Ripple in 3 Big Money Firms in 2018??

Three of the top five money transfer companies worldwide will be implementing Ripple’s XRP token in their payment flow systems this year, the company said in a tweet1 Thursday.

The tweet, which did not identify the partners, comes as XRP has rallied to overtake ethereum as the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap while Ripple has been criticized for its fairweather and sometimes opaque way of talking about the token.

Part of the criticism stems from Ripple having scored more than 100 financial institutions to use its xCurrent product, a messaging platform that does not involve XRP, and many new investors mistaking that for XRP support by those institutions.

Before Thursday, only one enterprise – Mexican financial services firm Cuallix – had announced its use of XRP for cross-border money transfers.

But the company tweet, and comments to CoinDesk from Asheesh Birla, vice president of product at Ripple, earlier this week, suggest that more will be added this year.

In another tweet late Thursday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to a New York Times article1 casting doubt over XRP’s usage by sharing comments he said were from banks and payment providers who examined or tested the cryptocurrency.

Referencing Ripple’s xRapid product, which puts XRP on top of the company’s xCurrent messaging platform, Garlinghouse wrote:

“Over the last few months, I’ve spoken with actual banks and payment providers. They are indeed planning to use xRapid (our XRP liquidity product) in a serious way.”

Despite its recent run to nearly $4 per coin, XRP is down on the day, following a statement by Coinbase that it does not have plans, at this time, to list the cryptocurrency (or any other new ones) on either its flagship exchange or its GDAX platform.