When it comes to signing and closing partnerships with influential financial players, no other cryptocurrency comes closer to Ripple (XRP), not even Bitcoin. Lauded for its constant quest for adoption, Ripple, at the moment, has over 100 payment providers and financial institutions on its list of partners. Interestingly, this list is expected to further increase in size with more partnerships been sought and other companies showing interest in adopting Ripple’s various blockchain solutions.
However, many analysts continue pointing out the issue of the price value of XRP not reflecting the growth in adoption Ripple is currently enjoying. The challenge has always been that Bitcoin (BTC) has always been influencing Ripple’s value.
Bitcoin carries out a large percentage of all Ripple trading. What this means is that the price of XRP has kept depreciating, in spite of having great runs of optimistic broadcasts since early this year. It is this situation that forced a comment from Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple CEO and founder. In a recent interview given to CNBC, he stated that:
There is a very high correlation between the price of XRP and the price of bitcoin, but ultimately these are independent open-sourced technologies.”
Nevertheless, this connection is about to come to an end. How you might ask. Well, exchange listings are gradually changing suggesting a drop in Bitcoin pairings as cryptocurrency exchanges continue leaning towards altcoin-fiat pairings. As more and more exchanges continue following this trend, Bitcoin’s dominance as the preferred cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency pairing will suffer a big blow.
This trend is already catching steam, and things are starting to look shaky for Bitcoin. For instance, Bittrex, one of the leading virtual currency exchanges, recently divulged that they are focusing on introducing fiat-cryptocurrency pairings. Bittrex has an impressive client base of over three million users globally with the US accounting for a majority of them who will stand to benefit from this development.
Binance (another top cryptocurrency exchange) is also seriously considering taking a similar path. Recently, Binance made public that they will be soon rolling out XRP/BNB coin meaning Ripple/Binance coin. The exchange has the XRP/USDT pairing in action, already.
Ripple (XRP) disconnecting from bitcoin (BTC)
News of Ripple decoupling from Bitcoin isn’t a recent thing. Ripple for a long time has been talking about its decoupling from bitcoin, but currently, XRP is being encouraged by the activities going on at SBI Holdings. At the moment, SBI Holdings is working to roll out its Virtual Currency trading platform, and Ripple is the only cryptocurrency listed on the network’s website.