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By converting the value of the transfer into XRP, rather than U.S. dollars as done traditionally, exchange fees are eliminated and processing of payments is reduced to seconds. If adopted on large scale, MoneyGram could have a huge advantage in serving financial institutions needing on-demand remittance services.

Similarly, Stellar has partnered with IBM and some banks to move money across borders of South Pacific last year. The new blockchain banking process is noteworthy because the banks coming on board will initially depend on Stellar's digital currency – Lumens – to facilitate the cross border payments. This leaves them reliant on local market makers to convert Lumens into fiat currency.

However, the use of Stellar's digital currency may be temporary. Once central banks begin issuing digital currencies of their own, perhaps in the form of USCs,  these will become an integral part of the blockchain-based money transfers, said Jesse Lund, IBM’s vice-president of blockchain told «Fortune».

Runways for Takeoff

If Uber is a good reference, global payment startups can scale just as quickly by tying up with popular e-commerce platforms or end-users themselves, rather than industry incumbents. Traditional taxi companies cried foul when Uber's drivers took away many of the end customers, using cars and drivers.

The same could  happen for banks who are currently dependent on Swift's older systems. If they cannot offer something cheaper and faster to their end customers, they may cry foul, with little effect. So far, Ripple has attracted investments from Standard Chartered Bank and Santander. 

Whether cryptocurrencies will become mainstream or not remains to be seen. Until then, Ripple's and Stellar's distributed ledger services can operate with and without their native currency. It is akin to having runways big enough for motorcycles first, then cars, then planes eventually.