A new agreement with banks that would use the cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP) to accelerate and alleviate international transactions sent the value of alcohol to the stars . In the last 24 hours, XRP has increased by about 70%, reaching its highest peak in 2018.
At the time of writing this article, XRP is at $ 0.62 per token, which may not look like much when considering that Bitcoin is valued at $ 6,705 per digital token. However, this represents a sharp increase from just 24 hours ago, where it was worth only $ 0.36 for XRP. The increase in value has been driven by a new wave of excitement compared to the alternative cryptocurrency that has made it the most traded of any cryptocurrency in the last 24 hours, with about $ 2.2 billion in changes in hands.
This is due to the announcement by Ripple Lab & # 39; s Sagar Sarbhai in a chat with CNBC. He said 120 banks were already in partnership with Ripple and that the company's xRapid cryptocurrency product would soon be in commercial application. Although he did not give a specific day, he suggested it would happen within the next month or so.
xRapid is designed to provide banks with a fast and easy way to transfer amounts across borders, leading to faster international transactions for their customers, potentially with reduced fees, in theory. The process would see the local currencies converted into XRP before being transferred abroad and then converted into that local currency from the other side.
No specific financial institution has been appointed as a potential adopter of the xRapid system, but with major partnerships with organizations like Santander, American Express and Western Union, Ripple Labs has many potential customers for its new tool.
The use of ripple has generated some controversy in cryptocurrency circles since its creation in 2012, however. Unlike Bitcoin and most of its contemporaries, Ripple is centralized, which means that Ripple Labs controls most of the existing tokens and organizations such as banks can have a say on how to conduct transactions. This is diametrically opposed to the decentralized, hands-free model that Bitcoin has inspired in its users and so many of the altcoins that have been created since.