A new rival for bitcoin – and for cash

Cryptocurrency Ripple was created by a California-based start-up of the same name as a way for financial institutions to make cross-border payments quickly and securely.

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Ripple: a new cryptocurrency that's aiming to make waves
(Image credit: Symphonie Ltd)

Cryptocurrencies are the financial world's biggest thing at the moment. It's almost impossible to escape the hype surrounding bitcoin (BTC), of course it is the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, one bitcoin is worth something in the order of $5,700, having risen over 770% in the last year, giving it a market capitalisation of over $95bn. But it's far from the only cryptocurrency making waves. Ether (ETH) has had an even more impressive rise than bitcoin, soaring by some 2,700% in the last 12 months. Its current value of $327 makes it the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $31bn. But even more impressive than that is the performance of ripple (XRP). This is the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, currently worth some $10bn, and has seen its price climb by more than 3,300% in the last year. However, because of the number of tokens that have been issued 100 billion were created at the outset it doesn't command anything like the nominal price of bitcoin, or even ethereum: the dollar/XRP exchange rate is just $0.25.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.