. 

We also launched Line of Credit — a new beta service that allows ODL customers to source capital instantly to initiate cross-border payments using XRP. Through RippleNet, customers can easily upgrade or add new services like ODL and Line of Credit — simplifying access to financial solutions that accelerate business performance and scale without the cost of legacy providers. 

Ripple is only one player in a broader community of companies and developers building on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). By providing SDKs, services and tools, RippleX — along with the XRP community — is moving the needle to build trust, utility and liquidity in XRP. 

Developers choose to build on XRPL for its performance, low cost, reliability and security, accessibility and inherently green attributes. Last year, the XRP Ledger became the first major blockchain globally to decarbonize in partnership with the Energy Web Foundation. Ripple also worked with the XRP Ledger Foundation, a global nonprofit fostering development and innovation of the XRPL, to solidify XRPL as a leader in sustainability and ship new updates aimed at making it the de facto blockchain for crypto-native developers. 

To continue driving fresh innovation in crypto – and interoperability in payments – we’re focused on tackling central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as the future of fiat. Key to this will be our ongoing work with central banks and developing protocols that support the direct exchange of CBDCs on XRPL, using XRP as a bridge currency.

Today, RippleX reaches 12 million users through XRPL and Interledger Protocol, and partners with more than 40 companies championing XRP utility including Coil, Forte, BRD, Bitpay and Flare. We will continue engaging the 100+ projects currently using XRPL by inspiring developers with best-in-class applications and functionalities. 

Team Ripple is ready to take on the year — and the opportunities it will present — and has already been doing so in these first couple of weeks. 

We were fortunate to be able to continue hiring every quarter in 2020. As we expand our global footprint, our engineering and product teams have continued to grow to support customers to ensure they have the best experience using RippleNet. We added top talent to our leadership team with strong backgrounds from Apple, PayPal, Amazon, Tesla and Twitter including Devraj Varadhan (SVP of Engineering), Pete Webb (VP of Platform & Technical Operations), Gap Kim (VP of Marketing), Stan Wilson (VP of Business Development), Mariel Kelley (VP of People), Vidya Mani (VP of RippleNet Engineering) and Mark Johnson (VP of Sales). 

We welcomed Sandie O’Connor, the former Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer for JPMorgan Chase, to our board of directors to provide counsel on key government relations and regulatory initiatives as Ripple pushes for regulatory clarity in the U.S.

While the company – and crypto industry – has faced some turbulent times, one thing remains constant: Ripple is fully dedicated to our vision, the Internet of Value, serving our customers and partners, and pushing for the regulatory clarity that the industry needs. 

We’re fortunate to remain in a position to keep building the team this year — come join us!

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