In brief:
In an announcement via the content sharing platform of Coil, the creator of XRPTipBot, Weitse, informed users of the bot that a partnership has been sealed with the team at Uphold
. The latter is a cryptocurrency exchange that will assist the XRPTipBot project in meeting all the regulatory requirements of the Netherlands, where the project is based.According to Weitse, the project grew fast and providing custody solutions for XRP will have to adhere to the new bill passed in the Netherlands regarding such activities. He went on to explain that the costs needed to meet the new requirements are considerably high and would have an impact on the project that started out as a hobby. He explained:
A little over three weeks ago the NL government passed the bill that will kick off the regulation of crypto currency custody in The Netherlands…
Costs are already estimated at ~25k per year, and with more and more crypto businesses in NL closing shop (because of the uncertainty and deadline), the regulatory costs will be spread out over less companies, resulting in a horrible bill in 2021.
So. A deadline I cannot possibly meet. Costs I cannot possibly predict. Implementing KYC and AML myself.
Weitse went on to explain that he admires the team at Uphold. He added that he appreciates their vision, team and leadership and felt that the platform provided a home for his project. Users of the XRPTipBot need to simply link their Uphold accounts to continue sending and receiving tips in XRP. He explained this in the following statement.
The XRP TipBot will live on. One difference: all XRP TipBot users will have to link an Uphold account to be able to hold & receive balance.
An advantage of this new requirement of linking XRPTipBot accounts to Uphold is the access users will have of the full spectrum of services provided by the crypto exchange. This includes a fiat on-ramp, fiat off-ramp, a full crypto exchange and a way to link TipBot balances for multiple social media accounts.
Weitse concluded the announcement by stating he would provide more information on the migration in the coming days.
I will soon provide more information on the migration, as I’m finishing the last lines of code.
But I promise you that no one will have to part with a single drop of XRP, and the people at Uphold and I will make the migration as simple as a few clicks.
(Image courtesy of Unsplash.)