Ripple-Backed MoneyGram Offers Free Solution to Coinbase CEO after His Transaction Failure

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Tolu Ajiboye
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Many traditional financial institutions are against the cryptocurrency sector. Unsurprisingly, several of these institutions go out of their way to stifle any transactions passing through their corridor, which has any bearing with cryptocurrency. Another occurrence has happened between PayPal and the Coinbase CEO, which sparked a lot of responses including one from Ripple-backed MoneyGram.

Coinbase CEO’s Failed Transaction

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently took to Twitter to complain about a disruption in remittance via PayPal and his bank. According to Armstrong, he tried to send money to a friend but was unsuccessful. For some reason, PayPal says that the “recipient is unable to receive money.” Also, SquareCash says that the payment was declined by the bank. Armstrong does not mention which bank is involved.

Obviously frustrated, Armstrong points out that occurrences like this shouldn’t happen at all, especially not in the U.S. where “these services work best.” The Coinbase CEO ends the tweet saying that things might even be worse outside of the U.S.

MoneyGram Offers Free Solution to Coinbase CEO

Less than an hour after the Coinbase CEO’s short rant, MoneyGram steps in. In response to Armstrong, the Ripple-backed company offers Armstrong a free trial of its services. 

Hi Brian, we would love to send you a promo code to try our services. Please send us a private message, and we'll send it your way!https://t.co/GphSI45JYa

— MoneyGram (@MoneyGram) February 12, 2020

Last year, Ripple invested $50 million into Moneygram. Now that Ripple owns almost 10% of the payment company, MoneyGram has begun using Ripple’s solution for its services. In 2019, Moneygram also announced that at least 10% of all of its payment settlements between the U.S. and Mexico are already being handled via Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL).

So far, Armstrong has not publicly responded to MoneyGram’s offer. While the Coinbase CEO might send the message to MoneyGram as requested, a public response might not be seen. This is because there’s a good chance a response like that would be taken by members of the crypto community as some form of support or endorsement.

Crypto to the Rescue

In a subsequent tweet after the initial complaint, Armstrong touts crypto as the solution to problems like this. According to the CEO, even though there are still a few problems with cryptocurrency transactions, they are definitely more reliable.

“Crypto has its own (numerous) UX challenges of course. But by building on new underlying infrastructure there is an opportunity to make things better, and finally have payments that “just work.”

For a while now, crypto has been put forward as the preferred method against problems like this. Last year, Bank of America (BoA) shut down a former PayPal executive’s bank account. According to the former PayPal CFO Roelof Botha, he was a customer for 20 years. Regardless, BoA shut down his account without any explanation. Suspicions floated at the time that it was due to cryptocurrency involvement.

Author: Tolu Ajiboye

Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge. When he's not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.

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