Will Ripple (XRT) unseat Ethereum (ETH)?

[krystaltoken]

Over the past week, altcoin Ripple’s (XRP) price has gone through the roof. It has seen an unprecedented 140 percent growth over the past seven days, up almost 63 percent in the past 24 hours alone, trading at around $0.61 at press time.

XRP has gone as far as to beat Ethereum (ETH) to be ranked number two by total market capitalization on CoinMarketCap (returned to the third spot). What could possibly drive the price so high? While there’s no definite answer to that question, here’s some background and theories.

Background: What does Ripple bring to the table?

Ripple is a California-based payment network and protocol company that was established in 2012. Essentially, it focuses on facilitating transfers between major financial corporations.

Ripple is not quite your average cryptocurrency — in fact, some might argue it’s not a cryptocurrency at all. It champions a less conventional ideology for the industry: Ripple doesn’t want to overthrow the government along with the banking system. Conversely, it chose to work with mainstream financial players from the very start. As Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said  in March:
“We were, from the beginning, really looking at how we work with governments, how we work with banks. And I think some in the crypto community have been very much, ‘How do we destroy the government. How do we circumvent banks?’”
Garlinghouse believes that governments aren’t going anywhere, saying, “In my lifetime, I don’t think that’s happening” — which is why he finds it logical to cooperate with them and work within the existing regulatory framework. That attitude helped Ripple land crucial partnerships with important players, including China-based payment services provider Lian-Lian, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and Western Union, among others.

Ripple’s native token is XRP. However, the company draws a line between the two: Ripple presents itself as a technology company, while XRP is an “independent digital asset” built on open-source blockchain technology called XRP Ledger. As per its website, Ripple uses both XRP and XRP Ledger in its products, such as xRapid, and owns 60 billion XPR — however, it allegedly does not control either the token nor the technology.

Theory 1: xRapid’s launch

xRapid is a blockchain-backed tool designed by Ripple for easing cross-border fiat transfers between financial institutions.

Ripple hopes to use it to pioneer the mainstream financial system: After testing the platform to run payments between the United States and Mexico in May, it proved to save transaction costs by 40-70 percent. Bypassing conventional foreign exchange providers, xRapid also increased transaction speed to “just over two minutes.” In comparison, according to McKinsey research, typical international payments take between three and five working days to complete.

The recent boost could be explained by the company’s recent announcement that xRapid could be launched commercially "in the next month or so," which was made by head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Ripple Sagar Sarbhai in an interview with CNBC on Sept. 17:
"I am very confident that in the next one month or so, you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production."

In August, Ripple partnered with three international crypto exchanges — U.S.-based Bittrex, Mexican Bitso and Philippine Coins.Ph — as part of an xRapid solution to build a “healthy” ecosystem of digital asset exchanges. The new partnership will enable xRapid to move between XRP, U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos and Philippine pesos. Additionally, Ripple is considering entering the Chinese market to apply its distributed ledger technology (DLT) to cross-border payments, as Jeremy Light, vice president of European Union strategic accounts at Ripple, told CNBC on Aug. 15.

To explain XRP’s recent breakthrough, some Reddit users suggest that xRapid has been quietly launched, while Ripple is going to announce it at a later stage. “I think they are letting banks in one by one so the XRP markets would not go totally ballistic if everyone jumps in the same time”.

“Because of the volume and books [are] being eaten alive, leaving no corpses behind (except fudders), I wouldn't be surprised if xRapid is in use. People try to sell, but it comes back up and this volume is off the charts and is increasing. If it's just investors, then [a] new market opened somewhere with lots of people trading suddenly, which is less likely,” another user agreed. Either way, an official xRapid launch would be big, positive news for XRP.

Theory 2: PNC joining RippleNet

More concrete Ripple-related news this week came from PNC, one of top ten largest U.S. banks with 8 million customers and retail branches in 19 states. On Wednesday, Sept. 19, Ripple announced that PNC had joined RippleNet to process international payments for its customers. “It’s one of the first major U.S. banks to use blockchain tech to streamline payments into and out of the country.”
 
RippleNet is a decentralized network of banks and payment providers that connect through Ripple's solutions, such as xCurrent. Specifically, a particular PNC unit — Treasury Management — will use xCurrent to speed up overseas transactions held by U.S. commercial clients.

Ripple emphasises that the solution will allow PNC business clients to receive payments against their invoices instantly. Senior vice president for product management of Ripple, Asheesh Birla, thinks that using xCurrent in banking is the first step toward the adoption of other Ripple products, such as xRapid. "It's a way [for the banks] to get their toe into the water,” Birla told Reuters.

Notably, xCurrent — unlike xRapid — doesn’t cut out the corresponding bank from the entire process, thus not quite changing the conventional system but rather modifying it. The latter uses immutable “interledger” protocol, which “is not a distributed ledger,” as confirmed by David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief cryptographer, who was sceptical about banks using xCurrent in cross-border payments. David Schwartz declared banks were unlikely to deploy the technology because of low scalability and privacy problems.

Nevertheless, the news proved to be bullish. Interestingly, BlackRock Inc., a major American global investment management, used to be a subsidiary of PNC during the period of 1995-1999. Currently, PNC is BlackRock’s largest shareholder, owning a 21.45 percent stake of the company.

Theory 3: Ripple dodging the ‘security’ label

In a recent interview with CNBC, Sarbhai countered concerns that XPR is likely to come under a security classification in the U.S. — as several high-profile and ongoing lawsuits allege.

To defend the company’s native token, he pointed to the open-source protocol of the XRP ledger and its independence from the corporation itself, emphasizing that Ripple controls only seven percent of the validator nodes operating on the network. He further argued that XRP investors do not secure a stake or shareholder-like position when they purchase the asset and emphasized that countries such as Australia, the Philippines and Thailand have all classified XRP as a commodity.

Thus, similarly to Bitcoin and Ethereum, XRP might potentially become recognized as a “non-security” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has proven to be bullish for those cryptocurrencies in the past.

Theory 4: FOMO

The massive surge in price could also be explained by good old ‘fear of missing out,’ or FOMO — a particularly powerful force on the crypto market. This seems to be one of the main sentiments on Reddit. According to this theory, as soon as Ripple experienced the first pump on Sept. 18, other investors started to pile in, and the situation snowballed from there.
In another major milestone for cryptocurrency adoption, United States bank PNC will begin using RippleNet to process international payments for its clients.

Ripple made the announcement on Sept. 19, stating that PNC’s Treasury Management unit will be using its xCurrent software solution to expedite cross-border transactions for the bank’s U.S. commercial clients.

According to initial reports, xCurrent will allow PNC clients to receive payments instantly, which will change the way companies approach cash flow and account management. The software allows banks to communicate instantly, to confirm payment both before and after a transaction is initiated.

Flippening

As a result, the price of Ripple soared over the next few days, seeing as much as 15 percent gains in overall market capitalization.
On Friday, Sept. 21, XRP moved past Ethereum to become the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, at around $23 billion.

Building blocks

According to initial reports, Ripple considers the move as a necessary first step in order to get banks and financial institutions to eventually use xRapid — its liquidity product that uses Ripple’s digital token, XRP.
Ripple’s product management senior vice president, Asheesh Birla, says xCurrent is “a way to get their toe into the water.”
These sentiments follow comments from Ripple’s chief cryptographer David Schwartz, who said in June that banks were unlikely to adopt blockchain systems to process international payments in the near future.

Schwartz cited concerns around privacy and scalability as a big worry for banks. Until there is a solution that completely meets these needs, big banks are unlikely to go all-in on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Ripple’s xCurrent protocol is essentially an immutable interledger which allows instant settlement, which is an upgrade to current payment networks. But as Schwartz pointed out, it is not a distributed ledger.

With that being said, PNC has joined a number of major financial institutions that have partnered up with Ripple in various ways.

In August, Ripple expressed interest in breaking into the Chinese market in an effort to speed up international payments.

Optimistic October

Ripple is hoping to launch a commercial version of xRapid as early as October. The company had previously partnered with Bittrex, Mexican Bitso and Philippine Coins.Ph in order to facilitate xRapid to move between XRP, U.S. dollars, Mexican and Philippine Pesos.

Ripple’s pilot of the xRapid system in May 2018 reportedly produced savings on transactions of up to 70 percent, in addition to the increase in transaction speeds.

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, said that he foresees other banking institutions following in the footsteps of PNC by adopting blockchain systems like RippleNet:
“XRP’s surge shows PNC Bank’s recognition of the Ripple protocol. With Bill Clinton keynoting Swell 2018, blockchain is going mainstream. As Ripple’s Greater China Chief Rep from 2014-16 and a Ripple shareholder, I’m confident financial institutions will adopt blockchain.”
 Kieran Kelly, a long-term investor of Ripple, who believes the move is a massive step toward the adoption of Ripple:
“Ripple is adding a bank per week to the network and RippleNet is live in 40 countries and six continents. PNC being the most recently announced bank shows that Ripple is making huge progress globally toward mainstream adoption, providing cheaper, faster and more transparent payments.”

As Kelly points out, the speed of RippleNet is an attractive proponent of the technology, which could speed up international money transfers:
“The traditional finance sector is already implementing blockchain as part of RippleNet and the considerable benefits will drive further adoption globally. Ripple provides banks the ability to make frictionless remittances in three seconds at little cost versus the current format — i.e., SWIFT — which takes three to four days. Banks save 60-70 percent with Ripple.”

Others weren’t as confident about Ripple massive surge in value this week. A quick glance at Twitter made for some interesting reading, as some users offered more skeptical views on the cryptocurrency’s pump in value.

Nicholas Merten, founder of Youtube channel Datadash, suggested that the spike in value was mainly due to traders — not big money investors — climbing into the market:
Congrats to the traders on $XRP, gotta hand it to the bulls. But don’t be mislead, the volume we’re seeing is NOT banks buying the XRP token for xRapid. It’s purely whales and retail traders ATM.

Ripples tech - Impressive
Ripples token - Slight value for use in transactions
— Nicholas Merten (@Nicholas_Merten) September 21, 2018

Matthew Newton, an analyst at eToro, said that XRP was the flavor of the week after the announcement of the PNC partnership:
“Despite being one the most polarizing cryptos of them all, eToro customers can’t get enough of XRP at the moment; it has more exposure than any other asset on our platform. As we’ve seen in the past, the price tends to move in short, sharp bursts, picking up a lot of momentum when the hype builds. It remains to be seen how much further it could go."

As we have seen in the past, perceived good news often drives investors sentiment, and this is clearly the case when it comes to XRP.
The next few days will determine whether the cryptocurrency’s newfound gains will hold strong. Following that, the crypto community will be eagerly awaiting the touted launch of xRapid next month. With these foregoings, the huge question still remains will Ripple (XRT) unseat Ethereum (ETH) ?

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[kevingreen]

The analysis and the points raised here are really in order but I strongly believe that Ripple can not unseat Ethereum, because Ethereum platform is full of potentials that will always be of benefit to the cryptocurrency industry.

[Dblue]

Well, I cannot even think of ruling out the thoughts of probability of this happening from my mind. From what we have seen in the crypto market, it is very possible for any coin to unseat another at any point, and this ripple has done to ethereum at least twice. So it is possible for it to happen again. This I know.

[MB2017]

It's really good how ripple gets the short term good growth over the ETH. But one thing that meanwhile ripple growth eth in the slow pace of growth. In the long term hard to say ripple can continue like that or not. But whenever ripple gets the second place eth gets back in just short time. So really hard to say ripple can overcome for a long term. Yeah, possible for short-term how it's already done by a ripple in the past.

[spiker777]

There is a tug of war going on between these two right now, whoever ends up having the higher market cap doesn't really matter, but it will always pale in comparison to BTC. Personally, I feel that ETH has more rights to be in the number 2 slot that XRP as it has at least produced the ICO and smart contract gaming boom. What has XRP done? Pretty much nothing at all.

[Omega Weapon]

There has been a lot of speculation about that during the last weeks, and while Ripple has surpassed the market cap of ethereum a few times since I watch the markets that has not lasted very long and I really do not expect this is going to change, to me it is very clear that despite its flaws ethereum is a better coin than Ripple and deserves its spot as the second coin after bitcoin.

[poodle63]

There has been a lot of speculation about that during the last weeks, and while Ripple has surpassed the market cap of ethereum a few times since I watch the markets that has not lasted very long and I really do not expect this is going to change, to me it is very clear that despite its flaws ethereum is a better coin than Ripple and deserves its spot as the second coin after bitcoin.

Ethereum deserves its place consider from its usefulness, as far as i know that ripple is not going to be a useful platform for the community, the majority of their clients are bankers and you know that? That looks so weird to call that as a part of the crypto ecosystem that aims to create the new decentralized system to replace the centralized one.
ripple will be more suitable if that will below ether

[Brawnsugar]

Ripple is XRP, you might want to correct that in your title. That being said, I think it's obvious to everyone that Ethereum, with it's attendant flaws as admitted by Vitalik Buterin himself, is much more better coin than XRP, hence it's constant return to second place. I think the whole replacement thing is just a bubble and something to be taken seriously.

[Just John]

This is very possible to happen. As it seems now, Ripple is a great threat to ethereum, and there is a high chance of the coin unseating ethereum, and I don't think that this would come as a surprise to anyone. But ethereum will give ripple a run for this seat though, it doesn't seem like it would just let that happen so easily.

[gatilocoin]

Ripple bankers support, which means that he will have a great future.

[Omega Weapon]

Ripple bankers support, which means that he will have a great future.

The support coming from the bankers is precisely the reason why many people in this market do not want to buy ripple at all, so while the support of the bankers is without a doubt important because they are very powerful at the same time you need the support of the community and ripple is not going to get it because many think that is not even a cryptocurrency.

[Considered]

There is no way that ripple is going to unseat ethereum it is just not that good of a project. Right now the only thing that ripple has going for it is the speed and in a bear market with very low volume where everything is fast, it is not much good to it. Ethereum still has a higher amount of investors and the community is way stronger than ripple

[GeorgiyBilyk]

Very nice article on this topic! until eth does not resolve its problems and becomes more competitive - that is until that time it will lose its position! Ripple showed very good news lately! I see how this project is developing very strongly and constantly signs new agreements on cooperation! see what happens in the next few months ....

[coolcoinz]

This is very possible to happen. As it seems now, Ripple is a great threat to ethereum, and there is a high chance of the coin unseating ethereum, and I don't think that this would come as a surprise to anyone. But ethereum will give ripple a run for this seat though, it doesn't seem like it would just let that happen so easily.

What are you rambling about? XRP and ETH are 2 different coins that have nothing in common. XRP was supposed to integrate banking and cryptocurrencies but it's been years and not much has happened. So, XRP is failing in its own purpose. Do you even know why XRP is said to be centralized? It's because if they don't like you they can freeze your coins. You depend on the network and the network is controlled by a company (Ripple Labs). Even the founder of XRP left the project and started Stellar. XRP is nothing but a speculative pump and dump scheme.

[petrcoin]

Ripple is evertyhing against cryptocurrency stands for. Also shady as hell.

I won't touch it no matter what. And most of the tokens getting hold with same company so unseating ethereum isn't a reality.

[Red-Apple]

your whole long wall of text is meaningless because you are comparing apples and oranges.
XRP is a centralized token that aims to advertise itself as a crypto-currency.
but ETH is a centralized token aims to be used for smart contract creation and be the platform for these projects.
the comparison of the two is completely meaningless.

apart from that, this "seat" you have in mind is an even more meaningless ranking system which is based on a flawed concept called "market capitalization". and since XRP already has a ridiculously huge supply of 100 billion it has a higher rank than ETH already!

[rozenkreitzer]

Very nice article on this topic! until eth does not resolve its problems and becomes more competitive - that is until that time it will lose its position! Ripple showed very good news lately! I see how this project is developing very strongly and constantly signs new agreements on cooperation! see what happens in the next few months ....

Those who wanted to make money on Ripple have already earned. One can only dream of further growth of the coin. And read the news)

[Whaletale]

Ripple actually got eth in that short time which it return in less than 24hrs to it normal sit , I think the surge was fast and some big boys really hit it while some noobs will be in lost but all still a market and holding is another strategy to win.

[YuginKadoya]

Why the comparison is needed for the two very different coins that had ever made and I think it is unlikely that ripple will emerge higher than Ethereum Because ETH is still considered on the top along bitcoin, And in my opinion when the price of bitcoin and most Altcoin rises we can see that Ethereum will sure pump, but again we can never really see the future we might see ripple engaging in really pursuing the higher position on Altcoin or maybe it will still be the same.

[childish]

Very nice article on this topic! until eth does not resolve its problems and becomes more competitive - that is until that time it will lose its position! Ripple showed very good news lately! I see how this project is developing very strongly and constantly signs new agreements on cooperation! see what happens in the next few months ....

Those who wanted to make money on Ripple have already earned. One can only dream of further growth of the coin. And read the news)

with the ability to continue developing the Ripple will be quite capable to produce such a high value and continue to experience increased making it a mainstay of coins was able to shift the Ethereum going forward that makes it as a coin.

[sana54210]

There is no way that ripple is going to unseat ethereum it is just not that good of a project. Right now the only thing that ripple has going for it is the speed and in a bear market with very low volume where everything is fast, it is not much good to it. Ethereum still has a higher amount of investors and the community is way stronger than ripple

Probably for the Xrapid project, I really do not see anything tangible going on for ripple that is good. It is just going to possibly get forgotten in the market and rot in the long run as no one would pay attention to it. Those are just my own thought though.

In reality, we know this is a market and even shit coins get to pump, so because a market increase in value and in market cap, does not mean it has because of that unseated Ethereum like the OP and some are saying, we all know how volatile this market can be and apparently, those who were classifying that as unseating Ethereum should know better by now.

[Emitdama]

Ripple bankers support, which means that he will have a great future.

The support coming from the bankers is precisely the reason why many people in this market do not want to buy ripple at all, so while the support of the bankers is without a doubt important because they are very powerful at the same time you need the support of the community and ripple is not going to get it because many think that is not even a cryptocurrency.

Apart from the support from the bankers, one thing every investor should know is to never trust a centralized currency that the team is holding a huge part of it as that makes it suck.

It is a market that over the years we have known for its pump and dump and even though it may have some usefulness in the banking sector, I really do not see very much going for it when we start trying to get a good growth for potential coins in this market. With respect to unseating Ethereum, there is no point basing that on an unsustainable market cap and the only reason we saw this happen was because of the quick pump.

[lebedi]

This comparison is not honest because they have different characteristics and potentials. To my mind ETH is more promising relyying on its value and Ripple is not so.

[fukkkxdfs]

No. Ripple's future is not so clear and bright while ETH is a very valuable and promising altcoin till this moment despite on its problems and stagnancy.

[OneCoinMan]

XRP = overvalued digital token, I don’t even want to call it a cryptocurrency. It has nothing to do with this concept. Ethereum will always live, ethereum will survive more than one update, which will bring the network to a new level.
Therefore, I would not even create this topic, the answer is obvious.

[Meycell]

Ripple bankers support, which means that he will have a great future.

The support coming from the bankers is precisely the reason why many people in this market do not want to buy ripple at all, so while the support of the bankers is without a doubt important because they are very powerful at the same time you need the support of the community and ripple is not going to get it because many think that is not even a cryptocurrency.

Apart from the support from the bankers, one thing every investor should know is to never trust a centralized currency that the team is holding a huge part of it as that makes it suck.

It is a market that over the years we have known for its pump and dump and even though it may have some usefulness in the banking sector, I really do not see very much going for it when we start trying to get a good growth for potential coins in this market. With respect to unseating Ethereum, there is no point basing that on an unsustainable market cap and the only reason we saw this happen was because of the quick pump.

progress of increasing Ethereum gave little chance to the other Altcoin. It makes Ripple boost its development and continues to demonstrate his progress to tuck stages are able to compete and get high marks for being interesting.

[kynaz]

No. Ripple's future is not so clear and bright while ETH is a very valuable and promising altcoin till this moment despite on its problems and stagnancy.

I agree with you the potential of ETH is really very good and people are investing so much ETH. I think the major financial institutions are only interested in the ripple technology that XRP brings because it is applied very well in the bank. However, it is impossible to negate the potential of XRP as it is being applied very well in our lives

[Jansaa]

Ripple is an attractive altcoin, the investment is certainly profitable if properly. This time should be short-term investment! Because prices have not increased as before 2017

[masterrex]

"The question is will Ripple unseat Ethereum? I think it not in my point of view "Ethereum is undeniably leader in ICO launching Platform. But in the sense of Ethereum value has declining we must say that Ripple has unseat Ethereum!? Is that and acceptable fact to go further this interesting "Medium Article" is worth to read! ~ https://medium.com/cryptoweek/cryptocurrency-investors-have-clearly-lost-their-minds-a77ed0e71ec7

[frowsiter]

Frankly speaking, I did not even read the full article but bullet points of your post tells me that XRP could be positive in many senses as the banking sectors will start using it. However one should know that XRP is the crypto coin and symbol of the Ripple company but it is not truly getting invested by the banks. Banks are going to invest in their transaction technology or blockchain in short to improve their world. Thus XRP is still going to be shit coin as it was earlier. It will be more or less coin with investment made by you and me and nothing else. Banks will literally laugh at us after thinking that we are waiting for their approval and XRP boom.

[syberwolfen]

No. Ripple's future is not so clear and bright while ETH is a very valuable and promising altcoin till this moment despite on its problems and stagnancy.

I agree with you the potential of ETH is really very good and people are investing so much ETH. I think the major financial institutions are only interested in the ripple technology that XRP brings because it is applied very well in the bank. However, it is impossible to negate the potential of XRP as it is being applied very well in our lives

Tough competition going on between these two coins few weeks before XRP moved to it's best in CMC which shows the pride of that coin. Bank is supported to XRP which is a big plus for its growth. They are showing their credentials but still eth is a strong contender and I still go with ETH. 

[carrigan]

First, Ripple is not XRT. I think that you must edit your topic title. XRT is the coin from ICO named XRT X-Factor.
If you means XRP ripple, I think that it will be hard for this coin to unset the Ethereum. Although the price and value of the ETH is still down, it doesn'n mean that XRP can take place easily. however, we don't know what will happen in the future.

[Rustamm]

Ripple sometimes makes price spikes and briefly outpaces ethereum in capitalization. The topic states that XRP is an "independent digital asset". It is indicated that the technology company Ripple owns about 60 billion XRP coins, but does not control it. It can not be. Own so many coins and not be able to influence it?
After the last rise in price and capitalization, XRP reached a price of $ 0.61, now its price has dropped to $ 0.45. In terms of price, XRP will never reach ethereum. And by the level of capitalization, we will see when the planned improvements will be implemented in ethereum.

[icalical]

Well, I would not say that Ripple could not take Ethereum 2nd position because they just did that a few weeks ago, event though its only for a couple days. But the think is, the main reason that make Ripple can get over Ethereum is the down trend of Ethereum it self, not because there is some really good news on Ripple, long story short, when Ethereum get back on its track, and it will be happend soon, Ripple will left behind again.

[Aptekary]

Well, I would not say that Ripple could not take Ethereum 2nd position because they just did that a few weeks ago, event though its only for a couple days. But the think is, the main reason that make Ripple can get over Ethereum is the down trend of Ethereum it self, not because there is some really good news on Ripple, long story short, when Ethereum get back on its track, and it will be happend soon, Ripple will left behind again.

it is unclear to me why the ripple and ethereum is the object of attention of many users of cryptocurrency, who are trying to compare these coins. At least for me, these are two different coins, with different functionalities.

[valek.bruno]

No, of course nothing will happen, because we all understand how powerful the ETH project today is in relation to the XRP project, which as a whole simply cannot be better than ETH is just nonsense.

[Accts4u2]

There is just no way that ripple can unseat ethereum. Ripple is a good coin by its own right and merit but ripple is not good enough to go head to head with ethereum and actually end up winning. There is way more to an altcoin to be good than to just be fast which is the only thing that ripple can boast of right about now, it is not that good

[Anicasalar]

Never. Both tokens were made for different actions and it is even more stupid to compare them than to compare BTC and ETH. Both are good.

[BruceJu]

Ripple does have a team dedicated to development, they are looking for more sales channels for Ripple, which is why it can now surpass ETH!

[Coinmyjob]

All this big text can be crossed out and say, look how much ether and Ripple are used and everything will become clear. How many forks of projects and clones it is certainly bad for the parent coin, but the demand speaks for itself.

[Luna0120]

Over the past week, altcoin Ripple’s (XRP) price has gone through the roof. It has seen an unprecedented 140 percent growth over the past seven days, up almost 63 percent in the past 24 hours alone, trading at around $0.61 at press time.

XRP has gone as far as to beat Ethereum (ETH) to be ranked number two by total market capitalization on CoinMarketCap (returned to the third spot). What could possibly drive the price so high? While there’s no definite answer to that question, here’s some background and theories.

Background: What does Ripple bring to the table?

Ripple is a California-based payment network and protocol company that was established in 2012. Essentially, it focuses on facilitating transfers between major financial corporations.

Ripple is not quite your average cryptocurrency — in fact, some might argue it’s not a cryptocurrency at all. It champions a less conventional ideology for the industry: Ripple doesn’t want to overthrow the government along with the banking system. Conversely, it chose to work with mainstream financial players from the very start. As Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said  in March:
“We were, from the beginning, really looking at how we work with governments, how we work with banks. And I think some in the crypto community have been very much, ‘How do we destroy the government. How do we circumvent banks?’”
Garlinghouse believes that governments aren’t going anywhere, saying, “In my lifetime, I don’t think that’s happening” — which is why he finds it logical to cooperate with them and work within the existing regulatory framework. That attitude helped Ripple land crucial partnerships with important players, including China-based payment services provider Lian-Lian, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and Western Union, among others.

Ripple’s native token is XRP. However, the company draws a line between the two: Ripple presents itself as a technology company, while XRP is an “independent digital asset” built on open-source blockchain technology called XRP Ledger. As per its website, Ripple uses both XRP and XRP Ledger in its products, such as xRapid, and owns 60 billion XPR — however, it allegedly does not control either the token nor the technology.

Theory 1: xRapid’s launch

xRapid is a blockchain-backed tool designed by Ripple for easing cross-border fiat transfers between financial institutions.

Ripple hopes to use it to pioneer the mainstream financial system: After testing the platform to run payments between the United States and Mexico in May, it proved to save transaction costs by 40-70 percent. Bypassing conventional foreign exchange providers, xRapid also increased transaction speed to “just over two minutes.” In comparison, according to McKinsey research, typical international payments take between three and five working days to complete.

The recent boost could be explained by the company’s recent announcement that xRapid could be launched commercially "in the next month or so," which was made by head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Ripple Sagar Sarbhai in an interview with CNBC on Sept. 17:
"I am very confident that in the next one month or so, you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production."

In August, Ripple partnered with three international crypto exchanges — U.S.-based Bittrex, Mexican Bitso and Philippine Coins.Ph — as part of an xRapid solution to build a “healthy” ecosystem of digital asset exchanges. The new partnership will enable xRapid to move between XRP, U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos and Philippine pesos. Additionally, Ripple is considering entering the Chinese market to apply its distributed ledger technology (DLT) to cross-border payments, as Jeremy Light, vice president of European Union strategic accounts at Ripple, told CNBC on Aug. 15.

To explain XRP’s recent breakthrough, some Reddit users suggest that xRapid has been quietly launched, while Ripple is going to announce it at a later stage. “I think they are letting banks in one by one so the XRP markets would not go totally ballistic if everyone jumps in the same time”.

“Because of the volume and books [are] being eaten alive, leaving no corpses behind (except fudders), I wouldn't be surprised if xRapid is in use. People try to sell, but it comes back up and this volume is off the charts and is increasing. If it's just investors, then [a] new market opened somewhere with lots of people trading suddenly, which is less likely,” another user agreed. Either way, an official xRapid launch would be big, positive news for XRP.

Theory 2: PNC joining RippleNet

More concrete Ripple-related news this week came from PNC, one of top ten largest U.S. banks with 8 million customers and retail branches in 19 states. On Wednesday, Sept. 19, Ripple announced that PNC had joined RippleNet to process international payments for its customers. “It’s one of the first major U.S. banks to use blockchain tech to streamline payments into and out of the country.”
 
RippleNet is a decentralized network of banks and payment providers that connect through Ripple's solutions, such as xCurrent. Specifically, a particular PNC unit — Treasury Management — will use xCurrent to speed up overseas transactions held by U.S. commercial clients.

Ripple emphasises that the solution will allow PNC business clients to receive payments against their invoices instantly. Senior vice president for product management of Ripple, Asheesh Birla, thinks that using xCurrent in banking is the first step toward the adoption of other Ripple products, such as xRapid. "It's a way [for the banks] to get their toe into the water,” Birla told Reuters.

Notably, xCurrent — unlike xRapid — doesn’t cut out the corresponding bank from the entire process, thus not quite changing the conventional system but rather modifying it. The latter uses immutable “interledger” protocol, which “is not a distributed ledger,” as confirmed by David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief cryptographer, who was sceptical about banks using xCurrent in cross-border payments. David Schwartz declared banks were unlikely to deploy the technology because of low scalability and privacy problems.

Nevertheless, the news proved to be bullish. Interestingly, BlackRock Inc., a major American global investment management, used to be a subsidiary of PNC during the period of 1995-1999. Currently, PNC is BlackRock’s largest shareholder, owning a 21.45 percent stake of the company.

Theory 3: Ripple dodging the ‘security’ label

In a recent interview with CNBC, Sarbhai countered concerns that XPR is likely to come under a security classification in the U.S. — as several high-profile and ongoing lawsuits allege.

To defend the company’s native token, he pointed to the open-source protocol of the XRP ledger and its independence from the corporation itself, emphasizing that Ripple controls only seven percent of the validator nodes operating on the network. He further argued that XRP investors do not secure a stake or shareholder-like position when they purchase the asset and emphasized that countries such as Australia, the Philippines and Thailand have all classified XRP as a commodity.

Thus, similarly to Bitcoin and Ethereum, XRP might potentially become recognized as a “non-security” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has proven to be bullish for those cryptocurrencies in the past.

Theory 4: FOMO

The massive surge in price could also be explained by good old ‘fear of missing out,’ or FOMO — a particularly powerful force on the crypto market. This seems to be one of the main sentiments on Reddit. According to this theory, as soon as Ripple experienced the first pump on Sept. 18, other investors started to pile in, and the situation snowballed from there.
In another major milestone for cryptocurrency adoption, United States bank PNC will begin using RippleNet to process international payments for its clients.

Ripple made the announcement on Sept. 19, stating that PNC’s Treasury Management unit will be using its xCurrent software solution to expedite cross-border transactions for the bank’s U.S. commercial clients.

According to initial reports, xCurrent will allow PNC clients to receive payments instantly, which will change the way companies approach cash flow and account management. The software allows banks to communicate instantly, to confirm payment both before and after a transaction is initiated.

Flippening

As a result, the price of Ripple soared over the next few days, seeing as much as 15 percent gains in overall market capitalization.
On Friday, Sept. 21, XRP moved past Ethereum to become the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, at around $23 billion.

Building blocks

According to initial reports, Ripple considers the move as a necessary first step in order to get banks and financial institutions to eventually use xRapid — its liquidity product that uses Ripple’s digital token, XRP.
Ripple’s product management senior vice president, Asheesh Birla, says xCurrent is “a way to get their toe into the water.”
These sentiments follow comments from Ripple’s chief cryptographer David Schwartz, who said in June that banks were unlikely to adopt blockchain systems to process international payments in the near future.

Schwartz cited concerns around privacy and scalability as a big worry for banks. Until there is a solution that completely meets these needs, big banks are unlikely to go all-in on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Ripple’s xCurrent protocol is essentially an immutable interledger which allows instant settlement, which is an upgrade to current payment networks. But as Schwartz pointed out, it is not a distributed ledger.

With that being said, PNC has joined a number of major financial institutions that have partnered up with Ripple in various ways.

In August, Ripple expressed interest in breaking into the Chinese market in an effort to speed up international payments.

Optimistic October

Ripple is hoping to launch a commercial version of xRapid as early as October. The company had previously partnered with Bittrex, Mexican Bitso and Philippine Coins.Ph in order to facilitate xRapid to move between XRP, U.S. dollars, Mexican and Philippine Pesos.

Ripple’s pilot of the xRapid system in May 2018 reportedly produced savings on transactions of up to 70 percent, in addition to the increase in transaction speeds.

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, said that he foresees other banking institutions following in the footsteps of PNC by adopting blockchain systems like RippleNet:
“XRP’s surge shows PNC Bank’s recognition of the Ripple protocol. With Bill Clinton keynoting Swell 2018, blockchain is going mainstream. As Ripple’s Greater China Chief Rep from 2014-16 and a Ripple shareholder, I’m confident financial institutions will adopt blockchain.”
 Kieran Kelly, a long-term investor of Ripple, who believes the move is a massive step toward the adoption of Ripple:
“Ripple is adding a bank per week to the network and RippleNet is live in 40 countries and six continents. PNC being the most recently announced bank shows that Ripple is making huge progress globally toward mainstream adoption, providing cheaper, faster and more transparent payments.”

As Kelly points out, the speed of RippleNet is an attractive proponent of the technology, which could speed up international money transfers:
“The traditional finance sector is already implementing blockchain as part of RippleNet and the considerable benefits will drive further adoption globally. Ripple provides banks the ability to make frictionless remittances in three seconds at little cost versus the current format — i.e., SWIFT — which takes three to four days. Banks save 60-70 percent with Ripple.”

Others weren’t as confident about Ripple massive surge in value this week. A quick glance at Twitter made for some interesting reading, as some users offered more skeptical views on the cryptocurrency’s pump in value.

Nicholas Merten, founder of Youtube channel Datadash, suggested that the spike in value was mainly due to traders — not big money investors — climbing into the market:
Congrats to the traders on $XRP, gotta hand it to the bulls. But don’t be mislead, the volume we’re seeing is NOT banks buying the XRP token for xRapid. It’s purely whales and retail traders ATM.

Ripples tech - Impressive
Ripples token - Slight value for use in transactions
— Nicholas Merten (@Nicholas_Merten) September 21, 2018

Matthew Newton, an analyst at eToro, said that XRP was the flavor of the week after the announcement of the PNC partnership:
“Despite being one the most polarizing cryptos of them all, eToro customers can’t get enough of XRP at the moment; it has more exposure than any other asset on our platform. As we’ve seen in the past, the price tends to move in short, sharp bursts, picking up a lot of momentum when the hype builds. It remains to be seen how much further it could go."

As we have seen in the past, perceived good news often drives investors sentiment, and this is clearly the case when it comes to XRP.
The next few days will determine whether the cryptocurrency’s newfound gains will hold strong. Following that, the crypto community will be eagerly awaiting the touted launch of xRapid next month. With these foregoings, the huge question still remains will Ripple (XRT) unseat Ethereum (ETH) ?

I would rather believe that EOS will take all the target audience of ETH, but it would not be ripple, because it is too centralized to become famous.

[Downloaded]

I believe that most of community member do not believe that something like this is ever possible and I am one of them. I hate ripple so much.

[restumaulana]

I think XRP is not safe enough in the second position because the difference is not significant enough, I am still sure if there is a large volume coming into eth or there is good news from Ethereum, then XRP will be shifted again by Eth

[GmBoom]

The odd chance for ripple to stay in the second place is still not sure. The market cap rank on their daily volume is much closer. So literally speaking, ripple is sitting at second spot, but may occur to redeem its place in ethereum coin.

[Volk-05]

Why there is no definite answer.  The answer is the same, the capitalization of the coin increases and the coin begins to grow.  It is not difficult!

[duoduoshigexiaozhu]

XRP is replacing Ethereum's cryptocurrency market, with market capitalization second being the best period. In the future, Ethereum may still be the second market value. This is just a fragile period of Ethereum. Maybe new technology can restore Ethereum to its previous price.

[Dilireba]

Many banks support XRP so i think it can be bigger than Ethereum in the future, XRP is very promising and we should buy and hold XRP now for profits.