Ripple is on a roll currently as it keeps on growing and growing even more. In just a week, Ripple has grown over 120 percent, going from $1.3 to $3.0 (achieving a record high of $3 during this period). During this same week, Ripple also became the second largest cryptocurrency in the world taking over Ethereum’s spot also achieving a market cap of over $110 billion.

It’s been quite an eventful week for cryptocurrency as Bitcoin fell during this week below $14,000 and Ripple broke personal records. Although Bitcoin was the more popular currency throughout the year, growing by over 1900 percent, Ripple had an even better year than Bitcoin growing over 39,000 percent in 2017.

With the price of Ripple still being very low as compared to its biggest competitors Ethereum and Bitcoin, it is safe to assume that it will grow even more in 2018. But why did Ripple see such huge growth in the first place? It’s because of what Ripple is and what it offers to its users.

Unlike Bitcoin, the XRP (digital coin of Ripple) is aimed at enterprises and large firms in general. Ripple markets itself as a cross-border payment solution for large financial institutions with its blockchain technology. The Ripple payment service aims to work with banks as well. Banks in South Korea and Japan are also testing Ripple with regards to the cross-border payment feature.

It’s not like cross-border payments aren’t possible currently, they are. However, they may take a few days to complete, moreover they cost a lot. These transactions can be highly unprofitable for banks unless the transaction amount is high.

That’s where Ripple comes in. XRP can be used by enterprises to obtain high liquidity without having to pay any additional fees. XRP acts as a bridge between fiat currencies during a transaction. It works well with most bank’s risk and privacy requirements, and Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliances are built into each transaction.

Not only that but the biggest difference that sets it apart from all other cryptocurrencies is the super low transaction times. XRP can complete 1500 transactions per second compared to 3 transactions per second with Bitcoin, and internationaltransactions can be settled within a few seconds with Ripple. Compared to Bitcoin’s 10-minute transaction time, it’s obvious why many would choose Ripple.

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Another aspect about Ripple which makes it different from the rest is that it’s not particularly ‘mined’ like other cryptocurrencies are. Ripple also has the backing of major banks and organizations which makes it a smart move to invest in such a cryptocurrency. When the value of cryptocurrencies decreases, it is often Ripple that recovers the fastest.

Ripple tends to hold its own ground when the rest of the market ‘corrects’ itself i.e. if a market crash were to come, it would not affect Ripple as much as it would affect other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum which according to many experts are heavily inflated and should not be further invested in.

Ripple’s significantly low value is also a plus point that makes it a much more attractive option to invest in compared to Bitcoin which is very expensive. Bitcoin is also much more volatile than Ripple thus it’s a very risky game to invest in Bitcoin. One can invest in Ripple without risking too much money which is not the case with Bitcoin.

Having support from multiple big organizations and offering much needed features like costless ways to initiate international transactions, it looks like Ripple is set to have an amazing 2018 as well. Thus it would be a smart move to invest in Ripple while its still cheap.