Ripple, the maker of the Ripple Consensus Ledger, has seen the value of its native digital token, XRP, increase dramatically in 2017 to $1.6 billion.

The foundation for Ripple’s price rise was first laid at the end of 2016. On December 30, Ripple declared in an e-mail: “The time is right for XRP to be in the spotlight.” Towards that end, the company introduced its new quarterly XRP Market Operations Report in the same letter.

“In an effort to continually improve the health of XRP markets globally, we are announcing the future release of the quarterly XRP Market Operations Report,” Ripple wrote.

Thus, Ripple began publishing in January its upcoming quarter XRP sales target, XRP sales performances versus previous quarter target, provided commentary on previous quarter price movements and announcements of new third-party wallets, exchanges, validators and market makers.

The digital currency space took notice. On January 10, BitStamp, one of the world’s most voluminous Bitcoin and digital asset exchanges, announced it would launch XRP trading that same week. Bitstamp took advantage of XRP’s incentive program, enabling the exchange to offer for a period of XRP trades without fees.

“The relationship with Bitstamp and launch of XRP volume incentives underscores our commitment to making XRP the institutional standard bearer for value transfer globally,” notes Miguel Vias, Head of XRP Markets at Ripple. “XRP is uniquely capable of introducing more liquidity to exchanges to support global payment volume, especially in exotic corridors. Ripple’s adoption with banks puts XRP in pole position to become a global settlement asset, which translates to more liquidity for Bitstamp, and more value for institutional and individual investors.”

Nejc Kodrič, CEO at Bitstamp, commented: “After evaluating a number of digital currencies for inclusion on our exchange, it soon became clear that customer demand for XRP was particularly strong, Fortunately, Ripple and XRP also happen to be a good fit for the requirements of our EU licence and so we are delighted to be able to respond to our customers’ needs in this way.”

Further, Ripple had momentum heading into 2017, as R3 had trailed XRP for interbank cross-border payments in October 2016. It received a $55 million grant from the consortium as well.

While analysts have contended an exodus to altcoins has propped up demand for XRP, the foundations for the recent price rise could have been sowed in the latter half of 2016, as increasing press of R3’s use of Ripple made headlines. Ripple shortly thereafter received $55 million. Ripple announced new features since then, such as interconnecting Ripple Consensus Ledger(RCL) and Interledger Protocol (ILP), as well as Escrow and Payment Channels, enabling increased scalability for the platform. Ripple claims their platforms can match Visa volume.

Last week, the bank known as Japan’s largest hedge fund – Norinchukin Bank – joined SBI Ripple Asia’s consortium, bringing the number of banks experimenting Ripple to more than 50.

“Ripple has a solution focused on making real-time payments between banks a reality at low cost, great speed and low risk. but to have 47 banks sign up for a service in just one country is unprecedented. We are using something called distributed ledger tech, there has been a lot hype about blockchain in recent times, but ripple is far ahead of everyone else in the space, we built something that works for enterprises is trusted now by major banks around the world.”

The Ripple representative notes that “a slew of banks have signed up” for Ripple. “The way we positioned it is that it is an enabling tech for banks to use to improve services between themselves,” he says. “Ripple doesn’t touch customers directly. We provide a platform, banks can use to settle money between themselves in real time. It is a transformative technology rather than a disruptive.

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