“You’re always thinking about everyone else," said actor Ashton Kutcher to the TV-host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres on her show this week. Kutcher went on to say that now he (and someone else) wanted to demonstrate that people are thinking about her. So together with his business associate Guy Oseary he surprisingly donated $4 million worth XRP to DeGeneres’s fund which protects gorillas. Shocking, right?
Now, let’s set the record straight.
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Kutcher Has DeGeneres With Eyes Wide Opened
On May 23, the Hollywood actor and a known "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" his ally Oseary, who, by the way, appears to be also a talent manager of Madonna, U2 and Amy Schumer, as well as DeGeneres’s friend.
Together they told the talk-show host about their tech interests and a recent discovery that they made for themselves – they learned about a company Ripple, which runs the third most marketable cyber coin in the world XRP. Therefore, on behalf of Ripple, Kutcher, and Oseary donated a considerable sum to DeGeneres’s newly established Wildlife Fund, aimed at protecting gorillas in Rwanda.
When announcing the donation, the actor joked that usually such large sums are given to charity when there is a huge check brought in the studio. However, with Ripple, everything was simpler as DeGeneres only had to push a button on Kutcher’s smartphone to convert $4 million worth XRP sum into Rwandan fiat and give it to DeGeneres’s fund instantly.
The Admiration of Ripple
Prior to that, Kutcher revealed that he and his business comrade run an investment fund called Sound Ventures and they are going to invest in Ripple. It is noteworthy that Sound Ventures previously piled into numerous technological startups, including Zenefits, which is a cloud-based enterprise software firm. In the meantime, Kutcher himself backed up such startups as Uber and Airbnb at an early stage.
So when attending Ellen’s show, Kutcher, a known blockchain supporter, briefly explained what Ripple is and why he is so interested in it:
"Ripple is basically a platform to allow people to transfer money from bank account to bank account, person to person, really securely, really simply, really quickly."
What Else You Ought To Comprehend About Ripple
Ripple positions itself as a company which allows various financial institutions like banks around the world to carry out speedy and safeguarded payments with the help of XRP.
The last one, in its turn, is a virtual coin which can also be used by average people to conduct cross-border remittances through the Ripple’s platform. XRP was first introduced around six years ago, and now the company is headquartered in San-Francisco, the US.
Despite anything, XRP has established itself as a volatile currency, however just like any other cyber coin. For instance, it lost 80% of its value after its price climbed to a margin of $3.84 per token at the beginning of this year. Even Chris Larsen, a co-constitutor of Ripple, lost $40 billion worth XRP holdings at a particular moment in January.
As of writing, XRP is traded at a rate of nearly $0.60 per unit, in accordance with Coinmarketcap.com data.
How Do Ripple & XRP Work?
On Ripple, banks play a role as “gateways” which users access to send funds from one individual to another one. Such transfers on the startup’s platform are cheaper and speedier than those that traditional transfer services offer.
At the same time, XRP units, even though they are cryptos, differ from bitcoins. Unlike the last ones, they don’t need to be mined. XRP transfers are also much faster than BTC transactions, which can take days instead of a few hours.
However, there are some cons too. XRP is criticized for being pretty centralized as Ripple controls which. Also, among other drawbacks, there have been named such concerns the security of the network. Earlier in May Ripple was sued for allegedly vending securities, which were not registered, to investors.
Nevertheless, Ripple has gained enough of popularity among both crypto-enthusiasts and financial establishments, starting a deal with some of them, including American Express, MoneyGram, UBS and Banco Santander.
Currently, Ripple is able to carry out 1,500 operations per second, whereas the first most known crypto-coin in the world – Bitcoin – can boast only three transactions during the same amount of time.
