Ripple (XRP)–Ripple has established itself as one of the primary cryptocurrencies to shape the future of digital commerce. Following on the heels of the creation of a 100 million USD hedge fund in XRP and the official lockup of 55 billion XRP in escrow, Ripple saw a 200% surge in price to 0.75 USD levels. Now, with the backing of banks and other financial institutions, Ripple looks to make a strong case as the cryptocurrency of choice for an internet commerce giant like Amazon.
Here are three reasons why Ripple is the best choice for Amazon to move into the cryptocurrency marketplace:
Fast Transaction Times, Low Costs
Overstock.com has made a fortune off of the deflationary gains of Bitcoin over the last several years. But those gains are minuscule compared to what a company as large as Amazon really needs in a digital currency: stability. We saw evidence of this when Steam, a popular gaming company that had been accepting BTC since April 2016, discontinued its use for payment despite the coin setting record all-time highs in value (although Litecoin has emerged as a possible replacement).
Companies like Amazon are not average-joe traders looking to grow their investment money. A sweeping change as large as the one required to start accepting crypto (and it would be a massive statement given the current regulatory delay by most fiat governments), requires stability. Steam gave up on Bitcoin because of high fees and high volatility. Like Overstock, Steam has likely made significant gains with the 2,000+% increase in BTC value in 2017 alone. But the failure by the Bitcoin community to address the primary barriers to being used as a currency–speed and transaction costs–has created an atmosphere of mistrust by the very companies needed to grow mainstream crypto adoption.
Ripple offers a solution to Bitcoin. To begin, transaction times are below 10 seconds (and dropping), and the standard applied fee is .00001 XRP. Even if Ripple were to reach the bullish price point of $10 per coin, that equates to a fee of 1/100th a penny for every transaction. With fees that low, coupled with the lightning fast speed of transactions, companies are finally presented with a coin that delivers upon the original promises of Bitcoin and commerce-based cryptocurrencies.
High Supply = Lower Volatility
Ripple also addresses the second issue presented by Steam in their discontinuation of BTC: lower volatility. Most newcomers to crypto are invigorated by the limited supply of Bitcoin. Only 21 million will ever be mined. The end result is that each coin not only feels scarce, but special to the particular owner fortunate enough to have 1 BTC or more. Ripple has a max supply of 100 billion XRP, with 55 billion of that held in escrow by the parent company. That’s over 4700 times the supply of Bitcoin that will ever be created. While the higher supply necessitates a much lower price-per-coin of XRP than what we see in the current valuation of Bitcoin, it also offers lower volatility long-term. The price of Ripple, and crypto across the board, will continue to rise over the coming year as the general public and large investors bring more money to the table. But when those prices stabilize, the large coin supply of Ripple will lead to lower volatility. It takes a lot to move a market of 100 billion coins. Think about the US dollar. We don’t see massive fluctuations in USD just because investors in China, or around the world, decide to exchange foreign fiat.
While 100 billion XRP is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of USD in circulation, Ripple is also not likely to see the same level of adoption as the US dollar. Think of it another way: an 18 year old sitting on a hard drive of 1000 mined BTC from 2013 can drastically change the price of Bitcoin for a day or longer. Imagine the pandemonium for Amazon if their crypto price point fluctuated drastically from the time a person puts an item in their cart to the point of check-out. It hurts their ability to effectively match prices and it’s confusing to the customer. Amazon has no control over what the markets will dictate, but they must be wary of whales sitting on mountains of BTC that could sink or raise the price point at will. Ripple is not immune to price changes or early-investors holding a disproportionate share of the currency, but its large supply does provide a buffer to individual sell-offs. The slow creep of XRP to 0.75 USD has been relatively mild compared to the typical price surge most cryptocurrencies experience. Once Ripple hits Coinbase and reaches greater market saturation, the price will level off relative to most fiat currencies.
Lower Price Per Coin is Customer Friendly
Again, Ripple’s high coin supply and subsequent lower price-per-coin will come in handy for creating a user-friendly market. As anyone who has read The Everything Store or followed closely to Jeff Bezos’s method of conducting business will know, Amazon is all about the customer. Cryptocurrency will never find a place on Amazon’s market if it can’t prove to be beneficial to the customer experience. Price volatility and slow transaction times are antithetical to this mantra. But Ripple offers an alternative.
We have established the superior transaction costs and speed of the network. Now we have to consider presentation to the public. What’s easier for a layperson to understand: a price in .0005 BTC (or 50,000 satoshis), or 5 XRP? The crypto-enthusiast or economist can see past this veil (BTC to XRP pricing is no different than saying an apple is an apple in whatever language you speak), but it makes a difference to the consumer. Everyone in crypto who wants to see their currency takeoff should be thinking about the general public: How can we make widespread adoption as smooth and simple as possible?
Services such as Changelly, which allow a customer to pay in their crypto of choice and then exchange it for the seller’s preference, makes the changing landscape of Bitcoin and altcoins a moot point. What Amazon needs is a native currency to conduct their operations, something that is stable, ubiquitous in supply and immune from the volatility of the current crypto market. Ripple offers all three, or at least gives the most assurance it will exhibit those principles in the near future.
Ripple is Already the Coin of Choice for Business
Hedge funds, banks and American Express have all signed on as significant supporters in the future of XRP and Ripple technology. Ripple has created something that few other cryptos have managed to this point: a currency that pre-existing businesses are not only willing to use, but will benefit from doing so. Amazon is likely one of the big customers to take this step in 2018. A commerce giant such as the Everything Store is in desperate need of a coin that offers fast transaction times without the crippling fees of Bitcoin’s current network. Ripple offers a solution to those problems, while also presenting a coin that is being backed by the financial institution. While it’s hard to tell what direction Amazon will take with respect to cryptocurrency, Ripple seems the most logical choice at this time and going forward.
Look for a huge jump in XRP price if that were to occur.
cryptogazette.com is hiring crypto writers email us at [email protected] for more info
Hi, I’m interested. Please inform me of the information you would like to receive.
Regards, Sancho
Way to go Sancho
Sancho, you dont think that you should maybe supply like your CV 😀
This would make sense if Ripple was intended for use as a value storage mechanism. This was not its purpose by design, nor are there any future plans to use it as such. It is simply provides a high-liquidity settlement layer for transactions between parties who may spend and receive any desired currency. Litecoin is an infinitely more likely candidate for adoption by Amazon, along with a very small handful of others. Interesting article, but unfortunately you failed to investigate the actual defined purpose and use-cases for Ripple before reaching your conclusion.
Amazon would adopt it for trading with suppliers instead, especially when those suppliers are all over the world thus creating forex liability
Like maybe Stellar Lumens? 🙂
“Value storage mechanism?” You are right, XRP was designed to settle transactions instantly. It’s fast, cheap, and stable. That’s why it is a perfect choice for Amazon. There simply is no coin (even Litecoin) that can compete in against XRP to instantly settle transactions. I don’t know why you think that being a store value matters? (Although the stability of XRP makes it a perfect coin to store value as well!)
Sorry to say but you are wrong. The use case you are referring to is simply the one they chose to focus on. By design and Ripple rails it can be used for many and many more use cases. The Amazon project would be a very possible one, XRP would be the best option for that purpose.
What a piece of crap. Stay away from scam coins. Stick with the real Bitcoin BTC.
Obviously it’s not a scam coin considering it actually works like it supposed to unlike Bitcoin which has turned into the worst coin to have for payment systems… Great for value…but bad for payments. So if that’s the case: which is the true scam?
Are you invested in Bitcoin and feeling threatened?
Yeah I’m sure Amazon wants to use a coin that loses half value in a day, takes twice that long to send and costs 3x as much as you pay for a small purchase through them. Let it go, corebaby, we’ve seen through the ruse
Why would a retailer choose a coin whose intended use is for utility and not a monetary unit? Is Amazon going to start cross border Fiat conversion? Lol… Anyways Bezos has made it abundantly clear on multiple occasions he’s not implementing crypto as a payment form and he’s done so publicly and he’s not the type of guy to pull a Dimon and go back on his word… Someday? Ehhh maybe, 2018? Nah.
21 million btc = 21,000,000,000,000,000 Satoshi.
As soon as Atomic swap start,(Vertcoin,Groestlcoin,Cardano etc..)Bitcoin is going to retirement,only reason why bitcoin is holding price is because you need to buy BTC in order to change to other coins on exchange..BTC is mostly control by miner monopols from China holding more than 50% of bitcoins,but that is gonna be solved with Vertcoin and Groesltcoin coz they have implemented Asic resistance protocol which stop big mining pools and more focus on single mining with one graphic card…new criptos like cardano, call it 3rd gen criptos are going to be used worldwide and plp are going to jump the ship soon..Bitcoin and litecoin is going to be replaced by Vercoin and Groestlcoin and Etherium with Cardano.. Ripple is made by goverments and banks to have some control over plp,coz ledger is centralized…Thats my opinion but time is gonna show..
The most intelligent post on this well written article. I agree with all that you have have mentioned except i disagree that BTC will go out to pasture. If the payment processing business cannot scale even with the use of their Lighting Network, they could still could survive as store of value due to their 21 million coin hard-cap, which by the way, is designed by default to have anti inflationary mechanism.
The writer of this article pointed out that Ripple could work for Amazon. That seems to be 100% correct based on the statements made in the article. He also pointed out that Ripple would actually jump massively in value if Amazon used Ripple. That seems like a true statement too, based on common sense. It’s easy to see through the negative comments with they seem to be based on non-sense and denial. Great article. Thanks!
exactly!! all rumor and not confirmed but based on XRPs setup; XRP / Ripple could be the one to watch. Low costs at moment along w/ larger volume with controlled escrow accounts to stablize? yea.. when amazon picks what they see as future, that pick will SKYROCKET!! guess well all!! 🙂 and remember.. #HODL!!!! hehe..
cryptogazette has surpassed 100,000 page views a day! ADVERTISERS are you looking for highly targeted traffic in the crypto space? email us at [email protected]
In time, all will proven. Ripple will be a stand out! Not a winner takes all coin, but an efficient investment worth indulging in.
Your article makes absolutely sense. I also think that companies like Amazon can profit a lot from Ripple. It is fast and cheap. And Bitcoin is not fast and cheap. Hope the best.
Amazon will adopt Ripple´s XRP, I am almost certain of that..
We all going to be happy if Amazon chooses XRP.
My understanding is that XRP is intended ONLY for financial institution use. It will not ever be something people can use as currency, is the intent of this article to suggest Amazon would use XRP to settle its own larger financial transactions? Or are you suggesting XRP is the cryptocurrency Amazon will choose to accept as payment from customers? If it is the latter, this is unlikely as customers will never be able to use XRP as currency.
You don’t quite understand market cap and volatility. You wrote “It takes a lot to move a market of 100 billion coins”. It’s not the number of coins, but the amount of liquidity in the market. Additionally, most XRP isn’t available anyway. We’re seeing a lot of erroneous assumptions about market cap with coins lately. Forbes wrote a great article the author of this piece should read, “Comparing Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies by ‘Market Cap’ Can Be Very Misleading”. Google it, it’ll help you understand market cap.
Good article, ripple will make a big difference in the crypto world. Am looking up to new developments
I’m sure all of this is very true and will happen as far as Ripple goes. I don’t see them letting anything that works against them taking over and ripple works with not against the man so to say. I have a nice amount so I hope it does a moon shoot it will be good for my pocket. I have to say though to wish and dream that BTC will fall so easily is kind of foolish and the remark of someone having it being scared is also foolish. I don’t have any myself but I would be the first to say if a person does they have done very well for themselves, it’s no need to act as if anything else is true BTC is at the top of the mountain of any crypto out there hands down to say other wise is a lie. I do think a lot of the flaws will be fixed but it will never be a good day to day currency so it will not be adopted by stores and things like that but the person who set it up was a very smart person because it will never go down in value when I say that day to day price may go up and down but in the long run it will only go up so much so that when it’s all mined it may see crazy highs. I do have litecoin and the one person made a good point about vertcoin so that makes me think I need to take any quick gain that litecoin makes and sell and move on because BTC is in a league of it’s on and litecoin founder Charlie Lee thinks it’s the perfect mate for BTC but again I think BTC is all by itself and litecoin will fight with other coins that it can’t compete with and BTC will not keep it a float for long it will distance itself from litecoin strictly because of the nature of it. All in all I would say get ripple and hold it but if you can get BTC to and never let it go.
You say that Amazon will choose XRP (of whom I am a fan) But, Ripple is not really anything other than a crytpo named form of Fiat. Think about it. How was it created? Who controls the money and the “shares”? Ripple is not even Decentralized!
Is that Not what we are Trying to Avoid?
Some time has passed since December and Lightning-integration knocks on Bitcoin’s door. Let’s see, if this is about to change things. As well as for Bitcoins current value (which dropped a lot since then) as well as its adoption for payment processing. But, of course, it would be great if Amazon adopts Ripple this year…
This is a joke. 3 guys can print infinite number of XRP tokens in their garage. XRP token will never be used for something serious.
We will see what Amazon, Google & Western Union due as well as
https://www.ccn.com/brazil-and-latin-americas-largest-bank-will-use-ripple-to-process-payments/
Look at all the haters. XRP is the future. Seeking Alpha is not news whatsoever. Fake news.
Great article but I don’t really think Amazon will partner with Ripple. First Ripple cannot proceed enough TPS for the moment. The only one that will be able to do this kind of job is EOS which will be able to proceed around 1 million TPS
an article from Medium :”2018 Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) Platform” compared the six top cryptos for business. When Amazon decides to move, they will go with one of these and it won’t be Ethereum or Ripple or Bitcoin. Looks like either XLM (Stellar) or ARDR (Ardor). After the read, I would bet on ARDR due to a ZERO transaction cost. article can be found here -> https://medium.com/@dennis_z/2018-blockchain-as-a-service-baas-platform-review-part-i-a5483321dfb8
I recommend to sell bitcoins on liviacoins .com It allows to get paid directly to credit card, cash transfer, or bank transfer.
Yeah, Ripple is such a good thing. Just its price is dropping every day. Why? Because the BIG HOLDER is spinning us and dumping billions of it to put in his pocket. He knows it is decoupled, but spinning us the story that it is not. SO… he wins on the dumping and wins on the network. WATCH IT CRASH MORE, THE BRILLIANT THING IT IS.