The crypto-markets seem to be in the green this morning as more and more attention is focused on the ongoing Consensus 2018 event currently ongoing in New York City. Last year’s Consensus event was responsible for a 27% increase in the total market capitalization of the crypto-verse. Crypto traders expect a similar reaction from this year’s event. When we look at our beloved Ripple (XRP), the coin is currently up 4.09% in 24 hours and trading at $0.74 at the moment of writing this.

At the same time the event is going on in New York, the Ripple team announced a new initiative to invest in, incubate, acquire and provide grants to companies and projects run by proven entrepreneurs and who will use the digital asset, XRP, and the XRP Ledger. This initiative has been branded as Xpring (pronounced Spring) and has already benefited four entrepreneurs as follows and from the Ripple website:

Scooter Braun, entertainment talent manager, entrepreneur and founder of SB Projects, who is pursuing several endeavors that will use XRP to improve artists’ ability to monetize and manage their content

Stefan Thomas, inventor of the Interledger Protocol (ILP), creator of BitcoinJS, co-founder of TxtBear, who just launched a new venture Coil to use XRP and the Interledger Protocol (ILP) for various micropayments applications, such as facilitating “bite-sized” purchases of media. You can learn more about Coil here

Thomas McLeod, serial entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Omni, who will soon integrate XRP as a currency into Omni’s marketplace

Bart and Brad Stephens, co-founders of Blockchain Capital, who have the first fund to accept capital calls in digital assets with a focus on driving innovation in the blockchain sector

The initiative is being spearheaded by former Director of the Facebook Developer Network, Ethan Beard, who served at the position from 2009 – 2012. Mr. Beard will be the Senior Vice President leading Xpring and Riipple’s developer program. At Facebook, he oversaw worldwide developer relations, operations and product marketing for the Facebook API. As it so happens, Ripple’s xVia is also API based, therefore this position should be a perfect fit for Mr. Beard who had this to say about the new role:

I love helping startups leverage new technologies and developments to grow. At Facebook, we saw companies in areas like gaming, music, and news use our platform to become big businesses. Blockchain and digital assets have the ability to solve important problems and XRP – with it’s speed, scalability and demonstrated real-world use case – is a great tool for startups and entrepreneurs to build businesses around.

Therefore, if there are any budding entrepreneurs reading this who are willing to use XRP products and do not know where to start, Xpring is for you 100%.