Ripple drops 12% to three-week lows

Ripple tumbled 12%, or $0.06 on Thursday to September 20 lows, marking the worst performance since June 10 amid a large-scale crypto selloff and after warnings by the IMF. 

As of 07:27 GMT, Ripple slumped 12.53% to $0.40801, with an intraday high at $0.46658, with Ripple's market value now receding to $40.7 billion. 

The sharp tumbles come under the pressure of new warnings by global financial institutions from the rapid growth in crypto assets. 

The International Monetary Fund warned that the growth in crypto assets could create new weak points in the international financial system. 

Ripple's official Twitter account announced the launch of the MoneyTap app developed in cooperation with  Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings.

The app used Ripple's blockchain solution xCurrent to allow instant bank-to-bank transfers locally, with initial support from three Japanese banks. 

In other less positive Japanese news, the self-regulatory Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA) is planning to tighten the measures related to client asset management. 

The JVCEA is a self regulatory group that includes several major licensed crypto exchanges in Japan, established in April, with the organization also planning to put a cap on the amount of cryptocurrencies managed online through any platform. 

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that three companies, namely MercuryFX, Cuallix and Catalyst Corporate Credit Union, are now using XRP for real cross-border payments for the first time, as a bridge currency.

Ripple was underpinned recently after Japanese financial services company SBI took regulatory approval to operate payment services in cooperation with Ripple.

The company stated: “SBI Ripple Asia is planning to register the electronic settlement and other settlement enterprises in order to properly implement electronic payments and other settlement aspects related to MoneyTap in the future.”

The Path of Ripple 

It's worth mentioning that Ripple was first launched on March 7, 2015, to start trading at $0.015, with the virtual currency losing nearly two thirds of its value by early 2016 to $0.0059, before rising 5% during 2016 to $0.0063, and then skyrocketing 28,000% to $1.748 by the end of 2017, before marking unprecedented highs in January at $3.30, then losing up to 90% of value on a violent selloff wave that stormed crypto assets this year. 

Now Ripple has recovered a considerable amount of its value last month in light of the latest news, which in turn boosted sentiment overall in the crypto market as the parent company expands services and operations with established financial institutions around the globe, before, as crypto selloff wave resumed this week.