Altcoins: Ahead of Libra, XRP cryptocurrency gains toehold in commerce

LONDON: Facebook’s Libra may be grabbing all the headlines at the moment, yet a major cryptocurrency already exists that’s gained a toehold in mainstream commerce.

XRP, the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market value, seeks to succeed where bitcoin and other digital currencies have largely failed: in powering fast and low-cost transactions.

In a rare example of a cryptocurrency finding a practical use beyond speculative trading, it has gained a certain amount of traction, with some large financial firms using XRP for international payments.

Yet the price of XRP, often referred to as Ripple, has dropped by a quarter so far this year, even as bitcoin has more than doubled and other smaller coins such as ethereum have made slim gains.

XRP’s price performance goes against assumptions of a positive correlation between real-world usage and the price of cryptocurrencies. The fact that bitcoin, the largest digital currency by far, has…