While the debate continues within the Bitcoin community, several altcoins have experienced a significant surge in overall value. Cryptocurrencies such as Dash and Ethereum have conquered new levels in price and market capitalization at a time that coincides with the struggles of Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency seems to be undergoing a significant adjustment in fixing its problem of scalability.
Ripple climbs 100 percent
Most recent among the rising altcoins is Ripple (XRP) which climbed over 100 percent in value within 24 hours on Friday, March 31, surpassing Dash to become the number three cryptocurrency. On April 1, the dramatic rise continued.
Ripple Head of XRP Markets, Miguel Vias, tells Cointelegraph:
"While the recent surge in XRP is certainly influenced by Bitcoin's scalability issues, much of the recent momentum is due to the announcement that MUFG joined Ripple's steering group, GPSG. Unlike other digital assets, XRP has a clear use case and people are beginning to recognize that."
A major partnership
On Thursday, March 30, 2017, MUFG’s banking arm The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) publicly announced that it is joining Ripple’s Global Payments Steering Group (GPSG).
Ripple’s GPSG is an interbank group for global payments system that is based on distributed financial technology and was launched in September 2016.
At the time of launch, the Ripple GPSG was described as the group that will oversee the creation and maintenance of Ripple payment transaction rules, formalized standards for activity using Ripple and other actions to promote the implementation of Ripple payment capabilities as the network continues to grow.
Advancing technology
Other banks that have already joined Ripple’s GPSG include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Santander, Standard Chartered, Westpac Banking Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada and CIBC.
Innovations within the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ecosystem continues to thrive as more altcoins are expected to rise in value due to technology adoption and a growing user base.