Canadian Merchants Can Now Accept BTC Payments on XRP Ledger

SpendTheBits is onboarding merchants for its pilot test.

SpendTheBits is onboarding Canadian merchants interested in receiving Bitcoin payments via the XRP ledger to its first pilot test.

The platform made this known in a tweet yesterday, requesting interested business owners to reach out to find out how to get started.

Greetings #XRPLCommunity from #Canada, We are happy to announce that we are now onboarding merchants for the initial pilot to accept real-time #Bitcoin payments. If you are a business owner in Canada, please reach out to us at helllo@spendthebits to get started. #XRPL #BTC pic.twitter.com/Izl8rTHeBe

— SpendTheBits Inc. (@Spend_The_Bits) January 25, 2023

For context, SpendTheBits is a cryptocurrency app that utilizes the XRP Ledger to allow users to store and spend their Bitcoin at faster and cheaper rates. Notably, several members of the XRP community have hailed it as a better solution than Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

Notably, the Lightning Network only partially fixes Bitcoin’s scalability concerns. For one, before users can transact on the off-chain solution, they still have to fund it with an on-chain transaction which takes a long time with accompanying on-chain costs making it a frustrating solution for first-time users.

While it is not clear that SpendTheBits totally fixes this, the app adds Bitcoin to the user balance after the first confirmation, making it at least faster to fund per the promotional video. The platform asserts that transactions made with SpendTheBits take 3 to 5 seconds. Notably, it works by issuing Bitcoin as an IOU on the XRPL.

In response to the announcement from SpendTheBits yesterday, Attorney John Deaton hailed the app as a model example of crypto utility. The lawyer representing thousands of XRP holders as a friend of the court in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case against Ripple asserted that the Lightning Network is not the only or best option for spending BTC.

To me, this is one of the best examples of Crypto utility. The ⚡️ Network is NOT the only or the best option for spending your #Bitcoin @Jay_SpendDBits developed an app utilizing the #XRPLedger to allow a person to spend their #BTC and do it safely in 3-5 seconds. https://t.co/GfLYLr37O3

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) January 25, 2023

It is worth noting that SpendTheBits filed a brief in support of Ripple in the SEC case. The company poked holes at the SEC’s claim that investors could not find use cases for XRP without Ripple’s efforts.

Notably, it won Ripple’s CBDC interoperability Hackathon, as reported last November.

Presently, SpendTheBits is only available in Canada. However, the company has set its sights on expanding to El Salvador soon, per its Twitter bio.