Breaking News / Cryptocoins / Ripple

Ripple XRP has been outperforming the top coins lately and just passed Ethererum's market cap of 22 billion. The upward spike was mainly due to an announcement of a new product called xRapid. An executive at Ripple told the public that they're getting ready to launch xRapid, a new product which is aimed at helping banks enhance the speed of transactions by using the cryptocurrency XRP. According to Ripple, xRapid is set to launch sometime in mid-October. Ripple describes its new xRapid product as using the XRP coin as bridge between fiat currencies, which allows banks and payment providers to speed up the processing of cross-border transactions. This brings new utility to the cryptocurrency, XRP for banks and payment providers. Ripple has already gained interest by number of well known financial institutions, including Santander Bank, Western Union, American Express, and Money Gram just to name a few. However, those partnerships are for xCurrent which is another product offered by Ripple. According to Ripple more than 120 banks tested xCurrent which is a blockchain-based product. Bitcoin BTC has also seen a positive trend lately along with Ripple XRP. Despite the overall decline in price this year, bitcoin itself has made progress in the network within. Bitcoin is starting to get accepted as payment method by a number of small to high profile companies. Earlier this year Expedia announced a partnership which allows Expedia customers to pay for travel using bitcoin. Etsy has also given an option to their merchants to accept bitcoin for handmade, vintage, and unique goods. Another company, Bitplaza accepts bitcoin as payment for electronics and consumer goods through their mobile shopping app. Overstock has also made it possible to spend bitcoin for furniture and home decorations. Years ago bitcoin was mainly used to send payment between regular individuals but now corporations are looking at bitcoin as a potential global currency.