The price of Ripple (XRP) is not expected to change significantly over the course of this coming week. As such, it is expected to stay within the range of $0.29 – $0.35. XRP holders witnessed a slight price decrease over the past week.



XRP wavered from $0.31 and has settled at a price of $0.29. XRP is inching up to $0.31 at the time of this writing and is expected to stay within the above range over the course of the next week barring catalyst events.



In the meantime, let’s take a look at what the community or team behind Ripple and XRP have been up to over the past week.



The Santander Bank Fiasco



A tweet from Santander Bank UK gave hope to many an XRP holder worldwide when the company confirmed from their official blue checked account that they were doing “great with using XRP for international payments to 18 EU countries and the USA.”



Unfortunately, this tweet was a bit premature, and the company later clarified that they were using Ripple and it’s product xCurrent for the processing of transactions, not XRP. xCurrent, for those not in the know, is a messaging protocol product by Ripple, the company, to compete with SWIFT.



xCurrent does not require the use of XRP, xRapid is more of a catalyst for XRP but it has not seen as much adoption by financial institutions as of yet. The company has made it easier for institutions using xCurrent to access xRapid and XRP for liquidity but many have chosen not to use it.



The Weiss Stamp of Approval



In a report entitled “Dark Shadows with a Bright Future”, Weiss, a research and ratings agency has classified XRP, EOS, and Bitcoin as “A” cryptocurrencies.



The company used factors such as adoption and innovation to set their ratings. The agency expects these specific currencies to shine in the present and in the future.



Huobi Thinks About XRP’s Future

The international exchange, Huobi, will deploy XRP futures contracts via its derivatives exchange on the 29th of March. XRP futures, when launched, will go alongside Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and EOS futures on the Huobi DM exchange.

Traders can expect the contracts to occur in increments of weekly, bi-weekly, and a quarterly basis. This recent news is in addition to other XRP support options it has done over the course of the month of March. Huobi has already added XRP support for OTC operations joining a few other select coins and tokens.



Competitors in the Marketplace

Ripple is expected to face competition from IBM and the Stellar ecosystem.

While Ripple has conducted tests with Western Union in the past, the latter firm has sought to try out different solutions before making a commitment. Western Union has expressed interest in a partnership with Thunes, a remittance system.

Meanwhile, IBM and Stellar have banks utilizing WorldWire, a system that utilizes digital assets such as XLM to conduct transfers.

