Ripple is looking to grow XRP-related business despite the ongoing SEC lawsuit.
In fact, although XRP is a cryptocurrency based on a blockchain that is not fully controlled by Ripple, its use is still largely tied to corporate tools.
Ripple is the company that created the eponymous cryptocurrency in 2012, later renamed to XRP when the company effectively ceded control of the blockchain to the community. However, the company still owns the majority of XRP tokens, and controls most of the tools that use XRP.
In addition, the SEC’s ongoing lawsuit against Ripple also partially involves XRP, which was considered very similar to a security at the time it was brought to market by the company.
That said, the company is still trying to develop the business related to XRP in order to ensure a future for this cryptocurrency regardless of how the SEC lawsuit might turn out.
On the other hand, the current price of XRP is still well above what it was even before the SEC lawsuit was announced in December of last year, when the price rose to almost $0.7 before dropping to close to $0.2 at the end of the month.
After recovering to $0.6 in mid-February, the price rose again in the following months, peaking at over $1.8 in mid-April, and then falling below $1.
Thus, the current price is not only still significantly higher than it was before the lawsuit was announced, but is almost five times higher than it was at the beginning of the year.
XRP’s activities despite the SEC
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently spoke at the Consensus 2021 conference, where he revealed that in Southeast Asia, for example, Ripple’s business is growing 10 times year-over-year, while globally, the number of XRP Ledger transactions has increased 40% quarter-over-quarter.
He also reported that Ripple continues to enjoy strong support in parts of Asia, such as Japan, and is looking to offer services in the growing central bank digital currencies (CBDC) sector.
“What Ripple is trying to solve, and is using XRP, for that cross-border efficiency, is that bridge asset. We have as part of the public open-source version of the XRP ledger, we have worked with some governments around the world and continue to work with governments around the world”.
Thus the idea in the works should be to use XRP as a “bridging digital asset” for cross-border exchanges in different currencies, particularly those involving CBDCs.
To be fair, it is worth noting that as yet there is no CBDC widely used by consumers, since the one whose development seems to be most advanced – the Chinese DC/EP – is still in the testing phase, though already deployed in the field.
In other words, although there is nothing concrete yet, Ripple’s CEO says the company is working on similar scenarios, probably to try to be ready when central bank digital currencies come to market.
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