Ripple News Update

A new report issued by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is roiling XRP markets because it seems to hint at a possible partnership between Ripple and America’s leading bank. As a result, Ripple prices are up one percent against the U.S. dollar.

The XRP to USD exchange rate is currently $1.32.

Ripple (XRP) Price Chart

But let’s take a step back. What exactly did JPMorgan say? And are investors right to be excited?




To answer the first: The report says that interbank transfers are problematic. Money is lost in transit, confirmation of receipt takes forever, communication lines are not clear etc.

There is a truckload of issues with cross-bank transactions.

But the report doesn’t toss problems into the wind. It suggests solutions as well—namely, real-time payments (RTP) with instant communication and auto-posting. (Source: “The Real Value of Real-Time Payments,” JPMorgan Chase & Co., last accessed January 29, 2018.)

“RTP broadens the scope of efficiency to the business processes and communication surrounding a payment,” the report reads.

Okay. Where’s the connection to Ripple, though?

Well, some investors and commenters believe that real-time payments is awfully similar to Ripple. But there is also an inbuilt assumption that Ripple is on the verge of partnering with “household names” in American finance.

This suspicion was only deepened by JPM adding the subheading “A RIPPLE EFFECT OF BENEFITS,” in its report. “Speed, transparency, integrated information and process simplification have a ripple effect of benefits,” they wrote. [Emphasis added.]

This line sent Redditors into conspiratorial spasms, but I’m not convinced.

If you have to sift through tea leaves to make financial predictions, you’re probably going to lose a lot of money. Let’s stick to the facts, or as near to them as we can get.

RTP is not like XRP at all.

We know this because JPMorgan is not saying it’ll abandon SWIFT. It is not talking about liquidity issues, per se. It’s merely talking about (mis)communication in interbank transfers, which is a minor function of XRP.

So don’t get too excited. Jamie Dimon might regret calling Bitcoin a “fraud,” but I don’t think he’s betting the farm on XRP just yet.

Analyst Take

Instead, let’s focus on what we know is real. Namely, that “…three of the top five money transfer companies worldwide will be implementing Ripple’s XRP token in their payment flow systems in 2018.” That is a quote from the company itself.

As such, we don’t need mysterious JPMorgan partnerships in order to justify our $10.00 Ripple price prediction for 2018. There’s plenty of real evidence to go on.