Hype has been surrounding this token for over 8 years. They have fought the SEC for 5 years, and won. They hold the position for the 4th largest crypto by market cap.
This is Ripple and the infamous token $XRP, and we think it’s about time we explore why it has an insane value of over $150B!
What is Ripple?
First founded in 2012 as Opencoin and later rebranded to Ripple in 2015, they have made a huge impact in the world of finance.
Ripple is a fintech company that utilizes a hybrid blockchain to enable fast, cheap, and secure cross-border payments, all paid in the native token $XRP.
How Does Ripple Work?
Breaking the traditional methods of finance, Ripple provides the financial industry with game-changing products and services.
Firstly, we have the foundation for Ripple‘s payment solutions known as the XRP Ledger (XRPL), the decentralized blockchain powered by the $XRP token.
Secondly, we have RippleNet, a one-of-a-kind global network that connects banks, payment providers, and digital asset exchanges across over 50 countries to provide instant messaging and settlement of financial transactions.
Next is the powerful On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service that utilizes $XRP to bridge different FIAT currencies, e.g. into dollars, yen or euros.
Last but not least is the native Ripple USD ($RLUSD) Stablecoin, backed 1:1 to the U.S. dollar to help bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi.
Why Ripple?
Businesses all around the world are fed up with the extremely slow and ridiculously expensive bank and payment provider fees. For example, the average bank will take 1-5 days to process a transaction, then there’s a fee to both send and receive, as well as intermediary fees, stacking up to an estimated $50-$75.
But, to top it off, when it’s an international payment, there’s also a currency conversion fee of 1-3%!
Thanks to blockchain technology and Ripple‘s technology, businesses worldwide can enjoy near-instant transactions taking up to 5 seconds, with a less than $0.01 sending fee. With XRP Ledger payments, there are no receiving, intermediary or currency conversion fees, just the way it should be.
Making major tides, Ripple has secured insane partnerships with Santander, Bank of America, AmericanExpress, AWS and many more that have conducted over 2.8B $XRP transactions, equating to over $1T in value on the XRP Ledger. Wow.
XRP Token
$XRP is one of the most widely held tokens, with one of the widest ranges of utilities. Primarily, the $XRP token serves as the gas token on the XRP Ledger to perform cross-border transactions, and it is also used as a medium of exchange between networks and currencies.
However, $XRP can also be used to tokenize and create new digital assets on the XRPL, as well as utilizing the $XRP token in DeFi protocols to provide liquidity, lend, stake and much more.
There was more to $XRP than you realized, right?
Conclusion
According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of writing, $XRP is trading at $2.47 with a huge market cap of $144.82 billion. In January 2018, $XRP once achieved an ATH of $3.84, and yes, that was a very long time ago, but we all know $XRP has had a hard time over the years with the SEC and so on, but looking to the future, we are creeping back to those levels, and waiting for the emerging bull run…
Official Ripple Links
Disclaimer
The content provided in this article is purely informational and nothing said is financial advice. Proceed with caution and always invest what you are prepared to lose. Remember that you are entirely responsible for your assets and investments and the author and the publication do not endorse any of the cryptocurrencies, protocols and/or strategies in this article.
