Ripple has surged another 33 percent on Friday and is very close to becoming the second-largest cryptocurrency. It is up 30,000 percent in 2017.

After the Friday’s price jump, ripple's market cap hit $73.6 billion at 11:04 GMT, briefly leaving ethereum $3 billion behind.

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While bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies are known for being decentralized, ripple owners are well-known, and the cryptocurrency is centralized.

The ripple cryptocurrency, XPR token, operates under parent company Ripple, a privately funded firm based in San Francisco, California.

Ripple has had the biggest growth in value among notable digital tokens this year. It has gone from less than a cent ($0.006523) in January to $1.90 on Friday, which represents a 30,000 percent surge this year.

According to its founders, ripple seeks to enable “secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks.”

The advantage of ripple, according to its backers, is that it is not just a cryptocurrency. It is also used as a digital protocol that acts as a bridge to other currencies and doesn’t discriminate against peers whether they are using digital money, fiat currencies or even mobile minutes.

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