Blockchain was first introduced in 2009, and even though it gained a considerable amount of hype in 2014, it was only ever associated with finance and trading. Companies in other sectors or domains had very little understanding of the concept or things to do with it. However, more and more companies started understanding the decentralised Ledger technology and different cryptocurrencies started partnering with various firms. Blockchain has since been used for several purposes including Logistics.
Ripple has dominated the industry when it comes to real world applications. Major financial banks have partnered with it and now the e-commerce giant Amazon seems to be a possible partnership. Ripple could have previously caught the eye of Amazon due to its impressive portfolio and tie ups with 75 banks.
Why should Amazon partner with Ripple?
There are two major advantages that possibly made Amazon look forward to a partnership with XRP – speed of transaction and current value of the coin. Bitcoin is an automatic strike off in both these columns. Integrating with Bitcoin would mean customers would have to dig deep into their pockets for fees. Add to that, bitcoin transaction speeds are relatively slow, due to the number of users.
This results in lowered profits. It also results in loss of customers as any fees in general also impacts customer accounts and they have to pay the excess. Ripple will help get rid of the high transaction fees. It is useful for bulk transactions where multiple transactions and fees are incurred. Hence, Amazon partnering with Ripple seems like an alliance that will benefit more than both parties.
HBO’s tv series “Silicon Valley” involved cryptocurrencies in its second last episode