Ripple aims to become 'the Amazon of payments' says CEO

Ripple is reportedly struggling to find use cases for XRP and is looking to shift its strategy.

The company now aims to be “the Amazon of payments,” CEO Brad Garlinghouse told The Financial Times in a report published on Thursday. “Amazon started as a bookseller and just sold books. We happen to have started with payments. Two years from now, you’re going to find that Ripple is to payments as Amazon was to books.”

Effectively, Ripple wants to provide a blockchain platform for broader use cases similar to Amazon’s e-commerce platform that is available for a wide range of e-commerce, per the FT report.

Ripple was initially set up to develop a blockchain-based cross-border payment platform, but the platform has reportedly seen less adoption with banks and other financial institutions than hoped. And companies that are already using its system and XRP cryptocurrency, such as MoneyGram, receive incentives from Ripple for doing so, as The Block reported recently.

Ripple also invests and grants money to projects via its developer initiative Xpring to grow adoption of XRP and its technology. As The Block reported recently, Xpring has invested at least $500 million in various projects since the initiative was launched in 2018. Xpring also granted 1 billion XRP to micropayments platform Coil in August to drive adoption of the digital asset.

The company, however, has now moved from “writing cheques to writing code,” Xpring SVP Ethan Beard told the FT. Ripple is currently looking to build tools for developers that would help them create their own applications to run on its blockchain, per the report.