The U.S. pharmaceutical company Wellgistics will add payments in XRP and start accumulating the asset on its balance.

What happened? The pharmaceutical distribution company Wellgistics from Florida is integrating the XRP coin from the fintech company Ripple as a means of payment and treasury asset. Thus, it becomes one of the first public companies to adopt XRP. The asset ranks fourth in the overall cryptocurrency rating after Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the stablecoin USDT from Tether, with a market capitalization of $139.3 billion.

What else is known? The press release states that Wellgistics plans to increase the speed of transactions and reduce settlement fees for pharmacies, suppliers, and manufacturers using XRP and its associated blockchain network.

Standard bank transfers usually take up to three days and cost $10-30, and they sometimes come with geographical restrictions and transparency issues.

The company stated that connecting XRP should provide global support for much cheaper, compliant instant cross-border payments. Thus, transaction fees with XRP are less than a cent, and transactions can be completed in 3-5 seconds.

"We challenge the idea that healthcare should be tied to outdated systems, bloated intermediaries, and slow-moving money," said Wellgistics CEO Brian Norton. Wellgistics will fund the integration of XRP as a payment method and balance asset through a $50 million credit line.

"I believe that the future winners in healthcare will not be companies with the biggest buildings. They will be companies with the fastest payments, clean data, and efficient platforms. We are betting on infrastructure, not inertia," said Norton. In April, the leading American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase launched futures contracts based on XRP. Traders also expect that soon the US securities regulator will approve spot exchange-traded funds (ETF) based on the asset.

XRP is trading at $2.4, having gained 8.3% in the last 24 hours. The weekly increase was 7.8%, and since the beginning of the year, the asset has grown by 15%.

Currently, most companies investing in cryptocurrencies prefer to accumulate Bitcoin. Among them is the strategy of Michael Saylor, which is the largest holder of BTC among public firms, as well as the Japanese Metaplanet, whose shares surged thousands of percent after the announcement of the Bitcoin strategy. A joint venture between Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald is also preparing for launch, which will offer investors access to the first cryptocurrency through its shares.