By Jenny Lynton

While crypto-critics continue to be gripped by the latest market dip, Ripple’s Head of Cryptography, David Schwartz has thrown a curveball into the mix by insisting that ‘the prices can be a distraction’. Speaking on CNN’s Ivana Kottasova at MoneyConf 2018, Shwartz is a firm believer that ‘people should focus on the fundamentals and new technology’.

While relaying his vision of the future of cryptocurrencies, Shwartz proposed how ‘this will depend more more on interoperability than on other more popular factors such as the market cap’. Interoperability can be loosely translated as the ability of software to exchange information without restrictions. So, if we focus more on ‘global adoption, newer technologies’ that are emerging on the market and ‘solving real problems for real people’ then ‘the market will eventually reflect’ this.

In light of these bold statements, we turned to the CoinWatch Platform and News Sentiment features to gain some deeper insights and weigh in on these fundamentals that can ignite long-term growth.

Ripple’s Market Watch

From the CoinWatch Platform we can see why investors have been distracted by the volatile price dip. The latest tumble has sent Ripple (XRP) plunge from $0.67 on June 7 to its current level of $0.55. Some analysts have attributed the latest crash to South Korea’s scandalous Coinrail cyber-hacking. Around £28 million was stolen from the South Korean exchange last week. Though the hacking has caused another derailing influence for investor confidence, Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro attributed the dip on ‘a technical correction’. Nevertheless, whether the dip has been caused by the hacking scam or a technical glitch, the outcome is the same.

Ripple’s XRP Ledger Platform

The latest dip shows how crypto is extremely susceptible to cyber-hackings, technical jams, slow transactions, functionality and scalability issues. It seems rational that if these problems were fixed, investors would become more confident, moving the market higher.

Ripple seems to be focused on constantly churning out new, more advanced technologies. One notable example is Ripple’s XRP Ledger platform, which has been designed to improve the speed and scalability of each transaction. XRP Ledger has been pitched as a rapid-fire ‘open-source codebase that can send a staggering ‘1,500 transactions per second’ while using Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency. While some cross-border transfers can take days or hours, the newer technology can enable transactions to be completed in seconds. It seems the new platform will deliver enhanced ‘interoperability’, as the software can swiftly exchange information across borders without restrictions.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently boasted to CNBC how Ripple will have ‘dozens of banks using their XRP Ledger’ by 2019. Indeed, the take-up for XRP Ledger has been impressive so far. Ripple has released the news that some key financial industry heavyweights, such as Western Union and Moneygram International have already begun to pilot the platform. Other major players in the financial industry that have signed up include Cambridge Global Payments, MercuryFX and IDT.

Ripple’s xCurrent Platform

Ripple’s technology strategy also features the roll out of the xCurrent Platform. This is another term for Ripple’s software solution for banks and other financial institutions, which sends and receives cross-border payments. This platform is a powerful weapon in Ripple’s plan to disrupt the banking industry with blockchain technology. In fact, during the recent Money 20/20 Conference, global leading card payment service American Express announced that it ‘has integrated Ripple’s xCurrent platform into its infrastructure powering the payment platform.’

It seems that Ripple is trying its best to position itself at the forefront of technology, and trying to outpace it’s competitors with swifter and seamless transactions. With another major banking player on its side, Ripple can also pit itself against its rival Swift. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) has been traditionally favored by banking institutions to power banking transactions.

With the advent of newer, more advanced technology and a focus on improving the ‘fundamentals’ behind cryptocurrency, perhaps we can start to inspire a more stable market. You can keep up with the latest developments using the Coinwatch platform.