Ripple Announces $250M NFT Creator Fund for XRP Ledger

San Francisco-based fintech firm Ripple has unveiled a creator fund to foster non-fungible token (NFT) development on its own blockchain.

On Sept. 29, Ripple announced that it had launched a $250 million creator fund that will research new use cases for NFTs on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Ripple stated that its new fund will provide targeted support for creators, brands, and marketplaces to develop NFTs on the XRPL.

Ripple asserts the future will be tokenized and it doesn’t intend on missing out on the NFT frenzy that has dominated crypto news in 2021. It has the lofty ambition of becoming the “premier platform” for NFT creation, minting, and management.

Ripple-powered NFTs

The fund was announced as part of Ripple’s XRPL developer summit on Wednesday. The company stated that many creators are still hesitant to engage with NFTs due to technical concerns or for fear that their creations will not be popular.

It also took an indirect swipe at Ethereum, the current standard for NFT creation, stating that high transaction fees and environmental impact concerns are also a hindrance.  

“Ripple aims to alleviate these challenges by providing the financial, creative and technical support needed for creators to engage and eventually deliver new NFT use cases.”

The company will be partnering with NFT marketplaces mintNFT and Mintable, which raised $13 million in July, and will integrate the XRPL, it added. Chicago-based global creative agency VSA Partners has also joined the initiative to help its creator and brand clients create and sell their NFTs.

Ripple claims that XRP Ledger’s built-in decentralized exchange has enabled the issuance or trading of more than 5,400 different tokens since its inception. It also claims to be up to 120,000 times “more efficient than leading proof-of-work blockchains.”

Until now, Ripple has been notably absent from the NFT scene which is dominated by Ethereum. NFT support was originally enabled on XRPL back in May when Ripple decided to combat high gas fees.

XRP price outlook

Ripple’s native token, XRP, has gained 4.2% on the day according to CoinGecko. At the time of press, XRP was trading just below a dollar at $0.961.

The cross-border payments token has been hit hard over the past fortnight, losing 14%. It’s still 72% down from its January 2018 all-time high of $3.40. This year, XRP peaked at $1.84 in April while most cryptocurrencies in the market cap top-ten registered new all-time highs.