Coingape - 2/19/2019 6:52:10 PM - GMT (+0 )
The 3rd largest cryptocurrency is enjoying gains just like the broad crypto market. Currently, up more than 7 percent, it is trading at $0.334 while registering 3.04 percent gains in the BTC market. With a market cap of $13.7 billion, it is managing the daily trading volume of $1.16 billion. In less than 2 days, XRP price has surged over 16 percent.
XRP price 7-days chart Source: Coinmarketcap
Mati Greenspan, a senior analyst at eToro, shared some data depicting its price and transaction volume, “Transactions in XRP went quiet from December 11th but came back with a vengeance on January 26th.”
Now, according to the latest video that surfaced online, the President of Japanese financial giant SBI which is also a Ripple partner, Yoshitaka Kitao, shared that he is extremely bullish on XRP and that it will surpass the market cap of Bitcoin this year.
“Because XRP is already beginning to become international, xRapid will be used for fund transfers in 2019. By increasing the so-called XRP’s plastic use, we anticipate that the [Ripple] market capitalization will easily exceed the market capitalization of Bitcoin (BTC).”
Further talking about Corda, the blockchain platform of R3 which has a joint venture with SBI and are planning to establish SBI R3 Japan, he said,
“You can use R3’s ‘Corda’ for international remittance, but Corda Settler and XRP use this because they have high affinity. That’s why the SWIFT partnership with R3 (Corda) is good news that brings bright materials to the market… What I emphasize is to combine R3 and Ripple to make XRP thoroughly practical useable.”
In a separate event, Mexico’s Deputy Finance Minister Arturo Herrera recently said in an interview with Reuters that the government is planning to cut the cost of sending cash home for Mexican families living abroad. The govt. is further hoping that the high competition from fintechs will encourage banks and financial service providers like Western Union to reduce commission and improve the exchange rates.
“That is to say, the cost of transactions must come down by about 40 percent. That is something the fintechs are probably in a better position to do than traditional actors such as banks. Their great advantage is that they can operate in a more efficient and direct way and at lower costs, which should lead to lower commissions,” said Herrera.
According to the Mexican central bank data, 24 million Mexicans live in the US which is by far the largest source of money sent home. In 2018, Mexicans sent a record $33.5 billion in remittances.
The point worth noting here is that Western Union is already piloting with Ripple for the US and Mexico corridor and its closest rival MoneyGram is also in partnership with Ripple and testing XRP for payments.
Cross-border remittance is the focal point of Ripple enabling faster and cost-effective payments, which in the light of the measures to be revealed at the annual Banking Convention in March by the Finance Ministry, Ripple and XRP usage can be expected to get a swift kick.
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