Ripple Paper Pledges New Support for $40 Billion XRP

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.

Yet, while XRP has become one of the most in-demand crypto assets, in some ways its development has lagged behind other more established offerings like bitcoin and ether.

Indeed, Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas sought to portray the papers as a step towards developing a tighter relationship between the company's research arm and academia. In short, the startup wants it to be easier for researchers to follow Ripple's technology, so its easier for them to contribute.

In interview, Thomas sought to stress how the papers open up the possibility of further building a network effect around the tech - one that might be key now that traders are buying in.