30/01/2018
At the start of 2017, ripple exchanged hands for just around $0.006 per token. The token’s price on CoinMarketCap was $3.35 ($2.47) at 3.20pm on Sunday January 7.
On paper, the current price point of ripple might not seem as impressive when compared to bitcoin’s price tag of $16,750 (£12,343). But the issue is much more nuanced than that.
Ripple’s total market capitalisation is now valued at more than $129billion (£95billion), according to CoinMarketCap. This makes it the second biggest crypto on the market after bitcoin.
Another important factor is the number of both tokens. Currently there are just below 17 million bitcoin in existence, compared to ripple’s 40 billion.
Since December 2017 up until January 2018, the value of ripple has increased more than 1,000 per cent. And investors are now looking towards the token for potential profit.
What is ripple?
Ripple is both a transaction network and crypto token, XRP, that was launched in 2012.
But ripple’s foundations are actually older than bitcoin itself and can be traced back to 2004 when it was conceived by creator by Ryan Fugger.
The ripple token was created as the go-to cryptocurrency for banks and global money transfers – ripple’s creators tout it as the “fastest and most scalable digital asset” for real-time payments anywhere in the world.
Ripple’s leaders believe that the token’s main selling point is its liquidity, speed and low transaction fees.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said: “The liquidity needs of banks today is managed with literally ten trillion of float that sits in these nostro and vostro accounts.
