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Recap: Ripple and Santander connect to Apple Pay and use Touch ID

Published

5 years ago

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Ripple

Not too long ago, Banco Santander’s UK branch has released new publicity in which it boasts about its strategic alliance with Ripple. The picture says that international transfers are now done over blockchain technology (from 10 to 10,000 pounds) and that it connects to Apple Pay and uses Touch ID. It also explains that time and cost are “drastically reduced” and that new types of transactions around the globe are enabled through Ripple. This is huge.

Banco Santander is not a Wall Street or a Swiss bank. It’s Spanish, so it’s not considered to be among the classic clique of the world’s banks. That being said, it’s huge. It has a presence all over the world, and it’s considered to be the best bank on the planet as of now. That’s just context.

More important is that Santander is using Ripple’s technology in production. Many banks (more than a hundred) around the world have announced an intention to use Ripple’s blockchain and software to process their international payments, but they are not committed.

They’re adopting the technology in tests in order to find out if it really suits them, and can be easily integrated into their current services. Not so with Santander. Santander is in the Ripple wagon 100% and it’s already experiencing the benefits.

For crypto enthusiasts (especially Ripple fans) this is very significative news. Every transaction performed by Santander on behalf of its costumers over the Ripple blockchain creates demand for XRP. This drives the price up. Just remember that in the current horribly bearish market we’ve seen for nearly a year now (with the three last weeks being truly bloody) Ripple’s XRP has been the coin that’s performed the best.

Yes, it’s lost value too. But everybody is losing value, and Ripple’s red numbers are in the one-digit region, while everybody else’s is in two numbers. Let’s put it in words anybody can understand: over the last couple of weeks, XRP has outperformed everybody, including Bitcoin. It even became the second largest digital asset by market capitalization. This resilience comes, in part, because of Santander’s use of XRP to settle international payments.

Let’s review this partnership’s history briefly.

Last March, both Ripple Labs and Banco Santander announced that the Spanish giant was experimenting with several of the RippleNet liquidity products and creating pilot programs based on Ripple’s blockchain. This made Santander notice the levels of certainty, transparency, speed and low cost that are just impossible using the traditional financial tools.

Ed Metzger, Santander’s innovation head talked at Swell (Ripple’s yearly conference) about the way in which the bank will use Ripple’s xCurrent to improve their customer’s experience. He noted,

“We believe that financial services is moving to a world of open platforms where companies collaborate to deliver excellent customer service for their customers, and that’s at the core of what we’re doing with OnePay FX.”

What is OnePay FX, I hear you ask? It’s a mobile app developed by Santander, deployed for its customers, that went online last October 2nd. It was initially available in Spain, Brazil, the UK, and Poland. Mr. Metzger explained further that the app allows customers to process international transactions seamlessly, quickly, cheaply and easily.

Metzger added that,

“One of our customers was in Italy on holiday and parked in the wrong place. He needed to pay a fine and didn’t have his banking card. He was able to use the app to immediately pay the fine, and stop his car from being towed away. It’s four or five clicks to do something that would have taken an awful, awful long time in the past.”

While many of Ripple’s impressive strategic partnerships are still in the test stages, some of them are already working real-time in the real world. Santander is the poster boy in this context. It’s validating Ripple’s products and tokens. So don’t hate Ripple. It’s making crypto useful to people who don’t even know they’re using it. This is why XRP has stayed stable in the current market debacle, and that’s why it will stay so in the future.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Global Coin Report and 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.

Image Courtesy of Flickr.

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Crypto

BNB Price Surges Past $300, Faces Crucial $339 Hurdle: What’s Next?

Published

4 months ago

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December 29, 2023

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BNB price has noted significant gains over the past few days, surging past the psychological resistance of $300. The native cryptocurrency of the Binance Exchange has surpassed Solana to regain its position as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. The digital currency has been rallying lately with a 7-day profit of more than 15%. Additionally, BNB has clocked a phenomenal gain of 38% in the month to date.

Binance Coin Outlook

BNB price has been on a strong bull run for the past week, breaking out of its consolidation. Even so, the asset has experienced a correction in its uptrend over the past 24 hours but remains above the crucial level of $300. BNB’s total market cap has decreased by 4% over the past day to $48 billion, while the total volume of the asset traded over the same period dipped by about 15%.

Over the past year, Binance Coin has had to cope with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)  on the back of the regulatory troubles of its underlying exchange. Earlier, the BNB price touched a low of $223.50, a few days after its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. However, the cryptocurrency has managed to rebound 46% in value since then.

The recent price rally has been associated with various positive developments in the Binance ecosystem, including the Introduction of the Isolated Margin Auto-Transfer Mode. This feature enables…

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Altcoins

Solana Price Surges Beyond $100, Dethroning Ripple and BNB To Secure Fourth Place

Published

4 months ago

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December 27, 2023

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Solana price performance in recent times has been remarkable, surpassing Ripple and Binance Coin to become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. The SOL price breached the critical level of $100 for the first time since April 2022 over the weekend to imbue optimism among investors. However, the altcoin has corrected by 7%, suggesting that the market is overheated. At the time of writing, the ‘Ethereum killer’ was trading slightly lower at $111.60.

SOL Outlook

Solana price has made a significant recovery over the past few weeks, climbing above the psychological level of $100. The altcoin has been one of the best-performing assets this year, extending its year-to-date gains to more than 1,025%, with more gains recorded in the past month alone. However, even with such growth, analysts have noted that Solana has a bleak chance of topping its ATH of $260.

The reason behind this is the increase in supply relative to its value. In November 2021, when the Solana price hit its all-time high of $260, its total market capitalization was around $78 billion. Despite the value of the crypto asset being less than half of what it was at the top, its market cap is currently hovering near $50 billion.

This has been brought about by the increase in the Solana supply by more than 100 million SOL over the past two years. According to some analysts, for the altcoin to retest $260, its…

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Altcoins

Solana Price Skyrockets to 20-Month Peak Amidst Memecoin Frenzy

Published

4 months ago

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December 22, 2023

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Solana price has noted significant gains over the past few weeks, climbing to its highest level since April 2022. The ‘Ethereum Killer’ almost topped the crucial level of $100 on Friday, before pulling back slightly. The asset’s recent surge has catapulted Solana’s total market cap to $39.6 billion, ranking 5th after and above BNB and XRP, respectively. Solana has jumped by more than 22% in the past week and more than 80% in the month to date. At the time of writing, SOL price was trading 0.90% lower at $93.10.

Catalysts Behind SOL’s Rally

Solana price has been on a strong bull run over the past few days, rocketing to its highest level in 20 months as the network benefits from the substantial activity and strong interest in memecoins. The SOL token, the native digital asset of the high-performance blockchain platform Solana, has shown some serious strength over the past few weeks, outperforming all the altcoins in the market.

The recent surge in the Solana price has been linked to heightened on-chain activities on the Solana blockchain. Notably, the ongoing hype for the blockchain’s speedy transactions, cheap fees, and a lottery of meme coin issuances has buoyed SOL’s on-chain activity. Metrics have revealed that Solana has been the strongest draw among on-chain traders, with trading volumes and network fees outperforming Ethereum- the largest altcoin by market cap.

Cited figures provided by DeFi aggregator DeFiLlama…

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