After the brutal bear market of 2018, which included several steep drops, many have been left wondering which cryptocurrencies will emerge as survivors, if any at all. In a space filled with scams, manipulation and immaturity, some blockchain companies stand out as more serious and useful projects. Ripple is one of these standouts. There’s no shortage of opinions regarding which of these coins will prove to be valuable and which become useless and ultimately sink to zero, but if you examine the partnerships that Ripple has forged you’ll begin to see the enormous potential for usage and growth.

What is Ripple and XRP?

Ripple Labs is a private company that has created the cryptocurrency known as XRP and a protocol for making worldwide monetary transactions. The goal is to replace the current system used by banks and other financial institutions to send and receive different amounts of money all over the world in a cheaper, faster and more efficient way. Ripple has three products. xCurrent, xRapid, and xVia. While only xRapid runs strictly on Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP, xCurrent and xVia are products that will smoothen and speed up transactions for millions and act as an intermediary step before Ripple merges the 3 into one solution.

How big is the industry?

According to a survey by McKinsey, a top research and analysis firm, the global payments industry is experiencing explosive growth and will generate an estimated $2.2 trillion in revenue by 2020. The market is growing and providing great opportunity for profits even without the help of the disruptive technology Ripple is bringing to the table.

Strategic International Partnerships

Ripple is working on uniting people, banks and other businesses by creating a stable and speedy network that could benefit both the worker and employer when dealing with smaller amounts of money, but also a central bank hoping to transact in much larger amounts or even a private investor looking to move hundreds of millions. The team at Ripple has been focusing on connecting with the heavy hitters of the payments sector Visa and American Express, huge banks like PNC and central banks around the world.

Partnerships and agreements with the National Bank of Kuwait along with several banks in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all highlight Ripple’s aim to serve areas with high rates of migrant workers such as the Middle East. The technology will be effective in aiding business and personal transactions of all kinds. The massively rich and will benefit along with common workers when Ripple’s plans fall into place.

While speaking at a conference earlier this year, Ripple’s head of worldwide infrastructure innovation Dilip Rao explained the value they can bring to these migrant workers all over the world.

If you’re sending money for blue collar workers, this often can be a small amount of money, $200, and the fees for these kinds of small payments can be as high as 5 to 10%. So, this is actually hurting the people who can afford it the least.

Sky’s the limit

XRP has already passed Ethereum on multiple occasions and could be on track to widen that gap if international businesses begin using not just XRP, but any of Ripple’s tools sooner rather than later.

In the short term, Ripple has performed better and has its value relative to its all time high when compared to most other major cryptocurrencies. This leads many to expect the digital asset to be upwards of 1 dollar sometime in the near future. In the medium to long term, XRP presents an opportunity to multiply in price many times over should the organization continue its pace.

With a market cap that is currently just under 15 billion, Ripple has a lot of room to grow and closing the gap on Bitcoin’s lead in market capitalization during the next bull run would mean XRP indicate a price near the $5 USD range.