Home
News
- Ripple is being strongly used in the global economy within the remittance market.
- Ripple’s partner Bitso CEO, Daniel Vogel, has now confirmed the tremendous increase in trading volume for Ripple as a remittance solution.
The third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ripple is being strongly used in the global economy within the remittance market. The San Francisco-based company has been strongly pushing to expand the reach of the cryptocurrency to new customers who want to make quick transactions of payments.
Ripple’s partner Bitso CEO, Daniel Vogel, has now confirmed the tremendous increase in trading volume for Ripple as a remittance solution in an episode of the Messari’s Unqualified Opinions podcast. Bitso turns out to be the largest cryptocurrency exchange operating out of Mexico, and it has observed an increase in trade activity throughout 2019.
Daniel Vogel stated that over the past half-year, when most cryptocurrency exchanges observed declining trade volumes due to a drop in Bitcoin prices through mid-2019, Bitso didn’t take much of the collateral damage.
Ripple Partner Bitso CEO’s Unqualified Opinions
Vogel admits to Ryan Selkis on the podcast that during this tough time in the market, Bitso saw an increase in trade volume due to the remittance solution they build for Ripple. Vogel says that there is almost $35 billion that flows through the US-Mexico border in remittances, and Bitso hopes to be able to catch a part of this market.
They have already been seeing $18 million in remittance payments through Ripple during the last week of December alone, and since then, the volume has been growing by about 15 to 20%.
This is also a testimony to the core idea of cryptocurrencies as a utility and not just an asset to be held for value or traded. Vogel also told Selkis that this kind of a model where crypto was seen more as a utility takes the industry back to a business model that doesn’t necessarily require cryptocurrency prices to be a leading factor in determining trade volume. Vogel hopes to propel Bitso to a point where they can actively catch about 20% of the weekly Mexico-US remittances by the end of 2020.
Mexico is a huge opportunity for Crypto
According to data from Bitso, Vogel says that Mexico is a huge opportunity pot for cryptocurrency. Mexico has 125 million people, out of which 87 million are connected to the internet via their smartphones. Even after having such a strong relative online presence, the availability of financial services is severely limited as the data shows that only about 40 million people in Mexico have a bank account.
This shows that traditional financial services are not being served to everyone and are not accessible, and this is where, according to Vogel, lies the potential for cryptocurrencies. Digital assets that provide remittance solutions like Ripple and other cryptocurrencies that bring forth many other utilities like smart contracts and dApps on Ethereum can bring forth more accessible financial services to those in Mexico.
