New Ripple Payment Service Sends XRP Soaring

Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency outperformed this week the top 10 digital assets with a 43% gain. This was caused by a recent announcement from the company that XRP will be used in a new payment service developed by Ripple Labs Inc.

One of Ripple’s executives made a live statement on CNBC about their new project called xRapid, which will be available in the next month. This service will let financial companies such as payment providers speed up money transfers using XRP.

What changed?
Ripple’s main product that is used by over 100+ companies, called xCurrent, doesn’t require the use of XRP – Companies use the network to settle transactions fast, without influencing the price of the digital currency.But now, XRP will have real value on the market due to the new xRapid service that can be used by anyone in the world who has access to it.

“xRapid leverages this commutation system to allow institutions to settle inter-bank transactions using the XRP digital asset,” Lucas Nuzzi, director of technology at Digital Asset Research, said in an email. “The use of XRP is mandatory with this product.”

XRP was released on as a fully operational distributed ledger in June 2012 , with 100 billion XRP created before Ripple the company was formed in September 2012. After Ripple was founded, the creators of XRP, gifted a substantial amount of XRP to the company. Ripple owned about 60 billion XRP, with the majority of it held in escrow, as of July, according to information listed on the company’s website.