During Consensus 2018, we witnessed Ripple host a community event, featuring performances from Snoop Dogg and, most interestingly the launch of a new rebrand for XRP. Upon this, we speculated around what the re-brand could mean. Really, it is rare for a company to launch a re-brand without having a secondary motive, for example, a re-brand could follow a product launch or a big change in direction for a company. It now transpires, that the latter could be the case. Let me clear things up a bit for you… At the moment, XRP is in the midst of a battle between authorities and Ripple, with authorities (and some disgruntled, ex-investors) claiming that XRP is a security, as a result of Ripple owning a majority in the share of it. Moreover, Ripple know that in order to see XRP generate some real value and become a truly adoptable cryptocurrency, it needs to see listings on major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase. As it stands though, the likes of Coinbase will not list securities. With the water murky and no official legal status stamped onto the side of XRP, Coinbase, and others, simply won’t even flirt with the idea of listing Coinbase. This is where the re-brand comes in. Speculation now dictates that this re-brand has been designed to allow Ripple to cut ties with XRP and thus, allow XRP to become an asset of its own. According to Bitcoin.com: “It has been theorized that the company is seeking to distance itself from its eponymous currency in order to “desecuritise” it. The likelihood of XRP being a security, given the fact that Ripple has a majority holding, is strong. In the event of XRP being classified as such by the SEC it would have a major impact on XRP’s price and its availability on US exchanges. Given the foregoing, it makes sense for the company to emphasize the distinction between the company and XRP. It is likely to encounter significant difficulties, however, in convincing people that this is the case.” See the full article for yourself, here- https://news.bitcoin.com/ripple-wants-people-to-stop-calling-its-coin-ripple/ So, what does this mean for the value of XRP? Overall, a listing on a mainstream exchange would push up trading volume, market capitalisation and value, that’s a fact of the market. How high this might push the value, is a bit of a mystery, although given XRP’s current value of around $0.61, we could expect this to cause a jump of around 200%, allowing XRP to hit values as high as $2.00. Whilst this re-brand will take time to settle and of course, XRP won’t be ‘desecuritised’ straight away, this could very well be the next big step in Ripple’s story, and a starting block in the race towards XRP adoption.