Although you can’t tell from XRP price movements, there was big Ripple news yesterday: namely, that Ripple opened an office in Singapore.

If this doesn’t sound like much to you, perhaps I should add that Singapore is a major financial center in the Southeast Asia region. It is a small country, sure, but its impact on global trade and finance is HUGE. Every bank of consequence has a big office there.

Moreover, the government of Singapore is openly seeking new fintech and innovation. It could very well pose a threat to SWIFT, the leading settlement company in the world, and the main obstacle to Ripple’s success.

Our long-term Ripple price prediction is based on the idea that XRP can replace SWIFT as the premier network for settling cross-border payments. It is a $155.0-trillion market with enormous economic potential.




If there’s one country that can start Ripple down that road, it is Singapore. The World Economic Forum rates it highly on openness, trade, and competitiveness, making it the perfect launching pad for a blockchain revolution.

Despite this amazing development, the Ripple to USD exchange rate barely moved. It is up 1.87% in the last 24 hours to $0.182969 on weak trade volumes.

At the same time, XRP dropped 1.28% against Bitcoin.

Analyst Take:

It’s exciting to see bold leadership from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

Ripple has caught a lot of flak for structuring itself as a corporation, but moves like this reveal the upside. There were no roundabout discussions between a handful of developers. Instead, there was an executive decision to expand where the currency is likely to catch on.

It might rub some crypto purists the wrong way to see a top-down structure, but corporate history shows that hierarchical businesses do extremely well. Just read the legendary work of Ronald Coase if you don’t believe me.

Also Read: Cryptocurrency Price Predictions 2018: Ripple Is the Clear Winner