The relationship between Ripple and XRP has been thought to be extremely close. Unfortunately, as it is evident, positive developments surrounding Ripple are not being mirrored by the price XRP. As a Twitter user notes:
“In 2019, Ripple is the fastest growing blockchain company whilst XRP is one of the poorest performing cryptos. I disagree that Ripple means XRP.”
Ripple and MoneyGram
While it may be too early to argue that Ripple is not XRP, recent developments involving Ripple did not have the anticipated results on the price of XRP. For example, towards mid-June, Ripple announced their investing $50 million in one of the largest money transfer firms, MoneyGram. According to Fortune, Ripple would buy MoneyGram shares worth $30 million. MoneyGram, however, had the option to allow or deny Ripple to pump an additional $20 million by purchasing more shares.
On its part, MoneyGram would employ Ripple’s xRapid to send money across borders. According to Alex Holmes, MoneyGram’s CEO:
“Through Ripple’s xRapid product, we will have the ability to instantly settle funds from US dollars to destination currencies on a 24/7 basis which has the potential to revolutionize our operations and dramatically streamline our goal liquidity management.”
Ripple and SendFriend
Apart from MoneyGram, Ripple also partnered with SendFriend, another payment service company to facilitate sending money to the Philippines. The payment service firm is based in the United States.
In a tweet, SendFriend said:
“Cheaper, faster, more secure. Sending money to the Philippines has never been easier! How do we do it? By using blockchain technology to innovate the money transfer process! We use the xRapid network, which does use XRP.”
SendFriend’s move to integrate one of Ripple’s products was meant to tap into cheaper transaction fees when sending money to the Philippines. Before the SendFriend and Ripple partnership, sending money to the Philippines by friends and family living abroad was expensive with cumulative fees exceeding $45 million. As part of the partnership, the payment service company noted that it would lower its transaction fees by approximately 65 percent compared to those using third parties such as banks.
XRP is not Responding
Unfortunately, even with such high-profile partnerships, the price of XRP still remained below 50 cents. In case of the partnership with MoneyGram, the price of MoneyGram’s share price skyrocketed from $1.45 to $3.90, more than doubling, while XRP barely recorded any notable price uptick. XRP continued exchanging hands at approximately $0.42.
Apart from the partnerships, improvements done on Ripple’s blockchain solutions have also not had any positive effects on XRP’s price.
For instance, in May, David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO announced that xCurrent version 4.0 was live. Although he stated that it’s a “complex process,” customers were being on-boarded in the upgraded platform.
The CTO added:
“Multihop, xRapid support, much easier peering, and a much easier customer integration process are the major new features.”
However, a look at the price during the same time revealed that the XRP price is yet to respond. For instance, when David took to Twitter on May 5, XRP was changing hands at 30 cents on May 4 and closed the day at around the same price through to May 11.
As such, it is no wonder the XRP community is grumbling. Cantering Clark, a Twitter user, said:
“I do not think the current price is fully reflective of the news being completely digested.”
