A petition for the International Olympic Committee to make the Ripple (XRP) cryptocurrency the official currency of the next summer Olympic Games, gained more than 7,500 signatures.
According to the author of the petition Ken Takahashi (Ken Takahashi), Ripple can solve many problems associated with the holding of major international events, especially in relation to foreign currency. Instead of putting tremendous pressure on the Japanese yen, Takahashi suggests introducing a system that uses XRP tokens. Such a proposal is motivated by the difficulties that people have encountered in previous games:
“Due to the large influx of tourists into the country, demand for local currency soars sharply, leading to long queues at currency exchange offices, which already occurred during events such as Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. Confusion in exchange rates and language barriers further complicate the problem. We believe that high transaction speed and security of XRP cryptocurrency from Ripple Lab will be of great help in resolving this issue.”
Even though the petition was created more than ten months ago, only now it has begun to gain momentum. The increase in popularity is associated with several developments announced by Ripple. We are talking about the launch of the MoneyTap service, a blockchain-based money transfer platform created by Ripple and SBI Holdings.
Takahashi’s plan is for XRP tokens to become the official currency of the Olympics instead of the Japanese yen. As a result, people from different countries of the world could use cryptocurrency payment systems to make purchases during games. For these purposes, and useful platform like MoneyTap.
If approved, the petition will be a very good moment for Ripple. The third in terms of market capitalization of the cryptocurrency has already gained widespread acceptance among institutions, which has contributed to its use in the real world. Given the huge amount of microtransactions carried out in the Olympic Village, the result can increase the liquidity of XRP tokens to record levels.