Digital payments startup Uphold announced Wednesday that it has added support for Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency.

XRP joins Uphold’s existing list of currencies and cryptocurrencies that can be bought or traded, with bitcoin, ethereum and bitcoin cash, among others, already on the menu.

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According to vice chairman J.P. Thieriot, the move follows a Twitter poll earlier this month that indicated XRP was the most-desired token to be added, taking 51 percent of just over 12,000 votes. It also comes following a $57.5. million investment from former Ripple chief risk officer Greg Kidd in January, and Uphold's acquisition of mobile commerce platform Cortex MCP a month later.

Uphold has been working on integrating XRP for roughly a month, said Thieriot, who explained:

"Generally we have to find counterparties we can trade with, given our system, [since] we don’t have an internal orderbook. We have to create an integration with a third party. In the case of XRP, it’s an entirely new blockchain – it’s not like adding an ERC-20 token, which is relatively trivial for us."

XRP can be exchanged with no fees being charged, and can be traded or used in transactions across Uphold’s existing offerings, according to statements. These include seven cryptocurrencies and 23 fiat currencies, on top of four precious metals.

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According to Uphold, the next phase of support involves integrating with the Ripple network itself, enabling direct deposits and withdrawals via the mainnet. The company said that this should be rolled out in the next few weeks.

XRP token image via Shutterstock

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