Three companies are now using Ripple's X-Rapid in real life.

Good evening, I'm Mark Hockstein, and this is late confirmation from CoinDest,

bringing you the top stories from October 1, 2018.

HyperLedger and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance joined forces.

Ether's price plunge didn't hit ICOs, researchers say,

blockchain at the UN General Assembly,

and Montana nearly banned crypto mining in a single county.

First, three companies are now using Ripples's X-Rapid, announced Monday by Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse at the Swell event. Mercury FX, QAlex, and Catalyst Corporate Credit Union became

the first companies to put X-Rapid to commercial use. Mercury FX helps clients send and

receive international payments. QAlex facilitates remittances between the U.S. and Mexico.

Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union provides financial services to around 1,400 credit unions

in the United States. Think of it like a

credit union for credit unions. This is big news for XRP, a digital asset strongly associated with

Ripple and used in the X Rapid Project, product rather, as a bridge currency in cross-border

payments. Now XRP is the third most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization,

as investors expect Ripple's products to displace the current infrastructure for cross-border payments.

The HyperLedger Project and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

have agreed to work together to create

common standards for the blockchain space.

EEA and HyperLedger represent two of the three largest and arguably most influential enterprise

blockchain communities.

So if the team-ups succeeds, the common standards that they create could sway enterprises previously on the fence to build their blockchains on one platform or the other.

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