MoneyGram is partnering with Ripple to get into the crypto game.
The money transfer company says the tie-up could help send funds more cheaply and quickly. And one journalist believes the third-largest cryptocurrency offers a benefit over the alternatives.
“Ripple doesn’t have miners,” Fortune writer Jeff John Roberts told Cheddar. “You’re not relying on someone to mine a new block, and pack in the transaction, so they can do it instantly.”
MoneyGram will test using Ripple’s XRP coin to send money over its payment network xRapid. The news helped Ripple rebound after an early morning sell-off, which was in response to South Korean officials saying they are planning to ban trading in crypto. Immediately after the announcement, the price surged about 15 percent.
Roberts said the deal is a moment of truth for Ripple, since many blockchain watchers doubted the coin can get financial institutions to use its system.
He says the value will continue to surge if it can also prove it will lower the cost of money transfers.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/moneygram-and-ripple-teaming-up).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
