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***this is speculation*** In the wake of AliPay's announcement of launching a cross-border remittance service powered by blockchain technology, a closer inspection of the partnerships reveals several layers of Ripple associates. The cross-border remittance services into the Philippines will be offered by in a collaboration between GCash, AliPay, and Standard Chartered. With further details on Standard Chartered's involvement, https://www.pymnts.com/news/cross-border-commerce/2018/alipay-gcash-blockchain-cross-border-remittance-philippines/ Standard Chartered is currently a RippleNet adopter, primarily using it for cross-border payments between India and Singapore. The bank has also broadcasted it's plans on extending it's utilization of RippleNet to five other countries/pairs this year. https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32048/standard-chartered-to-extend-use-of-ripplenet-to-more-countries Standard Chartered acting as the settlement bank by offering it's infrastructure to both AliPay and GCash for remittance services, falls into Winters statement of expanding it's capabilities to other currency pairs with the Philippine Piso (PHP), the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), and the Chinese Yaun/renminbi (CNY) being the suspects. GCash in itself also has an abundance of service and associate overlaps with Ripple. Currently GCash and it's services such as GCASH REMIT into the Philippines is consisted of SoftBank Payments and Globe Telecom. https://www.gcash.jp/?lg=e SBI Holdings' business relationship with SoftBank has been under speculation since SBI's involvement with Ripple but Globe Telecom can reveal other intentions of GCash. GCash is not the only notable subsidiary of Globe Telecom, Mynt is another subsidiary of Globe Telecom's financial technology arm that includes Ayala Corp and Ant Financial(AliPay/Alibaba). https://www.mynt.xyz/about-us/ The significance of Mynt pertains to an announcement this past March. Globe Telecom with Ayala Corp and Ant Financial thru Mynt, partnered with MoneyGram to provide remittance services into the Philippines to smartphone users for their GCash mobile wallets. http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/tech-biz/03/08/18/globe-fintech-arm-moneygram-launch-smartphone-based-remittance-service MoneyGram is well known in the Ripple community for it's involvement in trialing xRapid for a pilot which utilizes the XRP Ledger (XRP) for cross-border payments. http://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-details/ripple-and-moneygram-partner-modernize-payments As of now, we publicly know that Mynt (Globe Telecom, Ayala Corp, and Ant Financial) partnered with MoneyGram to improve remittance services into the Philippines for GCash mobile wallet users. MoneyGram states that it's intention on piloting XRP this past January was because the digital asset offered negligible transaction fees and because the average transaction time involving XRP is 2-3 seconds. Interesting enough, this new remittance service provided by both Alibaba and GCash involves HKD and PHP. And the transaction time publicly shared took only 3 seconds... After Alibaba's failure to acquire MoneyGram this past January (same time as MoneyGram's announcement of it's xRapid pilot), Alibaba was adamant that they would still collaborate with MoneyGram to develop remittance and digital payments to several countries including the Philippines........ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-moneygram-intl-m-a-ant-financial/u-s-blocks-moneygram-sale-to-chinas-ant-financial-on-national-security-concerns-idUSKBN1ER1R7 Very interesting times indeed! Time will only tell EDIT: (more speculation in regards to GCash & Western Union) GXI description, https://businessmirror.com.ph/western-union-expands-digital-distribution-through-gcash-mobile-wallets/

I just pinged alipay.ripple.com and I got response! The only thing that looks discouraging is the "we.love.servers.at.ioflood.com". What do you think?

Question re: future of XRP and it's value as an investment vehicle. When I look at what Limited understanding I have about XRP and Ripple, I am puzzled by the notion that holding large volume of XRP would ever be as valuable as say, the equivalent value of BTC. These are my assumptions: Assume banks are becoming ripple customers in order to use Ripple for Bank-to-Bank transfers;(this is the stated business model and seems to be confirmed by the number of conventional banks involved with the currency.) With that stated purpose, a bank would be able to move large amounts of USD easily with fewer XRP say if XRP were ever to reach BTC values. (So at $5k per XRP the bank only has to transfer 200 XRP to move $1 Million USD, and that seems to be efficient and easier.) But once moved, if the bank's customer wants to withdraw $1M USD, then the bank has to convert the XRP to have the cash on hand, which means Ripple allows immediate Bank-to-Bank transfers but creates great risk for bank balance sheets. Assume for a moment that this issue cannot be solved - and that the sole reason for using Ripple is to make Bank-to-Bank transfers faster and more secure, but "efficiency and ease" aren't the goal. In that circumstance it is more practical for banks to keep the value of XRP as close to the USD as possible, if not under $1 USD to factor in the bank's fees for the transfer. So to keep the numbers round, transferring $1 USD = 0.99 XRP. Then, balance sheets are a lot cleaner with less risk of the bank being shorthanded because XRPis = or <USD. Now Assume that Ripple Labs' holding 60% of the coins is being done in order to be able to control the value of XRP (i.e. flood the market when price gets too high.) And the 60% they're holding is described to customer banks as their insurance policy to guard against inflation of the XRP value. Assume that XRP as a consumer payment method (for example accepted currency by Alibaba and transacted with AliPay) would also argue for the value to be held to a very (relative to BTC) low value because consumer transactions require a value easily obtainable. Now my question: if the above assumptions are true, and it makes sense for XRP to stay closer to the value of USD, is there reason to believe the value of XRP will ever exceed $1 USD? Just wondering where my understanding lapses ... so I can understand the XRP investment logic. I'm holding a reasonable number of coins and deciding whether to continue to increase investments. Contributions appreciated.

There are alot of rumors about Kakao bank using ripple's technology for its newly launched low cost remittance service recently. Out of curiosity, I went to search the shareholders of Kakao and found this interesting article which lead me to this conclusion that besides Japan, Ripple's China strategy is the key to conquer Asia! http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/ict/18586-china’s-shareholder-risk-kakao-bank-possibly-exposed-conflict-between-tencent-and "However, Kakao Bank, which includes Tencent as one of its major shareholders, has become tense after Ant Financial Services Group, the financial services affiliate of Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding, decided to invest US$2 million (230 billion won) in Kakao Pay in February." It seems that kakao pay and kakao bank are 2 separate entities under Kakao group. Alibaba invested in Kakao Pay, where Tencent invested in Kakao bank. Alibaba (owner of Alipay, Taobao, Ant Finance) and Tencent (owner of Wechat, QQ) are considered competitors in China. By allying Ripple, one of them will be able to further strengthen itself over the other in term of providing a more competitive international payment service. Imo, we should shift our focus back to Ripple's China market development. Its strategy to partner with Chinese tech gaints (if this is part of its plan) will not only deliver an impact on china market itself, but to potentially ripple to other Asian markets. So what will be Ripple's move next?

Hype train departing in 3..2...1... New ATH here we come... http://www.profitconfidential.com/cryptocurrency/ripple/ripple-price-forecast-analysis-august-22-2017/

Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Buys MoneyGram for $880 Million https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/jack-ma-s-ant-financial-close-to-buying-moneygram-wsj-says Connecting the dots... thanks @papa MoneyGram Teams Up With Earthport To Use Ripple Tech for Remittances to Romania http://coinjournal.net/moneygram-earthport-ripple-tech-remittance-romania/

Alibaba’s Ant Financial Acquires MoneyGram, Considers Blockchain Tech FULL TEXT: http://bitcoin.xyz/alibabas-ant-financial-acquires-moneygram-considers-blockchain-tech/

Singles' Day, orders came at a rapid rate of 175,000 per second http://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2016/alibaba-singles-day-sets-new-record/