What the BBVA Partnership Means to Ripple

Ripple is famed as being one of the biggest cryptocurrencies on the planet, consistently holding the 3^rd rank position among the world’s cryptocurrencies for quite some time. Ripple, along with Ethereum and Bitcoin is considered to be the major players in the market. As data from Coinmarketcap shows, Ripple at the time of writing has a market cap of $27,115,859,652 with a non-minable total circulating supply of $27,115,859,652 XRP tokens. Ripple has always been pushing the envelope when it comes to expanding its territories and collaborating with a number of different entities around the world, and have recently announced that they have started working with Spanish Banking giants BBVA.

The Background of the Partnership

Ripple, which was originally released as the brainchild of the developers Arthur Britto, David Schwartz and Ryan Fugger has been one of the most widely used Cryptocurrency payment protocols in the world.  The technology was aimed at making global transactions, as secure, instant and cheaper as possible.  Ripple began expanding heavily in the Banking market from 2014, establishing partnerships with multinational banks such as Accenture, Akbank, American Express, ATB Financial, and Axis Bank among others. All of this has seen Ripple’s value skyrocket in recent years.

Founded after the 1999 merger of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Argentaria, BBVA is the second largest bank in Spain and is considered one of the top banks in the world. The working partnership between BBVA and Ripple was indicated in a statement released by a BBVA bank spokesman, which reads as follows,

“BBVA is interested in innovation in cross-border payments, especially given our footprint in Europe, Mexico, USA, and Latam. BBVA is an active participant in several initiatives in cross-border payments (and other areas where blockchain could be applicable) and in that context did a project with Ripple last year in order to glean learning on the efficacy of cross-border payments in various contexts using money, not cryptocurrency. We also have carried a series of tests with blockchain consortia R3, Hyperledger and EthereumEnterprise Alliance in order to get insights into the use of blockchain in the financial services sector.”

As claimed above, BBVA has completed the successful testing of XRP payment systems, for aiding cross-border transactions between various countries, both within Europe as well as Latin America. If reports are to be believed, the test went smoothly and successfully, with every transaction being completed within a matter of seconds.  OnurGenç, CEO of BBVA Compass, has expressed his optimism about the project in a recent interview. According to him, this collaboration will only add value to both BBVA and Ripple, catapulting BBVA to the public eye and redefine the way cross country transactions are made.

Predicted Effects of the Partnership      

Crypto-analysts, economists, and banking sector experts have all been optimistic about the project.  The news was a welcome change in the South American Banking system, which has been confined to using the same, age-old financial infrastructure from the late 1970s. The decision of the BBVA to team up with Ripple is also reflective of the general attitude of large corporations towards blockchain technology. With several other financial institutions around the world are skeptical about the position of cryptocurrencies, a big player like BBVA is sure to set things in motion for Ripple.

Closing thoughts

Ripple, as it stands, is the world’s 3^rd ranked Cryptocurrency in terms of market cap and its value is expected to rise exponentially as Adaption increases. The success of the project will also mark a substantial improvement for the current state of cross-border payments in the world.  Investor sentiments at the moment remain on a high for Ripple, especially since the BBVA partnership news broke out. This is evident from Ripple’s price levels on March 15^th, which rose to 28,286,844,254 USD from 26, 406, 845, 423 USD (market cap) in a matter of hours. With the assurance of the Ripple team to tirelessly expand through collaborations and partnerships, the future prospect indeed looks bright for Ripple, with some suggesting that it may overtake Bitcoin eventually.

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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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