A new petition has arisen to persuade the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to make XRP the official cryptocurrency of next summer’s Olympics and has already received 7,500 signatures.

The man who is behind the petition, Ken Takahashi believes that XRP has the potential to solve many logistical issues associated with many big international sporting events, especially concerning foreign exchange. Instead of putting loads of pressure on the Japanese yen, Takahashi has proposed a system which adopted the use of Ripple’s currency XRP>

Part of Takashashi’s reasoning behind the the petition is due to the struggles behind the last few games. A section of the petition states:

“As tourists stream into the country, demand for the local currency skyrockets, causing long lines at currency exchanges, as seen at past events like Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. Confusing exchange rates and language barriers further complicate the problem. We believe that the fast transaction times and security of Ripple Lab’s XRP cryptocurrency would be a great contribution towards solving this problem.”

The petition was actually started around ten months ago, however, it has recently gained attention. The increase in attention also comes after Ripple have made significant developments and especially in Japan after the release of the blockchain remittance platform which has been built by Ripple and SBI Holdings, MoneyTap.

The aim of the petition is to see yen be replaced by XRP for the games. People from all over the globe would only need to use cryptocurrency payment systems to make purchases whilst they attend the games.

Over the past weekend, the petition has gained over 1,000 signatures. There are currently over 8,000 signatures overall on the petition.

If the petition is listened to by the IOC then this would be huge for digital currencies and especially XRP.

The only issue we can see with this is that not everyone uses cryptocurrencies just yet so this could either get more people into the industry or could be a massive flop if it goes through.

As shown on CoinMarketCap, XRP is the third top digital currency and over the past 24 hours, it is in the green with a 1.94% increase. It is currently priced at $0.482.

What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think down below in the comments!

References:

bitcoinist