Tim Lea, a renown Blockchain Evangelist, and Entrepreneur spoke at Tokenarti about Ripple’s potential to change the world’s cross-border payments system.
He was quite dramatic about it. He explained that if you want to send money from London to Australia, you’re better off going to your bank in London, withdrawing the money, catching a plane to Sydney and handing the money out to the target than trying to use the banking system to settle that payment. It’s faster and more reliable.
It sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, but if you’ve tried in the past to send money abroad, you also know it’s true. The standard system (called SWIFT) takes too long to settle payments, it’s too expensive, and it’s also unreliable. So Mr. Lea explained that blockchain technology (specifically Ripple) has the potential to do the same job in seconds instead of days.
He further explained that sending money from London to Sydney through SWIFT needs for the payment to go to Frankfurt, then Honk Kong and finally Sidney. It takes a lot of time, and every transaction includes a fee which the client has to pay. And that’s why Ripple technology is better. The cryptosphere allows for cutting all the red tape out, and simply use GBP to buy XRP, then trade it for AUD, and that’s it. The trick is done. It’s cheap; it’s fast, it’s reliable.
When he was asked about fees and market volatility, Mr. Lea explained that it doesn’t make any difference. Using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to settle these payments takes 2 minutes, so volatility and fees are really not relevant to the price you pay for the service. “What difference does it make if I can have my money here in three minutes instead of three days?” he said.
Ripple’s mission has been to solve the international payments problem since the beginning. The company has focused on that like a laser. That’s why it hasn’t tried to make XRP a retail cryptocurrency for micropayments, like Bitcoin, or Litecoin.
And Ripple is succeeding. It has secured strategic partnerships with more than 200 banks and remittance services scattered all over the planet. On average, Ripple recruits a new partner every week. Among those partners, you can find some of the world’s most important financial institutions such as Banco Santander, MoneyGram, and Western Union.
On top of that, XRP was the most profitable cryptocurrency both during 2017 and 2018. Those were the best year and the worst year for digital assets, respectively. Ripple’s XRP is the cryptocurrency for all seasons.
In the end, it will be all about mainstream adoption by the banking system, which is very conservative and likes to move slow. Also, the world’s financial institutions have been particularly hostile and skeptic about cryptocurrencies. But many of them have realized that Ripple’s technology saves them so much time and money than the standard system that adoption is better.
So keep an eye out for Ripple. While its coin hasn’t performed very well in the market recently, it’s unavoidable that it will, sooner or later, as it did during 2017 and 2018.
Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.
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