Ripple effect gives cryptos a boost

Cryptocurrencies surged yesterday as optimism surrounding Ripple Labs Inc’s plans for using a digital coin spread, lifting peers that have lost more than $600 billion of value since January.

XRP, the cryptocurrency commonly referred to as Ripple, surged as much as 22 per cent, taking its oneweek increase to more than 75 per cent. The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index jumped 8.7 per cent, heading for its biggest one-day gain since mid-July.

Ripple may launch a service that will use the digital currency “in the next month or so,” one of Ripple’s executives told CNBC on Monday. Called xRapid, the service lets financial companies such as payment providers speed up money transfers into emerging markets using XRP, which is an independent digital asset.

Virtual currencies have struggled to gain institutional backing in part because most banks and payment companies experimenting with blockchain technology have yet to use digital coins for large-scale money transfers.

While far outperforming bigger rivals such as Bitcoin and Ether last week, XRP is still down almost 60 per cent from its 2018 intraday high.