There is no denying that China and US are engaging in an economic tug of war. This time around, the Trump administration is worried that China is having the upper hand when it comes to the control over Bitcoin network. Over 70% of Bitcoin network’s hashrate can be traced back to China. The reason behind this is that majority of large-scale mining companies are found in the country.
In fact, there are some experts that are concerned regarding the impact of regulatory changes that could potentially target miners in the country. China has been known for implementing strict rules and regulations against crypto-related activities. In September 2017, Chinese regulators started its crackdown. And a few months ago, China reinvigorated its efforts to ban crypto-related activities.
Cory Johnson who works for Ripple as their new marketing strategist mentioned that Ripple reached out to the White House administration and proposed XRP to be used against China’s dominance over Bitcoin.
XRP Recovers
After the news, XRP was able to have a small rally, It was able to regain some of its losses. XRP is once again approaching the $0.50 position. And this isn’t the only news that made XRP recover.
In addition to Johnson’s statement that it plans to work with the White House, another new company adopts xRapid. This Ripple product is said to “bridge” currencies and cryptocurrencies. It was designed to lessen the cost of cross-border transactions. In fact, during its announcement, Ripple even toppled Ethereum in its spot as the second largest cryptocurrency.
According to Viamericas, it is a “licensed money transmitter offering international money transfer, bill payment, check processing and top-up services at thousands of agent locations across the United States, and over 76,000 locations in 29 countries for cash payout or direct deposits to bank accounts”.
This isn’t the first time that Viamericas worked with Ripple. According to their previous press release, the company already experimented with xRapid and other technologies by Ripple. The company was listed on a brochure that was published by Ripple entitled “ON-Demand Liquidity: Harnessing the power of XRP on RippleNet”.
It says that “A Game Changer Global payment providers such as Viamericas, Cuallix, IDT, MercuryFX and others are using xRapid to significantly lower their liquidity costs and send real-time payments—an industry first”.
According to Paul Dwyer who is the co-founder and CEO of Viamericas, “We believe that digital assets like XRP will play a key role in the future of cross border payments, helping to safely address some of the structural inefficiencies of legacy settlement infrastructure”.
Issues on Ripple
There is no denying that adoption is key to the success of cryptocurrencies. However, Ripple has a number of issues that it also has to deal with. For instance, Ripple has control over majority of XRP. In addition to this, Ripple has been dealing with different lawsuits with claims that XRP is a security and not a commodity. On the other hand, Bitcoin and Ethereum were considered by the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a commodity. Will XRP’s bullish trend continue in the next days?
