- The Omni digital marketplace, which is financially supported by Ripple, is officially reported to be shut down.
- The American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will completely take over the Omni technical team.
The Omni online marketplace is financially supported by Ripple and has been trying to make a profit since last year. Xpring CEO Chris Larsen and Stefan Thomas invested in the company with the cryptocurrency XRP in a financing round last year. According to unconfirmed reports, more than USD 35 million was raised.
Omni must cease operations, Coinbase recruits development team
According to a new TechCrunch article, Omni will now cease operations by the end of the year (freely translated):
We will close Omni and close the platform by the end of this year.
So far there is no official confirmation from Omni via Twitter or on the company’s current blog.
The company offers a marketplace where various items can be stored in a warehouse. After a specified period of time, the items can be picked up again after a previously agreed fee has been paid. Omni has, however, stated that the fees were too low, so this business idea proved to be unprofitable.
An employee familiar with the source describes to TechCrunch:
They realized that the core business was just challenging as architected. The service was really great for the consumer but when they looked at what it would take to scale, that would be difficult and expensive.
After this business idea could not be realized, a platform for the rental of unused articles was launched on the market. This also proved to be uneconomical and the service was converted into a rental service for shops. According to TechCrunch, this idea also failed to generate significant revenue.
One of the world’s largest crypto currency exchanges, Coinbase, entered into talks with Omni in early October. Last weekend, TechCrunch announced that Coinbase would take over Omni’s entire development team to further develop the Coinbase Earn education project:
Coinbase has reached an agreement with Omni to hire members of its engineering team. We’re always looking for top-tier engineering talent and look forward to welcoming these new team members to Coinbase
Ripple stands on a broad platform
Ripple invested in the Vega Protocol in October to gain access to the decentralised financial system (DeFi). This new marketplace offers great potential that is only gradually being recognised and tapped by other companies. With this investment, Ripple has been involved right from the start.
A few days ago, Ripple acquired Strata Labs to enable developers to implement and pilot additional protocol standards. Furthermore, Ripple has opened up a new payment corridor from Japan to Vietnam, which will soon be extended to South Korea. Ripple’s smart investments are helping to strengthen the adaptation and acceptance of XRP.
In addition, Ripple has purchased 10% of all MoneyGram shares to benefit from further expansion through additional payment corridors and further expansion. XRP’s price has continued to move sideways over the last 24 hours (- 1.04%) and stands at USD 0.2145 at the time of writing.
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