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XRP, the cryptocurrency associated with Ripple and their xRapid settlement system, jumped nearly 14% overnight following a recent 20% jump that can be attributed to a variety of factors.
The cryptocurrency is currently sitting at $0.369, up from its 24-hour price of just over $0.32. The continued rise in the cryptocurrency’s price was unexpected, and many cryptocurrency analysts boasted about their short positions in XRP. At the time, it appeared that a short position was not unwarranted, mainly because XRP was swimming against the current, as Bitcoin and most of the other major cryptocurrencies have been relatively flat over the past week.
Popular cryptocurrency trader, Philakone (@PhilakoneCrypto) told his 106 thousand Twitter followers that he was laddering short positions on September 18th, following XRP’s unprecedented 20% rise.
“XRP is about to get ‘hurt.’ Celia and I are laddering our XRP shorts and will keep you guys posted,” Philakone said.
In the time since this tweet, XRP has only continued its unprecedented rise.
Ripple to Soon Release XRP Powered xRapid
Many people familiar with the space attributed the XRP pump to Ripple’s announcement that they would be releasing their XRP powered settlement system, xRapid, in the “next one month or so.”
The announcement regarding the release of xRapid came about when Sagar Sarbhai, Ripple’s head of regulatory regulation for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, spoke about the product in an interview, saying:
“I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production.”
Currently, the majority of Ripple’s notable customers are utilizing the company’s blockchain-based settlement system, called xCurrent. That system, unlike xRapid, does not utilize digital currency to facilitate cross-border transactions, but rather does it using Ripple’s blockchain network.
Although Ripple has more than 120 banks and financial institutions signed on to trial and/or use xCurrent, they still have some high-profile clients trialing their xRapid system. Currently, Ripple has several major institutions and companies testing xRapid, including MoneyGram, Western Union, Mercury FX, and Cambridge Global Payments.
Although none of these companies have committed to using the system once it is officially launched, several companies, including SBI Bank, Cuallix, and Zip Remit, have already committed to using the program.
xRapid works to provide instant and cheap cross border transactions in order to transfer money between two banks.
Ripple describes the system on their website, saying:
“xRapid is for payment providers and other financial institutions who want to minimize liquidity costs while improving their customer experience. Because payments into emerging markets often require pre-funded local currency accounts around the world, liquidity costs are high. xRapid dramatically lowers the capital requirements for liquidity.”
Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s CEO, spoke about the goal of onboarding clients to xRapid, saying:
“I’ve publicly stated that by the end of this year I have every confidence that major banks will use xRapid as a liquidity tool. You know, by the end of next year, I would certainly hope that we would see you know in the order of… dozens.”
Theoretically, XRP’s price and liquidity would be significantly affected by the release of xRapid, as companies would be buying and selling billions of dollars’ worth of the cryptocurrency, and investors would recognize its utilization, leading to an influx of investor’s funds into the virtual currency.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
