Ripple’s XRP asset has been of great interest to financial institutions, traders, and speculators all over the world. Although it is pretty volatile due to the fact that it is traded against cryptocurrencies, things are still looking pretty solid for the time being. A new petition on Change.org aims to make XRP the base currency for all cryptocurrency exchanges. It’s a very interesting turn of events, although it remains to be seen how much impact such a petition can actually have.
Making XRP More Prominent Across Exchanges
In the world of cryptocurrency exchanges, there are very few base trading markets to be seen. If a given exchange supports fiat currencies, the number of trading markets is pretty significant. However, the crypto-only exchanges in existence usually offer the trading of altcoins only against Bitcoin itself. Some platforms offer Ethereum trading markets as well, but the choices pretty much end there these days. Poloniex is one exception, as it also has a few XMR markets, but none of them are overly popular right now.
That situation may soon come to change, assuming a new Change.org petition succeeds in making a major impact. More specifically, the petition aims to make XRP a new base currency on cryptocurrency exchanges. As a result, all supported currencies on a particular exchange could be traded against Ripple’s XRP. It is a very interesting approach, although it remains to be seen whether or not any service providers will even pay attention to this request.
While it is commendable to see the XRP community get behind this initiative, there are many reasons why exchanges will gladly ignore this particular petition. First of all, they may not have the infrastructure to sustain additional trading markets linked to XRP. Secondly, they may not see the benefit of creating such markets in the first place, as it makes little sense for platforms on which XRP isn’t a popular currency right now. Furthermore, it remains to be seen if it is worth the time to develop such markets. While XRP is pretty hot right now, the enthusiasm may cool off eventually.
At the same time, there are some interesting reasons as to why exchanges should pay more attention to XRP. The network is a lot faster than either Bitcoin or Ethereum and charges lower transaction fees to boot. To be more specific, its infrastructure is capable of processing over 15,000 transactions per second. All of these factors make XRP an appealing choice as a base trading currency on exchanges, but it is highly doubtful this asset will ever dethrone Bitcoin or even Ethereum in this regard.
If the petition gains sufficient support, it will be presented to around 10 cryptocurrency exchanges. The planned list includes Bittrex, Binance, Bitstamp, Korbit, and a few others. Considering that the number of petition supporters is still very limited, it seems highly unlikely this initiative will get off the ground anytime soon. Then again, it only needs 100 signatures to be represented, which is next to nothing.
In the end, it is important for cryptocurrency exchanges to keep evolving at all times. Adding additional base trading markets is always an option worth exploring, although XRP may be considered to be somewhat of a controversial choice. At the same time, there are few other currencies which would make more sense in this regard, with perhaps the exception of Bitcoin Cash. The current attention and hype surrounding XRP should not be underestimated, as this asset has a lot of future potential. Whether or not it deserves more attention in the cryptocurrency world will always be subject to debate.
