Ripple and MoneyGram finally kill convoluted $110M deal

Ripple announced Tuesday its so-called “strategic partnership” with MoneyGram has been terminated.

The move comes just two weeks after the San Fran crypto firm assured the partnership was very much alive despite MoneyGram suspending usage of the company’s payment platform.

MoneyGram previously cited Ripple’s ongoing legal battle with the SEC in its decision to distance itself from XRP tech.

Initially, media reports framed the deal as Ripple buying a $30-50 million stake in MoneyGram, after which MoneyGram would use XRP tech to process cross-border payments.

However, it later became clear Ripple was simply paying MoneyGram millions of dollars in XRP “incentives” to use its xRapid platform (later rebranded to On-Demand Liquidity (ODL)).

Perhaps the single most damning details from the Ripple complaint:

The main financial company using XRP, a money transmitter, told Ripple it was much more expensive than alternatives and only agreed to use it because Ripple was paying it to do so. pic.twitter.com/h9ZJVnGAQC

— Nathaniel Popper (@nathanielpopper) December 22, 2020

[Read more: SEC vs. Ripple Labs — is XRP a security?]

In December, MoneyGram further clarified the deal following an SEC probe, claiming it didn’t use Ripple’s tech at all.

“As a reminder, MoneyGram does not utilize the ODL platform or RippleNet for direct transfers of consumer funds — digital or otherwise,” said MoneyGram in a press release.

If we include Ripple’s initial $50 million investment into MoneyGram, reports put the total value of the deal at over $110 million.

Ripple is in the process of recouping some of those funds by offloading one-third of its MoneyGram stake (4 million shares worth about $26 million at today’s prices), with sales to be finalized by the end of this month.