Ripple’s XRP has exploded in value this week, propelling it higher on the cryptocurrency leaderboards

pulse

December 14, 2017 6:51 PM

The cryptocurrency, which aims to speed up international bank transfers, has seen astronomical gains this week.

Many

Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency has seen a tremendous gain of 202% since December 9, propelling it to a market cap of more than $30 billion and making it the third-largest digital currency. It trails just bitcoin and Ethereum, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

Founded in 2012 by what was then known as Ripple Labs, XRP aims to use blockchain technology to speed up cross-border money transfers and bank settlements. Currently, most of those transactions are facilitated on Swift, a much older network that can often take days to send money internationally, with high fees.

Here's how the rankings stand as of Friday, according to coinmarketcap.com:

"I think a lot of this is simply the market better understanding the realities of digital assets performance (speed, throughput etc)," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Business Insider on Wednesday. "There is - appropriately - a lot of excitement about the potential - but XRP is very uniquely positioned to actually be able to deliver on the promise."

XRP is up 2,362% so far this year. You can track the price of XRP in real-time here>>

pulse