By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 24th, 2024
Ripple has released the xCurrent 4.0 protocol. With it, Ripple’s more than 200 customers will be able to easily integrate the xRapid payment system that leverages the XRP digital asset, said David Schwartz, the chief technology officer of Ripple.
Very much anticipated Ripple’s project called xCurrent 4.0 upgrade is finally live. Enabling Ripple’s customers to integrate the XRP-powered xRapid payments system, the new upgrade will also offer multihop, much easier peering and a better customer integration process, among other features.
xCurrent is an enterprise software product by Ripple Lab Inc. It is designed to help fintech in international money transfer service with the end-to-end tracking. The technology it uses, ensures banks/ finance enterprises to process cheaper and faster transactions with an ability to trace it.
Ripple’s chief technology officer (CTO), David Schwartz confirmed xCurrent 4.0 is live via Twitter saying:
4.0 is live. We're working to get all customers upgraded, but it's a complex process. Multihop, xRapid support, much easier peering, and a much easier customer integration process are the major new features.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) May 6, 2019
Schwartz also confirmed that they are working to get all customers upgraded. The process to move towards xCurrent 4.0 is tedious and complex, which makes it difficult to have a streamlined network upgrade.
He explained that upgrading to 4.0 is not mandatory for customers, having a mix of versions can make features work inconsistently. At the same time, he said that there could be pain points for people that do not run both IPv4 and IPv6. In the future, new companies and firms could be integrated into Ripple’s network and be able to perform cheap and low-cost cross-border payments.
No. But having a mix of majot versions can make features work inconsistently. It's like IPv4 and IPv6. They can interoperate, but until IPv6 takes over 100%, there will always be pain points for people who don't run both, and also for people who do run both.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) May 6, 2019
So what we are talking about here is an upgrade to the existing technology which let Ripple’s current customers employ xRapid. In true words of meaning, xRapid underlines with Ripple’s native cryptocurrency XRP which means that Ripple’s client with the implementation of xCurrent 4.0 will be able to employ xRapid, powered by XRP.
However, even though that news is pretty much huge in terms of XRP popularity, it doesn’t seem to be helping. As we have witnessed in last few months, Bitcoin (BTC) and the greater cryptocurrency market have changed trends, raising and breaking through resistance. However, Ripple’s cryptocurrency seems to had failed to gain its momentum. In fact, XRP has been up and down around $0.30 all the time. At the time of writing, it was actually falling 0,43% to $0,29.
XRP: a Sleeping Giant That is Waiting for Its Awakening
However, we couldn’t say it’s disastrous because XRP had some really positive developments that the price, probably, has yet to reflect.
This xCurrent 4.0 upgrade could be a huge deal for Ripple’s XRP digital asset because the majority of Ripple’s 200+ financial partners utilize xCurrent to facilitate instant and inexpensive cross-border transactions. Even though xCurrent has been embraced by several companies around the world, it doesn’t use the XRP digital asset.
The truth is, XRP is one of the most unstable coins in the global crypto market if we look at the time from January until May. There have been many instances of rough growths and declines in the market. The lowest point of Ripple was on January 29th at 0.28 USD and the highest value was achieved on April 04th at 0.36 USD during the April boom. The current market cap, as well as the individual XRP coin, is around 13.26% less than the values of last month.
However, analysts are predicting XRP to move upwards smoothly in the next few months until the end of this quarter.
For instance, in March 2019, Ripple’s XRP-powered xRapid remittance product was highlighted by the World Bank in an article about improving remittances services and blockchain technology.
Ripple’s global head of banking, Marjan Delattine recently claimed that, so far, ten companies are employing XRP across their cross-border payment settlement services.
Despite the lower value trade, XRP is recognized of crypto & fintech players across the world.
The underlying technology such as RippleNet, xRapid, xCurrent is as well on way forward to greater adoption.