Now that the initial hype around cryptocurrency has died down, attention has switched to the relationships that cryptocurrencies can build with companies to increase usage. Ripple XRP has been in the news frequently as news of new partnerships has broken. The latest news has the potential to be the biggest so far. Reports have emerged suggesting that Western Union is trialing the Ripple XRP blockchain as a means of transferring assets between branches. This would be huge news for Ripple XRP, dwarfing all of the cryptocurrency partnerships that we have heard about to date.Western Union adopting a cryptocurrency would be the biggest vote of confidence in the medium to date. Western Union is used by millions of people worldwide to transfer cash when traditional banking services are unavailable. At present, fees for these services can be very expensive due to the difficulty of wiring money between the markets that Western Union operates in, many of which have poor infrastructure. A move to Ripple XRP would allow Western Union to speed up transfers and reduce the costs paid by customers for moving money around.So far, Ripple XRP has been stubbornly resistant to moving on rumours like this. While many investors believe that these partnerships are the key to the future of individual cryptocurrencies, there has been little market reaction to these rumours. This is in sharp contrast to what was happening a few months ago when any suggestion of a tie-up between a cryptocurrency and a major player - no matter how ill-founded - could send prices skyrocketing. This doesn’t mean that the news isn’t worth noting, however, for the long-term investor, this could be useful information when deciding on an investment strategy for the rest of 2018.