“Crypto Cynics” Need to Watch Ripple, Says deVere Group

For those who follow the cryptocurrency market—whether because you’re hoping for a massive payday or you think this will be the next big thing in mobile payments—you know that there’s a lot to follow, and a hefty chunk of it is going nowhere. New word sent our way from the deVere Group, meanwhile, suggests that it’s not bitcoin that’s going to be the future, but rather, one of its main competitors: Ripple.

This isn’t exactly a wild projection; Ripple is commonly considered to be one of bitcoin’s biggest competitors, and recently made a big push toward dollar parity. While it’s still a sub-dollar cryptocurrency—and nowhere near the almost-$8,000 level bitcoin was at as the time of this writing—some believe that’s a position that makes it attractive.

So what is it that’s getting the deVere Group—more specifically its CEO Nigel Green—interested more in Ripple than bitcoin? Simple; Green describes it as an “…apparent emphasis on integrating with banks and other financial institutions.”

Green went on to cite how Santander—one of Europe’s leading banks—started a foreign exchange service built around Ripple’s blockchain technology that allows for same-day money transfers. Green also noted that this wasn’t the end of Ripple’s banking aspirations, but just the start; Ripple was also in talks with several other banks and money transfer operations to build a similar transfer system that allowed for much faster movement of cash from one point to another.

All a decent projection, if one likely to be just as much pie-in-the-sky as any other. Just because Ripple’s blockchain is taking off doesn’t necessarily mean that Ripple itself will do much of anything; it’s possible to put the blockchain tech to use without buying the cryptocurrency. Still, between the growing regulatory environment and the increasing interest from institutions, we may well reach a point where cryptocurrencies go fully mainstream, a point which may send values upward. If everyone takes Ripple seriously, a halo effect could settle in and drive up the rest of the field as well.

While Green et al is likely out of line to disregard bitcoin here, Ripple’s attractive pricing and an increasingly mainstream environment for cryptocurrency could be one giant leap forward for it and for other crypto issues as well.