What’s more is they both have some serious backing. Despite only being less than a month into the new year, it has already been eventful for cryptocurrencies . The last couple of weeks have seen a massive crypto crash, and although the prices are slowly starting to pick up again, for some it is still rocky. One coin that is still set to be huge is not a new comer in the game, but is certainly one to back and that is Ripple. It is a name that has certainly been in the spot light in recent weeks, and was designed to facilitate transactions. The company hopes to eventually partner up with banks, which will in turn give users a faster, and more secure method for carrying out a large number of transactions. SO far, it has not disappointed, and it has been incredibly successful. They have partnered with over 100 partners, and over 75 of these deploy its service commercially. Santander and UBS are among their partners. They have a number of high profile companies who are backing Ripple as well.The price has reflected this high profile backing as well. For much of 2017, the price hovered around $0.20; however, by early January, it soared to $4.00, and even briefly overtook Ethereum, making it the second-largest cryptocurrency by marker capital. Whilst there are high hopes for Ripple to continue this way, it is limited by its size. However; there is a new up and coming coin that functions similarly to Ripple - Stellar ; it is just as fast, but cheaper to use than its competitor. The fee is less that a third of Ripple’s, for a similar transaction. Already, it has investment from Stripe and has partnered with IBM. It is quickly gathering a huge fan base in the crypto world. Stellar has a market capital of just under $10billion, and is expected to capture a larger share of the market as 2018 progresses. It really is a complete game changer.