Ripple Opens Inaugural Office in Canada, Eyes New Growth Plan

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by Tolu Ajiboye · 3 min read
Ripple Opens Inaugural Office in Canada, Eyes New Growth Plan
Photo: Unsplash

Ripple is tapping into the market in Canada with a new office in Toronto. The company also plans to hire engineers and other specialists.

American currency exchange and payment network Ripple has announced a new office in Toronto, Canada. The new physical office is Ripple’s first in Canada and will serve as an engineering hub for North American growth support. Ripple announced this in a recent press release.

According to CEO Brad Garlinghouse:

“We are continuing to scale and invest in our business by expanding our presence globally with our first office in Toronto.”

Ripple intends to hire up to 50 engineers in Toronto, including blockchain software engineers. This projected engineering horde would encompass specialists in various fields such as applied machine learning science, data science, and product management. Speaking directly to this development, Garlinghouse explained:

“Crypto and blockchain present an incredible opportunity for engineers to tackle difficult problems, with the potential for these solutions to impact the movement of value around the world.”

Also, Ripple intends to increase its staff strength amid the recent spate of layoffs, downsizing, and hiring freezes by other crypto firms. Crypto exchange and custodian Gemini announced its intent to downsize its staff force by 10% earlier in the month.

Furthermore, crippling market conditions in both the traditional and crypto marketplaces have seen firms like Celsius Network freeze customer withdrawals.

Nonetheless, Ripple remains committed to onboarding premium talent to propel its innovation and client service “for years to come”. Furthermore, the company’s hiring plan seems to be an extension of last year’s developments. In 2021 alone, Ripple also opened strategic offices in key cities such as Miami and Dublin.

More on the Ripple Foray into Canada

Ripple’s Toronto office launch underscores the company’s commitment to a region already seen as a tech hub. Speaking on this development, John Tory, Mayor of the City of Toronto, offered:

“I’m thrilled that Ripple is putting down roots in Toronto where we know the company will be able to benefit from the highly skilled technical talent, booming ecosystem, and competitive economic advantages the Region offers.”

With this in mind, Ripple says it will tap into the local talent pool to develop crypto innovation in Toronto. As it stands, the real-time gross settlement, currency exchange, and emittance network already has strong ties to the Toronto community through Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI), which is in close collaboration with a host of local institutions. Among these are the University of Waterloo and Toronto Metropolitan University.

With a new Toronto office, the expectation that Ripple would naturally absorb graduates from these institutions is high. As Professor Anwar Hasan of the University of Waterloo puts it:

“… we’re excited to see our graduates continue their blockchain journey – a city with a fast-growing tech scene.”

Besides Ripple, other crypto-focused companies are also looking to gain a strong footing in Canada. For example, Bahamas-based FTX Exchange also established its physical presence in Calgary a week ago. The leading crypto exchange achieved this by acquiring Bitvo Inc., a Calgary-based crypto exchange.

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