Ripple has had a lot to celebrate over the last year!

From adding new RippleNet members, to launching our first blockchain conference, to completing the escrow of 55 billion XRP, it’s clear that the team’s hard work to enable the Internet of Value (IoV), coupled with the XRP community’s support, is paying off.

In fact, XRP has experienced phenomenal growth — up nearly 12,000 percent — from December 2016 to December 2017. This makes XRP’s performance better than any other digital asset in the industry in 2017.

But just as the year is coming to a close, there’s one more reason for the Ripple team and the XRP community to celebrate — the five year anniversary of the XRP Ledger.

XRP sets the standard from the start

Since 2012, XRP has been considered the only digital asset with a clear institutional use case that works to solve the multi-trillion dollar liquidity problem that plagues banks, payment providers and corporates.

For example, XRP can provide liquidity to financial institutions who need to send cross-border payments — presenting a greater opportunity for these institutions to widen their footprint in major corridors or gain more access to emerging markets.

Cuallix, a major payment provider, is the first RippleNet member to use xRapid — Ripple’s solution that uses XRP to source liquidity — to reduce the cost of sending cross-border payments and remittances from the U.S. to Mexico.

The XRP Ledger, the digital asset’s underlying distributed ledger technology, is the key reason why XRP steadily led the pack of digital assets by being the fastest, most cost-effective, scalable digital asset for payments, which helps advance its goal — enabling IoV.

IoV is the belief that money should move in the same fashion as digital information moves today — in real time.

In order to deliver on this vision, Ripple continues to support the development and adoption of the XRP Ledger to ensure that XRP remains the fastest, most scalable digital asset on the market.

Additionally, the digital asset market is seeing more demand for XRP which speaks to consumers’ understanding that XRP is the best digital asset to remove the friction from global payments.

Ripple pledges to increase XRP usage

The Ripple team is committed to furthering the adoption and usage of XRP for payments. In fact, we continuously work with regulators, governments and central banks to better understand how our technology can help remove the friction from cross-border payments.

And, as more digital assets flood the market, the value of digital assets will be determined by their utility and the problem they solve for their users.

Since XRP, has continually provided a strong use case and is undisputed in its technological achievements, it makes sense that the market would take notice — prompting a surge in XRP’s value.

What’s more, XRP is now available to more than 50 exchanges worldwide to better serve the global demand for the digital asset.

It has been a phenomenal five years, and the Ripple team is appreciative of the community’s support. We can’t wait to see what the future years will bring!

Watch our live Q&A with David Schwarz today. As Brad Garlinghouse said in his livestream, “David Schwartz is the Steph Curry of cryptography.”