Ripple, the digital currency that trades under the symbol XRP, has managed to sell more than $250 million worth of tokens in the second quarter of the year, thus cementing its status as the third most valuable cryptocurrency in the world after Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Ripple Labs business development team and its executives explained that this sales growth represents an increase of nearly 50 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019, but the company does not anticipate similar activity in the coming months.

More than 70 percent of the XRP tokens sold by Ripple Labs over the last three months were part of institutional investments. It should be noted that Ripple is a centralized digital currency with an active business development team guiding its growth; what this means for prospective investors is that XRP tokens cannot be mined since Ripple Labs assumes full control of the blockchain. With this in mind, the management team has admitted that trading volumes at major cryptocurrency exchanges have fallen by about 28 percent this year.

Ripple is an interesting cryptocurrency in the sense that it has actually tried to attain liquidity through circulation, something that has proven to be very elusive for Bitcoin and nearly all other major tokens. Executives at Ripple Labs have been successful in their efforts to conduct XRP projects that use the token to settle remittances and international money transfers, but the ambitious goal of replacing the SWIFT bank wire transfer system is still a long shot. As for making XRP a leading cryptocurrency in terms of retail purchase usage, the business development team has not been able to advance as much as they have intended to.

Aside from the information above, Ripple Labs reported that its relationship with international remittances giant MoneyGram is solidifying, but the money transmitter is facing major challenges amidst strong competition from Western Union and many smaller firms with business models that emphasize the use of mobile apps. XRP has traded as high as $0.40 this year, but it is still under the $0.50 and $1.00 targets many analysts had predicted for 2019.