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According to Coinmarketcap.com, Ripple (XRP) is currently the third most popular cryptocurrency by capitalization, holding steady at about $32 billion dollars. As of the start of this week, it has been the only top-5 cryptocurrency that has had a positive trend since it started trading. However, the Thursday sell-off took it to new lows around 0.92.

Even in light of the digital currency’s impressive run-up in December and the first half of January, it still has quite a bit of potential for future growth. The Ripple technology has one huge advantage: near-instant international payments. With Ripple, such transactions are processed in just 10–15 seconds, while in the SWIFT system they can take up to 3 days. This is exactly why news from the financial sector could further spur Ripple’s growth.

What Would Drive Ripple’s Growth?

Last week it became known that the Ripple team had concluded two new partnership agreements. The first was with the telecom company IDT, and the second was with the international payment service MercuryFX. They will test the functionality of xRapid Ripple, based on the Ripple token (XRP), for the purpose of increasing speed and lowering commissions when making payments.

As of now, this cryptocurrency has already generated quite a bit of positive signs. For example, in early January the international payment system Moneygram announced plans to add the XRP token to increase speed and lower commissions.

What is There to Be Afraid Of?

There are challenges, however.

First, rapid growth is being held back by ongoing litigation with R3.

Second, there is stiff blockchain-based competition, which does not let up for even a second.

Third, the development of regulations for these kinds of cryptocurrencies is still in progress. One important fact from Ripple’s story is important to remember when talking about this. In May, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network fined Ripple $700,000 for violating the bank secrecy laws relating to money laundering prevention.

What are Ripple’s Prospects?

Taking into account the limited nature of XRP (only 100 billion), and the volume of transactions through SWIFT, we get a $153-trillion-dollar market. If all this volume is stored in XRP, not including funds used to create the wallet and which are not in circulation, the value of each of the 100 billion XRP tokens would be $1530. The average value for each day in the year would be $4.19, and if you consider that there are only about 250 business days per year, it would be $6.12. But that would only be once Ripple takes over the world. For now, all we have to do is wait for news about yet another agreement with a major financial company, each of which will increase the currency’s value.

Under these conditions, a return to above the three-dollar mark within the next few weeks is quite possible. The price has stalled around $0.85 and it may be getting ready for another leap after a huge sell-off.

Written and contributed by Aleksey Khayrutdinov, FLOGmall founder and CEO.

Aleksey Khayrutdinov is the founder and inspirer of the FLOGmall project. FLOGmall is an international e-commerce site created for users from all over the world, who sell and buy various products and services with tokens. Also, he is the founder of Topzakazz online store and fulfillment-service Topzakazz.biz. He has specialized in the successful implementation of e-commerce projects for more than 3 years and has over 6 years of experience in retail. He went through all the standard steps to launch his own online stores and enter international markets in practice.

What are your thoughts about Ripple’s future? Is it bright? Bleak? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Images courtesy of CoinMarketCap, Deposit Photos, Ripple

The post Ripple (XRP) – The Dark Horse Favorite for 2018? appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

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