Digital currency ripple soars more than 30%, briefly becomes second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap

• Officially called XRP, ripple climbed nearly 33 percent to an all-time high of $1.90, according to CoinMarketCap.
• The digital currency briefly gained a market capitalization of more than $71.8 billion, a few hundred million greater than ethereum at the time.
• The company known as Ripple owns 61 percent of the 100 billion XRP in existence, worth about $115.9 billion at Friday's record high prices.

Ripple surged more than 30 percent Friday to an all-time high, briefly surpassing ethereum as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Officially called XRP, ripple climbed nearly 33 percent to a record high of $1.90 and traded near $1.81 Friday morning, according to CoinMarketCap. The digital currency briefly gained a market cap of more than $71.8 billion, a few hundred million greater than ethereum at the time. The two cryptocurrencies vied for the second-place spot as prices fluctuated in morning trading.

Bitcoin remains the largest digital currency by far. It has a market capitalization of roughly $241 billion, accounting for about 41.5 percent of total cryptocurrency market cap tracked by CoinMarketCap. Ripple accounted for about 12.4 percent, while ethereum was around 12.3 percent, the website showed.

Six largest cryptocurrencies by market cap

Source: CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap charts show ripple had climbed above ethereum into the second-place spot in May. But back then ripple was only worth about 36 cents.

The digital currency ended 2016 at less than 1 cent and topped $1 only last week. Gains have accelerated since, and ripple is up more than 29,000 percent this year.

Ethereum rose about 0.6 percent to $741.67 Friday morning, with a market cap of about $71.6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin traded little changed near $14,306, according to Coinbase.

Ripple is officially the name of a San Francisco-based start-up using blockchain technology to develop a payments network for banks, digital asset exchanges and other financial institutions. Network participants use a digital coin called XRP for transactions. The cryptocurrency has a 4-second settlement time, versus more than 2 minutes for ethereum and over an hour for bitcoin, according to Ripple's website.

The company said more than 100 financial institutions use its network. In the last few weeks, some South Korean and Japanese banks have been testing Ripple's systems for cross-border payments, according to the company.

The start-up owns 61 percent of the 100 billion XRP in existence. At Friday's record high prices, that gives Ripple about $115.9 billion worth of the digital currency.

By Evelyn Cheng

Source: https://goo.gl/W9Ep8s

Litecoin hits a record high and is up nearly 1,400 percent this year

• Litecoin hit a record high of $64.2 on Monday and has rallied 1,400 percent since the start of the year
• Differences between bitcoin include speed of transactions, size of supply, and use case
• Litecoin creator Charlie Lee says that he sees the cryptocurrency being used for purchases whereas bitcoin is more a store of value

Litecoin, the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by value and rival to bitcoin, has rallied nearly 1,400 percent since the start of the year after hitting a record high price.

On Monday, litecoin hit an all-time high of $64.2, marking a 1383 percent rise since January first where it traded at $4.33, data from industry website Coinmarketcap.com showed. The price pulled back slightly on Tuesday and was just above $62 in early trade.

CNBC runs through the differences between bitcoin and litecoin, and what's driving the price.

What is litecoin?

Litecoin is a cryptocurrency founded by Charlie Lee. It has a market capitalization of around $3.28 billion according to Coinmarketcap.com. This makes it the fifth-biggest digital currency behind ripple, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and bitcoin, which is the largest with a market cap of $72.4 billion.

Like bitcoin, it runs on a blockchain, which is a public ledger of transactions that can't be tampered with.

Bitcoin could be set for more confusion ahead from CNBC.

How does litecoin differ to bitcoin?

• There is a limited supply of 84 million litecoins, compared to 21 million bitcoin. Currently 52,679,982 litecoin and 16,530,563 bitcoin are in circulation.
• Litecoin transactions currently take just over 2 minutes to go through compared to about 100 minutes for bitcoin.

Litecoin creator Charlie Lee recently explained that he sees the cryptocurrency as being a key player in payments, whereas bitcoin is more a store of value.

"Bitcoin will always be the gold standard because bitcoin will have the strongest network, the most secure, the most money mining it," Lee said in an interview with blogger Crypto Hedge, which was posted on YouTube on Monday.

"Litecoin will be second to that and bitcoin being the most secure will obviously cost more … Litecoin transaction will cost less. So Litecoin will provide a niche where it will be more used for payment whereas bitcoin will be more used for storing."

What is Blockchain? CNBC explains the break-though technology from CNBC.

So for example, if you wanted to instantly swap some litecoin for bitcoin, Lightning Network will make that possible.

There are a plethora of so-called "alt-coins" on the market, but Lee said he doesn't expect all of those to survive. Instead, bitcoin and litecoin will be the main ones but the Lightning Network will allow easy access to other coins should they be needed by users.

"My vision is that with Lightning network … you wouldn't need to hold all these coins, you could just hold all your money in bitcoin or litecoin, and if there is an application that requires ether or some other token, you can easily … convert it on the fly to the token that you need," Lee said.

By Arjul Kharpan

Source: https://goo.gl/bRR1M8