Today Societe Generale-FORGE (SG-FORGE) said it plans to launch its EURCV stablecoin on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) founded by Ripple. The company uses technology from Metaco for custody and Ripple acquired Metaco, so it’s now Ripple Custody. EURCV launched on Ethereum and already announced plans for Solana, so this will be the third blockchain. The launch is expected in 2025.

SG-FORGE cited the benefits of XRPL as speed, low transaction fees and scalability. However, there are other chains with similar features. It added that the blockchain is optimized for cross border payments.

“The XRP Ledger is the ideal platform to complement our existing deployments due to the combination of speed and cost-efficiency. Our decision to launch this stablecoin on this blockchain was driven by our desire to offer next-generation, compliant digital assets that promote transparency, security, and scalability,” said Guillaume Chatain, Chief Revenue Officer at Societe Generale-FORGE.

So far EURCV is relatively small with a market capitalization of €38 million. Four wallets control 90% of the balance, and only one of them has any transactions.

Good for XRPL. What’s in it for SG-FORGE?

Stepping back, this looks like a big win for Ripple from a brand credibility perspective. A few years ago, a handful of banks used RippleNet for cross border payments. However, despite their transactions being on a permissioned blockchain without the use of XRP, some of the banks were frustrated that their participation was conflated with using XRP.

With the acquisition of custody startup Metaco, Ripple acquired a large number of banking clients. While that might be good for Ripple as a company, it had little impact on XRPL. Until now.

However, SG-FORGE differs from some of Metaco’s other banking clients in two important ways. It has always been more innovative and embraced public blockchains from the start. After all, SG-FORGE helped the European Investment Bank launch its first €100 million digital bond on the Ethereum public blockchain way back in 2021. SG-FORGE even dabbled with MakerDAO borrowing millions of DAI backed by a SocGen issued security token.

A key reason it has more freedom to try these kinds of things is SG-FORGE is not a bank itself, unlike many of Ripple Custody’s traditional finance clients.

The bigger question is what’s in it for SG-FORGE? Should we read anything into the above quote about XRPL coming from the company’s Chief Revenue Officer?

If SG-FORGE is chasing institutional investors, one might expect it to go down a similar path to BlackRock’s BUIDL, which announced five new chains yesterday. They didn’t include XRPL. On the other hand, most institutions transact in dollars and XRPL has historically been used for cross border payments. Hence, SG-FORGE may have decided to give it a try in an attempt to find product-market fit.

Ledger Insights Research has launched a report on tokenized deposits and bank stablecoins, identifying more than 20 stablecoins.

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EDX Markets, the institutional crypto exchange, announced that it processed $36 billion in cumulative notional trades during 2024. Founding investors in EDX include Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital and Virtu Financial. While the exchange was unveiled in 2022, it launched last year.

The company said it processed record trading volumes this week of $685 million during a 24 hour period. Its average daily volumes grew 59% in Q3 compared to a decline of 14.8% for Bitcoin and Ether in the broader market.

By contrast, on Monday Binance achieved 24 hour volumes of almost $73 billion and Coinbase almost $13 billion. That was the day that Bitcoin first reached a price of $88,000. However, these other exchanges have been around for far longer and trade a wide range of tokens. During the last 24 hours, Bitcoin and Ether accounted for around a quarter of Binance trading volumes and 37% of Coinbase’s.

EDX Markets only trades Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin as these tokens are considered commodities and spot commodities exchanges don’t require a license in the United States. It recently added Shiba Inu and DOGECoin. As an institutional trading venue it operates a central clearinghouse.

It also recently upgraded its matching engine, which was built in-house to achieve ultra low latencies.

“With the successful delivery and implementation of our new matching engine, EDX is well on its way to achieving the goals that we set for ourselves when we launched last year,” said Jamil Nazarali, CEO of EDX Markets. “We are continually improving our offerings based on member feedback to accomplish our mission to bring the most competitive, transparent, trusted, and efficient digital asset trading venue to the world.”

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Amazon introduced a new store for products priced at $20 or less.

“Amazon Haul” offers U.S. customers a chance to find more affordable products in a range of categories, according to a Wednesday (Nov. 13) press release. It is available on the company’s mobile website and shopping app.

The new offering is being rolled out in beta and will become available to Amazon customers in the U.S. the next time they update the company’s shopping app.

“Finding great products at very low prices is important to customers, and we continue to explore ways that we can work with our selling partners so they can offer products at ultra-low prices,” Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Services at Amazon, said in the release. “Amazon Haul aims to help make shopping for fashion, home, lifestyle, electronics and other products even more fun, easy and affordable, all backed by Amazon’s A-to-Z product guarantee so customers can shop with confidence that the products they’re purchasing are safe, authentic and in the condition expected.”

While all items are priced at $20 or less, the majority cost no more than $10, with some products selling for as low as $1, per the release.

The news follows a report from over the summer that Amazon was planning to add a section to its site to compete with the likes of Temu and Shein, featuring lower-priced items shipped from China to overseas consumers.

Meanwhile, Amazon launched a partnership this month with Mexican grocery delivery startup Jüsto that “signals its push to expand its food and essentials offerings.”

The collaboration lets Amazon customers in Mexico order fresh produce, meat and other groceries directly from Jüsto’s platform, a move that will help Amazon bolster its delivery speed in grocery, a category that has historically trailed behind its rival Walmart.

“Amazon Prime struggles to replicate Walmart’s grocery success, despite using its vast eCommerce infrastructure and Prime membership,” PYMNTS wrote Nov. 8. “While Amazon offers grocery delivery through its Whole Foods partnership, it still charges delivery fees in many areas, and the service is limited to select locations. For many Prime members, groceries remain a secondary offering, with the service primarily used for fast shipping on non-grocery items. However, the convenience of bundling groceries with other Amazon benefits is gradually attracting more shoppers.”

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