Ripple remained at around 20 cents for six months
Ripple ended 2016 with a value of less than a cent. The coin has increased in value over 29,000 percent this year.
However, when the
Coindesk article went to press today its value had reached $1.87, a figure that is almost double its value just last week.
As I write this, the time is December 30, 00.30 UTC and the price of Ripple is $2.27 according to
this site. It more than doubled its value.
Ripple's market cap is increasing with its price
XRP or Ripple is now the third largest cryptocurrency ranked according to market cap, behind bitcoin which is first and ethereum (ether) which is second.
Ripple's market cap is now $72 billion. Bitcoin has by far the largest cap around $241 billion.
In just six hours in morning trading, from 6:01 AM UTC to 12:00 the price of Ripple increased 14 percent.
CNBC says that Ripple briefly surpassed ethereum to become the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Given that Ripple has now surpassed two dollars it could very well be the second largest surpassing ethereum again.
Much Ripple trading happening in South Korea
Data from
CoinMarketCap shows that 3 South Korean exchanges, Bithumb, Coinone, and Koribit account for 31.5, 7.3, and 2.07 percent respectively of global XRP trading. Each exchange also has more than half of its total trading in XRP.
The price rally happened just after the South Korean government announced that it would ban exchanges from having anonymous accounts. The move is seen as an attempt to clamp down on speculation.
The move coincided with a dip in price of bitcoin yesterday but
it had recovered today to over $14,000.
As I write this the
price of bitcoin is about $14,250 so it is now well above the $14,000 level. You can check the link to ascertain the present price as you read this.
Ripple is useful for banks
Ripple has developed a blockchain technology platform that serves as a payments network for banks, digital asset exchanges, and other financial institutions. The participants use XRP or Ripple the coin in their transactions. According to Ripple's website transactions have a four-second settlement time. This contrasts with two minutes for ethereum and over an hour for bitcoin.
The rise in Ripple perhaps shows a trend towards supporting coins and their associated blockchain technology which have practical uses. Ripple already claims to have more than 100 financial institutions that use its network.
The company also claims that some South Korean and Japanese banks have been testing the Ripple system in cross-border payments.
There are 100 billion XRP in existence of which the Ripple company owns 61 percent.
Previously published in Digital Journal
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