 XRP, like a seal throwing an octopus at a canoeer, jumps back up briefly into the number two spot this week, shoving Ethereum out of the way for a second time in one week. Even though XRP's gains did not hold for long, hollers in this brave new world anything can happen. Also this week, Walmart puts leafy greens on the blockchain, Google does a 180, not a 360, a Mt. Gawks sell-off and fingers crossed for the world's first crypto bank. In a bid to prevent the spread of E. Coli, a bacteria that was recently linked to the deaths of two British tourists in Egypt, Walmart has directed their leafy green suppliers to get on the blockchain train. Walmart grew concerned following reports that over 200 people were affected by an outbreak in June this year that included E. Coli and Salmonella and remain lettuce, breakfast cereal, and eggs. Blockchain, they believe, will enhance food traceability and bring it back into the 21st century. Foods affected by an outbreak can theoretically be identified in seconds, not days, without the products ever reaching stores or restaurants. It's an important responsibility. We can trace origin of food products back to stores in 2.2 seconds. That's food traceability at the speed of thought. Walmart has been partnering with IBM's Food Trust blockchain for over a year now in a scheme that includes many other products. At this point, it is unclear who will bear the cost of this innovation. IBM has launched a site to help suppliers implement the technology, but Walmart has not yet indicated the cost of farmers. Walmart is not just jumping on the bandwagon or chasing the new shiny coin or just interested in blockchain technology because some people say it's a fad. We were always looking for ways to do better food traceability and transparency. And that's where we started entertaining the idea of blockchain technology. The reason is the way most people have tried to do food traceability and transparency up until now is we've tried to do that in centralized databases. The food system as a food chain, very simple and linear. It's not that at all. The food system today is very broad and distributed. Food system and blockchain were made for each other. And so there are distinct differences on how blockchain digitizes information that we think makes it a suitable technology for the business challenge that we're addressing. We've made this a business requirement. If you're going to do business with Walmart, we need to have traceability information, event information captured in this blockchain solution. But there's a financial benefit to being able to do rapid traceability. The cost of food waste in society is huge. About a third of all food gets produced, gets wasted. So if you can produce food waste, there's financial benefits for that. If you could prevent fee-borne homeless food, it's been estimated that a one percent reduction in fee-borne homeless in the United States alone results in about $700 million to the U.S. economy. And so I'm convinced that on balance, this will save the food system money and not cost money. In March, Google announced a ban on crypto and ICO ads that was eventually enforced in June. But on Tuesday, Google reversed the ban. However, it was not a complete reversal as previously reported. It will now only allow regulated crypto exchanges in Japan and the U.S. Those exchanges wishing to do so can apply starting from October. Google is essentially taking their lead from the SEC, which stipulates that organizations in the crypto space as well as in the financial sector follow KYC and AML rules to ensure customer protection. In their minds, regulated exchanges are the only institutions that can reliably comply. For the second time, XRP has shot up past Ethereum to become the number two crypto in terms of market cap, reporting 100% gains for September as investors appear confident it has real staying power. Total market cap for Ripple is around $22 billion, which is still some way behind Bitcoin at around $113 billion. XRP's recent good fortune may have been a result of many people assuming that Coinbase would list XRP following disannouncement. Today, we're announcing a new process that will allow us to rapidly list most digital assets that are compliant with local law by satisfying listing requests in a jurisdiction by jurisdiction manner. In practice, this means some new assets listed on our platform may only be available to customers and select jurisdictions for a period of time. In addition to this, Devere Group CEO Nigel Green predicted XRP would hit $1 by the end of 2018. All of this amid claims that Jed McKaleb is selling XRP too quickly. McKaleb, who also started the Mt. Gox exchange, is now allegedly selling off his XRP at a rate 35 times more than what he originally agreed to. To put that in perspective, before leaving Ripple in 2016, he owned about $4 billion worth of XRP. He has since sold off some, but he still remains the largest individual holder. This week, Mt. Gox trustee announced that between March and June of this year, over $230 million in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash was exchanged for fiat as part of the civil rehabilitation and bankruptcy proceedings. Furthermore, a trust has been created to keep fiat for bankruptcy creditors of the exchange. Rehabilitation was actually initiated in June, but as mentioned before, the sell-off began in March. The Mt. Gox trustee defended this move, necessary and appropriate to procure a suitable amount of money to secure the interests of the creditors for the principal amount and delay damages of the determined and undetermined bankruptcy claims. Most creditors applied to be compensated in fiat, but others have demanded crypto, given the fact that prices had shot up significantly since 2014 when the exchange was shut down. All throughout this process, the Mt. Gox trustee has insisted that the sell-off was conducted in a manner that would not affect the market. However, it is not immediately clear if his assurances can be verified. Two former UBS bankers take a big step and a giant leap for crypto and mankind. Andreas Amschwad and Guido Bueller have raised $104 million for Saba Crypto AG to become one of the world's first regulated crypto banks. Hold up on the champagne for now, guys. The funding is entirely dependent on FINMA, the Swiss regulator granting a banking license. Several are currently under review. Given that ZUG is fast becoming a global center for all things crypto, the regulator issued guidelines recently after a crackdown led to several companies being shut down for operating without a license. Talks have been ongoing since earlier this year, with a formal application from Siba expected in October. Holders rejoice. Siba aims to offer customers a single account where they can trade in both fiat and crypto. Private investors, as well as institutions, can also receive asset management services. This will really signal a big step forward for the crypto industry, as most traditional banks in Switzerland have thus far opted out of working directly with crypto startups and blockchain-related businesses. When asked about bearish trends of late in the crypto market, Aum Schwad isn't worried. Market decline isn't impacting my view. Short-term volatility does not determine the long-term validity of digital assets. At Siba, our ambition is to become the world's first universal, licensed and supervised crypto bank offering fiat and crypto services all in one account. We have just announced this week that we raised 100 million Swiss francs from a mix of private and institutional investors. We never would have been able to raise 100 million Swiss francs if there wasn't the belief and the conviction in that strategic marketplace that cryptocurrency and crypto assets are here to stay. Now we're in what we call the build the bank phase. There's a certain amount of money that we have to actually keep in the bank to operate as a bank, right? So the 100 million, not a lot of that is going to get spent. A lot of that is to capitalize the bank. Our strategy is bring in the price of private placement money, go get the banking license, bring in the bank, and then our goal is to expand our bank via an ICO. But we don't want to take money off the public until we have our license and we know for a fact that we're going to be around forever. After Coinbase opened its listing process to the wider world, not unexpectedly, it got inundated with jok coins submitted by crypto-hottlers who thought they were just hilarious. What coin would you suggest for Coinbase to list? Use your imagination. Imagination. And, as always, like, subscribe, and hodl. CoinTelegraph, like, subscribe, and hodl.