Ripple acqui-hires Iceland-based crypto trading firm Algrim to expand in Europe

Blockchain payments firm Ripple has acqui-hired Iceland-based cryptocurrency trading firm Algrim to expand operations in Europe.

Announcing the news on Monday, Ripple said Algrim will play an “integral” role in the ongoing development of its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product which utilizes XRP cryptocurrency for cross-border payments. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The decision to join the Ripple team was a natural fit — both companies share a vision to enable widespread adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology, which aligns directly with what we’ve been working towards for the past several years,” said Algrim CEO Dadi Armannsson.

Ripple said that Iceland will now serve as one of its engineering hubs, with plans to hire more people from a technical background in the region with a new office.

Just last week, Ripple also acquired payments solution startup Logos and added 8 engineers to the Xpring team who will explore developing a decentralized finance (DeFi) system built on XRP.