Uphold, the digital money platform, today announced that it has entered into a $57.5 million partnership with Greg Kidd, investor in Ripple, Square, Coinbase and others, to increase its loss assurance for consumers to around 20% of total current crypto holdings - an industry-leading move where most companies offer little or no consumer coverage.
Furthermore, Kidd's investment vehicle, Hard Yaka, will fund the creation of Uphold Labs to accelerate R&D efforts to its consumer and partner solutions businesses.
"This is a landmark partnership for the crypto market. We have always provided our Members with unparalleled transparency and safety, as well as the greatest choice of currencies, now we're also giving them unprecedented asset protection," said Adrian Steckel, CEO of Uphold. "This collaboration will also enable us to accelerate our product development activities, focusing on adding new assets, more connectivity to financial systems, as well as blockchain and Ripple-centric projects."
Greg Kidd will also join Uphold's Board of Directors.
"I am impressed by the outstanding quality of Uphold's technology as well as their rigorous compliance practices. Their operation is scaling fast and makes a great addition to the Hard Yaka stable of partnerships and businesses," said Greg Kidd. "Uphold stands out as an entity that is pioneering the infrastructure, controls, and culture that inspires confidence from regulators and users alike. I'm thankful to get to work with the Uphold team to bolster the already outstanding R&D and compliance foundation at the firm."
This announcement was made at a private event in San Francisco for Uphold investors and partners where the company also released proprietary data, which included the trading flows between the seven major cryptocurrencies featured on the Uphold platform, the trading flows on a country-by-country basis, and transaction volumes over the last 12 months.