Is the Ripple price set to launch upwards again? There’s news that they are signing on new partners for their bank-to-bank rapid payment system. In the past, that’s exactly the type of thing that has sent XRP price way up. Other news has sent its price tumbling in the past as well making it a highly volatile cryptocurrency.
New Partners Signed
Ripple announced today that they are signing up with two new partners. IDT Corporation was named as one of the new companies that will begin using Ripple. IDT Corp. is a telecom and payment provider. They are the fourth largest voice over IP (VoIP) provider in the world.
Ripple price could also jump on the announcement that MercuryFX signed up to use their blockchain technology as well. They’re an international payment service and currency exchange.
Two more big international partners might be enough to give the XRP price a boost and give it a larger gain for the day than other major cryptocurrencies. Ripple reported that both of the companies will be using their Xrapid system.
The Xrapid system uses XRP as the transfer currency for settling international money transfers. That essentially means that, on the originating side, the sender is essentially purchasing XRP, transferring the XRP to the receiver who then sells it to get the money owed. The service fee is a fraction of an XRP.
Others that recently signed on include MoneyGram, Cuallix – a Mexican bank, American Express and Santander bank in the UK. If big names in the financial sector keep piling up, the Ripple price could see a sustained growth rate.
Ripple Price Volatility
However, while many financial institutions are signing on to use XRapid, they are not utilizing or offering XRP. The majority of them have concern about the price volatility. In 2017, XRP rose around 35,000%. It was the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization for a while until it dropped back to third again as Ethereum had a week-long run up in price.
The problem is that the Ripple price moves big based on news but does not always maintain those gains. On January 4th the price drove upward and touched $3.84. By the end of that day it was back to $3.20 and has slowly declined ever since to today’s open price at $1.29. At time of writing it was priced at $1.36 on CoinMarketCap.com.
What New Partners Get
Currently, international payments and bank-to-bank transfers are slow, and costly. They can take up to five days and cost at both ends of the transaction. With XRapid, transfers take up to just four seconds and cost a sliver of an XRP which is usually less than a penny. That’s a massive improvement and can save money for companies. These companies can also free up capital that is stuck in liquidity accounts. These are essentially cash reserves in each currency, especially in emerging markets. This capital is then essentially tied up and cannot be utilized as needed. With the XRapid system, the need for those high capital liquidity accounts is removed. With Ripple they get an efficient and fast way to send money across borders at a fraction of the cost of the current system.
Ripple Price History
With the news of new partners, everyone is watching the Ripple price to see how it reacts. At time of writing it is up 2.79% with a value of $1.35.
Ripple has had a wild ride. At the beginning of 2017, the Ripple price was at $0.006523 and a market capitalization of around $237M. On May 18th, it was at $0.398 with a market cap of $15.25B. It then dropped back down to around $0.20 and remained there for much of the year. Until December rolled around where it first climbed to $0.81, and then $1.26, and peaked at $2.72 on December 30th.
When the new year rolled around, the price had dipped back to $2.25 and then shot up to $3.84 on January 4th before dropping back to $3.20 that day. The next day was down further closing at $3.05.
Since then it has bottomed out at $0.90 on January 16th and 17th. Since then it has fluctuated between $1.30 and $1.73. All of that adds up to plenty of reason for traditional, established financial institutions to remain skeptical about using XRP outside of near-instant money transfers. They have good reason to be skeptical as it has, on some days, fluctuated far more than the other top cryptocurrencies the same day. Massive gains, like it’s 35,000% growth in 2017 show that it might still need to mature a bit and settle down. But volatility is built into the Ripple price because crypto investors are simply speculating on its value and perhaps using it to make quick gains which also drives the price up and down.
