Ripple: cryptocurrency enjoys end-of-year surge – but will it endure?

If 2017 was the year of bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency that neared $20,000 in December, will 2018 be the year of Ripple?

From the future of bitcoin to Facebook, 2018 in technology
Read more
The market value of Ripple, also known as XRP, rose more than 50% on Friday, to a record $85bn. Ripple continued to climb over the weekend, peaking at over $100bn, and now surpasses Ethereum ($72bn) as the second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin ($237bn).

Friday’s sharp run-up puts the currency on track to have risen in value by more than 35,000% over the course of 2017. It began the year trading at around $0.006 and now sits at $2.25, according to coinmarketcap.com. Just three weeks ago, the currency was trading at 25¢.

According to Bloomberg, Ripple’s gains in 2017 have far outpaced the gains of Ethereum and bitcoin, which have gained roughly 9,000 and 1,400% year-to-date, respectively.

Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said on Twitter on Sunday: “Proud to be ending 2017 with incredible momentum on a number of fronts! A huge, heartfelt thank you to the amazing @Ripple team, our great partners and an incredibly supportive $XRP community.”

The gains come as Ripple has made steps to establish itself as a coherent currency used by institutions. Established in 2012 and designed for interbank payments and settlements, Ripple has articulated a vision to ease the intense volatility experienced by other cryptocurrencies by establishing the structured sale and use of its currency.

The company has more than 100 banks signed on to its platform, RippleNet, and was recently accepted for testing by a consortium of Japanese banks. Global banks including Bank of America, RBC and UBS are also customers.

The company initially created 99bn XRP, and has released around 38bn. In May, Garlinghouse announced the company would place 55bn of its XRP into escrow and will unleash up to 1bn into the market each month.

Garlinghouse, formerly a senior executive at Yahoo and AOL, and CEO of the file transfer site Hightail (formerly YouSendIt), told the Wall Street Journal that the recent gains are a reflection of confidence in the coin’s development.

“We have real customers, really in production using this,” Garlinghouse, 46, said, “not science experiments. Science experiments are not a business model.”