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How XRP Became a Leading Cryptocurrency?

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How XRP Became a Leading Cryptocurrency?

XRP, the prominent cryptocurrency of the Ripple network, has faced the longest legal battle in crypto history. Yet, XRP Carved out a distinct niche in digital assets. It is the go-to medium for cross-border payments, offering users speed, cost-effectiveness, and scalability. Today, XRP ranks 4th by market cap on CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, and Coinbase. XRP’s tenacious journey so far has piqued the interest of many investors who are now asking how XRP became a leading cryptocurrency?

This Disruption Banking piece explores the multifaceted journey of XRP, providing a detailed analysis of how it all started, XRP’s technological underpinnings, its adoption by financial institutions, the legal battles it has faced up until March this year, XRP’s market performance as of today, and where it could be heading in the foreseeable future.

From RipplePay to XRP Ledger: The Origin Story

XRP started with RipplePay, a peer-to-peer (P2P) network created by Ryan Fugger in 2004 to allow direct transactions without middlemen. In 2011, Jed McCaleb, founder of the Mt. Gox exchange, a Bitcoin pioneer, alongside David Schwartz and Arthur Britto, started developing the XRP Ledger. McCaleb suggested creating a cryptocurrency network, leading to the creation of OpenCoin in 2012. This later became Ripple Labs. McCaleb teamed up with Chris Larsen to develop the XRP Ledger, which officially launched in 2012 with a total supply of 100 billion XRP.

Over 58 billion XRP are in circulation, while the rest are kept in escrow or given to the team. This pre-mined supply helps keep the Ripple network stable compared to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin which relies on mining. The project was originally called the Ripple Consensus Ledger. But by 2013, it was renamed Ripple, and XRP became the token’s ticker, just like BTC for Bitcoin.

XRP’s Technological Edge: Speed, Scale, Sustainability

XRP uses advanced tech. The XRP Ledger is a decentralized blockchain built for enterprise. It settles payments in 3 to 5 seconds and handles 1,500 transactions per second. That’s far faster than Bitcoin’s 7 transactions per second and Ethereum’s current 15. Bitcoin has improved in speed since the introduction of the Lightning Network, whereas Ethereum recently had an upgrade but this didn’t address the speed of the network.

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XRP’s Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) uses a network of trusted validators, selected by Ripple and community nodes, to confirm transactions without energy-intensive mining. An appeal to investors drawn to sustainability.

Fees are just $0.0002 per transaction, ideal for small or high-volume transfers. The ledger’s Payment Channels let many payments settle together, boosting capacity to tens of thousands per second. XRP also works as a bridge currency in RippleNet, speeding up conversions and cutting costs.

Thanks to these features and substantial corporate support, XRP stands out as a top cryptocurrency today.

Global Reach: XRP’s Financial Partnerships

Largely, XRP’s rise to the top is tied to its adoption by financial institutions worldwide, facilitated through RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solutions. RippleNet, Ripple’s enterprise blockchain network, enables banks and payment providers to conduct cross-border transactions efficiently. This it does by leveraging XRP as a bridge asset for instant liquidity. This has eased remittances and international payments, where traditional systems often suffer from delays and high costs.

Here are some of XRP’s key partnerships/collaborations so far:

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  • American Express and Santander: Collaborated to power real-time, trackable cross-border payments for businesses, enhancing efficiency.
  • MoneyGram: Utilized Ripple’s ODL to reduce transaction costs by 60% for global remittances, as reported in 2023.
  • SBI Remit: Leveraged RippleNet for payments from Japan to Asia, recording a 28% increase in mobile app payments using Ripple in 2022.
  • Bank of America and Euro Exim Bank: Uses RippleNet to offer faster payments to account holders across more than 80 countries, as of recent reports.

These partnerships have not only validated XRP’s utility but also expanded its reach, with institutions on all seven continents adopting the technology. Ripple’s focus on regions like the Middle East, with partnerships in Dubai, Egypt, and Africa, through collaborations like Onafriq for pan-African payment systems, gives you an idea of its global ambition. In 2023, Ripple secured a Major Payments Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, further scaling its services in Asia. More than 5 million wallets now hold XRP worldwide.

But success didn’t come easy for XRP. Regulatory battles have tested XRP’s resilience.

XRP faced regulatory challenges in the U.S., from the 2020 $1.3 billion SEC lawsuit alleging XRP was an unregistered security, to the July 13, 2023, ruling by Judge Analisa Torres, and the SEC’s January 2025 appeal. See our recent write-up on the topic here.

The legal battle concluded on March 25, when Ripple and the SEC reached a $50 million settlement that ended the four-year legal saga. Since then, the market performance of XRP has improved.

XRP’s Market Resilience: Performance and Potential

XRP has shown strong grit despite regulatory challenges. With a market cap of $129 billion, it’s behind only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether as the fourth largest cryptocurrency today Today, May the 2nd, XRP trades at just under $2.20, according to Coinbase, after dipping 0.67% over the past week.

XRP’s market performance points to both its technology and external factors like regulatory issues. The end of the SEC lawsuit likely helped stabilize it, as investors’ confidence in the token took a boost. However, XRP’s journey is still far from over.

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XRP’s Future: Innovation and Institutional Growth

XRP’s future looks bright. Ripple is improving the XRP Ledger with better-decentralized exchange (DEX) tools and tokenization. These updates make XRP useful beyond cross-border payments — in DeFi and tokenized assets. This year, Ripple launched RLUSD, a USD-backed stablecoin on the ledger. This makes XRP’s appeal to financial institutions and liquidity providers stronger. Approval of various XRP ETF futures such as the recent Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF (XXRP) and the Brazilian Hashdex’s NASDAQ XRP Fundo de Índice. Both will further secure XRP’s place on the map.

There was a recent press release about the acquisition of prime brokerage Hidden Road on April 8th. Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse believes that “Ripple and Hidden Road combined are a generational leap forward, ready to truly bring the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance together.” This is a very positive move as U.S. regulators bring regulatory clarity to the crypto space. This may also mean more institutional interest.

From RipplePay roots to a global payment system, XRP has paid its dues and proven itself. It still leads in linking finance and blockchain. And the next decade could put XRP on another pedestal.

Author: Richardson Chinonyerem

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#XRP #Ripple #Crypto #Blockchain #TransactionSpeed #InstitutionalAdoption #Regulation

The editorial team at #DisruptionBanking has taken all precautions to ensure that no persons or organizations have been adversely affected or offered any sort of financial advice in this article. This article is most definitely not financial advice.

See Also:

Is the End of the Ripple-SEC Lawsuit a Turning Point for Crypto Regulation? | Disruption Banking

Ripple Acquires Prime Broker Hidden Road for $1.25 Billion | Disruption Banking

First XRP ETF Outperforms Crypto Market (XXRP) | Disruption Banking

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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

SoundHound AI, Lemonade, and CoreWeave will all profit from that secular trend.

Over the past few years, many growth-oriented investors with a high tolerance for risk have pivoted toward the cryptocurrency market. Several of the top tokens — like Bitcoin (BTC 2.52%) and Ether (ETH 3.84%) — generated impressive gains within a short time. However, many of the smaller altcoins and meme coins fizzled out during the last crypto winter.

Instead of chasing those volatile tokens, which are usually driven by supply and demand, it might be smarter to invest in the market’s more speculative artificial intelligence (AI) plays. Let’s take a look at three of those promising tech stocks — SoundHound AI (SOUN +1.65%), Lemonade (LMND 0.97%), and CoreWeave (CRWV +6.55%) — and see why they could have more growth potential than the market’s hottest cryptocurrencies.

Image source: Getty Images.

SoundHound AI

SoundHound AI develops AI-powered voice and audio recognition tools. Its namesake app can identify songs by hearing just a few seconds of recorded audio or a few hummed bars. However, it generates most of its revenue and growth from Houndify, its developer-oriented platform for creating customized voice recognition apps for a wide range of industries.

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SoundHound AI Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(1.65%) $0.18

Current Price

$11.10

SoundHound has been acquiring smaller companies to expand its presence in the restaurant and customer service chatbot markets. It already serves automakers like Stellantis, restaurants like Chipotle, and credit card giants like Mastercard, and it should attract more customers who want to develop their own voice recognition services without sharing their data with larger tech companies.

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect SoundHound’s revenue to grow at a 30% CAGR, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) turning positive in the final year. With an enterprise value of $4.5 billion, it might seem pricey at 20 times this year’s sales. However, its early mover’s advantage in the growing voice recognition services market should justify that higher valuation. Over the next decade, it should continue to expand and evolve as it acquires more companies and rolls out more agentic AI tools.

Lemonade

Lemonade sells homeowners, renters, term life, pet, and auto insurance policies. It’s popular with younger and first-time insurance customers because it simplifies the byzantine buying process with a streamlined AI-powered app.

Using AI chatbots instead of human representatives can quickly onboard new customers and process claims in a few seconds. From the end of 2020 to the third quarter of 2025, its customer base nearly tripled from 1.00 million to 2.87 million.

Lemonade Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.97%) $-0.78

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Current Price

$79.41

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect Lemonade’s revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 44%, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive in the final year. The expansion of its newer pet and auto insurance businesses, its overseas growth (especially in Europe), and its rollout of more AI features should drive those gains.

With an enterprise value of $6.2 billion, Lemonade still looks reasonably valued at five times this year’s sales. However, it could command a much higher valuation if it scales up its business and pulls millions of customers away from traditional insurance companies.

CoreWeave

CoreWeave was once an Ethereum miner, but it abandoned that business model after the 2018 cryptocurrency crash. It subsequently repurposed its mining GPUs to remotely process machine learning and AI tasks, acquired more than 250,000 high-end data center GPUs from Nvidia, and expanded its business from three data centers at the end of 2022 to 33 data centers today.

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CoreWeave Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(6.55%) $6.22

Current Price

$101.23

CoreWeave claims its dedicated cloud-based GPUs can process AI tasks 35 times faster and 80% more cost-effectively than other cloud infrastructure platforms. Those strengths make it a popular choice for companies which don’t want to expand their own infrastructure to support their latest AI applications. As it locks in more AI customers — including Microsoft and OpenAI — analysts expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 95% and 109%, respectively, from 2025 to 2027.

CoreWeave is growing like a weed, yet it has an enterprise value of only $87.9 billion — which equates to 7x this year’s sales and 11x adjusted EBITDA. The high costs of opening new data centers are likely compressing its near-term valuations, but it could have plenty of room to grow over the long term as the cloud and AI markets expand.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ethereum, Lemonade, Mastercard, Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short March 2026 $42.50 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off
XRP slid sharply below key support as a broad crypto sell-off intensified, wiping out leveraged positions, driving extreme oversold signals, and exposing mounting macro and regulatory stress that continues to weigh on digital asset prices.
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Bitcoin Long Signal That Preceded 370% Move Is About To Go Off Again — What To Know

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Bitcoin Long Signal That Preceded 370% Move Is About To Go Off Again — What To Know

Going into the weekend, the price of Bitcoin was unable to sustain the bullish momentum it displayed earlier in the past week. Since Friday, January 16th, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, repudiated by the price resistance above, now trades in a tight consolidatory bracket. Interestingly, this period of silence has been deemed transient, as recent on-chain data suggests an exciting time ahead for the BTC price.

Kimchi Premium Flips Positive As Local Demand Sees Buildup 

In a January 17 post on the X platform, DeFi asset management platform XWIN Finance released an on-chain report, which suggests that Bitcoin might be closer to reaching a turning point than is apparent in its price action. 

This hypothesis is based on the Bitcoin Kimchi Premium indicator. This measures the percentage difference between a cryptocurrency’s price (in this case, Bitcoin) on South Korean exchanges and its price on global exchanges. Simply put, it shows how much more Korean traders are willing to pay for Bitcoin.

When the Kimchi Premium transitions steadily from low or negative levels to cross above historically significant levels, this is typically viewed as a long signal from the metric. This interpretation is because a rising Kimchi Premium reflects growing local demand in South Korea, usually often influenced by retail buyers.

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In essence, Korean buyers are willing to pay more for Bitcoin, hence overwhelming the available supply and consequently pushing prices upwards.

In the post on X, XWIN Finance highlighted that this long signal had been sighted on the indicator. History also attests to the bullish significance of this signal; there have been major price moves to the upside following sustained increases in the Kimchi Premium.

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An example is the last sighting of the long signal in October 2023, where the index rose above a major threshold, as shown in the chart above. The price of Bitcoin witnessed a 370% rally after this signal went off in 2023. 

According to XWIN Research, this same pattern seems to be playing out again in 2026. Hence, if the Kimchi Premium completes its long-signal formation, it could be a sign that buyers are occupying favourable positions for a bullish ride. 

If history does repeat itself, the Bitcoin price could be on track to witness another exciting voyage, with the flagship cryptocurrency possibly putting in a more than 300% surge in the next cycle. 

However, it is worth noting that macro conditions, institutional demand, and derivatives activity would be playing their roles to augment the pattern’s plausibility, as it should not be viewed as a standalone bullish sign.

Bitcoin Price At A Glance

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As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $95,280, reflecting no significant change in the past 24 hours.

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