Ripple Onboards 20 xRapid Customers As Traders Track Rising XRP Volume

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Ripple senior vice president of product Asheesh Birla says the payments startup is focused on getting its new xRapid customers up and running.

The company says it’s onboarding a total of 20 financial institutions that have signed up to use the cross-border payment solution, which is designed to utilize XRP to move money around the world. Payments giant and Ripple partner MoneyGram is the latest to implement the technology and reported it’s already using the crypto-based funds transfer system in a recent earnings call.

Birla also says xRapid will one day connect to the Interledger Protocol (ILP), which is designed to settle payments between various digital assets and fiat currency.

It functions as a ilp connector but not specifically one today. It’s something we want to look at in early next year but we have our hands full with xrapid customers right now so focused on that.

— Asheesh Birla (@ashgoblue) August 5, 2019

Meanwhile, XRP enthusiasts are reading the tea leaves to try and determine where xRapid is being used.

Twitter’s Tenitoshi is tracking rising XRP volume on the Mexico-based crypto exchange Bitso, which is one of four exchanges that have signed up to accept fiat from financial institutions and execute xRapid transactions.

Since the partnership with MoneyGram, the XRP market in Bitso (Mexico) has been steadily growing. This implies the increase in xRapid payment volume. It will also atttract more market makers to the market and let them buy XRP. 🐓🔄🥚#XRP #xRapid pic.twitter.com/l1ATXbQiIL

— てにったー (@tenitoshi) August 5, 2019

In its Q2 XRP Markets Report, Ripple reported a 170% rise in xRapid volume over the previous quarter.

“Q2 saw the highest number of customer transactions on RippleNet. In fact, the number of xRapid transactions increased 170% from Q1 to Q2 and Ripple had a 30% increase in the number of live xRapid partners in Q2.

Ripple anticipates this momentum in transaction volume to continue as more partners and customers go live.”

So far, Birla says xRapid is up and running in two countries, with more in the works.

“It’s available today in Mexico and the Philippines. So far, the positive responses from our customers in those two countries has been overwhelming. But we are working on the next set of destinations which we will be announcing in hopefully short order here.”