Within the last two weeks, cryptocurrencies across the scope of the global market have recovered some lost ground. The likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash have seen green over the past days. Ripple (XRP) has, however, enjoyed more spotlight than its competitors. The price of the coin rose to $0.79 which resulted in over 100 percent surge since last week. The surge even saw the coin catapulting itself into the #2 spot on the list of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, temporarily surpassing Ethereum.
Reasons why Ripple XRP is surging
While the price of XRP has tumbled, after enjoying massive gains over the past week, the cryptocurrency still attracts attention from individuals and financial institutions. It is the only cryptocurrency that has gained support from some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions, which include Standard Chartered, PNC, Royal Bank of Canada, Santander, Western Union, and Bank of Montreal. The company boasts more than a hundred partners, and they look forward to securing more partnerships with as many as 200 banks by the end of this year.
The surge is mainly as a result of a Ripple Lab’s announcement of the so-called xRapid. The technology is designed to convert the fiat currency to Ripple’s native token XRP at the time of the transaction and convert XRP back to fiat at that particular time by connecting to a crypto exchange in real-time. In other words, it’s a payment bridge, which allows financial institutions to speed up the processing of cross-border payments.
Cory Johnson, Ripple’s Chief Marketing Strategist, discussed the effectiveness and efficiency of the payment platform when conducting and processing transactions. He said that transaction fees on the platform are less than transaction rates of banks. This is one of the major reasons why Ripple XRP has garnered the attention of major financial institutions and investors.
No doubt, Ripple is becoming an industry’s staple, and that shouldn’t be ignored.
