In a recent article by Coingape, author Nilesh Maurya concluded with an interesting comment about the paths of Ripple XRP and Stellar XLM, Maurya states:

“Even though Ripple and Stellar come from the same source code and cater to the same industry, their focus approach and strategy is very different. Stellar (XLM) and Ripple (XRP) have different goals and they walk on their own paths. Stellar (XLM)’s developers are focused on helping startups while the folks behind Ripple (XRP) are partnering with banks. This shows us that Stellar (XLM) and Ripple (XRP) are quite different and that they will not compete anytime soon unless they cross over each other territory The way Stellar is moving, its enriching value for itself and for its token holders. As Stellar continues its focus to help startups, it is bound to grow exponentially and in a monopoly manner unless Ripple crosses its path. Still, the market is huge for stellar to sustain competition and emerge as a key cryptocurrency.”

Indeed, XLM and XRP want to achieve similar goals, to exist as the best platform for cross border transactions and general peer to peer payments. Indeed, Stellar want to focus on startups and smaller entities whilst Ripple have their eyes set on institutions and integration with ready made banks and financial services, but, which route is the correct route and which is going to make it first?

Indeed, some of Ripple’s innovation has helped lead to the current situation within Ripple which leaves the company within a number of lawsuits. Their institutional interest has caused further investigation into the project which has deemed XRP as a security. It’s as if Ripple’s mainstream reputation has had the opposite impact, instead of making XRP more popular, it’s actually XRP at the butt of many an investigation. On the flip side though, but focusing on smaller movements, the progression of Stellar and XLM has slowed somewhat, meaning in terms of the capitalisation of their cryptocurrencies, XLM is a little behind XRP and has quite a way to go before its able to catch up.

It’s impossible to know. We can’t even tell at this stage which path is right. Indeed, Ripple are putting themselves at risk of hate but also, Stellar are putting themselves at risk of remaining in the underground. Success will be found by the project that finds balance and this will no doubt come through regulation and other factors within adoption. Success in crypto is actually impossible to measure and there’s a chance that our future will exist a world where XRP and XLM both work at the top of the money transfer game and are offered as services across the mainstream together.

It’s not a competition, therefore the real winners are those that are using the technology at an early stage and not the projects themselves.

Coingape