Written by Yangz, Techub News

Since December 21, 2020, Ripple and U.S. Securities Exchange The battle between the Commission (SEC) has been going on for nearly 4 years. During this period, although XRP once rose to 1.9 USDT in the 21-year bull market, it almost hovered around 0.5 USDT in the long bear market thereafter. Although there are occasional rebounds due to "litigation proceeds", XRP is no longer an ideal target for investors.

However, what many people did not expect was that after Trump announced that he had won the election as the next president of the United States in November, XRP began to rise significantly. This week In the first update, it rose to 2.9 USDT (it fell back to 2.55 USDT at the time of writing), hitting a record high. The market value also surpassed Solana in one fell swoop and returned to the third position.

There are thousands of reasons for the rise. In addition to external factors such as "regulatory benefits" and the so-called "copycat season has begun", we would like to take you to understand Ripple itself. What have you done in the past few years?

In addition to being busy fighting against the US SEC, what Ripple has been doing in the past few years, or what it has insisted on since its launch, is to fight against Construction of cross-border payments.

Before receiving the lawsuit from the US SEC, Ripple had achieved outstanding results in this field. In 2014, Ripple welcomed its first major banking partner, the German Fidor Bank. Subsequently, Santander and American Express also reached cooperation with it. In addition to banks, Ripple is also flexing its muscles in the global remittance market. In 2018, Ripple reached an initial cooperation with MoneyGram, the leader in the remittance field, and began to trial XRP in its payment process. In 2019, the two deepened their cooperation and signed a 2-year agreement, and Ripple agreed to invest $50 million in MoneyGram. Ripple’s announcement shows that by 2019, Ripple has partnered with more than 300 financial institutions in more than 40 countries and processed cross-border payments with a total value of billions of dollars.

Perhaps it is because the results are too "splendid""Eye", in December 2020, Ripple received a lawsuit from the US SEC and started this protracted dispute. However, even then, Ripple didn’t stop building.

In 2021, Ripple announced the acquisition of 40% of the shares of Tranglo, an Asian cross-border payments company. In July of the same year, Ripple announced a partnership with Japan's largest remittance provider SBI Remit and Philippine mobile wallet service Coins.ph to launch RippleNet's first real-time on-demand liquidity (ODL) service in Japan. In November, Ripple reached a partnership with the Republic of Palau to develop a cross-border payment and U.S. dollar-backed digital currency strategy for the country. By 2022, Ripple partnered with Travelex, Brazil’s first bank registered with the Central Bank of Brazil and approved to specialize in foreign exchange business. In November of the same year, Ripple announced its entry into the African market and reached a cooperation with the local digital payment gateway MFS Africa. Fast forward to recent times, Ripple has partnered with Brazilian cryptocurrency trading platform Mercado Bitcoin to bring faster, cheaper, and more efficient cross-border payments to local users. According to Ripple’s official website, it currently supports more than 80 markets around the world and has processed cross-border payments with a total value of US$50 billion.

In fact, in addition to cross-border payments, Ripple is also actively developing other businesses, including cryptocurrency custody, stable coins, CBDC and RWA.

In 2023, Ripple announced the acquisition of Metaco, a Swiss digital asset custody and tokenization technology provider, officially entering the cryptocurrency custody market, and in December it Establish cooperation with custodian Zodia Custody. This year, Ripple completed the acquisition of Standard Custody & Trust Company, further promoting the development of the custody business.

In terms of stablecoins, Ripple announced further cooperation with the Republic of Palau last year and planned to launch a Palau stablecoin backed by the US dollar on XRP Ledger. This year, Ripple even announced that it will launch the native US dollar stable currency RLUSD, changing its previous strategic decision of only using XRP as the fulcrum. Ripple wrote in the announcement that RLUSD aims to bring XRP LedgerGo for more utility and liquidity and will initially launch on XRP Ledger and Ethereum, with plans to expand to other blockchains over time. According to Fox News, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has approved Ripple to issue the stablecoin on December 4 (as of this writing, no relevant news has been announced). According to XRPScan data, RLUSD Treasury is already undergoing casting tests.

In terms of CBDC, Ripple launched the Ripple CBDC platform in 2023, aiming to provide central banks, and financial institutions in various countries with services for issuing CBDC. Subsequently, Ripple reached cooperation with the Bank of the Republic of Colombia and the Bank of Georgia (NBG).

In terms of RWA, Ripple was selected for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s first digital Hong Kong dollar pilot program last year and plans to cooperate with Fubon Bank to study the use cases of tokenization of real estate assets. . Recently, Ripple has also partnered with RWA exchange Archax and British asset management company ABRDN PLC to launch the first tokenized money market fund on XRP Ledger.

In addition to improving business, Ripple has also been making efforts for "compliance" in recent years. In June 2023, Ripple announced that it had received in-principle approval for its "Major Payment Institution License" application from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and received a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the agency in October of the same year. In November of the same year, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) approved XRP to join its virtual asset system, allowing the use of the digital asset within the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). In December, Ripple’s Irish subsidiary Ripple Markets registered as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) with the Central Bank of Ireland. In October this year, Ripple released another blockbuster news, announcing that it had received in-principle approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, taking another solid step towards compliance.

In addition, Ripple has always hoped to "voice" the cryptocurrency industry. In May of this year, Ripple donated $25 million to the cryptocurrency action committee (PAC) Fairshake, adding to the $25 million donated last year, the total donation reached $50 million. And last week, Ripple CEO BRad Garlinghouse announced that the company will continue to donate $25 million to Fairshake to help elect "pro-crypto, pro-growth, and pro-innovation candidates" in future US elections. According to Reuters, several cryptocurrency companies such as Ripple are currently competing for seats on the cryptocurrency advisory board promised by Trump, seeking to gain a say in U.S. cryptocurrency reform.

In addition, Ripple is also working quietly in other aspects. In May of this year, Coinbase joined forces with a number of companies to launch a technical anti-fraud alliance to combat online fraud and financial scams, including Ripple. In October, Ripple partnered with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), committing $1 million over multiple years to help the IRC.

When will the four-year struggle end? Currently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued an ultimatum to the SEC, ordering it to submit a final brief before January 15, 2025. However, given the various changes in the past four years, it is still unclear how the case between Ripple and the SEC will ultimately be resolved. But taking into account various positive factors, including the expectation of XRP ETF and the resignation of Gensler, maybe Ripple can really "see miracles sprouting from old trees"?