As digital currency Ripple is recording new highs each day, its investors are reaping rich dividends. Other than them, co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple is one such person who has become one of the five richest people in America as the cryptocurrency soared in worth. Chris Larsen holds 17 percent stake in the company that amounts to 5.19 billion of the company’s digital coin XRP, Forbes reported citing sources at Ripple. As XRP hit a high of $3.84 on Thursday, Larsen’s holdings are worth about $59.9 billion. Chris Larsen now surpasses Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the list who now stand at 10th in the Forbes 400 list with a worth of $58.4 billion. The ripple that is the name for both a digital currency (XRP) and an open payment network recorded a yearly rise of more than 36,000 percent in 2017 doubling in price in the last week of December. It is the most any cryptocurrency registered in a single week in 2017. A unit of this cryptocurrency costs $3.84 on online exchanges on Thursday. It may appear too minimal against Bitcoin’s gigantic valuation of around $15,000 per coin at present, Ripple has increased from $0.006 twelve months ago.

About Ripple

Ripple is the name for both a digital currency (XRP) and an open payment network within which that currency is transferred. It is a distributed, open-source payments system that’s still in beta.  Released in 2012, Ripple purports to enable “secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks.” It supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodity or any other unit of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. At its core, Ripple is based on a shared, public database or ledger, which uses a consensus process that allows for payments, exchanges, and remittance in a distributed process.

The company website says Ripple provides one frictionless experience to send money globally using the power of blockchain. By joining Ripple’s growing, global network, financial institutions can process their customers’ payments anywhere in the world instantly, reliably and cost-effectively. Banks and payment providers can use the digital asset XRP to further reduce their costs and access new markets.