- Japanese financial giant, SBI has announced the launch of an XRP lending service
- SBI VC Trade opened the XRP lending on February 4 with a lending period from 84 days
- The launch of the XRP lending services comes amidst pressure from the SEC lawsuit
Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings also known as Strategic Business Innovator Group has announced the inclusion of the XRP tokens in its cryptocurrency lending service.
XRP Opens for Lending on SBI Holdings
The announcement was made on Thursday, February 4, 2021, and XRP was opened for lending on the same day. The announcement comes at a time when crypto exchanges are delisting the XRP tokens after its mother company Ripple was slammed with a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The lending platform, VCTrade Lending, is a subsidiary of SBI Holdings. The platform allows users to lend their platform and earn an annual interest rate on their crypto holdings for supported digital assets.
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A similar features service for Bitcoin has been available on VCTrade Lending since November 2020 with an annual interest rate of 1 percent. The platform has hinted that the feature could add Ether in the future.
On the Flipside
- Joseph Hall, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) executive believes that the SEC could lose its case against Ripple
- In an interview with Thinking Crypto Hall describes the SEC case as “pretty astonishing”
- He explains that even after the SEC lawsuit, there doesn’t seem to be any harm on imminent investors, which is a good sign for Ripple’s XRP tokens
Details of the XRP Features
In the announcement, SBI VC Trade noted that XRP lending is already available from the day of launch with a lending period of 84 days. The interest rate for XRP is 0.1 percent per year, tax-inclusive.
For users to participate, the minimum loan they can offer is 1,000 XRP or approximately $389. The maximum lending amount is 100,000 XRP ($38,900).
SBI: Through Thick and Thin with Ripple
Since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple in late December alleging the blockchain firm broke securities laws in retailing the XRP tokens, several crypto exchanges including Coinbase and Binance have delisted the XRP tokens.
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SBI VC Trade launched in 2018 and was focused on trading of XRP. The mother company, SBI has a maintained business relationship with Ripple, the blockchain company issuing the XRP tokens.
The Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan has openly declared that the XRP is not considered a security in Japan. Regardless, SBI continues to show support for Ripple and XRP even though the rate for XRP is significantly lower than the rate for BTC.
