[ad_1]
A cryptocurrency whose regulatory fate remains uncertain is ready for prime time.
On Monday, Ripple launched a new financial product based on XRP, the third largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market capitalization, alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The service, called "XRapid", is designed to allow financial companies and other organizations to make international payments faster and cheaper.
The launch of the product comes at a time when the legal status of XRP is hanging in limbo. Unlike Ethereum, which members of the US Securities and Exchange Commission said in June that it does not qualify for a security under US securities law, XRP's rating remains an unresolved issue. .
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, spoke about XRapid's launch at its company's Swell event in San Francisco on Monday. "The industry needs to mature and be less dependent on speculative deals and more dependent on solving real problems for real customers," he said. Fortune.
"We talked about how Ripple intends to do this and now we have more and more evidence in the pudding," added Garlinghouse. "It's a big problem for Ripple, it's a big problem for the XRP community, and it's a big deal for crypto."
Ripple has signed contracts with three financial companies as customers of the XRP-based product. It is MercuryFX, a payment provider based in the United Kingdom; Cuallix, a money transfer company with operations in the United States, Mexico and Hong Kong; and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union, a financial corporation serving more than 1,400 credit unions in the United States.
Alistair Constance, CEO of MercuryFX, said Fortune after conducting two trials of the product in the last two years, he was persuaded to join the first customers of XRapid. The pilot projects consisted of sending several thousand dollars in small bills to a charity located in Mexico.
Constance said that sending 1,000 USD via the status quo method, represented by the international SWIFT payment network, would take 2 to 3 days for settlement and cost between 40 and 75 USD on average. With XRapid, MercuryFX was able to make payments in two minutes at a cost of "not even a few cents," he said.
"Economics speak for themselves," Constance said.
If regulators consider the XRP to be a security, the decision could hinder the adoption of cryptocurrency and result in penalties for the companies involved in its sale. Ripple, formerly known as OpenCoin, the creator of XRP, saves billions of dollars stuck in a blocked account, which he regularly sells to fund his activities and other initiatives, such as A recent donation of $ 100 million to a company. social responsibility program.
Source link
