By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
XRP has been one of the worst-performing major cryptocurrencies in 2019, as it failed to garner any upwards momentum throughout the first half of the year, unlike Bitcoin and all the other major altcoins.
Not long ago XRP was a hit ‘per se’. Everybody was talking about it. However, in 2019, we can hear much about XRP once being a great tool for “pumping and dumping” and now is pretty much irrelevant. However, we don’t agree. It went up pretty strongly in July this year but the truth is that it’s fighting in the last few days to have its head above the water. At the time of writing XRP price was down 5.57% to $0,187 that is the lowest in more than two years.
Usually, the losses in XRP present some kind of reflection of how traders are behaving with every other cryptocurrency. However, this altcoin is likely to torture itself more than its competitors when it comes to recovering its value. One of the reasons can regard the string of controversies that surrounds Ripple Labs – the San Francisco-based cross-border payment company that actively uses XRP in its solutions.
Even those who were always loyal are turning their backs to Ripple saying it sold a huge quantity of XRP and therefore caused the price decline.
Some of the ex-supporters even started a petition on Change.org, requesting Ripple Labs to stop “dumping billions of XRP.”
The petition says:
“The only logical explanation is that Ripple [is] dumping on us. And not small amounts either. Literally billions. We have seen the reports of them disclosing this so it’s a fact.”
Still, XRP is not the only digital currency that has been suffering losses lately, as 48 of the top 50 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap were in the red at the time of this writing.
XRP Losses as a Reflection of the Entire Cryptomarket
Mati Greenspan, founder of the newsletter Quantum Economics commented:
“The entire crypto market seems to be in a bit of a slump at the moment,” said. The losses in XRP are more likely a reflection of that than anything else at this time.”
Still, there are some analysts that say XRP’s fall began to speed up as markets responded to the interview CEO Alex Holmes claimed that neither Ripple partner MoneyGram nor him hold the digital token.
Part I of the interview with @MoneyGram CEO @walexholmes, talking digitization, global growth and the partnership with @Visa Direct on @firstmove. pic.twitter.com/a7iTShIXEf
— Julia Chatterley (@jchatterleyCNN) December 17, 2019
Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund manager BitBull Capital said:
“XRP has been historically very sensitive to adoption-related news pertaining to banking and money services partners, since they represent the biggest clientele for Ripple’s services. In light of this, the statement from MoneyGram has dealt a big blow to XRP’s already weak position, especially since it was believed Ripple and MoneyGram would have a closer relationship due to the former’s investment in the latter. Now, with Bitcoin’s price also experiencing downward pressure, we expect XRP to slide further due to this news.”
Tim Enneking, managing director of Digital Capital Management, was a little bit more positive by saying:
“Almost certainly, the MoneyGram news accelerated the XRP drop, but the drop under these market circumstances would have happened anyway.”
Be it as it may, everything will depend on Bitcoin after all. If Bitcoin and the aggregated crypto markets don’t incur some bigger amount of upwards momentum in the near-term, it is highly probable that XRP investors will continue to see extreme weakness.