Ripple Papers Promise New Start for $40 Billion XRP Cryptocurrency (CoinDesk.com)
The startup that oversees development of the world’s third most-valuable cryptocurrency, XRP, is moving to upgrade the underlying technology on which it operates. Announced Wednesday, San Francisco-based startup Ripple is releasing two new white papers for peer review – one describing XRP’s consensus algorithm in a more formal way and the other outlining a way to improve the diversity of connections of each node, the software users run to relay and verify transactions on the network. Taken together, the moves show that Ripple, whose investors include banks like Santander and SBI, is ready and willing to invest in the core infrastructure supporting its cryptocurrency, which despite falling out of favor with the company at times, now secures more than $40 billion in value.
Litecoin’s Payment System “Litepay” Expected to Launch This Week – Here’s What It Is! (FactsChronicle.com)
Litecoin, one of the rivals of Bitcoin is seeing more surge in its market value ever since it announced to launch its unique payment processor called ‘LitePay’. The launch date is scheduled this week on 26th of Feb which has raised the public interest in Litecoin from all over the world. Litecoin is one of the most famous alternatives to Bitcoin as it poses a serious competition to it. The growth has been more than 50 percent since the announcement and 70 percent rebound seen by the market since 7th February, is surprising enough.
Ripple Adds 5 New Clients Across 4 Countries (Coindesk.com)
Distributed ledger startup Ripple has today announced new partnerships with five banking and money transfer institutions across four different countries. Going forward, the two banks – Itaú Unibanco from Brazil and IndusInd from India – along with money remittance companies InstaReM from Singapore, Beetech from Brazil and Zip Remit from Canada, will be adopting different Ripple platforms to facilitate real-time international payments, according to a press release. While Beetech and Zip Remit plan to use Ripple’s xVia product to facilitate international payment corridors aimed at individual customers, IndusInd, InstaReM and Itaú Unibanco plan to use xCurrent for real-time international transactions to financial institutions, according to Finextra.
Litecoin Cash Is “Hot” But Not “Solving A Real Problem,” Says Crypto Expert (Inverse.com)
The dust has settled around Litecoin’s “hard fork,” Litecoin Cash. The brand new cryptocurrency has settled at a price of $6.44 as of 11 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, down from its $9.56 high on Tuesday. The fork has been a matter of contention. On one side, digital currency enthusiasts want to seize every new opportunity that is presented in the lucrative market. But more experienced investors are questioning how useful this new token actually is. Kyle Forkey, a cryptocurrency startup advisor and founder of the blockchain consulting group Ethmint, tells Inverse that this latest move is not adding any value to the sector as a whole, but is still making money because of the hype surrounding cryptocurrency investing presently.
Bitcoins for Free? Another Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Lands Itself in Hot Water (JapanTimes.co.jp)
A blunder at a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange let investors briefly buy bitcoins for free — though none were able to profit from the mistake. Zaif, a government-registered exchange run by Osaka-based Tech Bureau Corp. said on Tuesday that a system glitch had let seven customers buy bitcoin with no yen value during a 20-minute window last week. The exchange voided the trades after discovering the error, which happened on Feb. 16 — though it was still trying to resolve the issue with one customer who tried to transfer the knock-down bitcoins from the exchange, a spokesman said. Zaif’s operator had already faced checks after last month’s theft of $530 million in digital money from Coincheck Inc, with regulators fearing its systems were at risk from cyberattacks.