Major Factors That Would Make Starbucks Adopt Ripple In 2018

No other currency performs to the same degree and on the same scale of usability as Ripple. With growing adoption and the potential for disruption, it is worth considering how Ripple could become an even more widespread and common means of payment. Starbucks is a key candidate for adopting ripple as a payment method in the near future.

Firstly, Starbucks receives roughly 1/3 rd of its orders from its mobile app. The fact that Starbucks customers are already familiar with the system of electronic payments could make Ripple adoption an easy option for the retail brand. Secondly, the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schulz has a highly positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies and believes that integration of a cryptocurrency like Ripple would create a significant, long-term shareholder value for the company.

The following are the 3 concrete reasons behind why Starbucks, one of the most reputed coffee brands in the world, could start using Ripple as a means of payment by the end of 2018.

1. Expanding brand reputation of Ripple: In spite of the fact that Bitcoin still enjoys the biggest brand name and market status, Ripple has been steadily earning a name for itself as the potential breakout candidate for one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies of 2018.The collaborations with billion-dollar companies like Moneygram and Western Union were huge, even if the impact did not reflect in the price of XRP. Ripple has been on the market since 2012, but it is only in the last year that the powerhouse image of the currency has emerged. Prior to that, most crypto enthusiasts and investors considered XRP to be vaporware, and Ripple as just a long-term start-up to add to banking technology. That has changed drastically in the last six months as the Western Union/Moneygram partnership testifies to the growing interest in XRP.

For a company like Starbucks to start using cryptocurrency, it would require significant market interest and some advantage to the customer base. Bitcoin seems to be the obvious choice on account of the fact that it is trendy, could reach critical-mass in headlines and give Starbucks a unique technological edge. However, this would change if Ripple also starts becoming a household name. At the very least, as Ripple continues to grow and more and more investors start dealing with XRP, it motivates big companies like Starbucks to tap into the consumer base of cryptocurrency.

2. The usage of RipplePay

Starbucks is going to be hard-pressed to start accepting cryptocurrency as a means of payment in 2018. This opens the avenue for the development of an application, similar to LitePay, which allows Ripple holders to spend XRP however they choose without needing the merchant to reciprocate. This version of RipplePay would be a consumer and producer emphasized platform that gives crypto and Ripple enthusiasts a convenient, instinctive and universal method for using XRP as a means of payment. Merchants have the capability to deploy the technology as a payment processor on their end, enabling them to accept direct XRP payments that are convertible into fiat. Due to the various transactional advantages of XRP, the fees and back-end processing should favor both buyer and seller. One of the most underrated benefits of LitePay as processing platforms for merchants is the 1% transaction fee. Typical credit/debit card transactions require a 4% fee on behalf of the merchant. RipplePay could be hugely beneficial to both small and large business organizations. Smaller merchants, independent bookstores, coffee shops, online merchandising, would benefit from the low fees, while also having the flexibility to tap into an enlarging into a consumer base.

3. The transactional utility of XRP: Ripple is a cryptocurrency with one of the highest degrees of usability in the cryptomarket. While the parent company Ripple has yet to place the coin as a form of  person-to-person digital tender, the utility of XRP in transactions applies strongly to this use-case:

• Extremely low-cost transaction fees: Current fees for sending XRP are extremely low and will continue to be sufficiently low such that fee becomes essentially negligent.0.0001 XRP is consumed during each transaction which is relatively much lower than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Even if XRP manages to attain the distant target value of 10 USD per coin, that equates to 1/100th of one penny per tx. There is almost no chance for the fees of XRP to become an obstacle to conducting transactions. Thus Ripple becomes the most obvious choice for consumers looking to spend cryptocurrency in the same way that they would spend traditional money.
• Extremely high transaction speed: In order to gain widespread acceptance, cryptocurrency has to reach the same level of convenience as Visa. Until that happens, the main attraction for owning and holding cryptocurrency is just price speculation and appreciation. Without both utility and usability, nobody would be enthused about adopting crypto. The transaction process has to be as smooth and effortless as it is with tangible cash. Ripple has a current transaction time of under- 10 seconds (aiming for under 5-seconds) which would equip it with Visa-like usability.

Conclusion

Ripple has its target set on the financial industry, but it shows great potential to be adopted by the consumer/retail sector as well. If Starbucks starts to adopt Ripple, this will help the company garner a lot of attention in the press. As a result, competitors of Starbucks in the retail market would also start cashing in on the trend and it would be a landmark step in making cryptocurrencies win mainstream adoption.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and/or its affiliates, employees, writers, and subcontractors are cryptocurrency investors and from time to time may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency and read our full disclaimer.

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