After days of disappointing declines, the Ripple (XRP) price has bounced back strongly overnight.
At one stage XRP was fetching a lowly US$1.62 per coin, compared to the US$3.40 it was commanding on Monday.
But thanks to a positive announcement from Ripple, the blockchain company behind XRP, the cryptocurrency has bounced 26% off its low to US$2.04 per coin according to Coin Market Cap.
That announcement related to the decision by Texas-based MoneyGram to trial the use of XRP in order to speed up and reduce the cost of transferring money.
The money transfer company clearly sees a lot of value in XRP and its efficient clearance times. Ripple has stated that the average transaction on its network takes up to three seconds to process, compared to bitcoin's 51 minutes.
Pleasingly for XRP holders, this news managed to offset the major declines being faced by other cryptocurrencies due to reports that South Korea is preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading.
This led to the bitcoin price falling almost 7% over the last 24 hours to US$13,626, giving it a market capitalisation of US$229 billion.
Elsewhere, Ethereum saw its price tumble almost 8% to US$1,196 per coin leaving it with a market capitalisation of US$116 billion and bitcoin cash fell 7.5% to US$2,543.
Where next for bitcoin and the alt-coins?
I think events in South Korea will play a key role in prices over the coming days and weeks. If regulators do ban cryptocurrency trading then it would certainly be a big blow to the industry.
Furthermore, it could raise concerns that other countries will follow suit. Especially China which is already believed to be looking closely at the industry and has taken steps to ban bitcoin mining activities.
Investors might want to stay clear of the cryptocurrencies for the time being and consider some of Australia's exciting up and coming tech shares such as Livetiles Ltd (ASX: LVT), LiveHire Ltd (ASX: LVH), and ELMO Software Ltd (ASX: ELO) instead.
