Ripple company’s XRP the cryptocurrency has risen to almost 74% in four days. This jump that can be associated with a number of factors. An executive from Ripple told CNBC that they could launch their cryptocurrency-focused product xRapid “in a month or so” on September 17th.
Sagar Sarbhai, head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Ripple said:
“I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production,”
Sarbhai also added that the firm was making significant progress with its xRapid product, which is designed to help banks speed up transactions by using the cryptocurrency XRP.
Ripple’s website describes xRapid as:
“xRapid is for payment providers and other financial institutions who want to minimize liquidity costs while improving their customer experience. Because payments into emerging markets often require pre-funded local currency accounts around the world, liquidity costs are high. xRapid dramatically lowers the capital requirements for liquidity.”
Sarbhai also mentioned in the interview with CNBC that 120 banks and financial institutions have collaborated with Ripple for using its blockchain-based settlement product, called xCurrent. This product, unlike xRapid, does not utilize digital currency to help cross-border transactions but does it using Ripple’s blockchain.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO at Ripple, talked about the goal of getting clients to xRapid:
“I’ve publicly stated that by the end of this year I have every confidence that major banks will use xRapid as a liquidity tool. You know, by the end of next year, I would certainly hope that we would see you know in the order of… dozens.”
Ripple announced their partnership with PNC Financial Services Group Inc., one of the top ten banks in the United States of America, on September 19th. The FinTech company said that the bank’s customers will be able to get real-time cross-border payments. This is a decision of it being added to Ripple’s network of banks around the world known as RippleNet.
Ripple presently has more than 100 clients around the world and operates in 40 countries.
Currently, Ripple has significant institutions and companies testing xRapid, that includes MoneyGram, Western Union, Mercury FX, and Cambridge Global Payments, none of these companies have decided to use the product once it is officially launched, other companies, including SBI Bank, Cuallix, and Zip Remit, have already said that they will be using the product.
XRP is outperforming Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) considering both these coins have gone up by just 0.24% and 0.53% respectively in the past week. XRP which at $0.27 on September 11th went up to $0.32 on September 12th
and this wave continued until it hit $0.47 today. This price is the highest that XRP has moved up to since mid-July when the price was $0.51.
The growth in the cryptocurrency’s price was unexpected, and some of the cryptocurrency analysts boasted about their short positions in XRP. At the time, these short position was not incorrect, largely because XRP was swimming against the current, as BTC and other major cryptocurrencies have been comparatively low over the past week.
A popular cryptocurrency trader, on September 18th Philakone posted on Twitter that he was laddering short positions (The Short Position is a technique used when an investor anticipates that the value of a stock will decrease in the short term), following XRP’s unexpected 22% rise on Tuesday.
“XRP is about to get ‘hurt.’ Celia and I are laddering our XRP shorts and will keep you guys posted,” Philakone said on Twitter.
Ripple Labs is said to hold its Swell conference in San Francisco in October. The conference will comprise of speakers from Banco Santander, Payments Canada, and other financial institutions and few regulators. It is also reported that former President Bill Clinton will be present.
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