XRP Could Be The Official Crypto of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games
Japanese resident Ken Takahashi started a petition just 10 months ago to urge the International Olympic Committee to consider adopting XRP the official crypto of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games and it already has over 15,000 signatures. His original aim was to get 7,500 signatures. Takahashi launched the petition on Change.org, an American petition website, and platform for change which claims to have more than 240 million users. As soon as the petition went live, it drew lots of attention reaching 500 signatures really quickly, a number which jumped to 1,000 in less than 72 hours.
This global sporting event presents the perfect opportunity for cryptocurrency to gain recognition with cultural and economic opportunities aplenty. Takahashi believes that using crypto will help the nation to cope with the demand for currency when thousands of tourists flood into the country to watch the Olympic Games. Following the experience at the Olympics in Rio 2016, we know that this extra surge of people will bring a raft of currency issues involving confusing exchange rates and language barriers to complicate things further, not to mention security issues.
He said:
“As tourists stream into the country, demand for the local currency skyrockets, causing long lines at currency exchanges, as seen at past events like Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. Confusing exchange rates and language barriers further complicate the problem.”
However, he believes that this burden could be eased with the use of Ripple Lab’s XRP cryptocurrency which offers faster transaction times and security, as well as easy cross-border transactions.
Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network which was launched in 2012 to replace Ripplepay. It uses a common ledger that is managed by a network of independently validating servers that constantly compare transaction records. Unlike Bitcoin, Ripple isn’t dependent on the energy and computing exhaustive evidence-of-work, it is built on a shared public database that utilises a consensus process between those validating servers to ensure integrity. Anyone can own these validating servers, from banks to individuals.
The Ripple token (XRP) is designed to facilitate the immediate and direct transfer of funds between two parties. The beauty of using XRP is that it enables the exchange of all types of currency from gold to air miles, cutting out the fees and delays of traditional banks and even other types of cryptocurrency which operate through exchanges.
However, it operates differently from blockchain technology in that it uses a HashTree to condense the data into a single value that is compared across its validating servers to provide consensus. Ripple is growing ever popular with banks and payment providers and is ideal for enterprise as it enables money to be moved all around the world at a rapid pace.
The XRP token isn’t mined like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and many other cryptocurrencies. Instead, it was issued at its beginning, in a similar way that a company issues stocks when it incorporates: In a nutshell, it just picked a number (100 billion) and issued that many XRP coins. The Ripple platform is considered to be useful and efficient and the coin, although there were plans to phase it out, it is giving Bitcoin a run for its money. Ripple Labs just launched its XRapid product commercially earlier in the week and hopes to provide a more efficient alternative to SWIFT, the current standard for international transactions.
Takahashi recognises that this digital currency will be highly useful during the Tokyo Olympics as it will save tourists money on exchange fees buying local currency meaning that they will ultimately have more money to spend in the country while they are there. Once Takahashi hits 7,500 signatures on his petition, he plans to deliver it to the Olympic National Committee then the ball is in their court as to whether they choose XRP as their official crypto of choice.
By Joy Lewis.
